Friday, September 5, 2014

Sci-Fi Campaign Update

The campaign setting is finally starting to gel for me.

First up - Humans. I'm keeping the idea that humans are a species that has no homeworld. We should up in the empire on sub-light generation ships. What happened to Earth? Ask ten different humans and you'll get twelve different tales. The fact is that nobody remembers the truth anymore (but it could make for a cool plot point). So humans are considered shiftless gypsies by the empire at large (as opposed to being dominant or ubiquitous as they are in other settings).

Empire? Yup. I decided to make the setting one vast Empire, the Draghosian Empire. Is it an evil empire? Maybe. I leave that very open until I figure out what my players want to do in the setting. If they are just flying a Tramp Freighter, then their exposure to the Empire may just be strict laws and the occasional corrupt Governor. If they want to fight a rebellion, that's cool too. It won't be easy though, Draghosians are on top for a reason. I modified the Drake from the SWDEX to make the Draghosians. That's right, this empire is ruled by Dragonmen, and no you can't play one.

The Draghosians also feature into that book I wrote, so I'm doing a bit of recycling. And as a confession, they were inspired by one of the graphics in Slipstream. So the idea of a galactic Empire run by large Dragonmen appealed to me a lot. I don't remember which Savage Worlds Podcast mentioned it but one of the commentators said "In order to make a Savage Setting, you almost need to combine three genres", so I'm going with: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Western. Yes it's been done but I'm going to dial up the fantasy a bit in places.

Races - I'm using the ones available in the Sci-Fi Companion as well as any new template races I come up with.

Rules in Play - Critical Failure, Joker's Wild, and Multiple Languages.

Gear- On review, my Sci-Fi gear list may have been to powerful. I'm going the Sci-Fi companion with perhaps some additions from my list if anything is missing. I'll also probably add the Wrist Computer rules from DTotSL.

Spaceships- I'm torn between Sci Fi Companion and DTotSL as to which handles better/ easier. It will take more thought.

Plot Point Campaign - I don't have one yet but now that I have the beginnings of a setting I like, I plan to do multiple campaigns (maybe 4-5 Savage Tales long each). I will of course post them as I come up with them.