It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I've been prepping for my annual conference, while also working on The Homecoming, along with some other gigs. To procrastinate these, I've been looking at some RPG settings to run, particularly those which use my Favoured System, Savage Worlds.
One such setting I found was Wiseguys by Eric Lamoureux, which a player once described as "Grand Theft Auto in table-top RPG form". It's heavily influenced by a lot of mob films, including Goodfellas, Casino, Carlito's Way, and Scarface.
Taking place in Las Vegas during the 1990s, the players are a crew of mob associates who have been left to fend for themselves as their bosses in the Mid West or on the East Coast are being incarcerated. Meanwhile, corporations are moving in to take over the casinos previously run by the mob, while other syndicates are muscling in on the street-level rackets.
I ran this setting back in October for a local gaming group, using two published adventures in the setting book, and it went quite well. I had an eclectic assortment of characters, working for a displaced mobster looking to start up his own crime family in Las Vegas. Rules as written, the setting assumes your characters are working for the Italian-American Mafia, but it can be easily tweaked to accommodate other syndicates. Does that mean the characters all have to be Italian? Not at all! They're "associates" who can come from any background, but there is an Edge which allows characters to be an official member of the mob. I had two players out of six take that Edge, and basically set up a special channel on the campaign Discord which only they could see, making them privy to information the other players wouldn't be. It's a way of creating some interesting unease as those characters who are made have to determine what they need to share with the others.
This setting is particularly "mundane", in that all player characters are humans, and there's no magic involved. To be honest, in a hobby where everything is dominated by Dungeons and Dragons, that's kind of refreshing. Of course, Savage Worlds is a system that doesn't use classes, but the book comes with plenty of useful archetypes to help you build one. They've even got some random generators to aid the process.
One thing I especially like about Wiseguys is that it's a good source of stat-blocks that are of use in any game with a modern-day setting. A lot of people I've talked to about it have said they've picked up the books for that reason.
In addition to that main setting Wiseguys also spawned two spin-offs/expansions (since you need the games to play them), so I figured I'd talk about them here.
The first of these is Tuffguys by Harrison Hunt, which shifts the setting from Las Vegas to London, for some games inspired by Guy Ritchie's gangster films. I took part in a session of this at a virtual convention three years ago, and later ran the adventure which came with the setting book myself. One big thing is that you'll probably want characters geared more towards melee combat, since guns are hard to come by: all firearms listed in the core rules cost ten times as much, or you have to take certain Edges in order to gain access to guns. My Cockney accent probably needs work though.
The other spin-off is The Gobfather by Richard Woolcock, which acts as a crossover between Wiseguys and Woolcock's comic fantasy setting Saga of the Goblin Horde. This mini-setting takes place in a version of our world in which different fantasy species exist and live in a modern society, and has the characters assume the role of high-ranking members of a goblin mafia.
Unlike Wiseguys, this setting does have magic, along with the black comedy of its parent setting. All characters have a crew of goblins who ride with them, but their main purpose is cannon fodder. You can choose to redirect damage to an adjacent goblin, and it doesn't have to be one of yours. But be careful; they may get up to no-good, and their shenangans may hinder or help them.
There's one adventure, a few random encounters, and some pre-gens, but the mini-setting largely assumes you have the two parent settings. I've been a player in the setting before, and looking to run it myself at some point; I've been doing some homebrew tweaks (since Saga of the Goblin Horde utilises the previous edition of Savage Worlds, I've had to update some of the Edges in Hindrances from that book), and developing a city to serve as a locale (called Brightwater). I've also been procrastinating my other projects by making a ton of minis on Hero Forge, which you can view on my exhibition page on Facebook here.
Wiseguys, Tuffguys, and The Gobfather are all available for sale on DriveThruRPG, and you will require the Savage Worlds core rules to play them. You'll need Wiseguys to play Tuffguys, but The Gobfather does have adjustments for running it without that book. You'll also want to pick up Saga of the Goblin Horde, but that's currently free at the moment due to a licensing issue.
Anyway, happy writing.
This game references the Savage Worlds game system, available from Pinnacle Entertainment Group at www.peginc.com. It is unofficial Media Content permitted under the Media Network Content Agreement. This content is not managed, approved, or endorsed by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Certain portions of the materials used are the intellectual property of Pinnacle, and all rights are reserved. Savage Worlds, all related settings, and unique characters, locations, and characters, logos and trademarks are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group.”
