Spore: Samoran Set

I’ve been playing Spore again recently. And by playing, I mean, I’ve been mucking about in the editors. My current goal is to update or finish my past creations. By my calculations I’m a little less then halfway done.

Okay, sets. Sets in Spore are great. They link different pieces of content together. This means that when the game populates a city with an orange tank, it would be more likely that the city would also have an orange plane and an orange boat.

Sets work best with buildings. They also work pretty well with vehicles. But, for me, the best sets are “full sets”. These would include:

• 4 buildings (city hall, house, entertainment, factory.)
• 3 vehicles (Land, Air, Sea) of one type (religious, military, economic, colony.)
• 1 spaceship.
• 1 creature.

That’s a lot of work, admittedly. But the results can be pretty cool.

My Spore Profile

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