Douglas E. Berry

I'm reading Eckhart Frahm's Assyria - The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire. It's a little farther back and further east than my usual realm of studies, but the Assyrians, in all their periods, were such a massive influence on cultures in every direction that I thought it worth my time to read at least a good survey of the topic. Plus, I got it for my birthday.

It's fascinating to see how power ebbed and flowed over the centuries, how different kings handled things, and how their neighbors dealt with a neighbor alternately on the ropes and overthrowing their rulers.

But one thing that struck me as a worldbuilder and game master was the practice of godnapping. Invading temples and stealing the sacred statues of the gods (and presumably all those lovely offerings) and bringing them back to Ashur or Nineveh or wherever the current capital was. As these statues were assumed to have divine properties equal to the Hebrew Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of the Temple in Jerusalem, the taking of those icons could be devastating to the morale of a city.

To put this in context for a fantasy setting, just as the Hebrews saw the sanctity of the Tabernacle as vital to their relationship with YHWH, so would these Mesopotamian/Anatolian cities see their idols. It could be that these statues were the method through which the deities communicated with their priests and allowed their power to flow. Most fantasy systems have some check on the power of the gods in the material world to stop it from being a constant war in which humanity gets crushed like ants, after all.

So stealing the idol of Ishtar from the temple in Babylon could deny the goddess's benefits to the Babylonians, but might even give the Godnappers a chance to "adopt" the goddess into their pantheon! Bringing a consecrated statue and its accouterments back to your city, building a temple or sub-temple, or an extension to the temple of the same/similar deity of the same general portfolio, might draw the divine energy away from the original worshippers to your empire.

Bronze Age strategic bombing!

The adventure possibilities here should be clear. Stealing or recovering these statues or at least "decommissioning" them before they can be installed in an enemy temple. Of course, most of these statues were 4 or 5 meters tall and weighed several tons...

As we say, further events are left up to the Game Master.

On my gaming bookshelf, I have about 14" of space dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, most of it official WOTC stuff plus some stuff I've picked up on various Kickstarters. I've been playing various forms of D&D since 1978 or so. And I can't do it anymore. I can no longer keep making excuses for the glaring problems with class & level systems. Allow me to begin.

This is a brief summary of the jobs I've had as an adult: light weapons infantry, car wash worker (all positions), retail sales (several times), airport shuttle van driver and dispatcher, commercial truck driver, forklift operator, limousine dispatcher, and now school crossing guard.

What character class am I? Even if you just focus on my years as an infantryman, the skills involved went far beyond the core responsibilities of killing people and breaking things. I, for example, learned enough about how the company supply room worked to earn a secondary MOS as a Small Unit Supply Specialist. We are all like that, no matter what our main focus is, we've all picked up weird side skills from hobbies and old jobs.

Class systems lock you into an identity; you are a Fighter, or a Wizard, or a Rockerboy. Your options are limited by design. This means that your game options are likewise limited. D&D5e uses class options to offer more variety, but it still becomes a straightjacket. This has also led to an explosion of class options which has become almost as bad as the nightmare that Feats became in D&D3/3.5 and Pathfinder 1st. The end result is players show up at the table with an esoteric build depending on options given in some third-party book. This results in arguments and destroyed campaigns. I have seen this happen.

Next, we have Levels. As a mechanic to mark progress and increase the power levels it works, to a point. But most systems also tie new abilities to level increases, so very quickly the characters are nigh-unstoppable by any normal force. Which requires ramping up the threats in an ever-escalating arms race. The game becomes the same melee with changing faces. Enough about them, they simply are a kludge.

Finally, and strap in for this one. . . Hit Points.

I hate hit points as they are presented in most class&level games. To understand how low this has been an issue, I think the first defense and attempt to tweak hit points was when The Dragon was still in single-digit issues. Hit points date back to D&D's ancestral miniature gaming roots. When one figure represents a unit of Athenian hoplites, or Napoleonic Grenadiers, or whatever, a set number that counts down to when that unit is no longer combat capable for whatever reason makes sense. They may have died, been wounded, run off, whatever. It doesn't matter in the context of the game.

But when you are playing a single person of flesh and blood, wounds matter. Bleeding matters. Having the shoulder of your sword arm crushed by a mace, matters. This is all ignored with hit points. Joe the Fighter can start a fight with 75 hit points. Six rounds later, he's been ripped by massive claws, hit with a jet of flame, and been hit by six arrows. He's down to 3 hit points.

AND HE'S FUCKING FINE! He isn't holding his intestines in place, he isn't limping on a horrifically burned leg, and he's not coughing up blood from the arrows in his lungs. Joe will fight at absolute full capacity until he drops to 0 hp. There are no consequences to combat. Combat with hit point systems aren't combat, they're whittling contests devoid of any consideration of tactical thinking. Everyone just min/maxes their attack. The reason the joke about Warlocks always using Eldritch Blast is funny is because it is true. I've played a Hexblade Warlock, and I had no other effective combat option at my disposal.

So done with it. What are you replacing it with, you might ask if you've read this far?

Runequest - Adventuires in Glorantha

It's a skill-based system with no classes. There are professions, and some of them are combat builds, but everyone is a well-rounded character coming into the game. Honestly, playing someone who was a herder and got swept up into the wars against the Lunar Empire and is now seeking his fortune is far closer to the Hero's Journey. One of the more intriguing pre-generated characters in the Starters Kit is Narres Runepainter, an initiate of Eurmal, the Trickster. She was trained to tattoo the dead to prepare them for their journey to the Underworld. She's not a combat monster but has some useful magic and very useful skills.

Combat in Runequest is brutal. Every character has total hit points (work with me here) and hit points in seven hit locations, head, chest, abdomen, and arms and legs. Taking damage to these areas not only lowers your total but has very real consequences. For example, Narres has 14 total hit points, and location hit points:

Head: 5
Chest: 6
Abdomen: 5
R/L Arms: 4 each
R/L Legs: 5 each

Narres does not wear armor. So if a Red Earth pirate hits her right arm with a broadsword doing 8 points of damage, not only does that come off her total, having taken twice the locations total, she falls incapacitated. One hit. But it gets worse! Runequest has what are called "spacial" results if your to-hit roll is 20% of what was required. So if your weapon skill is 80%, a 16 or below is a special hit. This can get nasty, as damage is doubled and all sorts of fun can ensue. For example, if you thrust your spear at a Dark Troll, get a special success, and score enough damage to get past his armor, your spear is stuck in the troll.

RQ demands tactical thinking, using ranged weapons and magic first, and always having the option to run away. There are also rules for the shield wall (something I've never seen in another TTRPG) and challenging leaders to single combat.

So there you have it. Why I'm done with class & level systems and whitling down hit points.

I've been seeing a lot of ads for people who do character portraits, and they are awesome. But there's a problem. They're all so clean and heroic.

If I got a portrait done of one of my characters, and I usually play fighter-types, he'd be tired. His armor would be patched, his sword stained, and his hair and beard would be kind of scraggly. He'd be sitting on a wall or rock leaning on his worse-for-wear shield. The look on his face would say "Fuck your 'long rest' wizard girl, I'm taking a few days. Or not. *sigh* Mount up, that lich ain't going away without help."

Because I was an infantryman. This is how warriors look.

Several years ago I came out as a reformed gearhead. I put aside detailed TTRPG design systems that designed vehicles down to the last bolt, planets down to the fifth decimal place, and weapons in excruciating detail. Because I realized that almost nobody cared.

Things in games should be useful and can be covered in pretty general terms most of the time. "The grav truck can hit 500kph and cannot normally make orbit," "Frelbog's gravity is a bit heavy, and the air is breathable, but soup-like with humidity" or "It's a blaster. It can reach out to 60 meters and does x dice of damage."

I've now gone that route with my taste in rules systems. As the great Ernie Harwell said: "The game's the thing. That's why people tune in. They don't tune in to hear an announcer." Nor do players come to a game to explore the rules. They come to game. So I've been drawing back from rules-heavy games like D&D5e in favor of games like Savage Worlds Adventure Edition or FATE.

What I'm looking for is faster, innovative gameplay that puts the player in control, and encourages more than "I swing my longsword at the orc" in combat. A game that gives players agency in what happens next. Also, something flexible, so we can go from playing Elvish Pirates of the Carbibean campaign to Space Truckers! without having to relearn systems.

For this, I think Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is my best shot. An easy to learn character generation system with plenty of options, I love the characteristics being die types (you have a d8 in Smarts and a d6 in Vigor, for example,) and the use of a deck of playing cards for initiative and other things is quite innovative, as it's not just the card you draw, but the suite affects what happens that round. Combat is fast and action-packed.

One thing I am totally stealing from FATE is Aspects for places, things, and anything else. In short, these are short descriptive items that highlight some way the environment can be used, for good or ill, by both the GM and the players. As an example, the lost temple of Yu-Kargzant can be described like this:

The temple is being reclaimed by the jungle. Thick vines cling to the walls and hang from holes in the broken roof. On a dais in the center of the circular room, a large golden statue of a horse with a fiery mane stands. Parts of the walls and roof have collapsed, creating irregular piles of rubble.

Everything in bold is an aspect and can be used by a player. You can do the same with NPC tavern keepers or starship captains. A few short sentences that give him or her a few aspects to play with. It's a very useful system and a great shortcut for the GM.

Luckily for me, one of my Kickstarter backings was a port of Pathfinder to Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, and I should be getting those rewards soon. It's going to be a big box.

Gaming soon, I hope.

I've got the itch again. I want to run a game for a local group. I'm ready to go back to Traveller. Specifically, Mongoose Traveller v2. And the campaign I want to run is my old Finders, Incorporated campaign.

The premise is simple enough. Space is huge, and things and people get lost. Finders, Inc. locates those items and returns them to the client, or at least issues a complete report on why the target could not be recovered. Recovery operations fall into a few categories:

• Skip Tracing Starships are massively expensive and meeting the mounting costs of loan payments and maintenance fees, plus fuel costs, crew salaries, etc., are sometimes more than the owner can handle. So they bugger off, changing transponders, forging ship papers, and trying to put as much distance between them and the bank as they can.
  
  Skip tracing brings in the biggest bounties, as recovery is usually measured in a portion of the ship's value. Of course, shipowners that have skipped out on their payments are not going to hand over the keys when asked politely. Getting a ship back requires planning, guile, and in the end, violence most of the time.



• Bounty Hunting This isn't just tracking down fugitives from justice but tracking down anyone who has fled their usual situation. The heir to a planetary throne who ran off with the servant she fell in love with; the archeologist who went missing in the Trojan Reach and his family and university has posted a reward; a megacorp executive who has fled is suspected of trying to defect to a rival. . . all are fair game along with the usual criminals on the run.
  
  Of course, laws differ from world to world, so getting your target back on the ship might be an adventure in itself! Again, Skill trumps violence in this case, for the most part. It's Traveller, the guns will come out at some point.



• Objects of Art or Historical Value Things get stolen, lost, or misrouted all the time.Tracking down a minor Imperial Count's heirloom chair can be quite rewarding. Recovering a lost masterpiece by one of the Vegan (the race, not the dietary option) master sculptors? Priceless. Finders might also be sent to search for obscure legal papers, family genbn=anks, or anything under the 11,000 suns of the Third Imperium.
  
  Each of these adventures will be a bit different. Recovering a stolen art piece from a crimelord's mansion will be different from getting access to the centuries-old archives of Strouden's family records. As a GM, I could've fun putting a rare bottle of Terran wine at the center of a firefight.



• Debt Collection The reality of interstellar commerce means that debtors can avoid judgments from courts on different planets. The Imperium steps in these cases and will issue writs ordering the payment of the debt or seizure of assets to be auctioned off. Finders, Inc., is one of the companies bonded by the Imperium to carry out these writs.
  
  If you want to know how much fun this can be, look up Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away on YouTube.



• "Special" Missions Sometimes, Finders get handed a mission so sensitive they don't even know what they are after. These usually come from the heights of power, A Count-Elector, the Imperial Navy, or a Megacorporation Regional Vice-President; and usually come with an NPC who oversees the mission. These can be quite nasty and even be used for deniable black ops. In which case, the Finders crew better realize that dead sophonts can't spill the beans and guard their collective lives.

The campaign would be episodic, so there would be downtime between assignments rather than continuous "what are you doing this week?" push. Four Player-characters would be optimal, with a mix of investigators, starship skills, and combat abilities.

I'd be looking to play every 2-4 weeks, based on everyone's schedule.

One of the toughest questions in assembling a TTRPG group has to be "why are you all working together?" The usual random assortment of races (some of which hate each other,) classes and goals can make it hard to understand why this team doesn't just split the spoils and got their own way after the first big score.

I'm going to discuss one of my favorite methods, and I was inspired to do this after being reminded of the story of ibn Battuta, a 14th-century scholar and lawyer from Tangiers who set out to spend a year or two doing the Hajj and came home 26 years later having seen much of the world. You can see an amusing take on his adventures in these videos. The idea of the traveler in distant lands isn't a new one, we do have Marco Polo and Pánfilo de Narváez as excellent examples of this sort of adventure.

But it rarely shows up in TTRPGs for some reason. This is a shame because you can have so much fun and take the player-characters to new lands where new and interesting things will try to eat them! Or enslave them or get them involved in a plot to overthrow the evil snake people. . . you get my drift.

I'll admit that his sort of game does require a bit more world-building than mapping out yet another dungeon, but there are so many good, detailed settings, not to mention the real world, that the diligent GM just needs to fill in the blanks on the map. Pick a starting point, pick the initial endpoint, and add in a few side trips and you're off!

As an example, using the real world, let's say one player, a low-level cleric in Aachen, is charged with carrying a case of letters from the Archbishop to a church synod happening in Constantinople. This is when Session Zero becomes very important. We need to add each character to this group and give them a reason to join the trek all the way to the end. A fighter might be attached to the Archbishop's guard and be sent as protection. A ranger might be hired to scout the way. An arcane magic use might be friends or related to one of the established characters, you see how this is going.

The best part is you can use these character motivations to establish side trips along the way. The Wizard might offer her services in exchange for a side trip to Prague, City of Mages, so she can call on her order's home and make a report. Which becomes an adventure in itself! You can do this for each character, which gives each of their players starring roles as you go along.

What happens when the party finally reaches Constantinople and delivers the goods? Well, after some adventures in the Queen of Cities where they foil a plot to kill everyone at the synod, they might learn that the Princes of Rajputana are offering money, titles, and land to anyone who comes to help them finally end the threat of the Rakshasa Lords.

Of course, once they accomplish that, they'll be shown an opportunity to travel even further in pursuit of a greater goal, and so on.

Running this game almost cries out for a flow chart, as you can use it to track not only each stage of each journey but also those lovely side trips that are going to be half the fun. Using a flowchart lets you plan for how to move the party back on track, and how to maneuver them into places you need them to be without railroading them. If the next major waypoint is the City of Screaming Statues, does it matter if they walk in, arrive in a stolen pirate ship, or emerge from a cave after sacking the Derrow stronghold?

You can also build in something that is very important: stumbling blocks. All three of the great voyagers I mentioned gained and lost as they traveled. That needs to happen to the party. They are shipwrecked, and all their armor and ger except for a few precious items are lost. The Mad ilKhan imprisons them, and they escape with nothing but the clothes on their backs and few spears. Steal their money, steal their goodies, and leave them to figure out a way to climb back on top again.

Also plan for the players to pause for a time, especially if they get good jobs. The DMG has good rules for this, but wintering in a fortified inn, or waiting out a religious festival are other reasons to slow them down if need. Illness, war, and insurrection are always good, especially if they trigger an uprising against foreigners (guess who our characters are in this instance?)

Finally, one great strength of this type of game, is it allows players and characters to come and go with relative ease to the ongoing story. If Mike is tired of playing his Rogue, that character announcing he's from the city they are in and retires. Easy enough to introduce a new character in the next stop on the itinerary.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The latest DLC for Civilization VI dropped last week. We got as a new Civilization, Babylon, under the benevolent rule of Hammurabi. Just finished my first game with him, Diplomacy Win in 1974. Large map, Prince difficulty.

Each civilization and leaders have different strengths and weaknesses. For Babylon, it all comes down to Eurkas. As you research new technologies, or just play the game, certain actions or events will give you a boost to specific technologies. Kill a unit with a slinger, get a boost to Archery. Settle on a coast tile, gain insights on Sailing, and so forth. Such boosts can influence your decisions on research and planning. For example, if you find iron in your borders, building a mine on it not only starts your stockpile of iron but gives a Eureka for Iron Working.

Hammurabi changes that. Now, gaining a Eureka grants the technology. Which leads to some spectacular leaps up the technology tree. The problem is effectively making use of these new discoveries. But this comes at a price, as the usual Science generated by your civilization is cut by half, giving you longer research times. It makes for a nice balance.

I found that strategically building Campuses for maximum science output, building every wonder that increased science, and taking policy cards that increased science helped balance the 50% cut. But when playing Babylon, getting Great Scientists is your goal. Each of them gives 2-3 Eurekas when activated. So building Holy Sites just to harvest Faith for buying scientists out from other leaders is a strong plan. Also, build a strong economy.

One very nice new feature, the game scoring system now recognizes that playing peacefully is worth rewarding. My only war came when Trajan declared war on me due to an Alliance. But he was on another continent and my Missile Crusier made short work of his frigates.

I just added Cyberpunk 2077 to my Amazon wishlist and it got me to thinking about the great times I had playing Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun. Great games, the both of them.

But there was always one thing that bogged down the sessions. The Netrunner. Yeah, early-80s conceptions of what netspace was going to look like aside, the game bogged down when one player need the full attention of the Gamemaster to deeply attack programs and fight deadly ICE programs. While the rest of us sat around wishing Wizards of the Coast would hurry and invent Magic: the Gathering so we'd have something to do during those sessions.

If I were ever to run a cyberpunk game again, and it's not out of the question, here's what I'd do. Netrunners are wizards. They are holed up in a safe space with all their gear and a phalanx of guards and security around them. They are otaku, focused entirely on pushing the net to its limits and fighting anyone, corporation, or government, who tries to keep secrets. Money isn't a concern to them, they crave more and better access to the global network. They are mysterious, powerful, and you street scum don't get to see the electric Sheep, you talk to a fixer who tells you if the Sheep is in the mood to help you. Of course, you'll owe him a favor. . .

Of course, there are street hackers. These are the young and desperate, hauling cobbled-together attack decks and scrounging for every break they can find. But even they hole up when its time for the action to start. Helping a street netrunner get into the lower ranks of the true 'runner community can give the team a useful contact and patron. Doing work for an established Netrunner might draw them into a web of obligations. And when two established netrunners go to war, their organizations do too.

I think this adds an interesting faction to a cyberpunk setting while removing a game-stopping mechanic. The GM decides if the runner succeeds or fails based on story needs.

So, what do y'all think? Have I reinvented the wheel, again?

C’mon in! Sit down! This will just take a few minutes. First of all, I’m supposed to welcome you to the TransGalaxy family. So welcome. I hate that part, after all, you’ve already signed the contract, right? I mean, the recruiter made sure you did that first thing before sending you to me, right?. You’d be amazed at how many potentials walk in here without a signed contract. Anyway, you signed, you’re part of the family. For five years, with an option to extend. Wish my marriages worked like that!

That’s a joke, son. Relax! Let me pull up your file and get you set up with a ship. Hmm. . . Kid, none of my business, and we’re happy to help folks start over, but ‘John Smith’ is hardly a good fake name to go by and. . .

Really? John Smith III is your real name? Hell, you want something better? I can set you up easy enough, I know some people. . . hey, no need to get touchy, just offering! I’m so used to new hires getting creative with their names. You caught me by surprise there. Almost refreshing not to be speaking with another “Jason Starkiller” or “Nebula Jones.”

So what do we have? Hm. Eight years in the Colonial Legion as an Assaultman qualified on this weapons system and that instrument of destruction. . . son, you are aware we’re a shipping line, right? On-board ship security? We usually use ex-Federation security goons for those roles. Frankly, you’re more “seek and destroy” than “protect and serve,” know what I mean?

Hey, no need to look down, my boy! Know why I fly the Assignments desk? Because I have an eye for talent, for putting the right people in the right job. And you, you fine young fellow, you, are going to be a hit as a Delta Bulldog.

You don’t have a clue what I just said. OK, here’s how it breaks down: TransGalaxy is the biggest name in interstellar transport. We serve over a thousand inhabited star systems belonging to seven intelligent species besides humans, along with sanctioned contacts with the occasional intelligent machine cluster. Shipping is broken down into four basic classes.

Alpha is the top of the line, the big luxury passenger cruisers and high-end bulk transports. Those are the ones you see in the ads. Top of line everything. Crew standards are insanely high. These ships go only to systems that meet the 3S standard: settled, stable, and safe. Ever see that old series Action Aboard!? Shot on the ISCV King Richard, one of our Alpha liners. Yeah, that was a real ship.

Then you have your Beta ships. Almost as good as the Alphas, but smaller and working the areas that are still mostly safe with less-critical cargoes and passengers not needing the red carpet treatment. Crewmen on a Beta are busting their asses to get good enough evaluations to move up to Alphas. Still a good slot.

Up next are the Gammas. Gammas do the less profitable regular runs to colony worlds that are close to the fringe. Gammas also do hazardous jobs like refinery tows and the like. Work hard in the Gammas and you can go places! I myself spent almost 12 years pushing a Gamma along the edges of Stork space. Yeah, that’s where I got the artificial arms and eye.

Now you’ve been slumping down in the chair as I’ve told you this and you’re thinking “what the hell does being a Delta mean?” I’ll be honest. It’s not all glory and big tips like an Alpha, but that five-year hitch will fly by because as a Bulldog, you’ll be right on the edges of known space, going to places most people have never heard of! Yes, it’s dangerous, but with great risk comes great rewards! Company bonuses aside, the, um, high rate of turnover in most crews means you could quickly find yourself captain of your own ship! Stop laughing. What was that?

Fine. Deltas tend to die a lot. Happier now? But I’m not lying about the opportunities! Now, let’s see who needs a warm body. . . Ah! The Driver Carries No Cash just docked and needs, well, a new crew. Mostly.

Mr. Smith! Pleasing stop shouting, you’ll disturb my coworkers! You signed a contract, sir, and TransGalaxy will enforce all the terms of it to the letter! I can assure you that the ship’s artificial intelligence was purged after the incident you are referring to, and we’ve had no trouble since then. What happened this time? Let me see here. Huh, that’s a new one. Cargo escaped and ate most of the crew. Odd, since it was hauling mineral samples. But you see why this is the job for you, right? Had you been there, your combat skills would have come in handy, yes? We call these ships and their crews Bulldogs because they might be ugly, but they never give up! Docking Bay C-54, Bulldog Smith, your captain is waiting for you. Good luck! Our security team will help you find your way and see you safely aboard.

Oh, on your way out, could you send the next prospect in? It’s a busy day.

Bulldogs is a space opera game of blasters and swashbuckling, as the crew of a tramp freighter tries to make a credit her and there working on the bottom of the food chain. TransGalaxy isn't picky about the crews they hire for their Deltas, so long as you have a pulse (or functioning power plant, or ichor ducts, or whatever) and are not actively being chased by the cops when you sign up, TG will take you. Because odds are you'll be dead before they pay out the end of contract bonus.

Obviously, this will be a game with a humorous bent. Think Quark, Red Dwarf, Buck Godot. We will be using the FATE-derived system, which I will share on request. You'll need to be able to log in with a sound device, and a camera would be nice. I may ask for donations to my account to help me buy the cool things to make the Roll20 experience better.

I plan on having a session twice a month, 3-5 hours. Days and times are open for negotiation. We will need to meet for a character creation session as it's a cooperative thing in FATE. Looking for 4-5 players, and I'm pretty sure one slot is already filled (Hi Logic!) Hopefully we'll get this rolling in September or October.

Questions? Answers? I'd like to keep them in one place, so no matter where you read this if you could leave a comment on my Dreamwidth that'd be great. I do allow anonymous commenting, just sign your posts.

I'd love to either run or play in an RPG campaign that starts with a shipwreck. The characters have whatever the can salvage and have no idea where they are.

The nice thing about this is the campaign push and pull are really clear from the start. Find a way back home, and survive. You can throw in all the classic Lost World tropes. Dinosaurs (ridden by lizardmen, natch,) lost cities from fallen empires, noble savages (mortal enemies of the lizardmen, of course) Sorceror Kings, and a slowly advancing menace that must be stopped!

And volcanoes. Gotta have volcanoes. Where else is the female PC going to be threatened with a sacrifice to the local gods?

This would probably work best with a smaller group and a low level of magic. Too much magic makes escaping easy. Of course, I could always have made the storm a magical one, and the Lost World is in the Bermuda Triangle or whatever.

This would be perfect for Savage Worlds; if I could just get anyone to play it!

Plenty of inspiration, of course. Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" and all its adaptations, "Lost," "Land of the Lost," and the entire run of DC's Warlord. Hey, the Hollow Earth is always good for this!

So, a game set in the early 30s or roaring twenties, a crew of strong-jawed stereotypes, a Lost World, and an evil sorcerer-king to overthrow.

A great Golden Age SF/F pulp adventure!

So, what era stereotypes need to be in the game?