I just ran a session of Street Wolves (itch.io link), the 1980s retrofuture noir setting for Savage Worlds. There’s only a free jumpstart version available for now, but eventually Table Cat Games will be releasing a full sourcebook. It’s got a quick explanation of the setting, some extra rules, and an adventure.
It’s set in what it calls a “a retrofuturist, synthwave inspired” alternate version of the 1980s. It’s a mashup of a lot of 1980s pop culture, with a neon, Patrick Nagel sheen over everything. The technology is a little more advanced than the real 1980s, with VR goggles and videophones, but in a crude 1980s way, with laserdiscs and large, boxy cell phones.
Players are Street Wolves, secret agents from various backgrounds fighting crime and corruption. They work for the Wolfpack, a secret brach of the government. It appears the vibe they’re going for here is Knight Rider/A-Team plots with the style and tone of Miami Vice. (they even statted up Sonny Crockett on their website)
The adventure is a pretty simple missing person scenario that shows off the setting pretty well. It is, naturally enough, set in Miami. I liked what I’ve seen of Street Wolves so far, and will most likely pick up the full corebook when it’s released.
I’d recommend picking up the free jumpstart(itch.io link) to see what it’s like.
New Rules
Two new skills – Demolitions & Tradecraft
There are several new edges. The two most interesting are Fashionista, where players can avoid penalties in social situations by knowing exactly what to wear. Also, Into The Groove gives a player an extra Action Card, if they’re listening to their favorite tunes.
There are new rules for Drive – a measure of how corrupt the characters become when dealing with the evils of the world. It functions similarly to sanity rules.
There are relationship rules, that keep track of the PCs connections to friends and loved ones, each rated from 0 to 10.
Between missions, players can go on Leave, to repair relationships and reduce Drive levels.
In a one-shot, most of these Drive/Relationships/Leave rules don’t really come up, but they’re interesting peeks into what a campaign game might be like.
The book mentions that the full corebook will use Professions, which appears to be a light class system, where team roles are specified.
Pregen Sheet
The jumpstart PDF has 6 pregenerated characters available. They’re good pregens, but as I was planning on using it with players who didn’t have copies of Savage Worlds handy, and didn’t have all of the edges memorized, I decided to make a modified version that I could hand out to the players.
This 6-page PDF contains each of the pregens from the jumpstart, along with an explanation of what each of the Edges do.
Polyhedral Nonsense 