Justin Suzuki
I don’t really want to do reviews but I do want to talk about my game experiences with settings, GM’s, and players as I go through life. Today I want to talk about a setting that I have had the chance to play in a few times now and was created by a friend. I’m sure he had no idea I was going to write about it and I will do it no justice. But here I go.
If you are a listener of the show (if you aren’t I highly encourage you to become one) you have heard us talk about friend of the show Sequoyah Wright. He is active on the site discussions so you have seen this name as well. You also know that he has a home brew setting called, The Edge.
The Edge is a Savage Worlds setting. It has been something Sequoyah has worked on for a while now, before Savage Worlds it started out in a different setting. If I had to give you an elevator pitch of the game I would say this of it: It’s a post-apocalyptic type setting, that takes place in a world filled with extraordinary people, creatures, and dangers.
Simple right? Not really. There are many layers to this onion which I have only started to peel back. The first time I played this I came in with the basic elevator pitch I gave you. You sort of shrug your shoulders and think that it will be a way to enjoy a few hours with good gamers. So I settled in in Sequoyah’s game room and got ready to play.
Our GM started reading to us an intro like I have never heard. It went on for a few minutes, but described how we were all normal people, with normal lives, who suddenly found themselves traveling through portals that took us to this familiar, yet strange planet. I was playing a professor. I had no weapons. I didn’t even know how to shoot a gun.
I was surrounded by NPCs and it became clear that if my prof PC died I would take one of the other “normal” NPCs as my character. In the world of The Edge only the strong or clever survive.
Soon after arriving in this ruined world we discovered high tech cars that have long been abandoned, a world ruined by some catastrophic event, and creatures that wanted to eat us for lunch.
We started battling. I had very little to do, except rig those cars to explode. It sort of worked. I did survived the first combat in this new world by running a lot. The rest of the game went on much like this, but with us exploring this unknown world.
In later sessions I learned that players who survive will start to develop abilities and powers beyond what they had in their mundane lives from before. In The Edge you evolve quickly. In this hellish world you spend most of your sessions just trying to survive.
Sequoyah has a knack for making players feel sympathy for those who attack you, they are just trying to survive in this world just like you. But it doesn’t matter, you have to survive and you must destroy those who would see you die just to take that wrench they need.
I’ve often compared this game to the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, in that there is a familiar but strange world, filled with oddities. But if you have read Mr. King’s story you know it is his passion project. In this way it is very much like The Edge, Mr. Wright’s passion setting.
If you ever find yourself with the chance to play this game, I highly recommend you do so. And I will continue to put pressure on Sequoyah to do more with The Edge.
