Late last year, my group finally finished East Texas University: Degrees of Horror, the ETU Plot Point Campaign for Savage Worlds.
This is the first in a series of articles in which I will take a deep dive into my campaign, including what worked, what didn't work, what we kept, what we changed, and so on.
It will contain heavy, unmarked spoilers for the campaign, so read on at your own risk.
But I'll provide the tl:dr up front: East Texas University is one of my favorite RPG settings ever, and the campaign is one of the two best I've ever ran (alongside Necessary Evil), both of which I attribute to both stellar writing from the authors of the settings (cheers to Ed Wetterman, Preston DuBose, and Clint Black), as well as to my amazing players (Kenny, Jack, Ellie, Brian, Russ, Chrystal, and Tommy - not me, but the sole player who participated in both campaigns).
And with that, on to the cast:
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What Is ETU?
East Texas University, or ETU, is a setting written for Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition. We started our campaign several years ago, in my dining room, using the Deluxe Edition. We later moved it online, to Roll20, when two of my players moved out of state (and kept it there when they moved back), and converted over to Savage Worlds Adventure Edition before the end as well.
The setting premise is college goers in a fictional East Texas college, drawn into monster hunting shenanigans. Often described as "Redneck Buffy", our game got pretty NC-17 at times, which I would describe as "Buffy meets Porky's"...for those of you kids who are old enough to know what either of those two franchises are.
And as you'll see, we got pretty action oriented as the campaign went. Not a knock on the original Degrees of Horror campaign...just something that felt right for us.
Our Cast
The idea of ETU is that everyone is (likely) playing college students at East Texas University, in Pinebox, TX, or at least characters connected to it. At the beginning of our game, we had five characters in the group, three being PCs and 2 being NPCs.
The PCs
Russ "Bad Moon" Rison - He was the star quarterback at Pinebox High, and the town celebrity. He crash landed at ETU instead of Texas University due to a season ending leg injury that severely endangered his college football prospects. His dad, Richard "Dick" Rison, is a prominent businessman in the area, and Russ has a very contentious relationship with him.
Becka Nicole Lane - A newcomer to Pinebox, with an unusual set of skills, and a strong right hook. Becka is an education major with ADHD and stuck with an annoying roommate. Easily the most combat ready character in the group.
Jonathan Wolfwood - Jonathan is a borderline genius who has zero belief in the supernatural, believing anything weird should have a rational explanation (this didn't last long). A stranger in a strange town, his family is very wealthy and prominent in Pennsylvania, and are very overprotective, despite (or because of) his decision to go college in a bizarre small town in Texas.
The NPCs
"Racin'" Mason Holmes - Bad Moon's best friend, and his favorite wide receiver. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, and a bit of a misogynist, but very loyal to his friends. Also, a very pretty man. He actually made it to the University of Texas Longhorns last season, only to be cut for disciplinary reasons, so he transferred to ETU to play with Russ.
Brandi Jo Miller - Becka's annoying roommate, a wannabe cheerleader and sorority girl who has the hots for Bad Moon. Pretty much built on poor impulse control and getting herself, Becka, and the group in trouble (and sometimes in that order). In high school, she caused Bad Moon to fail a chemistry test when she let him cheat off her test, because she didn't clue him in that she's not a very good student.
We made sure to lean into the new, ETU specific mechanics. For instance, each had a skill tied to their degree path (Russ is an Agriculture Major, but I also had him take Knowledge: Football, which was essentially a reskin of Battle...this manifested a couple of times in the campaign as his Quarterback mind took over in Mass Combat situations and allowed him to play the role of field general). Europe could afford a new truck, so he didn't have any "quirks", but Russ' truck tires constantly went bad.
At the beginning here, I handled Brandi's sheet and die rolls, but Russ handled Mason's.
Next post will tackle the first leg of the Degrees of Horror campaign, which consisted of 13 adventures. I'll talk a bit about what adventures we used, the major characters that emerged as we went, and the changes that I enacted on the campaign as it developed.
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