Savaging Infinite Worlds

A really cool thing happened to me as Game Master this week: the players in my regular group told me what they wanted to play.

More than that, they told me they wanted to play some more in a really cool setting we did six sessions in some four years ago. The setting is GURPS Infinite Worlds.

Infinite Worlds is the default setting for the GURPS Fourth Edition roleplaying game. That is a seriously cool game system and a very interesting setting:

“The shuttles of Infinity Unlimited jump between parallel Earths, seeking adventure, profit, knowledge, and even entertainment. But a parallel called Centrum has also developed the technology to hop between the worlds . . . and they want to rule them all. The Infinity Patrol must deal with their ruthless rivals, as well as with world-jumping criminals, and with the possibility that the secret of dimension travel might escape to some of the really nasty alternate worlds like Reich-5.” (GURPS Infinite Worlds, back cover)

When I ran the game before, it was cool to mash-up various interesting destinations and have the heroes figure out how best to interact on each parallel. That said, the reason that we ended up stopping after six sessions was because prepping for GURPS was highly intensive. In short, I didn’t have the time.

That’s why I’m going to Savage the setting: this time, I’m going to run it using Savage Worlds.

Give them what they want…

Back to that really cool thing: my players told me what they wanted to play. Thankfully, and this really is unusual, both what they told me they wanted to do and what I felt was interesting / doable matched. Thus, we are returning to Infinite Worlds on Friday.

As a Game Master, this is so cool for many reasons. Not least is the fact that (in my experience) players rarely express preferences beyond vague generalisations or hints – so one guy saying, “Hey, I really enjoyed when we played X game so can we do some more of that?” was like heaven. On top of that, the other guys being happy to go along with the suggestion opened up the doorway… and then no one objecting to making my life easier by switching it to Savage Worlds was even better.

But there’s more: while it might seem like I have a problem with GURPS, the really cool thing about Infinite Worlds as a setting is that I get to (potentially) use any (or all) of the other fantastic GURPS settings on my shelves. Of which, I might say, there are many indeed. In fact, I am going to stick my neck out and say that the very best thing about Steve Jackson’s GURPS is that those guys really know how to write roleplaying settings. If you don’t shop GURPS sourcebooks, your gaming will be all the poorer for it.

So, there’s real player interest plus a really cool setting plus lots of options for me as a Game Master. The only barrier is prepping in time.

Which is why I’m going Savage.

Keeping things Savage…

A few days ago I had another encounter with Savage Worlds as a game system. Regular readers know that I have been a fan of the system in principle for a long time. Yet, I’ve only once really got a Friday game going. The cool thing is that, during the conversation above about Infinite Worlds, it came to light that the players also enjoyed the “weird Nazi” scenario I ran using Savage Worlds. (Anyone for Reich-5?)

Here’s what I’ve done:

1. I found the old GURPS Infinite Worlds characters from the first game.
2. Using the old sheets and notes, I transliterated them to Savage Worlds.
3. I’ve begun to plot a new scenario to follow on from the initial cross-world situations from last time.

In short, this is a reboot using the same characters but developing the initial situation.

“Transliter…” what?

I used a big word up above: I said that I “transliterated” the characters. Don’t I just mean I converted them? Not quite.

Translating an idea from one game system to another can be an exercise in conversion – taking the exact features and re-creating them using the new mechanics. Transliteration, however, tries to preserve the intent and meaning of the original, not simply copy the elements. What I mean is that each character has their “schtick” and their place in the story; to simply copy them across letter by letter, rule by rule, is to miss the meaning of their schtick and place in the story. What I’ve tried to do is re-present the hero in a way that emphasises the intent of the original and their purpose in the setting.

An example: Aaron Faulkner survived on a parallel world in which the machine intelligence took over; he’s developed psionic healing and learned to hoard tech. When he arrived in the story, he rescued the brave Infinity team by roaring onto the scene in a souped-up car and getting them out of Dodge. Aaron’s defined by three main elements: he can drive; he has psi-healing; he is a techie who has a gizmo for any situation. In GURPS he has a truck-load of skills and abilities; in Savage Worlds, he is the only one in the group with driving expertise, he has the psi-healing abilities, and he has the “McGyver” edge:

“This character can improvise something when the need for a tool arises. He suffers no negative penalties on Trait rolls for lack of equipment in most situations. In addition, given a few simple tools, props, or devices, he can generally rig devices to help escape from death-traps, weapons to match some bizarre need, or otherwise create something that’s needed when such a thing isn’t actually present.” (Savage Worlds Deluxe, p.43).

Sometimes it’s more important to transliterate the core of the character’s role in the game rather than literally convert them to the new system.

So, yeah…

…I’m excited!

Honestly, that’s the big thing for me lately as Game Master: I have to be excited about the game. If I’m not excited, the game will be crappy for everyone. That’s been my big learning in recent months.

My table opens on a Friday night and there’s usually two or three players who want to come and play. The group generally maxes-out at five players because… well, adult life. The key, however, is that for a long time I believed that I needed to offer them what they wanted without much regard to what I wanted; in other words, I’d run stuff I thought they wanted because a game is better than no game. This was bullshit, of course.

Having no game is actually better than playing a crappy game. It is better for me never to Game Master again if it means that I continue to run crappy games that I don’t care about: this is a hobby, it’s meant to be fun, and I don’t have time to not enjoy myself. Sure, my players deserve to have a good time… yet I’m a player as well, and deserve to have a good time just as much!
That’s why this week’s event is so cool for me: my players told me that a game I ran was cool when I didn’t realise it was cool, despite the fact that I wanted to run that game. To run the setting I simply needed to work out how to run it low-prep. But, and this is important, I had assumed that the players didn’t enjoy it… so I never invested time in it again. Until, that is, I found out that at least one player did enjoy it.

Players, you have no idea how much it rewards your Game Master when you tell them something they did was good. Seriously. That’s what we’re striving for… to run something good.

Thank you, Friday Nighters – I’m inspired!

Game on!