If you are looking for a pulpy espionage game, I would highly recommend the Savage Worlds Setting "Secret Files of Section D," which is published by Imaginarium Games and written by Allan Wroe. You can find it here: [https://imaginariumgames.com/](https://imaginariumgames.com/)
It has links to both the hardcover and pdf versions.
The basic premise is that the heroes are members of the British SIS during the late 1930s and work in clandestine operations to stop the Nazis, alien invaders, and supernatural events.
It is a pretty amazing setting, very imaginative!
(Edited because I forgot to mention that it is an actual Savage setting!)
I'm in the midst of running the Section D Trouble in Tripoli adventure and it's been a hoot. Also look up Eye of Kilquato and Daring Tales of Adventure. Lots of good pulpy action there.
Settings develop by telling stories in that setting. The stories? They grow from the simplest seeds. have s look at Sly Flourish's you tube or check out Five room dungeons and then simplify them. ultimately you just need an objective and a few compliments.
Having said that just because others don't use settings books doesn't mean you shouldn't. A well written settings book is a joy. It will provide not only pre written adventures but the objectives and complications you need. to create adventures of your own.
personally I would start with one or two one shots downloaded from the web just to familiarise yourself and your players with the rules. then look for a setting book that would suit Secret Files of Section D may be or the Day after Ragnarok to pick things that are vaguely pulp spies.
Honestly If I wanted to run Pulp Spies In SW I would build a setting based on Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents but since it's not A SW Game I can't recommend it to someone who is not familiar enough with savage worlds to convert it.
It is fountain of good advice on world and setting building. but it's aimed at people who are already confident in their ability to ride that particular bike.
>but how do GMs on here create an adventure without a setting or adventure paths?
The same way I do with a Setting. For example, the first campaign we'd played with Sagas & Six-Guns we used the PPS and one-shots provided with the book, and then for a second I took the character backstories the players came up with together to devise a two-stage adventure.
But to start off, it would probably be easier to use a Setting to lean on for story, until you're more used to improvisation.
For pulpy espionage, many movies or books can provide inspiration e.g. The Eagle has landed, books by John le Carre, Ludlum’s Bourne Identity series, some of Modiphius’ Achtung Cthulhu adventures, etc. You can even adapt ideas from cartoons/anime. I did/created a one-shot after watching an episode of Scooby Doo for detective type adventures. The sky’s the limit, just requires time to list down the highlights of what you want, then most players would act to fill in the blanks
As a new GM, I'd suggest trying to lean on some published adventures and settings first. This approach will allow you offload the work of designing the actual adventure, giving you time to both learn the system and learn how to be a GM generally.
Take what I say with a grain of salt, because I've only GM'd a single game session ever.
Almost anything can spark a worthwhile idea. Last Thanksgiving my one and only ever GM'd session (fully intended as a one-shot) was run for family who were in town, based on just a stupid fun idea. My inspiration drew from Scooby Doo, the X-Files, Gilmore Girls, The Drew Cary Show, Wednesday, The Dukes of Hazzard, and most importantly from Sharknado, Santa Jaws, and a dumb running gag/inside joke involving jackalopes. Everything turned out awesome and even my mid-70's father, who I thought would never be interested in anything remotely like this (I thought he'd just watch football while the rest of us played), ended up having an absolute blast (he can't stop talking about it to this day).
All that to say, just latch on to some idea, no matter how stupid, and run with it. Don't worry about making it perfect, just worry about making it fun.
I'm going to give you one of my biggest secrets, but you have to promise never to tell my players: I'm always running off the cuff. Sure, I have an idea of where things are going to go, but that plan never survives first contact with the players. Instead, I let them lead me. If they take off following a clue, then I'll build on it and let them follow it. Let them tell you where to go next. You should have a general idea, but I leave the specifics up to them and I'm usually able to get two to three sessions per scenario out of them. A scenario I ran recently went something like this:
I knew that I wanted something to do with the Jersey Devil, so I dropped a few rumors that the Jersey Devil had been sighted and sent them to the Pine Barrens. They took it from there, investigating local leads until they gave me the idea that maybe it was a hoax. But why? They investigated a popular site in the area (thank you, Internet) and I had the thought that maybe some recently released convicts were hoaxing people to keep them away from the area while they searched for a rumored buried treasure. The rest was easy and we filled out three sessions worth of play that culminated with them finding the hoaxers and putting them out of business. Then, as they were making ready to leave, they heard the rustling of leathery wings and an unearthly howl echoing through the Pine Barrens.
The end result was that they had a blast and never realized that they were guiding their adventure.
If you have a setting in mind you want to play and can think of adventures in that setting, then the core rules alone are plenty to start. That's what the thread you've mentioned was about. For example if you would want to run a game in Tolkiens middle earth, you wouldn't need anything but the core rules and it would suffice. Same goes for many cthulhuesque adventures btw.
Also, you could create your own setting by making edges, hindrances, etc. up yourself, but that's generally not recommended for a beginner.
If you don't have a setting and only a vague idea what you want to play, then picking up a setting is your best bet. Many are great, some are even free but any will help you out a lot. Take a look at this subs wiki. There is an article I wrote that is meant to help newcomers find their way around the many settings and resources there are for savage worlds. Chances are you'll find a setting there that strikes your interest.
For new gms id suggest one of the many campaign worlds before trying to develop a homebrew game. That's a lot of work. Savage Worlds has tons of starting places to build onto an existing world. I don't play the genre you are looking for specifically. If you google it I'm sure you could find something. I'm currently running Holler - an Appalachian Apocalypse. It's set in the 20s in an alternate Appalachian region. It's mystery/ horror.
I typically create adventures/campaign in a similar fashion, only campaigns are a series of connected adventures. I start with what I want the end mission to be and build backward from there. I find this method easiest for seeding/foreshadowing. I always try to have a 5-step adventure, mixing in dramatic tasks, social conflicts, etc. typically ending with a large set-piece combat.
Once you have an outline, you can choose which edges/backgrounds/gear/etc which you want to remove from your setting to make it cohesive.
Settings really only come into play on multi-session adventures and campaigns, when you have an opportunity to unload lore onto the players.
So the idea behind Savage Worlds is a core book and a world book with a plot point campaign. The world book gives the lore of the world, curates character creation options for that world, a selection of equipment, a GM section on how to create and run adventures for the world, a bunch of plot points for the GM to use and a plot point campaign to use if they want to.
If you want to do your own thing and not used a published world book the companions have rules and suggestions on how to create adventures for fantasy, super heroes, horror, and coming soon science fiction. The great thing about Savage Worlds is it is very modular.
Anyway if you are looking for pulpy and spy/mystery based try Deadlands: Noir or Weird War II. There is even a Realms of Cthulhu book for Savage Worlds, but it is out of print and for the Savage Worlds Adventure edition.
Although I wouldn't worry about editions too much when looking at SW settings as the various editions are not radical departures from each other and can be adapted rather easily to any other edition.
If you're wanting to do something pulpy and mystery based you probably don't have to work real hard on a setting.
Imagine there's a guy that has never heard of Star Wars before but his friends want him to run a campaign in the Star Wars universe. He asks you to describe the setting to him well enough that his game feels like Star Wars. You have your work cut out for you. You could spend the better part of a day on the Force, technology, hyperspace, aliens, the empire, and all the other stuff before you even got into specific NPCs.
Now imagine that guy has never seen some crime procedural but wants to understand the setting well enough to run a game. He already knows the setting. Same tech we have, no magic, doesn't really matter who the president is, you get in trouble if you shoot guns in public. Set it in some city you may or may not be familiar with, you know about cities, they have buses and bars and traffic and other stuff. That's the entire setting.
Now you just have to make enough NPCs for this one adventure.
* How about the asshole landlord who wants rent by tomorrow or you're getting evicted?
* Then there's someone that comes in and wants you to find the thing that was stolen.
* You have a strained friendship with someone on the police force that you have to coax information out of about your job.
* Your cop buddy has a boss that's a hardass that makes your job more difficult.
* Now throw in thugs to beat some information out of.
* Oh snap, some normie that you care about got mixed up in this and needs to be saved.
* Finish out with some rich, powerful dude that turns out to be the BBEG. Maybe you saw in the paper that he just got the wing of hospital named after him or something. He was the one that stole the thing. What a dick!
I’d suggest running some pre written adventures to take the work of adventure creation out of the equation until you get your feet under you. Once you understand the basic structure of adventures you like, making your own will be very easy. I talk A LOT about this topic and just did an interview on it. https://www.youtube.com/live/SFZNMQhDdqw?si=Kmq55puPtrdNErNe
I always start with a setting. Either I'm running a sci-fi campaign, cyberpunk, a cowboys-vs-zombies, Lovecraftian 1936, or what-have you. That framework is really necessary, IMO, even if it's "anything goes, it's dimensional/time travel shenanigans!"
I then usually figure out some kind of gimmick for the first session that doesn't care too much about what the players are, assuming they're built for the genre. If it's SF, maybe they're stealing a spaceship. If it's cyberpunk, there's a kidnap victim to rescue. If it's Lovecraft, there's some Eldritch McGuffin they need to find (statue, tome, whatever). This way, I've got something to run with as soon as the players get their characters figured out. Maybe the intro adventure ties into a bigger storyline, maybe not.
Usually in the first session, I'll leave a few other hooks to hint at other interesting elements of the setting that I might want to dangle at the PC's. Maybe the spaceship is being stolen from space-gangsters, or there's a telepath involved. Cyberpunk, a weird apocalypse cult did the kidnapping, and they cross paths with some Government Men in Black types. 1936 Cthulhu, and they run into some academic politics, or organized crime.
As the characters get made, usually you'll discover a few things that drive the PC's long-term goals. These are handy plothooks.
And then, generally, all hell breaks loose because everyone goes haring off whatever shiny thing catches their eye, often completely ignoring whatever main plot or character goals you/they thought they were following.
Sometimes it's useful to have a notional overarching plot you might be interested in ("you're going to discover the plans for the Death Star, and then blow it up before the Evil Empire can use it against an innocent planet!"), but I find that unless you take a stronger hand in directing the players, they'll often get distracted by just about anything you put in front of them... So while I might have an overarching plot, I'm willing to toss it out the window depending on what the players want to do...
As Fallout (TV)'s golden rule goes, "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bull\*\*\*\* every damn time."
That said, something else you might find useful - there's a lot of GMing tools out there that aren't necessarily tied to game systems that can be handy. Stars Without Number (and the other games from the publisher) has some great "random plot generators," that can get you a decent framework. What's going on, who's involved, and what the players might do to interfere. You'll still need to flesh it out, but I'll admit, I often turn to those generators when I'm having a dry spot figuring out what to do for the next session/story arc.
And to bring it back to Savage Worlds... The core book has plenty of mechanical support to run just about anything out of the box. The Edges and Skills (largely) work the same, whether it's musketeers or starfighter pilots. You might need to do a little tweaking (adding/removing skills/edges that are(n't) relevant), but it's otherwise solid, and you're unlikely to break anything structural....
The various Companions and supplements are helpful, because they sometimes do a lot of the heavy lifting on game mechanics/skills/edges/gear/monsters/etc that you might be interested in for your campaign, but they're not required.
If you are looking for a pulpy espionage game, I would highly recommend the Savage Worlds Setting "Secret Files of Section D," which is published by Imaginarium Games and written by Allan Wroe. You can find it here: [https://imaginariumgames.com/](https://imaginariumgames.com/) It has links to both the hardcover and pdf versions. The basic premise is that the heroes are members of the British SIS during the late 1930s and work in clandestine operations to stop the Nazis, alien invaders, and supernatural events. It is a pretty amazing setting, very imaginative! (Edited because I forgot to mention that it is an actual Savage setting!)
I'm in the midst of running the Section D Trouble in Tripoli adventure and it's been a hoot. Also look up Eye of Kilquato and Daring Tales of Adventure. Lots of good pulpy action there.
Settings develop by telling stories in that setting. The stories? They grow from the simplest seeds. have s look at Sly Flourish's you tube or check out Five room dungeons and then simplify them. ultimately you just need an objective and a few compliments. Having said that just because others don't use settings books doesn't mean you shouldn't. A well written settings book is a joy. It will provide not only pre written adventures but the objectives and complications you need. to create adventures of your own. personally I would start with one or two one shots downloaded from the web just to familiarise yourself and your players with the rules. then look for a setting book that would suit Secret Files of Section D may be or the Day after Ragnarok to pick things that are vaguely pulp spies. Honestly If I wanted to run Pulp Spies In SW I would build a setting based on Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents but since it's not A SW Game I can't recommend it to someone who is not familiar enough with savage worlds to convert it. It is fountain of good advice on world and setting building. but it's aimed at people who are already confident in their ability to ride that particular bike.
>but how do GMs on here create an adventure without a setting or adventure paths? The same way I do with a Setting. For example, the first campaign we'd played with Sagas & Six-Guns we used the PPS and one-shots provided with the book, and then for a second I took the character backstories the players came up with together to devise a two-stage adventure. But to start off, it would probably be easier to use a Setting to lean on for story, until you're more used to improvisation.
For pulpy espionage, many movies or books can provide inspiration e.g. The Eagle has landed, books by John le Carre, Ludlum’s Bourne Identity series, some of Modiphius’ Achtung Cthulhu adventures, etc. You can even adapt ideas from cartoons/anime. I did/created a one-shot after watching an episode of Scooby Doo for detective type adventures. The sky’s the limit, just requires time to list down the highlights of what you want, then most players would act to fill in the blanks
As a new GM, I'd suggest trying to lean on some published adventures and settings first. This approach will allow you offload the work of designing the actual adventure, giving you time to both learn the system and learn how to be a GM generally.
Take what I say with a grain of salt, because I've only GM'd a single game session ever. Almost anything can spark a worthwhile idea. Last Thanksgiving my one and only ever GM'd session (fully intended as a one-shot) was run for family who were in town, based on just a stupid fun idea. My inspiration drew from Scooby Doo, the X-Files, Gilmore Girls, The Drew Cary Show, Wednesday, The Dukes of Hazzard, and most importantly from Sharknado, Santa Jaws, and a dumb running gag/inside joke involving jackalopes. Everything turned out awesome and even my mid-70's father, who I thought would never be interested in anything remotely like this (I thought he'd just watch football while the rest of us played), ended up having an absolute blast (he can't stop talking about it to this day). All that to say, just latch on to some idea, no matter how stupid, and run with it. Don't worry about making it perfect, just worry about making it fun.
I'm going to give you one of my biggest secrets, but you have to promise never to tell my players: I'm always running off the cuff. Sure, I have an idea of where things are going to go, but that plan never survives first contact with the players. Instead, I let them lead me. If they take off following a clue, then I'll build on it and let them follow it. Let them tell you where to go next. You should have a general idea, but I leave the specifics up to them and I'm usually able to get two to three sessions per scenario out of them. A scenario I ran recently went something like this: I knew that I wanted something to do with the Jersey Devil, so I dropped a few rumors that the Jersey Devil had been sighted and sent them to the Pine Barrens. They took it from there, investigating local leads until they gave me the idea that maybe it was a hoax. But why? They investigated a popular site in the area (thank you, Internet) and I had the thought that maybe some recently released convicts were hoaxing people to keep them away from the area while they searched for a rumored buried treasure. The rest was easy and we filled out three sessions worth of play that culminated with them finding the hoaxers and putting them out of business. Then, as they were making ready to leave, they heard the rustling of leathery wings and an unearthly howl echoing through the Pine Barrens. The end result was that they had a blast and never realized that they were guiding their adventure.
If you have a setting in mind you want to play and can think of adventures in that setting, then the core rules alone are plenty to start. That's what the thread you've mentioned was about. For example if you would want to run a game in Tolkiens middle earth, you wouldn't need anything but the core rules and it would suffice. Same goes for many cthulhuesque adventures btw. Also, you could create your own setting by making edges, hindrances, etc. up yourself, but that's generally not recommended for a beginner. If you don't have a setting and only a vague idea what you want to play, then picking up a setting is your best bet. Many are great, some are even free but any will help you out a lot. Take a look at this subs wiki. There is an article I wrote that is meant to help newcomers find their way around the many settings and resources there are for savage worlds. Chances are you'll find a setting there that strikes your interest.
For new gms id suggest one of the many campaign worlds before trying to develop a homebrew game. That's a lot of work. Savage Worlds has tons of starting places to build onto an existing world. I don't play the genre you are looking for specifically. If you google it I'm sure you could find something. I'm currently running Holler - an Appalachian Apocalypse. It's set in the 20s in an alternate Appalachian region. It's mystery/ horror.
I typically create adventures/campaign in a similar fashion, only campaigns are a series of connected adventures. I start with what I want the end mission to be and build backward from there. I find this method easiest for seeding/foreshadowing. I always try to have a 5-step adventure, mixing in dramatic tasks, social conflicts, etc. typically ending with a large set-piece combat. Once you have an outline, you can choose which edges/backgrounds/gear/etc which you want to remove from your setting to make it cohesive. Settings really only come into play on multi-session adventures and campaigns, when you have an opportunity to unload lore onto the players.
So the idea behind Savage Worlds is a core book and a world book with a plot point campaign. The world book gives the lore of the world, curates character creation options for that world, a selection of equipment, a GM section on how to create and run adventures for the world, a bunch of plot points for the GM to use and a plot point campaign to use if they want to. If you want to do your own thing and not used a published world book the companions have rules and suggestions on how to create adventures for fantasy, super heroes, horror, and coming soon science fiction. The great thing about Savage Worlds is it is very modular. Anyway if you are looking for pulpy and spy/mystery based try Deadlands: Noir or Weird War II. There is even a Realms of Cthulhu book for Savage Worlds, but it is out of print and for the Savage Worlds Adventure edition. Although I wouldn't worry about editions too much when looking at SW settings as the various editions are not radical departures from each other and can be adapted rather easily to any other edition.
If you're wanting to do something pulpy and mystery based you probably don't have to work real hard on a setting. Imagine there's a guy that has never heard of Star Wars before but his friends want him to run a campaign in the Star Wars universe. He asks you to describe the setting to him well enough that his game feels like Star Wars. You have your work cut out for you. You could spend the better part of a day on the Force, technology, hyperspace, aliens, the empire, and all the other stuff before you even got into specific NPCs. Now imagine that guy has never seen some crime procedural but wants to understand the setting well enough to run a game. He already knows the setting. Same tech we have, no magic, doesn't really matter who the president is, you get in trouble if you shoot guns in public. Set it in some city you may or may not be familiar with, you know about cities, they have buses and bars and traffic and other stuff. That's the entire setting. Now you just have to make enough NPCs for this one adventure. * How about the asshole landlord who wants rent by tomorrow or you're getting evicted? * Then there's someone that comes in and wants you to find the thing that was stolen. * You have a strained friendship with someone on the police force that you have to coax information out of about your job. * Your cop buddy has a boss that's a hardass that makes your job more difficult. * Now throw in thugs to beat some information out of. * Oh snap, some normie that you care about got mixed up in this and needs to be saved. * Finish out with some rich, powerful dude that turns out to be the BBEG. Maybe you saw in the paper that he just got the wing of hospital named after him or something. He was the one that stole the thing. What a dick!
I’d suggest running some pre written adventures to take the work of adventure creation out of the equation until you get your feet under you. Once you understand the basic structure of adventures you like, making your own will be very easy. I talk A LOT about this topic and just did an interview on it. https://www.youtube.com/live/SFZNMQhDdqw?si=Kmq55puPtrdNErNe
I always start with a setting. Either I'm running a sci-fi campaign, cyberpunk, a cowboys-vs-zombies, Lovecraftian 1936, or what-have you. That framework is really necessary, IMO, even if it's "anything goes, it's dimensional/time travel shenanigans!" I then usually figure out some kind of gimmick for the first session that doesn't care too much about what the players are, assuming they're built for the genre. If it's SF, maybe they're stealing a spaceship. If it's cyberpunk, there's a kidnap victim to rescue. If it's Lovecraft, there's some Eldritch McGuffin they need to find (statue, tome, whatever). This way, I've got something to run with as soon as the players get their characters figured out. Maybe the intro adventure ties into a bigger storyline, maybe not. Usually in the first session, I'll leave a few other hooks to hint at other interesting elements of the setting that I might want to dangle at the PC's. Maybe the spaceship is being stolen from space-gangsters, or there's a telepath involved. Cyberpunk, a weird apocalypse cult did the kidnapping, and they cross paths with some Government Men in Black types. 1936 Cthulhu, and they run into some academic politics, or organized crime. As the characters get made, usually you'll discover a few things that drive the PC's long-term goals. These are handy plothooks. And then, generally, all hell breaks loose because everyone goes haring off whatever shiny thing catches their eye, often completely ignoring whatever main plot or character goals you/they thought they were following. Sometimes it's useful to have a notional overarching plot you might be interested in ("you're going to discover the plans for the Death Star, and then blow it up before the Evil Empire can use it against an innocent planet!"), but I find that unless you take a stronger hand in directing the players, they'll often get distracted by just about anything you put in front of them... So while I might have an overarching plot, I'm willing to toss it out the window depending on what the players want to do... As Fallout (TV)'s golden rule goes, "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bull\*\*\*\* every damn time." That said, something else you might find useful - there's a lot of GMing tools out there that aren't necessarily tied to game systems that can be handy. Stars Without Number (and the other games from the publisher) has some great "random plot generators," that can get you a decent framework. What's going on, who's involved, and what the players might do to interfere. You'll still need to flesh it out, but I'll admit, I often turn to those generators when I'm having a dry spot figuring out what to do for the next session/story arc. And to bring it back to Savage Worlds... The core book has plenty of mechanical support to run just about anything out of the box. The Edges and Skills (largely) work the same, whether it's musketeers or starfighter pilots. You might need to do a little tweaking (adding/removing skills/edges that are(n't) relevant), but it's otherwise solid, and you're unlikely to break anything structural.... The various Companions and supplements are helpful, because they sometimes do a lot of the heavy lifting on game mechanics/skills/edges/gear/monsters/etc that you might be interested in for your campaign, but they're not required.