Key Our Cars

Bad Moon

They load and lock and pick up a couple of Companions, two guys that do work for Tom’s agency, Craig and Frank (last names not revealed for safety reasons).  With Craig driving the company sedan and Tom bringing his own personal car they head over to Chinatown where the O’Toole’s are hiding out.

They arrive and send John Redman on a scouting mission.  He circles the block and spots four sedans parked in front of the building with a driver in front of each one.  In addition there is someone parked by the back door to the building they’re interested in.

This puts the kaibosh on their thought to hijack a single vehicle filled with hookers and they’re forced to improvise.  Leaving Craig parked in an alley way across from the sedans with orders to disable the cars at an opportune time and otherwise divert the bad guys, they enter a building on the same block and terrorize the owner of the flooring establishment and head up to the roof leaving the poor guy locked up in a closet on the top floor.

They cross the roof and enter the target building heading down to the 10th floor where they’ve been told the gang is hiding out.   Tom tries to stealthily peek down the hall but is spotted by a thug sitting outside a closed set of doors at the far end.

As the guy grabs for the sawed off next to him, Tom puts two .45 calibre slugs through his chest.  The double boom of the heavy pistol tears the quiet evening air and the group makes a break for it as commotion starts up inside the room.

On fleet feet John and Frank hit the double doors at the same time and with barely slowing a beat John yoinked them open and dove inside across the room slamming to a halt on the far wall near a large receptionist desk.  And directly between two thugs.  He unloaded a Colt Peacemaker on the one in the corner hoping someone would take care of the other.

Without much luck as the nearest thug shot him up with another double barreled shotgun.

Helena and Tom showed up as Frank put two barrels into one thug and the room quickly filled with gunsmoke and muzzle flashes.

When the last of the brass tinkled to a stop, John Redman was pretty seriously hurt but the others had emerged victorious.

From ahead a voice was screaming out that he was going to ‘kill the women if you don’t let me go!’ and then the lights went out.

From inside the room the voice died in gurgle and a thud and behind them in the hall came the ding of the elevator as more thugs showed up.

Tom kicked the door in and he and John looked into the darkness, John spotting a shape fleeing by the window and put two rounds into it’s center of mass, blasting it out the window even as a strange dagger flashed past his head to bury itself in the wall behind him.

In the hallway Helena and Frank disposed of two of the three thugs but the third got away fleeing in the elevator.

Using their lighters they discovered a gangster inside the room, his head all but severed and three hysterical women tied up.

Working quickly they freed the girls and as a party swept back up to the roof through the fireescapes, there was no sign of whoever it was that John had shot in the window.   They also learned on the roof that there was a fourth woman in the room with them before the lights went out.

Hearing gunfire from the front of the building Tom lumbered that way and capped two thugs from the rooftop that were engaged in fire with Craig in the alley across the street.

Fleeing to safety back across the roofs and down into the street they went back to their vehicles with the three women in tow back to headquarters in the two cars.  Helena worked on John’s wounds, plucking a couple of pellets of buckshot out of his shoulder and stitching him up.

[On the last possible attempt of 5 tries she finally managed to heal him up.]

Questioning the women they learned that one had overheard that they were going to be delivered to ‘the nuthouse’.

Tom started making calls and arranged for each of the women to be hauled to the train station and put on a train by Craig and shipped off with a couple of bucks and a new dress.

Tom learned from his police contacts that there was a sanitarium about an hour outside of town and the three of them and Frank headed that way.

The sanitarium was off the main road in a secluded forested area and there they found a massive steel gate and stone wall topped with spikes.  The metal all rusted from neglect, the place having been closed for several years.  The big chain and fancy european lock on the gate though was quite shiny.

The sophisticated lock proved no barrier to John and he had it open in a flash and they moved in on foot, leaving their car near the gate.

John, out in front of the group by 30 yards was accosted from the darkness by a thug and forced to lay on the ground as the guy had the drop on him.

Tom though, by some miracle was able to sneak his big ass up and get the drop on the thug and the tables were turned.

They questioned him, learning that he didn’t know much but that there were several more guards and dogs at the asylum and he was local talent.  They left him tied up off the side of the road.

They proceeded on a little closer together this time and a good thing as a pack of silent hounds burst forward from the underbrush and after John.  He was savaged a bit by the dogs and then even worse by the misdirected fire of Frank who was still armed with the shotgun and accidently shot at John during the confusion.  With the same shotgun that he’d been shot with a few hours earlier.

Swearing they advanced swiftly to the sanitarium and up inside where they get attacked by bad guys wearing all black and wielding automatic weapons of an unknown nature.

They downed the guys but not without John getting shot up even more.

A search of the sanitarium found several dead women, all blondes and by all signs pregnant when they were shot, once to the head.  They also found a surgery with the body of a woman on it and the room all bloody.  In the corner a man in scrubs was muttering “What have I done?” over and over.  When approached by John he whispred, “Please forgive me.” then slashed his own throat with a scalpel he’d been holding.

Etched in the floor of the surgery they spotted symbols much like those that had been on the body of the woman they’d seen at the city morgue a few days earlier.

Hearing engines they spotted a large truck fleeing the area around the side of the sanitarium.  Although they shot at it, it escaped although the license plate was noted.

Fleeing in a car parked in front of the sanitarium they made it to the front gate but not in time to see which way the truck had turned.

Their own car had been raked down one side with gun fire leaving both tires flat.  Leaving Frank behind to change the tires they headed back to Chicago.  Once again Helena tended to John’s wounds and got him in a working state again.

[And again she managed to fully recover him with the absolute last roll.]

A little bit later Frank showed up with their car and they split up to get some well deserved rest.

Bad Moon

We’ve tentitively started the Dark Pulp game this last Saturday.  The setting is a ‘romantacized’ version of 1920′s Chicago.  We’ll focus our viewpoint on the Gilhooly Detective Agency, founded by Tom “Fat Tom” Gilhooley (PC) and Stella Proschenko (Allied NPC) who brings contacts with the darker side of the town to the table.  On their payroll is Candance Proschenko (Allied NPC) who acts as the Agency’s Secretary and Girl Friday and Q, a white South African who works as mechanic, inventor, gunsmith and the like.

In addition Tom has John Redman (aka Billy Tiger) a full blood Cherokee from Oklahoma (PC) on full time retainer for when he needs a little backup or some clandestine searching.  John had some troubles in Oklahoma, something about making late night withdrawals from various finanical institutions and is in Chicago enjoying the lack of heat in the great Fall weather. So to speak…  He plays the part of the Sneak.

Helena Chernisova (PC) is a Russian immigrant to Chicago, an ex-nurse and medical researcher she had to leave the business after she was let go to make way for a relative of the hospital administrator.  Her response to the termination has made her less than welcome at other hospitals after the administrator made a few spiteful phone calls.  To make ends meet she’s applying her research skills at Tom’s bequest.  She plays the part of the Thinker.

And of course there’s Tom himself.  An honest cop in a corrupt town he had no future in the Chicago Police Department and left the force days ahead of an ‘accident’ that would have probably proven fatal.  He keeps a ready hand with a $10 in it for those he knows on the force and everyone knows Tom’s both generous and a man of his word.

We join our heroes with Tom at the office…

Tom was kicked back and eating some cake and having coffee when Candace popped in and informed him that someone was downstairs to see her mother Stella and did he want to take it since Stella was currently in New York attending the wedding of a relative.

Tom, having nothing else on his plate other than cake, had the woman sent up.  She turned out to be a street walker by the name of Missy and an old employee of Stella’s back when Stella was in the ‘life’. She had a story about some of her friends disappearing and stories of others.  The cops so far had been of no help, “So a whore has moved on, so what?” and Missy in desperation decided to look up her old boss.

Missy spins a story of overhearing a conversation between a friend of hers and the woman’s boyfriend.  The boyfriend is an O’Toole, an Irish gang that runs girls in a section of town near Chinatown.   The man was scared and from what little she could make out she thinks the O’Toole’s are involved in the missing girls.  The next morning both of them were packed and gone.  It was then that she decided to come see Stella.

Tom hears her out and decides to look into it.  Tom does have a bit of a White Knight complex and women in distress, even prostitutes warrant his concern.

He sends Helena and John out to investigate.  They go and talk to a few of the girls and get not much for their trouble.  [DM's Note: Remember these girls understand money or intimidation and aren't likely to spill their guts to strangers without one or the other...]

They stop off at a diner to grab a cup of coffee and try and squeeze some information out of counter man and waitress and enter separately with John going to the counter for coffee and Helena a booth where she orders coffee and apple pie.

They pick up a description of both of Missy’s missing friends and they’re both tall blondes.  Coincidence or the start of a theme?

While Helena is sitting there a man sits down at her booth and offers to hook her up with some action.  Helena says she’s looking for her boss, not herself and doesn’t get much information from the man.  John notices when he sits that he’s packing heat and keeps an eye on him.

They leave and head back to the office and tell Tom what they found out.

Spending the next few days they investigate the morgue where Helena finds out that there’s a Jane Doe that fits the general Tall Blonde description and manages to see the body claiming her cousin is missing.   She notes that the body seems to have a void in the chest/abdomen area under the sheet.   She arranges to have a date with the Assistant Medical Examiner to try and get more information out of him where she finds out the body is being handled by the senior M.E.  Helena learns the hard way that people don’t like questions and perhaps the honest direct approach might not be the best approach.

John Redman sneaks into the morgue and steals the last years ledgers to see if there are other mentions of Jane Doe’s that fit this description.  Unfortunately he’s unable to get the current ledger which is kept in the recieving area where there is always someone on duty.   Later he sneaks back into the morgue and steals the case files on Jane Doe and replaces the stolen ledgers.   He also learns through an acquaintance the O’Tooles are selling women overseas or that’s a story that’s circulating about the gang.

They find out information on the O’Tooles through Tom’s contacts and learn they’ve ‘gone to the mattresses’ in an old office building in Chinatown.  THey cruise by in their sedan and find a car full of thugs parked outside.  John reconoiters the back alleys and finds another guy guarding the back door.  Rather than risk a confrontation they retreat to plan their next moves.

Unfortunately all their nosing about has attracted attention and Mick O’Toole the leader of the O’Toole gang shows and tells them in no uncertain terms to back the hell off.   He offers to hire them to take a vacation and when Tom doesn’t go for it makes some fairly (un)veiled threats that bad things might happen if they don’t.  John with uncanny insight picks up that Mick is scared pantsless which might make him a dangerous man, even more so than he might otherwise be.

The doorman to the building, being on Tom’s secret payroll to pass along information, sends up word that two of the O’Toole’s head off down the  street from the sedan loaded with them that Mick arrived in.  Tom calls down to the diner on the corner and finds out they’re holed up there.

He and John go have a talk with them.  A slight altercation takes place and one of them makes his escape after shoving Fat Tom halfway across the room out of the booth and bolting like a rabbit out the door.

The other one isn’t quite so awesome and they learn that the O’Tooles are in fact acquiring women for a buyer and that they missed a delivery and the buyer is very very upset about that and now a bunch of their boys have vanished.   They’re collecting girls now to try and make up their delivery schedule.   He was a little confused about Tom’s insinuations that the same buyer had hired Tom but he was scared enough that he just didn’t quite get it.

After thoroughly scaring the thug more, Tom lets him go and they head back to the office where he deposited the two 38′s they took off the thugs.

Aftermath:

All in all this is the first RPG session in going on 30+ years of playing that I’ve ever had where there wasn’t a fight of any kind.  Not a single punch was thrown or a cartridge fired although guns were brandished at times.  Part of this could I’m sure be laid at the feet that the first part of the session was character building and during the session one of my son’s got sick and spewed all over himself and the couch which neccesitated a time out for clean up.

I’ll get the podcast out as I can this week, I go on call tomorrow for the next week so time might be at a premium for me.

Dennis

Double Barrel Shotgun

Unless of course you have that one player who carries 18 clips for each of the 5 weapons he somehow has stashed on his person like some soldier class from Mass Effect 2.

Anyway, if you have need to keep track of a reasonable amount of clips and bullets in any game using them these could certainly add a bit of bling to your gaming table.  These are crafted by someone who appears to be playing Savage Worlds Deadlands or Deadlands Reloaded primarily so there’s a lack of larger clip sizes that would be appropriate for things like that G3 or MP5 your super spy is carrying but one could make do with multiple smaller clips rubber banded together or something of that nature.

15 Round Clip

As an alternative that’s cheaper, you could just buy some thick foam core, cut it into magazine like shapes and then poke holes in it to stand your bullet casings up in which could be various sized dowels cut off in the appropriate sizes.  But where’s the cool in that?

Zombie Run

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I wanted to make a comparison about MMOG’s and Pen and Paper gaming and the conclusions that I draw from that.

Back in the day, I played Ultima Online.  If you’re not familiar with it, it was one of the first MMOG’s in the U.S. and is still around today.  UO was very much a sandbox, there were no classes, no levels, no game directed direction to your play.  And in the first year or two of the game there wasn’t a whole lot of content.  Back then content was pretty easy to categorize.  It was random spawn that you go and kill.  No quests, no story lines, no ‘phat lewt’.   But back then programmers and servers alike weren’t all that good and the amount of spawn that was available was way under what was needed to keep players entertained because the apps and hardware couldn’t support it.   We even coined a phrase “Connecticut Online” because the countryside was completely empty of things that might prove dangerous to you.

The combats were pretty simple too, you either hit something with a hard object, shot something with a ranged weapon or hit them with the same spell over and over again *Corp por corp por corp por*.

As a result of being a combat light game, light in that there weren’t a lot of options to choose from and pretty static and infrequent things to use those few options on, players become role players.  Sitting around taverns and talking, hanging out in their crafting shops selling things to their customers, and having pretend wars with groups of ‘orcs’ or ‘elves’ and generally playing a persona rather than playing the game.

Then came EQ which had levels and lots of things to kill.  And introduced to the masses the concepts of tanking, crowd control, healing, buffers and debuffers, getting behind someone for the back stab.  Combat went from going into combat mode and trying to stay next to your target so you could ‘swing’ the sword when your timer ran out in UO to having a toolbar filled with icons of various things you could do and combinations and interactions with other players in EQ.

And roleplaying disappeared completely.  Combat was interesting and going after that next carrot on the treadmill became the most important thing.   Killing 10 of this for a NPC who had one line when you clicked it “Bring me 10 of this” was the extent of game play.  And it was good, or at least enough for 99% of the gamers.

Which brings me to an observation and the basis for this post.  Many people decry 4th Edition as the death of roleplaying because the books don’t have any rules for it, that the books are all about combat.  And in that I think they’re right but for the wrong reasons that they claim and not that it kills roleplaying but that it impacts it.  In an aside, “Seriously people?  You need rules to roleplay?”

I believe a direct correlation can be made, at least by me, as to why this might indeed be the case taking the MMOG’s impact on gaming and applying it to our tables.

It’s because combat in 4th Edition or Hero Systems or Mutants & Masterminds  is interesting, much like combat in EQ was.  It’s entertaining and really isn’t that why we’re playing these games?  To be entertained?

In these types of systems players have a huge ‘toolbar’ filled with various things they can try during combat, powers that let them buff and de-buff, crowd control, heal and hurt, single target and masses of targets.    The sheer number of cool things that a character can do is enough to make one giddy.  The GM has way cool monsters and bad guys to run and pit against the players.   Very little is cookie cutter which his bad guys, he has access to sugar cookies, oreos, gingersnaps, all kinds of tasty variety for the players to consume and enjoy.

Then there are systems like Savage Worlds or Fudge or Spirit of the Century or to kick it old school Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.  These are combat mechanic light much like UO was.  Your toolbar of tricks is very limited, you either turn on auto combat and try and stay near your target so you can ‘swing’ your sword at them when the timer (your turn) goes off or you shoot them with your ranged weapon or you cast the same basic spell over and over again to kill the target.   The GM has the same issue, all his bad guys do tend to be cookie cutter with minor mechanical differences, all sugar cookies but some with white sprinkles instead of blue ones instead of powdered sugar.

As a result the amount of roleplay in my experience both online in a MMOG or offline at the table with your friends can be affected in direct inverse ratio to how interesting and involved the combat system is with the added bonus/penalty of how many new toys (carrots) you gain along the way.   Players act differently when there is a new toy to pick up, a new power to be gained, all just dangling out of their reach waiting for the next block of experience than there is when the prize is simply the doing.   Some game systems promote the journey’s end, while others promote the journey itself.

And I’m not saying you can’t roleplay with any system or that you can’t have fun and entertaining combats in any system.  Obviously you can.  We’ve had periods where roleplaying that lasted for a couple of hours straight without any combat in 4th Edition and had vastly entertaining fights in Savage Worlds.

What I am trying to say is that the system you choose to play can have a direct impact on the results at your table and these impacts can be obvious and sometimes subtle.

So what’s the end game of all this?  Not much to be honest other than perhaps if you want a game that’s heavier in roleplay then perhaps choosing a lighter system might promote that while a group that might be more interested in combat might choose a heavier system.

Zombie Run

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After two ‘real’ sessions using Savage Worlds and several play tests, the critical hit system in Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition is still bugging me as a GM based on the impact it has on the PC’s… enthusiasm I guess might be a good word to describe it.

In SWEX if you achieve your to-hit roll by 4 over what you needed to roll to achieve success you get to add an extra 1d6 damage to your damage roll. You then take your total damage output and compare that to the target’s defenses. If you meet or exceed the defense you can start applying damage to the target.

What this can result in, is that a player might roll really well on a to-hit roll and then roll not so well on damage and have the end result that they do zero damage to the target. No effect what-so-ever. This can be aggravated on the player’s side if they roll REALLY well. Although the developers recommend you stop rolling exploding dice once you’ve achieved 4 over your target number on to-hit rolls, since I use an App that does give you totals, rolling a 22 to hit versus a target number of 4 can really have a “That suxx0r’s” moment for the player if they don’t get decent damage.

This is worse, in my opinion, than rolling well in DnD and then rolling low damage. At least in DnD you feel you’re having ‘some’ effect even if it’s minor if you roll low damage. Also because of the flat adds in other systems the die roll isn’t the only source of damage, you’re guaranteed a minimum value of the lowest die result possible + the additional damage. In part to eliminate the ‘lows’ of combat this is why I implemented using average damage for our 4th edition game and I do believe it helped significantly in many ways and making suck rolls impossible is one of them.

But with Savage Worlds you can’t really use average dice or you might as well throw away the entire dice based system or at least the exploding die part. And that exploding die part is in many cases what makes the system work where anyone can in theory damage anyone with any given attack. And of course exploding dice are fun.

In thinking about this I’ve come up with some possible options that I’m going to consider further.

Option A – Average Joes – Use average damage as a minimum value for every attack. So if you roll 2d6 damage the least amount of damage you can roll is 7, 3d6 is 11, d4+d6 would be 6 and so on.

Basing the chance to hit and the chance to do damage IF you hit on random rolls is a little… random and creates situations where too many possible outcomes yield no combat effect. Making a change like this long term will have the effect of shifting the average upwards and reducing the ‘spread’. To be fair it would have to be applied to both sides equally. This is the most ‘equal’ option of the possible options I’ve come up with I believe although it does favor the PC’s but less so than the others. This would remove the high to-hit roll, crap damage roll turn a hit into a miss syndrome although it doesn’t guarantee that the hit is going to have an effect on the wrong end of the bell curve where something is trying to get through a really high toughness factor.

Option B – Always Shaken – Any critical hit has the minimum effect that the target is shaken if it’s not shaken or inflicts one wound if it is. In essence the minimum damage becomes the target’s toughness.

This means that every critical effect has an ingame impact rather than just a chance to actually have the attack have any effect. Never a bad thing. This is going have a broader and wider spread impact as a result It means that a child armed with a pen knife could in theory roll two critical hits in a row and kill an Extra simply by Shaking it with one hit, and Wounding it with the second regardless of damage output. This one is going to favor the Wild Cards significantly more than Extra’s since they’re much more likely to get critical hits. It could also have absurd situations where a guy with a toothpick can kill someone as easily as guy with a sword although GM fiat could fix that.

Option C – Critical Joes - This would work the same as Option A but only apply on a critical hit. i.e. only if a creature’s T0-Hit roll is 4+ what they need would they get to use average damage on their die rolls as the minimum value.

Again this one is going to favor WC’s more due to the increased crit chance they get and it would have less game impact since it would apply is a lot fewer attack rolls.

Option D – To the Max - This option would let the character choose to either roll their dice as normal including the bonus 1d6 OR simply take the maximum amount on their normal dice pool for a regular attack. In other words if they roll a critical hit and they normally do 2d6 on a regular hit, they could either roll 2d6+1d6 or take the max of the base damage, in this case 2d6 = 12 damage.

This in many cases is going to be close to taking average damage but it does eliminate the math. Not sure it’s variable enough to keep for consideration but there you go.

Option E – Edgy – Just give every creature the No Mercy edge which lets them re-roll damage with a Benny.

This gives everyone a chance to recover from a bad roll but it adds yet another thing to spend Bennies on and could disrupt the Benny mechanic. A Benny spent to re-roll damage is a Benny lost to try and soak damage. Also this yet again favors the players over the NPC’s due to the fact that PC’s have a lot more Bennies than the GM does.

I think they’re all viable, some have a greater impact than others in different ways so I’ll probably just put them all out there for my players to peruse and get their input since they’re the ones that are impacted the most by this.

And just so you know, I don’t think every person who enters a contest should get a blue ribbon, but every person who enters a contest with a really great entry should at least get an honorable mention.

I’ve upgraded to WP 3.0.  If you spot anything odd let me know.

As I listen to more and more podcasts I find myself taking mental notes of things that slow down a game in terms of dealing with mechanics.

And as you may know in my old age I’ve become a bit aggressive toward speeding mechanics up where possible as slow mechanics just aren’t fun to me.

One of the most common and most easily fixed issues that’s not really applicable to the game mechanics is that  I hear from practically everyone I listen to podcast-wise, regardless of the game system is the GM/DM going “Does that hit you?”, followed by a pause as the player checks their data and then responds “Yay or nay” as appropriate.  With perhaps a 1 in 4 chance of a clever quip or false answer followed by a correction.   Going back decades (literally), I’ve always had a piece of paper with the player’s AC’s or PD/ED or [fill in the protection of the system here] in front of me.   This seems like such a an obvious thing that perhaps it’s easily overlooked.  GM’s deal with monster data and PC’s deal with PC data mind set perhaps?

4th Edition DnD adds a very obvious slowness hook to any game session in that rather than the old school, “I roll a d20 to see if I hit.  I hit?  Okay I roll this d8 and add +X to see if I do damage.” way of combat, a player even at first level has typically 5 or more powers and on top of that various other things that they have to choose from each round and each power has different damage output, different bonuses to hit, different side effects and for any given situation there may be 2 or more powers that are very applicable and a couple of others that are applicable making a decision a time intensive affair. “Do we need to slow this guy down?  Should I unleash my Daily power to try and take it out?  Is someone else having a hard time hitting and I should use this one that grants Combat Advantage or grants that guy a bonus?”

If you follow the site, you’ll know I’m currently trying Savage Worlds.  It’s catchphrase is Fast Furious Fun.  The Fast portion of that really stood out and made it worthy of notice.   It’s an odd little system, unique as far as I know in its use of dice and its dice mechanics.   But I’m finding those mechanics to be very slow to put into practice all things relative. The dice mechanic defies their Fast Furious Fun slogan.  So much so that I expanded my die rolling application for a friend with vision trouble to handle the Savage World mechanics to speed things up by rolling and figuring out the base roll + the wild die + exploding dice with one press of a key.

As a for instance in Savage Worlds, say a PC want’s to Shoot someone.  He rolls two dice, a d6 and a dx where X is his Shooting skill die.  Now if one of those dice roll a max value (i.e. a 6 on a d6 or a 4 on a d4) then you roll it again and add the next roll to the first.  Now we’re up to 3 individual dice to see if we hit.  And if two of those dice roll max we’re up to 4 dice, each separate rolls.  So let’s say we did manage to shoot our target, now we roll more dice, typically 2dx.  And yes if one of those dice roll max value we pick it up and roll it again and add the new roll to the old one.    With 2d6, one in three rolls is going to require us to pick up one of those dice and roll it again.

As you might imagine this is a slower mechanic than some, perhaps most.  Sure something like Exalted where you roll a double handful of dice is going to be slower.  Heck super heroic level in Heroes is slow simply because of the sheer number of dice you have to roll every attack and then count up both the body and the stun values.  Slow kills game play IMO.

Now overall, combat in Savage Worlds is fast but a lot of that is really due to the fact that on both sides, any character has a chance to kill any other character with a single die roll.  Granted it might require two series of really good rolls (to hit and to damage) but the chance is there.   Add in the fact that roughly 90% of the NPC’s can take one hit and down they go.  And the fact that 99% of the creatures, PC/NPC can only take 4 hits and down they go and you have a fairly short life span for any given creature.  Unlike say 4th Edition where a low level solo might have 200 hit points and take roughly 20 hits to go down.

But the actual combat speed is slow and all this boils down to is in virtually every system  for combat a character rolls two sets of dice, one set to see if they hit and then another set to see how much damage they produce.   This has been the basis of combat systems in most RPG’s since we’ve had RPG’s really. And each roll typically has math involved.   “I rolled this, I add this, I have this temporary bonus or minus.  I hit or miss.  Now I roll this, I add this and I have this temporary bonus or minus.”

It seems to me that a unified dice roll should be possible to come up with where the degree of success of your roll to hit determines damage, rather than the vast majority of the binary systems.  Well I guess some where there is a critical hit mechanic could be trinary.  By binary/trinary I mean you either missed, you hit, or you hit as well as you could.  Damage is a completely separate roll and you might do a lot of damage or a tiny bit of damage (or no damage in many systems) and has little to no bearing on how ‘well’ you hit the target with the exception of those systems with a critical hit mechanic which is usually a pretty low percentage chance.

In an aside, there’s ORE or One Role Engine of course  but that system has so many issues with it in terms of math in terms of degrees of viable usable difficulty settings that it’s hopeless, again my opinion, yours can differ.  But I ran a lot of ‘Monte Carlo’ simulations of percentages with this system and the problems surfaced pretty quickly.

I’ll be honest and say my issue with combat slowness has really peaked with Savage Worlds with its exploding dice system piled on top of the creatures having defenses against both getting hit (Parry/Fixed 4) and taking Damage (Toughness value).   To put it in other systems terms everyone has damage resistance, or a minimum value that any damage roll has to equal to have any chance of hurting the target.  Just so you don’t think I’m singling out Savage Worlds, Hero System has the same system with it’s ED/PD (and Resistant ED/PD) but at least in Hero System die rolls don’t ‘explode’ which adds to the time it takes to roll dice.

But is it really possible to have a unified system?  Sure, you can do like we did with 4th Edition and just apply average damage on a regular hit and max damage on a critical hit.  In the long run the values work out exactly the same (within very minor deviations due to rounding issues).   But systems with damage thresholds like Savage Worlds, Hero Systems, Gurps(?) this doesn’t work as well or at all.  And toss in the exploding dice mechanic and it really breaks.  ANd of course this is still a binary system.  Either you hit or you missed there’s no variation where a really good to hit roll hits harder.

To explain the issue in more detail (goodness I’m getting long winded tonight) with these types of systems, in Savage Worlds it’s completely possible that a character could roll some extremely high number, something along the lines of 1% chance of ever rolling something that high and then completely fail to do any damage to it’s target because they rolled low on damage and didn’t break the damage threshold i.e. Toughness value of the target. FWIW this  really steals the thunder of rolling so well on the to-hit, to for instance roll three 6′s in a roll and end up with a 22 to hit and then roll a damage total of 6 against a creature with a Toughness of 7 and I’m tryng to come up with something to make the ‘game feel’ of this system feel better to me.  Right now I’m leaning toward any critical hit (both sides BTW, NPC and PC alike) will always result in a Shaken status regardless of damage.  It might make it a little gritty though and more deadly definitely.

This brings up another issue.  Randomness favors the NPC’s in any System.  The more random the results the more the PC’s get screwed by things.  Why?  Because the NPC’s typically are only subject to a very few rolls.  They just don’t live long enough to be affected by random chance.  PC’s on the other hand live a very long time, barring killer GM’s, and are as a result subjected to LOTS of random rolls.

Okay I’m diverging all over the board now so I guess I should wrap this up.  The sole point for you take away from this I suppose is Speed Kills.  Or rather the lack of Speed in a mechanic.  It kills player attention spans, game flow, energy and overall entertainment.  So anything you can do to get rid of the slowness helps.  And given the most used mechanic of ANY RPG is combat rolls, speeding those up is going to have the greatest effect of anything you can do.

Or such is my thought.  Your thoughts will probably vary greatly.

Alice

If you’ve seen my 4th Edition Player Bonus cards they’re the same kind of thing, each player gets to draw one card at the start of the session (or some other interval as deemed appropriate by the GM/DM) and can play them during the game to gain a bonus of some kind.

These are my first pass at cards applicable to Savage Worlds, feel free to take them as is but they’re still a work in progress.   If any of them copy a commercial product then it’s pure happenstance, there are only so many mechanisms in Savage Worlds so there is bound to be cross over and great minds think alike and all that.

NOTE: Some of these are setting specific and not necessarily appropriate for other settings.  They’re all first draft and subject to revision, removal, replacement.

Image Credits

1. Bad Karma – Take a Benny the GM just played and add it to your pile.  If applicable any roll gained by the GM with this Benny becomes a critical failure.
2. Just What I Needed – You find a minor item that helps you in the current situation.  Spend a Benny: You find a major item that helps you.
3. It’s a Miracle! – 1d6 Extra’s die due to some freak accident or outre incident at the GM’s devising.  The GM gains a GM Benny.  Spend a Benny: Double the extra’s that are affected.
4. Rally Cry – Allies within earshot are no longer Shaken.
5. Seat Cushions – You recover 3d6 rounds of ammunition that fit one weapon you carry.  Spend a Benny to double the amount found.
6. Last Action Hero – If you are last in initiative you may ignore MAP penalties due to Multiple Actions for this round.
7. Boom – Head Shot – You may ignore any Called Shot penalty on your next ranged attack.
8. Berserkergang – Triggered: When you or an Ally you can see take one or more Wounds.  Effect: Deal +2 damage with Melee attacks for the remainder of the scene.
9. The Cavalry – 1d6 Extras show up and aid you against a common foe.  They have a neutral rating to you.
10. Hand of Fate – Trigger: An ally misses or an enemy hits  Effect: The miss becomes a critical hit, the hit becomes a critical failure.
11. Voice From Above – Play this card to obtain a hint from the GM about the current situation.
12. Piece of the One True Cross – Play this card to negate all damage from one attack.
13. 30 Pieces of Silver – Play this card to have one non-wild card enemy turn traitor to their own side.
14. That’s Crazy Talk Mister- Play this card to cause all non-wild card enemies suffer a -2 MAP as they stop to listen to your jabbering for one round.
15. A Team – Play this card to grant +4 to all cooperative trait rolls for one round.
16. Second Wind – Play this card on a character to negate a Wound and or Shaken status.
17. Take A Bullet For You Dave – Trigger: You are hit by an attack.  Effect: An adjacent Ally or enemy Extra takes the attack instead.  Must be played before damage is rolled. Spend a Benny: May be played after damage is rolled.
18. Eureka! – Play this card to roll a d8 on one skill test even if it’s untrained although untrained penalties apply.  Spend a Benny: Gain +4 on the roll.
19. Deja Vu – Play this card to take one card from the discard pile.
20. Megakill! – Play this card to add 1d6 to the damage from one attack.
21. Ultrakill! – Play this card to add 2d6 to the damage from one attack.
22. Godlike! – Play this card to double the damage from one attack.
23. Inspired – Play this card on any character to roll an additional d6 on one trait roll.  This dice may ace.
24. Rub Some Dirt On It – Play this card on any incapacitated character and allow them to re-join the fight at the end of the initiative order.  Spend a Benny:  Allow the character to join the fight at the end of the current character’s turn.
25. Triple K – Play when an adjacent ally is damaged, you take the damage instead.
26. Monkeywrench – Play on a character to cause some item in their possession to break or malfunction.  They may make an appropriate trait or skill test to fix the item as an Action.  Spend a Benny to incur a -4 penalty on this repair test for the remainder of the scene.
27. To B or not two B – Play this card during an scene.  All Wild Cards in the scene gain a Benny. If there are no GM Wild Cards then the GM gains 2 GM Bennies.
28. You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die – Play this card on a character.  Until the end of the scene you gain +2 on trait rolls made against that character.
29. Rabbit Out Of My Hat – Play this card to gain +2 on any Trick test until the end of the scene.
30. Florence Nightingale – Play this card to gain +2 on heal checks on the current patient.  Spend a Benny: Gain +4 on heal checks on the current patient.
31. Mulligan – Re-roll any one trait or damage roll.
32. Cutting in Line – Draw 3 initiative cards and keep the highest.
33. Head of the Line – Move to the start of the initiative order regardless of cards dealt.
34. You Look Familiar – One non-wildcard in the scene turns out to be an old friend and joins your side as an Ally.
35. Speedy Gonzales – Expend this card to gain +2 to your Pace for the rest of the scene.
36. Scenic Route – Expend this card to move again on your turn as a Free action bypassing the one action of a type limit.
37. Duck And Cover – Expend this card to prevent all attacks caused by withdrawing from close combat for your current turn.
38. Murphy’s Law – Play this card to cause something major to go wrong with the current scene. The details are between you and your GM.
39. Can’t We All Just Get Along – Play this card to call a cease-fire between hostile groups for one round allowing diplomatic talks.   This does not guarantee hostilities won’t continue.
40. Follow My Lead – Trigger: You hit and cause damage to a creature.  Effect: All allies within visual range gain +2 on their next attack.  Spend a Benny: Bonus increases to +4.
41. My Feet Are Killing Me – Play during any rest stop.  Find 1d4 Fuel Levels.  Spend a Benny: Double amount found.
42. Twinkie Cachet – Play during any rest stop.  Find 2d6 meals worth of food.  Spend a Benny: Double amount found.
43. Lip Balm? – Play during any rest stop.  Find 2d6 medical supplies, each suitable to help heal one wound. Spend a Benny: Double amount found.
44. Circle The Wagons – Play during any rest stop.  Enjoy an uneventful night’s sleep.  Spend a Benny: This can be played after any random  encounter scene has been generated negating the scene.
45. And Now For Something Completely Expected – You are surprised by 1d6 hostile Extra’s per player as a random scene.  All Players draw 1 Adventure Card
46. You always were an asshole Gorman – Play this on an Incapacitated Ally, must be played as soon as they’re incapacitated.  Ally sets off a Grenade or Molotov centered on their location.
47. I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed – Play this card to ignore wound penalties for the remainder of the scene.
48. Still Civilized – Play this card to encounter a random friendly group who provide aid and shelter for the night.
49. Spill Your Guts – Gain as much knowledge during an interrogation as the target possesses.
50. Syndrome syndrome – Play this on a character and force them to spend an extended action monologuing about their evil plans, or that one time in band camp incurring a MAP of -4.
51. Abandon All Hope – Play this card during a combat scene and each player may choose to draw one adventure card.  1d6 hostile Extra’s enter the fight on the next round for each card drawn.  All characters must decide to draw before any cards are drawn.
52. Joker’s Gone Wild – Play this card to swap your initiative card with any Joker drawn for initiative.
53. In The Zone – Gain +1 to Shooting, Fighting, Throwing rolls until the end of the scene.

I’ve made a small update to my Blindroller (108) app which adds the ability to have ‘dice tower’ sounds played when the dice are ‘rolled’.   You can turn them on by either pressing the Enter/Return key (its a toggle) or using the Edit – Preferences – Sounds toggle menu option.

The sounds are around a dozen dice sound bites from our various podcasts.

The other keys remain the same, d20 = 0, d12 = 2, d10 = 1, d8 = 8, d6 = 6 (or any key), d4 = 4 on either the number pad or the main number keys.   Using any key for d6 as default is because I’m going to be running a Savage Worlds session or three which has a lot of d6 rolling.

If you have a player who’s vision impaired then I can’t recommend enough getting them this app (or something similar if there is such a thing) on a PC so they can roll their own dice.   Being blind sucks enough, having to depend on someone else to read your dice on top of that is just ass’ing on the cake.

D

Noir

Scene:

Our fearless trio has been canvassing a seedy side of town looking for one Lou “Lucky Lou” Wilson a small time fence that’s come into some property the agency has been tasked with tracking down and returning to its rightful owners.

The purpose of the scenes – Gain familiarity with the chase rules as they apply to foot chases, expand combat familiarity, expose just how bad it is to go up against melee numbers when you only have a gun, that kind of thing. Working up a beginning set of adventures.

Things learned – Chase rules make sense but could see how a chase could drag out with a lot of catch up a bit, lose ground due to rolls.  Gang Up bonus plus unarmed defender bonus is very nasty.  The original last fight scene had the three Wild Cards versus 6 Extras and 1 Wild Card.  Combine that many attacks on top of the bonuses and it was a complete TKO.  Removing two of the Extras eased the blow somewhat and it went from a Game over man! to a “Tough but doable.”

Note: It’s a Pulp setting so there are some things that Heroes get like the police rarely show up until after the fight, they get Bennies more often as Pulp has a bit of an over top to it and the like.   This was written piecemeal over the course of several days as I found time so there may be some inconsistencies.

Our Cast –

Three members of Danger Inc. “Danger is our middle name.” private detective agency -

Jack Antonelli –
Agility d8 (2), Smarts d6 (1), Spirit d6 (1), Strength d4, Vigor d6 (1)
Toughness 5, Parry 6, Sanity 6, Pace 6(10)
Fighting d8 (3), Perception d6 (2), Shooting d6 (2), Streetwise d6 (2), Guts d6 (2), Athletics d6 (2), Insight d6(2)
Edge: Well Adjusted
Hindrances: Big Mouth, Loyal
(Think Tony DiNozzo from NCIS)

Mary Alice Dougherty –
Agility d6 (1), Smarts d8 (2), Spirit d8 (2), Strength d4, Vigor d4
Toughness 4, Parry 5, Sanity 6, Pace 6(9)
Fighting d6 (2), Shooting d6 (2), Stealth d6 (2), Thievery d6 (2) Perception d8 (3), Investigation d8 (3), Guts d6 (2), Insight d4(1)
Edge: Common Bond
Hindrances: Quirk: Prim and Proper, Cautious
(Think Evie from the Mummy)

Pyotr ‘Pete Jones’ Rashnikov –
Agility d8 (2), Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d8(2), Vigor d6 (1)
Toughness 5, Parry 7, Sanity 4, Pace 6(10)
Fighting d10 (5), Shooting d8 (3), Perception d8 (5),Taunt d4(1), Guts d6(3)
Edge: Two Fisted
Hindrances: Phobia: Rats, Wanted: Russian Mafia New York City Based
(Think Pete of BCjr)

Setup –

GM: “It’s late evening, the wind is picking up and it’s a cold one. The streets and sidewalks have been steadily decreasing in traffic for the last couple of hours as the late fall sun sank below the horizon. Trash swirls down the street and there’s a hint of possibly the first early snow of the year, the old timers have been saying this is going to be a cold winter but then they always say that don’t they.  As you’d decided, Jack you’re on one side of the street part way between Pete and Mary Alice on the other. Give me an insight roll with a -4 penalty.”
Mechanically: This is a setting specific skill added to my game with SW to simulate a character’s ability to make a leap of deduction without a lot of facts, to ‘read’ people and to gain clues through intuition on things they may not consciously know.  And to pick up on creepy vibes. The penalty is pretty high for this check but it’s a very hard thing to pick up on hence the -4.

Jack: “Right, I use any reflective surfaces and the occasional glance around to keep an eye on the other two.”
Mechanically, rolls d6 and wild d6 for rolls of 2,6.  6 aces for a total of 5 (9-4).  Success.

Mary Alice: “I keep an eye on Jack, I don’t like him over on the other side of the street by himself.”
Mechanically, rolls d4 and wild 6 for rolls of 3,6.  6 aces for a total of 3 (7-4).  Failure.

Pete: “I stop to check out a window display using it to glance at Mary Alice and Jack casually.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d4-2 and wild d6-2 for a 3 and a 6.  The wild aces for a final total of 7 (13-2-4).

GM: “Well well, at roughly the same time Mary Alice and Pete you both get the feeling that someone has painted a bulls-eye on your back, that feeling of being watched by someone with intensity, possibly hostile intensity.  Good work Pete, you’re typically about as insightful as a rock with a blanket over it.”

Pete: “Ugh, I don’t like this, something’s wrong. Not sure what it is but it’s gotten partly creepy out with a chance of sudden violence.”

GM: “Ahead on the street on the same side as Pete, a man bundled up against the cold steps out of a building with a package under his arm.  He glances both ways and then heads north in the same direction you’ve been going.   Perception checks please with a -1 penalty please.”

Jack: “I give him the once over.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 5 and a 4 for a total of 4 (5-1).  Success.

Pete: “Must need to be somewhere important if he’s heading out into this cold.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 6 and a 3 for a total of 5 (6-1). Success.

Mary Alice: “He’s carrying something I see.”
Mechanically: Rolls a 7 and a 3 for a total of 6 (7-1). Success.

GM: “Although he has a muffler around his face and a snap brim hat pulled down enough of his face is showing that all of you recognize him as Lou Wilson.  He’s about 100′ ahead of you almost to the next intersection.”

Mary Alice: “Bingo, that’s our boy.  I pick up the pace to catch up to Pete.”

Pete: “Should I cross the street?”

Jack: “No no, I give Pete a discrete wave to stay on that side of the street.  We need to see where he’s going and if he crosses over he might wonder why Pete is going back and forth.  We all walk faster but not running yet to close the distance.”

GM: “You see Lou shift the package to his other arm, it’s about the size of bowling ball although squarer in shape and bundled up in gray cloth or canvas.  As he does a low warbling whistle echoes between the buildings coming from, you think, an alleyway ahead on Jack and Mary Alice’s side of the street about 50′ ahead of them.  Lou’s step falters and his head whips around, scanning the street behind him.  He turns forward and breaks into a run.  At this point he’s roughly 30′ ahead of you or 6 squares putting him at extreme range plus for a foot chase.  If he gets 11 squares ahead of you, you’ve lost him.”

Start of Chase: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [Pete, Jack, Mary Alice ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

Note: Lou isn’t a full Wild Card but isn’t quite a lowly Extra either and has the ability to suffer one wound and gets his own Benny.

Pete: “Crap, what the hell is going on?  I start chasing him.”

Jack: “Son of a bi[bleep]! I cut diagonally across the street.”

Mary Alice: “Good thing I’m not wearing high heels.  I chase after them.”

GM: “And the chase is on!  Mary Alice your sustained pace at a run is a 9, the boys run at 10.  Lou seems to be hoofing it about the same speed as Mary Alice.  This is going to give Pete and Jack a bit of an edge in catching up Lou as they’re just slightly faster over the long haul than he is.  Let’s pull initiative cards shall we?”
Mechanically: I’m using a House Rule from the savage pedia that run speed equals Pace+1/2 Agility die.  This makes some sense to me as barring Obstacles (dealt with by a separate mechanic) a persons running speed isn’t going to vary between 15% and 100% of their walking speed and eliminates one roll per person per round so time saver as well.
Initiative order ends up  Mary Alice KC, Pete JS, Lou 4S, Jack 2C.
Since Mary Alice and Jack were both dealt clubs they have to avoid obstacles.  Given the situation they’re both crossing the street the obstacles are obvious.  Moving cars…

GM: “Mary Alice as you dart out into the street you hear a screech of brakes from behind you, apparently you forgot to stop look and listen. Give me an Agility test at -1.”
Mechanically: The GM has assigned the obstacle density of the area as Sparse which is a -1 penalty.

Mary Alice: “Darnit, I could have sworn I looked.  Okay I try to avoid becoming a bumper sticker.”
Mechanically:  Mary Alice rolls her Agility d6 and wild d6 and gets a 6,3.  The 6 aces for a total of 9 (10-1) and she got a success and raise.

GM: “You put on a burst of speed and get out of the way of the sedan as the driver whips the wheel to the side ending up smashing into a light pole, bringing it crashing to the ground in a screech of metal and smashing of glass.  Give me another Agility roll to see how well you’re doing with the chase.”

Mary Alice: “That roll doesn’t count?”

GM: “Not as far as I can tell, the clubs card means you have to make an obstacle roll.  I assume if you make it then the chase continues.  If you fail it then you have to take damage from the impact.”

Mary Alice: “Okay, I keep on running then.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d6 and wild d6 for a 1,6 which aces to 9 for a success and raise.  Mary Alice closes the gap by 2 putting her 4 squares on Lou.

Pete: “I see Mary Alice is okay and keep on running.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for 8,1.  8 aces for total of 10 (9+1for being faster than Lou). Success and a raise. Pete also closes the gap by 2.

GM: “Jack as you’re moving across the street you hear the squeal of breaks and it distracts your eyes away from the pothole in front of you.”

Jack: “Whoa!”
Mechanically: Jack rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 5,4 for a total of 4 (5-1).  A success.

GM: “You narrowly avoid the pothole and continue running.”

Jack: “Good thing, that might have broken an ankle.  I shout back, ‘Watch out for potholes M.A.!’”
Mechanically: Rolls his Agility d8 and wild d6 for his chase dice for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 9 (8+1 for being faster). Success and raise. He closes the gap by 2 squares.

Lou: Yells, “Back off!”
Mechanically: Lou rolls his Agility d8 and gets a 7.  A success and he increases the gap 1 square.

Round 2 Results: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [Pete, Jack, Mary Alice ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “You’ve managed to close the distance a little but Lou’s running scared and he’s pushing hard to get away.”
Mechanically:  Initiative cards dealt Jack AD, Mary Alice 5H, Pete JH, Lou 8H making the order Jack, Pete, Lou, Mary Alice.

Jack: “If I pass by anything I could easily grab and throw I want to do so.”

GM: “You’ll take a multi action penalty on your chase test and the grab.  If you wanted to throw it in the same round that would be a -4 to all rolls…”

Jack: “Hmm, okay I’ll just grab something if I can and throw it next round.”

GM: “Not a problem, yes you pass by a garbage can on the sidewalk and an empty beer bottle catches your eye.”

Jack: “I grab it then as I run past.”
Mechanically: Jack is doing a grab action and his movement is an action so he’s going to suffer a -2.  He rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 and gets a 8,6.  The 6 aces for an 8.  He ends up with a 8-2 or 6.  Success on the grab.  His chase roll is also a d8 Agility and d6 wild for a 4,4 for a total of 3 (4-2+1).  Failure so he doesn’t alter the distance between him and Lou.

Pete: “I zip past Jack as he slows down to grab the bottle.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 6,5. The player spends a Benny to roll again hoping for better results and gets a 8,3.  The 8 aces for a total of 16(15+1).  A success and 3 raises.  Success he closes the gap by 2 squares.

Lou: The fence keeps running.
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and gets a 3.  Failure.

Mary Alice: “I try to run faster.”
Mechanically: She rolls Agility d6 and wild d6 and gets a 4,5 for a 5.  Success.  She closes the gap by 1 square.

Round 3 Results: [Lou] [  ] [  ] [ Pete ] [  Mary Alice ] [ Jack ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “Pete is closing in quickly, that bottle grab cost Jack some time though.”
Mechanically: Initiative cards result in Jack 7S, Mary Alice 8C, Pete 9D, Lou 3D or Pete, Mary Alice, Jack, Lou.

Pete: “I’ve almost got him now!”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 7,4 for a total 8 (7+1), success and a raise.  He closes the gap by 2 squares.

GM: “Mary Alice someone exits a building opening the door right in your face.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice’s club card results in an obstacle check at -1.

Mary Alice: “Oh this is going to hurt if I don’t pull off a high speed maneuver.”
Mechanically: Rolls her Agility d6 and wild d6 at -1 to avoid the obstacle and gets a 2,4 or total 3 (4-1).  She elects to spend a Benny and rolls another set for a 3,1 or total 2(3-1).  She flinches and spends a second benny for a 1,1 or critical failure.  Sighing heavily she tosses in her last benny and gets a 5,4 or total 4(5-1) and avoids the door by a miracle.

GM: “Tough one Mary Alice but you pulled it out of the fire!  Great job.  You swirl and side step, catching the door just slightly and knocking it out of the hand of the gentleman coming out who shouts in surprise, ‘What in bloody hell miss?!’”

Mary Alice: “‘Got a white rabbit to catch dear boy’ I shout back at him.”

GM: “Heh, good one.  Here have a Benny for that one.  You still need to make a chase roll.”
Mechanically: The GM appreciated the reference to Alice and Wonderland and awarded the player a Benny for it.

Mary Alice: “I’m feeling good about this one.”
Mechanically: Rolls a Agility d6 and wild d6 for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for an 8. Success and raise she closes the gap by 2.

Jack: “I wind up and let the bottle fly, trying to nail Lou with it.”

GM: “Okay as an improvised weapon let’s give the bottle your str+d4, probably a little over the top but what the heck there’s nothing in the rules that I can find. You’ll use your Throwing skill.”

Jack: Looks at his sheet. “Oh you mean my lack of Throwing skill?”

GM: “Right, that one, d4-2 plus a wild die -2.”

Jack: “Here goes nothing.  And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”
Mechanically: Jack is going to be a -2 for his Throwing attack and his chase roll and because he has no Throwing skill that roll is at another -2.  The GM (not finding any reference in the manual declares the bottle will do Jack’s Str+d4 in damage, they seem to knock the heck out of people in bar fights in the movies anyway.  He rolls his Throwing d4 and Wild d6 for a 3,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 6 (10-2-2).  Well what do you know, he actually hit with it.  He rolls a Strength d4 for damage and gets a 4. It aces for a total of 9 damage!

GM: “Not sure how you pulled that off but you actually hit him hard enough to matter.  Great job! Lou is though going to try and soak the wound. Here have a Benny.”
Mechanically: The GM spends a Benny for Lou and makes a Vigor d4 test and gets a 1, failure. This causes an Out of Control check which typically results in a Skid of 1d4 (2) inches but the GM rules that the -2 increments from getting shaken override this on a foot chase and everyone moves up the chase chart by 2 inches instead.

GM: “The bottle clips Lou on the side of the head and bursts into shards of glass one of which opens a slice in his scalp and blood starts to flow freely and he’s shaken and stumbles quite a bit allowing you all to catch up.  Continue your run now.”

Jack: “Sure, I’m pumped, we got this son of a [bleep]!”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and wild d6 for a 7,5 or total of 6 (7+1-2). Success he closes the gap by 1.

Lou: “OUCH!!!  You [bleep]er!”
Mechanically: Lou rolls his Agility d6 at a -1 due to his wound and gets a 4 for a total of 3.  Failure.

Round 4 Results: [Lou, Pete , Mary Alice ] [ ] [ Jack ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ] [  ]

GM: “You’ve closed the gap by quite a bit mostly due to Jack’s making him stumble, Pete, you and Mary Alice are now in the same increment with Lou and this opens up quite a lot of maneuvers you can try when you’re within one increment.  You could for an example try to force him into an obstacle, distract him somehow and make him potentially stumble, maybe make a grab and tackle on him.  Let’s see how the initiative plays out.”
Mechanically:  Initiative Jack 7C, Mary Alice 5H, Pete KS, Lou 9D resulting in Pete, Lou, Jack and Mary Alice.

Pete: “I give him a little shove and let him make acquaintance with the next hard thing in our path.”
Mechanically: Pete and Lou make opposed Agility checks,  Pete rolls d8 and d6 for a 2,6.  The 6 aces for a total of 11.  Lou had better hope he aces his own rolls.  Lou rolls a d8 Agility and gets a 1 for a total of -3 (1-1 for the wound and -2 for being Shaken ).  Pete gets a success and 2 raises 11 vs -3.

GM: “Before you do that, Lou is going try to shake his head to clear it out.”
Mechanically: GM spends a GM benny to see if Lou can clear out his Shaken status.  This is primarily so Lou has a better chance to avoid a second wound in the looming future where a hard object introduces itself to his face.  Lou rolls a Spirit check of d6 and gets a 1 for a total of 0 (1-1 for the wound).  He fails to recover.

GM: “Pete you flail out a arm and tip Lou straight into the path of a light pole!”
Mechanically: Lou is going to take 1d6 damage from the impact and takes 4 damage which is a success and because he’s Shaken he suffers a wound.

GM: “Lou smashes into the light pole and rebounds straight back and falls backwards, his head smashing into the pavement and he stops moving except for his breathing, out like a… well unconscious.”

Jack: “I assume we have to finish this round?  I’m talking about whatever it is I’m about to dodge nimbly out of the way of because of my club card.”

GM: “Good question.  I don’t know officially but I’ll rule that as you see Lou go down you’d slow up and that would help you avoid anything.  You all slow down and then trot over to Lou.  He’s laying on the sidewalk, blood is pouring freely from his nose where he hit the pole face first as well as the lacerations on the side of his head.  A quick check of him and you don’t think he’s in danger of dying.  In fact he starts to groan and seems to be coming around.  A couple of onlookers are looking in your direction but seem reluctant to interfere.”
Mechanically: GM makes a Vigor d4 roll for Lou and gets a 4 which aces to a 10 for a total of 9 (10-1 for his wound).  A success and a raise means the wounds while bloody enough for sure are not life threatening.

Pete: “I look around for the package.  When I find it I unwrap it a bit to see if it’s the bust we’re looking for and tuck it away under my jacket.”

GM: “It does in fact look like the object you were paid to recover.  A primitive arts looking thing carved out of some dense black stone, obsidian or basalt maybe. It’s quite ugly and unattractive and for the life you you can’t imagine why someone would want to steal it much less pay to get it back.”

Mary Alice: “Lou’s going to be okay?  Are we sure?”
Mechanically: She makes a Healing d4  and wild card d6 check at -2 because it’s untrained and gets a 1 and a 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 7 (9-2).

GM: “You believe so.  Scalp and nose wounds bleed like enemy of Capone’s but they’re not fatal. He’ll live although he’ll have one heck of a headache for a day or two.”

Jack: “I rifle his pockets real quickly and let’s get the hell out of here if he’s going to be okay on his own.  I don’t want to explain this to the cops.  Again.”
Mechanically: Rolls a Perception (aka Notice) d6 and wild d6 for a 4,1 and gets a success.

GM: “You come up with a wallet and a crumpled fragment of paper tucked down into the bottom of one of his coat pockets. It’s got an address on it about 3 miles away.  The way he’s stirring you believe he should be fully conscious in a few minutes.”

Pete: “Good work, let’s get back to the car and get out of here before trouble shows up.”

Players: [Discussion on the chase, the ugly bust and the client.]

GM: “It takes you a couple of minutes to get back to where you parked your car, a side lot.  Can I get Perception checks at -2?”
Mechanically: One of the tires is flat on the far side of the car and the car has a slight tilt to it which might be picked up by a perceptive character. The final rolls were Pete 3, Jack 2, Mary Alice 10.

GM: “Mary Alice there’s something a little off and then it hits you the car is tilted slightly, looks like the driver’s side rear tire is flat.”

Mary Alice: “I stop walking. Guys, was the tire flat when we parked?  Anything else odd going on?”
Mechanically: Rolls another perception check to scope the area out and gets a total of 3, failure.

Pete: “I look around.”
Mechanically: Rolls Perception and gets a total of 3.  Failure.

Jack: “Me too.”
Mechanically: Rolls Perception and gets a total of 3. Failure.

GM: “The side lot has a few empty cars in it and one panel truck with the logo of one of the shops that opens into the lot stenciled on it but otherwise is empty.”

Mary Alice: “I don’t like this, I don’t believe in coincidences.  Let’s get out of here, catch a bus back to the office and come back later for the car.”

Pete: “Yeah I hear you but I don’t want to leave the car.  It could just be a flat.  It happens.”

Jack: “Yeah we don’t want to leave the car here.  There’s too many things that might raise an eyebrow in the trunk if you know what I mean. You two wait here on the corner.  I’ll go change the flat and pull around and pick you up. Anything bad happens… I want you to come and save my ass.  No running off.  You hear me?”

Pete and Mary Alice: Simultaneous innocent ‘who me?’ looks.

Jack: “I’m not kidding!”

GM: “The wind’s picking up a bit and blowing street debris around and the first fat drops of a cold rain start to fall.”

Jack: “Freakin’ awesome.  Okay I move to the car keeping an eye out and take a quick glance at the tire.  If it’s not been slashed or anything I’ll get out the spare and change it.  If it looks suspicious then I’m backtracking and getting back over this way.”
Mechanically: Jack plays out his actions and rolls a perception check getting a 15 from a double aced d6.

GM: “The tire doesn’t appear to be damaged that you can tell, no obvious holes, nails or screws in it on the sections you can see.  On the far side of the street a woman bundled up is hurrying past, she doesn’t appear to even notice you much less be paying any attention to you.”

Jack: “I give them a thumbs up and change the tire then.”

GM: “As you open the trunk, the man hidden in there lets loose with a shotgun blast aimed at you…”

Players: [screams of outrage]

GM: “…And yet it happened.”
Mechanically: The man hidden in the trunk was on Hold, on a hair trigger to shoot whoever opened the trunk. As this is a Wild Card, he rolls his Shooting d8 and wild d6 and gets a 4 and 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 10 (8+2 shotgun bonus).  A success and a raise so he gets 3d6+1d6 damage or 5,5,4,6, the 6 aces and adds another 3 for a total of 23 damage.  OUCH!!!.  Jack has a toughness of 5 and is wearing a heavy leather winter coat AP2 for a total of 7 toughness.  Jack is Shaken and is going to suffer 4 wounds (23-7 = 16/4 = 4).

Jack: “Holy [bleep]!  I try and soak that!”
Mechanically: Jack spends a Benny to try and soak the damage and rolls his Vigor d6 and wild d6 for 1 and 3 and fails to soak even one.

Jack: “I’ll spend another Benny and re-roll the vigor check.”
Mechanically: Although you can only soak once per wound, you can re-roll your Vigor roll by spending a benny.  Jack Rolls a 2 and a 2.  He spends yet another Benny and rolls a 1 and a 2.

Jack: “Ohhh, you wanted me to make a soak roll.  I thought you said suck roll…”

GM: “You’ve really got to listen closer.  Here, have a Benny to make up for me being unclear about that.  And no you can’t use it right now. So, thanks to your suck rolls you’re going to take 4 wounds.”

Mary Alice: “Hell, does that mean he’s dead?”

GM: “Jack you’re Incapacitated.  Make another Vigor roll to see how badly you are incapped. You’re going to be at -3 due to the wounds.”

Jack: “Not -4? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with -3 over -4 but I took four wounds.”

GM: “Nope, a wild card can only take 3 wounds, anything over that and it doesn’t matter as far as penalties go although you still have to try and soak all the wounds you take from an attack, its just the excess only counts for that one soak attempt.”

Jack: “Okay as I go flying back from getting a load of buckshot in my chest I try to convince myself it’s only a flesh wound.  I bet the the son of a [bleep] is using one of our shotguns to boot.”
Mechanically: Jack makes a Vigor test aces with a 3 and a 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 6 (9-3).  A success.  This means he’s Unconscious but not bleeding out.  He’ll wake up in an hour or after someone successfully heals him.  But for all purposes he’s out of this fight.  Rolling on the Injury table results in normally his Strength being reduced a die type but he’s already at a d4 so there’s no impact.

GM: “The deafening boom of a large calibre shotgun echoes off the buildings and you see Jack stagger back, the chest of his coat ripped into bloody tatters, a man nimbly leaps from the trunk of the car and stands over Jack and ratchets the pump shotgun and looks around.  Let’s draw some cards…”
Mechanically: The GM decided that Pete and Mary Alice are too far off to be dealt into this round even if they’d of made their perception rolls.

MS: The man looks around and spots you, the shotgun barrel rests against Pete’s head and he shakes his finger at you and then beckons you forward.

Pete: “Well that was unexpected.”

Mary Alice: “Does it look like Jack’s dead?”

GM: “You’re really too far to tell but your gut is telling you he’s bad off but probably not dying.”

Pete: “How far exactly are we from them?”

GM: “Roughly 20 squares.  The man arches an eyebrow and gestures at your friend with a nasty smile.”

Pete: “Crap, I hand the bust to Mary Alice and walk over to him.”

GM: “He makes an ‘uh uh’ gesture with his finger and stabs two fingers toward you and then at the ground in front of him.”

Mary Alice: “I reach through the slit in my skirt and pull out my Shank Special.  Pete he’s going to kill Jack if we don’t do something but we don’t have to be defenseless.  We split up and make it harder for him to hit us both and stop about 50′ away.  We both get ready to shoot him if things get nasty.”

GM: Trivia note, the ‘Shank Special’ is a 4 shot revolver on a small frame of the Webley break open design in a .44-40 calibre, designed and built by an Ally character associated with the group.  Small enough to be easily carry concealed with the disadvantage it only holds four shots.  As an aside I do find it interesting that almost universally pistols in Savage Worlds deal a 2d6x damage, typically 2d6+1 and the only real difference is range and whether it’s a revolver or semi-automatic, even the .22′s which I’d have to disagree with.  A .22 can kill but your odds of surviving it barring a shot in a few critical areas (heart, skull, liver) etc. is pretty significant.  As a result to not offend my sensibilities I’m probably going to make it a 1d6+1 weapon for my world.

Pete: “I knew I liked you.  I pull a revolver, I’m carrying the colt peacemakers today and I’ve got a big fat 255 grain slug for this joker.  We spread out about 10 feet as we get into the lot and stop like Mary Alice said.”

GM: “The man’s hand and shotgun are steady on Jack’s head, as you get closer you can see Jack is stirring slightly, he’s not dead and the coat and the cold are both working to keep him from bleeding to death.  The man is white, dressed in dark clothes, a woolen pair of pants and dark turtleneck sweater with ankle high boots of black leather.  The shotgun looks well cared for, in fact it looks identical to one of the shotguns you keep in the compartment in the floor of the trunk.  When he speaks his voice is cultured and smooth, ‘Put the artifact on the ground, you can do it there and then back up out of view.  Don’t do as I ask and your friend is going to die. Take a few moments and decide but not too long or I kill him and take my chances with you two.’”

Jack: “I say we *cough cough* do as the man *coughing blood* asks.”

GM: [Slips Jack a Benny for the humor value.]

Mary Alice: “Shut up you’re dying.  Pete?”

Pete: “I ask the guy, ‘What’s this ugly thing to you?  It can’t be worth much, I know kids that can make better in kindergarten.’”

MS: “That is not a concern of yours.  Please, if you would make your decision?  It is getting cold and I fear the rain is going to start in earnest soon.”

Pete: “I take Aim at his head. ‘If he dies you die friend.’ I want to Intimidate him.”
Mechanically: Pete doesn’t really know how to Intimdate someone so he rolls a d4 and d6 at a -2 penalty and gets a 4 and a 2.  The 4 aces for a total of 5 (7-2).  The Mysterious Stranger rolls a d6 Spirit and a d6 wild and gets a 5 and a 5.  The GM rules the guns make no difference since both of them have them and in fact would possibly give the nod to the MS since he not only has a shotgun but has it pointed at a defenseless bystander who’s a friend of Pete’s and grant him a bonus for it.

Mary Alice: “And if he doesn’t kill you, I will. I cock my gun, yes I know it’s a double action and doesn’t need to be cocked but it sounds cooler.”
Mechanically: M.A. is in the same boat.  No intimidation skill.  d4 and d6 roll a 1 and a 1, critical failure.

GM: “He looks amused by your attempt to get tough Mary Alice and obviously doesn’t find you threatening.”

MS: “Please, no one need die here.  Is this really worth dying over?” he points to the package and then glances at his wristwatch, a large gold plated one, “I’m afraid I really can’t dally here any longer. Please set down the artifact and walk back around the corner and I will depart.  You can then come back and tend to your friend.  You really should hurry, he’s not looking at all well.”

Mary Alice: “Crap crap crap.  Okay I burn this guy’s face into my memory.   I set the sculpture down on the parking lot and motion for Pete to back away with me.”

Pete: “I do so but I don’t like it.  I keep my gun aimed at him.  Mechanics wise, what are my chances to kill him before he pulls the trigger?”

GM: “You suspect he’s not an Extra.  That means you’d have to hit him for enough damage to blow through his toughness and deal 4 wounds in order to incapacitate him.  I’d say a called shot to the head for +4 damage and hope for roughly 3 raises on your damage…  At a -4 penalty to hit because of the called shot.”

Pete: “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”

Jack: “*cough* don’t do it *cough*”

Pete: “Fine, I follow Mary Alice but I’m really not liking this ass right now.”

GM: “You retreat around the corner and wait a few seconds and then come back to see only poor Jack laying on the pavement, the man and the bust is gone.”

Mary Alice: “I hurry forward and check Jack out and do what I can to help him.”

Pete: “Do it in the car, we’ve got to get out of here.  I’m surprised no one’s come by yet.”

GM: “All the stores in the area are closed already and there are few pedestrians.  And a single gun shot in this area is more likely to send people scurrying to turn up the radio than come and see what’s gong on.  The shotgun is also laying next to Jack by the way, the only thing he seems to have taken is the bust.”

Pete: “I don’t want to take any chances.  I help Mary Alice get Jack in the car where she can work on him out of the rain and I change the tire as fast as I can.”

Mechanically: M.A. has no healing so it’s another d4 and d6 at -2.   Jack is in the Golden Hour for healing and the GM rules that they’ve lost 10 minutes with the talk and conversation and movement leaving a maximum of 5 attempts left.  In addition any healing attempt is going to be at -3 due to Jack’s wounds.  Luckily they keep a first aid kit in the car so she’s not at another -2 for lack of supplies.   Mary Alice rolls a  4 and a 5.  The 4 aces for a total of 4 (9-5).  Success and Jack recovers from one wound.

GM: “Pete the tire’s changed and you can get in and drive away while Mary Alice continues to work if you want.  This is going to give her the unstable platform penalty although if you take it slow I’ll reduce that -1.”

Pete:“Sure no problem, I drive as slow as I think will avoid notice and head us over to the safe house on Brown, I want to swap this sedan with the one we keep in the garage there.”

GM: “Okay, you drive through the dark streets as the now steady rain falls down from above.  In the back seat Mary Alice continues to administer to Jack, cleaning his wounds.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice continues to work on him, getting a 1, 6.  The 6 aces for a total of 10 (14-4) for a success and raise.  Jack recovers another two wounds and with a good night’s rest will be stiff, sore and in pain but able to function normally.

Mary Alice: “I really need to learn how to do clean wounds a little better.”

Jack: “*cough* Don’t worry about *cough* it.  You did fine.  I feel *cough cough* great.”

GM: “Thanks to Mary Alice’s prompt attention Jack’s going to be fine, most of the buckshot was blocked by his thick coat apparently and the few pellets that went through didn’t penetrate very deeply and you were able to remove them all.  A few band-aids and some bactine and maybe a wrap or two and he’s good to go.”
Mechanically: Since M.A. recovered all his wounds this makes for the most plausible colorization as to why he’s fine game mechanic wise.

Mary Alice: “I slide in to the front seat giving Jack room to stretch out.”

Players/GM: yak yak who was that mysterious stranger yak yak what’s going on yak yak GM gives them details on certain things.]

GM: “You make it back to your safe house and exchange cars without a problem.  I assume you call the office to have someone come out and clean up the car?”

Jack: “Yeah get Tweedle Dee or Dum out here.  I’ll tell them I cut myself shaving.”
Note: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum aka Tim O’Malley and John Terrace are Ally’s that work for the Agency in the capacity of high level gophers and interns.

GM: “When you call your answering service you find that Tim is on call this week for general duty and arrange for him to come out and clean the car.  What are you going to do now?”

Jack: “I want to get the mother[bleep]er that shot me!”

Pete: “Forget about that, the S.O.B touched my shotgun! You know how I feel about people touching my stuff.”

Mary Alice: “Lighten up Francis.  Let’s see what we know.  He was a pro, no doubt about that.”

Jack: “Expensive one too.  That cologne he was wearing costs the average Joe two weeks salary.”

Mary Alice: “I don’t want to know how you know that.”

Jack: “I enjoy the finer things in life when I…”

Mary Alice: “Enough, whatever.  Okay it’s late.  Let’s table this and meet  tomorrow and figure out where we go next.”

Pete: “Sounds good to me.  Come on, I’ll drop you off at the office and you can get your cars.”

GM: “Okay you take the clean car back to the office, the night is quiet, filled with the drone of rain and the back and forth of the wiper blades.  It’s cold but not quiet cold enough to turn the rain into something nastier so the driving is easy enough if a little wet.  You pull into the garage of your building and get out to go your separate ways.  As you do you pull up short as several shadowy figures step out from behind cars, support pillars and the like.”

Jack: “Owww my ribs, it’s going to be one of those nights. I hug myself and hunch over a bit, hands under my obviously ruined and bloodstained coat and only by coincidence do I happen to grab the revolver in my shoulder holster.”

Pete: “I move around the car if I can to stand by the others.”

Mary Alice: “Anyone look like they’re in charge?  Are they actually coming toward us?”

GM: “Yes, they were scattered around but all circled on your agencies parking spaces.  You hear a scritching noise and a light flares up as one of them lights a cigar with a lighter.  In the flame you can see his face well enough but you don’t recognize him.  The light goes out with a snap as he closes the lighter and the ember of his cigar flares a bit.  ‘You mugs got sumptin.  A rock of some kind.  I want it. Give it to me this’ll go easy.’  The others have moved closer and have paused about 10′ feet away from you. You can make enough out of them to know they’re all men, bundled up in heavy overcoats. Each of them is carrying a clubbing type weapon, pipe, bat, nightstick, one guy has a pair of heavy brass knuckles.  There are four of them along with what you assume is the boss.”

Jack: “What the hell?  Did we find the Maltese Ugly Duckling or what?  It’s just a crappy piece of art that someone is now paying waayyy too little to find and return for them.”

Boss Thug: “I don’ care about your problems mack.  Give me the thing or my boys will have to take it from you.”

Pete: “Would you believe me if I told you we don’t have it?”

Boss Thug: “No.  Hand it over or the little girl gets hurt first.  Now!”

Jack: “‘Oh you done [bleep]ed up ‘mack’.'  I pull my 45 and level it at his head.”

GM: “This seems like a good time to deal cards.”
Mechanically: GM divides the thugs up into 3, the boss, and two groups of 2 Extras.  Dealing cards yields Jack JS, Mary Alice 10H, Pete AC, Boss Thug Red Joker, Group 1 7C, Group 2 AH resulting in the order of Boss Thug, Group 2, Pete, Jack, Mary Alice, Group 1.  Seems like the thugs were ready for any funny business.

Round One – Order – Boss Thug, Group 2, Pete, Jack, Mary Alice, Group 1

Boss Thug: “The boss re-acts like greased lightning and shouts out ‘Take them down and find it!’ as he moves and ducks behind a car and then comes up with a pistol blazing away.”
Mechanically: The boss is performing three actions, move, draw his pistol and shoot so he’s going to be at -4 for the quick draw and the shot.  But as he’s drawing the weapon from under a bulky coat he has to make an Agility roll to get it out this turn and be able to shoot it.  He rolls his Agility d8 and wild d6 for an 8,1.  The 8 aces for a 10 (14-4).  He pulls it easily. Then he sticks his hand over the edge of the car and shoots at Jack, double tapping with a Shooting d8 and wild d6 for a 1,5 for a 2 total (5+1-4).

GM: “Two shots ring out as the boss levels a 45 semi automatic at Jack but he was in a hurry and they go up into the ceiling.

Pete: “Son of a [bleep] he’s fast.  The others aren’t carrying guns?”

GM: “Not that you can see, looks like they came to beat the [bleep] out of you rather than kill you.  These two here charge forward at this time and head toward you Pete.  Each one is going to try to hit you with their weapon of choice.  They’re going to get +1 to their rolls as a Gang Up bonus which balances their multiple action penalty.  In addition they’re going to get a +2 Unarmed Defender bonus since you don’t have a melee weapon in your hand and no a pistol doesn’t count.”

Pete: “Crap!”

Thug 1: “You’re going down!”
Mechanically: Swings his billy club with a Fighting d8 and gets a 2 for a total of 4 (2+2+1-2) versus Pete’s Parry of 7. Missed.

Thug 2: “Quit ducking!”
Mechanically: Swings a lead pipe at Pete, Fighting d8 and gets a 5 for a total of 7 (5+3+1-2) vs 7.  Hit! Rolls damage of Strength d8+d6 for a 5,5 total 10 damage versus Pete’s toughness of 7 (5+2armour).  Success.

GM: “The two thugs quickly move adjacent to you Pete and attack, you duck and dodge one of them but the other nails you with a lead pipe getting a success which will shake you.”

Pete: “Hmmm I’m going to try and recover on my turn rather than spend a benny to get rid of it.”
Mechanically: Pete could spend a Benny now to remove the Shaken status but he’s going to conserve it for now.

GM: “The pipe hit is only a glancing blow but it shakes you up a bit. Your turn.”

Pete: “I shake it off.”
Mechanically: Pete makes a Spirit roll d4 with d6 for 4,5.  The 4 aces for a total of 9. A success and raise.  Fate’s looking out for him and he gets rid of the Shaken status and can go normally.

GM: “You recover quickly from the blow!”

Pete: “Bringing a stick to a gun fight isn’t the smartest idea.  I pull out both peacemakers and put a slug from each into the boss.”

GM: “Drawing both guns is going to require an Agility roll and an action.  Shooting with both is going to give you -2 penalty for each shot.  And the boss has heavy cover so that’s another -4 so you’re looking at -8 to hit….”

Pete: “What I meant to say is, I put one slug into two of these thugs, no that’s still a -4 on both isn’t it.  Okay I pull out one gun and put one bullet into one thug.  -2.”
Mechanically: Pete is readying a weapon on the same turn he’s going to use it which is an action and he’s going to shoot once which is an action which gives him a MAP of -2.  He rolls his Shooting d8 and wild d6 for 2,2 for a total of 0 versus the Thugs Parry of 6.  Because it’s an adjacent target the pistol goes versus Parry and not a 4.  Miss.  He thinks about spending a benny but decides against it.

GM: “You dig the Peacemaker out and it bellows forth a tongue of flame and the heavy slug whiffs past one of the thug’s heads and flattens against the garage wall.”

Jack: “I pull out my pistol and double tap the nearest thug.”
Mechanically: Shooting d8 and wild d6, 8,6 at a -2 for the multiple action penalty.  Both dice ace.  Final result is 12(11+1). Success with a raise!  He rolls damage 2d6+1+1d6, 4+5+1+3, 13 damage.  The thugs have a toughness of 6 so a success and raise.

Thug 1: “‘The darkness descends, for I am mortally wounded, I fear, this day.’ The pedantic thug goes down as blood starts to spread out from the hole in his coat, the sawed down lead weighed baseball bat clatters to the ground.”

Mary Alice: “I start screaming and shoot someone.”
Mechanically:  Pulling the pistol and shooting costs her -2 penalty.  She rolls Shooting d6 and d6 for a 6,1.  The 6 aces for a total of 5 (7-2).  Success.  She rolls 2d6+1 damage for a 4,6 for a total of 12 (4+6+1+1) versus the thugs Toughness of 7.  Success and raise.  Another Extra goes down as Thug 2 expires.

Pete: “Ummm why screaming?”

Mary Alice: “Figure people might actually come to help a lady in distress rather than running from gunfire.”

GM: “Good thinking Mary Alice, here’s a Benny. The other group of thugs charges forward rushing toward Jack and Mary Alice.”

Thug 3: “You shot Big Bill!”
Mechanically: Thug 3 swings his tire iron with a Gang Up bonus of +1, -2 for MAP, +2 versus unarmed defender.  Rolls d8 for a 3 for a total of  4 (3+1+2-2) versus Jack’s Parry of 6.  Miss

Thug 4: “Sorry about this ma’am, just following orders.”
Mechanically: Thug 4 swings his pool cue at Mary Alice.  d8 at 2 yields a total of 4 (2+2+2-2) versus Mary Alice’s Parry 5.  Miss.

GM: “The last group of thugs, perhaps a little disconcerted by seeing two of their friends go down have trouble hitting Jack or Mary Alice.  But let’s see what the future holds…”
Mechanically: Cards are dealt – Jack 7D, Mary Alice, 6S, Pete 3H, Boss AD, Group 2 8S.

Round Two – Order – Boss Thug, Group 2, Jack, Mary Alice, Pete.

Boss Thug: “‘Will you incompetents take them down!?’ echoes out as he levels his .45 at Pete.”
Mechanically: Boss Thug is going to take Aim, he does like his boys and doesn’t want to kill them with a stray shot if he can help it.

Thug 3: Grits his teeth and tries for Jack again.
Mechanically: Gang up bonus of +1 and then +2 versus unarmed defender, no penalties. Fighting d8 of 6 yields a 9 (6+2+2) versus Jack’s 6 Parry.  Success.  Damage is d6 for a 6 which explodes for a total of 13 versus Jack’s Toughness of 5.  (13-5) = 8/4 = 2.  So Shaken and 2 wounds unless Jack soaks it.

GM: “It looks like that incoming tire iron is going to clock you a hell of a wallop Jack.”

Jack: “Soaking here boss!”

GM: “You’re out of Bennies Jack…”

Mary Alice: “‘Watch out Jack!’ I give him one of mine.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice lets Jack use one of her Bennies through her Common Bond Edge. Jack spends the Benny to soak and rolls Vigor d6+d6 for a 2,4 for a success which reduces it to one wound.

GM: “Jack you take a wound and are Shaken.”

Jack: “Crap, I spend a benny to get rid of the shaken… oh right.”

Thug 4: Tries to take Mary Alice out and not for a date…
Mechanically: Rolls Fighting d8 for a 1 for a total of 5 (1+2+2) versus Mary Alice’s Parry of 5.  Success.  Damage is Strength d6+d6 or 2,3 total 5 versus Mary Alice’s Toughness of 6 (4+2armour) and the blow bounces off her thick leather coat.

Mary Alice: “I shoot this S.O.B!”
Mechanically: Shooting d6 and d6 for 5,5 versus his Parry of 6. Miss.

Pete: “I put a hole in this [bleep]er!”
Mechanically: Pete rolls his Shooting d8 and d6 for a 8,6.  Both ace for a total of 12 (8+4).  Success and raise versus the thug’s 6 Parry.  Damage 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 9 damage (4+3+1+1) versus the Extra’s toughness of 6.  The Extra is shaken but not out.

GM: “You grazed him but didn’t draw much blood.  He’s still very much in the fight. Let’s recap.  Jack’s taken two wounds, Pete and Mary Alice are doing okay so far.  One thug is fine, two are down and one’s shaken.  And then there’s the Boss who’s got a bead on… Mary Alice’s head.  Let’s deal’em…”
Mechanically: Jack 8S, Mary Alice 4S, Pete 3C, Group 2 KH, Boss 6H.

Round Three – Order – Group 2 (#3 Shaken), Jack (shaken, 1 wound), Boss, Mary Alice, Pete

Thug 3: Goes for a knockout on Jack and does a Wild Attack hoping to get a critical hit even though it’s going to make him easier to hit.
Mechanically: By doing a Wild Attack thug 3 gains +2 Fighting and continues to get the Unarmed Defender bonus and Gang Up bonus.  Rolls Fighting a total of 9 versus Jack’s Parry of 6.  Success.  Damage is Strength d6+d6 for a total of 7 versus Jack’s toughness 7.  Success.  Jack’s Shaken so he takes a wound and is out of bennies to try and soak them.

GM: “He’s going to town on you Jack, take another one for the team.”

Thug 4: Follows his buddies lead and tries to put Jack down for the count.
Mechanically: Rolls his Fighting with the Unarmed Defender, Gang Up and Wild Attack bonuses (+2,+1,+2) for a total of 7 versus Jack’s Parry of 7.  Since Jack’s shaken this is another wound, putting Jack at 2 Wounds.

Jack: “Damn, what is it?  Someone tie a pork chop around my neck?  I put two rounds into Mongo here.”
Mechanically: Rolls his Shooting and Wild and gets snake eyes 1,1.

GM: “Only as you pull the trigger do you realize that one of the cartridges from the last shot has stove piped Jack.  You’ll need to spend a moment to clear the jam on your next round. If you make an Agility roll you’ll be able to act normally but clearing it will count as an action.

Jack: “Son of… I tilt my head back and expose my jugular to make it easier on them.”

Boss: “Snarls at you, ‘Hard way it is then!’ and then his pistol bellows forth its owner’s anger in a orange red flame of death.”
Mechanically: The boss has taken Aim at Pete which gives him a +2, double taps for an additional +1 and shoots for the head which is a -4. He rolls a 3 and 4 for a total of 3.  The GM spends a benny for him and tries again and gets a 5,5 for a 4 total which is a hit.  He rolls damage 2d6+1 with +1 for the double tap and +4 for the called shot to the head for a total of 18 damage… (3+6+3+1+1+4).  18 damage versus Pete’s Toughness of 7 yields a success and two raises.  (18-7 = 11/4 = 2).

GM: “Pete the 45 careens off your skull.”
Mechanically: Unless Pete soaks the damage he’s going to be Shaken and take 2 wounds.

Pete: “I try and soak it.”
Mechanically: Pete spends a benny to try to make a Vigor roll to soak the wound.   He rolls a d6 and a d6 for a 5 and a 1 which would reduce it to Shaken and 1 wound.  He decides to reserve his last Benny and take this result and hope he goes first in the next initiative order.

GM: “Okay you take one wound and are going to be Shaken.”

Mary Alice: “I look behind the thug and scream ‘Come over here and help us!’ and then I put a 44 calibre lead filled invitation to die into one of the thugs.”
Mechanically: She’s attempting a Smarts trick to try and make it easier to hit the thug. Although this costs her a multi action penalty of -2 if it succeeds it’ll cost the thug a -2 to his Parry until the thug can go again. That might help the others out and there’s a chance she might go before the thug in the next round and get the benefit herself.  She rolls Smarts d8 and d6 for a 2,5 versus the thugs d4 for a 3.  Success, the thug now has -2 Parry.  She rolls her Shooting with a -2 penalty for the MAP versus the Thugs 4 Parry (6-2 from the Trick) and gets a 3,3 and misses.

Pete: “I put a bullet into the thug fighting Mary since he’s not adjacent and I get to shoot at a 4.”
Mechanically: Pete has 1 wound so he’s at -1.  He rolls his shooting die d8 and d6 for a 4 , 6 which aces to a 8 total versus the TN of 4.  Success and raise.  Thug #4 is Shaken and takes a wound and expires.

GM: “Let’s see where we are, Pete has a wound, Jack has two, Mary Alice is still unscratched, the thugs are down to #3 who’s Shaken and the Boss. Pete and Mary Alice both have a Benny.  And next round we end up with…”
Mechanically: Everyone is dealt a card [NOTE: This is being written at a different time and the deck has been reshuffled as a result.].  Jack 6C, Mary QS, Pete QC, Group 2 4D, Boss 3C.  The Boss has the Quick edge and pulls the 4S, 3S, 4H and finally a 6D as a result.

Round Four – Order – Mary, Pete, Boss, Jack, Group 2

Mary Alice: “I put my last bullet into the guy attacking Jack.”

GM: “Before you do that I’m going to spend a Benny and he’s going to get rid of his Shaken status.”

Mary Alice: “Ass.  I drop prone here which should give me cover from the head monkey and then I put a slug into his chest, he’s going down and then we deal with monkey boy.”
Mechanically: She rolls Shooting d6 and d6 for a 3,6 which aces for a 9 total versus a 4.  Success and a raise.  Damage is 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 8 damage versus the thugs toughness of 6.  Success and he’s re-Shaken.

Pete: “I finish him off before he can hit Jack again.”
Mechanically: Rolls shooting d8 and d6 and gets an 8,6.  After acing the total is 11 versus 4.  Success and a raise.  Damage is 2d6+1+1d6 for a total of 9 vs 6.  Success and since the thug was already Shaken he goes down.

GM: “I’m going to spend a GM Benny to have him try and soak.”
Mechanically: GM spends one of his ‘anyone’ Bennies to try and keep the Thug up.  Rolls Vigor d8 for a 3 versus 4.  Thug doesn’t make it…

Jack: “Boooyah!  Your turn next fatso!”

Boss: “He drops back behind the car and you can hear him swearing and the rustle of movement before his head and pistol pop out by the front of the car.  His pistol belches fire once, twice at Jack.”
Mechanically: He moved his pace at a crouch to get around the front of the car where he has a better shot at Jack.  Shooting yields a 1,2.  He spends a WC Benny and tries again, 2,2.  +1 for the double tap for a 3 total is a miss.  The GM has one last Benny and decides to save it for a soak roll.

GM: “Round recap puts pretty much the same except we’re a thug shorter.  Jack has 2 wounds, Pete has 1, Mary Alice and the Boss are doing well. Let’s draw cards.”
Mechanically: Jack 2D, Mary Alice Red Joker, Pete 5C, Boss AS.

Round Five – Order – Mary Alice, Boss, Pete, Jack

Mary Alice: “Sweeet, I go in front of the monkey.  I need to reload my pistol, how does that work?”

GM: “Since your pistol has essentially a speed loader it’s an action for you.  Speed loaders, clips, magazines etc are one action.  A single round is a free action or you can reload half your agility die in single rounds as an action.”

Mary Alice: “I reload and then shoot him.  He’s still go cover right?”

GM: “Yes, from your prone position you can go for his legs/feet where you can see them under the car.  You actually have a better shot than someone standing up since it’s only medium cover for you.”

Mary Alice: “Cool, I put a bullet into whatever I can see.”
Mechanically: Shooting d6 and d6 for a 6,5.  Total after acing and penalties is 6.  Success vs 4.  Damage is 2d6+1 for a total of 8 versus the Bosses 8.  Success and the boss is Shaken.

Boss: “He tries to recover the bullet that just burned a hole through his calf.”
Mechanically: The boss is Shaken so he makes a Spirit d6 and d6 to try and recover for a 3,4.  Success but he loses this round.

Pete: “I drop my pistol, grab one of the many melee weapons laying around and move to the car and slid over the hood and smash it into his skull.”

GM: “Cool, pull this off and you got a Benny.  So dropping pistol is free, grab is an action, make an Agility roll and it’ll be a free action, the move is within your pace so that’s free.  So, make an Agility roll and you can make the attack without penalty, get a 1 and you end your turn there trying to grab it.”
Mechanically: In the interests of Cool the GM is rewarding the player with a chance to make the attack without a multi action penalty but with the downside that if he fails with a 1 on his trait roll he was just too clumsy and actually knocked the weapon to the side and has to scramble for it costing him his turn.

Pete: “I’m going to put a General Lee style slide to it.”
Mechanically: Rolls Agility d8 and d6 for a 4,1.  Success! (since the 1 was the wild die and not the trait).  He reaches the car and makes an Fighting attack d10 and d6 for a 10,3.  The 10 aces for a total of 16.  Success and a raise against the boss.  Damage is strength d8+d4+d6 for a 8, 4, 1.  The 8 and 4 ace for 7,4.  The four aces again for a 2.  Total is 8+4+7+4+2+1 or 26 damage versus 8 toughness.  Success and 4 raises.  (26-8 = 18/4 = 4)

GM: “You scoop up a club as you dart across the garage and hop up on the hood of the car, sliding on your ass you drop down next to the boss and bring the club around in a 2 handed swing!  The boss tries to block some of the blow….”
Mechanically: GM spends his last benny for the boss.  Vigor d8 and d6 for a 4,5.  He soaks one wound but that leaves 3 wounds to go…

GM: “With a hollow thunking noise the bosses head snaps to the side and his eyes roll up as he slumps to the floor.”

Aftermath:
The GM rolls Vigor rolls for the Thugs and 2 of them have died from their wounds but 2 are alive although unconscious.  The boss rolls a success with a raise thanks to an aced vigor check and recovers consciousness fairly quickly.

GM: “This guy and this one have seen their last sunset.  These two, although they’re unconscious will probably survive the fight especially if they get some medical care.  The boss very quickly rouses even though the side of his face is already turning interesting shades of purple and he doesn’t seem to be tracking very well.”

Players: [Typical player babble as they survey the wreckage, bullet holes, dead bodies, bleeding bodies and gunsmoke...]

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Pulp Noir

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks going over the rules and running ‘test drive’ encounters where I run both sides of the combat and add in additional rules as I uncover them.   I plan on doing something with the system in the next month or so, something that starts off as Pulp Noir and descends into Supernatural Horror set in the roaring 20′s where there was no gun control, crime and corruption were rampant and the mafia was just hitting it’s stride along with union bosses.

The version I’m working off of is the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, Third Printing available for $9.95 from Amazon or some ridiculously low price like that.  I picked up a deck of cards and some Cthulhu tokens by Fantasy Flight Games for their Arkham Horror game to use as Bennies at the same time so I could get free shipping.  And as I have Arkham Horror I can use them for their intended things like Doom tracking for that game.   The book is the size of a large format paperback, not sure what the technical term is but about halfway between paperback and manuscript and is in full color and quite well done. A terrific value for the price and I’d recommend picking up a couple if you actually plan on running Savage Worlds.

I would like to reiterate, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, that I do NOT like cutesy page backgrounds in game manuals.  Ripped edges, stains, textured vellum, whatever the design, I just want plain black text on plain white paper.  If you absolutely must have nifty graphics then keep it on the periphery and not under the text.

After going through the rules and reading them in a casual kind of way, at this point I’d like to say that it could use some editing and proofing by people unfamiliar with the system.  I spotted a typo or two without going into copy edit mode which is more than acceptable for a blogger but in a printed product it comes off as a little sloppy.  But then any update is bound to include its own typos even when all the existing ones are fixed and I’m fully aware of that, I mention them here only in passing and wouldn’t downgrade them for it.

As far as the understandability of the rules as currently written, I’ve had to resort to searching the forums to get clarifications and all modesty aside, I have a fairly decent general knowledge skill on gaming systems.  Certain things simply aren’t clear in the wording of the edition I have or appear to be something that’s so basic to the system that the writer(s) didn’t even think it might not be known.

With that said I must say their forum and moderators are insanely good.  Every point of minutiae that I didn’t pick up from the core book I was able to find easily and quickly through their forum search.   Which leads me back to my comment about the book not being clear.  Every question I had, had already been asked time and time again on the forums.   Taking all those frequently asked questions and adding in the extremely clear and concise explanations by the moderator Clint would resolve every complaint I have about the rules as written.

I don’t want to give a bad impression of the system or the printing I have, for the most part it’s clear enough, there are just a few places where a simple example or an expanded example or another sentence or two would alleviate the few confusions or omissions.

The system itself purports to be Fast, Furious and Fun which is their slogan.  As a newcomer to the system I can see where this could be quite true.   Combats are both completely open and fairly simplistic.   The rules are few, elegant for the most part and at the same time keep a skies the limit option open.

Combat comes down to the Player deciding what their character is going to do and then breaking that down into separate actions with the caveat that each additional action over the first one adds a penalty to ALL the actions taken and that a character can only perform one action per ‘type’ per round with the exception that they can make two attacks if they have two weapons which includes bare knuckles.

For example: Biff Strange could on his turn say “I’m going to throw this chair at the thug fighting Nancy to give her a better chance to hit him as he ducks it, punch this guy in the throat,  reload my .45, double tap the third thug and scream insults at that guy to try and taunt him to come after me instead of ganging up on Nancy with the first guy while I run around the room like a Loon.”

This breaks down in game mechanics as an Agility Trick, Reload, Fighting, Shooting, Taunt, and a Run action.  That’s six actions though and that adds up to a -12 on EACH of them to succeed and an additional -2 on the off hand assuming the character doesn’t have some edges that allow them to attack with both hands without penalties.  With the exception of the Run, that action doesn’t require a roll, barring some unusual circumstance.

It’s open ended in that it encourages players to have their characters do things outside the box through the inclusion of Tricks and Will Tests, Ganging Up on someone, making a Wild Attack or taking Aim while giving them realistic gamist limits to prevent them from getting goofy like the above sequence of events would be.  Sure a player could try that but they’re going to fail 95% of the time to perform any of them much less all of them.

This also though limits the player, especially those coming from say 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons with all the specific powers those characters have.  Those powers in 4th are a bit of a straight jacket in their own right of course.   In Savage Worlds a player in combat, which is the biggest part of any mechanics because honestly mechanics to define roleplaying should be simple and behind the scenes for the most part, anyway in combat in a Savage World, a character can essentially Shoot someone, Fight (melee) them or Blast (spells/psychic/supernatural etc) them.   The system doesn’t have a lot of conditions, in fact it has only a couple, a character can be Normal, Shaken, Incapacitated.

Normal is obviously that, they can act normally.  Shaken means they can only walk slowly no other real actions allowed.  Incapacitated means just that, they’re unconscious.   There is no Dazed, Immobilized, Stunned, Restrained, Bloodied, Blind, Deaf, Ongoing Damage, etc and so on.

Wounded I suppose might be another condition but it only has one effect, the more wounds you have (up to a max of 3) the more penalties you take on all your rolls and movement.   Again a simple, elegant system.

Combat and especially the wounding/incapacitation rules overall, while a bit slippery to get your head around at the first read through is pretty Fast.  The Furious and the Fun part are too GM/Player dependent to say it’s always going to be that way but Fast definitely fits the bill.

Much like old school 1st and 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons was Fast.

oDnD: “I roll to hit with my sword.  I hit?  I roll damage.”

SW: “I roll to shoot with my gun. I hit?  I roll damage.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all, nor is it necessarily a good thing at all, it just is what it is.

After playing some trial combats I can see though where the combats can lend themselves to more narrative/story style easier than something like 4th Edition.  But the proof of that will indeed be in the pudding and obviously is fairly group dependent.  But I believe that it might lead those that tend to go, “I use Righteous Brand on him.” to be a little more descriptive in their actions because by their very nature the actions in SW are very generic.

The magic system which can be used for everything from fireball casting wizards to mind blasting psychics to ego blasting super heroes is much like everything else with the system, simple and broad in scope.   It uses Power Points that the player spends to use each power with subsequent effects.  The basic core rules in the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition are fairly… well basic.  They include things like the Armour and Blast and Telekinesis and is a pretty similar list to other universal systems.

Savage Worlds has an Extra’s and Wild Cards system, much like 4th Edition has Minions and Elites to make it as close an approximation.  Extra’s/Minions go down once they take damage regardless of the amount.  Whether you call them Extra’s, Minions, Mooks or Redshirts, they’re there for cinematic effect to make the players feel powerful as they mow down the thugs to get to the boss.

But where there’s a difference is that in Savage Worlds, dice can ‘ace’ or ‘explode’.  If you roll the highest number on a die, you get to keep that number and roll again and add it to the first.  You can in theory continue to do this for infinity but odds are you won’t do it more than a once or twice most times, odds being what they are.   This means that unlike 4th Edition, in Savage Worlds its quite possible for an Extra to take down a healthy Wild card (Minion kill a PC) in one attack.    Which is inherently impossible in 4th edition.  Now it has a low percentage chance to happen.  But the risk is there and something to be considered.

As an offset to making bad dice rolls or one shotted by an Extra players and GM’s both have Bennies that they can use to reroll or buy a roll to avoid that one shot.  Similar to Luck points,  Fate chips, Destiny perks and the like they allow the player and GM to dial the difficulty of an encounter one way or another.  If the GM has misjudged the relative toughness of an encounter he can spend Bennies to save his bad guys or give them a Mulligan on that big attack roll.  If he’s kicking the group’s ass then he can hand out some extra Bennies for good roleplay, playing in character, making a joke or whatever and ease the players troubles.

Savage Worlds has a ton of campaign settings although I’ve not looked at them all that much.  I’d have to be really interested before I bought one.  But you can get all kinds of things that a lot of people really seem to like a lot.   Zombies, Apocalyptic, Supers, Victorian Age, World Wars, Westerns,  Steam Punk, InterDimensional, High Fantasy, Low Fantasy, Modern Day, all kinds of source books are out there and because they all use the same core rules you can mix and match them as you want for the most part.

Savage worlds uses a unique, at least to my knowledge, system for dice.  Typically a game system seems to use one basic die for skill checks or combat tasks  with the variable dice pool being used to denote different degrees of damage probability.   A Savage Worlds character might have a d4 in Strength and a d10 for Smarts and a d8 for Fighting.  And those are the dice you roll to see if you succeed or fail at something.

In a way I don’t like this system as it’s a slow way to roll and determine things.  Player/GM has to check what die they need to roll, pick it out of the pile, roll it and read it, determine if they succeed or not and then roll any axillary dice as needed.   One of the simple things that really helped out with 4th Edition for us in terms of combat speed was the player only needs one die, a d20.  They do average damage on regular hits and max damage on critical hits.  No digging out and rolling 3d8 or 2d12+1d6+2d8  for damage.   It seems like a little thing but it really adds up over the length of a combat.   Especially for the GM who might be rolling 5, 10, 20 attacks and for each successful attack another 2 to 4 dice rolls to roll, count up and add bonuses to on their turn depending on how many bad guys there are.

But everyone who plays it and proselytizes says it’s Fast Furious Fun so we’ll see. Once I present it to a group of players and have them doing things with it I’ll report back.  Actually you’ll be able to listen to it first hand as I’ll most likely be podcasting it just like the 4th Edition sessions.

Like other universal systems Savage Worlds can handle any genre but unlike most it does it with simplicity and sleekness of rules rather than needing a Hero Builder or coming up with an archaic formula in a spreadsheet cell to compute things.  It’s simple enough and cheap enough and in my opinion elegant enough that any GM should at least give it a look.  If you don’t want to spend the $10 on the printed copy you can pick up the Test Drive rules, a subset that allows for decent experience of the system for free.  Hard to argue with that kind of pricing.

I will offer though that you really do need to read the system before you scoff and toss it aside.  I know at first glance, and second for that matter, I didn’t give it a real chance to catch my attention, the wacky dice set up, the simplicity of it, the overall broad scope didn’t catch my interest.  Indeed it is only with my 4E campaign going on hiatus for the summer that I picked it up again to give it a serious read through as I was looking for a new system that I’ve not used before.

Time will tell if it’s right for me and my group and I’ll post an update once we get to the dice rolling.

Until next time, as they’re so fond of saying, Stay Savage….

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Chase Chart

Now you could of course just use a piece of paper or draw it on your battle mat but since I have Hirst Arts molds and the adventures I’m going to be doing are set in the 20′s and primarily urban, making a section of street and sidewalks seemed a lot cooler than a simple piece of paper or some dry erase marker on a battlemat.  Or at least I think so.

As a result, after a couple of hours work gluing and painting I have my own custom chase chart. (Molding time not counted here.)  The paint job is rough of course, this is an ‘actual play’ piece and not a display piece and spending hours of work detailing it would be wasted for the most part as it’s handled and scuffed and all that.  This way I won’t mind if the paint gets chipped or damaged.  Well I won’t mind as much.

Blindroller

It’s pretty simple and basic.  You press the appropriate number key and you get a dice rolled for you and the result spoken out loud.

It as written suits our purposes but if there are minor changes you’d like to see with it feel free to ask, just don’t expect miracles.

You can find it here: Blindroller (108)

Character Creation

These systems are set up to handle a lot of genre although superheroes is the prevalent one along with most eras with various degrees of success and typically include an assload of additional settings books that add specifics that are related to an genre/era to round them out that in general cover a pretty wide gamut.  Cyberpunk, Fantasy, Wild West, Swashbucklers and Post Apocalyptic etc. are typically published over the years after the initial release of the base system.

One thing and off topic, after dealing with the simplicity that is DnD 4th Edition from a Player and GM point of view (especially since the only dice we use is a d20), other systems feel anitquated. I forsee new gaming systems taking some of the 4th features and expanding them into other genres including a sandbox mode.

Anyway, so I’ve been looking at Savage Worlds, it’s one of the few I’ve not looked at very heavily or used which has a draw in and of itself for that reason.  It’s not as complicated as the other sandboxes, at first glance, which is a plus as I’m too old for complicated for the sake of being simulationist.  As part of my ‘looking’ I looked around for gameplay podcasts using Savage Worlds and found one over at rpgmp3.com on their rss feed called Savage Worlds – Rippers.  The Rippers part references the setting the group is using which is Victorian England from the sound of it circa late 1800′s with a bit of supernatural and of course featuring the most infamous Jack.  Other than Burton of course.

As they’re going through their character design (see I do get to the point eventually) it strikes me how much a sandbox system can force players to make characters where-as a class based system allows players to make characters.  And by make a character I mean give it a personality rather than a list of powers and numbers.

So I toss my mind back over the decades of GM’ing I’ve done and it’s easy to see this repeated.  Game systems that hand a player a character ‘off the shelf’ as in “here, you’re a fighter, you get to do this” make it…. easy(?) for the player to simply accept that and for the… lazy? detached? gamist? player, that’s enough.   Off the shelf characters focus on the What, and the Who is at the players discretion without any natural pressure to define that. And in may cases the What is all that’s of any concern.

Let me interject here that I’m not saying one or the other is bad or better or right or wrong, I’m merely pointing out observed human behavior and some thoughts on underlying causality.

Game systems where the player has to literally build their character from a essentially unlimited collection of parts seems to force them to have a character rather than a collection of numbers.   The Who is forced to be considered even as the What is created.  “Well Miss Angela is a doctor so she should have this medicine knowledge thing and be smart.  And she studied fencing in college so I guess she should have some skill in fighting.”

As opposed to, “I guess I’ll play the cleric.”

To make a construction analogy, when someone builds a house, they’re involved with it from the ground up, they make changes to the floorplan, add arches and decorative bits to the strcuture, put in that big bay window where they can sit and read while enjoying the sun and the view.

When they buy a house, they may put on a new coat of paint or they may not.

Both people could and in many cases eventually do end up with the same ‘house’.  But it’s more likely that the person who bought the house is going to settle for things the way they are when they bought it.

To bring this analogy back to the ‘real world’, as a GM you can help with their paint choices.  There are “10 minute questionnaires” out there that you can pass on to your players, regardless of game system with questions like “How has your character earned a living up to this point?”  “Are there any people, groups or societies that the character is a part of or involved with now or in the past?”  “Where did you grow up?”.   These kinds of things can help the player get a handle on the character before they get to the numbers whether their choice is as simple as which class to play or as diverse as does their weapon have the armour piercing advantage and deal extra knockback…

So as you bring out your class based games and get your players going with new alternate lives, remember to encourage them with word, question and setting to make those characters theirs and not fighter_0001 or blaster_003.  Your game play will be the better for it.

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Utha Plaguebringer

So with that said, the party was  going to need to seek out the hobgoblins in the region last week, who have banded together.  On the way there I’d come up with a minor POI or Point of Interest that could be engaged or bypassed as the party wished.  These always start out as ‘filler’ material to lend verisimilitude to the world that things happen in spite of the players, not because of them.

There have been several such incidents during this campaign.  What might appear to be a minor encounter just for an encounter’s sake branches the world as the player’s react to it.  The rescue of the people kidnapped when the airship touched down in Darkmith, the rescue of the slaves from hobgoblins, the encounter with the Hill Giant (Rest in peace big fella you had so much ahead of you), the bandit encounter, the woman and child who entered the town bleeding to name a few off the top of my head.  These were all Important Moments In Time and helped determine future events.

This most recent PoI was of a similar nature.  This little encounter started out in my planning as a small little tactical combat opportunity as they searched around the countryside looking for a tribe of hobs to parlay with.  Nothing special, the kind of thing that every DM pencils into his flow chart to make sure he has enough ‘stuff’ on hand to fill the session.

But over the course of the week this little minor side point grew and evolved and here is how it happened.

As the week went by the generic “Necromonger” as it was, your basic necromancer encounter, a creature shunned from town for his stereotypical fetish for the dead.  My initial envisioning was of a necromancer taking advantage of the bodies of a hobogoblin intra warfare site.   The initial single encounter broadened into two encounters and the scenery was filled in.   The generic aka without much interest antagonist turned into the Steppes Hag as I found time to consider the upcoming weeks events.   I envisioned this creature as a minor legend in the area, one that fed on the dead and made them serve her and the encounter grew into three ‘minicounters’.  A kind of minor delve.

Then as I was working on my Rogue’s Gallery of villains on the opposing forces a little note I’d penciled many weeks ago about one of the creatures working for the BBEG back in the day, Utha Plaguebringer now escaped from her prison like so many others of the dark days, caught my eye and the Steppes Hag became Utha and a new plot branching was brought into being.

I’d already set the stage for Utha to make an appearance, her pet, a kind of liche like dragon creature had already been spotted searching the countryside (looking for bodies for his mistress truth be known now after the fact as a kind of foreshadowing but it also had the side benefit of increasing the paranoia of the players).

As I dressed up the encounter a bit more I realized that Utha wasn’t doing her job very well.  So the encounter grew more legs and stretched out.  Instead of just sending out Bonegnasher to spot battle sites, she set up a ritual, a powerful summoning magic that subtly leads people toward her lair and drives them to their natural tendencies to fight.  It was aimed primarily at hobgoblins who enjoy fighting other tribes.  This way she doesn’t have to go looking for bodies, they come to her.  Naturally though as the players traversed the countryside they would be caught in this ritual.  Although they discovered it before walking into the trap as heroes tend to do.  But what makes a hero is what he does with such knowledge.

In addition she’s still bitter about her sister, Liloth gaining the favor of the Dark One and is always scheming ways to curry favor and throw down her bitch of a sister as she sees her.  So she’s concocted a plan to infect the corpses with plague and give them back the semblance of healthy flesh.  These hobgoblins she’ll send back into the tribes where they’ll pass on the infections.

The underlying reason for her actions are many as I inked her into being.  She along with all the others of the Darkmith bunch hate the hobgoblins as they were part of the forces that locked them away and to date still guard against any creature that escapes the wardings of the ancient prisons.  By decimating the tribes she hopes to win the ‘love’ of the Dark One.  In addition committing genocide by disease is just a joy of hers anyway.  She’s not a very nice creature.

In the end the encounter grew from a simple time filler into what I think was a fairly interesting encounter (even if there was no loot ) and the players’ actions or inactions yet again have a direct and major impact on the world.  If they’d not followed up on the encounter, if they’d of not killed her or if they’d of taken too long to kill her she would have escaped and continued on with her plans and the players would have had to deal with the consequences of the hobgoblin tribes, a major if unknown factor in the fight against Darkmith sickening and dying.

As it was they performed a service for all hobgoblin kind, the same hobgoblins by the way who have ransacked and destroyed several farming villages of Larkson and taken the people they didn’t kill into slavery.  Just because hobgoblins have a common enemy with the group, doesn’t make them nice people either.  Not everything is black and white, in fact few things are.

So there you have it, the evolution of an encounter from a generic combat fight into something with interest and ties to the world and the story line and it was simply by spending a little time each day thinking about the planned encounters and past encounters and the forces at work in the world.

Hopefully this will inspire you to turn that next random wandering encounter into something with deeper roots than as a portable bag of experience and gold for your players.

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Furies

As the group prepares to depart the city looking for the Soul Eater tribe they’re stopped at the gate by a messenger who delivers a note from Councilor Teagon along with a small pouch.  The note is innocuous enough, wishes them well on their journey and mentions he’d like to discuss the town’s leadership with them when they get back.

The pouch contains a months supply of elvish trail mix and delicacies for 5 people.  It’s a minor bag of holding with a 8 cubic feet of storage space and roughly a 50lb limit on goods.

The group heads south in search of the soul eaters.  On their second day Stak notices a pack of wolves lead by a huge wolf with bony spikes and vertically slit yellow eyes pacing them.  The alpha wolf goes out of it’s way to let Stak see it and appears to be mocking them.   After a couple of hours of this the wolves disappear to not be seen again.

Toward the end of day 2 they realize that they’ve been pulled off their course by a very subtle magic, one that’s pulled them eastward and they arrive at the site of a battle.  Hobgoblins a few mostly whole, others torn to bits litter a large swatch of dry riverbed.  A large tunnel leads into the opposite cliff side.  As they look the area over, two large hobgoblins, bearing the full length tattoos of hands of bane plod out of the cave entrance and each grabs the ankle of a hobgoblin body and drags it back into the cave.

Torel’s avenger senses kick off and he realizes that the two have no aura of life about them.

They devise a plan to ambush the hobgoblins and barely get into position when the two re-emerge and move out gather more bodies.  They’re swiftly and quietly downed by the group.

Stak sneaks into the cave and spots a larger chamber littered with hobgoblin bodies of multiple tribes.  At the far end a female figure is crooning and cackling over the body of a hobgoblin, magical energies flowing from strange crystals in the cave walls through her and into the body and the body is slowly repaired of all damage.

She’s muttering to herself, about how her little pretties will go forth and spread disease and sickness among the guardians and how her beloved will throw down his current favorite and take her up instead.

Stak retreats and informs the others and they move into the caves.  The creature, Utha Plaguebringer, senses their life force and flees, triggering the bodies to rise up as well as locking the chamber behind wardings preventing exit and bringing into life blaster sigil’s that fire flaming rays of energy at the party.

They cut a swath through the zombies, none of which are very strong and Biminey disables the sigils that are flash frying the goliath barbarian.

Together they work on dropping the wardings after dealing with all the hostile threats in the room.   As they destroy the warding there’s a rumble from deeper within the earth and the cavern shakes and dirt and rocks fall free of the ceilings.  There’s also a piercing cry of pain and surprise from where Utha fled.

They proceed deeper and find Utha clawing her way out of rocks near where a large dragon like creature lays buried under new rubble.  The same creature they spotted flying in a search pattern on their way back from the hobgoblin raid.

Utha screams and locks burst from cages holding the last two of her plaguedogs which leap out after the party.

They work well to contain the threat, Stak pouring massive damage into Utha while the rest manuever around the room tying up the others.

Bonegnasher, Utha’s pet flying creature emerges from the rubble only moments before his mistress dies.  Although as usual T’balktu takes the brunt of the damage the fight is of no match for the strength of the party and they down all four of the creatures.

[Note: This battle had four level 7-10 elites.   Bonegnasher's main attack was an 'overkill' which did the trope'ic claw claw bite attack old school style which T'balktu felt the brunt of more than once.  This is another example of where player actions impact the world.  The group could have ignored or retreated from this battle at any time. In that event Utha's plan would have continued on and the party would have run into plagues sweeping through the hobgoblin tribes later on which would have created another situational branching of world events.]

They clean up after the fight, disposing of the bodies with fire and light, dragging them outside.  T’balktu laments the last of his smoking jacket and tosses it on the pyre.

Finding a place to hole up they rest the remainder of the night.  On Visra’s watch she comes awake as temperatures plummet and spots a pair of yellow glowing eyes with vertical slits in the face of a human male staring at her.  As she screams the eyes blink and deep laughter fades away into the distance.

They move on the next day crossing the trail of hobgoblin war party heading in the direction they’d come from after moving west to get back on their original trail.  They elect to not pursue.

They run into two skinless bears, huge dire creatures that rip T’Balktu and Stak into catfood before they’re put down hard.  The city banner reacts to these creatures and Torel, the apparently holder of the banner plants it and feels the flare of powers interacting between the banner and the creatures.  Biminey and Visra vivisect the creatures and uncover powerful components for the making of unique magic items.

That night Torel is surprised by a band of what turn out to be Soul Eaters who enter the camp and give them guest rights for two days and invite them to come talk to the elder of the tribe. The band seems very nervous and twitchy and constantly stare out into the darkness.   The leader of the band Seoul tells the group of the Hunter that is plaguing them and his foul Furies, hairless beasts that are killing them.

The group follows the band to the Soul Eaters camp, a fortified encampment.  There they meet with He Who Walks The Night, an ancient hobgoblin shaman with tattoos down to at least his waist.

They palaver and Nightwalker tells the group of the black Hunter who kills them during the day with arrows that strike and kill them without any sign of the attacker and his creatures which hunt them at night.  How their blades and magic do nothing against the creatures and how they’re dying slowing in small numbers trying to stay alive.

Biminey recalls some lore on this creature, that it was a force of Chaos, called to the chaos that the creatures of Darkmith created, that fed off the energies and occasionally did tasks for the Darkmith king, mostly as the tasks would generate more chaos.

The group and Nightwalker speak long into the day, sharing tales of their exploits, explaining the trophies they bear.  They learn that the hobgoblin tribes were set to guard against creatures escaping Darkmith but over the decades the tribes ‘lost their way’.  Much like the Keepers of Secrets apparently have as he refers to the city of Larkson.  That the Keepers have lost the knowledge that was their sacred trust and Nightwalker now fears that the Darkmith King will find his way to freedom without the means to put him back down again.

The group hears the tales and decide they’re going to help the Soul Eaters with their issue and they share the goodies that Tegaon gave them with the tribe, all of which are starting to show signs of lack of food and the next day they’re going to head out and see if they can get the Hunter to come after them.  They believe that the banner that the priests of Eris made for them will let their own weapons work against the Hunter, a creature of chaos that is allied with the powers of Darkmith.

[DM's Note: The banner does work this way actually.  Merely having it out allows the players to deal normal damage against the Darkmithian's. Planting it and setting up the draining zone actually allows the players to truly kill one of the Darkmith's.   They're a tough breed and hard to give a true death to...

The magic items they’ll get out the Furies are as follows for the curious, they’re not intended to be perfectly balanced for 4th edition but are balanced for my campaign and the finances of the party –

• 3,400 residium – Bear Skull Helm – Property: Critical attacks deal 1d12 additional damage. Daily Power – Demoralizing Roar Blast 3; Wis vs Will; target takes 1d8+4 psychic damage and is weakened and slowed until the end of its next turn.
  “A transparent roaring bears head appears over your head and blasts out a crushing roar at nearby opponents daring them to attack you.”
• 4,000 residium – Bears Heart Amulet – Property: +2 on saving throws versus Fear or Psychic.  Daily Power – Bear’s Fury – Immediate Reaction when first bloodied – Make a melee basic attack, Str vs AC; 1d8+4 damage close burst 1; target’s enemies only.
  “The ghostly image of a bear appears overlaid upon you and spins, clawing everything within range.”
• 5,000 residium – Bear Claw Amulet – Property:    Daily Power – Spend a healing surge and deal 4 damage to any enemy creature that successfully attacks you with a melee attack until the end of the encounter.
  “Ghostly images of bear paws lash out at anyone foolish enough to attack you.”

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Rare

We join our group in the aftermath of the hobgoblin raid.  For the curious the hobgoblins in my world are a cross between feudal japan and American Indian.  Highly martial ideology but formed into large tribes that stake out territories and have a lot of intra-tribal warfare as well as fighting anything that invades their territories.

The group has just wiped out a force of the Throatcutter’s tribe.  A sizable force of their better warriors according to Sgt. Driskull afterward as the Throatcutters sent a lot of more well trained than normal fighters on this raid.  For someone familiar with the hobgoblin ways it’s easy to tell a warriors relative skill by the tattoos they bear.  They did lose over half their forces in mercenaries and city watch in the doing though as a result.  A good thing the city sent a well trained force instead of mixing in neophytes and raw recruits.

[DM's Note: The relative 'worth' of a hobgoblin warrior can be judged by the tattoos they wear.  It starts with a tribal identifying tattoo in the palm of their main hand.  As they rise in skill and respect the tattos grow up their arm across their shoulders and down the other arm.  A warrior who has 'gone the distance' becomes a Hand of Bane in the tribes, one of the most feared and respected warrior the hobgoblins have.   Shaman's, warcasters, fleshcarvers, spiritspeakers, etc. have tattoo's that grow out from the top of their heads.  A Speaker Of the Dead, the shamanistic equivalent of a Hand of Bane tattoos will have covered their entire head down to the base of their neck.]

They rescue 31 captives, farmers and crafters that were taken by the hobgoblins out of about 60 and get them bundled up to head back.  The trip back is slower, taking 12 hours rather than 8 due to the infirm from the fighting or the general condition of the farmers.

While hiding in a dense copse of trees lookouts spot a bat winged dragon like creature flying high overhead in figure eights, obviously a search pattern but they go undetected or at least unmolested by the creature who’s search pattern takes it out of sight to the south east.

They’re welcomed back in town as heroes and as it’s well past evening they head off to the Temple of Eris to take a break while Driskull and his aid Baen head off to report and others see to the welfare of the farmers and the wounded.

At the council meeting the next day, which includes the entire group, Captain Werrick, Sgt Driskull, Councilors Teagon, Lerik and Garon and their aids.  Lerik has a new aid, a non-descript human who’s gaze rarely leaves that of the group and who says nothing or even moves much during the meeting.

While the group is reporting Lerik makes outbursts, primarily to himself it seems that they’ve doomed them all, the whole town will now suffer the wrath of the tribes and be destroyed.

Finally Garon has enough of his comments, rants and snide remarks and dismisses him, requesting Driskull to escort the man out of the building.   As Lerik passes the group they recoil a bit at the rank body odor of the man, although appearing up kept and clean he reeks of old sweat.   Lerik’s aide follows his boss out staring at the group the entire while.

Garon presents the group with an award, Dragonshard Daggers, obtained for them by Teagon from a crafter back in the Feywild.  Each dagger gleams of highest quality craftsmanship, the pommels set with a strange quartz like crystal that has a sheen like an opal.  Teagon tells them they are a gift from him and he relieves them of the eladrin custom of a return gift.   *hint hint*

The daggers have the ability that if they are infused with life force (healing surge) they can be used to communicate with a holder of the other daggers.  In addition they have the ability to allow two wielders who are adjacent to the same target to get combat advantage once per encounter as the wielders will be able to time their strikes just so to open a target up for attack.

Biminey wonders out loud where Lerik’s house might be after his rant against them and Garon is a little suspicious of his reasons.  Teagon though gives them a bit of a high sign and a shake of the head and Biminey drops it.

Later that day a commoner arrives at the temple with a note that has directions to a house on it but without any identifying marks.

Torel goes and talks to Captain Werrick and Driskull about their next steps and learns that Driskull wanted to leave to seek out a tribe of hobgoblins that the other hobgoblin tribes hold in high respect.  They are known as the Easters of Souls and their tats are in red rather than black like the other tribes.  Their home ground is far south near Darkmith although with the recent upheavals in the tribes wanderings they may no longer be there.

Meanwhile Biminey and T’balktu follow the directions and reach Lerik’s house.  There Biminey detects strong arcanic energies around the place.   He sends for the others of the group who eventually arrive and he also detains a 2 man patrol of the Watch.

A strong smell of incense hangs over the area near the house.

He tries to open the door, it’s a good lock though and T’Balktu in his barbarian impatience simply scales the wall to see if he can figure out what the problem is.  He notes that the inner vegetation is all dead of the courtyard gardens.   Inside he undoes a couple of bolts and lifts a heavy bar away from the door.

They knock on the house door, taking one of the guards with them, leaving the other outside.  This door yields to Biminey’s artificisistic touch and swings open. Billows of incense waft out, a chaotic melange of all possible flavors.

Inside they find the house empty and Biminey follows the arcane energies to the back of the large residence and into a bedroom, obviously a master bedroom.  A quick search uncovers a trapdoor cleverly hidden under a rug so that it can be opened and closed again from underneath leaving the rug over it.

Stak hears voices from below, a raspy voice demanding Lerik move faster at getting ‘them’ out of the city or he’ll find another tool and Lerik whining that he’s working as fast as he can.

T’balktu tries to head down the shaft but one of the ladder rungs is trapped to slide easily under any weight and he ends up as a noisy thud at the bottom of the shaft.

Down a corridor he spots Lerik talking with a large winged humanoid that appears leprous in Lerik’s hidden church of Bane a very human-o-centric god.  A fight ensues and undead, Lerik’s servants appear and join the fray.  The party is unfortunately tied up in a narrow hallway without much room to maneuver but they eventually get the battle opened up a bit and take out the winged creature which cuts the power ties with the undead.   Lerik is killed during the fight, electrocuted by Lightning Sphere from Biminey which dropped him into a dying state.   Then Visra finishes him off with an AOE invoker power that catches him in it.

[DM's Note: I completely fubarred this encounter in terms of mechanics.  For those not familiar with my house rules I remove the +1/2 level on tohit bonuses and defenses.  This makes it a wash in terms of accuracy but opens the playability range of creatures tremendously.  But this fails if you include the wrong version of the monsters you've made, ones without the -1/2 level modification.  So the players were trying to hit things with essentially a +5 to all defenses for the entire fight.  This resulted in their hit ratio shifting from around 70-75% where I like them to be to roughly 45% or less than half the time.  On top of that they're level 8's fighting level 10 standard soldiers and a level 10 elite controller, typically this is a non-issue with my HR but that shifts the chance to hit down another 10-15% or so and now they're hitting on about 1 in three attacks.  This was my first fight involving creatures this high and I was thinking I was going to have re-visit my numbers.  I didn't want to change the defenses midstride so I put an exit plan in that if the boss was killed the undead would drop as well.  Unfortunately the players didn't kill the boss all that fast.  As a result the fight dragged on.  At the time I was worried I'd hit this whole 'grindfest' that some people complain about but as it turns out it was just a dumbass mistake on my part.

In regards to Lerik, a major NPC dying, I let the chips fall where they would.  I had two possible endings, he dies, he doesn't die.  This way the party got the satisfaction of killing someone they really didn't like.  And that's the sign of a good NPC.]

The watch shows up, brought in by the guard the party sent for reinforcements.  The guard they’d kept specifically to watch what they did ends up being a good witness in on their behalf and by the time the events are reported on, believes he saw everything the party did first hand and he keeps their name clear.  Torel has a nudging suspicion in the back of his mind about the winged figure and it suddenly dawns on him that the facial features look like Lerik’s new aide.  The others don’t see it but are willing to give the avenger the benefit of the doubt.

They head back to their bed and breakfast after reporting on the events.

Reporting to the council after they’re cleaned up they find Garon more than suspicious as to their motives for happening to be there but secretly Garon is also more than relieved to be free of Lerik and his poisonous impact on the town from his position of power as a non-human hater.

Teagon encourages Garon to give them Lerik’s house, a fine residence as befits the leader of the merchants guilds of the town under the ‘rationale’ that they would be best suited to ensure that no further evil influences come through the place.

[DM's Note:  Teagon knows that the party 'suspects' he had something to do with the missing gold shipments.  Much like the bandit leader Warrick, it wasn't anything personal, just business.  Eladrin's in my world are businessmen first and foremost in their cultural outlook.  But he also knows that other races can take things personally so he's making obvious gestures to balance things out as he sees it.]

The party splits up briefly with some visiting the airship and others hanging out in their new house.  T’Balktu arranges for a clean up crew for the blood and gore of the church below.   His leisure time with bottle and a pipe is broken up by screams from the underground area and still in Lerik’s smoking jacket he rushes in to find the commoners fleeing one of their own, the man in a fit of all consuming rage.  T’Balktu drops him with one punch and questions the others.  The one guy was trying to clean the arcane sigil in one corner of the room and went berserk and tried to kill the others.

T’Balktu gets a new cleaning crew and has them move an easy chair down into the underground chamber and continues his enjoyment of Lerik’s goods as he keeps an eye on the new group.

Biminey and Torel wander back and Biminey tries to destroy the sigil.  He’s not paying attention as he counts the empty wine bottles around T’Balktu’s comfy chair and seriously flubs up the disruption.

He spins on the others and attacks.   Torel and T’Balktu eventually get him down and dying.  Only to have him flare up again after they stuff a healing potion down his throat.  T’Balktu proceeds to sit on the lanky artificer while Torel invokes the power of Kord to break the evil force possessing Biminey.

Then they proceed a little more carefully and a lot more cautiously to dismantle the arcanic devices in the underground chamber.

They get the place clean and arrange for Spar to move into their new abode to repeat a warding ritual on the place in their abscence with the hope of making it permanent.  It only takes a year.

[DM's Note: I like such optimism.  That they're going to keep the house, that it's going to be around in a year and that they'll be alive to enjoy it.]

Torel tries to get Captain Warrick to let them take Driskull with them on a hunt for the Souleater tribe but he refuses.  He’s lost too many of his better warriors and Driskull is his best.  He’s not going to risk him on an endeavor that he’s not sure will have any impact on the outcome of the future of the town.  He will give them whatever help he can though as long as it doesn’t weaken the city.  At least without a good chance of results.

[DM's Note: This is both a realistic reason, the city is weakened and Werrick is as I've pictured him a pretty conservative leader.  Giving up what is literally the best fighter the city has right now or his protege in Corporal Baen doesn't sit well with him.  He was willing to send the bulk of his well trained forces on a lightning raid as the reward/risk ratio was good. The fact that they lost over half the force if anything has now made him ultra conservative.    But this isn't as clear cut to him.  There's also a pure game play mechanic reason.  I don't really use DMNPC's unless I have to, they detract from the 'heroes' of the stories and they can end up being sacrificed by players.  Doubt if it would be an issue with this group, they sacrificed one of their own in their quest to help Torn.]

The party gathers supplies for their trip and we’ll embark on it at the next session.

We will not be having a session this upcoming week, we try to do a 3 on, 1 off schedule so that everyone has an off Saturday night they spend without missing a session.

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Episode 12, part 3 of the Key Our Cars group’s 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons podcast gameplay session.

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