iPhone APP: Card Table (and how it can save your Savage Worlds game)

Ever go to a game session and realize you’ve forgotten your dice? Well there are apps for that. While dice apps are a poor substitution for the real thing, in a pinch they can be quite handy. A thought occurred to me. Since Savage Worlds uses a deck of standard playing cards — a deck of cards you can also forget to bring to the session– surely there is an app for that too.

Well, there is. It’s called Card Table by Supremum Software. Now, at the time I’m writing this, the app does have some bugs. But it’s only $0.99 and it works perfectly fine for this particular use.

Here’s a quick a dirty tutorial on how to setup a “table” to use in your Savage Worlds game.

1. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the app onto your device, launch it and select New Table from the Main Menu.

The Want List Part 2: Savage Worlds

A lot of people have a hate-on for 4E, it seems. And I get a lot of the complaints (even though I don’t necessarily agree all the time.) But one thing I like about it, it’s extremely consistent when it comes to the publishing schedule. Two books a month, easily tracked on Wizard’s website. The same can’t be said about Savage Worlds books. Books come out inconsistently, most of the time as a PDF first and then a book later, but not always.

And the Savage Worlds Licensee scene? Oh man… While licensee books are almost always pretty high caliber, the companies that publish them are often terrible at letting people know what’s out, in what form, and what to expect in the future. It seems the only way to really keep on tabs with it is to visit the Savage Worlds official website’s forums. Daily. And while I don’t mind, I can’t imagine that the majority of people are inclined to do this.

Of course, I’m at the same time absolutely loving Savage Worlds and have bought too-many-books-for-my-budget in the past few months.

The books that are on my radar are:

• Deadlands: Reloaded, but I’m not sure if I should wait until the split volume reprint with updates is available.
• Shaintar, but I’m not sure if I should wait until Shaintar: Unleashed is available.
• Rippers, but I’m not sure if I should wait until Rippers: Explorer’s Edition is out.
• Necropolis 2350
• Pirates of the Spanish Main
• The Supers Campanion, this should be out soon, I think.
• Savage Suzerain, I believe is out in print form, at least any day now.
• Hellfrost (Player’s Guide and Bestiary — I guess that Gazetteer too.)
• Sundered Skies
• Evernight
• Tour of Darkness
• Ravaged Earth
• Runepunk
• Daring Tales of Adventure Compendiums 3 and 4
• Official Savage Worlds Template Set, which is not a book. See here.

Wow, looking at these lists, I feel kind of greedy… But I must remind myself that I probably will never get all these books. It is, however, nice to have a checklist for when I feel like treating myself to a little bit of geekery.

Mario: Prince of the Mushroom Kingdom

The Mario games are kind of an awesome source of inspiration for RPGs. Mostly because the games are so iconic and yet resist any attempts to place them in a particular genre. But at the same time, it’s really easy to bend the key elements to fit any of them. Above is a doodle I did of a Koopa Troopa re-conceptualized as space marine in a gritty(ish) Warhammer 40K-like universe. There’s a lot of “Mario: Reinvented” art out there that I hope to share down the line.

For now, here’s a Savage Worlds supplement written by Theron Seckington: The Savage Mushroom Kingdom. From the author:

We all know Mario. Whether we played the original 8-bit NES ourselves or watched older brothers hog all the play time (even though Mom and Dad said “Share!”) we are all familiar with the efforts of the heroic plumber. This is a setting devoted to all those times we yanked the game pack out of the machine to blow on it, all the times the Hammer Brothers knocked us off in World 3, and every time you leaned to the right in your chair in the hopes
that Mario might just jump a little further if you helped.

The Savage Mushroom Kingdom setting is either a somewhat gritty fantasy game or else a very lighthearted wartime game. It has a heavy emphasis on the little guy while heroes like Mario get all the credit.

Another great thing about Mario is that the games have some extremely loyal fans. In fact, I’d say that the Super Mario Wiki is probably the most insane wiki I’ve seen. Well, after Wookiepedia.

And tell me you didn’t think “Goomba” the first time you saw a Myconid in the Monster Manual.

Image Sources: Above – Me, Below – Wizards of the Coast

BioShock Artbook and More

BioShock is an awesome video game. And I’d imagine it would probably make for a great setting for a roleplaying game. I’m thinking Savage Worlds for the ease of conversion and for the pulp/action/horror of setting.

It’s got magic (in the form of genetic enhancements known as Plasmids), some frightening enemies (Splicers), and a really fleshed out underwater, art deco city (Rapture.)

I wouldn’t recommend visiting the following links if you plan on playing the game without spoilers. But they should give you more then enough setting information to run a campaign in the universe or, at least, one inspired by the series.

• BioShock: Breaking the Mold – an artbook available as a free PDF download.
• BioShock’s Official Website
• BioShock on Wikipedia
• The BioShock Wiki
• BioShock Savage Worlds Conversion (a bit on the light side)

Image Source: BioShock: Breaking the Mold