A Ripper of a Time

It was great to get the "old gang" back to the tabletop last night for a LIVE game of Rippers Resurrected (Savage Worlds RPG). For over a year, we have made do with playing over Roll20 online - but it's just not the same. We have also been playing a lot of 5E D&D, and I felt it was time to start telling other stories. If I'm going to Game Master, I want to start telling as many different stories as I can.

I started preparing for my Rippers game by crafting a crib for players who are new to Rippers. I called it Rippers Resurrected Explained, and it can be downloaded below ...

Download Rippers Resurrected Explained

I chose "A Serious Undertaking" (Rippers Resurrected GM Guide) as my Savage Tale - but I wanted to make it my own and massage it to suit my play group (who are big fans of Ripper Street and Penny Dreadful TV shows). To do this, I opened up a Trello account and started using the wonderful card-based planning boards to organise my game.

A Screenshot of a section of my Trello-based Rippers planning board

I used Green markers to signify major Role-playing moments, Blue markers to signify important Trait/Skill tests, and Red markers to indicate opportunities for combat. At the table, I used Trello on my iPad to actually run the game.

When the group came together, I got the game started quickly by having each of the players choose one of the Rippers Resurrected Archetypes. I felt this was the best way to "Quick Start" the game (even though my players usually really enjoy crafting their own PCs). I wanted to run this as a One Shot - then if they enjoyed it, I would look at ways of letting them customise their PCs going forward.

Like most games, nothing went "according to plan" - and I forgot some stuff, and the players took the story in their own directions (which I compensated for and totally let them run with it). The Bennies flowed fast and furious as well. So much wonderful role-playing and action:

* Ben's mysterious female noble (Akasha) had her butler, Jeeves, on hand to do everything for her - including hand her weapons and drive her between locations (even when those locations were only 20 feet apart). At one point, she ordered Jeeves to "buy Whitechapel Police Station" so as to "make these lackeys more cooperative".

* Robyn's priest leapt into every battle with gusto. The first combat ended very swiftly when he rolled four (4) sixes in a row for damage on a single wild card NPC. Slice & dice explosion! That's what I love about Savage Worlds!

* Jir's "James Jimmy Cowboy" was both virtuous and lecherous - sometimes within a single scene. His scenes with "Lady Katherine" (NPC) were hilarious.

The only downside is that it was a 5 hour game (where I usually prefer 3.5 to 4 hours maximum). This was probably because some of the players were new to the rules system, but also because I hadn't GM'd a LIVE game for over a year, so my timing was off. But we finished the scenario and everybody said they enjoyed it and would come back for more!

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