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

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

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?

Looking back, I should have known it wouldn’t last.

Even though we’d been in the new digs for three months I still got a bit of a chuckle walking down the hall toward our offices.  The rich walnut paneling and supposed fine art on the walls and the thick soft carpeting under foot was still cause for a little bit of reveling at my good fortune. Or rather our good fortune; it wasn’t a one man show any more.  Hadn’t been for a good long while truth be told although the days of scraping by to make ends meet by myself after getting kicked off the force were still a pretty strong memory.   Standard crap back then, catching errant spouses, tracking down bail jumpers, living hand to mouth.  Not a great period for Mama Gilhooey’s son, too stupid to look the other way in corrupt system, too proud to ask for help.

And then a sea change, a right time right place kind of event that I still had trouble believing.  Edward Durant and his little girl Persephone getting nabbed by that psycho Uri Rasmuzi.  The father a bonus for the killer and the girl just another child in a string of them that last I heard they’re still trying to get a accurate count on.  Pursuing the sick bastard through three states, finding the father or what was left of him in that dirty warehouse in Indianapolis.  I still wake up at times in a cold sweat from what that psychopath left of the man to cool on the stained concrete.

And then the race through Indianapolis and then Ohio, always one step behind the bastard but somehow always catching a break to keep from losing him.  Tracking him to Columbus and then to abandoned row housing.

Then by some freak of chance, fate or maybe just the girl’s guardian angel looking out for her, hearing that single terror filled scream before the bastard got the gag back in place as I walked past a building no different than the rest.  Of that desperate struggle to move fast and quiet through the building before spotting the door with a finger of light coming from under it.  The smells of dankness and mildew mixed with the heavy musk of the candles flickering around the room as the door gave wave under a heavy shoulder and stumbling into the room.

The look of surprise and disbelief in the killer’s eyes as he turned to stare, crazy eyes, soul-less, dead eyes if truth be told.  And then that faint flicker of relief that still puzzled me even as I put two heavy 45’s through his nasal cavities and the back of his head exploded spraying gore across the girl strapped to the heavy wooden table.   Before the black knife in his hand hit the floor I emptied the remaining five rounds into his center of mass, a cluster of holes over his heart you could have covered with a small book.   It was the best shooting I’d ever done in my life, another sign that the Fates really wanted that little girl to live.

The girl was blindfolded and saved from the sight of the almost headless body, yet another small favor I added to my karmic debt.  I gathered her up, reassuring her she was safe now and getting nothing but little whimpers from her that near broke my heart.  I bundled her up in my overcoat, she was such a small little thing that she just disappeared into it, a golden mop of hair the only sign of her.

Leaving the body in a spreading pool of dark crimson I carried her downstairs and placed her in the car, handing her off to Stella where she immediately dove into her arms sobbing.

Stella, my sometimes partner, sometimes breakfast companion met my eyes with a question and I nodded.  She mouthed the word “Good!” to me and continued to stroke the little girl’s hair.  Slipping behind the wheel I pulled the car into the empty dark street, stopping only once at a payphone to let the girl’s mother know we had her safe and sound and would be back as soon as humanely possible.  A second call as a concerned citizen to the Columbus PD to let them know where they could find Uri aka the Pied Piper.  I hung up as the questions started, I had precious cargo to deliver and no time to talk.

The girl had fallen asleep before I got back to the car and slept the entire way back to Chicago in Stella’s arms.  The woman was a trooper, held the child without shifting or complaint during the long ride home. We rode in silence, we’d known each other since the early days when I was just another honest flatfoot on patrol and she was a unwed mother trying to make ends meet. Neither of us the type to need to fill empty spaces for the sake of noise.

Lois Durant was more than happy to get her child back.  And expressed her happiness in ways that had lead me to where I was now.  Walking down this richly appointed hall toward the heavy oak doors with my name in gold lettering on it.  Rescuing the only child of one of the wealthiest families in Chicago from a child killer had had its rewards.  Although I’d have done it for nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing the bastard’s brains paint the wall.

As I stepped through the doors to Gilhooey’s Private Investigations I was nodding in satisfaction at a future that looked rosy indeed.

And then I saw her, a raven haired beauty with skin like white silk and amethyst eyes to get lost in for days.  She rose from one of the heavy leather couches in our outer room as Candace, Stella’s niece, called out from behind the outer desk, “Boss, Sabrina De La Cote would like to talk with you.  She was referred by Mrs. Durant.”

I nodded, trying to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor and only partially succeeding.  That marble was genuine Italian and I’d hate to break it.  The woman was spellbinding, the knee high skirt she wore revealing legs that would have given Michelangelo trouble capturing their perfect curves.  Assuming the sissy had actually like dames.And those curves didn’t stop there but continued all the way up.

She held out her hand and from somewhere I managed to nod, bringing it up to brush my lips, bringing with it a faint musky floral scent I immediately fell in love with.

“Mrs. De La Cote?  Please, my office is this way.” Taking her gently by the elbow I pointed her toward the door marked Boss.

“Thank you Mr. Gilhooey.” she replied in a soft contralto that whispered things that would get a man arrested for.  And then she said something that near threatened to have me babbling like an idiot.  ”And it’s Miss.”

I turned my head to look back and my secretary and having nothing to do with me trying to get some faint grip on composure, “Candace, give Sargent Roberts a call and tell him to come by this afternoon, would you?”

“Sure thing boss.  Remember you have a ten o’clock with Fiduchi.”

“Right, thanks. Get Jocko over in case that conversation turns interesting?”

“Already taken care of, Jocko and Sully both should be here by nine.”

“Good girl.”

Candace had proven to be a life saver, smart way beyond her eighteen years, talented at making the office run smoothly and although I’d never say it in front of Stella, quite a stunner in her own right.  And her ditsy blond act had worked on more than one occasion to pick up information a prospective client perhaps hadn’t intended on telling us.  At least not immediately.

Door safely closed behind us I eased her into one of the two armchairs positioned in front of the big teak desk I used, mostly to impress clients if one was being completely honest.  Plopping down into my own seat, looking at the vision of lovliness sitting across from me I couldn’t help but think, “Tom old boy, this day just keeps getting better and better.”

Which just goes to show you, you can always trust Fate to build you up only to kick you in the nuts when you least expect it…

Where it gets a little interesting at least on the surface is that in Savage Worlds the dice can ‘explode’ or ‘ace’.  This means that if you roll the maximum on a die, for instance roll a 6 on a d6, you get to roll it again.   And if you roll maximum again then you keep rolling.   This means that smaller dice, d4′s and d6′s explode more often than bigger dice d10′s and d12′s.

One interesting artifact of this mechanic is you can’t roll multiples of the dice you’re rolling.  For instance it’s impossible to roll a 4/8/12 etc on a d4.

And as you might expect the change in average totals means more for lower sized dice as a result but the differences aren’t nearly as significant in the grand scheme of things as one might think.  The entries below marked ex boost: show the upgrade in average damage that you can expect to see from the mechanic versus without it.

Over 10,000,000 rolls these are the numbers I came up with and boy are my arms tired.  Ten million rolls is enough to elminate vagaries in the stats out to a couple of decimal points I would think.

What I find interesting is that rounding the progression with exploding dice is still one point average damage difference just like the progression without explosions you get with rounding without it.    So raising your die size for a skill will yield a 1 point higher average roll.

These numbers indicate that on average with a d6 you should succeed at most tasks barring modifiers since a 4 is the Target Number you need to roll equal to or higher than.   The most important exception of this Melee skill which barring weak opponents has a Target Number of 5 or higher.   In this case you really need to have a d8 to expect some measure of success on average.  NOTE: All players get to roll a d6 on top of whatever dice they may have built their character with which changes the success rate but without that die these are what you can expect on average.

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Obviously it needed to be replaced.

First a disclaimer for our sue-happy society -

WARNING!!!  This information is for informational purposes only.  Serious harm or death could result if you attempt to perform these repairs without proper training, preperation and equipment.

Okay with that said I didn’t find it all that difficult to replace the motor.  Google was my friend when I ran into situations like the wires were different colors, there were more of them than I started with and the old fan was sharing a capacitor with the compressor.

I undid the sheet metal screws holding the top of the unit, the part that the fan is attached to and lifted it up and checked the data plate on the fan, writing down all the information, horsepower, voltage, amperage, speed, everything.  Going online I found that these fans (mine was 1/4 HP, 1100RPM) typically run $70, the most recommended brand was AO Smith.    Oddly enough the slower speed 850 RPM quieter fans cost considerably more.

Quotes to have a HVAC professional come out and replace it run from $400 to $1000 and research online seemed to bear those prices out based on people asking, “They only replaced a little fan and it took a few minutes, did I get screwed for $500?”

Given that little difference in price this became a no brainer to try myself.  Let me state I have no experience with HVAC equipment at all.

I had my lovely wife pick up a replacement motor from Grainger.  They’re not supposed to sell to the public but the counter man asked her where she worked and as it turns out her employer has an account there so they were able to sell it to her.  There was some *wink wink* going on as in the guy knew he wasn’t really supposed to sell to her but a sale is a sale so he did.

She was also my Tool Monkey and emergency standby to call 911 if I managed to electrocute myself.  Highly recommended to not try these things by yourself in case you accidently brush up against the hot lead on a capacitor with a sweaty arm.

WARNING!!! Remember to pull the fuses!  Mine were located right next to the units and there are also circuit breakers you trip.

Fan in hand along with the necessary capacitor I removed the old fan, clipping the wires to get it out easier.  The old fan had three wires, Black, Yellow and Brown, (Current, Current, Capacitor).   I removed the fan blade, it was easy just loosen a set screw in the hub where the blades attach and slide it off.

Next I disassembled the side of the unit, the big non-finned side, taking out the outer cover piece I was then able to open the actual junction box.

Inside I found the old fan’s black and yellow wires going to the junction bar attached with spade connectors.  I removed those, noting where they were attached.

WARNING!!! Capacitors can hold a charge, in fact that’s what they’re supposed to do.  These things can still shock the everloving crap out of you and even kill you.  I only had the crap shocked out of me obviously as I’m still alive to write this.   Treat this thing with utmost respect, use rubber gloves and don’t touch it if you don’t have to.

The existing capacitor was a big one and handled both the fan and the compressor.  It’s what is called a Split Capacitor I think.  It had one ‘hot’ or yellow lead leading to the power strip (the big junction bar where the live current comes in from the house and gets split up among the various leads).   It had one blue cable leading down to the compressor and a brown wire leading to the fan.

Since the new motor has 5 wires, its own capacitor I pulled the brown wire from the old capacitor and tossed it.   You have to leave the yellow and blue (or whatever colors you might have) attached so your compressor will continue to work.  The one for the fan is actually marked Fan on the capacitor by the way.

Unfortunately the new motor fan leads were too short to reach so I ended up using wire nuts to splice the old fan’s black and yellow power leads to the new fans black and purple power leads.   I then plugged those back to their original locations on the junction bar.

The two brown leads from the new fan went to the new capacitor, one on each side.  It makes no difference apparently which one goes where but remember I’m not a trained HVAC person and maybe I just got lucky, I had a 50/50 shot of getting them right regardless.

I then zip tied the new capacitor into the unit so it couldn’t accidently shift around and short out.   Obviously some metal clamp and screw mount would have been better but I had no such thing.

Next came to mounting the fan.  The replacement fan has screws so that it can be mounted either face up or face down depending on your preference.  I needed it face down and I would bet that most of them do.  These were way too long and I had to use a hacksaw to come them in half so the acorn nuts that hold it to the fan mount would screw all the way down.

The ones on the bottom were also way too long and I used a pair of vice grips to crush them off as near to the motor as I could.  Vice grips were faster than hacksawing and I didn’t need to save the threads at all.

The ground wire that came with the new fan was short and there was only one place that I could see to put it.  Over one of the fan mounting screws so it would be grounded against the unit’s case.  I removed the paint to make sure it had a good solid connection.

I then tested the conditioner to make sure it worked and voila it did.   Except it was running backwards.  But luckily they thought of that and there was a little white plastic plug thing on the motor that you can pull apart, spin 180 degrees and plug back together to reverse the motor.   This accomplished and voila, it was working 100% correctly.

Then I screwed everything back together and it’s worked since.  And I saved a minimum of $340 dollars and spent an hour of my life.

Now that I know what needs to be done I don’t see this taking more than 20-30 minutes.  I had to stop and research the changes in coloring on the wires and sealed it up once and then decided to go ahead and shorten the underside screws as much as possible.  Technically I sealed it up twice and forgot to put the side piece in first which you can’t attach after you put the top back on.  So I wasted a lot of time unnecessarily.

WARNING!!!  Attempting the above yourself may result in you killing yourself.  Please use utmost caution when playing with electricity.

It’s fairly Alpha so there may be bugs (read: probably are).

Out of the box it’s set up to work for Savage Worlds although it provides basic die rolling for any system although it would be pretty clunky for any system that uses a lot of dice.

I’ve added some basic client server functions in that you can run the client and set it up as a listen server (technically that’s an incorrect term but it sounds cool) and it’ll function like normal for anything keypads connected to the console and it’ll allow other instances of the app to connect to it from other machines and when a roll is generated on those other instances they’ll be mirrored/echoed on the master client.

The basic premise there is that remote users could enjoy the same ease of use of the app and the GM for those remote users can enjoy the knowledge that there is no fudging going on on the dice that he can’t see.

I’ve also had to split the keybinds up into basic attacks (the ones I needed the most) and damage (again the ones that came up most often for me).   To access the second set of keybinds just press Enter.  The word Damage is spoken to acknowledge the shift and the keys are ‘hot’ for a single press and then it reverts back to the primary set. That seems more covienent to me.  YMMV.

Here’s the read me -

This is a Savage Worlds version (version 3) of my die roller app
aimed at helping the blind be able to roll their own
dice without losing them or having to resort to
braille dice or having someone else read them for
them.

It also makes cool ‘splody sounds when a dice aces or
‘explodes’.

This is aimed to have all the controls located on
a standard numeric keypad. The following keys are
active:

4 = Roll a d4
6 = Roll a d6
8 = Roll a d8
1 = Roll a d10
2 = Roll a d12
0 = Roll a d20
3 = Roll Full Auto d6 (automatic -2 for Full Auto)
5 = Roll Full Auto d8 (automatic -2 for Full Auto)
7 = Roll Full Auto d10 (automatic -2 for Full Auto)
9 = Roll Full Auto d12 (automatic -2 for Full Auto)

Press Enter to Roll Damage dice –
0 = Roll 2d4
2 = Roll 2d6
3 = Roll 2d6+1d6
5 = Roll 2d8
6 = Roll 2d8+1d6
8 = Roll 2d10
9 = Roll 2d10+1d6

. = Toggle Roll Wild Die
* = Toggle Use Exploding Dice
/ = Toggle Display Totals or Each Die roll

You can also turn the toggles on and off through
the Preferences menu.

By default the preferences are aimed at supporting
typical dice rolls in Savage Worlds but can be
used in any game that needs to roll dice by turning
the toggles off.

This version adds rudimentary support for connecting
multiple instances of the application so that
rolls made on one client are sent to the master
client.

The primary need for this is so that remote users
can use the same app (for ease of dice rolls) and
the GM can be assured that there is no fudging
going on.

To start a master client use the menu:

Connect – Start Listen Server
This currently starts a listen server and is hard
wired to port 8000.  You’ll have to port forward
or have UPNP for this to work. If that makes no
sense to you then Google is next stop.

To connect a client to the server use the menu:

Connect – Connect To Server and give it the IP
and port number (currently 8000) of the server.

We open this session with the group recovering after getting the power plant shutdown and everyone giving Bubba the big eye or at least the teeth marks on his shoulder from his being bitten by one of the undead they ran into in the cooling tower of the plant.

Everyone’s a little twitchy, keeping an eye on Bubba as Melissa heals his wounds when two mil-spec humvees come roaring into the compound both with a M249 MG blazing away on the top.   As 7.62 rounds chew up their own hummers and the walls of the cooling tower building the group dives into cover behind and under the cars with Sonny sprinting off to the side toward the edge of another building.

Roj pops up from behind cover and sprays full auto mini-uzi’s into the raiders bailing out of the two hum vees and sends them diving for their cover and the leadstorm of bullets catch three of the raiders in vital parts sending them crashing to the ground to bleed out.  He drops back down as the rain of brass tinkles across the concrete parking lot.

Bubba unlimbers his modified Remington 700 sniper rifle and one of the gunners on the humvees head explodes in a spray of red and pinkish gray.   Sonny opens up from the cover of his wall and puts a three round burst into the other gunner.  The sharp bark of the raider’s M-16′s echoes from the walls as they fill the air with messenger’s of copper jacketed death and although they graze our heroes at times they’re unable to zero in as the group continues to keep them back behind their cover.

The firefight while intense is over very quickly as the group riddles the raiders with slugs and take little to no damage other than to their own vehicles.  But they now possess two military hummers to replace them complete with mounted machine guns.

Bubba looks down at the two rounds he had to fire, two shots, two kills and then at the flood of brass scattered around Roj and shakes his dead, “Wasteful…”

WIth guns casually aimed at Bubba they head back to Phoenix to report their success at getting the plant shut down.  Bubba is quarantined for 24 hours in a cargo container but once it appears he’s not going to turn he’s let free.

They move back into the Phoenix society for a couple of weeks.  Over this time the number of refugees fleeing from Flagstaff picks up and these newcomers are debriefed and engaged into the workings of the city…

One of them has a chilling story, that the Flags have uncovered something in an abandoned military base, something that gives them evil chuckles.

Our group is dispatched along with four combat grade citizens of Phoenix to intercept and destroy the raiders that are reported to be at the military base and acquire whatever they’ve found.

The trip is a long one and takes them almost to the former border between Arizona and Mexico before they come to the base.  Melissa spots tracks that several vehicles have recently moved along the road into the base and they do a little recon spying on the base from the top of a nearby rise.  They spot 4 or 5 raiders moving boxes onto a flatbed truck, the numbers far too few for the vehicles they can see, two jeeps and two flatbeds.   In the distance behind the base smoke starts to spew up and they’re not sure what to make of that.

They enter base, the raider vehicles they’re driving, the same military hummers they captured at the nuclear power plant,  they figure will give them the time they need to unload on the raiders in the camp.   With Bubba and Roj manning the MG’s they unload on the raiders they can see easily getting the drop on them and blast them into the next life, Roj taking one out with a leg shot from his MG that amputates the raider’s leg from the knee down.

As it turns out that raider is the only survivor and they slap a tourniquit on him to keep him from bleeding out while they question him.  They learn the raiders have uncovered a cache of nerve gas and have loaded it on a train.  The same train that they see leaving in the distance by the smoke from its locomotive.

A sharp knife takes care of the survivor and they roar off in pursuit of the train.

Catching up to it they send one of their allies over who misjudges the jump and goes down in a tangle of broken legs and arms to be left behind…  A second ally is sent across who makes it, their plan to be to turn on the brakes on the caboose of the train to slow it down.   Then they crest a rise to see a canyon sprawled out in front of them and the train will cross over it on a narrow trestle.

With little time to consider they start to bail out and cross over to the train, our heroes making, Bubba even able to detach his MG and toss it over to Roj who catches it handily.    Leaving two of the Phoenix allies at the wheel.  One of them tries to follow the train across the trestle bridge only to lurch off it and go crashing down into the jagged rocks below.

With our four heroes and one ally they move through the caboose finding no one.  Ahead lies a flatbed loaded with military cargo and beyond that a sealed passenger car.  They continue to move forward and Bubba snatches open the door and heaves a grenade through as Roj smashes down on the trigger of his MG.    Chaos ensues as they blast their way through the occupants of the passenger car using grenades and automatic fire to kill the raiders who were enjoying a nice sandwich and glasses of lemonade after a hard day of loading nerve gas on a train.

Our heroes didn’t get off scott free this time with Roj and Bubba getting chewed up a bit from the raider’s fire.  As they stood in the aftermath the far door on the passenger car opened and another raider enters and unloads on them with an MP5 and they hear footsteps on top of the car heading to the back door.

The Sarge although tough is killed in time for Sonny to race out of the forward door and up a ladder to see four more raiders, one stretched flat about to throw a grenade inside.   The grenade goes awry and does little damage as Sonny peppers the guy.  Roj limps outside and up and joins Sonny spraying the others with machine gun fire and again proving that his heavy training on the gun range is paying off and suppresses or kills most of them.   As the last raider falls down to tumble onto the flatbed below they both turn and see the tunnel about to sweep them off the top of the train and drop down.  Sonny spots the milling throngs of undead using the tunnel to escape the heat of the sun and screams over the radio to the others who immediately slam the doors to the passenger car closed.

With the gushy crackling noise of the undead being battered by the roaring locomotive they hunch down on top of the car hoping there’s no low hanging sign about to sweep them off.

The train exits the tunnel and ahead lies a small community, it’s purpose unknown but the throngs of undead surrounding a train station by the tracks and the muzzle flashes coming from people atop the station tell yet another chapter in the undead’s burgeoning dominance in this scary new world.

Grenades arch out from the top of the station, one of them blowing apart the tracks ahead.   Sonny and Roj bail off the train, trying to tuck and roll in the sands along the tracks, SOnny taking the time to use his walkie talking to warn the others who also bail off the train, tucking and rolling as best they can.   Surprisingly all of the emerge unscathed even as the locomotive hits the warped tracks and derails.  The noise is amazing as the 9 cars of the train tumble and crash about.  One of the tanker cars slams into the edge of the station sending the room collapsing forming a ramp as the undead that survive impact with the smashing cars use to swarm up and over the figures on the roof.

Battered, bruised and limping our group swings wide of the wreckage for the far side of the area hoping for vehicles that they can use to get away.  As the seconds tick by, more and more of the undead catch wind of them and start to shamble their way.  Soon they have 10′s of them then 50 of them stumbling after our living heroes.

As they round the wreckage they spot raider vehicles and they sprint toward them, diving into a humvee mere seconds ahead of the hordes after them.  As Roj presses the start button the first meaty impacts of fists on the window occur and then the engine kicks over and the vehicle starts to move.

On the way back to phoenix they run into a phoenix patrol heading toward them as support.  They explain about the gas and the leader of the convey, the security leader of the town Sasha Green, her eyes light up and she determines to recover the gas.

As our heroes trade glances they all without discussion decided that perhaps somewhere else might be better suited for them.  They head back to town and load up their supplies, a few checking their former allies to see if they want to go and then quietly slip out of town, leaving the two towns of Phoenix and Flagstaff to sort out their differences without them.

And thus ends our view into the lives of several strangers of New York thrown together by the unlikely event of the end of the world as we know it.

Perhaps we’ll pick up their story at a later time and see how well they fared in their trip across this once great country but now the home to atomic craters and shambling dead.

Aftermath –

All in all the module as decent.  A little railroady but sometimes that’s necessary for a canned module like this to keep things moving toward the conclusion.   The great train robbery was something I threw in there ad libbed as I thought it would be a cool fight sequence and it was I believe pretty enjoyable.   Rather than continue the main storyline where the characters become arbitrators in the upcoming confrontation between the two cities they made the obvoius decision and headed out.  Who wants to be anywhere near a malfunctioning nuclear plant between two warring cities armed with nerve gas, nuclear mines and nuclear warheads (something they didn’t uncover but were in the module to be found).

Due to life’s obligations we’re going to taking roughly a month hiatus from RP’ing before we reconvene and see how the 1920′s work out for our group in a dark pulp noir kind of setting.

Hope to see you there, at least vicariously.

Image Credits

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.

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Savage Worlds lets you as the GM come up with on the fly encounters that are as interesting as any pre-planned encounter simply because it is so stats light.   This isn’t necessarily a rousing endorsement as the variety of attacks, barring magic, psi or super powered settings is pretty limited.  With the ability to shoot, hit or throw something at someone it’s not hard to make a creature on the fly.   This is definitely a pro and a con both.  It’s a pro because it makes it extremely easy for a DM to sandbox a session and to accommodate the players when they bypass his carefully crafted plotlines.   It’s a con in that the bad guys can tend to blur together mechanically.  This puts more creative pressure on the GM to make the bad guys distinct based on something other than their game mechanics.  Which is a pro and con both depending on your players needs and your own creative abilities.

With systems like 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons or Hero Systems, on the fly encounters requires more pre-prepping, you have to have already created some generic stand-ins to haul out when the players go off the track as in both cases making reasonable balanced creatures on the fly is a hit or miss procedure and requires a fairly deep familiarity with the systems.

In Savage Worlds even after only a couple of sessions it’s pretty easy to just go with ad hoc encounters.

Another thing I’m finding is that much like the original Dungeons and Dragons maps aren’t necessary for a lot of encounters and when they are, they’re much alike, simple line drawings on an erasable map that take seconds to knock out.  4th Edition battles, because of the strength of impact of movement powers/effects and the like really need ‘good’ maps to take full advantage of the system.   Places of difficult terrain, obstacles, pits, shadows, braziers full of flaming oil, patches of ice etc. that the players and NPC’s can use to make use of their abilities.   I have a huge roll of maps that I pre-drew out every Saturday morning for the upcoming battles during my 4th Edition campaign.   Which typically meant the players would encounter those battles and led to a more focused non-sandbox campaign.

Encounters being necessary to play out is another factor.  With 4th Edition the system by RAW requires a lot of battles that are really pretty pointless because they’re designed as resource drains.  To burn off the player’s daily allotment of resources.  It’s a practical guarantee that the players are going to win and the chances of someone dying in the first few battles is pretty nil given a typical setup.   I deviated from this with mine in that I just didn’t have the pointless battles, each battle was typically rated as Hard and required the players to burn a lot of resources to win it.   And then there would typically be enough downtime to recover.  Occasionally I would have the chained battle sequence where the intent was to wear them down but for the most part it was boss battles.

With Savage Worlds when you though add in the wild card factor of any attack by any creature has the chance to kill any other creature with one attack it means that every creature is a force that can’t be ignored and even what would be a pointless battle in 4th Edition becomes something that could have major impact.

As an example in our last Zombie Run session, three of the party escorted a engineer into a nuclear reactor so he could fix a problem.  They ran in to four undead.  In 4th Edition this would be a hand wave at best, there’s just no way 4 minions could possibly cause a problem for even a single dnd character assuming the minions were of appropriate level.   To make the disparity worse in this instance in the first round three of the undead were killed leaving a single undead for the three of them to fight.   And yet this single undead almost killed one of the players and perhaps has due to possible infection.

In our last session which lasted our typical 5 hours roughly, the group had an encounter with Zombear (boss battle), a band of raiders (boss plus horde), an ambush by snipers, another band of raiders (horde) and a group of undead that were played out tactically.  That’s 5 tactical encounters in 5 hours something we never managed with 4th edition and the actual tactical dice rolling portions of the session took perhaps 2 hours of the session total.

In many systems like 4th Edition or Champions or whatever, such encounters would have been unnecessary to tactically play out simply because they wouldn’t, couldn’t  have any impact barring astronomically screwed die rolling.  The player characters would simply have been in no danger from any of it and personally I’d of hand waved it with dialogue, “About 10 minutes outside the base you take fire from ambush positions on the road and…” made up something about what might have happened.  Rather than playing it out as we did.

There’s also a subtle issue with 4th Edition in that since the participants in combat are so diverse that combat becomes a joy in and of itself and with the players and GM’s knowing or unknown influence the combat can overshadow the story simply because there are so many cool things everyone can do in combat.

With Champions, like many of universal systems (GURPs, Mutants and Masterminds) the games can end up where building unique and cool characters and then having them fight other unique and cool characters can end up being the primary source of entertainment simply because it is fun and entertaining to take a pile of build points and see what you can come up, taking a character concept, “I ran over Death in my truck and now I have to take his place.” and then building powers around that.  In our heyday we played a lot of champions and a lot of it was character building and set piece fighting with just enough storyline to let us make more cool characters to use.   This isn’t a bad thing, just another area where the game mechanics influence the game play in a significant fashion.

Anyway as I continue to bounce between the game systems it’s interesting to see the effects the mechanics has on the game play.   If you could somehow manage it, it would be extremely intriguing to me to see how the same group would play through the same storyline but with different systems. But that would require me to break out my time machine and after the last time I’m not doing that again barring dire emergency.

[Sonny had an Action Card called Stool Pigeon that let him get all the information that an extra has.]

While this was going on the other leaders of the group were arranging for inventory of the gear and damage assessment to be performed.   The unknown help from higher on the mountain remains a mystery.  As Bubba is talking with two others of the group there’s a sudden susseration of snow falling and a loud meaty thud as 1000 pounds of undead brown bear lands on the road way next to him falling from above.  The bear stands leaving chunks of itself on the roadway and swipes at Bubba as Bubba turns and runs away screaming like a girl.   It rips three furrows through his ass cheeks as he flees but the damage is minimal.

Sonny, Roj and Melissa open up on the beast at close range, choosing to stand their ground even as the putrefied creature of darkness roars the sound broken by the holes in its throat and charges after Roj after he puts two loads of buckshot into it from his sawed off 12 gauge.

[My son Ryan was running the bear and chose to go after the players rather than the closer NPC's... ]

Roj narrowly avoids taking a huge smash from the bear’s foul claws and stumbles back reloading his shotgun.  Bubba after doing a baseball slide under the bus rolls around and opens fire with his hunting rifle nailing the beast in the skull the hard thick bone causing the bullet to ricochet.

Bubba continues to nail the beast again and again as it keeps it’s attention focused on Roj who jukes and jives narrowly avoiding damage again and again.

[Just some notes about this combat.  I had to burn no less than 4 Bennies, Zombear's 2 for being a wild card and 2 of my GP bennies just to keep the thing alive for the first two rounds alone.  The thing had a toughness of FOURTEEN and the player's kept acing their damage rolls forcing me to soak wounds like a mother.  This costs me later during another fight burning so many here.  I was a little concerned with the bear's high toughness value going into this fight but the opening shotgun blast, both barrels each doing 14 or more damage had me leaving it alone.   The bear did manage to hit a few times with his claws d12+4 damage but the players were able to soak out of them each time.  I was kind of hoping its infected ridden claws might nail someone for 2 wounds and kick off the paranoia as they wait to see if the damaged person turns but alas it wasn't to be.  But the session does end on a high note, see further down...]

Finally Bubba puts the a round through the beasts eye socket blowing the creatures brains to mush and it falls motionless.  Bubba and Roj compared the rents in their clothing, roj’s on the front from where he faced the beast, Bubba’s on his ass as he ran away.  The sikh is walking around a little puff chested now.

Continuing their talks with the prisoners they find out that two cities, Flagstaff and Phoenix have power supplied by a nuclear reactor.  From their talking with the guy who’s trying to save his life by supplying everything he knows, futilely as it turns out, they decide Phoenix is the place they want to go.   Flagstaff sounds a little lawless and the whole they confiscate your goods when you enter leaves a bad taste in their mouth.  Not to mention that’s where the raiders are from so showing up in their vehicles with their goods might not be the best impression to make.

They load up the working vehicles, one of the humvees and the bus are toast, no way to get them working again without a full garage and spare parts supply.  They decide to tow the busted hummer with the working one to keep everyone inside a vehicle as they descend the cold mountains.  With the truck breaking a path, loaded down with supplies they leave the site of the battle.  Though not before stripping both the captured raiders and then tossing them down the cliff side alive to fall flailing to their probably immediate deaths.

[When the thin veneer of civilization breaks revealing the ME ME ME beast we're born with underneath you can expect to see such scenes played out over and over.  Make sure you have friends near by when it happens.]

They make their way down out of the mountains without further issue and the warmth is welcome for awhile.  Spotting lights as they slowly maneuver the highways over the arid lands of Arizona they pull up and send Sonny ahead to scout.   Luckily for Sonny the people with the lights, coleman lanterns, are a little toasted from a cache of liquor they’d found.

They discover another set of Flagstaff raiders holed up in two of the motel rooms.  They maneuver into position and Bubba tosses in a flashbang that Melissa’s been carrying since New York into the room holding the bulk of the raiders and succeeds in shaking them all leaving them dizzy and disoriented.  Bubba and Sonny proceed to lay waste to these raiders as they stumble about.

The other pair, Melissa and Roj don’t have it as easy running into the raider’s leaders.  Both Roj and Melissa catch a lot of buckshot of their own as the raider leader blasts away at the pair.

As the two watchers on the roof wake up from the gunfire and rush over and drop down behind Sonny and Bubba they unload full auto on our two heroes and somehow manage to miss completely. Bubba and Sonny both look at each other and then they and the two gunmen share a glance of incredulous disbelief that they’re untouched.   Bubba swivels at the hip and sprays his autofire across both, killing one and rattling the other and Sonny rushes forward to help the other two heroes as the shot gun blasts are a bit worrying especially when Melissa staggers backwards through the door, blood streaming from pellet holes over her torso and Roj is in there screaming “Holy Cow this hurts!”.

He arrives in time to finish off the leader and Bubba takes out the last guy on the stairs.  Inside the rooms they find three more woman captured but unlike the earlier ones they managed to kill these raiders without collateral damage and they’re all still alive.

They recover quite a bit of gear, they’ve amassed quite a collection of weapons by now and continue on to Phoenix.

They go through the interrogation process and are then allowed to join the city and are allowed to keep all their gear, a bit surprising.  They integrate themselves into the city, electing to join the guards on the walls as their daily duties.

A few weeks later they’re brought to a meeting and are given a mission to escort an engineer from the Palo Verde power plant to the plant to shut it down.  Even though the plant is fully automated they really don’t want it going Chernobyl and have decided to shut it down gracefully.

The next morning they head out and are ambushed by two snipers on the road.  They kill one and drive off the other but not before Joesph is wounded.

They continue on to the power plant to find undead all over the compound.  They whip and attract the undead and then lead them off down the road for several minutes and then return.  As they’re leaving they spot several flagstaff vehicles parked next to the control room.

They roll out and Roj moves up to the building to disable their vehicles.  Someone meanders out of the control room, drops his doughnut as he sees the group and runs back in and slams the door.  The group has a few seconds to get into position when all three doors to the control room open up and raiders show up.  Two are immediately blasted back into the room and the third seeing the way the wind’s blowing ducks back inside and closes the door.

The group moves up to the two open doors and proceeds to destroy the raiders inside in spite of their cover and grenade throwing.  The raiders are slaughtered to a man and the group isn’t even scratched.

Joseph moves forward as the room is cleared and starts the shutdown procedures noting that one of the coolant towers is showing an alarm.  They’re going to have to open the coolant flow using bypass procedures.  Using the security cams they spot four undead technicians wandering in the cooling tower.  There are only four protective suits and Sonny is elected to stand guard outside as Melissa, Bubba, Roj escort Joseph inside to open the coolant.

They open the doors and move deeper inside and encounter the undead.  Three shots ring out and three undead go down but the last latches on to Bubba and rips through his suit and deep into his shoulder, its infection laden bite going deep into his flesh.

Outside the sniper that fled the ambush shows up and misses Sonny who turns and rips a three round burst through the snipers chest killing him instantly.

As they rush Bubba out of the coolant tower while Joseph starts the coolant procedures the blood running out of the deep bite marks is on everyone’s mind.

[Aftermath - You never saw such a bunch of acing, exploding dice rolling in your life on the part of the players.  My poor NPC's never stood a chance in any of it.  Even when I did manage to wound them they soaked the damage away or healed it all right up in the after battle procedures.  They've essentially at this point got an unlimited supply of guns and ammo with everything they've recovered from their attackers.  There's perhaps one more session's worth of adventures left in this module.  It might be eked out to two but I'm going to make it one.  I'm interested in starting the Roaring 20's Supernatural Detective Noir Black Comedy campaign and I think the players have a good enough grasp of the basics of Savage Worlds that they can now make a semi-informed decision as to their characters when they build them. ]

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Given Savage World’s age someone else has probably already done all this and better than I have but I couldn’t find it with a quick google and the math intrigued me after someone asked about something on post I made about damage and I thought well why not just program up a little routine to simulate it.

Real mathematicians could probably give you a real statistical formula to figure all this out, me I’m a brute force kind of person and went with the Monte Carlo simulation approach.

Called Shot Head/Vitals -4 attack/+4 damage –
This is only a valid option against a creature with a toughness greater than 8 (and then it’s still a slight penalty) or a creature that can only be damaged by head shots or if by calling a shot you bypass armour of 2 points or more.  At 2 points of armour it’s slightly better than not doing it, about 2-5%.  At 3 points it’s roughly 5-10% better than not calling the shot.

Aimed Shot +2 attack, once every round without additional edges, cannot move in the same round. –
This is only a valid option if you’ve got the Marksman Edge which allows you to take an Aimed shot every round.  Otherwise attacking every round is a much better option (between 5% and 30% better) than attacking every other round at +2.   It’s always a valid opening shot if you have the time to burn.

Wild Attack Melee only – -2 Parry, +2 Attack/+2 Damage –
This is a very valid option if you’re fighting one target, always wild attack.  If you’re fighting two targets, it becomes roughly 50/50 as to being a minor good thing or a minor bad thing and comes down to the luck of the draw for initiative on the second round.   Don’t use a Wild Attack when you’re getting attacked by three or more creatures unless you’re feeling lucky.    This goes out the window if you have the Sweep edge which lets you attack everything around you.  Then it’s back to a no-brainer long term.

Agility/Smarts Trick +2 on your next action versus the target, the target is shaken on a raise –
Never a good idea for you on the pure math of it.  The benefit is if you are near the top of the initiative order and other people have a chance to attack your target.  Then it’s a very good idea because if you get a raise it’s like giving every one else a +4 damage bonus that attacks that target.   This is always a good option if you have a high agility or smarts and no combat skills.

Taunt/Intimidate – Target is -2 Parry until it can go again –
This is only of minor penalty to you if you get to go twice before the target due to initiative.  Of great benefit to your team if you’re near the top of the initiative order because a raise shakes the target and that’s like giving a +4 damage to everyone else who attacks it.

Double Tap / 3 Round Burst / Full Auto - +1 damage/attack – +2 damage/attack – 3 attack rolls at -2.
These are always better options than single shot without considering any other factors such as ammo supply.

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.

The highway runs through the middle of the town if town you can call it.  There’s a mall filled with the usual suspects, Starbucks, Orange Julius, Starbucks (yes coffee is just that popular among the highway trade) a Cinn-A-Bonn and various clothing and shoe stores.  A few dash and grab style grocery stores, a bakery and a slew of souvenir shops line the sides of the highway.  Off the south side of the highway is a sprawled collection of houses and a large stone church.

Our heroes looking for a place to hole up as nightfall approaches and with it the infected will start stirring again as the heat of the day fades spot the church and pull the bus around and head that way.   The roads are far from straight once they leave the highway and it takes a few minutes to wind through them to reach the church.

There they find it surrounded by rings of cars, barricaded as best as is possible under the circumstances.  Bodies all containing bullet holes are sprawled everywhere and the windows and doors are barricaded tightly.  Leaving Bubba with Roj’s binoculars and a walkie talkie atop the bus the others, Alice, Melissa, Roj and Sonny inspect the church.  There are no sounds even when they knock, the sounds oddly loud in the still quiet air.  Everyone’s a little spooked by just how quiet things are in the world now with the absence of traffic, tv’s, radios, the almost imperceptible background hum of electrical and gasoline devices and the electricity itself that has denoted humanity for the entirety of their lives up till now.

They find the back door of the church open, obviously smashed in from the outside and of course more bodies.  Inside the church it’s a grisly scene, blood, bullets and bits and pieces of bodies scattered everywhere along with hundreds of empty shell cases.  It was obvious what had happened, a group of survivors had tried to hold up in the church, much like our group had decided to do and had been swarmed and then overwhelmed.  Images of the desperate defenders blasting the infected as they clustered around the church windows and doors, the fear as their supply of ammo steadily dwindled.  They could almost here the echoes of “Reloading!” and “I’m out!” still, picturing the men and women who’s bodies they could see rushing from one location to another trying to push back the inevitable ending with anything they could.

Keeping in touch with Bubba via walkie talkie they, with stomachs churning and minds trying to avoid thinking of their own fates, searched the building uncovering several weapons, all empty, slides locked back, most with blood on them where the defenders in the end tried to use them as clubs in futile effort to stay alive.

Downstairs in a basement under the church they found water along with several melee weapons where the last few survivors had fled the upstairs apparently.  As they worked their way through the… best to think of it simply as debris… they could piece together the events that must have happened.  Here lay a man, possibly a trucker one might think, a broken fire axe next to him, his throat almost gone and his legs missing large chunks of flesh.  Here a woman lay next to a fallen bookcase, the book case itself fallen over in the struggle, her ribs now visible and a empty void where her organs once lay.

The fallen bookcase, containing hymn books and sheet music had fallen in such a way that it blocked another door marked storage.   Roj after listening and hearing nothing muscled the bookcase up away from the door and then yelled in fear as it the door slammed open stopping against the bookcase he held, the opening only a scant few inches.  Through the gap he saw savage faces, mouths twisted in hunger and eyes lit by fury, faces smaller than they should be was his first thought before panic crashed down on him. Screaming in inarticulate fear and emotion he slammed the bookcase back down against the door hearing the snap of small fragile bone and high pitched howls as the creatures, once children, now merely snarling beasts after his flesh yanked their arms back through the gap.

With a thud the door slammed shut and Roj lunged forward to press against it, breath rasping harshly through his mouth as he shouted for the others to help him hold it closed.  Melissa rushed forward to help him hold the door shut shouting for the other two to grab anything they could find to put in front of the door.   A mad scramble ensued as tiny fists beat on the door, each blow echoing through the stone basement.

Gallon containers of water were swiftly piled high on the bookcase weighing it down, the four not stopping until the pile was too high to allow any more to be placed without rolling down and across the floor.

Roj went back upstairs to radio Bubba after the walkie talkies failed to work in the basement. To his relief they worked fine once he’d left the basement.   Bubba, glasses sweeping over the mall in the distance, eyed the sinking sun.  It wouldn’t be long before the Infected rose and started moving.  He swung down after telling Roj to get the others and meet him in back of the church.

The survivors under the leadership of the others worked feverishly to hook up the bus to some of the cars in the ring and pull them out of the way while others hauled bodies outside.  The ghastly sounds from the locked storage compartment were ignored for the moment although Melissa  stood guard in the basement while Tony and Chuk stood ready in case the door started to move.  It was better to think of them merely as creatures, as Infected or monsters rather than children.  It made it easier to deal with the scratching noises coming from the other side of the heavy oak door.

As the sun continued its descent the church was cleaned up and the barricades reinforced as best as they could.  The bus was backed up against the broken door and the bus’s doors were locked and tied down preventing opening from the outside.

As the shadows grew longer outside they retreated to the basement hoping the earth and stone would shelter them from the Infected’s uncanny ability to sense them.

Finally though there was no putting it off any longer and the infected in the store room had to be dealt with.  Roj, pouring a little gasoline from a molotov into a chainsaw that was lying upstairs, got it started and then carved a small hole in the top of the door.  The noise inside sound more like a pack of wild dogs haring after prey and for most that was what they pretended it was as Roj threw in a molotov and after hearing it break inside lit a second one and tossed it after the first.   A gout of flame blasted through the opening and under the door and the sounds from inside grew even more frantic but within less than a minute a ghastly silence broken only by the heavy breathing of those watching was all that filled the room.  The scent of cooked meats sent more than one of the survivors stumbling upstairs where they lost what little food they’d consumed over the day.

The hole and gaps were stuffed with spare cloth and the survivors huddle together near the front of the basement, as far from the storage room as they could get as outside the sun fell and the Infected rose from their torpor.

The group huddled together, sparing a precious half gallon for each person to wash as best as they could from the supply they’d found in the basement as the night passed slowly but uneventfully.  The looming threat of the radio broadcast, telling them to get as far as possible from the city before it was cleansed in a bath of nuclear fire shrouded the dawning of the new day in fear.

As the morning hours crept ever so slowly they passed the time as best as they could until at 11:34 by Bubba’s watch a tremor started to run through the building shaking it as the ground wave reached outwards.  Minutes later another tremor shook the building even as the first was dying out.

“There goes New York and Philly.” Roj said as the rumbling earth subsided and everyone looked around at each other eyes wide.

They remain in the basement throughout the remainder of the day taking inventory and stock, handing out weapons to each survivor even if they don’t have ammo to give them yet.   They find a journal that indicates one of the previous occupants was in radio contact with a group out of Phoenix that was setting up a safe haven for survivors.   Later that night they  are forced to go upstairs as Infected start banging on the buildings.  There they find to their utter horror that the infected now running around the building already bear wounds that should have killed them and in fact appear to be true undead as a light gray radioactive ash lays upon everything.

Alice, a long time Romero fan, steps up and explains the proper way to kill a true zombie and the group uses makeshift spears and crowbars, hammered out through the gaps in the boards over the windows to plunge them into the eyes and heads of the zombies outside after other wounds fail to do any significant damage.

[Dennis: I wanted to ramp up the scary bits here.  Now they have both Infected (still living creatures) and true Undead to worry about.  Like all Undead the cause is pretty much way out there but in this case the Infected were caused by a fungal virus that ate away their rational thought centers leaving only the beast like monkey/lizard brain which created the raging creatures known as Infected.   But when subjected to radiation this mutates the fungus and gives it the ability to stimulate nerve pulses and the body resumes motion and activity and continues its last imprinted activity.  Which unfortunately for the living is to seek out and destroy those creatures that it senses are not part of its hive mind.  In essence the government did what it always seems to do, screw things up more. ]

The group defeats the risen undead around the church, all the bodies they’d pulled out that didn’t have head wounds rose up and sought out the church again.  Luckily for the survivors they’d emptied the church of the bodies and for the most part the last defenders had killed most of the infected with head wounds.

As the day dawned and the Infected went back to their torpor state, a state the Undead were not subject to, they devised a plan.  They need to refuel the bus. To do that they needed a way to pump diesel out of the tanks below the truck stop.  Bubba, while standing watch the day before made note of the stores listed on the Mall marquees and one of them was a hardware store.

Our heroes elect to try to sneak through town to the mall, not wanting to risk the bus running out of fuel in an attempt to get it there.  They reach the mall only to find it filled with infected or undead or both.  They move around to the back side and break into a receiving room next to the loading docks.   Bubba heads up a ladder to the front to drop a concussion grenade to draw the creatures toward the front while the rest try to get into the building.  Melissa is almost grabbed as she pries the door open Roj is there to blow the creature away that’s reaching through it.

The room inside is empty of other creatures even as the concussion grenade goes off out front blowing out the glass and attracting creatures.  Bubba high tails it across the roof to the back and spots undead moving across the parking lot toward him.  He slides down the ladder and hammers on the door to get in, making it inside seconds ahead of the infected after him.  They bar the door on the inside, now that the lock is broken its not going to be much deterrent to the creatures although luck is on their side and the door opens outwards and the creatures aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree and primarily are pushing against it.

The receiving room opens into the loading dock and after Sonny hears movement inside, his years of living on the streets have honed his survival senses and give him an edge in this scary new world.   A cheap desk is carefully lifted and placed in front of the door blocking it.  When everyone is set, Sonny yanks open the door and the rest start firing, killing the infected creatures that swarm toward them, blocked by the desk.  Bubba is forced to drop down and brace it from being pressed in while the rest kill the creatures.   Everything is going well when the side door is open as one of the creatures outside finally, accidentally pulls the knob sharply and a creature reaches through and tries to grab Sonny.  Bubba shoves a hand through Sonny’s legs, MP5 in hand and unleashes a burst that rips up the creature’s body shoving it back into the others.  Sonny turns and unloads his shotgun on the other two while Roj and Alice finish off the ones in the loading room.

They slam the door to the outside shut and refasten it and check out the loading dock finding a miscellaneous of items, including a H&K G3 still in its shipping create.   Sadly no ammo though.

Using a map on the wall they discover the hardware store shares a wall with the receiving room office.  A fire axe takes care of that and they bust a hole into the hardware store and start moving precious items into the office.  A hand pump, duct tape, flashlights, tools, everything they think they can use is grabbed in swift silence.

Piling their booty near the exit they discuss the gun shop which is across and just down the main hallway outside the loading dock area.  Roj is for retreating outside and then slowly but safely hammering through the roof to drop down into the shop.

Unfortunately fate steps in as Vlad radios in and informs them the bus is getting swarmed with undead, screams echo over the walkie talkie.  Vlad is ordered to head the bus to the mall and the group gets ready and charges into the hall, guns and bolt cutters ready.  They slide to a halt in front of the gun store and snap the lock off the sliding security gate and slam it down behind them even as undead swarm toward them.

They find a treasure trove of guns and ammo inside and load up, ignoring the undead trying to reach through the gate after them.  As Vlad reaches the mall he drives in a huge circle around it in the parking lot as the ones inside carefully kill the 40+ creatures outside.  With those dead they struggle to get the gate back up and their loot outside.   As the bus swings in to pick them up they throw their gear on board even as a huge swarm of undead come around the corner.  The bus pulls away just ahead of the creature’s grasping hands.

They head down the highway trying to cut line of sight with the creatures and apparently it worked as they reach the truck stop and after a few minutes of anxious waiting there are no undead in sight.   Roj and Alice step outside, Roj to pump and Alice to stand guard and the diesel starts to slowly flow into the bus.  The seconds tick away, each minute allowing more precious fuel to enter the bus.  As the tank reaches half full though zombies start to appear from a new direction, drawn by the feel of the bus full of people and they have to abandon the pump and flee down the highway away from the huge swarm and the new swarm.

About this time they realize a bus makes a pretty good weapon and after stringing out the 20 or so new infected they reverse course and smash them flat and return to finish fueling.

They leave the town, taking a bypass route around it and head south west toward Phoenix and this city of safety they’d read about.  Their route is convoluted as they try to steer clear of all major cities for fear of radiation and the light gray dust laying everywhere is an ever present reminder that perhaps it might be too late.

In a small strip town they run into two other survivors, Elijah and Mary, who offer to trade them fresh foods for any canned goods they have and invite them to their homestead.  Paranoid our group declines and gets back on their bus, guns ready and continue on their trip.

[Dennis: This was a canned encounter in the Zombie Run module and it went about like I figured it would knowing my players.  Although I think it would have been a pretty fun encounter to play out.]

After days of driving, siphoning fuel from abandoned semis and the like and many many  detours they reach the Rockies and head up them, running into snowfall on the narrow winding roads through the mountains.  With a cliff on both sides, one up and one down, they slowly navigate the roads and as they near the top they spot a convoy on the road behind them.  Suspicious as one might expect they try to increase their speed but after almost losing the bus over the edge are forced to slow down and the convoy catches up with them.

Gun fire erupts from the vehicles and one of the rear tires is blown out.  Realizing they’re not going to be able to get away  Bubba slams the bus to a halt angled across the road and they return fire.

The fight is intense as fully automatic weapons rip the back of the bus to shreds.  Vlad is downed, bullets smashing through his head as he leans out to fire his pistol back at the attackers and Susan dies a little later, bleeding out as a bullet pierces the veins in her neck.

With few long guns among them things look bleak but slowly the survivors whittle away their attackers in spite of the many automatic weapons they’re facing and unexpectedly shots ring out from the hillside above them creating confusion among the enemy.

As the raiders are down to two men they try to bargain their way out of their predicament and the group yells back that they’re free to go.  As the two men get back on their dirt bikes and head back the way they came, our survivors nail them both with grazing wounds.  Trapped away from the cover of their larger vehicles, taking fire from two directions the two men throw up their hands and kneel in the snow.

Stay tuned to find out what happens next….

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I got the idea from a couple of places on the web, here’s a link to another set of instructions with pictures, not that I’m sure pictures are necessary.

Go to your favorite Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, Michaels Crafts or any sewing type store and pick up a cheap Embroidery Loop.   Now take a pair of your wife’s knee-highs, or your own, I make no judgements here, and slide the knee high over the inner circle of the loop.   Stretch the fabric a bit and then tie a knot on each side close to the hoop, essentially you’re trapping the inner loop inside the hose.

Now slip the outer loop down over the hose and tighten the screw down.  Snip off the excess hose, you should have a little knot on each side.

Now get a heavy piece of copper wire (or alumnum or a coat hanger snipped up or whatever) and make a hook in one end.  Hook the screw on the embroidery loop and then twist it tight like a bread tie locking the wire into the hoop so it doesn’t shift around.

Get a binder clip and hook the other end of the wire through the clip and twist it up.

What you should end up with is a embroidery hoop with two layers of panty hose material with a flexible piece of wire sticking out of one side with a clamp on the end.

Bend the wire as needed so that you can clamp the clamp onto your microphone and position the hoop between the mic and your speakers.

What this does is help reduce the high ‘clicks and pops’ that I’ve had issues with up till now.  And it costs you like $2, less if you steal one of your wives hose without her being the wiser.

Or you could buy one from amazon or some other place for $15.  $1.50 or $15?  Not a hard decision to make.

I just added one in front of my mic which is now located directly above the gaming table and the clicks that were ear popping before when played back are now not so annoying that I’ll go to the trouble of deleting all of them from the podcasts like I had been doing.

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.

A small introduction to your cast going clockwise.  The characters were picked at random by the players out of 8 total possibilities -

• Sonny Payne – A homeless man on the streets of NYC.  He knows this is the work of the aliens.  He’s a survivor first and foremost.  [and his friends who'll you'll see later.]
• Melissa Montenegro, the daughter of a retired Spanish ambassador, raised in England who is in NYC to visit the birthplace of her mother.  An older woman she is in her 40′s played by Laura.
• Travis “Bubba” Howell -A good ol’ boy with a truck and runs the Howell Feed and Seed back in Barnswallow Missouri where he has a large family.  He’s been a bit reluctant to say why he was in NYC when the event occurred.
• Alok “Roj” Persaud – Roj as he’s known to his friends is a political science major from India going to NYC.

Each of these two has taken a couple of others under their wing although their allies play only a small part so far and we’ll leave them nameless except of Crazy Mary who is another homeless person that’s came with Sonny.

These four and 16 others are holed up in the Baxter building.  It’s been a month since the first reports of the infected occurred, dismissed as rioters, crazies, terrorists.  But within days the ‘rioters’ had become a global phenomenon and things swiftly went to hell in a hand-basket.  The infected are crazed mindless killing machines fueled by a adrenaline rage that gives them great strength and speed although they’re a bit spastic.   Being bitten by the infected leads to the wounded ‘turning’ within hours and joining the mindless throngs.   There is no cure.  If you’re infected you will turn.  Not every bite infects but the odds are stacked against you if you are.

Two scavenging parties that went out over the two weeks prior to today have failed to return.  The parties were both 10 men and women strong against Roj’s recommendations.  He believes the ability of the creatures to sense the uninfected is strengthened the larger the group of non-infected there are.  It was his recommendations that put them on the sixth floor of the building as that seemed to be beyond the creature’s abilities to sense mass groups.

Just last night  another group a couple of blocks down the group that was holed up on the 3rd floor of a building was swarmed by infected and presumably destroyed.

With the loss of the two scavenging parties the group lost most of its youth and the majority of its firepower although Bubba retained a MP5 he picked up off a downed S.W.A.T. officer.

Now things are looking a bit grim.  They have enough food to feed the 20 remaining survivors for perhaps a week although water isn’t a problem thanks to Melissa’s pushing to fill everything that would hold water in the early days before the power went out.

They decide that the ability to protect themselves with something more than boards with nails in them is of higher importance and trek on foot during the hottest part of day 31 of the event to the police museum about a mile away which also included a small police force.  The infected tend to retreat into the cooler parts of the buildings out of the heat during the hottest parts of the day and aren’t nearly as active or present.

Bodies in front of the museum yielded some valuable finds, a police car with the keys in it, Roj, picked up an MP5 of his own, concealed under a body although they found few other items of real value, a couple of flashlights, some MRE’s and the like.  Good stuff to be sure but not the rocket launchers they were all secretly hoping for.

The sound of engines alerted them and they retreated into the police station to watch from concealment.  Two teens on scooters went by in the street, fairly harmless looking but the group decided to let them go by without flagging them down.

The noise though woke up four infected who were slumbering further back in the station who attacked. The battle was short although furious and the two sub machine guns proved to be pretty valuable.  Bubba and Roj gong full auto decimated the infected but not before Sonny Payne was seriously bitten.  Melissa heals his wounds, and her own, using up medical supplies brought by Roj. The three of them trade secret looks as she cleans the savage bite mark on his shoulder.

As the last of the infected dropped inside the police station the growing sound of a swarm of infected pursuing the scooters swelled and then receded outside the building.

[Game Mechanic - If a non-infected takes damage from an infected of more than 1 wound then at the end of the encounter I make a secret roll to see if they've been infected themselves.  The group doesn't know the result of this roll or of subsequent rolls to see when the bitten actually turn.  Typically a bitten turns withing a few hours, fewer more often than several.

In regards to the swarm outside if the fight inside was going on with gunfire when the swarm went by then portion of that herd would peel off and enter the building but the group managed to kill the initial group fast enough that it was all quiet by the time the swarm went by.]

They pile their haul into the police car and head back to their building without further incident.  There, guns leveled at Sonny Payne they take away his new found fireaxe and lock him in the back of the police car and retreat upstairs.  They do leave him a water bottle and a MRE.

It’s not long before a single infected, following the car randomly takes the right turns to end up in the parking garage and senses Sonny where he’s cowering in the floorboards in the back seat.  It starts beating on the glass but has trouble getting through.  Sonny does a Jedi mind trick on it and manages to retreat away by kicking out the glass on the opposite side and then carefully opening the door and slinking away leaving the infected still trying to get to him by going through the window.   Sonny carefully sneaks away down the line of the group’s parked vehicles and holes up in the stairwell and blocks the door using some of the furniture the group filled the stairwell up with.

After a night of trying out MRE’s and watching Little Mermaid for the 18th time on the single DVD/TV player combo unit they have that’s running off an inverter attached to a car battery, the group comes back downstairs to check on Sonny.

Since he’s still able to speak semi-coherently they quit aiming guns at him.  Directly anyway, they’re still pointed in his general direction and discuss their next step.  Sonny, having left his MRE in the car and spending the night hungry remembers where some restaurant supply houses are and the four of them head that way.

The first one they come to is barricaded from inside and when they knock a voice yells at them to go away. They spot another man on the roof who looks over real quick and then ducks back sporting a pistol.  They offer to trade but the group inside wants only ammo and our group has none to spare.   In spite of Sonny’s uncanny ability to come up with bullets by scavenging.

They leave and move on to another place.  There they find it open although not unoccupied, Sonny’s flashlight highlights 3 infected eating various glops smashed out of cans.  They charge but not before Roj and Bubba unleash bursts on two of them turning them into rag dolls.  The third makes it to Sonny who beans it with his fireaxe on the way in and one of the others puts a bullet into its skull.

The gun fire though has roused many infected who begin to move toward the sound.  The group hurriedly moves some furniture in front of the broken door and retreats further into the building.  There they find a cornucopia, coming up with all the food they could want short term and a panel truck to haul it in.  As the infected outside wander away unable to find the source of the noises they load the truck up with food, building a barricade in the back for Roj to hang out behind while the other three are up front.

They head back to their building but not before a bullet grazes Bubba’s shoulder, shot through the window glass. A burst of automatic fire, probably assault rifle calibre rips through the top of the truck and punches holes in various cans of peaches, tomato paste and corn but doesn’t do any damage and Bubba floors it.

They head straight back to their building and park the truck on the garage with back up against a wall and retreat upstairs to enjoy some of the fuits of their labor.

[Unbeknownst to them, they were followed and another group of survivors is deploying outside their building while they sleep.]

They’re shaken awake in the early hours of the next morning by Tony who likes to listen to the radio, there’s a 6 hour loop that’s still playing from a college station and Tony does like  his rap and hip hop, strangely enough for a middle aged electrician out of the Bronx.

There is now a looping EBS message, the voice male and somehow distinguished sounding that says all many major urban centers are going to be nuked in an effort to stem the infected before they start to spread further out into the country and if you can hear this you have 24 hours to get 150 miles distance.

That puts a crimp in their plans and they go into overdrive gathering gear and rushing it downstairs to the garage levels.

They decide to take three vehicles, Bubba will be driving his Surburban as the lead car along with Melissa and six of the other survivors.  Joe, a subway employee is going to drive the Voyager with 5 of the group and Sonny is going to drive the panel truck with Roj riding shotgun.

Surprised to find themselves under fire as they exit the building the surburban takes several hits, one almost taking Bubba out and another burst doing damage to the SUV.   Everyone ducks and the truck surges ahead although leaking steam to disappear down the street.

The minivan isn’t so lucky and takes a lot of damage from a burst of automatic fire that destroys the engine and steering and it continues across the street and smashes into a building. The passengers bail out and try to surrender although a couple are gunned down as they exit the vehicle.

This distraction though proved beneficial to the panel truck and it escapes relatively unharmed although it does take a couple of hits.

The group meets up and continues toward the Brooklyn Bridge only to find it choked with cars and impassible.  There’s some discussion and then the swarm of infected following the sound of the vehicles is sighted and they all make a break for the pedestrian walkway on foot.

They’re chased but with the use of gasoline, molotovs and suppressive fire from the MP5′s they manage to put enough distance between them and the pursuit to escape.

They start looking for transportation and come up with a single car even as the infected are closing back in.  They pile 14 people, somehow, onto and in and around this car, Bubba and Melissa inside and Roj and Sonny in the truck (hood open).   The car is barely able to move but move it does.  As the swarm of infected are working closer one of the people on the roof falls off  and Sonny spots a large wound on his leg.  Whaaaa?  He leans around the trunk lid and spots Crazy Mary concealing a bloody blade.  He takes a moment to consider the situation and then another person falls off the roof, this one also with a large slash on his leg.  Roj and Sonny both start yelling “Crazy bitch on the roof is knifing people.” even as the swarm chasing them is deflected by first the one and then other of the wounded people.

[Mary's bio explains she's a survivor and she failed her spirit/guts check and saw the best way to speed the car up was to lighten the load.  Which she did.]

Bubba aims his MP5 upwards and puts a hole through the car roof and through Mary and she loses her grip and slides backwards smashing the truck lid down onto the ones in the trunk.  They push it back and then reach around and haul her body sideways off the car where it tumbles to the street.

Down to eleven the car is able to go faster and they manage to leave the pursuit.

They continue their trek out of the city, cross two more bridges, swapping cars until they manage to hit the Jersey shore.   They find a city bus that’s still operable and head west, managing to get enough diesel to keep the bus moving for several hours although due to road jams and such they have to backtrack and detour in several places.

They arrive at a small wide spot in the road, a small mall, a truck stop and a handful of buildings. They spot a sign for a gun store in the mall.  Leaving one group to oversee the re-fueling and the two older people and the pregnant girl on the bus, another group is going to head to the mall to see what they can come up with.

What will our survivors find waiting for them at the mall?  A plethora of guns and ammo or empty shelves?  Will they have to fight their way through waves of Infected or will it be eerily quiet?  Tune in next time and see.

Photo Credits

I’ve also fixed a bug with displayed die results if you had Tower Sounds turned on or if you got one of the “GODLIKE!” announcments.  I’d pre-empted the random number generator to total dice among other things rather than just generating a random number and as a result other random number calls were padding the stats.

It only affected the visible displays, the spoken rolls were still correct.   This is what happens when a program keeps getting new features.  The original routines which were fine for their purpose get hacked up to absorb the new needs and as a result bugs creep in.  I really should go back and re-write it from scratch to make it more ‘new feature’ friendly as it’s getting more and more convulated to achieve what should be simple results but I don’t have the time or the inclination.

Anyway the new version is available in the same link as the old one.  If you need it grab it.

You can grab it at the same download location Blind Roller - Savage Worlds Edition (143) and of course if you don’t need it if you don’t use it for SW’s or if you don’t like the sound effect since I didn’t add the ability to toggle it off.

You wouldn’t want to miss the pre-game warmup where we talk about gay chicken now would you?  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

One thing I don’t care for in Savage Worlds is the sheer number of dice that have to be rolled especially with the exploding mechanic.  It contributes greatly to the speed of combat and lack there-of as a result.  This app I believe will help with that problem.  I’m going to put USB Numeric Keypads within reach of all the players and connect them to the same machine that’s going to be running this application so each player can roll their dice significantly faster as a result.  Pressing 4 rolls a d4 and their wild d6 dice and takes care of any exploding dice etc.    Key’s 3 and 7 take care of the most common (IMO) dice for a firearms related game by rolling 2d6 and 3d6 with one key press and of course taking into account any dice that explode.

As a result this is aimed to have all the controls located on a standard numeric keypad. The following keys are
active:

• 4 = Roll a d4
• 6 = Roll a d6
• 8 = Roll a d8
• 1 = Roll a d10
• 2 = Roll a d12
• 0 = Roll a d20
• 3 = Roll 2d6
• 7 = Roll 3d6
• . = Toggle Roll Wild Die
• * = Toggle Use Exploding Dice
• / = Toggle Display Totals or Each Die roll

You can also turn the toggles on and off through the Preferences menu.

If you liked my take on the Savage Worlds character sheet you can now get a ‘form fill-able’ one.  Useful if you’re handwriting is as bad as mine.  I was filling out pre-gens for the weekend last night and realized people are going to have a tough time reading my writing.

Ergo I added a few form fields to the sheet to make it possible to fill it out digitally and print it out and save yourself some embarrassment when other people are going “Uh what the hell does this squiggle mean?”

For your download bemusement KOC Savage Worlds CS Form Fillable (153)…

Sushanna Enjoying A Sunset

This is our Finale session for the summer, during the hiatus we’ll be delving into the Savage Worlds system.

Everyone is present and accounted for in this session, Biminey, Stak, T’Balktu, Torel, Visra.  Our heroes have reached level 10 in the quest to end the dangers to their little corner of the world.

We join them in Aricee’s lair where the dragon, shifted into human female form, instructs them in their tasks, how they must defeat the Guardian of the Lance of Unmaking, recover the Lance and then go to Darkmith to destroy the Chaosborn.

T’Balktu and Aricee spend a few hours alone while the rest work on their gear and Biminey crafts magical items.  Aricee gifts T’Balktu for his performance with a matching set of axes, the greataxe known as Ghost Slayer and the throwing axe known as Splintertree.  He is pleased as was she.  And it’s not everyone who gets to lay with a dragon.  Which I’m sure will have no dire consequences…

They proceed toward the Guardian’s lair after Aricee assures them that she will help them return after they find out it’s a chute down into a room.  Biminey uses his Ladder ritual to make it easy to descend into the depths.

There they find a floorless room with flipping platforms on gears and pistons to stand on.  As the fourth one comes down the platform flips and almost tosses Biminey [I think] into the bottomless darkness but a quick grab by one of the other’s saves him from certain death. [Yes this was a return to the Save or Die of the old days but it is the season finale and the dangers are ramped up accordingly.]

They spread out and defeat the constructs that are attacking them for serious damage, inadvertently spreading out and reducing the risk of any particular platform flipping over. [A platform flipped on a roll of 15 or high, +2 for each person on the platform over 1.  By splitting up they made it a lot less likely that a platform would flip.  Purely unintentional on their part.]

They moved around the room, jumping from platform to platform with Biminey working his way closer to the central brain to shut it down but the amount of damage the party can pump out swiftly overwhelmed the mobile portions of the construct.  There was another bit of a hair raiser as T’Balktu jumped on the platform that Biminey was on and caused it to flip over sending T’Balktu plunging to his death only to be snagged at the last second by Bimney’s Acrobatics roll (which he has no skill in) saving T’Balktu’s player from having two deaths in the campaign.

Under the platforms they uncovered the Lance and retrieved with T’Balktu nimbly climbing the pistols and gears to get to it.  There was no sign of Aricee so they left the room of the guardian by T’Balktu using the lance to open a passage through the shielding magic.

Aricee was waiting at the top and she had a bit of an interlude with T’Balktu in a frozen moment of time where she gave him her True Name so he could destroy the crystal binding her to her service as the tunnel’s guardian.   When he destroyed the crystal embedded into her chest a two headed dragon shadow was cast from the explosion of light.  T’Balktu kept this bit of information to himself.

They talked with Aricee about what they were supposed to do, “Kill the chaosborn” and she was going to get them to their destination and bring their airship to them and support them in their battle.

[In an aside, with herself free from her captivity she didn't give a rat's ass about the chaosborn, a minor annoyance only to her and simply wanted the party out of her hair figuratively speaking.  When she didn't show up to help, when they had to walk back because there was no airship, and later on as Biminey figures out the whole 'explode the airship' was bullshit the light began to dawn on the group.  "Never trust a dragon." isn't a phrase that came about by whim and whimsy.]

The group found themselves in Darkmith where a war was going on.  They spotted the central power area and headed that way, failing their attempts to sneak through town and were surrounded by undead, summoned by Phy’el Fleshwalker for the battle.  They defeated a huge swarm of undead only to seem hundreds more running after them.  When the undead all stopped and Phy’el himself appeared.  “If you win, remember I did you no harm when I could have.” he says and all the undead drop motionless to the ground as the cut the strings binding them to him.  Phy’el has long held a grudge against Liloth and her King and like all good evil people is more than happy to screw them over for slights they have done him.  And he’s also hedging his bets, he senses the magic artifact the group possesses, trying to curry a little future favor perhaps.

They push on and reach the ziggurat of power where the Chaosborn is being reborn.  Liloth his lover is climbing the tower toward him.

T’Balktu kicks on his Ghost Slayer ability and charges the Creature, slaying it, at least it’s human form, releasing the chaosbeast within.  He continues to use the Lance of Unmaking against the creature, finally destroying it and the group turns its attention to Liloth who’s a little upset at the events.  But the group has grown too strong for this little regional hazard and mops up the floor with Liloth and the pet shadows.

They recover a Shadowblade, a dreadful greatsword from the shadowfey that was the Chaosborn’s weapon and very gingerly maneuver it into a bag of holding without touching it.

They help mop up the city, joining in with the hobgoblin tribes battling the minor darkness’s still released in the city alongside the strange eyeless, mouthless priests of the white king.

Leaving the city, on foot, they trudge through the swamps surrounding the city and stop off to spend a couple of days with the Soul Eaters in their home range, the tattoo’s on their arms are extended by the tattoo artists of the tribe, depicting their battles against the darkness in stylized abstracts.

They continue back to Larkson where they find Teagon working a power play to take over the city and remove the Council.  He’s hired more mercenaries from Anvil and after all the fighting his forces outnumber the Watch.    With the group informing him that the deed is done and the city is safe he bargains with them to join in.

The group does and become partners with Teagon.  They arrange for Garon and the just appointed Merchant faction Councilor Neev to be moved out of power gently as possible.  They work a deal to keep the Watch alive and in their control and direct all martial activities in the city, although everyone understands that with Teagon holding the purse strings that feeds the mercenairies that that control could be tenuous.  But Teagon is smart and wise and understands the power that the group presents so the deal is made and at this time both sides appear to be genuinely interested in keeping it.  The group will receive a 1000 golds a month each for their portion of the bargain, a fortune really for this town although Biminey is going to donate his income to the Watch to help train, equip and restore them.  The Watch lost most of their men, dead or injured beyond fighting ability, and what’s left are the lucky, green and inept without only a small cadre of veterans.

They bring the airship into town and then fly out to the slaver stronghold searching for the two ships full of the town’s women and children, finding only a work crew lead by a slaver working on rebuilding the islands buildings.  They capture them all, interrogate them and then destroy the newly constructed works and building materials and fly back to their city.

Sushanna tells Biminey that one of the until now dead lights on the ship’s consoles lit green for a few hours one day while they were gone (during their walk back to Larkson).

When they get back to the city, there is talk of a flying creature spotted in the skies out to sea, seen more by it’s blocking out the stars than any direct visual.  It was assumed to be the group’s airship but when word got around that it wasn’t then other people stepped forth saying it was a vast flying creature, a dragon certainly.

What it was, what the green light means, where the slavers took the slaves, where did Phy’el wander off to, where the slavers main bases are and what they’re doing, the rebuilding of the city of Larkson and the outcome of the battle of Darkmith, these questions and more will have to wait till we pick up this campaign and enter the Tier of the Paragon’s…

Image Credits

Some of them are campaign/setting specific, in specific an upcoming take on the Zombie Run module I’m going to use to introduce my 4E players to Savage Worlds.

NOTE: They’re all fairly original to me, I’ve not bought any commercial products in this venue.  Any similar cards to existing products is purely accidental.

You can grab the cards over here KOC Savage Worlds Adventure Cards (128).  It prints out to 9′ish pages and includes a page of blank cards if you want to add your own cards.

These are version 1, roughly draft cards.  They should print out slightly smaller than standard poker cards (make sure you’re printer settings aren’t reducing the size) and you could print them out, put them in card protector sleeves with a standard playing card in behind them to give them some sturdiness.

I’m just going to laminate mine, I have the laminating sheets so it works out just as easily that way.  D’oh, I just realized I could have saved myself an assload of work if I’d of laminated them before I cut them out.  Might be worth it to print out another set since my laziness trumps my need to save ink.

Image Credit

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

Subscribe to the feed – http://www.keyourcars.com/feed/podcast/

Also available through iTunes.

My visitor stats for the last couple of months -

April 1 2010 – May 31 2010
Basis:  88795 results from 167829 unique visits of which 79034 unknown/could not be evaluated.

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.

Savage Worlds of course is getting the KOC treatment just like all the rest.  So I’ve come up with a few variations on a theme. Savage Worlds Sample Sheet (82)  My primary goal is to put the most used information in a format that makes it easier for players to find it as needed.  So for example the most used rolls for Savage Worlds are going to be combat skills and defenses.  I put those across the top in nice big bold boxes, easy to see for older eyes.

Next most used are trait rolls, skills, and of course wounds so those get plopped in there.  I have a couple of options here for skills.  The list them all out and you put numbers on the ones you have and the write in the ones you have option.  I’m flip-flopping on which I like best.   I think knowing what all the skills are is useful but by only writing down the ones a character actually has makes it easier to find them.  So it’s 50 of 1, half dozen of the other.

I’m also flopping around on keeping the ‘helpful’ block of information at the bottom of the page.  If I take it out it leaves all kinds of room for expanding in other areas.

The options are the prime sheet aka sheet 1.  Sheet 2 will have a Gear box along with an Ammo tracker.   Sheet 3 will have Character Bio/Notes, Powers and Power Point tracker, and Advancements tracker.  Since I don’t plan on running anything with significant or even commonly available powers in the near future Powers get relegated to the back page.  For my needs a non-power combat/skill page is the primary information, an ‘inventory’ page is secondary and everything else is tertiary.

Anyway, take a look if you’re so inclined and post/email me a comment if you think it could be improved based on your layout design experience or actual play experience etc.

One thing to note, I’m not a big fan of fancy/decorative character sheets.  They look nice and some are a work of art, but I strongly favor practical useful ones that don’t run you out of ink to print out.

[Interestingly this post has attracted more scripted spam based comments than any other post I've made to date.]

Per a tweet request, here’s a little bit of information based on my experience with Hirst Arts molds.  First let me state up front, these things aren’t cheap.  Each mold runs $29 to $34 (current pricing) with most in the $34 range.  In addition the plaster isn’t necessarily cheap either (more on that later).

But if all you’re looking to do is make some basics and you’re VERY careful with your product you can do it on the cheap side and still get some nice functionality out of it.

For most gaming purposes you’re going to need at least one mold, a ‘wall’ mold of some kind.  They have fieldstone, gothic, brick, other brick, and egyptian right now which are generally useful for gaming PnP.  The sci-fi stuff works well if you’re building a 3d map of various board games in that genre.   You can see pictures on the HA site but in short, fieldstone is stacked rock, gothic is large brick, brick is brick, egyptian is large block.

The fieldstone mold is the only one that has a ‘ruined’ mold as well which is a big reason I went that route.  The ruined mold lets you have jagged wall tops and as I was primarily making this for fantasy games that seemed more appropriate.

I would recommend as a basic start to getting one wall mold and one floor mold, if that’s too much outlay then just go with the wall mold, they have a lot more impact than using floor molds only.  I don’t honestly recommend trying to make enough floor for everything you might need, it’s one arseload of casting but using the floor tiles as a bottom for the wall pieces works well.  For actual floor, I’d instead recommend you printing out floor pieces using available textures on the web  or buying the dungeon tile type stuff and then contact gluing it to foam core to give it the right thickness.  You’ll save yourself a lot of time, energy and money going that route.    Or just skipping the floor altogether and just putting your wall pieces on a 1″ grid of some kind.

Okay you’ve picked out a mold or two and now you want to build stuff.  First remember it takes a LONG time to get enough pieces to do much with.  And a lot of plaster.

Let’s go into plaster now.  You have a few options.  You can use Plain Old Plaster aka Plaster of Paris aka PoP.  Available at any craft store and most big home stores like Lowes and Home Depot and Walmart type places and is dirt cheap.  PoP works okay for large molds like the walls and floor molds.   It doesn’t work well for anything thin or with a lot of detail.  I use PoP to cast pieces for my children to glue and paint for example and have no problems with the flagstone molds and the pieces come out clean and bubble free for the most part although there are more bubbles than other plasters.  Bubbles equal cavities in the finished pieces.  Which can lend them a bit of variety so it’s not completely a bad thing.

But PoP has the downside that it’s very soft, takes forever to dry enough in a mold to de-mold and forever to dry enough to be ready for glue and paint.

This moves us to plasters specific for this, after a metric butt-ton of research I’d recommend using Merlin’s Magic if you can afford it ($1 a pound in cost and up to a $1 a pound in shipping) or Hydrostone if you can find it locally.  Average cost for Merlin’s Magic is around $75 to $100 shipped per 50lb box depending on where you live.   Average cost for Hydrostone is around $30 for 100lbs if you can pick it up locally.    100lbs will make a LOT of casts.   Hydrostone is a lower PSI aka lower strength but its still 5 times stronger than Plaster of Paris.

In a side note, if you don’t plan on painting your pieces then PoP will work fine.  The problem with PoP is that it chips VERY easily as you tumble your pieces into and out of their storage bins and the snow white plaster makes it very obvious when they chip if they’re painted.

Which brings up another issue, chipping and scratching.  Even if your pieces are hard as iron your paints aren’t.  Make sure you coat them with a clear finish, I use a clear acrylic matte spray I picked up that’s for protecting drawings and the like at a Hobby Lobby.   I’d also recommend getting a dark grey or black color for the plaster if you go with Merlin’s Magic.   You can also try various concrete dies if you like to color the plaster, I’ve heard mixed results.

Health Warning: Other than PoP all these plasters contain at least some amount of silica dust.  Inhaled in enough quantity this can cause silicosis.  Silica dust is incredibly fine and incredibly jagged crystals, breathing it in it can cause damage to your lungs.  If you read the definition of silicosis it appears to me that your chances of damage are on the order of getting hit by lightning using these plasters as a hobby unless you’re snorting a lb of dust a week but I’d be remiss if I didn’t warn you as it’s not common knowledge with these plasters.

So you’ve got your plaster and your molds.  Now comes the mixing.  The ‘best’ way to do it is by weight, measure you water and your plaster.  The second best way is to do it by weight by filling clear cups with the right measures and marking a line on them so you now how much of each to put together.   The third way, which I currently am down to, is just ‘eyeball’ it.  After a few dozen pours you do get a pretty good feel for how thick it’s supposed to be and can do it by hand.  I started by using a digital scale, then I just had a pretty good idea of where the line was supposed to be in the cups I was using and now I just put water in a cup and pour in plaster and stir and keep adding plaster till it’s the right thickness.   YMMV.

Mix your water and plaster up, stir reasonably slowly so as to keep bubbles to a minimum.  Merlin’s Magic is very forgiving compared to a lot of them apparently and this isn’t a big issue.   Let the mix sit for a minute or two and then stir again, don’t wait too long though, it sets up pretty quickly.

Now pour into your molds, just pour enough into each depression to fill it a tiny bit overfull.  Given how much MM costs don’t overfill as you’re pouring money away.   Use your scraper, a 4″ putty knife is perfect, and then scrape the excess off.  Again don’t wait too long as it’ll thicken up and you’ll end up leaving a shallow divot in each mold.  When I started I poured to cover the top of the mold.  Vast overkill and huge waste of plaster.   Of the approximately 45lbs of plaster I’ve poured I’d say a good 5-8lbs of it is in my waste tub.  Not a great percentage.

When I first was researching this there were all kinds of “use a vibration table”, make a bounce board, mix slowly with a glass rod, pour in a very thin stream, spray your molds with wet water.  Visit the Hirst Arts site and forums to get more information on these terms.  This might be necessary with some plasters but it’s all very not necessary for Merlin’s Magic.  I now mix it into a froth, I don’t use ‘wetter water’, I don’t pour slowly, I don’t use the bounce board I make and my casts still come out just as good as when I did all that stuff.  I do give the molds a few half hearted taps with the handle of my putty knife after I pour but it’s more a gesture than anything.

Again it depends on the mold but for the basic floor and wall molds you really don’t have to be as careful as people indicate, just start out careful and then get lazy and impatient like I did and see where it gets you.

So to sum up, you mix your plaster and water, stir it up, pour it into the molds, not too much as that just wastes it.

Your demolding time will vary with your plaster choice, MM is ready to demold for me in about 15-20 minutes.  Plaster of Paris in about 2 to 3 hours.  Hydrostone from what I’ve read is about 30 minutes.

I highly recommend you allow any pieces a full day after de-molding to dehumidify before using them.  This is not a hobby for the impatient.   It can take weeks of daily pours and casts to get enough blocks to build much of anything assuming you actually have other things to do during your day.   When I was pumping out the casts I would do roughly 2 or 4 casts a day on week days and 8 or so a day on weekends.

You’re also going to need something to store the pieces in.  I used ziplocks to collect the pieces in a per mold category and then I detail sorted them by per ‘type’ into those ziplock food containers once I had enough bags to matter.

Okay you now have your big shiny collections of mold pieces it’s time to put them together.  Well just hold on a bit there pardner.  Now you have to figure out what you’re going to use for bases.  Some people use the cardboard from cereal boxes.  Others use foam core board (available at any art supplies or office supply store).   Both work.  But with caveats.  Cereal box cardboard is wobbly so you have to make sure you glue your pieces laterally as well as vertically to give them strength.  Foam core is stronger by a lot but… glue is water based and the paper on the foam core will absorb some of that moisture and as a result tends to want to expand.  This can give your pieces a slight arch up or down unless you’re careful to weight them as they dry which can be a problem for some shapes and designs.  Another option is the 3/4 or 1″ foam insulation that’s roughly $10 for a 4×8 foot sheet at your lumber store.

Personally I ended up going with 1/4 inch MDF.  It’s dirt cheap given how much you’ll need, very strong and stays flat.  It’s pretty simply to set up a jig with two pieces of it so that you can rip them for width in one long piece and then come back and cut them for length.  After using both cereal box and foam core for my first experiments, I won’t be going back after using MDF.  But then I always build for strength first.

Okay you’ve got your bases, now you can start gluing.  Based on everyone’s recommendations I’m using Aileen’s Tacky Glue and I’ve found it perfectly adequate for the job.  Don’t bother with anything else, it’s like $3 for a huge tube of it at Walmart and one tube will go a LONG way.

NOW you can start gluing things together.  One trick that can help hide the seams is add just enough glue to squeeze out slightly and then use a brush you don’t care about to brush that flat just like if you were making a real brick wall with mortar.   You do watch Rock Solid and Indoors Out don’t you?

Give your pieces a few hours to dry completely, I tend to wait a couple of days but as always YMMV.

For painting, you’re going to want three coats, a base, a medium dry brush and a light drybrush.

For paints go to Hobby Lobby and look in their craft paints, not the acrylics/artist paints.  You can buy 10′s of colors for $1 or $2 each.  Don’t use model paints on these or you’ll go broke fast.

For the base coat, just go pick up a can of spray paint of the color you like.  I use brown matte krylon.  I started with a regular paintbrush style paint technique and omg it takes forever to get paint into all the crevices and you still miss some.  With the last batch of about 20+ wall sections I did, I used spray paint and got them all done in like 15 minutes.  Where before it took like 10 minutes per section.

The middle coat should be your primary color, I use a middle grey and a medium dry brush technique which essentially paints everything gray except the crevices between the rocks.    A light drybush on top of that with a white paint gives the tips and edges that banged up, exposing clean light rock underneath look.   I then come back with faint brown ink wash that I touch here and there to dirty things up.

So to sum up you’re going to need -

• at least one mold and probably two in a floor or wall or both.
• plaster, I recommend either Merlin’s Magic ($$) or Hydrostone.
• A work place (it’s messy)
• Basing material (cardboard, foam core, insulation, or mdf)
• Glue, Aileene’s Tacky Glue
• Paints, base, middle and top
• And time, it’s not a hobby for the impatient

If you have any questions, just use the comments link to post a comment or send me an email.   It’s a fun albeit not cheap hobby.  I’ve got a bunch of wall sections, pillars, decorations etc I use to give RPG encounter rooms a 3d effect as well as I made a Savage Worlds chase chart out of them making a kind of simple roadway and sidewalks since I’m going to be using it primarily for urban settings.

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

The blind woman’s eyes blinked, the milky white hidden for an instant behind pale flesh.  The unseeing eyes turned to point to the back of the heavily robed figure standing at the window, looking out at the rolling waves of the seas below. 

“Yes I felt it, Lady, Bokka Jothan is no more.  It seems our lowest Captain has met something he couldn’t entice, enslave or destroy. Or bore to death with his petty scheming.” Lord Volk said without turning from the view. “His line has proven itself weak…” the high lord over the slavers mused. 

Around the room, shadows stirred where they lay in deep pools, spots darker somehow than the deepest of shadows flickered in each and they all seemed to turn toward the still form by the window.

“Yes my pets, the line of Jotham has failed us.”  At his words the shadows began writhing and swirling.  If one had to make an analogy then perhaps the closest would be a pack of puppies about to be given a treat.  If the puppies were comprised of the stuff of nightmares given substance. “Go, you have your freedom to seek out all of of the Jotham line until the sun falls and rises one time and teach them that failure is not an option.”

Before Volk’s words were finished the shadows began streaming out of the room flowing over the stone like night made liquid.  Soon the chamber was empty aside from Volk and the woman.

She spoke, “Is that wise love?”

Volk turned away from the window and approached her, the rich silks of his robes sliding across the pristine floor without a sound. He reached out and cupped the woman’s chin, tilting her head up to his. “Wise, Lady? Perhaps not but not terribly unwise.  And my irritation with Bokka’s losing of the airship is well known.  To ignore his failure would weaken my position.  Loosing the shades on his line will give the rest something to fear for awhile and perhaps put a stop to their plotting and planning my downfall.  What says the warp?”

The woman, Lady Sethra, stepped in toward Volk and put her arms around him, “The lines are… cloudy now love.  A Great One has become involved and its presence stirs and fragments the now and the future into so many strange shapes that it becomes impossible to make sense of them.”

“Truly…” Volk’s deep baritone rumbled in his chest against her cheek.  “What would have peaked the interest of the one of the ancient reptiles?”

“I know not love but its actions impact the lines of everything.  I would advise activities in the north, the warp and web there are convulated beyond all untangling at this time.  Perhaps in time its attention will focus elsewhere.”

“Perhaps. I’m reluctant to give up the quest for that ship.  If we can duplicate its craftings, imagine the power we could wield.  The very air would become our oceans and our raiders could go anywhere they wished, descending where they would, taking what is rightfully ours by our very predation.”

“I advise time love.  It changes all things and the situation to the north will change in time.”

“Perhaps you are right Lady, perhaps.”  Lord Volk absently stroked the inky black hair of the woman, eyes focused and at the same time not seeing the far wall of the chamber.  He snapped his fingers, the sound belling out, louder than such a slow gesture should generate.  Before the echoes stopped resonating around the chamber the gilded doors opened.

“Yes mi’lord?” questioned the man who stepped through.

“Summon the captains who first issued the reports of the airship. I wish to question them, personally.”

“So it will be mi’lord.” the man bowed, waiting to be dismissed.

Lord Volk brushed his hand over his neatly trimmed beard, “And bring up one of the virgins from the last ship.  I found another gray hair this morning Jovan. It is past time I renewed myself.  Now go.”

“As you command mi’lord.”

The priests of the temple of Eris were able to eventually sever the controlling strings of the undead and they all dropped to the ground motionless and the citizen rose up in arms to destroy those wandering the city streets.

As the group arrived back they found Captain Werrick missing one of his legs from the knee down and discovered that he led a force against three figures that seemed to be commanding the forces as well as breaching the walls, a female in white, a mostly nude man who’s flesh morphed and wavered and a dark shadow figure.

They also learned that ‘merchant ships from the south’ had arrived and were taking on women and children to sail them to safety.  Two of the three ships had already left filled to the brim with children and women and the third was still loading.

The group jumped to the conclusion that the ships were slavers picking up an easy profit and headed to the harbor.

They ran into a group of sailors and approached them.  A noble looking individual confirmed that what the group suspected and delivered an ultimatum, the group delivers the airship to the island and they give the women and children back.  If they don’t deliver the airship then they’re going to infect all the captives with the parasites and give them back.

The discussion rapidly went downhill.  The noble turned out to be a fake, while the real noble, a fire mage of some power was dressed as a sailor.  The sailors were quickly put down leaving the fire mage and the slaver lashmaster.  As things took a turn for the worse for the slavers the firemage made his escape using a contingency teleport ring to teleport back to the ship leaving the lashmaster who surrendered to the group.  As he made his getaway he told the group that they’d just doomed one ship full of children and if they wanted the others returned then bring the airship to him.

The gruop took a few minutes to recover, loot and discuss the thing and smoke started rising from the harbor.  They rushed to the harbor and found several of the small fishing ships on fire as well as the docks and warehouse. People  rushed in to quench the flames.  Once it was clear the flames were under control  the group got out their longboat and sailed out to the airship and set off after the fleeing slaver ship.

after an attempt to set the ship’s sails on fire failed, the firemage simply doused the flames, Stak shot a note down to the ship demanding the slavers debark in the ships boats and leave the captives onboard.   The slavers failed to listen so the group started riddleing it with ballista bolts.  The slavers quickly retaliated by lashing their captives to the sides of the ship.  This failed to deter the group and they continued to try and sink the ship.  And yes their ballista bolts hit more than one captive.

On board the ship the firemage weighed his options and found them wanting and performed a ritual that exploded the entire ship, killing everyone on board rather than see group rescue a single one.

The group turned the air ship around and headed back to its usual place with a rather somber atmosphere.   They re-entered the city.  Torel’s new found ability to see the lines of power protecting the city while holding the battle standard lead them to an old reading room now in use by the high priest as a bedroom as he didn’t feel comfortable taking the last high priest’s bedroom.

They found a mosaic in the floor and using the key they’ve been carrying for so long they triggered a lift, the entire floor of the room that dropped them down deep into the earth into a chamber.

There they were accosted by constructs demanding a pass phrase, when it wasn’t forthcoming they fought the constructs.  Torel in his infinite avenger wisdom opened a door and added in another set of constructs.   But with clever use of the Deamon Heart amulet and a failed reaction roll the new buzz saw construct fought with one of the other’s and the two ended up dealing something like 150+ points of damage to each other which was probably one of the few things that could have saved the group.   In total the encounter ended up a level 15 against a level 9 party which would typically result in someone or all someone’s dying.  But by setting two of them on each other they removed roughly 300 damage the group would have had to absorb and added 300 damage to the group’s output.   Call it luck if you will but it saved them.

Inside the second chamber they found the Book of All Things and Biminey was able to recover an ass load of residium from the cylidners powering the protections on the room as well as enough parts to make a new construct, a mobile buzzsaw that he can deploy in combat.

As they left the temple they were met by Aricee, a strange being in the form of a plain looking woman but with the eyes of a dragon.  She opened a portal leading them into her lair where they waded through piles of gold and jewels to a side chamber where they were fed a great meal.

Aricee told them that their best chance in the upcoming battle was to recover the Lance of Unmaking which is located deep in her lair guarded by a creature.  She tells them she guards the lair, the guardian guards the lance and she has a device embedded in her chest that protects the lance from her.

The group is located in an instant between the past and future and will have several days grace before the time in the world ticks over and the chaosborn is freed.   This gives them time to prepare, recover the lance and save the world.

She also tells them that the lance and the banner may not be enough and that it is possible to destroy the airship in a single cataclysmic event that will unmake everything in the blast radius.

We leave our group there as they prepare to descend into the tunnels after the Lance of Unmaking for their final climatic battle against the chaosborn and go down in a ball of flame or emerge victorious.

Image Credits

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Also available through iTunes.

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Also available through iTunes.

Noir

The Case of the Foot Race

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...]

Image Credits

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….

Image Credits

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.

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)

Original post by 77IM on Pnnacle’s forums -

Often, when the players face a difficult task, the GM calls for a skill or attribute check to see if they succeed. Sometimes, though, it’s better for the task to take a little bit longer — to give the characters more opportunities to affect the outcome, and to add to a dramatic scene. I call this sort of thing an extended check and run it as a series of regular checks.

Creating an Extended Check: Imagine that the entire success/failure of a course of action came down to a single check. Do the players disarm the trap in time? Can the rogue scale the tower? Can the scholar decode the text before sunrise? etc. Now, you have to consider three things:

1. What is the cost for failure? If there is none, then the check doesn’t matter much — the players will just try again! In such a case, you might not even bother making a check; or make a single check to determine how long it takes, or something. A good extended check has something riding on it — if the PCs don’t disarm the trap, they get stabbed by spikes; if the rogue doesn’t scale the tower, he falls; if the scholar can’t decode the text before sunrise, the curse is permanent; etc. It works best if the players know that they face impending doom.
2. How difficult is the check? Bear in mind that often other party members will be helping out. So while a -6 penalty sounds really nasty, if it is counteracted by +3 from cooperative rolls then it’s really only a -3, which is hard but not impossible (especially if the character has a really good trait, like d10+2). In general the players should have about a 50/50 chance of success, which for a typical PC is a -1 to -3 penalty (after accounting for bonuses and cooperative rolls), depending on their trait die. A 50/50 chance means it’s risky but not impossible; a player who spends a benny or two, or who comes up with some clever way to gain a circumstance bonus, can increase their odds of success dramatically.
3. Would the check be fun as an extended check? Or would the players get bored and wonder why they are still rolling dice? Two things make an extended check fun. First, if there is something else going on, the players need to decide whether to focus on the task, or deal with that other stuff. Do the players disarm the trap, or fight the skeletons? Can the rogue scale the tower while the rest of the party defends him from harpies? Can the scholar decode the text while the rest of the party investigates the series of gruesome murders? The other thing that can make an extended check fun is the opportunity to switch tactics mid-extended-check, to attempt to gain circumstance bonuses. Maybe disarming the trap by pushing on it didn’t work, but a player has the idea of gumming up the works with pitch. Maybe the rogue has been climbing the tower with footholds, but think he might make better time by trying to toss a grappling hook and climb up the line (risky, as the harpies might cut the line…). Always be sure the extended check has an ominous penalty for failure which looms ever closer, as this increases the drama as well (although it is not enough, by itself, to justify using an extended check instead of a regular check).

Making the Extended Check: To make the extended check, one player takes the lead, and the others help with cooperative rolls. The lead character makes 3 checks, and must achieve 3 successes and raises, plus 1 success or raise for each penalty point that would have applied (see #2, above). These checks are made at NO PENALTY; because the penalty has been translated into additional successes and raises. For example, if disarming the trap would normally be a -4 penalty on a regular check, then as an extended check it requires 7 successes or raises over the course of 3 checks. If the party doesn’t achieve the required number of successes or raises after 3 checks, then the cost for failure applies (see #1, above).

• Each raise counts. So if the player needs 5 successes or raises, and on the very first check they score a success with 4 raises, then they are done (1 success + 4 raises = 5 successes or raises).
• In general, the checks are made at no penalty. If you want the extended check to be harder, it should require more successes. HOWEVER, feel free to apply circumstance bonuses and penalties based on the character’s actions. A player who does something clever or creative should be rewarded with a bonus. A player who does something boneheaded gets a penalty.
• There’s no reason to require all the characters to make the same sort of check. Perhaps one of the helpers comes up with a creative use for a skill (like using Knowledge (Engineering) to rig a pulley system to help move a heavy object, while other characters just push with Strength). You can even switch lead characters as you go, depending on the sort of check (“Your lockpicking isn’t working. Time for me to smash!”). Doing this helps encourage party participation, and also rewards players for trying different sorts of stuff, instead of just sitting there rolling their trait dice 3 times.
• The cost for failure (see #1, above) might apply at the end of the check, or it might be progressive — each failed check carries a little bit of a cost. For example, when disarming the trap, an outright failure on a check causes the party to take damage; failing the whole extended check springs the trap, causing much more damage.
• Instead of the traditional “3 checks” limit, you could allow each party member to make 1 check. The number of successes and raises required becomes the number of party members, plus 1 success or raise for each penalty point that would have applied. Bear in mind, though, whether or not party members can aid each other on these checks. If they can’t, the penalty points should be much lower. For example, if disarming a trap would be a -4 penalty on a regular check in which cooperative rolls are allowed, it might only be a -1 penalty if cooperative rolls are not allowed. A party of 5 PCs attempting such a trap would need 6 successes or raises (5 base +1 to cancel the -1 penalty).
• There are two ways to do critical failure. The easy way, is that critically failing a single check just gives a -2 penalty on the next check. A slightly more involved way, is that critically failing a single check means that the cost for failure is increased somehow — essentially, if you critically fail a single check and then fail the extended check, it counts as “critically failing” the extended check. Either way, expect the players to spend bennies to re-roll critical failures (if you have a house rule that disallows that, then that’s probably a severe enough punishment on its own, and the critical failure shouldn’t carry any other costs).

Running the Extended Check: An extended check shouldn’t just be a drawn-out version of a regular check. You can play up the drama of the approaching cost for failure — with each check, the players make some progress, but also get that much closer to their doom. Also, encourage players to modify their tactics after the first check — “Well, that seemed to work OK, but not spectacularly.” Allow them to be creative in which traits they are using and offer bonuses for coming up with interesting solutions to the problem. If you want to get fancy, you could even alter the scenario based on each check; maybe they’ve used Strength to break part of the trap, but disarming the next part will require more finesse.

Finally, don’t make the check in a vacuum, if you can help it. Try to have some other sort of action going on, such as combat, a role-playing sequence, or even another extended check. (Although, bear in mind that this makes the check harder because the other party members might not be available to help out.) An extended check might take days, months or even years, with whole adventures occurring between the individual checks. Extended checks work particularly well when the players need to do other stuff simply to become entitled to one of the individual checks. For example, the scholar decoding the text might need to reassemble it first — for each piece of the text the party finds, the scholar can make one check.

Done properly, the extended check should be dramatic. When the players succeed, they should feel like they accomplished something, and when they fail, everyone should go, “Oooooh crap…!”

Edit: A special thanks to Magnus on the Pinnacle forums for taking the time to read through this and point out where I made mistakes in the rules.

NOTE: If you’re familiar with Savage Worlds:

Scene:

Mary Alice, Jack and Pete , agents of  the detective agency Danger Inc “Danger is our middle name.” have gotten a tip from one of their stoolies that the girl they’ve been hired to recover was taken by a couple of thugs for the O’Toole gang and they have her in an old office building in an industrial park down by the river.  If the cops show up or get involved they’re going to kill her.   The group knows the reputation of the O’Toole’s and know she’s likely to be killed as soon as they get the ransom if she’s not already dead.

Characters (Pertinent for this scene stats only):

Jack: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Fighting d8, Perception d6, Shooting d6, Streetwise d8, (Think Tony DiNozzo from NCIS)

Pete: Agility d8, Strength d8, Vigor d6, Toughness 5, Fighting d10, Perception d8, Shooting d8, Stealth d4 (Think Pete of BCjr)

Mary Alice: Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Agility d6, Perception d6, Investigation d8, Shooting d6, Edge: Common Bond (Think Evie from the Mummy)

Shank: Agility d8, Driving d10 (Think Mel Gibson from Payback but more henchmany)

Preparation:

Jack: “I’m going to see if I can find any more information on what’s going on.  I’m going to make a few calls.”
Mechanically: Player is going to use Streetwise.  Rolls a d8 for his skill and a d6 for his ‘wild’ die.  Rolls a 1 for the d8 and and a 6 on the d6.  The 6 ‘explodes’ since it’s a ‘ace’ and he rolls it again and gets a 1 for a total of 7.  This beats a 4, the average Target Number so the player gets a success but would have needed an 8 to get a success and a ‘raise’.

GM: “You confirm the story but don’t find out much more information about it.  You did learn that one of the O’Toole brothers is running the caper and are supposed to be holed up in the top of the joint. [Note the clever use of historical vernacular].”

Pete: “I’ll see what I can dig up on the O’Tooles.” 
Mechanically: Player uses Streetwise but doesn’t have any skill at it so will roll a d4-2 as the base skill dice and a d6-2 as the wild die and ends up with a total of 3 (a 1 on the d4 and a 5 on the d6.  5-2 is 3, the 1 rolled on the d4 is discarded since it’s lower than 3).

GM: “No one you contact really seems to have any more information than what you know in general, it’s a sizable gang of irish immigrants, local crime lords of their area, run by three brothers at the top of the gang.  Kidnapping and ransom is right in line with their activities, they also run prostitution and gambling.  They’re not known for their pleasant outlook on life.”

Mary Alice: “I’m going to hit up the hall of records and get a floor plan of the area where they’re supposed to be keeping the girl.”
Mechanically: Mary has a d8 skill in Investigation and of course gets a d6 as a wild die.  She rolls a 4 and a 6.  Another exploding dice on the d6 which explodes again with another 6.  The third roll is a 3 so she has a total of 6+6+3 or 15.  This is a success (4) and two raises (4 and 4) and almost a third raise.  She was able to find all the information available and cut her research time in half thanks to the excess raises.

GM: “You have no trouble finding the blueprints, both original drawings as well as drawings showing every modification to the building and in record time, almost as if Fate stepped in to help you save this girl.  You’re back at the office before the boys finish making their calls and had time to get lunch.
The three of you go over the blueprints.  It has three entrances on the ground floor, a main door that opens to the street, one that opens into an side alley and another in the back that opens up into an alley that runs between it and the backing building. A building next to it, the one that forms the alley way is of the same height according to the area plans. You also find on the older plans a steam tunnel that looks like it might connect the boiler rooms of this building and the building that butts up against it on the back side.”

Players: “Yack yack yack, go in through the roof, the side, the back, the basement yack yack yack.”

GM: “Sounds like you’re going to go in through the adjacent building which as you found out is a chinese laundry.  You head downstairs and get Shank [an Ally character] to drive you over.  Per your plan it’s ten in the evening when you arrive and as you suspected the laundry is closed.

Jack: “Shank, circle the block, normal speed.  Let’s see if there’s anyone outside the office.”

GM: “Shank smoothly wheels the car around and you drive past the office.  The building is dark except for the top or fifth floor which has lights on.  There’s a guy sitting on the front steps to the building, he gives you the eye as you drive past and you spot his right hand is under the left side of his jacket.  Give me a perception check.”

Mary Alice: “I didn’t see anything.”
Mechanically: d6 for the skill and a d6 wild yields a 1 and a 3 so a total of 3 versus 4 is a failure.

Jack: “I’m too busy polishing my shotgun to look around.”
Mechanically: d6 and d6 yields a 3 and 2 so a total of 3 or a failure.

Mary Alice: “Is that what you’re calling it these days?”

Pete: “I see something.”
Mechanically: d8 skill and d6 wild yields a 6 and a 4 so a total of 6 which is a success against a TN 4.

GM: “Pete you spot the flare of a cigarette ember in one of the cars parked across the street from the office building and catch a glimpse of two guys in the front seat.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice and Jack both failed their perception checks as the Target Number assigned by the GM is a 4 but Pete got a success.  If Pete had gotten a raise the GM would have also told him about the two men in the back seat.  As an alternative the GM was going to give them that information if two of them got a success.

Pete: “Eyes front everyone, don’t look too curious. There’s at least three torpedoes out there, one on the steps and two in the lizzie across the street.  Shank go ahead and head straight for a few blocks and then turn and head back and find a parking spot within view of the laundry but not too close.”

Shank (NPC): “Roger boss.  Want I should keep it running?”

Pete: “Yeah, we may need to leave in a hurry.”

Mary Alice: “Hey does this place have a fire escape?”

GM: “Yes the office building has a fire escape on the side that doesn’t have the side door, it drops into an alleyway that runs the length of the two buildings.”

Mary Alice: “Shank park where you can see that fire escape, I want to keep our options open.”

Shank: “You got it boss.”

GM: “Shank pulls the car into an open spot on the street, there aren’t a lot of cars parked here, what vehicles there are tend to be delivery trucks for the various businesses.  You pause a minute but the streets are clear.  There’s only one functioning streetlight and one flickering the others are dark.  The shadows provide lots of cover for movement or to conceal yourselves in.”

Mary Alice: “And anyone else I’m sure.”

Pete: “Don’t sweat it toots.  Okay we head over to the laundry, casual, just three mugs out for an evening stroll to pick up their laundry.”

Jack: “Anyone know how to pick locks?”

Pete: “Nope.  But it’s 1922, no alarm system.  I pull my pry-bar out of my coat and jimmy the door open. After making sure the street’s clear of course.”
Mechanically: Makes a perception roll using a d8 and a d6 and gets a 12 (d6 was a 4, d8 exploded with an 8 and a 4).  That would be a success and two raises for a typical roll.

GM: “Looks clear.  Make an attack on the door lock for me, you can use the higher of your Fighting or Strength die.  It’s a surprisingly good lock, although given the neighborhood maybe not so surprising.”

Pete: “Okay, this should be easy enough.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls his Fighting die which is a d10 and wild d6.  Gets a 10 on the d10, it explodes and he ends up with a 16 total -2 for the difficulty of the lock for a 14 total.  That’s 10 over the target number so a success and two raises.

GM: “With your first wrench of the pry-bar the door pops open.  It happened so fast anyone looking would think you had a key.  Inside the room smells heavily of soaps and cleaning liquids overlaid with the smell of musty clothing. It’s dark in there though, the single working street light doesn’t go very far through the dirty windows.”

Mary Alice: “I slip a torch out of my pocketbook and flick it on.  I cover the lens with my hand to keep the light to a minimum.”

GM: “The place looks like every other laundry you’ve been to, a counter dividing the room from the equipment in the back.  Rows and racks of clothing and bags of dirty laundry fill most of the area with little aisles allowing movement through the room.  A door in the back leads deeper into the building.”

Jack: “Off to the back then.  Mary Alice can I borrow your flashlight?”

Mary Alice: “I knew you wouldn’t be prepared.  Here, I brought one for each of you.”

GM: “Weaving your way through the room you open the door into the back finding more cleaning equipment. In a corner of the room you find a set of steps leading down to the boiler room.  It’s hot and crowded and noisy but it’s only a few moments before you uncover the door to the steam tunnel behind a set of shelves holding soaps.  You shove it out of the way and the door opens into a tunnel filled with pipes running along the walls.  A couple of leaks keep the area hot and humid but not dangerously so.”

Jack: “I take a quick peek up and down the tunnel and if I don’t see anything I shine the light up and down it.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d6 and a d6 for Perception for a 2 and a 3, giving him a total of 3 aka Failed.

GM: “You don’t see anything unusual and shining your light around you see the tunnel heads much like it showed on the plans.  About sixty feet  south it ends with the pipes running upwards into a shaft.  Advancing down the tunnel you find a shaft leading up into the office building.  A rusted ladder is attached to one wall and at each of the four floors above is a ledge and a door where the pipes split and branch out to bring steam to the building.  The blueprints showed all this and each door opens up into a maintenance closet on the various floors.”

Jack: “Okay let’s get going, I’ll go first, Mary Alice you’re next and Pete is last.”

Mary Alice: “Think again buster, this mug isn’t going to be staring up my dress, you two go up first, I’m going last.”

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Mary Alice for playing in character as a prim and proper lady..]

Jack: “Fine.  Me, Pete and then her highness.  We hit the top floor.  I figure they’re going to be in that big office at the end of the hall.  If they have anyone in the hall it’s going to get hot fast.  We’ll need to hit anyone there quick like, Pete that’s where you and those pistols of yours come in, those silencing things Shank came up with make you point.  If things go to hell, we rush the office and shoot anything that’s not blonde, female and goes by the name of Rose.”

Trivia Note: Silencers or more accurately, suppressors were commercially available in 1902 for those flinching and shouting “Historically inaccurate!”  Also this is an alternate earth with a modified timeline as fits my needs.  So nyahhh!

GM: “The climb isn’t particularly arduous and the way the pipes knock and ping from the steam you don’t have to worry about stealth too much.  With a little effort you make it to the top.  The access panel leading into the maintenance closet has swollen a bit from the steam and takes some force to open.  You put your shoulder into it and knock it free but as it does a mop leaning against it starts to fall toward a metal bucket.”

Jack: “I grab for it!”
Mechanically: Makes an Agility roll, a d8 and the wild d6.  Gets a 5 and a 1.  That’s a success and he grabs the mop before it can crash into the bucket.

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Jack for bypassing a Complication .]

GM: “Good work!  With that out of the way you get the door opened without any more trouble.  The room is filled with cleaning tools, mops, brooms and soaps and the like.  The door to the hall is to the right.”

Pete: “Which way does it open?”

GM: “You’ll be able to see down the hall toward the big offices at the end without having to look around the door.”

Jack: “Wait a minute, I unlimber my sawed off and check the loads.”

Mary Alice: “Yes, I get my 38 out.”

Pete: “I screw on the silencers to both of my 45′s then put the left one back in the holster.  I ease the door open slowly and quietly trying to get the smallest gap I can to see down the hall.”
Mechanically: Player makes a Stealth roll.  A d4 and a d6 results in a 2 and a 5 for a 5 roll.  GM makes a Perception roll for the guard he knows is at the end of the hall.  Since it’s a mook it does not get a wild die and rolls a basic d4 getting an 1.  The player got a success and a raise as a result – 5 vs 1.

GM: “Without a sound you ease the door open, spotting a thug sitting in a chair at the end of the hall next to a closed door.  He’s reading something, a racing form it looks like.  The distance is about ten squares so it’s short range for your pistols.”

Pete: “I take a two handed grip and aim at the thug.  I’m going to put one in his heart, one in the head.”

GM: “Are you actually calling your shots, that would be two actions at -2 each and the called shots would add another -4 to each shot?“

Pete: “No, it just sounded good.  I am taking an Aim action though and going to Double Tap him.”
Mechanically: Pete spends one round to take Aim. This gives him a +2 to hit.  The GM rolls another Perception check for the thug with a d4 and gets a 2, failure.
The double tap is going to grant Pete a +1 to hit and +1 damage but will of course use two bullets from the 7 shot 45.  He rolls his Shooting die of d8 and the wild d6 and gets a 3 and a 6.  The wild die explodes and he ends up with 10 + 2 for the aim + 1 for the double tap for a total of 13 versus a TN of 4. 
This is a success and two raises.  The raise adds 1d6 to his damage total.  The equivalent of a critical hit in other game systems.   He rolls 2d6+1 for the 45′s base damage and adds another 1d6 for the critical hit and 1 for the double tap getting a total of 11 damage.  
The thug has a Toughness of 6.  11 versus 6 results in a success and a raise.  The success causes the thug to be Shaken and the raise causes a wound.  As this thug is an Extra or as they’re known in 4th Edition, a Minion, any wound incapacitates him. Be default in Savage Worlds it appears that Extras only really die in the Aftermath part of the encounter but it feels more ‘right’ to me that a character shot and incapped to be dead or dying unless the shooter specifically tells me they’re not going for a kill shot.  At which point I’d assign some modifiers to the shot most likely.

GM: “Your two bullets punch through his chest directly over his heart.  The thug, a big bruiser jerks, his racing form flipping up to float to the ground as the body slumps and then slowly slides out of the chair with a quiet noise and a spreading stain of blood starts to mar the carpeting.”

Pete: “How loud was it?  Does it sound like anyone heard anything?”

GM: “You barely heard it, mostly because you were watching it.  You pause a moment or three but there’s no outcry from inside the office.”
Mechanically: The GM knows that there’s an electric fan running inside the office, and the doors are thick and solid wood.  He assigns the noise of the body falling and the silenced shot a modifier of -2 to be heard.  He rolls a group Perception check for speed’s sake using the average inside with a +2 because there are multiple people who might hear. He rolls a d6 and gets a 3, 3+2-2 for a 3 total versus the TN of 4 which results in a failure.

Jack: “Get a move on then.  We’re going to move down the hall way, me and Pete in front, Mary Alice behind watching behind us.  When we get to the door I’m going to listen and see what I can hear and if there’s any cracks I could look through around the door I’m going to try that as well.”

Pete: “I swap my clip out for a full one and pull my other pistol.”
Mechancially: Since bullets are ‘real’ rather than abstracted in Savage Worlds it makes sense for the player to keep full clips in his gun and for any character to reload when they have the chance. As a general rule I’ll probably limit clips to avoid players clanking when they walk to something that makes sense based on the situation.   But for a person who carries two pistols, having a spare clip for each would make sense.

Mary Alice: “I’m going to walk forward but keep glancing back every few seconds.”

GM: “Cool. The hall is lined with a couple of doors on each side, mostly with frosted glass doors and various company logos on them.  At the opposite end from where the thug is is an elevator, a thick carpet runner goes down the length of the all.  Without any real issue, you get to the end of the hall, being quiet isn’t hard, the carpet although worn is still thick and padded and you ghost down that way like cats on a sofa cushion.  Pete you don’t spot any gaps but the lock is one of the old style, or would that be new style and the keyhole goes all the way through.”

Pete: “I listen and then peek through the keyhole.”
Mechanically: Pete needs to roll a Perception check for hearing at a -2 due to the thick wood and another Perception check to look through keyhole, again at a -2 due to the tiny opening. He rolls a d8 and d6 and gets a 5 and a 4.  The 5-2 is a 3 so a failure on hearing.  Peeking through the hole gives him slightly better results, a 6 and a 5.  6-2 is a 4 so a success.

GM: “You can’t hear much, there’s a faint humming sound, maybe a fan of some kind?  Through the keyhole you have a narrow view of the room but directly across the room you can see two thugs playing cards of some kind.  You can spot a revolver on the corner of the table by one of them and a Thompson leans up against the wall next to the other guy. You can just make out a closed door to the left and can see a sliver of light on under the door.”

Pete: “Two guys huh, even on my best day…”

Mary Alice: “Shut up Inigo.  What’s the door look like again?”

GM: “A big pair of heavy double doors, solid oak that swing outwards toward you. They have big brass handles with thumb locks.”

Mary Alice: “Are they locked?  I very carefully try them.”

GM: “The thumb press goes down easily and you can feel the door give just slightly.  They don’t appear to be locked.”
Mechanically: Some require a Stealth roll here but unless the doors were trapped to make noise it’s unlikely even if they were paying attention they’d hear a slowly pressed knob and they’re also not ‘alert’ as they have a guy outside, one downstairs and 4 more in a car across the street. They’re feeling fat and sassy to say the least.

Mary Alice: “Okay what about this.  You two stand right back there just out of the door’s arc.  Pete give Jack one of your pistols.  I pull the doors open and drop to the floor and you two nail the thugs, do it quick and quiet and don’t raise any alarm.”

Pete: “You know how I feel about people touching my piece…”

Mary Alice: “Shut up Briscoe.  Sounds like a workable plan?”

Jack: “It might work.  And if it doesn’t we get to blame you.  I’m all for this plan.”

Pete: “Here, treat her nice or we’re going to have words later. I give Jack my off pistol.”

GM: “You move into position with Mary Alice by the doors and the two of you about five feet back from them.  You two are going to Hold your actions until Mary Alice pulls the doors open and drops and then shoot the two thugs.  That cover it?”

Pete: “Right.  Can we get an Aim action if we kneel down?”

GM: “Sure if you want to spend a round after the doors are open.”

Jack: “Right no aim bonus.  Okay I’m still going to double tap them.”

Pete: “Yeah me as well.  Jack you go for the guy on the far side of the table, he’ll be looking at you and just left of the other guy. I’ll take the close one. Wait a minute the far guy has the Thompson, you take the close one, I’m a better shot and I don’t want that Thompson opening up on us.”

Mary Alice: “Say can I drop and roll?”

GM: “Hmm sure, you can pull the doors open and dive off to the side as an action.  I’ll ask for a basic Agility test with a +2 from you to avoid opening the doors too hard and they bounce closed or not opening them enough.”

Jack: “Okay I like this plan, we can do this.”

GM: “Mary Alice you grip the brass handles, they’re cold to the touch and carefully you depress the latches and then step back swinging the doors open and then drop and roll off to the side.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice rolls her Agility d6 + d6 wild and gets a 4 and a 4. At +2 that’s a 6 versus 4 so she’s able to swing the doors open without them getting in the way of the others.  The GM has decided to just give the group a surprise round to reward their plan and it makes sense in the situation.  He’s not going to let them get the Drop on the thugs though.  He’s nice but not that nice.

Pete: “I put two into the Thompson guy as soon as the door opens wide enough.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls a d8 and a d6 and gets a 4 and a 2.  +1 for the double tap for a 5 against a TN of 4 and gets a hit.  He rolls (2d6+1)+1 (base plus 1 more for the double tap) and gets a 4 and a 6 which explodes and gets another 4 for a total of 16 damage (4+6+4+1+1).  The thug has a Toughness of 6 so he does 10 damage.  The success shakes the target and the 2 raises for the excess damage adds two wounds to the target.

GM: “One bullet rips through his upper chest, pushing him back and the second catches him under the chin and bores a hole through his skull splattering the wall behind him with a reddish gray gore. He falls backwards still in the chair and thuds to the ground.”

Jack: “Nice shooting Tex!  I put two into the close guy.”

Mechanically: Jack has a d6 shooting so rolls a d6 and a d6 wild and gets a 6 and a 1.  The six explodes and he gets a total of 12 (6+5 and +1 for the double tap) on his attack roll.  That’s worth a success and a raise so he gets an additional 1d6 on his damage roll.   For damage he’s going to roll (2d6+1)+1+1d6.  Base of 2d6+1 for the pistol, +1 for the double tap and +1d6 for the critical hit.  He rolls a 3, 1, 2 for a total of 6+1 or 7.  The 7 versus the Toughness of 6 will only result in the Thug being Shaken.  If the thug had already been Shaken it would have been a wound of course.

Jack: “Ugh, horrible damage.  Can I spend a benny to re-roll the damage?”

GM: “No, you can only spend bennies on skill tests, not damage.”

Jack: “Crap. Okay what happened?”

GM: “You hit him twice but both bullets are only grazing hits and while you’ve scared him, especially since he got a front row seat to his buddy spray painting the wall with his cortex he’s not down although shaken up.  When someone is Shaken the only action they get to make is move up to half their base movement. We’ll need to draw for initiative.”
Mechanically: The three players and the one thug draw cards from a deck.  They get the following results – Mary Alice – 4D, Pete 5C, Jack JH, Thug 4C.   This puts their initiative order as Jack, Pete, Mary Alice, Thug. The GM pulls a fifth card though as there’s a third thug in an easy chair in a corner of the room that they don’t know about yet. Thug #2 gets a 6D so he goes right after Jack and before Pete.

Jack: “Two more into him before he can move.”
Mechanically: Jack rolls his d6 and d6 and gets a 3 and a 6.  Another exploding shot.  He ends up with a 6 and a 4 for a total of 6+4+1 or 11.  Again a success and raise yields a critical hit so he gets another (2d6+1)+1+1d6 as his damage and gets a 5,3,5 or 15 total damage which is a success and two raises against a Toughness of 6.  The two raises causes two wounds, the success doesn’t add an extra wound although if there hadn’t been a raise then he would have still taken a wound from the success.  This was a difficult concept to ‘get’ for me based on the wording of the SW:EX edition and I had to check their forums where it’s a VERY common question.  A better example, the same one that the forum admin Clint uses each time in the forums put in the manual would have forestalled most of those.

GM: “As the thug’s head whips around to stare at you, you put two 45 slugs into his open mouth as he starts to yell.  His head snaps back and falls dead to the floor in a spray of blood.”

Pete: “Nice shooting yourself.  What do I see or hear?”
Mechanically: Rolls perception dice d6 and d6 and gets a 1 and a 2. He fails to hear the other thug in the room as he draws a pistol and Holds an action waiting for someone to come in.

GM: “A large reception area, finely appointed but worn down now.  The two thugs appear to be the rooms only occupants from where you stand.  A closed door is on the left hand side of the wall opposite.  A partially open door leading to a dark room is on the right hand side.”

Pete: “No one heard anything?”

GM: “Not that you know about.”

Pete: “Crap.  I’m going to Hold my action, aiming at the door across the way.  Can I get the Drop on it?”

GM: “Sure if the door moves you can shoot it at +4.”

Jack: “I switch the pistol to my left hand and pull out my sawed off.  Does it count as a pistol since it’s so small?”

GM: “Actually it does so you can use it in close combat although like all close combat you’re attacking the target’s Parry value instead of the base 4.”

Mary Alice: “I move to where I have cover from the wall but can see into the room, my .38 aimed at the door.”

GM: “You shuffle weapons and positions without interruption.  Nothing seems to be happening for moment then you hear a voice with an Irish brogue call out from the direction of the closed, “Tommy?  Everything okay?”

Pete: “Can I tell where it’s coming from?”

GM: “Sure in the direction of the closed door.”

Pete: “Gee thanks.  Jack, Mary Alice get ready to cover me.  I empty both pistols into the door and walls on either side aiming up at an angle from the floor so that they should miss anyone sitting and probably miss anyone standing unless they’re right by the wall.”

GM: “Okay you only get one attack per weapon per turn but you could double tap from each gun and put four bullets through the walls. You’ll take a -2 to both attack rolls since you’re doing two actions in one turn.”

Pete: “Oh.  How long would it take me to get to the tommy gun over there?”

GM: “Move action to get to it and pick it up.”

Pete: “I couldn’t run over, grab it then run back?”

GM: “Sure a run would get you over and back, make an Agility test at -2 to grab it on the fly since you’re doing essentially two actions.”

Pete: “Okay Jack, Mary Alice, you to blow the hell out of that door if opens. Here I go.”
Mechanically: Since Pete is going to run and make a grab for the weapon that’s going to count as two actions so he’ll take a -2 on his Agility roll to grab it on the fly.  He rolls a d8 for his Agility and d6 wild and gets an 8 and a 2.  The 8 explodes for a total of 13-2 versus 4.
Unfortunately for Pete the thug has a Held action and is waiting to shoot at the first person who actually enters the room.  He has a Shooting of d8 and rolls a 8.  It explodes for a total of 11.  A running target is harder to hit [Established SW House Rule] so he has a -1 to hit.  But a 11-1=10 vs a 4 is a success and a raise.  The thug hits Pete and gets a critical. The thug is also using a standard revolver so there’s a big Bang.
The GM rules that Pete gets halfway to the Thompson when he gets shot.  The thug rolls (2d6-1) base +1d6 for the critical for a total of 3+3+5-1 or 10 damage.  Pete has a Toughness of 5.  10 vs 5 = success and raise so Pete is Shaken and takes a Wound unless he tries to Soak the damage.

GM: “As you run across the room there’s a loud gunshot from your left and pain burns across your shoulder.  You stumble and fall prone from the impact.”
Mechanically: There’s nothing that says the target actually falls prone from getting shot, this was a GM ruling for cinematic sake.  Others might not do it, and having the player make an Agility test might be an option for some with perhaps a modifier for each success and raise of damage done to them.

Mary Alice: “Nice going banana heels.  Next time look around the room before you charge across it.”

Pete: “Well son of a [bleep]!  I roll to soak the wound.”
Mechanically: Pete spends a benny and makes a Vigor roll d6  and a wild die of d6 and rolls a 3 and 1.  3 Vs 4 is a failure.  The player opts to spend another Benny and tries again and gets a 4 and 5.  This eliminates the wound but he’s still Shaken. [Edit: This is wrong, if you soak an attack and eliminate all wounds then you are not shaken.]

GM: “The wound isn’t as bad as you thought it was but you’re still shaken up.  To make it easy we’ll just use the existing initiative order and grant Jack and Mary Alice Held Actions.  That puts Jack up.”

Jack: “I really don’t want to wake the neighbors if we haven’t woken them yet, I’m going to drop the shotgun and draw my .38 and lean around the doorway and shoot whoever shot Pete.”
Mechanically: Dropping the shotgun is a free action, drawing the 38 is an action as is shooting so he’ll take a -2 penalty.  In addition the thug has light cover from a side table against the wall for another -1.  Jack rolls his Shooting die of d6 and wild d6 and gets a 6 and a 1.  The 6 explodes for a 11.  -1 for the cover and -2 for the multiple actions and he has an 8.  A success and a raise.  He rolls his damage 2d6-1+1d6 and ends up with a 1, 6, 3.  The 6 explodes and adds another 4 for 14 damage.  The thug has a toughness of 6 so it’s a success and two raises.

GM: “You lean around the edge of the door frame, pulling your pistol and put a bullet into a thug’s left eye as he’s peeking around a table with a smoking pistol in his hand.  The head snaps back and the thug drops bonelessly to the ground.  You hear a loud voice a little hysterical, “ [bleep]ammit, what the [bleep] is going on out there!?  Tommy if you guys are [bleep] ing around Shay is going to [bleep] ing kill you!  If I don’t do it first!”

Pete: When I can go again, I’m going to try and shake off the Shaken status.”

GM: “Mary Alice?”

Mary Alice: “I’m good, I switch back to covering the door.”

GM: “Okay Pete go ahead.”

Pete: “I tell myself it’s only a scratch.”
Mechanically: Pete rolls a spirit check using a d4 and wild d6 and gets a 4 and 4.  The d4 explodes with another 4 and then a 3.  For a total of 11 vs 4.  This is a success and a raise so he easily gathers his courage and can act normally on his turn.  With only a success he would have eliminated the Shaken condition but would have had to spend the whole turn doing it.

GM: “Great roll. You can act normally, what are you going to do?”

Pete: “Grab the tommy gun and head back to the doorway.”
Mechanically: Pete is going to Run and grab the tommy gun during his run.  This is an Agility test at -2 for the multiple action.  He rolls a d8 Agility and d6 wild and gets a 6 and 3.  6-2 or 4 vs 4 and grabs the gun without slowing down and makes it back to the door.

GM: “The voice is getting louder, ‘What in the [bleep] is going on?!’. What are you going to do?”

Pete: “I’m going to unload the tommy gun in a line across the wall, same way I was going to with the pistols.”

GM: “Okay you have a couple of options.  You can use the weapons rate of fire of 3 to shoot three times which uses 9 bullets as actual attack options.  The automatic fire incurs a -2 penalty.  Or you can go with suppressive fire which shoots 5 bullets per shot so you’d burn 15 bullets.  The suppressive fire will make anyone inside have to roll to avoid being shaken.   With the aimed bursts you’ll get to make 3 shooting rolls to hit where you want.  With suppressive fire you only roll once.”

Pete: “Suppressive fire it is then.  Rat-ta-ta-ta-tat!”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 for shooting at -2 for automatic fire and gets a 2 and a 1.

Pete: “Oh that sucks.  I can use a Benny to re-roll that right?”

GM: “Sure.”

Pete: “Cool, here’s the chip. Let’s try this again.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 and gets a 1 and a 6.  The six explodes and he gets another 2 for a total of 8 on his to hit roll.  -2 for automatic fire and he ends up with a 6 versus 4.

GM: “You stitch a line of bullets about head high angled up across the wall, splinters and wood go flying as gun smoke clouds the room and shells tinkle to the floor.  From inside the room you hear two voices screaming, “ [bleeeeeep] !” and the clatter of light furniture.  Can you roll damage for me?”

Mechanically: The GM rolls a Spirit test for the two thugs he knows are in the room.  They both get a +4 for being in the equivalent of pitch darkness or heavy cover since the player can’t see them but the walls provide little physical cover and the spray of bullets and wood and debris is bound to be a little unnerving.  The thugs roll a 3 and a 1 between them.  The three is enough to not be shaken but the 1 unfortunately means one of the thugs is actually hit by a bullet.

Edit: Just to clarify, Rose doesn’t make the same Spirit check as Pete was carefully shooting an angle to avoid killing anyone, unfortunately for the thug, a slug ricocheted and ripped through his carotid artery.  Also I didn’t want Rose to die as long as the player made their attack roll. It’s one of those Fudge things that GM’s do to keep a story moving with the intent rather than the reality.

Pete: “That would be the same as my pistol right since they use the same ammo?  Do I get anything extra for the automatic fire?”

GM: “Right, 2d6+1-3 for the wall you’re shooting through absorbing some of the damage and no on the extra .  Automatic weapons let you shoot more things per turn than semi-automatics or revolvers, that’s their schtick.”

Pete: “Cool.”
Mechanically: Rolls 2d6+1 and gets a 6 and a 2.  The 6 explodes and gets a 4 so 6+2+4+1 -3 = 10 damage.  Against the thug’s toughness of 6 so a success and a raise and the thug takes one wound.

GM: “You hear an exclamation from inside the room, ‘O [bleep] , Will you okay, Will!?’ and no one responds back. The first voice screams out, ‘Whoever the [bleep]you are, I got a dame in here!  You’re gonna let me walk outta here or I put one right between her pretty brown eyes!  Tell him sister!’ and you hear the sound of a loud slap and a female cry from inside. ‘What’s it gonna be, I walk or she dies!”

Mary Alice: “We gotta move quick, sub machine gun Charlie there probably has the thugs downstairs running this way right now.”

Jack: “Danger Inc. doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Pete: “There a receptionist desk?”

GM: “Yes, dark wood, probably oak or cherry that makes a semi circle to the right of the door you’re standing in front of.  There’s another door behind it that’s partially open although dark, only some light from the outside coming in through a window.”

Pete: “Great, I shoot over to it and duck behind it.  You two let him walk, as soon as he goes past me I rise up and put one in his brain pan, he drops, we save the girl and escape down the fire escape.”

GM: “Ding!  The elevator at the far end of the hall dings and you see the needle heading backwards from 5 down.  Someone’s obviously called it down.”

Pete: “That tears it.  On the plans or when we were outside were there ledges running around the building?

GM: “Yes, maybe a foot wide below each window.”

Pete: “Okay we have a plan.  You take the hand cannon and set up in front of the elevator, doors open you pull both triggers and lay waste to everything in the elevator.   Mary Alice you keep this mug talking.  I go through that room and around the ledge and nail the creep from the window.  We save the girl and save the world. Or at least this little part of it.  Easy peezy.”

[Edit: As pointed out to me, this would be a possible place to award a Benny to Pete for coming up with a fairly good idea.  Bennies are the life blood of Wild Cards apparently and the reason they manage to stay alive against insane odds.]

Mary Alice: “Ummm.”

Pete: “No it’ll work, I got an angle.”

Jack: “Okay big shot, I break open the shotgun just to double check and head down the hall, I’m going to set up in doorway close to the elevator and when the doors open if who ever’s in there has hardware in their hands I’m blowing them away.”

Pete: “I’m off.  Mary Alice, here.  I toss her the Thompson and pull out one 45 and swap in my last full clip for the one with three shots left.  What’s that leave me, a 5 and a 7  in the guns and a 5 and a 3 in my pocket.  I move over to the room and check the windows.  If they open I give her the high sign and go out on the ledge and down to the other room.”

Mary Alice: “I call out, ‘Let the girl go now and you can walk away.  No harm no foul.’”

Thug: The voice inside sounds surprised, “A [bleep]ing dame?  What the [bleep]?”

GM: “Mary Alice you see Pete wave and then step out through the window.”

Mary Alice: “Watch the language boyo, there’s a lady present!  I’ll make the offer one more time.  Let the girl go, step out of the room without a gat in your hand and you can walk away from this.  Make us come in there after you and you’ll be dancing in the wind before you know it.”

Thug: “No [bleep]ing way.  You cops?!”

Mary Alice: “Boyo you done brought down the  might of the U.S. government on you.  You really don’t want us coming in there.  I can guarantee you, you’ll leave this place feet first if we do.”

GM: “Jack the elevator has stopped on the bottom floor. It took about 60 seconds to reach the bottom.”

Jack: “I tell Mary Alice to hurry it up.”

GM: “Pete give me a Agility check at +2, there’s plenty of carvings and stonework to hold onto.  You make it out on the ledge and need to work your way around to the other window.”

Pete: “Trying to be as careful as I can I edge down that way.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and d6 for agility and gets a 7 and a 3.  For a total of 7+2 or 9.  Success and a raise.

GM: “You swiftly and smoothly move down the ledge and make it to the window.  You see a body on the floor with a spreading pool of blood coming out of it.  A thug is standing next to a desk chair that has a woman tied to it.  He’s facing the door and has a gun aimed in her general direction.”

Pete: “I give it a moment, taking aim through the glass at him.  I’ll give him two rounds watching the gun if it points away from the girl I’ll take the shot.  If two rounds go by I’ll take it anyway.”

GM: “Cool, okay you’ve got your pistol aimed at his back and are holding your action.  Mary Alice?”

Mary Alice: “I keep him talking, I want him focused on me.”

GM: “Excellent!  Jack, after a few moments stopped the elevator starts to climb up toward you.  It’ll be here in maybe a minute or a little longer, it’s not an express elevator by any stretch.”

Jack: “I’m ready, kneeling down in the doorway with the sawed off aimed at the elevator.  I’ve got two more rounds set up on the floor next to me ready to grab and reload.”

GM: “Pete as Mary Alice talks with the thug and he replies back he points his gun toward the wall with his head cocked.  Looks like he’s trying to figure out where she is so he can make a shot of his own.”

Pete: “I nail the  [bleep].  Double tap him in the center of the back.” 
Mechanically: Rolls a d8 and a d6 at a +1 for the double tap and +2 for the Aim and gets a 6 and a 5.  6+1+2 is a 9 so a success and raise.  2d6+1+1+1d6 for the damage. 2+5+3+1+1 or 12 damage versus 6 Toughness.  A success and a Raise.

GM: “You put two into his back, he jerks and his pistol goes off sending a round through the wall as he falls.   Mary Alice a bullet explodes through the wall and embeds itself in the floor in front of you followed by a loud thump.”

Mary Alice: “I swear. Loudly. Then call out, ‘Pete?!’”

Pete: “‘Got him M.A.!  Get in here!’  I go through the window and get out my knife, rule number 9 you know and cut the girl loose.”

GM: “Mary Alice you open the door to spot a pretty but terrified girl in a chair and Pete cutting her free of her ropes.”

Mary Alice: “Come on, we’ve got to move, elevators on it’s way!”

Pete: “Right, come on toots, we’re getting you out of here.”

GM: “The girl rises or tries to rise and would have fallen if you hadn’t caught her.  She’s been tied so long she’s not very mobile and has stiffened up.”

Pete: “No problem.  I toss her over my shoulder and we move out.”

GM: “You get to the hall, the elevator is about halfway up and should be here in about 30 seconds.”

Pete: “Change in plans, we go back down the tunnel and escape through the laundry.”

Mary Alice: “Do I think the girl can make it?”

GM: “Climbing down five stories of slimy ladder?  Doubtful without time to recover.”

Pete: “Okay back to the original plan. Wait a minute.  I toss the girl off to Mary Alice and run down the hall to the elevator and pry the doors open.”

GM: “Okay, Jack you see Pete race past you as the elevator signals it’s approaching floor 4.  Pete give me a straight strength check.”

Pete: “I jam my prybar into the gap in the doors and pry hard.”
Mechanically: d8 for strength and d6 for wild yields a 2 and a 1.

GM: “The door’s safety latch defies you and it doesn’t open.”

Mary Alice: “What was your plan there braniac?”

Pete: “Doors open should kick off the safety system and cause the elevator to stop.  We should have wedged the doors open from the start.  Hindsight and all that. Okay let’s go back to Plan A and just kill the bastards.  I motion Mary Alice to move the girl back into the office and I find a spot.  Hey are there any tables in the hall?”

GM: “There’s a little wooden table, the kind they put flowers or a vase on near the elevator doors.”

Pete: “I grab that and get in a door way.  As soon as the door opens I’m going to throw it as hard as I can into the elevator, should buy us some reaction time.”

GM: “Okay that would be an opposed Agility combat trick but that only effects their Parry defense, won’t make any difference in your ability to shoot them.”

Pete: “Oh.  Okay let’s just stick with Plan A.”

Jack: “I like it, simple, direct, no complications.”

GM: “The elevator dings and the door opens.  Perception checks please?”

Pete: “Got a 7.”

Jack: “A 5.”

GM: “Okay as the door opens you both see it has one male in it.  He has a 45 in his fist.  He spots you and starts to duck. Everyone including the thug had a Held action so let’s draw initiative.”
Mechanically: Three cards are shuffled out and Jack gets a 10C, Pete gets a 4H and the Thug gets a 8H so the order is Jack, Thug, Pete.

Jack: “I give him both barrels. BLAM BLAM!”

GM: “Okay with a double barred shotgun you can actually give him both barrels as a single shooting roll and both hit or miss together or you can give him two shots with two rolls.  That would incur a -2 penalty for two actions but the shotgun gives you a +2 bonus.

Jack: “Both barrels at once.  I don’t take kindly to thugs that manhandle women.”
Mechanically: Shooting dice of d6 and d6 at a +2 due to the shotgun bonus and rolls a 5 and a 4 for a total of 7.  Both barrels hit the thug.  Close range damage is 3d6 per hit or 6d6 in this case.  Jack gets a 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 3 or 14 damage versus toughness of 6.  A success and two raises.  [Edit: This is wrong.  The target takes two attacks of 3d6.  In this instance the first 3+2+1 or 6 would Shake the thug and the second 3+2+3 or 8 would in fact cause a wound and kill him since he's an Extra.  Same results but incorrectly figured in the original text]

GM: “The thug is literally cut in half as both loads of buckshot rip through his torso spraying the back of the elevator in gore.  The body parts waver for a moment before hitting the floor of the elevator with a wet squicky noise.”

Pete: “Ewwww.”

Mary Alice: “There’s at least two more downstairs somewhere, the ones from the car maybe. Unless this guy was too stupid to signal them?”

Jack: “Do we take that chance?”

Pete: “Momma said never take a chance you didn’t have to.”

Mary Alice: “I ask the girl how she’s doing.  Can she walk?”

Girl: “I think I can make it.  Oh my god why is this happening.”

Pete: “Don’t you worry your pretty little head sugar pie.  If we think she can make it, we go back down the ladder?”

GM: “With someone sticking close to her she can probably make it.”

Jack: “I call shotgun! Literally…”

GM: “Okay you exit the floor back through the maintenance tunnel, Jack you hang close to the girl going down right below her keeping her steady and secure.  You make it back through the laundry and the street appears to be clear.”

Jack: “I stick close to the girl as we run across the street and down to the car. I sling the shotgun back under my coat and keep my 38 handy.”

Pete: “Crap, I forgot the Thompson.”

Mary Alice: “You mean this one?”

Pete: “Good girl!”

GM: “You make it to your car, Shank’s sitting in the drivers seat with the engine revving. Jack you pile in beside him and Pete, Mary Alice and Rose squeeze into the back seat with the girl in the middle. As he pulls out and heads down the street there’s a flash of headlights behind you as a car comes around the corner.”

Shank: “Maybe trouble boss. Let me try some things.”

GM: “Shank takes a few turns but the headlights stay behind you and then fire rips through the night as someone unloads a machine gun on you from the car behind.”

Pete: “Step on it!”

Shank: “You got it boss! He floors the gas and the car leaps ahead with a roar of the mighty straight six engine.”

GM: “You’re at medium range from the car behind this puts you at a range of 3.  If you get more than 10 away from the pursuit you escape. We pull cards for initiative and Shank gets a 10H and the bad guys get a JD.”

Thugs: “They step on the gas themselves and close the distance to 2 (10 squares, 50′).  A guy leaning out the window opens fire again and the bullets rip through the air around the car but don’t hit anything.”
Mechanically: Driver rolls a d8 for Driving and gets a 4 or a Success and closes the distance by one increment.  The passenger opens fire with a shooting die of d6 taking one burst rather than going full auto, -2 for an unstable platform and rolls a 4 for a total of 2.

Shank: “Whips the car around a corner, trying to cost them some ground but the thugs keep right on their tail.”
Mechanically: Rolls a d10 for Driving and gets a 2 which fails and there’s no change.

Pete: “‘Mary Alice if I may?’  I take the tommy gun and shoot back full auto.”
Mechanically: The tommy gun has a rate of fire of 3 on fully auto so Pete rolls his shooting die three times and one wild die.  He’s going to be at -2 for the unstable platform and -2 for full auto.  Rolls a 7, 6, 5 and 2.  At -4 he misses with all three bursts.

Pete: “Not good.  I’m going to spend a Benny to re-roll my attack.”

GM: “You’ve already spent three bennies, you’re out.”

Mary Alice: “I yell at him to make his shots count, that last shot came too close! I give him a Benny to try again.”
Mechanically: Mary Alice has the Common Bond Edge which allows her to give her Bennies to another member of the group.

Pete: “Sweet, I remember to take careful aim, not wanting to see Mary Alice get shot.”
Mechanically: He rolls again, a d8 for each shot and a d6 wild with much better results.  5, 8, 8, 4.  Two of the shots aced or exploded and he ends up with attack rolls of 5, 14, 13, 4.  At -4 he has a 1, 10, 9 as his three attack rolls.  1 miss and 2 critical hits.  He rolls damage rolls of 2d6+1+1d6 (base plus critical bonus) twice. First burst nets him a 6, 6, 5.  The two sixes explode for a 5 and a 1 for a total of 6+6+5+5+1+1 or 24 damage.  The second attack also starts with a 2d6+1+1d6 and yields a 1, 2, 4 +1 for 8 damage.
The bad guys’ vehicle has a toughness of 10. The Thompson negates 1 point of armour so it has a functional toughness of 9.  The second shot at 8 damage has no effect.  The first shot at 24 damage gets a success and 3 raises. 
The driver of the other car has to make a driving skill roll at -3 due to the 3 wounds the car has taken and the car has to roll on the critical hits chart three times, once for each wound.  The driver rolls a d8 and gets a 3 for a total of negative one and the car goes Out of Control.  The out of control result is a 7 and the skids 1 square to the side but otherwise takes no ill effects.  The critical hit results are 8,8 and 9.  Two hits to the chassis with no special effects.  The 9 indicates one of the passengers is hit. The damage is rerolled and yields a total of 18 damage, (2d6+1+1d6) 6+5+1+4+2.  A d6 to randomly determine who is hit results in the guy leaning out the window.

GM: “You stitch a line of holes across the front of the car chasing you and sparks fly. A burst of bullets punch through the throat and head of the guy leaning out the window shooting at you and the gun drops to the ground.  As the driver jinks the car to the right it tosses the body out through the door and goes flying into a plate glass window.  The car is shooting steam or smoke from under the hood where your bullets punched through the body.”

Jack: “I stick the double barrel out the other side and blast him with both barrels.”
Mechanically: +2 to Shooting for the shotgun, -2 for unstable platform.  The range is 2 with an increment of 5 so 10 squares away putting it in the Medium range for the shotgun for -2 to hit.   Jack rolls a d6 and a d6 and gets a 2 and a 1 or 2+2-2-2 or 0.  Missed.

Jack: “I spend a benny and try it again.”
Mechanically: Rolls d6 and d6 and gets a 1 and a 6, explosion to 8 on the attack roll with a total penalty of -2 for a 6 attack roll versus a 4.  He gets a hit.  He rolls damage of 2d6 + 2d6 (both barrels at medium range) and gets a 1, 1, 6, 5.  The 6 explodes and totals 7.  1+1+7+5 = 14 damage.  That’s a success and a raise on damage.  This causes the car to take a wound putting it at 4.  This wrecks the car and the driver has to make an out of control check at -4 and the car takes a critical hit as well.  The driver rolls a d8-4 and gets an 8 which explodes to a total of 12.  He gets a success and a raise and easily manages to drive the car to a safe stop.  The critical hit roll is a 3 and indicates the engine is severely damaged  not that it matters since the car’s been Wrecked at this point from taking four wounds. [Edit: This is wrong like the guy in the elevator.  The damage would have been one attack of 2 against the cars defense and another one of 12 against the cars defense of 10.  As a result the car chase would have continued on for at least another round or three.]

GM: “Two barrels of buckshot blow through the radiator of the car and destroy several portions of the engine and the car shudders and clanks as the engine eats itself.  The driver is good though and pulls the car to stop without wrecking it.  He steps out and stares at you as you recede off into the distance.”

Mary Alice: “Great they have our tag.”

Shank: “No boss, seems it fell off while we was out for a drive this evening.  Sorry ’bout that, I’ll get them screws fixed real soon like.”

Mary Alice: “For shame!  But I guess we can let it slip this time.”

Pete: “I check on the girl, ‘hey how you doing?’”

GM: “She’s shaken up as you can imagine but isn’t physically harmed. She seems ready to fall asleep she’s so tired and worn out.”

Jack: “Shank, pull over and get the plate back on, we don’t want to get stopped by the cops, I don’t want anyone noticing us tonight then let’s swing out to Woodville and deliver the package to her family.”

Pete: “When we stop to put on the plate, I get the ammo box out of the back and make sure everyone’s topped off including the Thompson.”

GM: “Okay, Shank finds an alley to pull into and puts the license plate back on the car and checks it for damage finding one bullet hole in the back of one of the quarter panels.  He tells you there’s not much he can do about it now but back at the office garage he can hammer it back out and put a bit of paint over it and it won’t be obvious.  Pete refills his clips and the thompson and hands a few shells to Jack for his shotgun.  Mary Alice provides a shoulder for the girl who quickly is out like a light.
The drive out to exclusive suburb of Woodville is uneventful, traffic is light and no one seems to pay you any attention.  Arriving at the house, even at this late hour, a valet exits the house as you pull up into the roundabout.  Spotting the girl he hurries forward and helps you with her and ushers you into the house where she’s whisked away by the housekeeper and a maid even as Reginald Granger, your client is roused from bed.
You’re taken to the study, a lavish affair of dark woods and over stuffed leather arm chairs with bookcases filled with tomes that are probably more window dressing than anything where you meet with your client.
Mr. Granger is overjoyed to have his daughter back safe and sound and promises to have an agent at your doorstep first thing in the morning to settle your accounts.”

The case of the Missing Heiress can be considered closed successfully.

Of course the repercussions of taking down several of the O’Toole gang if the group is fingered in the rescue might make for an interesting time of it in the future.

Bodies, hundreds of them, most long dead it looked like from their appearance lay scattered, ripped and torn on grounds around the city walls. The walls of the city beyond were breached in several places but the holes were filled and blocked with everything handy from what he could see.  Wagons, push carts, crates, timbers and the rubble of the walls themselves were piled high in the breaches.   The main gates lay twisted and shattered but what looked like ship timbers filled the opening.  There was a sudden pop of light and sigils flared along the walls, twisting red arcane symbols floating above the walls that reminded him of the barrier wardings that Utha had cast in her lair.

The others joined him atop the hill each pausing to stare at the battlefield in silence for several moments.  The bodies lay sprawled, filled with arrows, blasted and burnt by fire or other forces.  They covered a wide spectrum, what were obviously farmers and peasants mixed with hobgoblins and goblins and even larger creatures as here and there a hill giant formed a large mound of dead flesh. 

Most appeared to have been dead for days even weeks, at odds with the time of length the group had been out of the city, obviously foul magics were at work here and the undead army they’d feared for such a long time had materialized, only in their absence.

“What do you make of those?” Torel asked Biminey as the strange symbols flickered into visibility atop the walls of the city. 

The artificer narrowed his senses, reaching out toward the city with that inner force that gave his creations life. His voice was uncertain when he finally spoke, “They’re wardings and artificer origin but they’re… odd.  I get a sense of great age about them but they’re weak, weakening even, running down.”

Stak spoke up, “Those figures on the walls, they’re townies.  I can see the Watch and the Anvil mercs up there along with normal folk.  They’re armed but just barely, a lot of fishing spears and table legs by the look of it.”

Everyone glanced at Stak and then at the minuscule forms, little more than dots in the distance. Visra said, a little incredulously, “You can tell that?”

In answer Stak held up his left hand, the stylized eagle beak running up his forearm from the swirled red patterns across his hand.

T’Balktu grunted, “So we won.”

The avenger shrugged, “Looks like.  Let’s get down there and find out what’s going on.”

The group picked their way through the corpses, the stench even worse close up and it was obvious that all the combatants had already been dead by the time they dropped on this battlefield at least.  The wounds were mostly dry or oozed a black ichor rather than the vats of blood that should have been covering the ground.

A crowd gathered on the walls as they approached and Torel made sure the city standard was unfurled and visible.  A small cheer went up from inside as they made their way closer.

The Captain, his left arm held in a sling next to his body along with Sargent Driskul met them atop the barricade filling the gap where the main gates had been. 

Stak nodded at the upraised eyebrow of the grizzled warrior, holding up his left hand, displaying the red tattoo of the Soul Eaters.  The Sergeant blinked then slowly nodded back.

“Hope we get a better reception than these got, Captain.” Biminey joked as they stopped at the base of the rubble.

“Depends on what news you have to give me.  Come on, Council wants you.  Sergent!”

Driskul glanced behind, “Pyotr and Jenna, get that ladder up here and over the side.  The rest of you lot, get back to your gods damned posts.  Move it or you’ll be defending this wall from outside!”

A long wood ladder came clattering down and quickly the group went up it and over the barricade.  The scene inside was grim, the citizens mixing with Watch and Anvil mercenaries alike atop the wall.   The large courtyard inside, that typically held all manner of carts and vendors was torn up, the cobblestones ripped and torn in a huge circle that encompassed easily a 30 yards across.  Biminey and Visra both flinched at the magic residue lingering over the circle, magic twisted and broken in feeling.

“What happened?” Visra asked holding out a hand, feeling the energies that lay in fragments over the courtyard.

The Captain shot her a look, “Funnel cloud sprung up, ripped up the cobblestones in that circle.  Priests say that let them use it as a summoning circle and creatures poured into the city.  We beat’em but it cost us.  It costs us a lot.  Bodies are piling up in a couple of warehouses on the docks waiting burial.  Same thing happened in four different spots around the city at roughly the same time, same day you left.  That night, an army of undead showed up.  We almost went under but then those showed up” he said jerking a thumb at the flickering wardings, “and the bodies all dropped like someone had cut their strings.”

“Where’d the wardings come from?” Biminey asked.

Captain shrugged, “Not sure on that one, Eris folk weren’t too clear, all I got out of it was they disrupt whatever powers the enemy is using to power the undead.  Surprised you made it through, every time I sent a squad out to try to destroy the bodies they roused long enough to drag them down or force them to retreat.”

Torel glanced up at the standard he held in his left hand and pursed his lips in contemplation.

“We’ll go over everything at the Temple, the Eris priests say we shouldn’t talk in the open, the rain can act as an extension of the enemy they say.  Temple’s supposed to be shielded from it.”

Image Credits

The campaign is/was designed to end at level 10 as our doughty heroes enter the Paragon tier of play after having faced the regional Big Bad.  I have some thoughts on season two that should be entertaining for the players and take the play in a new direction.

In the interim I’m going to be taking a look at Savage Worlds with a, as usual, home brew setting.  It’ll be a horror campaign with crazed asylum escapees, dark deeds and strange symbols inscribed on the victims although with the usual goat skin leggings crew making an appearance.

Savage Worlds is a ‘light’ game system with a decided different take on things.  The fans (dare I say fanbois?) are pretty rabid about the system but then so are [insert game system here] fans typically.  Myself I like to think I look at the good points of a system and modify the points I don’t like to something I do.  Rarely do I just hate on a system, if you’re having fun with it, then it’s a good system, it just might not be good for me.  Also rarely do I take any game system as written as a System From On High and the rules are sacrosanct and never to be trifled with.  Any reasonably complex system can always (with)stand change.

Anyway, one thing I’m not thrilled with in Savage Worlds is the mandatory need for multiple dice.  With a blind player, dice can be an issue.  Right now since we only use a d20 I wrote a audible dice roller for the player such that he just presses a button and rolls a dice and the results are spoken out loud.  But with Savage Worlds, we’re looking at sequences like “Okay to shoot him, roll a d8 and a d6.  Okay the d8 got an 8 so roll it again.  Okay you ended up with 13 total.  That’s a hit plus a raise so your pistol is going to do 2d6-1 damage and an extra 1d6 for the raise.  One of the dice got a 6, roll it again and add the total.”

That kind of sequence is far from unusual with this system.  It’s only when you can’t see the dice that it becomes a significant issue. Not a game breaker but significant.

Another thing with Savage worlds is it falls back to the “My turn?  I hit him with my bat / shoot him with my pistol.” as the basic go-to option for combat.  Not good or bad in and of itself but it will be interesting in seeing how things go after having a laundry list of things you can do combat with 4th Edition.  Yes I know there are “Trick Maneuvers” you can do in Savage Worlds but those really only add one option, “Opposed check to get a +2 to hit” basically.

On the plus side you have a natural combat speed up since the possible options are a…bit… less to choose from mechanically.

One thing that sticks out to me at first glance as I go over character creation  about Savage Worlds RAW is that Agility is King with a huge effing  K.   Agility influences the most skills, determines your skill at hitting with every possible attack as well as determines how hard you are to hit.  Strength’s only function is to add damage to melee hits and let you carry more.  There’s but a single skill associated with it, Agility has something like 10 skills and Smarts 9′ish.* (see below)  which makes the ‘dex monkey’ or ‘wizard’ cock of the walk in combat by far.

Vigor, the semi equivalent of constitution has no skills.  With this system the strong hero pretty much sucks as a character concept.  He either has to spend double the points to keep his Agility high compared to the Agile or Smart character or he has a huge skill cost penalty, has trouble hitting things and is easily hit.  Strength doesn’t even let him absorb damage better, that’s the demesne of Vigor.  So a melee fighter has to raise three skills, Agility, Vigor, and Strength, where as a ranged fighter only needs Agility and Vigor and a caster typically only Smarts and Vigor or Spirit and Vigor.  All three of them can be equally tough but to be equally effective the melee fighter has to spend 33% more resources than the others.

The biggest source of the problem is that perhaps too much is tied in with Agility.   It heavily influences a characters ability to hit with Melee, Ranged and Thrown weapons by making those with low agility have to spend more points in those skills (double the cost) as well as making them take more damage.

In 4th Edition they avoid the problem by strictly tying Strength to Melee and Agility(Dexterity) to Ranged attacks.  Perhaps it might sense to try it here as well by simply moving Fighting over under Strength?   But then we screw with the swashbuckler character concept.  4th Edition avoids that issue by simply using Str or Dex as attack modifiers by class power, only the basic attacks are strictly Str and Dex based per Melee and Ranged.   A rogue could be using Dex to stab you with a knife.

Ahh tis a conundrum.

* – House Rule Changes (so far) –

• Combined Swimming, Climbing into Athletics under Strength
• Combined Survival and Tracking into Nature
• Changed Notice to Perception
• Changed Persuasion to Diplomacy
• Changed Lockpicking into Thievery and move Pickpockets from Stealth into it.
• Added Insight Skill

With the blood of one of his shaman’s staining his rugs, Nightwalker bids the group good night and they sleep in one of the hobgoblin tents.  Rousing in the morning they set off on a hunting / bait trip taking a small hunting party of hobgoblins with them.

A herd of Dark Horns or One Horns attacks them, 5 of the beasts sweeping over a rise and charging into the middle of them.  The creatures focus on the hobgoblins during the initial wave but swiftly engage the players as it’s painfully obvious that they, the dark horns, are suddenly vulnerable to the blade and edge of their foes unlike the past.

The hobgoblins are killed but the party emerges victorious.  With incredible skills at combat they manage to prevent not one but two of the dark horns from fleeing the combat at the last possible second with an amazing throw of a tanglefoot bag by T’Balktu and a foot race performed by Visra and Biminey after the last one.  [Actions points for the win here, without them at least one if not both of the one horns would have escaped and then been in the battle with the Hunter]

The group cuts the three foot dark horns from the creature’s and stows them away as proof of the encounter and collects the personal effects of the hobgoblins that fell in battle and then burn the corpses.

Stak goes ahead to determine the tracks and see where they lead.  He overhears two voices, hard to pinpoint speaking the toungue of the dragons.  The voices refer to each other as sister and from the snippet of conversation Stak comes away with the thought that they do not like the Spirithunter, referring to him as a trespasser on their domain.  They also reference the group, “they bear that which can give us the true death sister.” before he catches a glimpse of a shrouded shape, seen more by displaced air than sight.  A dragon like shape although with two heads.

They do not travel far before they find themselves in a clearing, dimly lit, dimmer than the day’s light would make it seem.

[Although no one remarked on the coincidence of without searching they ran into the Hunter, it was because he was twisting reality to bring the two of them together.]

Diplomatic talks fail rather quickly and the battle is joined.  The hunter unleashes his deadly bow shots on the party, never missing while his flayed bulls and a single dark horn engage them in melee.  The bulls although formidable proved to be a mere roadblock in the group’s path as they engage the hunter.

The hunter, although he could have fled the battle, elected to stay.  His chaotic nature or a lust for vengeance against the group that has killed his ‘children’ or a sense of invincibility may have driven him to his death.  Or perhaps something else entirely.

The group recovers the Hunter’s bow, Fatebringer.  A gleaming black greatbow with strange properties.  As well as the hunter’s cloak which blends one in with the surroundings as well as for a momentary time can render one invisible completely.

[This encounter could have actually ended without a fight if the party had taken the right tack with the hunter and they could have steered to other pastures.  But "Enough talk!" and the fight was on.]

They head back with their trophies to the Soul Eater tribe and there was much rejoicing, well as much as a on the brink of starving group can rejoice.  NIghtwalker brings them into his sacred tent and totems are set up around the edges.  He tells the group that for their deeds they are being made honorary members of the tribe and can elect to take a totem creature.   Each member does and as they touch one of the totems the red dye on the wood smoothly curls up and out over their left hands and halfway up their forearm, then recedes leaving behind a abstract tattoo that twines about their skin.    The tattoos lend a minor touch of the creatures power to the members of the group.  T’balktu gains the strength of the ox which lets him ignore the hindering weight of his armour, Stak gains the vision of the eagle allowing him to see that which might be missed, Visra gains the silent stealth of the hunting owl that glides on soundless wings before grabbnig its prey, Torel gains the wolves ability to recover from damage that would kill most creatures and Biminey gains the slyness of the fox that lets it slip through a pack of dogs without getting bitten.

[The players did not know the effects of the tattoo's before making their choices.  Mechanically they gained the following - T'balktu isn't subject to armour penalties to skill checks or movement, Stak makes two perception rolls and keeps the highest any time he needs to make one, Visra can make two stealth checks and keep the highest, Torel recovers +2 hit points when he spends a surge and Biminey can dodge one opportunity attack that he might incur during his movement.   These were intended as cool features for the players as well as make them stand out a little more.]

After the ceremony they talk with Nightwalker about their next steps and the Soul Eaters are going to send out messengers to cease hostilities against the town and outlying settlements while the group seeks the missing knowledge that holds the ka or soul of the Strongest Foe.  Biminey translates that as a Book that holds Hash’Kar’s true name.  He mistakenly assumes it’s the amulet he’s been holding onto these long months and hauls it out of its warded and protecting spot in his heavy flail.  Nightwalker looks puzzled, “Why would you give me this?” and then all the shamans keeping watch in the spiritworld start having siezers, muttering or crying out that “He’s coming!”

Three of the spiritwatchers manage to rally but one of them is possessed and Nightwalker is forced to kill him before the Strongest Foe can take over and manifest. But not before the Strongest Foe, King Hash’Kar, chaosborn again, knows what it is that Biminey was hiding, knows that the group has the key that could unlock his doom.

[It was missed during this session by everyone but the Hobgoblins kind of ate the group's horses after they left on the hunting trip.  I completely forgot to mention it an no one else made any note of the fact that they were missing.]

They pack up and rapid travel back to the city of Larkson.  Nightwalker doesn’t seem to happy with them, he’s lost two of his shaman brothers because of the party although he does realize that he’d of likely lost them all if the party hadn’t of shown up and killed the hunter. [Or did they?] After two days travel they run into Liloth in her travel form who unleashes a prince of the abyss on them, a minor one admittedly but still.  The beast almost destroys T’Balktu several times but the persevering healing of Biminey keeps the goliath alive and they destroy the deamon prince’s corporeal form sending its essence back to the abyss there to spend 66 years pulling its tattered form back together.

[This was a triggered encounter that's been pending for a long time awaiting the bad guys finding out the group has the amulet.  mechanically it's leveled up with the party as it waits its turn in the limelight]

The group arrives back at Larkson to find it has been under attack, the walls have been breached in several places as well as the main gates.  Bodies of animated corpses litter the grounds in front of the walls but the city still holds.   The gaps have been blocked with makeshift barricades and strange wardings flicker along the walls.

The group makes it way down through the grisly battlefield, the stench of long dead flesh strong and harsh, something finally able to overthrow the smell of fish that lay about the town.

As they clamber over the rubble and littler that block the main gate we leave our heroes to find out exactly what happened in future sessions.

[Overall this was a little collapses as I want to get to the season ender in the next two sessions as Torel is going to be unavailable for awhile after that so I'm going to compress my kind of planned out 3 or 4 sessions worth of gaming into the next two but I think it'll still be coherent and logical progression.

For the curious Fatebringer has the following stats:  Greatbow - Properties: On critical hit the target is restrained.  Critical damage: 3d8.  On a miss the wielder gains +1 to hit to a maximum of +4.  The bonus goes away once the wielder hits the target or switches to a new target.

Hunter's Cloak - Property: +3 to Stealth skill.  Power - Daily - Minor action: Gain invisibility until the end of your next turn.  The invisibility is lost if you attack or are hit by an attack. ]

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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 collect