Flashing Blades

Whilst I intend to play Savage Worlds as soon as I'll can, for now, my group is beginning a Showdown campaign and we are in the midst of a Flashing Blades one.

Why Flashing Blades? Well, half of my players had been playing with me for some years and had fond memory of a swashbuckler's mega campaign we played some years ago.
So, when I asked the players to choose what they would like to play, they did choose a Flashing Blades campaign. I think that what convinced the younger players were the FB fencing rules which can be quite fun to play.

Anyway, our first Savage Worlds session is still some months in the future. Which suits me quite well. The players should be accustomed to Showdown by then, and I'll have had time enough to prepare what I'll need for the campaign. Moreover, I hope to have them play one SaWo one-shot in the meantime.

Here are the llustrations of my player's characters for Flashing Blades. They are now following a carriage going to Marseille, transporting mysterious peoples that could be conspirating against the King. They have witnessed some shadowy encounters (sometimes finishing in quite bloody ways) and they know that they are not alone following that carriage.... And they don't have any idea on what all this is about...
It's good to be the gamemaster.

Time to begin!

Now that my group has decided on a pulpish Showdown campaign, it is time for me to make some basic figures for it (that one is a basmachi warrior, but could be used for a lot of pulpish nastiness).

The campaign is to be situated in the far east, a few years after the great war. The Back of Beyond.

It should mix some military aspects (units moving around and occupying differents places) and almost-rpgs aspects (groups of adventurers searching for the Tsar's gold) and should be played with Showdown, but I don't rule out the possibility of playing some parts, particulary in the end, as rpg with Savage Worlds.

My players have never played showdown, so, last week, I did a Spartacus skirmish to show them the system. It went very well and everybody liked it. Quite encouraging.

Savage Worlds and me

Why Savage Worlds?

My history with Savage Worlds has been a complicated one.

I discovered Savage Worlds when the first edition was not yet published, but the test drive rules were already available.

I was really enthousiat, it seemed to be the kind of game made just for me. Simple enough to fit my needs (I mean, a game for peoples with a life outside, wishing to prepare games easily, play a meaningful part of a scenario in one evening and change settings regularly).

I was even enthousiast enough to draw cardboard figures for the two free test scenarios that were released. You can still find them here.



Then the rules were published.... And I could not bring myself to use the game. I could not stand the Jack's comments. Not the illustration, which is very good. But the comments. It really ruined my own "suspension of disbelief" as a gamemaster.
It didn't felt tongue-in-the-cheek to me, but rather book-for-hyperactive-teenagers. It really did cheapen the experience for me, letting me feel a little silly with the book in my hands.

Of course, I could have persevered, but there are so much RPGs I love, that I simply moved on to other games.

Then a few months ago, I discovered how the SWEX edition looked like. Everything was perfect: Jack's comments were gone, the rules were really well laid out, superbly illustrated, even the size of the book was wonderful.
It made your imagination working instead of dragging a sneer.
I did buy it. Five rulebooks. Plus the PDF (for the iPad). Plus settings and supplements.
And I downloaded Showdown.

And now I am ready, at least, to begin play: Showdown with paper figures for my skirmishes wargames and Savage Worlds with Maptool and tokens for my RPGs. And a mix of both if needed.
What is wonderful, is that, once again, I am completely excited about a new game and motivated to make figures, tokens, maps, buildings,...

It's good to be back