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Savage Tales of Horror: Volume 2 $9.99
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Savage Tales of Horror: Volume 2
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Savage Tales of Horror: Volume 2
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
by Cedric C. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/14/2017 01:21:41

Introduction: Savage Tales of Horror is a three-volume set of independent adventures for the Savage Worlds roleplaying game. Even though Savage Worlds has its Savage Worlds Horror Companion, these scenarios can be played with just the core rules. The adventures are based on different Savage World settings, but, again, only the core rules are necessary. This is definitely an unusual approach for adventure collections, which typically center around only one roleplaying game setting. However, given the mortality rates in horror, and gaming groups who can only meet for a one-shot game, these collections are an excellent way for roleplayers to play a variety of horror settings without having to learn another roleplaying game system. (LARP of Horror can also be played as an origins chapter of modern-day heroes.) They also introduce the gaming group to Savage World's other game systems, which they might not otherwise be exposed to. Many foes have special abilities, so you should be familiar with combat in the Savage World game system. Spoilers ahead, of course. (fwiw, The reviews of the Savage Tales volumes were written in reverse order. Comments common to all three tales are included in all three reviews.)

Love on the Mountain: Set in the Deadlands, Love on the Mountain has the party on a lovelorn adventure to help out the tenderfoot Merle King find his beloved Jo Ann in the mountains, "captured" by the bearlike Claude Clifton. With this being the Deadlands, a the posse discovers, soon enough, that this is not a mundane adventure. The "hook" of the adventure, I thought, was a little forced, assuming the players would side with the romatic Merle without doing some investigation and fact-checking ahead of time. The NPCs, however, are quite colorful, so, if you or another player enjoy personalities (both major and minor NPCs) in your adventures, you'll find plenty of opportunities. Also, for those gamemasters who enjoy chewing the scenario, the encounters of the mountain path do a good job building up the atmosphere. (Practice a little sleight of hand when you draw cards from the playing deck, or preselect the cards -- BLACK cards -- ahead of time!) For those gamemasters who like to pillage adventures, Love on the Mountain has a gang of disreputable cowboys he can use as enemies for other old west adventures, as well as those spooky mountain encounters I mentioned.

Skitters: A modern-day adventure, Skitters has the players as a cast of researchers in a small town (it's not Mayberry RFD, but it sure comes to mind!), investigating sheep disappearances that have no sign of wolf or other activity. As minor characters, the NPCs have easily run personalities, so you can let players play the town gossip, the excited farmer whose sheep have disappeared, the mayor who doesn't want a town panic, and so on. Inevitably, the local air force is called in, but the adventure has hooks to keep the researchers involved as key support in defeating the menance, as well as following up on its demise. Strange that the bones of the sheep still can't be found. Oh, and did anyone check that the cave network of the spider is attached to the town sewers? You'll have to set up the town vs. spiders miniature battle if you want, but stats are provided. The adventure comes with NPC townsfolk and a research team of pregenerated characters.

Blood on Ice: The adventure opens with the characters as members of Artemis Security and Intelligence, escorting four American university prfessors to a conference on democratic governance. The party is overworked, stressed, and tired, but this is just the opening of the adventure, as militants attack the escort. The co-founder of ASI himself offers the party a rest in Washington, followed by a security investigation job at Jukkasjärvi, Sweden’s famous Frozen Hotel. At the Frozen Hotel, the party is greeted by Sven Helvete, the CEO/Owner, and Axel Nyquist, Chief of Security. Helvete discusses how nine of his security staff members have been murdered over the past two weeks. The killers seem to be using some kind of trained wolf or bear in their attacks. Helvete thanks the team for taking this job, while Nyquist resents the outsiders. Helvete suspects his neglect to maintain the Kyrka, a rarely used local religious building and former tourist location, has something to do with it, since a protest by some locals happened a few months before the strange attacks around the Kyrka grounds. The adventure has some good ideas on how modern-day supernaturals would function in today's world, but I thought the second half of the adventure was too linear, assuming the players would act a certain way, and lacking subtlety, with the supernaturals revealing their hand rather than erring on the side of caution and secrecy. Still, if you want an action movie rather than a guarded secret, then this adventure should work for your group.

LARP of Horror: "To Arms, defend the town!" Or, at least the barn. A LARP ritual goes awry, as a demon is released, subjugating our poor heroes into a series of teenage horror movie and vampire slayer tropes. The scenario is linear, with NPCs often telling the players what to do, but, since the characters are desperate newbies, not experienced adventurers, this shouldn't be a problem. The adventure itself is a good introduction to Savage Worlds, and could be a good origin for a modern day supernatural setting, including Savage World's mystical East Texas University. (Remember to add a curse from the evil bad guy for the party to stumble upon supernatural threats for the rest of their lives!) It presents a variety of encounters not found in most generic fantasy adventures (eg. non-lethal combat, supernatural traps), with simple mechanics resolution. Characters also gain supernatural abilities as they survive, a subtle way to introduce experience to the game. The game comes with pregenerated characters, including why they're playing a LARP.

Rosewood: "Shortly after the 2056 supply run, radio communication with Ares I was lost." Your players are the second emergency team investigating Ares I, a permanent Mars colony. The green material showing on the long range cameras suggest that Ares I was built on an oasis. But certainly that's impossible. What's also odd is that the commander of Ares I has no idea of the first emergency team. Let's hope that the second emergency team is more wary than the first. The adventure has the Ares I crew as additional NPCs which gamemaster assistants could play.

PDF vs. Hardcopy: For adventures, I typically recommend PDFs over hardcopies. With a PDF, you can print out the adventure you're playing for the night, rather than bring the entire book with you. You can print pages on color, then cut them out as visual handouts (some of the Tales of Horror adventures also have handouts). You can cut out and give the players any pregenerated characters (although I would have preferred them to be on half-pages, rather than across a two-column format). You can take notes on the printouts. And, of course, the PDFs are less expensive.

Free Test Drive: I should note that Savage Worlds has a free Test Drive modern-day horror adventure, The Wild Hunt, originally given out on Free RPG Day 2011. The sixteen-page PDF has a short four-page adventure, pregenerated characters, figure flats, and six-page core rules including character generation. A review can be found on RPG.net : https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15319.phtml

Conclusion: I would describe these Savage Tales of Horror as adventures, as much as horror. Characters can fight off most of the threats, though the foes are often flexible enough for a game master to adjust ad hoc. Some investigation and stealth is necessary. Some of the adventures are on the linear side. And, as said, the adventures are for different Savage Worlds, so they're best played by players who prefer or can only play one-off adventures.

LARP of Horror stands out as a scenario new gamemasters and players should try for their first games of Savage Worlds. It introduces them to the Savage World game system, without overloading them with the mechanics, yet uses situations that are uncommon in generic fantasy roleplaying. Blood on Ice and Rosewood are better suited for gamemasters who can play various NPC roles, or have assistants to help him. Love on the Mountain would work best with "romantic" players who believe in uniting lost loves. Skitters should be fun for a "giant insect vs. small town" B-movie session, with optional miniature skirmishes for all those plastic spiders from your dungeoncrawl miniatures game or last Halloween party. I've reviewed volumes two and three, and would recommend whichever has settings you and your players would like to play, or volume two for its newbie-friendly LARP of Horror adventure.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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