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.

Savage Worlds...and Why I Keep Coming Back

Started a new Savage Worlds campaign last night. This one, to the surprise and apprehension of many, is an adaptation of Greg Stafford's classic RPG King Arthur Pendragon.

Yep, I went there. Been hard at work on an adaptation that captures the cooler elements of Pendragon while still providing the same mechanics and gameplay my group has known and loved for years.

But, y'know, why?

Why adapt King Arthur Pendragon?

I mean, Savage Worlds is one of my two favorite in-print game systems (with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition) and one of my three favorite games of all time (with 5e and Marvel SAGA), but still...

Why go back to Savage Worlds again, for a medieval fantasy game, with domain management at that? It's not like Savage Worlds can do that. Savage Worlds is for crazy pulp action and tactical skirmishes, not political intrigue and knights being driven by their personal values.

We'll get back to that in a minute.

Deadlands: Love on the Mountain is now available for free!

Hey guys, for a limited time (I think, maybe not), Pinnacle is giving away Deadlands: Love on the Mountain from Savage Tales of Horror Vol. 2 for free!



From the page:
True love is hard to find, and a father’s love can be a difficult obstacle for a wellmeaning young suitor to contend with. The suitor, heir to a fortune, employs the posse in rescuing his love from her father’s farm on the mountain. Sounds simple enough, right? But strange things happen on that mountain, and they just get stranger the higher you go… Check it out, then go buy the Savage Tales of Horror books!

Savage Tales of Horror is Here!

I have been a pro wrestling champion, I have published comic books, and now I have an honest to God official Deadlands adventure under my name.

If I die tomorrow, let it be said that I achieved goals that I reached for in life.

Melodramatic? Maybe. What do you expect from an ex-pro wrestler turned comic book writer turned RPG writer?

Inspired by a folk song, Love on the Mountain is written with Deadlands in mind, but is completely compatible with The Sixth Gun RPG or playable with just the Horror Companion, and it is found in Savage Tales of Horror volume 2, along with several other amazing horror adventures.

You can preorder the bundle today and get the first two volumes in PDF right now!

And I would dearly love to know what you think.

#RPGaDay Day 21: Favorite Setting

Easy. I have long said Deadlands is my favorite setting. The horror, the weirdness and the Old West. I love it to pieces.

#RPGaDay Day 12: Favorite RPG Illustration

Day 12 of RPG a Day is Favorite RPG Illustration. I could probably make a laundry list of these, but the one I am about to post is the iconic image of my favorite game setting: Stone, as depicted by Brom, on the cover of the original Deadlands RPG:

#RPGaDay Day 10: Who Is Your Favorite RPG Publisher?

I am not gonna lie...Wizards of the Coast have done a tremendous job of rescuing themselves off of the garbage fire with their handling of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, which has gone better than I ever would have imagined...but as great as that is, they are still not the publishers of my favorite RPG and favorite setting (that would be Savage Worlds and Deadlands, respectively):

You were expecting someone else?

Kind of a Big Announcement: My Bucket List Project

So, I have hinted around that I got to work on a BIG "bucket list" project. I subtly mentioned earlier in the year that I was contracted with Pinnacle. I even confirmed after GenCon that the project was Savage Tales of Horror, an adventure anthology. Now, I can go a step further...

The "bucket list" moment wasn't RPG writing, or writing for Savage Worlds or writing for Pinnacle...not quite, anyway.

The badass, awesome part is that I got to write an honest-to-God official adventure for my favorite RPG setting: DEADLANDS.

Things I can tell you:

- My adventure is called "Love on the Mountain".

- It  IS playable without any prior Deadlands knowledge or rulebooks (you only need the Savage Worlds rules and the Horror Companion...I am told this is true of every adventure that has ties to an existing setting, for maximum utility...meaning you could pretty easily use it in The Sixth Gun RPG as well, given the Weird West setting), but it is definitely 100% Deadlands compatible.

- You can run it as a one shot or drop it into a campaign.
- It is scheduled for release (as part of the anthology series) later this year.

- I get to share space in the book with John freakin' Dunn (who helped bring us Accursed, which is on one of my favorite Savage Worlds settings) among other great folks.

I am beyond thrilled to see this thing coming to fruition, and that I finally get to start talking about it just a bit.

So...not being sure if this was going to be my only "at bat", I swung for the fences. I hope all my fellow Savages enjoy what I (and all the rest of the amazing line-up of authors - humbling to be alongside the likes of Preston DuBose, John Dunn, Ross Watson and Shane himself) are bringing to your table.

...and believe me, you will know more as soon as I am allowed to share it.

Tommy

Tommy's Take on The Sixth Gun RPG

Last year, Pinnacle announced that they were releasing an RPG based on The Sixth Gun, by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt. On the surface, this seems like both a brilliant, and potentially puzzling, move as Pinnacle's flagship setting, Deadlands, occupies very similar genre real estate as The Sixth Gun: Weird Western. Well, The Sixth Gun RPG is now being Kickstarted, but the big questions are "How is it different than Deadlands and do you need it if you already have Deadlands?"

Deadlands: "The Devil's Own" Post Mortem (Part 1)

I like doing actual plays, but I don't actually have the time to do them, so he's a long overdue post mortem recap of my Deadlands: The Devil's Own campaign, the one in which we playtested the Hexslinger and new Harrowed rules from Stone and a Hard Place.

Tommy's Take on Stone & A Hard Place

This one is kind of a special treat: A plot point campaign focusing on Stone, major antagonist of the Deadlands setting (he was the guy on the original Deadlands book), reintroducing elements that were streamlined elements out of Reloaded...and my group and I actually playtested some of the mechanics in this book!

Plot Armor: Off...take your shot!

Tommy's Take on Deadlands: Hell on Earth Reloaded Companion

To my view, a setting companion should be something that contains nothing that you NEED, but stuff that you might WANT. Seem like a fair guideline? This book aims to do just that for Hell on Earth Reloaded.

#RPGaDay Day 28: Scariest RPG I've Ever Played

Not from Deadlands, but you get the point.

Going off of player comments, I will have to go with Deadlands, specifically the one time I used an animated hand, which totally creeped one of my longtime players out. He had dealt with all kinds of crap over the years, but this severed hand running around and attacking him just give him the willies.

#RPGaDay Day 26: Coolest Character Sheet

The Deadlands character journal (Twisted Tales) is the only character journal that I remember actually spending real money on...that's how much I loved Deadlands. It was worth dropping $5 or whatever for a book that could not only hold your character sheet, but your backstory, powers and so on, at least for a game as cool as Deadlands.

A Reloaded update of this, even in PDF form, would be very welcome.

#RPGaDay Day 20: Will Still Play In 20 Year's Time...

Safe bet?

In some incarnation or another.

#RPGaDay Day 14: Best Convention Purchase

I actually don't buy a lot of RPGs or RPG related materials at conventions. These, I got at a convention.

I know, boring story.

#RPGaDay Day 13: Most Memorable Character Death

Not Marshal Kidd

United States Marshal (and Blessed) "Ugly" Joe Kidd (I swear, I somehow did not know about the Clint Eastwood movie at the time) was one of my few forays into being a full on player (Deadlands Classic), and one of my favorites. His death was actually pretty ambiguous, as he was attempting to stop a Ravenite from opening up a scary portal leading to The Hunting Grounds and unleashing scary, scary stuff. He tackled the Ravenite through the portal and found the talisman keeping the portal open. He made a snap decision to destroy the talisman and prevent something huge and scary from getting through, but not before having a manly, yet touching, "goodbye" moment with his deputy on the other side, a Cherokee tracker and Shaman named Tontchay.

Such was Kidd's death that when the GM moved away and we opted to resume the game with the Savage Worlds rules and me in the GM chair, Tontchay was dead set on finding Marshal Kidd, convinced that Kidd had to still be alive.

#RPGaDay Day 12: Old RPG You Still Play/Read

I could have said Marvel SAGA, but really, it kinda sits since my main player moved away...Deadlands Classic no longer gets PLAYED around here, but I have the entire classic run and I mine it *constantly* for material, adventures and so forth. I have gradually added mechanical bits from Classic to fill in gaps from Reloaded, and the sheer volume of setting material is invaluable.

While I never plan on reverting back to Classic, as long as I run Deadlands, I will always have at least one of the orange books at my table with me.

#RPGaDay Day 9: My Favorite Dice

Not my oldest dice by any stretch, but I have become very fond of these Deadlands Dice I bought last fall. I make it a point to use them exclusively when GMing Deadlands Reloaded.

#RPGaDay Day 8: Favorite Character(s)

I could name a few of these, and they are all actually NPCs (given how little I actually play).

Tanjlock Sarlon is a Wood Elf Fighter from AD&D 2nd Edition who ultimately came to be known as much for his mental instability and his "road to Hell being paved with good intentions" as anything else. The art above is from my friend and partner in crime, Johnnie Johnson, for what is intended to be an illustrated novella series featuring Tanjlock.

Bully, The Bull That Walks Like A Man was an NPC in my Necessary Evil game and the first NPC that, when I killed him off, nearly set off a riot at the table. My players were FURIOUS. When he showed up later as a Super Drone, they were furious a second time, but one of the PCs managed to wrench him from his brain washing and bring him back to their side. He will be migrating to comic book form in my upcoming PALADIN: AGENT OF KRYPTIC comic.

Lastly would be Former US Marshal Ezekiah Joseph Kidd, my first Deadlands character. He began as an ugly, self righteous US Marshal who ultimately became Blessed and gave his life in pursuit of stopping Ravenites from doing bad, bad things. After I took over as GM of the game, his deputy (one of the remaining PCs) made it his life's mission to find Kidd. When he discovered Kidd was actually dead, he invoked the blackest of magic to return Kidd to life against his wishes.

Kidd is not presently slated to appear in any fiction.