Magic Trappings made more magical

Arcane Backgrounds in Savage Worlds have done a great job in standardizing all kinds of supernatural powers within their system. Unfortunately, by doing so, the different kinds of powers lost a bit of their "magic" for lack of a better word. To make Arcane Backgrounds (especially magic) a little more "magical" I have added a small Narrative rule to go with Savage Worlds' Trappings. This rule is somehow inspired by FATE's aspects and I am planning on incorporating it into the upcomming Savage Witcher pdf.

A spellcaster chooses one Trapping per their rank. You should can treat it as a domain for the Spells/Powers. Each spell you have should be expressed by one of the trappings you posses. Trappings have don't have any mechanical rules attached to them, so Fire and Ice spells work exactly the same mechanically.
You can use a Benny to invoke a Trapping. By invoking it you can narrate a small detail in the world, that your magic would allow you to make (starting fires for  Fire trapping for example, freezing a puddle on the ground with Ice). Gamemaster has the right to veto your narration, but apart from that, whatever you narrate is true in the game world and you can use it to your advantage. GM will incorporate effects of your narration and give modifiers to tests for the players or the NPCs if needed.

This rule gives players the opportunity to use their powers in more creative way and make them feel like the magic is more magical than just a list of different Powers. The key to this rule is to keep to small details when narrating the effects, and making the results interesting. This way, the GM will award the invoking player a Benny for a fun idea. The GM can also give the Benny back to the player, if the effect was invoked purely for flavor.
This rule takes a bit to get used to, and requires a level of trust between players and the GM, but in a long run can be very rewarding.

Heist Aces is now an Award Winning game!

My Happy New Year just got happier! After I properly woke up today, I found out, that my 24h story heist game was recognized as the winner of 1KM1KT Harder than Granite competition. Whoa?!
I can say how big of a motivation and ego boost it is for someone who never had the nerve to finish any of his designs in the past. I would like to thank Rob Lang and the esteemed panel of 1KM1KT judges, not only for recognizing my efforts, but also for creating a competition  that forced me out of my comfort zone, and made me motivated enough to finally finish the thing (forcing of the 24h time limit and making the final product small enough to fit in a pocketmod helped a lot). Thanks guys, I tip my hat to you!

What's the future of HEIST_ACES?
I will revise and expand the game in the near future. Now, without the clock ticking, I can spend more time on creating more evocative layout, and art and, what's most important, I will create an GM_OPERATOR's manual to go with the pocketmod. The manual will be a letter/a4 size document explaining the game in more detail and giving advice to both the players and the GM. So stay tuned, and if you have any feedback - send it my way.

What's in this bog? [D12]

Swamplands and bogs, while seemingly full of life, with all it's frogs, snakes and mosquitoes, don't have much to offer for an adventuring party apart from the wet, sticky and smelly obstacle of the swamp itself. But this time, the party stumbled upon something.

What's in this bog? [D12]
1	A magical abomination covers the whole bog bed, it's tentacles look like vines.
2	A group of partially submerged swampfolk preying on unsuspecting travelers.
3	A creature, covered in decomposing bandages, releasing spores everywhere.
4	Nothing apart from the really bad smell that makes you gag (disease?)
5	A cyst covered bog witch collecting ingredients for her potions.
6	Nutritious looking mushroom covering every tree, some have bite marks.
7	An altar to some long forgotten gods, swarming with fireflies and mosquitos.
8	A boat-sized hollow log filled with green-glowing frog egg-like things.
9	A body of a trapper, covered in maggots, his equipment mostly intact.
10	An abandoned rowboat in decent shape. With a lantern still lit sitting in it?
11	A hermit. He can aid the party, if they promise that to leave him alone.
12	Sealed barrels with rusted chains, they must have been anchored here.

Savage Witcher - free mini supplement in progress

Being Polish, I had access to the Witcher saga long before the pc/xbox games came into existence. There was a big Witcher boom in Poland about in the 2000s. I have read loved the short stories (they are also available in english) and (only) liked the saga. Unfortunately it turned more into politics later on, and lost it's focus on action and exploring Geralt's story, but it was a good read nevertheless... but I digress.
Apart from the books, there was a tabletop roleplaying game, a movie and a TV series released in Poland. While the RPG was decent, the movie and the TV series was generally shunned by the fans, and it's nothing to write about. 

Now, thanks to the PC/Xbox games, the idea of Witchers was introduced to an English speaking world, and by extent was introduced into tabletop RPGs. I have read many Witcher conversions for various systems, but all of them where somehow lacking or missing the point of Witchers. With this in mind I decided to introduce the Witcher to Savage Worlds system, in a form of a free pdf supplement - the Savage Witcher.

The Savage Witcher mini-supplement will be mainly based on the books and the pc/xbox games. I will take some cues from the official tabletop rpg as well, and I will try to stay as true to the original material as possible.

This is what you can expect in the near(by) future from the Savage Witcher pdf:

Witcher Baground - Fluff chapter explaining what witchers are, their place in the world and how to include them in your game.

Witcher race - yes, a race, because of how witchers are "created", they require their own race for Savage Worlds.

Witcher Edges - the witchers in stories are an experienced lot. So it is understandable that most of their skills comes from training and experience. The edges will be available only to witchers and will cover such aspects like making and using elixirs, witcher signs, and monster hunting. This way, players can create different types of Witchers, and even start as a Novice Witcher.

Witcher Signs - a new arcane background adapting witcher signs to the Savage Worlds system.

Witcher Equipment - Few paragraphs on the equipment used by witchers. Especially weapons and elixirs.

Creatures from the World of Witcher - A bestiary like chapter about creatures and monsters from the book and games. It will include new and revised monsters.

This post was originally created some time ago. Soon after I have lost interest in blogging and the idea of creating this mini-supplement fell into oblivion. But now, after my blog-come-back, and with the Witcher 3 at the horizon, I am giving this pdf another shot.
Any words of encouragements would greatly help me to finish this thing, so please, don't be afraid to post a comment, even just saying that you would like to see the final pdf.

Remembering TheForge.pl

So, here's something you probably don't know:

There was a company, started by few amazing artists, that created high quality system-agnostic, fantasy RPG products. It was known as TheForge.

TheForge was usually releasing products describing locales, from towns to taverns, and everything in between. The pdfs were full of very atmospheric pencil drawings, showing vistas, items and floor plans of the described places (that you could use and handouts during session). Each product was loaded with adventure hooks, and simply perfect for low/no-prep gaming - just drop the players into one of those locales and let them explore. I have used their products heavily during my Savage Worlds Fantasy campaign and in early 2000s even done some writing for them. 

Sadly, this company is no more. Well, they still have an RPGnow store running with some of their work (mostly art to use in your games, not the good stuff) - but that's it - no website, no contact with the original creators. Maybe they have moved with their lives, maybe the market wasn't ready for their products, who knows? But TheForge had released some awesome products. Best of all? Their best pdfs were free!

Why am I writing this? Because I want to share and showcase their work. The website is still accessible trough the wayback machine - not all of it, but enough to get your hands on some of those awesome and FREE pdfs! And maybe, just maybe, someone out there will read this and find a way to contact the original creators - because quite frankly, I would be privileged to team up with them and write products like that in the future. And with OSR on the rise, I bet, that pdfs like that would be popular.

So head to TheForge.pl wayback machine and grab yourself some of those awesome products; you and your players won't be disappointed! Start with Fish Side and go from there - many of the pdfs describing buildings, are about places from Fish Side. All of them combined make for a fine mini-setting.
And if you like what you see - go to their RPGnow store and buy something as a thank you, even if they don't know why, I am sure they will appreciate it greatly!

I tip my hat to the guys from TheForge.pl