This is almost an instant post: I have just closed my first game of Gold & Glory, the new Savage Worlds supplement by my friend Giuseppe Rotondo.
And boy it is a smash.

The idea behind Gold & Glory is quite simple: transform Savage Worlds into a fast, furious and fun version of the old Red Box.
Plug in Giuseppe’s rules, and you’ll be running dungeon crawls like in the good old days in no time, with the added variety of the SW rules.

The game comes with a wonderful streamlined system of total random generation of characters, that uses three playing cards for each player to draw a complete character.
Then come the edges, the hindrances, the extra equipment and the bit I love the best: the relationships between party members, a very funny and fast way to sidestep the usual “you met during a tavern brawl and became fast friends”.
We set up the whole party of six adventurers in about half an hour.

The basic Gold & Glory handbook comes with a simple and smart engine to randomly generate dungeons, and seven deadly dungeons that are called… well Seven Deadly Dungeons.

We went through the Mouldy Caverns tonight, and my team loved every minute.
It’s good, I think, for experienced old gamers with thirty-odd years of gaming behind them, to go back to the basics. A leather armor and a dagger. Two spells.
The neighbors complained because we were laughing too loud, which is to me a sure sign the game was a success.

Now, interestingly enough, Gold & Glory is the absolute opposite of my idea of a way a game should be designed – I am a fluff guy myself, I like the setting, the details of the world, the history, legends and lore… The rules are to me an unpleasant necessity.
Giuseppe is a rules man, and the true measure of his genius is he managed to build a game in which the rules are the setting, and the bare-bones universe made of dungeons and the strange creatures that live in them works perfectly.
You don’t feel like there’s something missing, and you actually enjoy the game and the game world for what they are.
Perfect.
Gold & Glory is certainly the best thing I played this year.
Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.