What Makes Street Wolves Unique?
We’ve got another question from our pal Lucas who asks, “What Makes Street Wolves unique from other RPGs?”
Lucas threw me off a bit, since I’ve been buried in making Street Wolves. I really haven’t thought about it. I’ve just been doing what feels right. But after some reflection I believe I have an answer: It’s a combination of setting, style, themes, and genre. Street Wolves is at its core is Savage Worlds, so in those respects nearly all the mechanics under the hood are like other Savage Worlds settings that make them: Fast, Furious, and Fun. However, the flavor of the setting is what really sets it apart from other role playing games, including other Savage Worlds settings. And that flavor is defined by its visual style, the neo-noir themes, and the action/adventure/mystery genre.
And that’s it!
Just kidding, that’s the tldr; version. Let’s go a little deeper into this.
What Street Wolves is Not
It’s worth taking a moment to define Street Wolves' uniqueness by what it is not. It is not a tactical “realistic” military game, an over the top cartoony action game, nor is it a cyberpunk adventure. However, it has elements of those things in it, while still being unique. Street Wolves aims to be a bit more grounded, street level crime fighting game with heroes who may be flawed, but they have families, friends, and other motivations to do the right thing.
1. The Setting:
Street Wolves takes place in an alternate 1980s, primarily in the USA (but GMs can go abroad or set it in another country if they’d like). It’s a world like our own at that time, but slightly more advanced. It has a bit of Cassette Futurism vibe to the world with a much wider adoption of computers in homes. Virtual reality, while still rather crude, is in wide spread use. There’s also uses of other tech like videophones and turn by turn direction systems in cars being available way ahead of their time, in the classic chunky big button, floppy disc and cassette driven way .
Furthermore, the aesthetics of Synthwave have influenced the setting in a real way other than just in game art (more on that in a bit).
While other games have taken place in the 80s or have had an alternate look at the timeline, Street Wolves captures it in a way that hasn’t been explored in a more grounded rpg setting (that has some aspects of the fantastic).
2. Style and Aesthetics
The visual representation shown in Street Wolves art work and flavor text is very Synthwave and Outrun inspired. While they exist mainly as musical genres, they also have a very strong visual aesthetic.
We can get into what that means more in a future article, but the gist is that Synthwave/Outrun is 1980s inspired, striking colors, neon lights, sports cars, video cassettes, and that sort of thing. Synthwave/Outrun tends to be more hopeful and nostalgic than Cyberpunk, which focuses more on dystopia and the ways technology has made society worse.
While there are many games that have tied into 80s nostalgia and aesthetics with the use of grids and metalized text, not as many dig into a more “Dark Synthwave '' aesthetic like Street Wolves is tapping into.
Synthwave is Baked In
The style an aesthetics aren’t just in the art. In much of Synthwave art there’s all these super saturated colors in the sky. In Street Wolves, that’s an actual thing in a bunch of cities around the world called Vapor. Vapor also makes lights glow and trail as they move, again like in Synthwave art.
3. The Genre
Since Street Wolves isn’t a fantasy game like D&D, the heroes won’t roam the countryside to find a dungeon and kill a bunch of monsters for loot. Street Wolves would fall under the “Modern” umbrella of role playing games, which is a pretty generic description. It’s not vanilla action based completely in the real world with real world rules. While it could be played as a big dumb action movie, the intent is for it to be more of a mix of investigation and action.
In Street Wolves, the heroes should never know exactly who to trust and they should have to rely on their own skills and abilities. That’s because the organization they work for has limited resources and one of their primary enemies (the Network of Shadows) has infiltrated much of public life. They may have to make hard decisions, sometimes blurring the lines between good and bad. It’s part of the job of being a hero in Street Wolves.
4. Mechanics
Professions
Street Wolves uses a thing called Professions. Basically when you make a character, you can pick one of 13 thematic professions like Drive, Thief, or Detective. It’s much more looser than classes in that it only gives you some bonuses to get started off on that theme that character, but don’t lock you in a particular path.
Drive
Drive is a measure of how close a Street Wolf is to going over the edge. Being an investigator/trouble shooter/illegal vigilante is a thankless task that takes a toll. Can a Street Wolf continue on despite all the things they see and have to do?
And Street Wolves can potentially tap into Drive to
Relationships
There are mechanics in place to encourage players to create relationships with people in their character’s life. It helps to ground the characters as being more “real” when they have friends, family, lovers, and even rivals baked into their character creation.
Another benefit is that relationships can cause complications between missions or become the source of an adventure.
Leave
Leave replaces Savage Worlds Interludes system. It represents the downtime between missions. It gives the Street Wolves time to heal themselves or broken relationships. Or they can go play a gig or on a small heist. There’s a bunch of options for telling a story between the main missions.
Trademark Style/Tactical Style
Street Wolves, like characters in shows like Miami Vice, often have a unique look. This look is captured in the Trademark Style. Players define what their characters most often wear, which helps serve as a way for a GM to figure out how npcs may act towards them (someone who dresses in a really strange way might get some strange reactions) and it also helps instantly figure out what the characters are equipped with when they’re on investigations.
Tactical Style serves the same purpose, but it’s reserved for when the heroes are all geared up for battle or preparing to do an infiltration.
Cassette Mix Tape
One of my favorite things I added to the character sheet was a mix tape section. It’s a small section, but it helps dig into the core of who a particular Street Wolf is by creating a selection of songs for them.
5. And More!
Playing a game of Street Wolves has a few added themes that are a little more unique:
Romance and Broken Hearts: While optional, there’s room for romance in Street Wolves. This reflects the material that inspired the setting, like Miami Vice and various other shows where romance was the source of both drama and action. Mechanics allow characters to determine if there’s a spark between them, which can lead to interesting complications like falling in love with a villain.* There’s even mechanics for a high powered sexy fight between enemies who are in love, like in a movie like Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Again, this is all optional, but it’s there for GMs and Players that want to create a closer in tone story to TV and movie plots.
*It’s recommended GMs do this sparingly.
Montages: There’s advice and tips on how to run a collaborative montage with different types of montages. Again, this helps create the fun of a 1980s/90s movie/show. They encourage everyone to participate and build a story out of something mundane like shopping or training in a fun and exciting way.
Shared Cultural References: A game set in a world like our own makes it really easy for a GM to relay places, people, and the world around them. Even if a player wasn’t around in the 80s, it only takes some watching of 80s and 90s movies and they’re on board.
Conclusion
Wow! That was a lot. There’s a combination of herbs and spices that make up the uniqueness of the Street Wolves gaming experience.
Is there anything you like about what we talked about here? Or hate? Do you think Street Wolves sounds unique or know of a game just like it? Let us know via email or on social media!
