Savage Firefly - want some "space western" adventures?

Game Master ZenFox42

Hey. At least the VA/Army is paying for it!

A friend of mine was in the Army mid-90's. He was rappelling down a rope from a Blackhawk and the line wasn't prepared perfectly. Broke his back. He recovered and then freaking Covid got him...

Lousy luck, for sure. Reminds me of a Roger Zelazny line from Nine Princes in Amber series. A demonic looking lizard ran at full speed through the room. Soon it was followed by a red-skinned, barb-tailed, fellow with horns.

To which an observer quipped: "That's how it is around here. Just one damned thing after another."

I guess damned if we do, and damned if we don't. :)

Daisy Mae Puckett wrote:

Hey. At least the VA/Army is paying for it!

A friend of mine was in the Army mid-90's. He was rappelling down a rope from a Blackhawk and the line wasn't prepared perfectly. Broke his back. He recovered and then freaking Covid got him...

Lousy luck, for sure. Reminds me of a Roger Zelazny line from Nine Princes in Amber series. A demonic looking lizard ran at full speed through the room. Soon it was followed by a red-skinned, barb-tailed, fellow with horns.

To which an observer quipped: "That's how it is around here. Just one damned thing after another."

The brilliance of that series cannot really be overstated

A great series of books for sure!

I read it many, many years ago, I believe I liked it a lot as well.

I wonder if we could work up a Role play game as members of the royal family using SW as the system. There is a RP system designed for Amber, but it's a little clunky. Seems the powers of SW could cover a lot of what the various family members do.

I wonder if we could work up a Role play game as members of the royal family using SW as the system. There is a RP system designed for Amber, but it's a little clunky. Seems the powers of SW could cover a lot of what the various family members do.

I totally remember that there was an Amber RPG, you're right.

Heh. That was back in the days where we would give any game a try. We tried the Amber RPG and after one attempt just gave up. :)

I never had that big of a group, nor did we have the money for me to try them all.

I had my staples of AD&D, Twilight 2000, Battletech.

Now, its pathfinder, SW, Battletech (Non Clix Game)

So all in all, not a lot has changed. :)

I played in one campaign based on the Amber RPG and I believe Zenfox was in that group too. It was a tabletop game mode and I put a lot of effort into the character and we played a number of games with some interesting results, but the GM had to quit and that was that. I remember it was without any dice rolling, which was a bit hard to get used to and most of the suspense of encounters was not knowing the strengths of other PCs and NPCs.

As a SW game, I would expect the starting level would be legendary, since the characters are essentially immortal and can spend lots of time learning all sorts of things. Most mortals one would encounter would stand no chance against such a character, so the fun would depend on encountering other similarly powerful characters and/or challenging environments. I think it could work, although it would take a lot of GM effort to develop NPCs as worthwhile foes, plus the politics and family intrigue to be worked out.

Maybe once I retire, I'll put some thought into it. It will give me a good excuse to reread the two series.

Yes, I was in the game that Arabella's talking about. I in particular had a conceptual problem with the lack of dice, but I don't remember how the rules of that system resolved things without them.

Ok, after a little web searching, it seems that your "Attributes" (to use a SW phrase) determined the outcome of a conflict. But in a psionic battle, if your Psyche is 100, and your opponent's Psyche is 101, your opponent wins. That's about it - no gradual wearing down of your opponent (because there are no Wounds or Hit Points). You could maybe describe doing something to the GM that would give you an advantage, but it's up to the GM to decide if that has any effect.

Also, the RPG Arabella referred to typically assumed that the game would consist of player-vs-player conflict, since nothing else could stand up to them. And PvP isn't everyone's cup of tea. I like her suggestion that they have encounters with creatures of similar power (like Chaos beings, which is part of the story's canon). There could be an on-going struggle between the PCs and Chaos to control the "regular" universes in the story.

P.S. - I found a critique HERE that details many problems with the diceless system. Warning - many four-letter words!

Arabella - I kind of doubt that SW would be able to handle the god-like setting of Amber - even Legendary PC's wouldn't come close to having the power of the gods. And having played in and run RIFTS-like and super-powered settings, trying to amp up SW to god-like levels would probably be really hard to balance power-wise due to Acing. If an attack did 8d8 (for example), it would do 30-50 Damage 80% of the time, so what would be a good Toughness for the opponent?

So, after more searching, I found two more systems that are derived from the Amber system : Lords of Gossamer & Shadow, and Lords of Olympus. The first one is a minor update of the Amber system, while the second has some major improvements to the original.

While Lords of Olympus is set in Greek mythology, there's no reason you couldn't use the rules in an Amber setting. I'd recommend looking into it first.

Also, the FATE system uses (unusual) dice rolls, but is abstract enough to possibly be able to handle an Amber-type setting, but not having played it, I have no idea how well it handles basically god-like PC's.

<time passes...>

Ok, I found a very old link HERE that talks about using FATE in an Amber setting (turns out that FATE was originally inspired by the Amber system), but unless you're familiar with FATE, it may not be all that helpful.

Well, I have no idea on either of the systems.

That, and currently cannot afford getting yet another game system.

God-Like is a really good term for it though, and it's exactly the problem, along with possibly being one of the earliest literary "multi-verses" ever encountered.

Now I need to go look up when they were written, yeah, almost as old as I am. Nothing intensly multiversal had really happened in comics yet, so this "infinite shadows" concept was pretty wild.

Try playing some Savage Worlds Rifts. You can make things pretty darn powerful. :)

It IS a lot of crazy fun though!

I'm likely not going to be able to post today, so 'bot me if needed.

Yeah, but even in SW RIFTS I don't think there's a ability that allows you to change reality with just a thought...

Yeah, but even in SW RIFTS I don't think there's a ability that allows you to change reality with just a thought...

Yeah, maybe bot THAT crazy...

I'm not sure it is quite that simple. A member of the king's family can move through the world shifting things as he/she goes. But when movement stops, reality stabilizes. Most of the interesting role play would be one family member against another, in which case, they would have comparable builds so that would be the focus.

In the opening chapters, the main character is incapacitated in our reality (earth) although that is partly because he has lost some of his memory.

It would take some thought and a close reading of the books again to see if it could be done.

Player-vs-player can turn in-game conflicts into real-world grudges, unless all the players are very mature emotionally. There's a whole side of the universe that's "Chaos", creatures from there could be comparable to the PCs in power, and the struggle for control of all of reality could be the main conflict. Maybe the conflict is over who "owns" each Shadow. The PCs could even enlist creatures from the Shadow worlds to raise armies, etc. Just a thought.

I kept seeing on the web that the characters could "alter reality", but upon closer inspection I found that "while traveling (shifting) between Shadows (universes), they can alter reality or create a new reality by choosing which elements of which Shadows to keep, add, or subtract." So it sounds like they can't just change the reality they're in, but they could travel to an almost identical one that has whatever changes they want to make. Same difference.

As far as systems go, FATE and Amber Diceless seem too "hand-wavey" to me. Lords of Olympus provides a little more "crunch" while still remaining diceless. And since it deals with the Greek gods, it's built on a comparable power level to the Amber stories.

Player-vs-player can turn in-game conflicts into real-world grudges, unless all the players are very mature emotionally. There's a whole side of the universe that's "Chaos", creatures from there could be comparable to the PCs in power, and the struggle for control of all of reality could be the main conflict. Maybe the conflict is over who "owns" each Shadow. The PCs could even enlist creatures from the Shadow worlds to raise armies, etc. Just a thought.

I kept seeing on the web that the characters could "alter reality", but upon closer inspection I found that "while traveling (shifting) between Shadows (universes), they can alter reality or create a new reality by choosing which elements of which Shadows to keep, add, or subtract." So it sounds like they can't just change the reality they're in, but they could travel to an almost identical one that has whatever changes they want to make. Same difference.

As far as systems go, FATE and Amber Diceless seem too "hand-wavey" to me. Lords of Olympus provides a little more "crunch" while still remaining diceless. And since it deals with the Greek gods, it's built on a comparable power level to the Amber stories.

I agree on the PVP. unless people have the specific mindset to not take it seriously, it can produce real world grudges.

As for the gaming system, I am currently in a spot that will prevent me from getting anything new for quite a while.

I don't think either Arabella or I are thinking of starting such a game any time soon, just discussing which system might be best suited for one, and different overall settings (PvP or not).

If I recall correctly, in the brief Amber game I was in, all the PCs were essentially allies, which is something the GM could require. So we would not challenge each other to combat.

But the main conflict in the books is that different family members ally and fight each other for control of Amber. So it would be the allied PCs against some confederation of relatives opposed to them.

Manipulating shadows does allow one to find almost anything one may want, so one could find a world with a high tech coil gun or any other technology one might need. This could be modified by the rules around creating gadgets of power. One would not want PCs to be able to just 'find' an Ironman like outfit without some limitations. But then again, that might be part of the fun. The enemies (family members of the other faction) could be expected to find similarly powerful items if needed. Some items might only work in their native shadow and be useless if one carried them to other shadows.

This is one reason the SW system might be ideal for an Amber RPG, since you have ways of dealing with all levels of technology, even magic, and such. It would take a creative bunch of players interesting in good story lines, however, rather than in creating ultra-powerful PCs. Also a GM would have to be good at creating a new royal family with its own unique goals.

I Will not be on over the next few days.
I have to go attend a friends celebration of life in a different province.

Back now, Sadly my friend will be missed.

Back now, Sadly my friend will be missed.

Cherish that - we can only really miss what we loved.

FYI everyone. I'll be at a face to face convention this weekend. I usually have time to check in once or twice but i've foolishly signed up for both slots Friday, 3 Saturday and one Sunday morning. Going to be fun. Going to be tired. :)

May you always make your saving throw.

May you always make your saving throw.

Oh no, now you've cursed me. :)

Well, have fun, I know that I just spent the last few days sidelined by a nasty cold.

Wife and i are off to Hawaii again. I will try to post, but bot as nedded.

Should be back in 2 weeks

Hope it's a trip for pleasure and not work or something else!

Quick vacation

Good!
Aloha!!!

For the record, GM West (who has posted in Recruitment) is an extraordinary story teller and prolific poster who is a lot of fun to game with.

Hey, thank you Brook!!

Thanks, Brook, for the heads-up. I *gotta* get in the habit of checking the Recruitment tab in the games I run. Someone post in another game of mine, and I missed it for almost two weeks!

Back, now just got to catch up.

OK, I think I've got Wren up and running with all the tough decisions made. Background story as well. Let me know if I need anything else!

Love the back story. :)

Thanks! That was my first try of writing one in that format. I've seen other players do it and I always enjoyed reading them. Was as much fun to write!

So, since the group is very close to leaving the planet, let's introduce Wren and I'll check her build tomorrow...

Thanks GM! Made a few more minor changes, but it'll be good to make sure I got the math right in doing so.