Seal the Rift! Savage Worlds Playtest 1

On June 25, we completed the first Savage Worlds playtest of our new Kith’takharos adventure, Seal the Rift! Because the playtest was completed in only one session, we were not able to include every aspect of the adventure. We bypassed the adventure hook to get the characters right into the action, and employed some “cut scenes” to speed things along. Still, the playtest fulfilled its primary goals: testing some of the adventure’s Savage Worlds rules and giving players a chance to have a few hours of fun.

The playtest occurred online via the Fantasy Grounds software and Ventrilo for voice. Some players had never used Fantasy Grounds, some had never used Savage Worlds, and some fit both categories. We provided PCs and got the players quickly up to speed. This process was aided by the uniformly high quality of the players, any of whom I would be happy to have in my campaigns.

We had the following platesters.

• Tenkar, proprietor of Tenkar’s Tavern.
• Joshuha Owen, who has coded some Fantasy Grounds rulesets and played with us in the past through Fantasy Grounds.
• Owen Nelson, a colleague of mine at the Ringling College of Art + Design.
• Tyson Hayes, of Apathy Games.

None of the players were familiar with one another, which hindered their cohesiveness and contributed to a particularly difficult battle. Yet they used their characters well, stayed in character, and came up with a couple of interesting approaches that we had not considered. This is good; I’d be disappointed if the only ways to succeed were methods we had anticipated.

Everyone had fun, which is the bottom line.

We will probably perform additional Savage Worlds playtesting to encompass things that were skipped in this playtest. But we have enough information to move ahead and hope to have at least one version of the adventure available in mid-July.