Gold & Glory (OSR for SWADE)

[c4pappy]

Has anyone done any work implementing the OSR-like "Gold and Glory" by Giuseppe Rotondo, published by Space Orange 42?

Perhaps no implementation is required as it is rather simple. We will try it out this weekend. Players looking forward to the random character generation mechanic.

[Dr0W]

Please, post about your findings with it. I heard about it, and I'm really interested into OSR and love SWADE. I decided to go with Ad&d, but the exploding dice keep calling my name.

[c4pappy]

I'll post about our experience for sure. I have high hopes. Creating a new half-orc race was simple. I've started monster input as well and it has been painless.

[Asterionaisien]

Well. Gold&Glory would be an awesome addition to the SW family.
I for sure would buy it :)

[c4pappy]

Yesterday afternoon me and 5 players tried Gold & Glory for the first time. Of the players, only one other person had any experience with Savage Worlds at all. All players were otherwise experienced with role playing games (Pathfinder 1e, or 5e primarily). Two of the players know how to use FGU via participation in a current Starfinder game that I'm also running as a weekly game.

Teaching Savage Worlds to new players is very rewarding. D20 systems are fun and I like them, but Savage Worlds is refreshingly different and easy to learn. I find that new players are excited by the exploding dice mechanic and the use of bennies is a great way to encourage role playing of hindrances. "What no hit points?!" "Oh yeah, and if you get a wound we roll on this table to see if you lose an eye or worse!" I'm becoming a bit of a Savage Worlds evangelist.

Gold & Glory's fantastic character generation system (draw three cards) was a big hit with everyone. We ended up with 4 very un-optimized rogues of mostly smaller races and one elf fighter with hindrances that put him in compromising tactical positions all the time. No cleric or wizard. I was a little disappointed that we didn't have anyone with powers, but that is part of the fun of a random party system. By the time I drew threw cards for the third character, other players were already excited with the results. Very intuitive.

I had created image files from the Gold & Glory pdf that I bought from Drive Thru RPG for the character generation tables and shared those images with the players so they could create characters and become familiar with FGU navigation. I also set up archetype "classes" for the characters and a new half-orc race option (wasn't used). Monsters were easy to create as new NPCs.

This was my first Savage Worlds game in FGU and I have to say that I am impressed with the automation of the SWADE core book. The Starfinder system is much less polished in comparison.

After a 3 hour session, all players were comfortable with FGU as well as the Gold & Glory module. It was hard to call it quits for the day, but it was Valentine's Day and some of us were getting the stink eye from significant others. We will meet again in a couple weeks to continue the adventure. Feedback from the players was that they liked Savage Worlds, found FGU to be very usable, and the setting felt very old-school to them. A big success all around.

My initial impression is that Gold & Glory could be implemented relatively easily. I'd happily buy this as a FGU module, especially if it integrates the random character creation as an automated mechanic. The powers system would need some tweaking, but not too much.

[c4pappy]

Double posted by mistake. Apologies.

[Dr0W]

Thanks for posting!

My own experiences with the SWADE Ruleset and new players have been superb. I've run games for people who have never played on FGU, never played SWADE and even for those who have never played RPG in their lives and all went really well. The ruleset is so well automated that I have like only two players that really know their way around SWADE and read the books. The others learned on the go and for months we have played it and I'm sure they don't really know how everything works: They know that bigger numbers are better and how their edges work, and that's good enough.

On the Savage Pathfinder video Doug mentioned that many people thing 5E as being the Flagship and all, but some other rulesets have some advanced features that you don't see anywhere else. From my purchased rulesets SWADE is the only one that does gang-up and range rules automatically, for example.

Now I don't know how it works for character generation in G&G, but perhaps it could be done using tables? I know that I'm going to try and run this Adnd OSR campaign, but if it doesn't work I'm moving it to SWADE. And my PF2E campaign is coming to an end by the next semester, I want to continue adventuring in the same world (I love Golarion), and as much as I liked PF2E it's sometimes tiresome to deal with so many things on it. I'm going to go for Savage Pathfinder once it's out.

In the future tell us how it goes for the OSR feeling while using Savage for your games. One of my main concerns was that as much as it could work and be fun, it wouldn't bring the nostalgia feeling of the old games, since SWADE is pretty modern.

[YggBjorn]

I have been thinking about converting that PDF for my own use. I can make a random dungeon in donjon and then remake it Dungeondraft. Export it and run the fan made script to pull the XML LoS from the image and then just some slight tweaking in FGU with the LoS, which probably will be minimal. Now just finding the time...

[Asterionaisien]

Maybe you could ask to sell it in the store :D

[YggBjorn]

Maybe you could ask to sell it in the store :D

That would be between the creator/publisher of the PDF and SmiteWorks. Anyone can import information that they own to use in Fantasy Grounds for their own personal use.

[Asterionaisien]

Yeah, but it would be nice to have it in the store, no other OSR settings there.

Cheers

[Dr0W]

I'd like to share some of my upcoming Savage OSR campaign. I'll be using many things from Gold & Glory, but also some homebrew rules.
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[c4pappy]

This past weekend we had our second session. Not as many players due to some scheduling conflicts. Had a player character die spectacularly to an average foe. To those raised on no-character-death systems, this may seem like a problem. However, it didn't bother any of us (the player whose character got yeeted to oblivion included)! Made for an old-school feel. I suppose that one could use the general setting option that caps wounds to no more than 3 in one attack, but we will not be doing so. We like that combat can be randomly deadly and bennies for soak roles are very important.

Also, I would point out that the random character generation system integral to Gold and Glory meant that the affected player quickly replaced their deceased character with almost no downtime. The generation of the replacement had the rest of us excited to see what the new character would be. It is true that this system will not result in perfectly balanced adventuring parties. But that is part of the fun. No wizard? Oh well. No healer? Better be careful. It makes for a greater challenge for player and gamemaster alike and we like it. This may turn some people off, but I would encourage everyone to try it our before deciding that isn't the game for you.

The exploding dice mechanic is very satisfying in FGU!

We also tried the level-up system of Gold and Glory. It is a cool trade off. Pay your 50gp to go "Carousing". Draw a card. Value of card either adds a temporary bonus (or penalty!) until you next go "Carousing". Level up as per advancement rules in SWADE core book. Question becomes do I spend my gold on better equipment, or do I use it to level up?

I checked in with our player who only has experience with 5e. I think that I have converted him into a SWADE true believer!