The Bunker Door Reopens: A Relaunch And A Reintroduction...

To those of you who are new to the bunker, welcome to The Savage AfterWorld. To those of you returning for the first time in years, welcome back.

By way of (re-)introduction, I'm Your Friendly Neighborhood Sniderman and host of this contaminated corner of the blogosphere. The Savage AfterWorld first opened back in June 2009 (13 years ago!) as a post-apocalyptic RPG-related blog focusing on Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future, which was the game that brought me back into the hobby after several decades of "grown-up stuff". After several years of producing material on this blog for that system - and a couple of supplements as well - I relaunched The Savage AfterWorld to cover a variety of my interests, like other RPGs (especially Pacesetter's Cryptworld!), boardgames, attending conventions, making new game pieces, etc. Although I enjoyed opening up TSAW to all of my other interests and writing about them, the lack of "theme" made the blog somewhat scattershot. Interest waned - both from me and this blog's readers - and TSAW languished. But it never truly ended, nor was it apparently forgotten...

While listening to a recent episode of Picks from the Print Mine, this blog was name-dropped as one of my contributions to post-apocalyptic RPG gaming. I was a bit taken aback as I really haven't breathed any radioactive life into the blog for close to 5 years. But I checked the stats and - sure enough - this blog and its content still gets a lot of hits. I mean, a LOT of hits. I can only assume that the desire for more mutated missives exists, ergo I've crawled back into the bunker and will start reaching out to the other survivors out there in the wastelands.

As some of you may know, I've taken a liking to Goodman Games' Mutant Crawl Classics RPG and produced a supplement or two for it. I've contributed to The Gongfarmer's Almanac over the years and have run dozens of MCC/DCC games online and at conventions. I've recently been working with Goodman Games as a freelance editor for some of their projects, and I've even written an adventure for their Mutant Crawl Classics line. (More on that in a future post.) So it stands to reason that the The Savage AfterWorld should be resurrected (or make that "mutated") to be true to its post-apocalyptic roots. So this blog will be refocused on post-apocalyptic RPGs (with occasional sojourns into non-Armageddon-related material and games I find, y'know, cool).

So hunker in your bunker, crack open an unlabelled can of foodstuffs, check the rad count outside, and settle back for more to come from The Savage AfterWorld!

So Where Have I Been? And Where Are We Going?

(WARNING: This "return post" is incredibly self-indulgent. If you want to skip over a bit of navel-gazing, just come back for my next post that will have, you know, CONTENT.)


Hiya everybody! It's been...well...

(checks calendar)

...a pretty long time, actually. I'll bet most of you thought this corner of the gaming blog-o-sphere was long-ago dead-and-buried. You have every right to think that seeing as I went from close to two to three posts a week to as few as one a month last year. So what happened to The Savage AfterWorld?

The last couple of years have been busy for Your Friendly Neighborhood Sniderman. My wife and I moved, got a new house, took on extra work to pay for it all and just got busy with Real Life Stuff. Seems like every spare moment was focused on either making money or spending money I didn't have. Aside from that, my gaming interests shifted around a bit. Got serious involved in  board gaming, so role-playing took a backseat. Most of my online activity shifted away from Blogger and toward G+ and Facebook, where I'm fairly active on both sites. So you've probably been seeing my presence on the Interwebs, just not...here.

And, creativity-wise, I dipped into a bad case of the lulls. I've noodled around with some long-stagnant projects, but I haven't really felt a need or drive to get any of these out of my brain and into your hands. Those times I did drag out my notes, maps, and rulebooks to work on something, I stared at the screen, thought about what I wanted to do,....then went to YouTube and watched cat videos or something. Just a crushing bout of "Analysis Paralysis" -- knew what I wanted to accomplish, but didn't know how or where to start. So I just didn't.

Fast-forward a year...

All that changed recently. Why? Because tomorrow is the first day of October. My favorite season -- autumn -- is here. It's the time of Halloween and horror. Full moons and falling leaves. It's when I'm overflowing with horrific scenarios and gaming ideas. I've been rereading Cryptworld and delving into Eldritch Tales. I've got Arkham Horror: LCG on my table now, and Tiny Epic Zombies waiting in the wings for a go. In about a month, I'll be attending Gamehole Con for the first time (and it's the first gaming con I've been to in almost year). I've got gaming on my mind and on my table and on my nightstand. I'm so filled with creativity and nervous energy I'm gonna burst.

And I'm planning on channeling that energy into The Savage AfterWorld.

At one time, this blog-o-mine was a warehouse of every gaming idea that passed through my consciousness (and my subconsciousness as well). Scenarios, NPCs, supplements, adventures, creatures, and monsters sprung forth for a myriad of game systems, and all found their way to these blog pages. And I miss bringing them to you. So today The Savage AfterWorld begins anew. What will you see here? Well, I'm not certain quite yet as TSAW was always written in a "stream-of-consciousness"-type process.My goal is to get back to posting at minimum once a week in the coming year.

So stop by and join me, won't you?

Welcome to The Savage AfterWorld!

Greetings and welcome to the launch of The Savage AfterWorld! I hope you find the material within of use in your post-apocalyptic science fantasy RPG!

I've always been a fan of the "Ruined Earth" genre. The planet is in shambles - whether through natural disasters, extradimensional crises, or humanity's own hubris. Mankind struggles to climb its way back to a civilized society through the ruins of "what once was." Some survivors wish to rebuild. Other wish to take. And still others wish to burn all that remains. Films, books, and television shows have been based on this concept for many years. Perhaps I'll discuss some of these in a future post. (However, if you're here, it stands to reason you have more than a passing knowledge of this subject.)

During the 1980s, I was heavily involved in TSR's Gamma World RPG. This game took the post-apocalyptic genre and turned it on its head. "What if," if posited, "the Earth were poisoned by radiation fallout, biological warfare agents, and other remnants? What if humans, plants, and animals mutated due to the poisons? And what would that world be like a thousand years later?" Adventures in the Gamma World were like no other. A talking evolved housecat with laser eyes, a human barbarian with the strength of 10 men, and a four-armed red-skinned lizard-dog may join forces to recover some advanced weapon from an ancient stronghold while fighting through hordes of blood-sucking mutant rabbit-fish. Great fun fighting and adventuring in the ruins of the world. But as happens with most RPG campaigns, it eventually ran its course; the players either moved on or moved away; and the "mutant future" of gaming past faded into memory.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I stumbled across a brand-new RPG in the same vein. Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future (see how I worked that in earlier?) very accurately and stylishly emulates the feel of those adventures of long ago. Billed as a "retro-clone," Mutant Future drops players into the same kind of radioactive wasteland populated with mutants, monsters, ruins, and ancient artifacts. It does this with a genuine old-school design that today's older players with recognize and appreciate while giving younger players a truly tight system that is also simple to play. And the setting just wraps everything up in a nice package (if you can consider anything with spider-goats as "nice).

Oh, and did I mention that the RPG is free? Here's a download link to this great game: http://www.goblinoidgames.com/MF001.zip

Enough blathering about myself and about my RPG history. I am truly impressed with Mutant Future and have decided to start this blog to better show my support. In the coming weeks, I plan to resurrect some of my old gaming RPG notes and files and present them here for the use of MF players and GMs. More than just The Mutant of The Week and a list of ancient artifacts to be discovered, this site will hopefully give you some ideas of running a campaign in The Savage AfterWorld. My hope is to also flesh out some of my own ideas for supporting the game with the input and review of the readers of this blog.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. And be on the lookout for the denizens of The Savage AfterWorld who will be making their initial appearances here on this site.