Free RPG - Mini Six: Bare Bones Edition (Open d6)

I enjoyed the West End Games version of Star Wars decades ago. The inheritor of the mantle was the D6 System, which years later became an Open D6 System under the OGL.

Mini Six: Bare Bones Edition distills the Open D6 System into a mere 36-page document. All for the price of FREE!

Mini Six is a slimmed-down version of the original OpenD6 game system. It is a multi-genre RPG that focuses on handling action-oriented games with a light-to-medium amount of "crunch." It serves as a toolkit for designing your own games and has been used as the engine of several published games by third-parties through the use of the Open Game License.

The basic mechanics and character creation are covered in the first few pages. Stock NPCs, creatures, vehicles for a variety of genres, a simple magic system, optional rules, and conversion guidelines for mixing in standard OpenD6 materials round out the middle of the book.

Mini Six Bare Bones Edition finishes with five nearly ready to play mini-settings which showcase some of the possibilities of the system.

• Perdition: Space Cowboys surviving on the edge of the frontier.
• Rust Moon of Castia: Classic Fantasy
• Farnsley's Phantasm Investigations: Spook hunting in the Victorian Age.
• Precinct '77: Busting punks in an homage to 70's and 80's cop shows.
• Imperium in Revolt: Rebels against the Imperium in classic space op

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Kickstarter - D6 System: Second Edition

The classic West End Games ruleset returns in an updated and licensed new multi-genre rulebook!

Somewhere, packed away, is my WEG Star Wars rulebook. I don't think I ever ran it. Not because it was a bad system, but because my gaming group didn't have any major Star Wars fans, so the draw just wasn't there.

Fast forward a few decades and Open D6 hits the market (essentially the Star Wars RPG with the serial numbers scratched off and multi genre) , with the PDFs available for free and the print core books fairly inexpensive. I won them all, and have played a small amount of Open d6 at conventions, but I still haven't run the system.

The D6 System: Second Edition Kickstarter is 20 bucks in PDF and 50 bucks in Print plus PDF.

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Open D6 System Books on Priced at 1.79

I don't think I truly appreciated the potential for the D6 system back when I ran WEG Star Wars in the late 80s. After WEG lost the Star Wars license, they used the core D6 system for other genres. 

You can get the self-standing genre books for the Open d6 System for 1.79 each in PDF.

D6 Fantasy

D6 Space

D6 Adventure

I really need to run an Open D6 Game in the future. The system is simple and natural.

I'll be highlighting free and cheap RPG options over the next week or so...

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Gareth Sharka Releases - Star System: Every Star A Destination - Still No Far West update over 12 Months Later

 Ah, sweet, sweet Gareth. No time to work on Far West. Time, however, to work on and release Star System: Every Star A Destination. 24.99 for PDF, 24.99 in Print, 24.99 in Print plus PDF.

BACK INTO THE BLACK...

The writers and editors behind some of your favorite releases for the greatest space-fantasy RPG of all time return to the D6 System!

Former West End Games Star Wars Creative Director Eric S. Trautmann assembles an all-star bullpen of veteran D6 System writers, including:

Bill Smith (Line Editor, The Star Wars Roleplaying Game.)

Peter Schweighofer (Editor, The Star Wars Adventure Journal.)

Timothy S. O'Brien (Pirates & Privateers.)

Drew Campbell (Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids.)

Gareth-Michael Skarka (D6 Space: Ships.)

Michael Kogge (Star Wars Adventure Journal.)

Wayne Humfleet (Heroes & Rogues.)

...together again to bring you an anthology of eight brand-new D6 System-compatible space-fantasy adventures.  Each scenario is ready to be dropped into any existing campaign, or used to launch a new one!

Visit scenic Tekazzil, home to a royal society that views laws as optional and profit as king; slog through alien jungles in search of an ancient artifact... and the lunatic who hopes to find it first; battle octopoid pirates above the gas giant Arx; try to survive an ancient ghost ship trapped in a ruined sector of space; witness the fearsome might and utter horror of a planet of bureaucrats; avoid being caught in the fatal crossfire between vicious university academics; battle for survival against a brutal race, long believed to be extinct; and join a rag-tag fleet of xenoecologists as they attempt to preserve a pod of galactic leviathans...

The galaxy is vast and unforgiving... especially on the edges of known space.  Out there, a willingness to risk it all can be the key to survival. Every flight means danger, every landing field, starport, or orbital base can be the line between life and death.

EVERY STAR A DESTINATION

PDF and Print Edition are the same price -- and if you order the Print Edition, you get the PDF for FREE! Included with the PDF are a set of bonus files with all of the handouts, references and templates, ready to print.

This adventure anthology is the first of Adamant Entertainment's new line, STAR SYSTEM, a series of epic space-fantasy releases intended for use with any game using the classic D6 System. Follow Adamant on Twitter (@adamantent) to stay informed about new releases! (but not Far West. Never Far West)

 

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Gareth Skarka gives a Big F-You to his Far West Backers

Ah, Gareth. To know you is to seriously dislike you. Far West funded just over 9 years ago. 9 fucking years. In 4 short months, Far West will be 9 years late. No update in over a year. A forum that you can't register on. You make Conman Ken look like a Far West preacher.

So, what do we get to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the funding of Far West? A new scheme from Garth. Details are light, but I took some screenshots of the gif Gareth Shared on Facebook.

Make of it what you will, but its certainly a "Fuck You!" to backers of the Far West Kickstarter. BTW, Gareth, if you are still looking to "punch me in the throat", aim for the left side. That carotid artery is completely occluded. You might actually do me a favor ;) 

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OSR Humble Bundle for as little as a buck!

Kickstarter - Vikingr: A D6-based Viking RPG (Open d6)

This is going to be a "Kickstarter Weekend". I'm peeking at lots of them and more than a few have stuck out.

Vikingr: A D6-based Viking RPG Kickstarter

Why, when I've already backed Dragon Heresy (which I'm really looking forward to) would I be peeking at another Viking themed RPK Kickstarter?

First, it uses the Open d6 ruleset. I like the Open d6 ruleset.

Second, the PDF backing level is about 7 bucks. That's the price of a beer at my pub (thank God for buybacks ;)

Third - POD plus PDF is 12 bucks plus cost via OBS - about 18 total for the Soft Cover and 22 for the Hard Cover - plus shipping.

Vikingr 
n. Any of the Scandinavian pirates who plundered the coasts of Europe from the 8th to 10th centuries. 

The Vikings (as we now call them) have held a huge grip on the imaginations of writers, film makers and in fact everyone for many hundreds of years.  This makes the Vikings (or Vikingar as they were originally known) a rich source of inspiration for RPG's. 

Some people prefer a strictly historical game, others a semi-mystical game similar.  Yet others desire to run a game styled after Beowulf or maybe even a game set in a fairly standard fantasy world but in the northern "viking-like" regions.   

Whatever your preferred Viking game, this is the ruleset for you.  Based on the free D6 ruleset from West End Games, we give you all of the rules needed, Hero creation, Ships, Warbands, Gods, Omens and Runes, Scandinavian monsters and myths and much more.  Fast and cinematic, this game will see your Heroes pillaging, cleaving and rampaging in no time!

Far West Update - One Year Later - The New Hope

Gareth gave us an update on the Far West Kickstarter this afternoon - exactly one year AFTER his last update. I'm surprised to say that today's update leaves me hopeful that this project will actually complete. Yes, I find it really strange to say that. Open d6 is a solid system and is probably a better fit than many of the alternatives. If only this turn of events had happened sooner.

Gareth says he will be sharing regular updates and plans for the PDF to be in our hands by the end of July. My birthday is July 30th. I'll withhold judgment until then. I mean, what's another missed delivery date for Far West in the grand scheme of things ;)

Update #234 

May 1 2018

A Long-Overdue Update on FAR WEST -- or: What the hell have you been doing, Gareth?

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be doing an update until I had a major delivery ready… that the incremental “I’m still working” updates didn’t tell anybody anything new – and wouldn’t convince folks who don’t believe that’s the case. So, doing them seemed like a waste of time. Plus, being completely honest, dealing with the minority of hyper-critical voices had led me to view those updates with growing anxiety. I wrestle with depression & anxiety quite a bit – so I made the choice to avoid a source of it.

However, a twitter discussion with a backer has convinced me otherwise – you folks deserve to know what’s going on. So here we are. I’ll just cut to the chase:

What’s been going on?

I’ve been completely redesigning FAR WEST, from top to bottom.

…

I’m sure that a lot of you are now utterly convinced that I’m crazy. Maybe so.

Allow me to explain.

…

Last summer, a friend of mine died. An industry colleague, a guy I’d known for decades, who I’d first met when I was living in Atlanta in the late 80s. More pursuant to this update, however – he was one of the folks who’d stepped up to help me get FAR WEST completed.

He died suddenly – no indication of ill health. There one minute, then gone.

My first reaction, to my shame, was to worry about what this meant for FAR WEST.

Yeah. I felt pretty awful for thinking like that. Still do.

But then, I found myself dwelling on the fact that he was gone so suddenly, with so many plans left unfulfilled. Not just his helping me – he had a bunch of things he was doing, which now would never be done. He was just gone. You know that I’ve had my own brushes with mortality – most recently in 2014. I kept thinking about that. I went into a pretty major depression.

One of the things that I realized during this period was that I wasn’t happy with FAR WEST. I kept coming back to the idea that it was so late, that the delays had been so long… and I asked myself: When you finally release it, will you be proud of it? Will you feel that it was worth the time that it took?

The answer was no.

I tried to avoid looking at that answer. At this point in the process, I couldn’t face that answer, really. If the answer really was “no, I’m not proud of it – I don’t actually like what I’ve got here” – then what the hell was the next step? I felt as though I was committed, at this point.

I had long talks about this with my wife, Laura, and my partner at Adamant Entertainment, Eric Trautmann, and both of them ended up saying variations of the same thing (paraphrasing here): “It’s already late. Make it something you ARE proud of.”

So I decided to do just that.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I love the setting. A testament to how much I love the world we’ve created here is that I still get excited about it, even after all the anxiety & negative shit that has floated around the delays, etc.

I even love some of the rules design I’ve come up with. But overall, I wasn’t happy with the system. It wasn’t feeling right in play. And I couldn’t get it to where I was satisfied. When I did come up with something that felt right, it would inevitably break some other part of the system. Frustration mounted.

Talking with Eric, he cut through the chaos (he’s really good at that) by asking me “well, what game had more of the feel you’re trying to hit?” And I said the old Star Wars game from West End. (And I wasn’t just stroking Eric’s ego there – he was the Creative Director for Star Wars at West End back in the day – but we’d been talking about the system in discussions on a different project, so it was a common frame of reference.)

Which led to a three-word solution:

Well, why not?

The original system of Star Wars, West End’s D6, is also available as Open Content, a framework in which I was already working. I know how the underlying math works, so I was able to take the rules elements that I was really happy with from the existing FAR WEST design, and port them over for use with D6. And the game plays faster and more cinematically – which is EXACTLY what I was hoping for.

So that’s what’s been happening, since around September of last year. And all of a sudden, I was happy with what I was producing. So that part has worked!

Anyway – this is getting long. I should probably switch to a simple Q&A summary:

When are we going to see this?
I am planning on giving you a completed manuscript (and we’re talking the whole thing, not just the rules) in July – although possibly earlier. (I’m actually shooting for close to my birthday in mid-June, if I can manage it).

What happens next?
  That’s when I turn the manuscript over to Eric for layout. Yes, you read that right – I’m not insisting on doing everything myself. The layout will be largely the same as the existing one (I like the look of it), but I’m handing it off to an actual graphic design professional, who actually knows his stuff, so it will happen a HELLUVA lot faster. Eric designs all of Adamant’s other stuff, and he’s also the graphic designer for comics like LAZARUS, BLACK MAGICK, ATOMIC ROBO graphic novels, etc. (You can read more about his work here: https://www.erictrautmann.us ) Once layout is done, we go to press (and yes, I still have partners helping with that), and you get the full PDF, and then the book.

What can you tell us about the new system?
We’re calling it “D6 PLUS” – the base framework is the Open Content D6 system from West End, which we think are a rock-solid set of rules for fast, cinematic style play. To that framework, we’re adding additional elements (the “Plus” part), drawing from more modern, “story-game” styles of play (as an example, the Spirit & Aspects system from the first version of FAR WEST).

But I liked the system we had!
I’m glad to hear that – and if there’s enough interest, we might go ahead and eventually complete that version, as an alternate rules set. There is also potential for licensed versions using other rules systems as well, down the road, which some folks have already spoken with us about.

How can we see it or play it sooner?
If you want to get a chance to look over the rules, run a few sessions, etc., before the delivery of the full manuscript in the summer, drop me a line at gms@adamantentertainment.com, and I’ll send the rules portion out to you later this month. (It won’t have the setting or game mastering tools, but the rules will be there, enough to create characters and run sessions.) Obviously, this offer is only open to Kickstarter backers and pre-order customers, despite this update being made public.

What about updates? Are you going to go silent again? No, I’m not. I’m committing myself to updating you weekly on what I’ve been doing. Those updates will be public – posted here, and over at my blog (http://gmskarka.com). The day of the week will vary – it depends on my work load that week, stuff going on in my life, etc. But you’ll be hearing from me once a week from now until we’re done.

OK – this thing is already 1200 words long, which is WAY longer than I intended. I’m going to get back to work. I’m available to answer any questions you have – the absolute best ways to contact me are via email at gms@adamantentertainment.com, via Twitter at @gmskarka or via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gmskarka . Those are the methods which I will reliably see, get notification, and be able to respond to the quickest.

As always, I remain forever thankful to you. Thank you for sticking around through my dark days, and believing in me. I can’t wait to show you what you’ve helped to create.

Gareth-Michael Skarka
Lawrence, KS
May 1, 2018

Kickstarter - Talislanta: The Savage Land (and No F@cking Elves!)

I remember the Talislanta ads in Dragon Magazine. The tagline was always "No Elves..."

Well, I bought a copy and although I never played it, i enjoyed reading about this fantasy world that was certain not filled with hobbits and elves and such.

Heck, even when I packed the game away for its trip to storage, ads like the one above were still burned into my synapsis.

Well, Talislanta is back and West End Games has it. Yep, another resurrection from the past, both the game and the publisher.

Talislanta: The Savage Land is the new iteration of Talislanta, coming in three flavors: revised original, D&D 5e and Open d6. Buy in for PDF versions is 5 bucks a system or all three for 10 bucks. Print for one system plus PDF for one is 40 and print for one and PDF for all three is 50.

I'm actually tempted to back for the PDF of the Open d6 version. Ah, who am I kidding? For 5 bucks, I'm backing. ;)

New Email on the West End Games / D6 System Purchase From Stewart Wieck (POD and New Releases in the Works)

It's a new era for West End Games & the Open D6 System!

So, I had this email waiting for me. It looks like good things are in store for the D6 system.

Greetings, perhaps for the first time. I'm Stewart Wieck. I founded White Wolf in 1986 and co-created the World of Darkness and games like Vampire: The Masquerade. I've since sold White Wolf and started my new company, Nocturnal Media. Today, I announced that I've purchased West End Games from Eric Gibson. I published an article about it on the Nocturnal Media website: www.nocturnal-media.com. I hope you'll take a look.

As you've purchased/downloaded D6 product at DTRPG, I hope you'll be excited by the propsect of a D6 System revival. We'll soon make available print-on-demand editions of the core D6 rulebooks like D6 Fantasy and D6 Space. Soon after that, there will be a POD version of Bill Coffin's Septimus. With plenty more to follow, including new titles.

Beyond the D6 System, West End Games will return with new editions of games like Greg Costikyan's Web & Starship, an asymmetrical SF board game first published by WEG in 1984. We'll fund a new edition of that game on Kickstarter starting April 19th.

Speaking of Kickstarter, as a D6 fan, you obviously appreciate cinematic narrative in your roleplaying games, so please consider supporting our current project for Storypath Cards. This project ends in about 24 hours, so don't delay! For only $12 (+$2 outside the US), you can get a deck of tarot-sized cards that encourage and empower players to add to the narrative in any RPG.

I will periodically reach out via DTRPG mail, but if you'd like to remain in a more constant loop of news about D6, West End Games and our plans, then please do any/all of the following:

follow me on Twitter @stewartwieck
"Like" Nocturnal Media on Facebook
"Subscribe For Updates" at the bottom of www.nocturnal-media.com
Thanks for supporting the D6 System in the past. Here's to a bright future!

Nocturnal Media Acquires West End Games

Well, this is interesting news. I know West Ends Games (WEG) had been for sale by Eric Gibson for a while but no one before had been willing to pay the asking price (don't ask me how much, I do not know).

The d6 System has been open and free for years (bundle of free d6 rulesets here) and now Bill Coffin's Septimus Setting is free too (over 360 pages and a fair amount of WEG drama over the years). There will soon be POD versions of the d6 Core books and Septimus which is damn good.

The Open d6 System is a good one. I'm happy it will see some attention in the near future.

As for the man behind Nocturnal Media, it's the original White Wolf himself - Stewart Wieck.

Here's the press release:

NOCTURNAL MEDIA ACQUIRES WEST END GAMES
April 13, 2016
I’m pleased to announce that I have purchased West End Games (WEG). Founded in 1974, WEG initially published a number of wargames and a decade later branched into roleplaying games, including the first Star Wars RPG as well as original (very original!) works, such as Paranoia and Torg.

My nostalgic ties to earlier days of roleplaying games and companies made this opportunity impossible to ignore. I believe WEG stands in the company of other great RPG publishers of the 1980’s and 90’s like my prior company, White Wolf, as well as Chaosium. This is due to the wonderful games WEG published and especially because of the outstanding designers who created those games. In my pre-Vampire: The Masquerade days, I wrote for both Star Wars and Torg and found WEG an extremely hospitable and well-paying home to freelancers.

While the majority of the iconic West End Games properties have already found other homes, WEG still owns the D6 System as well as a handful games, mainly hex-and-counter wargames. The D6 System remains available under an open gaming license as Open D6.

Departing owner of WEG, Eric Gibson told me, “I look forward to a new era, as an eternal fan, for West End Games and related properties.”

While Eric’s efforts to revive WEG after he purchased the company in 2003 didn’t bear the fruit he surely hoped, he served the fans well by putting the D6 System into OGL and by offering the core books as free downloads on DriveThruRPG.com. The three main books D6 Adventure, D6 Fantasy and D6 Space are all as part of the convenient D6 Core Set bundle download.

Also still available as a free download on DriveThruRPG.com following my acquisition of WEG is creator-owned Septimus by Bill Coffin. This enormous Space Opera setting book is 350+ pages long and features cyberpunk, mecha and a huge Dyson Sphere “universe” to explore. The setting is supported by the Septimus QuickStart that includes the introductory adventure “Flight of the Argosy” and four pre-generated characters.

"I am thrilled to see Stewart bring the D6 family of games to new heights, and to new fans," says Bill Coffin. "I know Septimus fans will be excited by this news, and I hope this will be the start of big new things for D6 science fiction gaming."

Plans for the D6 System are still in development, but I invite fans of the system to comment and make suggestions in the Nocturnal Media forums. In the meantime, the long out-of-print core rulebooks will soon have print-on-demand (POD) versions available on DTRPG. A POD version of Septimus will follow shortly thereafter. Other books will surely follow.

To celebrate this rebirth of West End Games, the next Nocturnal Media project on Kickstarter will be a new edition of WEG-great Greg Costikyan’s Web & Starship. First published in 1984, this asymmetrical game was built from the ground up for three players. Published with Greg’s consent and involvement, the new edition will feature higher quality components than the original as well as include a number of tools to ease play, such as a chart of star distances to replace the need for the Range Finder.

The Web & Starship Kickstarter project will launch at noon CST on April 19th. Sign up for notices from Nocturnal Media at the bottom of the home page to receive more news.

My Blizzard Reading Collection - Breachworld, Sword of Air and Stoneheart Valley

If I somehow am not held over at work tomorrow, I will either be stuck at work in all likelihood Tuesday thru Wednesday (assuming I can get to work with the blizzard currently being predicted for NYC) or stuck at home. In either case, I'm preparing reading material.

Breachworld - the "not Rifts RPG." Seriously, it's not, even if it does borrow some of the basic tropes. It's built off of the Mini Six system (which in turn is a variation of the Open D6 System which has it's roots in the old WEG's Star Wars D6) we have a chance to see something Rifts-like with a system that work. Heck, I suspect with minimal work one could run a Rifts campaign using these rules and Rifts Sourcebooks - because we know we didn't use the game system as written anyway.) Yes, I've had a love / hate relationship with Rifts for over 20 years.

Stoneheart Valley - I'll start by saying I am not impressed by The Wizard's Amulet. It's a railroad with an (DM)NPC as the driving force behind a newly formed party and scenes that tell you the PCs actions. Admittedly, the railroad is a short one and easily fixed, but a railroad none the less. The Crucible of Freya is much less railroady and next on my list to finish reading. The trilogy ends with large - dare I say "Mega?" - Dungeon. Lets see how far I get.

Sword of Air - currently only in PDF, so I'm bringing my tablet. I'll bounce back and forth between this and Stoneheart and see how well it all weaves together on it's own. I'm really enjoying what I've read of this sandbox setting / adventure thus far.

Hopefully I can get far enough along to get a review or three out of my forthcoming reading marathon ;)

Breachworld (most certainly NOT a Rifts Clone) Kickstarter Preview (Free)

I've talked about Breachworld previously. It's based off of MiniSix, which in and of itself is based on OpenD6 which is an open version of the core system behind old West End Games Star Wars RPG. So, in a way, it's coming full circle.

I'm really excited with the Breachworld Kickstarter, as it should be easy to import many of the trappings of Rifts into the Breachworld setting and system. That being said, Breachworld is it's own creature, and now you can peek at that yourself.

The Breachworld RPG Kickstarter Preview doesn't just show there is an actual product that has been written up for the Kickstarter, but it actually gives you enough to start playing. It includes a lot in it's 75 pages along with some decent art.

Grab the free Breachworld preview if you liked Rifts, hate Rifts, like OpenD6, are interested in a D6 powered setting - hell, grab it because it's free. The cost is nothing, and you might find enough there to decide to support the Kickstarter ;)

Pay What You Want - Westward Basic (Open D6 Steampunk Western)

There. I said it. Westward is a "steampunk western". Wasn't there a TV series a little while back that hit on both themes?

Personally, I really like the D6 ruleset, even in it's various flavors. I have fond memories of WEG Star Wars, and it's a simple enough system to learn with a decent amount of options. Well, that and the core D6 books are free. As in, well, free. Oh, and OGL. So have a blast.

Westward, the "steampunk western" comes in 2 flavors. "Pay what you want" (slightly crippled - no printing, no copy / paste, etc) and a full usable (printable) version for 10 bucks. The contents are the same in each, and neither requires other rules - they are self contained.

So, here's my advice. Pay NOTHING for the PWYW version of Westward. Set some time asides, as it's over 350 pages long with some decent color art. If you like what you see, and want to actually use it, as a GM or player, plop down the $10 for the full, printable version. Why pay twice?

I do suggest grabbing a copy of Westward, even it it's just for ideas in other games. The price is right.

From the blurb:

Westward Premium is the HighResolution version of Westward.  Buy the Premium Edition to remove the watermark, enable copy and paste, and printing!

In the distant future, a massive crew of brilliant explorers and their families set out to start a new world in a massive starship, the Chrysalis, but instead, they find Westward, a desolate and barren landscape ripe with adventure and danger! Far from Earth, their starship crash lands on this massive planet. This is where they form their colony, the Capital City. With scarce resources and a need for more, Humans begin expanding away from the city. With the need to survive, people turn to the ever-evolving Steamtech to stay alive. The places between the city and its prefects and forts are the Badlands. These regions are wild and known for outcast Humans, called Ferals, and bandit raiders. Amidst the treachery and betrayal of the steamtech-laden Capital City, or the danger and adventure of the desolate wild badlands, there are tall tales to tell. What is yours?

Westward is a fast paced, cinematic role playing game that uses OpenD6, made popular by West End Games. Whether by air or land, players can travel to every corner of the Westward world, exploring their imaginations and finding the new frontier!

For 3 or more players, playable in 30 minutes. (is this 30 minutes from opening the book to running the first adventure, or 30 minutes sessions? Either is intriguing.)

Savage Thoughts, Infinite Worlds

The more I look at Savage Worlds, the more I like it.  SW and Open D6 may become my main alternate rulesets for my second slot of gaming.

Why Open D6?  I had some experience with it back in the days of the old West End Games, ran some Star Wars D6 and had a few of the other D6 (Masterwork) powered games.  The fact that it is free these days means that my players should have no excuse in not having a copy of the rules ;)

Why Savage Worlds?  It's a highly supported system.  It has what appears to be an infinite number of settings, either official or fan supported.  There is a lot of strong third party material for the system.

Besides that, the Savage Worlds Test Drive rules are an excellent introduction to the system.  A player could probably get away with never going beyond such (so long as the GM was willing to help with character gen or provide pregens).

I really like the idea of short arcs to keep things fresh, and universal systems allow you to do so.  I like the idea of a short arc using Solomon Kane, as the fiction is pretty much all short stories (short "arcs" if you will).  I'm considering checking into the Mars setting (what with John Carter getting some push theses days) as well as Deadlands (a setting I haven't really checked out since it's old days when it was it's own system).

Now, quick questions to all the Savage Worlds junkies:

Should I be looking to pick up SW Horror?  I see it is recommended / required for Deadlands, and would probably be useful for Solomon Kane.

For gaming via G+ Hangout - what's the alternative for using a deck of cards for initiative?  Since everyone can't share the same deck, this would be an issue.  Of course, if I used Fantasy Grounds, that's built in, but then not everyone has a large enough computer screen to squeeze in both a VTT and the video from the Hangout.

Oh, and anyone have thoughts on Reality Blur's Old School Fantasy for Savage Worlds?

Another Oh, I found a Savage Worlds Primer - Saweet!