The Roleplay of Dylan

Struggling with Savage Worlds

Back before Christmas, I offered to run a Pirate game for my gaming group.  The group is great bunch and we aren’t set any any particular campaigns and have played several types of games  including Mutant and Masterminds, D20 Modern, Boot Hill, and Star Wars Saga since I’ve joined them. So, we were in some discussions about some upcoming type of games we would like to play and several things came up but the only thing that was missing was Pirates. Aaarrrrrr… Who doesn’t love a pirate?

So, I sat down to start working on a campaign that I could run 2 or 3 sessions and complete the story. I began talking about using the Savage Worlds rules and thought about using 50 fathoms or Pirates of the Spanish Main campaign settings. I was really digging the backstory and setting of 50 Fathoms, who wouldn’t? Pirates with a touch of Magic and Alien type of creatures. The more I read in the Campaign setting, the more I realized that I probably wouldn’t be a good enough GM to pull off a 50 Fathom world. A couple reasons – that story is very in-depth and would take quite a long time to finish the complete campaign and Savage Worlds system wasn’t clicking in my head, yet.

So, I looked closer at Pirates of the Spanish Main setting and I like the information that was in that setting as well. I could come up with a decent story line and try to complete it, but as I was putting all of the pieces together they didn’t seem to fit together either. I don’t think that this is the fault of the system. It all falls on down on me not grasping Savage Worlds play style and the ability to GM it.

Granted, I’ve never DMed before so this will be my first time and I’m nervous about running it. I’m really excited to do this, however I just don’t think Savage Worlds will be my first DMing experience. I think I need to get a couple of games down as a player to be able full grasp this and then I could feel confident that I could run a Savage World session.

One of the guys from my group ran a Spy D20 modern game that was a lot of fun. It was not bogged down with numerous different type of dice rolls and it just felt comfortable playing. I did some more digging in d20 modern and discovered that d20 past would fit my need perfectly for a Pirate campaign. A system that I am comfortable so I don’t worry as much about the rules and can concentrate more of the story telling and DMing. I think the PCs will appreciate it more and it will help me transition into the life of a DM.

Time to start working on my encounters…Aarrrggghh!!

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