[Fantasy] Terrell "War Horce" Polarmug

This is the first of the characters from my new Savage Fantasy game.  The player who built him seems very happy with him, though I admit that I'd make a few adjustments if the character was mine.  Still, the build makes for a very combat focused brute. He can dish out some solid attacks and good damage, and with his high Toughness and Armor value, he's able to take a few hits as well.  Plus, he's illiterate and dumb as a stump -- which I must admit is always kind of fun to play. A nice twist I think is the Arcane Resistance -- an Edge that can really give a bad day to an adversarial wizard.  

Terrel "Warr Horce" Polarmug (WC)
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Rank: Seasoned (20XP)

Attributes:
Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d10, Vigor d8

Derived Characteristics:
Pace: 6+1d6"
Charisma: -3
Parry: 6 (Base 7, Maul [-1]])
Toughness: 10 (Base 6, Brawny [+1], Plate Armor [+3])

Skills:
Athletics d4, Fighting d10 (+1), Healing d4, Intimidate d6, Notice d6, Riding d4, Survival d4

Edges:
Arcane Resistant, Brawny, Frenzy, Sweep, Trademark Weapon (Maul)

Hindrances:
One Eye ("At least its not in the middle of my forehead!")
Ugly ("I wasn't born this purdy.  I had to work at it!")
Illiterate ("I cant reed or rite.")

Gear:
Plate Armor w/ Helmet (3 Armor)
Maul
"Back Alley Dagger" - Magical (d4+1 Damage, +3 Fighting)
Potion of Detect Magic (5PP worth of Detect Arcana)

Savage Fantasy!

After a long break, I am gaming again!  Twice a month or so, a small group of us have gathered to play a Savage Fantasy game.  I'm excited about rolling some dice!  Ok, more seriously, it means I will have something to post again from time to time and I won't have to pine angrily over the other games I hear about that are being played all the time.  Grrrr.  

Because we aren't certain about adding new players or how frequently the game will end up meeting once we start (the plan is twice a month, but who knows!), the choice was for generic fantasy.  Well, as generic as I can run anyway.  In short, the idea is to keep it simple until we know how things are gonna roll in the long term.  Yeah, I'm cool with that.

We are using the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules as a base, with elements from the Fantasy Companion thrown in.  Other fantasy material may be added eventually, though since not everyone has the game books, once again, simplicity was the guideline.  Players opted to start running with Seasoned characters  (20xp) so they could have a little more freedom to build to a more developed concept.  

The first session involved the heroes escaping from bondage while en route to a prison camp and trekking into the swamps so they could pass south into a neighboring kingdom.  They came upon a cluster of old ruins in which a large group of Orcs were camping.  Instead of sneaking past, the heroes created a bit of chaos to split their focus and attention, and used the opportunity engage several of the Orcs on a far side of the camp.  

After taking the time flee as the Orcs regrouped, they emerged from the swamps into clear pastures and vast expanses of farmland.  A short walk later, they encountered farmers tending the fields, who pointed the way to town.  The town's elder was not too keen on hearing news of Orcs a short distance to the north, but after allowing the heroes a brief respite, asked them to retrace their steps in the company of a local woodsman.  It's there we hope to begin our next session. 

The current breakdown of characters is:

• A heavily armored warrior, more brawn than brains, with a big maul and a tiny vocabulary
• A shadowy thief skilled at assassinations and remaining generally unseen
• A psychic warrior monk seeking to find his place in the world
• A woodsman, scout, and animist nature priest who venerates both the generosity and callousness of nature

I'll have stats posted sometime soon.

Back from the Dead?

I can't believe it has been over a year since I've done anything here at A Bunch of Savages!  I had such plans, alas!  Honestly, I've barely gamed at all in the past year, and I've noticed that the less I am gaming, the less I am inclined to post any game related material.  Go figure.

Now, I'm hoping that will change.  I won't make any promises -- we've seen what that accomplished, ugh! -- but I will say that pretty much everything I had wanted to last year still exists in some form, and I have a few other things I'd like to explore.  Perhaps more importantly, I donated to the Interface Zero 2.0 project over at Kickstarter, which is coming to an end pretty soon.  They've funded a ton of good stretch goals, and I can't wait to see how it all pans out! If nothing else, I'll be reviewing some of the new material.

On a more serious note, some people have asked me about my FADS project, and yes, I still have it and with a little editing, I could post it easily enough.  My concern is that in the past year or so, a few Sci-Fi/Space Opera settings have entered the Savage Worlds arena, and I have to tell you, I haven't looked at any of them.  The last thing I want to do is post something that is basically an unintentional restatement of something else.  As it is, I'm concerned that FADS is already somewhat too similar to the system from the old Science Fiction Toolkit (out of which both the Future Perfect Ship Construction system and FADS were born, at least initially).

But hey, this site is not dead.  Something will show up eventually.

State of the Blog Address

Howdy Savages.  Its 2012 and already I've let a month go by without posting.  My bad.  I have a number of projects nearly completed.  Chief among these is a little starship generation system I call FADS - Fast And Dirty Starships.

In the course of poking through the crunchy bits of Future Perfect, I decided that I needed to cut a lot of the complexity back out from my ship designs to get back to Savage Worlds' FFF design philosophy.  However, Future Perfect was itself build around adding complexity -- so I decided to focus on streamlining what I had and spinning it off into a simple addition that would be compatible with the rules in Savage Worlds Deluxe.  Instead of a toolkit system, FADS offers up a handful of basic templates which are then modified according to the results of a few die rolls. Of course, there is no reason why it has to be random, so a GM could just as easily choose an option or two from the tables and customize a design as they see fit.  Overall, it is a lot easier and a lot faster than the ground up approach that my Ship Design Guide in Future Perfect was providing.

Below are two "Small Warships" made using random rolls in FADS.  As you can see, the results are markedly different from one another, but still essentially the same overall class of ship.  Neither will be mistaken for a fighter, a freighter, or a true, heavy battleship.

Mantis-Class Light Cruiser, Pursuit and Extraction Frigate
Type: Small Warship
Acc: 100  Top: 600  Handling: -1  Climb: +1
FTL:  Beacon, Basic Hyperdrive
Crew: 10  Hull: 51 (26)  Maintenance: +0
Ship Systems:
Basic Ship Computer with Astrogation and Ship Recognition Libraries; Atmospheric; Basic Hyperdrive; Gateway Beacon; External Docking Clamps (2); Marines (20); Cargo Bay (2 Units); Security Brig (6 Cells)
Weapons:
(2) Heavy Mass Driver Arrays: 100/200/400; 6d12 AP8; RoF1; Doubletap; Turret Mounts
(2) Torpedo Launchers: 300/600/1200; 5d10 AP50; RoF1; 8 Shots, MBT, Tracking [Speed 1200; Range 4800*; Climb +1]; Forward Mount
(2) Medium Pulse Cannons: 100/200/400; 3d8 AP8; RoF3; Autofire, 3RB; Turret Mounts
Advanced AMCM System

Halberd Dropship, Heavy Troop Transport
Type: Small Warship
Acc: 100  Top: 600  Handling: -1  Climb: +1
FTL:  Beacon
Crew: 10  Hull: 49 (22)  Maintenance: +0
Ship Systems:
Basic Ship Computer with Astrogation and Ship Recognition Libraries; Atmospheric; Gateway Beacon; External Docking Clamps (2); Marines (30); Cargo Bay (2 Units); Stealth System
Weapons:
(1) Heavy Missile Ultra-Rack: 250/500/1000; 6d6 AP 12; RoF1-10; 10 Shots
(2) Heavy Beam Cannons: 100/200/400; 4d10 AP10; RoF1 (Fixed Forward)
(2) Scattercannons: 80/160/320; 4d6 AP4; RoF1; SBT (Turrets)
Advanced AMCM System

Now, Future Perfect and its starships arent going anywhere.  However, working on FADS has lead me to rethink how I approached much of what I wrote, and some of the rather interesting new settings and rules offer up a lot of new perspective to examine.  Why reinvent the wheel if I don't have to?  I figure the closer I can keep everything to the core rules and official rules options, the more likely I may be able to secure an official Savage Worlds license. That said, I am also hoping to formalize in greater detail some of the options I presented for the setting, such as Cultural Packages in addition to Racial ones, Contacts and Reputation, and a means of background generation using the turning points life-event system.

Finally, I have two more one-sheet adventures almost ready for editing.  One is for fantasy, presenting a tale in which a human town and an orc tribe both realize there is something sinister placing the existence of both communities in peril.  The second is a Science Fiction romp, intended for Future Perfect but adapted easily to other settings, in which a simple mission to salvage information from a derelict starship goes horribly awry.

I'm sure other things will trickle into the mix as well.  I just wanted to let folks know that despite a month of relative quiet, quite a few things are in progress.

[Future Perfect] Melee Weapons

What follows is the basic list of melee weapons used in Future Perfect, followed by a brief description of each. Some other weapons are found in the setting as well, but did not require any stats to be noted since they are not always so common and already in the SW rule book.  Axes, staves, swords, slings, and even spears are all examples of such weapons.  A quality rating also is included, with Low (L), Normal (N), High (H) able to be found on the chart.

Weapon	Damage	Weight	Cost	Quality	Notes
Baton	Str+d4	1	10	N
Clawz	Str+d4	.5	50	N	Climbing +1; Reduced fine manipulation results in a -1 penalty to applicable Skill rolls when Clawz are affixed. A Character using Claws is considered to be an Unarmed Defender.
Forearm Blade	Str+d4	2	100	N	Parry +1
Knocker	Str+d4+2	1	50	N
Microfilament Whip	2d6	1	450	H	AP 4; Parry -1; Reach 1; If Attack Die (and Wild Die) comes up 1, then hits user instead.
Polyglass Knife	Str+d4+1	1	75	N	AP 2; Can Be Thrown
Polyglass Survival Knife	Str+d4+1	1	85	N	AP 2; Survival +1; Cannot Be Thrown
Power Glaive	Str+d8+2	8	1000	H	2H; Reach 1; On a Raise when Attacking, Target must Make a Vigor roll or be Shaken. This is determined before any Damage is dealt by the Glaive itself.
Power Staff	Str+4+2	3	650	H	2H; Reach 1; On a Raise when Attacking, Target must Make a Vigor roll or be Shaken. This is determined before any Damage is dealt by the Staff itself.
Stun Baton	Stun	1	100	N	On a Hit, Character must make a Vigor Roll or be Shaken. If a Raise is made on the attack roll, the Vigor roll is made at -2. A Character wielding a Stun Baton is considered to be an Unarmed Defender
Stun Sword	Stun	2	175	N	On a Hit, Character must make a Vigor Roll or be Shaken. If a Raise is made on the attack roll, the Vigor roll is made at -2.
Sword, Duelist's Blade	Str+d4	2	175	H	AP 2, Parry +1
Sword, Kokoran	Str+d6+2	4	750	H	AP 2, Biometal
Sword, Polyglass	Str+d6+1	5	350	N	AP 2
Sword, Regular and Short	See Savage Worlds Rulebook

Baton: A billy club, cudgel, or similar small, one handed bludgeoning implement.

Clawz: Modified “brass knuckles” that fit over a user's hands, but also provide three small claws that extend down from between wielder's fingers. These small claws impair, but do not wholly impede, a character's ability to engage in activities requiring fine manipulation (such as Surgery, Lockpicking, Electrical Repairs, Etc), resulting in a -1 penalty to applicable trait rolls.

Forearm Blade: Lightly armored vambraces with one or more sharp blades on the outside of the forearm.

Knocker: A heavy glove, similar to a Cestus, that uses a small, implanted power cell to release an added jolt of force upon impact. The power cells can be drained or negated normally, however, unless damaged, they recharge themselves from the simple actions of being moved around.

Microfilament Whip: A monomolecular wire whip, lightly weighted at one end and affixed to a handle at the other. The whip itself is so fine that it can cut through flesh an most soft armors almost effortlessly.

Polyglass Knife: A knife made from polycarbonate glass, designed to be strong, light, and extremely sharp. The cutting edge of a polyglass blade is razor sharp. This knife may be thrown.

Polyglass Survival Knife: A polyglass knife whose throwing balance has been sacrificed in order to be functional as a multipurpose tool with room for the storage of tiny objects (usually survival gear). This knife grants a bonus of +1 to Survival skill rolls.

Power Glaive: A charged, heavy bladed polearm that uses the same type of power cell as a Knocker to not only provide extra force, but which may release enough added energy that scramble a person's motor control (may Stun target on a Raise).

Power Staff: A Knocker on a stick, the Power Staff forgoes the blade component of the Power Glaive but retains the charge and capacity to stun its target.

Stun Baton: A small, hand held rod that releases a charge that scrambles a target's motor control. A Character using a Stun Baton still is considered an unarmed defended in combat.

Stun Sword: A larger Stun Baton, the Stun Sword is about two and a half to three feet in length with a light, whippy striking area that releases a charge that scrambles a target's motor control.

Sword, Duelists Blade: A thin, light, and flexible metal sword, the Duelist's Blade is designed for quick strikes and maneuverability. These weapons often resemble thin swords of various types, most often the Rapier, Jian, or lighter Sabres, and are nearly as sharp as Polyglass.

Sword, Kokoran: Made from liquid biometal, the Kokoran sword literally forms itself when needed. These swords are lighter than conventional metals, and often take the shape of Katanas, Daos, Kukri, and similar larger, single edged swords.

Sword, Polyglass: A shorter blade than the Duelist's Blade, it tends to be much thicker and heavier. Larger polyglass swords are rare since they are prone to breakage if they get much larger than two to two and a half feet.

Sword, Regular and Short: Many styles of metal swords can be found within marketplaces with ease and should be treated as per the SW rules.  

[Future Perfect] Updating?

Just a short entry this time, I promise.

I've been thinking about updating the Starship designs from Future Perfect to reflect the system changes in the new Savage Worlds: Deluxe edition rulebook.  The new chase rules especially could make for some interesting alterations, and may even allow me to tweak some faction ships in ways that better suit how I'd envisioned them.

Also, I've been thinking about just going ahead and posting some of the "unfinished" material I used during the Future Perfect: Identity Function campaign.  Lists of weapons, armor, body armor, and a variety of different drugs and gear could make their way to these pages -- the only issue is that not everything has "flavor text", so much of it may be presented in the form of raw stats.

People following Future Perfect should keep watch for some updates, and possibly even a sci-fi one-sheet (originally designed for the setting, but made more generic).

Maptooling Around...

Alright.  So last night I played my first game of Savage Worlds using Maptool and while I think the whole setup had some issues, overall I am favorably impressed.

For those unacquainted with it, Maptool is a virtual tabletop that allows map graphics and tokens to be placed and arranged in viewable layers.  Place a character token atop a background map, and there you have it, the most basic virtual tabletop.  Maptool goes a number of steps further by including embedded character sheets, fairly robust scripting options, die rollers, chat windows, server/client functionality for hosting private games, drawing functions, and preset scaling for map tokens... Of course, these were just the things I saw in a couple hours of playing!  Personally, I found myself wishing I'd taken the Growth power so I could justify constantly resizing my character token. Its one of those things that a real table top cant do that Maptool can.

As for play itself, the game moved along fairly easily.  We used a group call function in Skype to supplement the game play, though once the game began I muted my microphone so it was (mostly) just the GM talking.  Everything game related was managed via the text Chat window in Maptool.  While the person GMing the session seemed passably familiar with how Maptool works, he needed to add quite a few scripted buttons, plus new skills and abilities, all on the fly.  I'm impressed enough that Maptool allows on the fly changes and additions, though it drives home the point that Maptool definitely will require some work up front on the part of the GM in order to provide a more seamless experience.  Movement was very well implemented, with it automatically displaying the distance (and path) between your starting position and desired end point.  The die roll functionality is also nicely robust, with the ability to roll custom die strings and define which dice are exploding.  After a while, I found myself preferring to type out the die roll commands manually instead of clicking through the buttons.

This leads me to perhaps my biggest gripe with Maptool -- the interface.  The screen is cluttered, and while the map allows a scroll-to-zoom function (which was a life saver!), there are way too many little windows that take away from the map's usable space.  Most of those windows seemed either redundant or of questionable use to a player anyway.  A feature that annoyed me was the inclusion of a macro window (empty) on the default screen, but no clear instructions on how to make macros themselves.  After a little while, I'd rearranged things to better suit my preferences, but the user interface always felt like it needed a bit more polish.

Any other concerns I have with the software all stem from my inexperience with it.  Most of Savage Worlds specific scripts were focused on the older Explorer's Edition rule set, so there were a few updates that needed to be made (or in some cases, things that just needed to be circumvented).  I can see a dedicated GM spending hours on end tweaking scripts to make the perfect play experience, but in reality most of us don't have that kind of time.  Luckily, there is nothing that forces you to use any but the most basic of scripts. Honestly, I could get by tracking most things manually, just like I do on the tabletop anyway, with a few features tossed in just to help me out.  Benny tracking, for example, was especially helpful when you can click that the benny is being spent to soak damage.

Overall, I am pleased with the experience and Maptool has proven itself to me as a viable alternative when face to face gaming at the table just isn't possible.  Is it perfect? No.  It is usable, definitely, and with its scripting functions, it can only improve.  Best of all, it is free.  Honestly, I've been considering picking up Fantasy Grounds II, but the cost keeps pushing me away since not only does a GM have to buy more expensive software, but every player has to buy the basic player client.  Using Maptool would just save me money, and despite FGII's added polish, it requires that I pay for EVERYTHING or take (possibly just as much) time configuring it to work how I want for my game, just like Maptool.

Three and a half hours of playing allowed us to liaise with the local city guard, fight several magitech enhanced attack dogs and a pile of evil cultists summoning a hungry version of Shai-Hulud beneath an ancient tower, save a sacrificial victim, bring a cult leader to justice, and reap the rewards from a job done well.  Yep. I'm content with that.