Post date: Oct 06, 2009 1:36:17 PM
When you want to run a campaign the most important choice aside from having a brilliant idea is what system will you choose for your game. And in Fallout's case there are many very solid choices to choose from and many proponents for each one. So I set down some criteria
1) Cost- it should be something that either everyone has or is cheap to get into (<$15).
2) Kitbashing - the game should support the creation of stuff from junk.
3) Comfort - Is it something that I have either run before or feel comfortable running for the first time.
4) Less Crunch, more flavor - I wanted a system that was not thigh deep in rules, that allowed for some serious cinematic action.
5) Allows rewards in game - I recently wrapped up a couple of mini campaigns using Hollow Earth Expedition (Ubiquity) which has this awesome in game reward system called Style Points, when a player acts toward a flaw or toward their motivation or does something that was fitting to the genre they got this style point that enabled them to add another dice to their pool for more successes or to avoid damage. Players really loved them and I fell in love with them as well. So I wanted a game that allows in game rewards.
6) Genre support - the game had to support some of the key genre elements of Fallout - Guns, Drugs, and Radiation.
So let us run down the list of choices I had considered.
1) GURPS - The original Fallout was supposed to use GURPS mechanics, from it's HEX based combat and system of Flaws and Strengths you can see where some of that was to come from, but in the end that relationship did not come to be. Now for this campaign I considered long and hard the choice of using GURPS, but while a good friend of mine is a huge fan of the system, it was one where I could see how it could bog down in details and become Fallout: Adventures in Math. So I stepped away. Another reason is I didn't own any GURPS stuff and none of my players did either. And I could not ask anyone to shell out too much money for a set of the rules.
So to my criteria it supported Kitbashing and the Genre, but it lacked everything else.
2) D20 Modern + d20 Apocalypse: The core set is one everyone I know owns. It is a mechanic that everyone is familiar with. It is definitely crunchy with lots of rules and a library of secondary materials to pull from. On the surface it looked like a perfect fit. But I then considered the style of the game, did I want combat to be the focus with specialized builds, or did I want the world to be a bit crazier than that. One thing in FO3 that I really liked was the inventor/schematics portion of the game - kitbashing junk found to make cool weapons. As I looked at d20 modern I didn't find an easy way to build that in. And the more I looked at d20 modern the more crunchy it felt, too crunchy for what I wanted. Now looking back, I think d20 Modern would have worked fine, but I am really enjoying the "simplicity" of the system I have chosen.
So to my criteria it had Cost, Genre, Comfort, but lacked Kitbashing, Flavor, and In Game Rewards
3) Spycraft 2.0: This came as a recommendation from another person running a Fallout Campaign. So I picked it up and gave it a really good read over. It is based on the d20 Modern system, but has many of its own cinematic elements added. It really gave good crunchy gun combat rules. But unlike d20 Modern, no one owned a copy and it was hard to ask my players to plop down $30 for the softbound copy or $50+ for the hardbound and easier to read version. So this one died a quick death due to budgetary constraints.
So to my crtieria it had Genre Support, but that was it.
4) True20 - This system leverages d20 SRD, so it was designed for any genre, it uses terms that are familiar with all players, and the player's guide was cheap (~$10). It has lots of variable rules to tweak the game. The only dice used is a d20, even for damage. All in all it was a front runner for choice.
So to my criteria it had: Genre support, Less Crunch, Cost, Comfort. It only lacked Kitbashing and in game rewardst.
5) Savage Worlds - For $10 you cannot go wrong with this game. Heck, for free you can get the Quick drive rules with cover 65% of what you need to know to play, only missing details of skills,perks, flaws, and the wide variety of "arcane background" stuff. It also includes things that I have learned to love from running Hollow Earth Expedition, It has Bennies, a way to reward players during play, it has simple skill system (Shooting skills covers every kind of ranged weapon from bows to missile launchers- realistic? no, cinematic? yes). It has a system of Perks and Flaws. Their arcane system has Weird Science rules which covers the inventor stuff I wanted. The only challenge would be building all the monsters. With any of the d20 based system there were conversion rules so it would have been easy enough to make an ogre into a supermutant, behemoths from giants, giant scorpions from giant scorpions. SW is a very pro-player system, they get an extra dice to roll. Bennies allow re-rolls. Dice can explode for the PCs (If you roll the max on a dice you get to roll it again and add it to the original roll.) The mechanics are very cinematic in feel. The only slow part of the game is initiative in that it is based on a card mechanic that is dealt each turn. It is a game I have run several times before for Pulp adventures so I was fairly comfy with the rules and so after looking at the above this one met the goals of: 1) Little cost to the players ($10 for everything you would need to know) 2) Something I had experience with 3) Rules for inventors 4) Perks and Flaws 5) Rules Light (so not so much rules cruchy).
So to my criteria it had: Genre support, less crunch, cost, comfort, kitbashing, and in game rewards. It met all my criteria.
So that is how I settled on Savage Worlds for my campaign. I know of other campaigns using all of the above systems and to great success, but in the end I think it comes down to what bias the GM brings to the table and what he feels is best and with player input he will learn as the campaign progresses if the choice was the wisest or not.