![]() While the Robin Hood story has been told in many ways over the centuries, the version we’re most familiar with is relatively lighthearted. So it’s easy to leap onto your horse from a rooftop and do it with style. ![]() And if you achieve that success, you can toss in a bennie to buy it up to a raise (Savage World’s version of a critical success). For example, a variety of acrobatic maneuvers have been provided, each reduced in difficulty to a simple success. Most of these rely on Agility, which will probably be the central stat for most characters. Sherwood includes some modified rules that enable - even encourage - swashbuckling adventure. Nothing that’s exactly magical, but their work is a bit more wondrous than technology of the day would allow. ![]() They can make odd devices, similar to what you produce with the Alchemist skill in D&D. The closest thing I found to a fantastical class in the main rules is an engineer/inventor. There’s an optional section at the end for working in the occasional werewolf or conjurer, but those are presented in the context of period superstition, and players are reminded once again this isn’t a typical fantasy game. Speaking of which, one of the first things you’ll notice missing (and rightly so) is magic. You may be doing heroic things, but they’re occurring in a relatively normal place. It’s about taking bold risks for the right cause, not taking gold from dead orcs. This game is about intrigue and derring do. Whatever you’re using this book for, the authors explicitly encourage you to run a different sort of fantasy game. Make no mistake about what this book is for, but even if Robin Hood’s brand of adventure isn’t your thing, you could still cherry pick some goodies for any game in this time period or genre. Sure, they’re important to Robin Hood, but they could also work for any swashbuckling adventure. They also offer some new rules (I’ll get back to those shortly) that help characters pull off the acrobatic antics we’ve come to except from this sort of story. There are charts for period gear priced in pennies, shillings, and pounds. There are well researched sections on culture, geography, knightly orders, religion, and economy. However, the book also provides a fairly lengthy look at historical, 13th century England. And, yes, there are stats in there for Robin Hood and Little John. Most of the plot ideas assume you’re playing swashbuckling rogues that lurk about the woods. This book is called Sherwood, so obviously it gives ample space to the specific characters and general archetypes of the famous tale. I’ll happily play in the Star Wars universe, but I don’t care to play through a Star Wars movie. I enjoy playing in a variety of settings, but I don’t like being led about for the sole purpose of shaking hands with famous people and fawning over their exploits. I’ve never been a big fan of RPGs that are too narrowly tied to one story. I approached this book with some trepidation. It was released several years ago for d20, and as of a few weeks ago, it’s been ported over to Savage Worlds. I was just given a copy of one such setting book, Sherwood, a Robin Hood adaptation by Marc Gacy and Wil Upchurch. The game has no setting, giving you the freedom to plug in whatever world you fancy, whether from a supplement book or your own imagination. It’s a flexible, easy to learn system, and you can dive right in with nothing more than the pint-sized Explorer’s Edition. Anyone that’s listened to our show, attended a con, or gotten out from under a rock within the past year is probably no stranger to Savage Worlds.
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