History of The Savage Soul

In 1981, at the age of sixteen, after having already designed a science fiction paper and pencil role-playing game entitled "Children of the Stars," I began play-testing a new character design and combat system with a friend named Harry Chawney. The working title of this sytem, "Maul You," was short lived. Within a few weeks, I had crafted "Maul You" into a simple set of rules called "Gladiator Combat." This game had no magic system and was primarily designed for quick battles during high school "study hall." After hundreds of arena battles, I honed and revised the combat system significantly. Most importantly, "Gladiator Combat" proved to be a lot of fun--prompting me to devise a complete fantasy role-playing game, based upon the "Gladiator Combat" sytem. The resulting set of rules was called "Vampires," as the only defined monsters were Master Vampires and their various minions. This system had a very basic but functional magic system, with only about ten spells. Nonetheless, "Vampires" resulted in some epic adventures.

It soon became obvious that a fantasy world needed more than just vampires, so the rules were once again expanded and renamed The Savage Soul. In the summer of 1981, the first user-friendly rules manual was typed, copyrighted, and photocopied for the small group of Savage Soul loyalists. By 1983, these rules were expanded to include many more spells (broken into seven "schools" of sorcery) and supplemented by Armies and Armageddon, a collection of miscellaneous rules for everything from large scale army combat to the creation of magic items.

These basic rules continued to govern countless adventures from 1983 through 1987, with the combat system essentially unchanged from "Gladiator Combat."

In 1989, for the first time since 1983, I revised the rules, merging the best parts of The Savage Soul and Armies and Armageddon, and substantially modifying the combat system. The new system was well-received by Savage Soul loyalists and resulted in some of the greatest epics in Savage Soul history. And, between 1989 and 1995, the dedicated followers of The Savage Soul

continued to grow.

In 1995, despite the popularity of the 1989 rules, I decided to redesign the character creation system, transforming it from a random "roll up" system to a "point based" design system. While this change met with some initial resistance from players, I was convinced any random character creation system would invariably result in players either (1) cheating to design the kinds of characters they wanted to play, or (2) being forced to play characters with which they were not entirely happy. The design system would ensure not only that players would be able to create characters they liked, but also that no player would be a "shining star," simply because he rolled (or cheated) better than any other player. The fear that all characters would essentially be identical was soon put to rest. Individual player preferences and creativity resulted in myriad different characters, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and personality.

While The Savage Soul would remain purely a fantasy game until 1999, the evolution toward The Savage Soul: Scorched Earth had begun, along with the most extensive period of play-testing The Savage Soul had ever seen.

In 1999, I finally realized the inherent limitations of a pure fantasy game. Rather than undertaking to design a generic role-playing system, however, I instead sought to create a setting that would contain all the elements of fantasy, modern, and science fiction role-playing. The result was The Savage Soul: Scorched Earth, a game in which gene-altering agents and nuclear devastation had transformed the high-tech world of the Twenty-first Century into a magical wasteland of unusual races, powerful sorcerers, and dazzling technological artifacts. Consistent with this framework, virtually every rule (character creation, combat, skills, and magic) went through a complete revision. The point-based design system was simplified; the skills system became simpler and more flexible; and the combat system became completely unique. This system was extensively play-tested and underwent several modifications and revisions from 1999 to 2002.

As was demonstrated by an epic multi-genre adventure entitled "Gallery of the Damned," The Savage Soul: Scorched Earth can admirably support any story-line and setting, from pure fantasy, to ancient history, to World War II, to modern espionage, to science fiction. In fact, the "Scorched Earth" setting has proven to offer a backdrop of infinite possibilities for the creative GM.

Finally, in late 2002, thanks to the technical genius of Barry Ruffner and Scott Chatley, The Savage Soul finally entered the 21st Century and development began on The Savage Soul Massively Multi-Player On-Line Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Our goal is to translate The Savage Soul system and Scorched-Earth world into a MMORPG unlike any other. This latest effort is the culmination of a life's work. I sincerely hope you will enjoy it. KBB

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