Tommy's Take on Camp Terror, an Actual Play Review

 So this weekend I talked my group into taking a detour from D&D 5e to return to an old friend of ours: Savage Worlds. Not for an established setting such as ETU or Deadlands, both of which we love, but to try out a horror one shot from a friend of mine called Camp Terror.

 

 

So we fired up Savage Worlds and had us a brutal, throwback horror adventure.

Degrees of Horror: An East Texas University Post-Mortem Part 2 - Freshman Year

 Welcome back, friends. Last week, I laid the ground the work for this series, a recap of one of the best campaigns I've ever ran. Now I'm going to pour over my notes and go back to the very beginning of the campaign, and run through the adventures we played through, starting with Freshman Year.

I put a lot of thought into just how I wanted pace this, as I knew I wanted the campaign to have time to "breathe", and so I made the decision to aim for 13 adventures per school year. The idea being that it would be 3 adventure per half semester, with one adventure taking place on break. This meshed well with the idea of ETU's advances coming at the end of mid-terms and end of semester. This incorporated every Plot Point adventure from the Plot Point Campaign, every one of the original 12 to Midnight Adventures, the Class Ring adventure from the ETU GM screen, Owen Lean's Horror for the Holidays, and a number of my own creations, some using the Adventure Generator and some just crafted whole cloth.

Some of my notes are a little light. And we started this campaign 6 years ago, in person, at my dinner table, before moving online to Roll20...and we played The Curse of Strahd in between. So my memory may fail in places.

And again, be advised that spoilers will be unmarked.

Degrees of Horror: An East Texas University Post-Mortem Part 1 - A New Class

 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:

A Look Inside the New Deadlands Kickstarter

This isn't a normal "Tommy's Take", because I don't have a full book in front of me, but a review copy of the new Deadlands book on Kickstarter right now. It's still incomplete - it was noted to me that it's missing a bestiary still - so rather than do a full review of the book, I'm putting it side by side with the Player's Guide and Marshal's Handbook to get an idea of just what has changed and what's staying the same in this new edition.

Disclaimer: I'm not telling you to pledge. I just didn't have a cover image for this article.

Tommy's Take on Tricube Tales

On today's docket is a really light, narrative RPG by Richard Woolcock (Zadmar Games).

Tommy's Take on 50 Fathoms: Fire & Earth

Last week, in my 50 Fathoms review, I mentioned that there was a new release: 50 Fathoms: Fire & Earth. So this is my review of that adventure.

Tommy's Take on 50 Fathoms Explorer's Edition

This seems like odd timing, but there's a reason for that. I've owned the original 50 Fathoms for years, and but never ran it. However, I was approached by Pinnacle last week about reviewing their new 50 Fathoms book, Fire & Earth, and thought that before I did so, I would tackle the original (or at least the version that was revised for Deluxe Edition) for posterity, and also to refresh my memory about 50 Fathoms.

Tommy's Take on The Ninja Crusade 2nd Edition

Longtime readers of the blog know I've been a pretty big fan of Third Eye Games' Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade. A while back, they released a second edition - now just called The Ninja Crusade - and I thought I'd take a peek inside.

Tommy's Take on The Covey (D&D 5e)

Over at The RPG Pub (my preferred home for RPG discussion on the internet), I was asked by one of our regulars to review something from their catalog. And so I am.

Tommy's Take on Improbable Tales: Helicarrier Heist (Savage Worlds)

Running a Savage Worlds supers campaign? Fainting Goat Games provides a lot of support for that (or, probably, for the system of your choice). And here is one such entry: Helicarrier Heist.