Pen and Paper Geekery

Warning: if you are not a complete nerd, you might not want to read this post.

Iron Kingdoms is a pen and paper RPG that I have gotten into. It calls itself "Full Metal Fantasy" It's basically steampunk, which is a blend of steam technology and magic. The one thing I don't like about Iron Kingdoms is that it's using the D20 rules which is derived from Dungeons and Dragons. It's a good beginner rule set, but for me combat takes entirely too long, and there's not enough flexibility in the system. For instance, if you had a simple baker in the game, someone who isn't an adventurer, they just bake bread. That baker would be so focused on baking, that he wouldn't be able to find his house after dark.

Savage Worlds is a new(ish 2003) RPG system that is really lean. It's a generic system (like D20) and can be applied to any setting. It doesn't use character classes or levels at all. The characters just train what they want. Of course many of the edges that you train have prerequisites. So you wouldn't want to be a jack of all trades.

There is already a complete conversion to Savage Worlds for Iron Kingdoms. The Savage Worlds main core book very well might be my next RPG purchase. (along with the Monsternomicon II for Iron Kingdoms.)

With this new system, I'll have to start running a game of it online again.

This all started because the GM of my PBP game switched our game to Savage Worlds.

I think this blog post makes me a level 14 geek.