[Savage Worlds] Gamma World, Session 1

I ran a short adventure in the Gamma World setting using Savage Worlds for a bunch of friends at Games and Gizmos in Redmond Washington a week ago. KW and BW showed up, as well as BB, who invited new friend CR. And CS and CB from my Serenity game came, too.

Since the group wasn't familiar with Savage Worlds, I went over the main points of the system, including Wild Die, Bennies and using skills and attributes. I handed out a bunch of pre-made characters: CS chose Mr. Lucky. CR picked Rose the Scholar. BW and KW chose Briar the Thief and Riff the Fighter, respectively. CB had Sage the Healer and BB, who arrived later, got Artie the Acrobat.

We ran a short combat to get everyone some experience with their characters and the system. And I let them use their Bennies for free and get them back when we officially started the game.

The combat went pretty well. Lucky fought Sage and Briar fought Rose, with Riff jumping in to trounce Briar. They got used to rolling their skill die plus the Wild Die. Some of them rolled really well and did a lot of damage by acing their rolls and their victims got used to rolling soak rolls.

I started the game in the small valley the PCs lived in. They were about a month away from thier time of trial to adulthood and a few days earlier, farmer found a metal panel while plowing a field. Hammering on the panel, it let out a high-pitched noise and the farmer ran away - just in time to avoid the explosion that sent the panel into the sky, leaving behind a hole into darkness.

The village militia was mobilized and a villager went into the hole to see what it was. He returned with a description of a tunnel from the time of the ancients. The village council decided it was time for the PCs to go on their trials into the tunnel to see what dangers it posed to the community. The night before they were to descend, the lone guard over the hole was visciously attacked and dismembered, devoured by some strange beast from the hole.

The PCs were led to the hole by the whole village. Rose became sick at the sight of poor dead Clem (failed a Guts check) while the others were disturbed but didn't loose their breakfast. Armed with a dagger and a crossbow, some food and their militia armor, they received a tool of the ancients: a glowcube.

They were taught how to use the glowcube and taking six torches each, they descended into the darkness. In the tunnel, they discovered more parts of poor Clem and a blood trail leading one direction, towards the center of the valley. The tunnel was made from the ancients' strong stone with a strip of strange material much like glass on the walls. The strange material proved to be impervious to breaking or damaging attempts by several of the vandals in the party.

The glass material extended down the tunnel each way and was about half way up the walls. They learned that the glowcube had an effect on it, causing it to glow and extended their light about 50 meters in each direction, with the brightest light nearest to the glowcube and then fading as it went farther from the glowcube. This improved their light situation.

The group looked around and found the blood trail from bits of Clem and followed them. Mr. Lucky used his skills to figure the creature that killed Clem had 7 or 8 limbs but no one saw it.

After walking about a kilometer, they discovered a switch on the side of the wall and Briar found a loose panel with wires sticking out. Rose clicked it, causing the panel to spark, and the glass material lit up all the way down the tunnel in each direction as far as they could see. A hidden door opened and a strange metal creature came out. They waited to see what it would do and (predictably) it attacked them. The combat was pretty good, with the players still learning how to do things.

With the robot defeated, they explored the storage room, finding some ready supplies, including an ID security card and another glowcube. They also heard the thing that killed Clem making noise farther down the tunnel, but didn't see it. A strange pattern on the floor of the tunnel attracted their attention and they used the security card to open a stairway down.

The stairs led to a series of rooms and Mr. Lucky, who was the last one down, caught a glimpse of the creature, calmly telling the rest of the party that it had 9 legs and lots of claws and chompy teeth. The door, thankfully, closed after him so the creature was not a danger (yet).

The rooms turned out to be several rest lounges with vending machines and empty (but burned out) machine rooms. They found some ancient food packets (with Briar picking the locks on the vending machines) and another ID security card. The last room they looked at turned out to be a control room of some sort, with a view of a tunnel like they left, going the other direction. They investigated the machines and one of the side doors opened, letting in two security robots.

The combat was fierce, with the PCs ultimately triumphing with few injuries and the robots defeated. Rose and Briar managed to remove two slug throwers with some ammo from the bodies of the robots. Riff, Artie and Sage found several police riot shields, enough billy clubs for each of them and a police riot helmet.

This turned out to be a good place to stop, so we ended the evening with awarding of experience. I explained how to use experience and most of the players spent it. We discussed when to meet next and what to play next (they wanted me to continue this game).

All in all, a good session!