High Level Games
High Level Games
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Storytellers Vault Products
    • Fantasy One-Page Adventures
    • DMs Guild Products
  • Podcasts
  • Video
  • Trusted Resources
  • Join The Team
  • About
  • Contact
    • Star Trek Adventures

Welcome to the High Level Games Blog, News, and other stuff to take your games to the next level!

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

5 Questions About Sagas and Six-Guns

22/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Today we are happy to give you an interview with Robert Buckey about his Savage Worlds setting book, Sagas and Six-Guns! I’ve been tracking this project since Robert suggested it on the SW Facebook group, and I’m really hoping it catches your eye too. Of course, as a historian with an interest on both Norse society and the era of Manifest Destiny, my spurs got ringing when I heard this was coming down the trail.


So, Robert, tell us a little bit about why this setting. What about the Wild West and Norse/Viking society aligns to make this an excellent idea?


Well, it’s funny. The way the idea came to me was a total fluke. I was driving to work one day, and switching between Volbeat’s Western themed album, and Amon Amarth (a Swedish death metal band what themes all their music from Norse legends), and it just hit me that mixing the two would be awesome.


Now that being said, there actually are some overlaps between the two cultures. The Norse were hardy explorers, just like many of the men and women that settled the American frontier. There were similar concepts of honor and masculinity, and similar concepts of law and society that they shared. But ultimately, the idea of mead being imbibed from drinking horns in saloons, old west style signs with runic script, and wanted posters for trolls and Jotun just seemed way too cool to pass up.

I’ve noticed instead of our real world West, you’ve chosen to set this campaign world in an unsettled terrain. Was that to avoid some of the problems of the Western genre, or what else made that make sense?


So making this North America settled by the Vikings would have required an enormous amount of work, especially because it would require in depth writing regarding the Native cultures and what happened with them, as well as what’s going on with the rest of the world!

Obviously, North America, or even only part of North America, being settled by the Vikings five hundred years before Columbus made his voyage would resulted in major changes to the timeline worldwide. Trying to come up with any kind of accurate representation of how the Native Americans would have been affected would have been a monumental task, as it would have required extensive research into what group was where and when.


Ultimately, it just made sense to create this alternate world, and give myself a blank canvas to work with, so I could concentrate on what I really wanted to focus on, telling the old Sagas like Beowulf through an Old West lens.

Tell us a little bit more about the social rules systems you’d laid out here, what’s up with Ring giving and why is that important?


There are two major social rules that this setting introduces, Sagas, and Ring Giving. Your characters will have a personal Saga, which will give you certain benefits as it increases, representing your fate changing as you become a more well-known and celebrated hero, in which we integrate the Conviction rules from Savage Worlds, and also gives you certain effects in social situations, such as Jarls and other important people knowing who you are and calling on you and offering you work. It can even give you a negative modifier if you’re trying to go about unnoticed, as people find it easier to recognize you.

Ring Giving takes its name from Beowulf, when Hrothgar bestows rings and other gifts upon Beowulf and his men. The currency in this setting is rings, and this rule represents you gathering warriors to fight under you, and you throwing them a massive feast in which gifts are given and mead and food is consumed. The better your heroes do with this, the more enthusiastic the men are to follow you.

As you know, HLG is an Ace as well so we love SW, but why did you settle on Savage Worlds Adventure Edition as the backdrop for the rules?


I’ve gotten big into Savage Worlds the past few years. Not only that, residing in the Phoenix Area, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting its creator, Shane Hensley, on more than one occasion at local conventions. I’ve even had the honor of playing in one of his games of Deadlands, and he played in a game of mine of another setting I’ve been working on. He’s a great guy, and the Savage World’s community is just awesome. Not only that, the rules are amazingly versatile. It’s a rules system I just know very well, and it was on the Savage World’s Facebook page that Alan Bahr from Gallant Knight Games and I connected regarding this project, so it’s only natural that this would be what we would go with for this setting.


What’s the one thing you want people to know that you think will drive them to back the project?


Vikings are awesome. Cowboys are awesome. This setting lets you play both at the same time. Want to be that steely eyed gunslinger facing down a line of Draugr? You can do that. Want to be a fire and brimstone Godi exhorting your fellows to seek a valiant death so they can sup with the Gods in Valhalla? You can be that too. Want to be a Valkyrie trapped on Midgard, questing for a means to return home, while dealing with this strange new land and era? That’s right, you can be that too. How many cowboys can say they’ve skinned their smoke wagons against a troll?

I truly believe this game will allow you to tell stories that are faithful to both our favorite Viking and Western tropes.


Check out the campaign on Kickstarter now.
Savage Worlds: Fast, Furious, and Fun! - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    All blog materials created and developed by the staff here at High Level Games 

    ​

    Picture
    Click here to support our community for as a little as $1.00 for exclusive content, free downloadable stuff, and even discounts on role-playing game items.

    Archives

    February 2021
    November 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    13th Age
    2d20
    2nd Edition
    3.5 Edition
    3Deep
    4th Edition
    5th Edition
    7th Sea
    Acquisitions Inc
    Actual Play
    AD&D
    AdventureLookUp.com
    Adventurers!
    Aether Sea
    A+ Fantasy
    After Collapse
    Alignment
    Amazing Tales
    Amazon
    Anima: Beyond Fantasy
    Anime
    Apocalypse World
    Atomic Robo
    Australian
    Award Winning
    Basic Fantasy
    Belly Of The Beast
    Big Eyes Small Mouth
    Black Lives Matter
    Black Void
    Blades In The Dark
    Blood Pangea
    Board Games
    Book Of Exalted Darkness
    BrigadeCon
    Burning Wheel RPG
    Call Of Cthulhu
    Capers RPG
    Casual Roleplaying
    Changeling: The Dreaming
    Chaosium
    Character Arcs
    Character Creation
    Chris Spivey
    Cinematic RP
    Classics
    Comic-books
    Conventions
    Corvus Belli: Infinity
    Crawl
    Creators
    Critical Role
    Cthulhutech
    D100 Dungeon
    D20
    D&D
    D&D Beyond
    Deadlands
    Defenders Of Tokyo
    Degenesis
    Detako Saga
    Discord
    DMsGuild.com
    Dnd
    Dndbeyond
    Doctor-who
    Double-cross
    Dread
    Dresden-files
    DriveThruRPG.com
    Dr. Who
    Dungeon Crawl Classics
    Dungeons
    Dungeons And Dragons
    Dungeon Slayers
    Dungeon World
    Dystopia Rising
    Encounters
    Era: The Consortium
    Era: The Empowered
    Esper Genesis
    Evil Hat
    Exalted
    Faith RPG
    Fandom
    Fantasy-age
    Fantasy-flight
    Fantasy Grounds
    FATE
    Fate Accelerated Edition
    Fate Core
    Fate Rpg
    Fate-rpg
    Final Fantasy
    Forgotten Realms
    Fragged Empire
    Free League Publishing
    Furries
    Game Design
    Game Lore
    Gencon
    Ghosts Of NPCs Past
    GMTips
    Golden-sky-stories
    GoodmanGames.com
    Grognards
    GUMSHOE
    GURPS
    GURPS Lite
    Halloween
    Harlem Unbound
    Harry-potter
    Hero Builder
    Heroes Against Darkness
    Heroes-unlimited
    HERO System
    High Level Games
    Historical Fantasy
    HLG Con 2018
    HLG Reviews
    Homebrew
    Humble Bundle
    Indie
    Interface Zero 2.0
    Interview
    Invisible Suns
    Japanese RPGs
    JRR Tolkien
    Kickstarter
    KoboldPress.com
    KULT
    L5R
    Lankhmar
    LARP
    Lasers And Feelings
    Legendlore
    Legend Of The Five Rings
    LexOccultum
    LOTR
    Low Magic
    Mage
    Mage: The Awakening
    Magic And Steel
    MAID
    Mayhem
    Mazes And Minotaurs
    Meikyuu Kingdom
    Mekton Zero
    Mental Health
    Middle Earth
    Mighty Narwhal
    Mini Six
    Modern Adventures RPG
    Modiphius
    Monarchies Of Mau
    Monsterhearts
    Monte Cook Games
    Morra
    Mummy: The Curse
    Mutants And Masterminds
    Mythender
    Narrative Games
    Nechronica
    Night's Black Agents
    Novel
    NPC
    Numenara
    Odyssey Of The Dragonlords
    One Shot
    Online Gaming
    Orun
    OSCRIC
    Osr
    OVA
    Palladium
    Pathfinder
    Pathfinder 2.0
    PbtA
    PDQ
    Pire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
    Play By Post
    Player Tips
    Podcast
    Powered By Apocalypse
    Power Outage RPG
    Preview
    Promethean: The Created
    Pugmire
    Pulp
    Puzzles
    Questlings
    Ravenloft
    Ravnica
    Red Markets: A Game Of Economic Horror
    Research
    Review
    Review Article
    Rifts
    Risus
    Role Play
    Roll20
    Romance Of The Perilous Land
    Ryuutama
    Satanic Panic
    Savage Rifts
    Savage Tokusatsu
    Savage Worlds
    Seeds Of Wars
    Setting
    Settings
    Settlement Building
    Shadowrun
    SIGMATA
    Snowhaven
    Social Combat
    Social Systems
    Solo Play
    Standard Roleplay System
    Star Trek Adventures
    Star Wars
    Storytellers Vault
    Suited RPG
    Summerland
    Supplements
    System Design
    Table Top
    Tabletop Simulator
    Tales From The Loop
    Tales Of Equestria
    Talislanta
    Tariffs
    Teenagers From Outerspace
    Ten Candles
    Tenra Bansho Zero
    The Dark Eye
    The End Of The World RPG
    The Great Long Dark
    The One Ring
    The Very Important Task
    Titan Effect
    To The Temple Of Doom
    Trial Of Cthulhu
    Trinity Continuum
    TSR Marvel Super Heroes
    Ttrpg
    Twitch
    USTR
    Va
    Valiant Rpg
    Vampire: The Masquerade
    Video Games
    Villian
    Volo
    Vs Ghosts
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Werewolf: The Apocalypse
    Westbound RPG
    Wild West
    World Building
    World Of Darkness
    Writing Tips
    Year Zero
    Zweihander

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly