Some time back, I wrote about the Atlantean Fallacy, the idea that the progenitors of a setting are always the most advanced, powerful, and wise examples of their type, and that all civilizations since their fall have been a downward trajectory.
Today, I want to write about another fallacy in gaming, which I call the Hegemonic Fallacy.
A role-playing and writing blog.
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Heroes of Terra
A number of years ago, I got turned on to the idea of a pulp action-adventure setting based on the Mario Brothers games. This idea was so pervasive that I started running it at conventions with Savage Worlds, under the title "Warriors of the Mushroom Kingdom." In time, this turned into a setting idea called "Warriors of the Mandragora Kingdom," which in turn became "Heroes of Terra" as the idea grew beyond Mario Brothers and into a wide world of Nintendo-themed pulp weirdness.
At long last, I can share that work with the world. Here, for the first time ever, is the wide-scale release of Heroes of Terra, the first book about the strange parallel world that exists alongside Earth. This book focuses on the continent of Lemuria, where the Mandragora Kingdom is locked in war with the Dragon Empire. Coming next is a plot point campaign, titled "Our Princess is in Another Castle," in which a mixed group of Terrans and Earthers work to rescue the Peach Princess, heiress to the Mandrake Throne. Eventually, I plan on doing supplements for the continents of Mu and Hyborea, but right now I'm focusing on getting the plot point campaign ready.
I've been running games in this setting at conventions for nearly five years now, so it seems strange to be sharing the setting with the wider world. Still, I can only hope that you all enjoy it.
As some notes: I did all the writing, editing, and layout work myself. The art is scavenged and found from various places on the web, so if anyone can tell me who the original artists are so that I can get their permission or at least credit them, I would appreciate it. If anyone wants to contribute art for a v2 release, I can offer only my gratitude. Goodness knows, I'd like to include art for each of the races and monsters, at least.
Edit (08/10/2015): In the time since I originally published this little fan-made setting, it got so much positive response that I petitioned Pinnacle for the license to make it into an official one. They approved! Heroes of Terra is now an officially licensed Savage Worlds product, available on DriveThruRPG! Thanks to everyone who made this possible! And watch for the full version of the main setting book, Heroes of Terra: The Mushroom War, coming later this year to Kickstarter!
At long last, I can share that work with the world. Here, for the first time ever, is the wide-scale release of Heroes of Terra, the first book about the strange parallel world that exists alongside Earth. This book focuses on the continent of Lemuria, where the Mandragora Kingdom is locked in war with the Dragon Empire. Coming next is a plot point campaign, titled "Our Princess is in Another Castle," in which a mixed group of Terrans and Earthers work to rescue the Peach Princess, heiress to the Mandrake Throne. Eventually, I plan on doing supplements for the continents of Mu and Hyborea, but right now I'm focusing on getting the plot point campaign ready.
I've been running games in this setting at conventions for nearly five years now, so it seems strange to be sharing the setting with the wider world. Still, I can only hope that you all enjoy it.
As some notes: I did all the writing, editing, and layout work myself. The art is scavenged and found from various places on the web, so if anyone can tell me who the original artists are so that I can get their permission or at least credit them, I would appreciate it. If anyone wants to contribute art for a v2 release, I can offer only my gratitude. Goodness knows, I'd like to include art for each of the races and monsters, at least.
Edit (08/10/2015): In the time since I originally published this little fan-made setting, it got so much positive response that I petitioned Pinnacle for the license to make it into an official one. They approved! Heroes of Terra is now an officially licensed Savage Worlds product, available on DriveThruRPG! Thanks to everyone who made this possible! And watch for the full version of the main setting book, Heroes of Terra: The Mushroom War, coming later this year to Kickstarter!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Cooking and the Atlantean Fallacy
I'm snowed in at home today, so I thought I might take a moment to illustrate what I think of as "the Atlantean Fallacy," and how it can be demonstrated through the simple art of cooking.
Let me start off by saying that I love to cook. As time has gone on, I've discovered that cooking and writing are similar in that you feel happier about doing it if you can do it for someone other than just yourself. Like writing, you'll cook for yourself to stay alive--because for a writer, not writing is a fatal condition--but your big thrill comes from seeing other people enjoy what you've made.
Since I'm snowed in right now, I was cooking for myself alone. As I was standing over the stove, adding Italian seasoning to my handmade pizza rolls, I thought about how badly I screwed up the dish the first time I tried making it. I didn't enjoy cooking when I was younger, but that was mainly because I didn't know how. I just thought I could throw things together and make them hot, and magically they would become food. Learning to cook for myself was a terrible struggle--also like learning how to write. The talent was there, and the love of the material, but not the refined ability. In both cases, I knew somewhere in me was a person with ability, but the sheer frustration of trying and failing repeatedly was almost heartbreaking.
Let me start off by saying that I love to cook. As time has gone on, I've discovered that cooking and writing are similar in that you feel happier about doing it if you can do it for someone other than just yourself. Like writing, you'll cook for yourself to stay alive--because for a writer, not writing is a fatal condition--but your big thrill comes from seeing other people enjoy what you've made.
Since I'm snowed in right now, I was cooking for myself alone. As I was standing over the stove, adding Italian seasoning to my handmade pizza rolls, I thought about how badly I screwed up the dish the first time I tried making it. I didn't enjoy cooking when I was younger, but that was mainly because I didn't know how. I just thought I could throw things together and make them hot, and magically they would become food. Learning to cook for myself was a terrible struggle--also like learning how to write. The talent was there, and the love of the material, but not the refined ability. In both cases, I knew somewhere in me was a person with ability, but the sheer frustration of trying and failing repeatedly was almost heartbreaking.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Why Does Professor Apocalypse Hate Me?
Now that the 4th of July holiday is over, back to blogging!
The title of this entry may seem a little odd, but bear with me. Recently, I was brainstorming ways to start a group of fairly advanced characters off together without resorting to the tired old cliche of "You all meet in a bar" or "You've all been recruited by the same shadowy government agency." Not only are both of them horribly cliched, but I've actually got some players who were burned by the latter once upon a time and I don't want to spool them. (Get it? Shadow government agency? Spook?)
With that in mind, I turned to what Raymond Chandler advised: When the plot slows down, have two guys with guns kick in the door and start shooting. That is to say: When you can't figure anything else out, pick an option that throws the PCs right into the action.
The game in question is Savage TORG, which I may have mentioned in passing once or twice before. Now that I'm getting ready to run my third full campaign of TORG, I find that I can't rely on the hook I used the first two times without feeling like a hack. For both of those campaigns (the first one used d20 Modern, the second one Savage Worlds), I had both groups be composed mainly of Core Earth characters who happened to be in New York the day the maelstrom bridges fell. Putting together a survivor group trying to escape New York in the aftermath of the Living Land invasion is tense, action-packed, and immersive. Heck, it's how the TORG novels open up!
Still, I want to do something different for this campaign. More than anything else, I want to offer my group the broad, wide-open character creation ability that a mature TORG campaign offers. A year into the storyline, you have characters from all of the invading realms, a bunch of random ones, and people who have converted between realms (for stuff like human shamans of Lanala and edeinos bikers). That gonzo feel is quintessential TORG, and I've partially sacrificed it both previous times I've run the setting.
As I was walking around tonight, the solution came to me: They've been kidnapped by a common enemy who wants revenge. My players are all moderately experienced with the setting, and they're building Seasoned characters, so it stands to reason they would all have an enemy who has the power and motivation to capture them.
But why wouldn't he just kill them? Because he's from the Nile Empire, the reality of pulp action-adventure! Raymond Chandler would be proud, indeed. So, now we've got a common enemy in a pulp setting who would rather capture the heroes and throw them into a deathtrap than just outright kill them, giving them the opportunity to bond under difficult circumstances and work as a team.
A guy like that needs a cool, imposing name. Doctor Doomsday? Nah, too alliterative and comic book. Something classier. I could just use Pharaoh Mobius, but he's a major player in the Nile Empire and I want to get some extra mileage out of him. This guy strikes me as below the pharaoh but above some common thug. As I was mouthing out sounds, the word "Professor" aspirated at the end to "Professor-a", and I jumped to bad-guy words that started with "A."
Thus, Professor Apocalypse was born. A little thinking led me to dub him Professor Jonah Apocalypse, PhD. I remembered that the excellent comic Atomic Robo had an arc called "Why Doctor Dinosaur Hates Atomic Robo," and from there the idea of letting the PCs pick their poison was born.
Now, I've got the character questionnaires I do before any lengthy campaign handy. For this one, there's an extra question at the end: "Why does Professor Apocalypse hate me?" I expect some inventive answers, knowing my bunch. They're all going to wake up in a brightly-lit room with killbots on the other side of the door, just waiting to put Mr. Chandler's axiom into effect.
I suppose the tl;dr version of today's blog post is this: When deciding how to put a group together, pick the option that throws them right into the action of the setting. That forces them to work together as well as giving them a great ground-level view of what they'll be dealing with right off the bat. Also, whenever possible, give the players investment in what they're doing at the beginning of the campaign. It helps immersion as well as a sense of cooperation with the GM.
The title of this entry may seem a little odd, but bear with me. Recently, I was brainstorming ways to start a group of fairly advanced characters off together without resorting to the tired old cliche of "You all meet in a bar" or "You've all been recruited by the same shadowy government agency." Not only are both of them horribly cliched, but I've actually got some players who were burned by the latter once upon a time and I don't want to spool them. (Get it? Shadow government agency? Spook?)
With that in mind, I turned to what Raymond Chandler advised: When the plot slows down, have two guys with guns kick in the door and start shooting. That is to say: When you can't figure anything else out, pick an option that throws the PCs right into the action.
The game in question is Savage TORG, which I may have mentioned in passing once or twice before. Now that I'm getting ready to run my third full campaign of TORG, I find that I can't rely on the hook I used the first two times without feeling like a hack. For both of those campaigns (the first one used d20 Modern, the second one Savage Worlds), I had both groups be composed mainly of Core Earth characters who happened to be in New York the day the maelstrom bridges fell. Putting together a survivor group trying to escape New York in the aftermath of the Living Land invasion is tense, action-packed, and immersive. Heck, it's how the TORG novels open up!
Still, I want to do something different for this campaign. More than anything else, I want to offer my group the broad, wide-open character creation ability that a mature TORG campaign offers. A year into the storyline, you have characters from all of the invading realms, a bunch of random ones, and people who have converted between realms (for stuff like human shamans of Lanala and edeinos bikers). That gonzo feel is quintessential TORG, and I've partially sacrificed it both previous times I've run the setting.
As I was walking around tonight, the solution came to me: They've been kidnapped by a common enemy who wants revenge. My players are all moderately experienced with the setting, and they're building Seasoned characters, so it stands to reason they would all have an enemy who has the power and motivation to capture them.
But why wouldn't he just kill them? Because he's from the Nile Empire, the reality of pulp action-adventure! Raymond Chandler would be proud, indeed. So, now we've got a common enemy in a pulp setting who would rather capture the heroes and throw them into a deathtrap than just outright kill them, giving them the opportunity to bond under difficult circumstances and work as a team.
A guy like that needs a cool, imposing name. Doctor Doomsday? Nah, too alliterative and comic book. Something classier. I could just use Pharaoh Mobius, but he's a major player in the Nile Empire and I want to get some extra mileage out of him. This guy strikes me as below the pharaoh but above some common thug. As I was mouthing out sounds, the word "Professor" aspirated at the end to "Professor-a", and I jumped to bad-guy words that started with "A."
Thus, Professor Apocalypse was born. A little thinking led me to dub him Professor Jonah Apocalypse, PhD. I remembered that the excellent comic Atomic Robo had an arc called "Why Doctor Dinosaur Hates Atomic Robo," and from there the idea of letting the PCs pick their poison was born.
Now, I've got the character questionnaires I do before any lengthy campaign handy. For this one, there's an extra question at the end: "Why does Professor Apocalypse hate me?" I expect some inventive answers, knowing my bunch. They're all going to wake up in a brightly-lit room with killbots on the other side of the door, just waiting to put Mr. Chandler's axiom into effect.
I suppose the tl;dr version of today's blog post is this: When deciding how to put a group together, pick the option that throws them right into the action of the setting. That forces them to work together as well as giving them a great ground-level view of what they'll be dealing with right off the bat. Also, whenever possible, give the players investment in what they're doing at the beginning of the campaign. It helps immersion as well as a sense of cooperation with the GM.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Sound the Guns!
Over on the Goodman Games forums, they were discussing adding guns to your fantasy campaign, and there were people adding in that guns should be super-rare or super-expensive or super-lethal. It occurred to me that I had never gotten to rant about my feelings about this particular treatment of guns in fantasy, so I let it all out. And here's my thoughts about it, reposted in blog form:
My great complaints about fantasy worlds that decide to introduce firearms are the ideas that firearms:
1) follow the exact same form of development as in the real world;
2) are more powerful than existing weapons; and
3) are ridiculously expensive (usually to "balance out" how much more powerful they are than standard weapons).
My great complaints about fantasy worlds that decide to introduce firearms are the ideas that firearms:
1) follow the exact same form of development as in the real world;
2) are more powerful than existing weapons; and
3) are ridiculously expensive (usually to "balance out" how much more powerful they are than standard weapons).
Monday, June 4, 2012
No Cure for the Summertime Blues
Since last we left our intrepid hero, he graduated from college, got accepted into graduate school, and found a summer job. What does the future hold for our plucky freelancer?!
I'm not sure at this point, but it's definitely been tough to submit any work to anybody. The good news is that it looks like the Hellfrost d20 stuff is finally coming out this fall. It's always nice to see something you worked really hard on coming out. I'd like to be doing more work now that I have the free time, but these days it seems to be Kickstarters all the way down. My novel project didn't go so well, but part of that is because I don't think I really understood how to make a successful Kickstarter at the time. I've got a few ideas for RPG projects that would work well for the system, but I still need to refine them a bit more.
It looks like I'll actually be able to run Savage TORG again starting this fall as well. Much props to HawaiianBrian for coming up with the original Savage TORG conversion that forms the basis for my games.
I'm really grooving on several new games right now too. My love for Mistborn continues unabated, especially now that the fantastic guys over at Crafty Games got out the revised version of the pdf. I'll hopefully be picking up my hardcopy at GenCon and getting it signed by Brandon Sanderson. He's a fantastic author and a lovely person; I got to meet him earlier this year at Joseph-Beth Bookstore here in Lexington, where he signed my Mistborn novels. I'm looking forward to getting him to sign the RPG as well.
I also really like the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game from Margaret Weis Productions. I was always a little turned off by Cortex. It seemed like Savage Worlds with the fun surgically removed. The Cortex+ system on the other hand is made of raw, unrefined awesome. Cam Banks is a wonderful designer, and if I could ever work with him I would consider it one of the highlights of my career. MHR has a beautifully narrative structure and a neat dice pool mechanic.
In the category of "Games I didn't think I'd like but wound up quite enjoying," I'm going to mention the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I thought it was just another old-school clone building off the nostalgia-bomb movement of the OSR, but it's really a lot more than that. The best way I can describe DCC is as if a gamer from 1977 had been mystically transported to 2012, given a crash-course on modern game design, and set loose in an art gallery populated entirely by heavy metal cover art. By which I mean, the game is shockingly awesome and genuinely revels in its old-schoolness without being just another old-school clone. It does some genuinely original things with its design philosophy, and does so while capturing the roots of the gaming hobby. More than that, it's a 480-page book chock full of art. I loves me some games with lots of art, especially good art.
Hopefully, I can get back to posting regularly now that I don't have the insanity of senior year pressing down on me, so watch this space for future updates.
I'm not sure at this point, but it's definitely been tough to submit any work to anybody. The good news is that it looks like the Hellfrost d20 stuff is finally coming out this fall. It's always nice to see something you worked really hard on coming out. I'd like to be doing more work now that I have the free time, but these days it seems to be Kickstarters all the way down. My novel project didn't go so well, but part of that is because I don't think I really understood how to make a successful Kickstarter at the time. I've got a few ideas for RPG projects that would work well for the system, but I still need to refine them a bit more.
It looks like I'll actually be able to run Savage TORG again starting this fall as well. Much props to HawaiianBrian for coming up with the original Savage TORG conversion that forms the basis for my games.
I'm really grooving on several new games right now too. My love for Mistborn continues unabated, especially now that the fantastic guys over at Crafty Games got out the revised version of the pdf. I'll hopefully be picking up my hardcopy at GenCon and getting it signed by Brandon Sanderson. He's a fantastic author and a lovely person; I got to meet him earlier this year at Joseph-Beth Bookstore here in Lexington, where he signed my Mistborn novels. I'm looking forward to getting him to sign the RPG as well.
I also really like the new Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game from Margaret Weis Productions. I was always a little turned off by Cortex. It seemed like Savage Worlds with the fun surgically removed. The Cortex+ system on the other hand is made of raw, unrefined awesome. Cam Banks is a wonderful designer, and if I could ever work with him I would consider it one of the highlights of my career. MHR has a beautifully narrative structure and a neat dice pool mechanic.
In the category of "Games I didn't think I'd like but wound up quite enjoying," I'm going to mention the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. I thought it was just another old-school clone building off the nostalgia-bomb movement of the OSR, but it's really a lot more than that. The best way I can describe DCC is as if a gamer from 1977 had been mystically transported to 2012, given a crash-course on modern game design, and set loose in an art gallery populated entirely by heavy metal cover art. By which I mean, the game is shockingly awesome and genuinely revels in its old-schoolness without being just another old-school clone. It does some genuinely original things with its design philosophy, and does so while capturing the roots of the gaming hobby. More than that, it's a 480-page book chock full of art. I loves me some games with lots of art, especially good art.
Hopefully, I can get back to posting regularly now that I don't have the insanity of senior year pressing down on me, so watch this space for future updates.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Blood and Diesel
Better late than never... =3
BLOOD AND DIESEL: INTRO
It is an age of vastness.
This is the age of the zeppelin, the ocean-liner, the continental railway, and the skyscraper. It is the age of multinational corporations, mass political movements, and wars that span the world. Man is dwarfed by his creations, and the once-solid things of daily life are subsumed into abstractions.
The year is 1939, but not the one that you know.
It has been over two decades since the devastating end of the Great War. An entire generation was lost to tanks, machine-guns, poison gas, warstriders, bombs, and flame-projectors. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, the war raged. Only the Americas were left untouched by battle, though it still cost the young nation many tens of thousands of lives. Germany and its Central Powers were crushed beneath the weight of debt and remuneration, while a new era of peace and prosperity was supposed to dawn for the Allied Powers.
The expected peace came at a high price, and the prosperity it bought was limited at best. Weary from war and battle, nations turned their eyes inward and devoted their resources to self-improvement. These selfish impulses ultimately led to the Great Collapse of 1929, when the world’s economy—as delicately linked as its political alliances, but not as obviously—came crashing down. Millions are unemployed worldwide, whole nations are impoverished, and radical political elements are gaining greater traction among the disaffected populace.
Nature itself rebels against the wounded nation—in the American West, over-farming and high-industry radium growth techniques have stripped the soil from the ground and sent it flying into the atmosphere. Terrible radioactive dust storms sweep the Midwest, driving towns and communities before it to avoid the killing winds, the cancer-ridden dirt, and the monsters that rise up from the few survivors of the storms. Diesel trucks have become the lifeblood of the refugees, moving from camp to camp and town to town, looking for whatever work they can find.
Life in the big cities has become an urban hell, where the strong and the rich prey on the weak and the poor. The elite live in buildings that reach up to scrape the sky, while the poor live in overcrowded, crumbling tenements within a stone’s throw of brass-gilded zeppelin stations and moving-picture theaters. Gangs begin to fill the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, looking to find ways to survive cheek-and-jowl with real bad guys: bootleggers, white slavers, bank robbers, and the leg-breakers of organized crime.
For a decade, the world’s people have languished in poverty while their governments increasingly stockpile weapons for a great second world war that may never come. Though the German sabers have rattled menacingly since the ascension of the People’s Socialist Party in 1933, the “Nazis” have yet to expand beyond their borders—though those borders are now far more secure than any time in the last thirty years. Germany has made prosperity its watchword as it rebuilds its cities, invites in wealthy foreign tourists… and quietly “cleanses” the country of its “impure elements.”
This is a world where the zeppelin is the king of the air, the train rules the long, empty spaces between the American coasts, and the diesel engine rules the road. Atomic power has been harnessed but promises only mutually assured destruction. The promises of science have turned to ashes in the mouths of those that spoke them, and the price of freedom may wind up being too high for any nation to pay.
This is the world of Blood and Diesel, an alternate-history dieselpunk game.
BLOOD AND DIESEL: INTRO
It is an age of vastness.
This is the age of the zeppelin, the ocean-liner, the continental railway, and the skyscraper. It is the age of multinational corporations, mass political movements, and wars that span the world. Man is dwarfed by his creations, and the once-solid things of daily life are subsumed into abstractions.
The year is 1939, but not the one that you know.
It has been over two decades since the devastating end of the Great War. An entire generation was lost to tanks, machine-guns, poison gas, warstriders, bombs, and flame-projectors. In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, the war raged. Only the Americas were left untouched by battle, though it still cost the young nation many tens of thousands of lives. Germany and its Central Powers were crushed beneath the weight of debt and remuneration, while a new era of peace and prosperity was supposed to dawn for the Allied Powers.
The expected peace came at a high price, and the prosperity it bought was limited at best. Weary from war and battle, nations turned their eyes inward and devoted their resources to self-improvement. These selfish impulses ultimately led to the Great Collapse of 1929, when the world’s economy—as delicately linked as its political alliances, but not as obviously—came crashing down. Millions are unemployed worldwide, whole nations are impoverished, and radical political elements are gaining greater traction among the disaffected populace.
Nature itself rebels against the wounded nation—in the American West, over-farming and high-industry radium growth techniques have stripped the soil from the ground and sent it flying into the atmosphere. Terrible radioactive dust storms sweep the Midwest, driving towns and communities before it to avoid the killing winds, the cancer-ridden dirt, and the monsters that rise up from the few survivors of the storms. Diesel trucks have become the lifeblood of the refugees, moving from camp to camp and town to town, looking for whatever work they can find.
Life in the big cities has become an urban hell, where the strong and the rich prey on the weak and the poor. The elite live in buildings that reach up to scrape the sky, while the poor live in overcrowded, crumbling tenements within a stone’s throw of brass-gilded zeppelin stations and moving-picture theaters. Gangs begin to fill the poverty-stricken neighborhoods, looking to find ways to survive cheek-and-jowl with real bad guys: bootleggers, white slavers, bank robbers, and the leg-breakers of organized crime.
For a decade, the world’s people have languished in poverty while their governments increasingly stockpile weapons for a great second world war that may never come. Though the German sabers have rattled menacingly since the ascension of the People’s Socialist Party in 1933, the “Nazis” have yet to expand beyond their borders—though those borders are now far more secure than any time in the last thirty years. Germany has made prosperity its watchword as it rebuilds its cities, invites in wealthy foreign tourists… and quietly “cleanses” the country of its “impure elements.”
This is a world where the zeppelin is the king of the air, the train rules the long, empty spaces between the American coasts, and the diesel engine rules the road. Atomic power has been harnessed but promises only mutually assured destruction. The promises of science have turned to ashes in the mouths of those that spoke them, and the price of freedom may wind up being too high for any nation to pay.
This is the world of Blood and Diesel, an alternate-history dieselpunk game.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Good News and Bad News
The good news is that I'm still alive! The bad news is that between a bruised sciatic nerve, a bout with pneumonia, and some problems with layout and formatting, "Playground of the Damned" isn't ready yet. A little more good news is that I got accepted into graduate school! Now, I just need to pick up an assistantship and find a job for the summer, and I'm pretty well set.
I've got some various things to post up here over the next few days, including the intro text for PotD and a new setting I've been idly working on: Blood and Diesel, a dieselpunk game set in the late 1930s, drawing on sources like Metropolis, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Carnivale, and Bunraku.
Let's see if we can't get this show back on the road!
I've got some various things to post up here over the next few days, including the intro text for PotD and a new setting I've been idly working on: Blood and Diesel, a dieselpunk game set in the late 1930s, drawing on sources like Metropolis, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Carnivale, and Bunraku.
Let's see if we can't get this show back on the road!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Scavengers in the Urban Wasteland
In the campaign setting I'm proposing, the collapse is only a short time in the past (or still ongoing, depending on when your personal campaign begins), so scavenging through ruins for food and other basic supplies is a viable survival strategy.
A character can choose to dedicate a day to scavenging and make a Survival roll. This roll can only be made in an urban area. On a success, the character draws a card to determine what useful goods he has discovered. The GM then draws a second card to see if the hero has suffered a random encounter; on a clubs card, a random encounter occurs.
Suit Scavenged Goods
Clubs Medicine
Diamonds Components
Hearts Food
Spades Weapons or ammo
Joker Cache (see below)
Card Quantity
2 1 unit or broken archaic weapon
3-6 2 units or damaged archaic weapon
7-10 3 units or intact archaic weapon
J 5 units or broken firearm
Q 5 units or damaged firearm
K 5 units or intact firearm
A 10 units or intact firearm with full ammo
Joker Cache
Caches: A cache is a veritable goldmine of useful objects, food, and ammo. Such hoards hold 2d6+10 units of one resource, plus 1d6 of another; for weapons, the hoard contains 1d6 intact firearms and 2d6+10 units of ammo. Unfortunately, such caches tend to be swarmed, guarded, or both. For the second card after a Joker, any card is a random encounter except for another Joker. A two-Joker draw is an unguarded cache. Time to celebrate! If the second card is clubs, then the GM either doubles the numbers in a random encounter or takes two different random encounters and adds them together.
In the wilderness, a character can still use the Survival skill to find food for himself and his companions (as per the Survival skill description), but he must still draw a card to determine if he suffers an encounter.
Building Weapons: A character can build a new archaic weapon out of mechanical components. For an archaic weapon, the number of components needed is equal to half the maximum damage of the weapon. (So, a sword that does d8 damage requires 4 mechanical components to build.) Building a new firearm takes a similar number of mechanical components, plus half as many chemical components. (So, a firearm dealing 2d6 damage requires 6 mechanical components and 3 chemical components.) Building a new weapon requires twice as many hours as the weapon’s damage die. (So, 4d6 hours of work for a 2d6 damage firearm.)
Building Explosives: An explosive requires half as many chemical components as its damage dice, plus 1 mechanical component per die. (So, a Molotov cocktail inflicting 1d6 damage requires 3 chemical components and 1 mechanical component, while a 3d6 damage grenade requires 9 chemical components and 3 mechanical components.)
Generators: A survivor enclave’s greatest prize is often its electrical generator. Keeping it active is a daily chore, though. For every 10 survivors in an enclave, a generator requires 1 chemical component per day to keep it running. Keeping the generator in good working order also requires 1 electronic component and 1 mechanical component per week of operation. The generator will not work at all without chemical components. Each week without electrical or mechanical components requires a Repair check at –1 for each missing component type, and a cumulative –1 for each week of jury-rigged operation. A failed check results in an inoperative generator; it can be repaired with tools, a workshop, and 2d6 hours of work, as well as 2d6 electrical components and 2d6 mechanical components.
Tools and Workshops: Repairing an object requires tools, while building a new one requires tools and a workshop. Improvised tools impose a –2 penalty on Repair checks, which is cumulative with a –2 penalty for an improvised workshop.
Weapon Breakage
A common problem in the zombie apocalypse genre is that a hero’s weapons suffer damage with use and need to be repaired or replaced. In this campaign setting, if a hero rolls snake eyes (a critical failure) on an attack roll with a weapon, it becomes damaged (in addition to any other consequences); rolling a 1 on the skill die (regardless of the Wild Die) makes a damaged weapon broken. A damaged weapon suffers –2 on attack rolls with the weapon, while a broken weapon cannot be used effectively until repaired or replaced.
Fixing a damaged weapon requires a Repair roll and 1d6 hours of work, in addition to the components needed (see above). A raise on the Repair roll halves the number of needed components (minimum 1). Fixing a broken weapon doubles amount of time needed for the job and increases the number of necessary components by 1. A survivor can choose to break down a broken weapon for parts rather than repairing it. A successful Repair roll turns a broken weapon into 1 component of the appropriate type.
More to come!
A character can choose to dedicate a day to scavenging and make a Survival roll. This roll can only be made in an urban area. On a success, the character draws a card to determine what useful goods he has discovered. The GM then draws a second card to see if the hero has suffered a random encounter; on a clubs card, a random encounter occurs.
Suit Scavenged Goods
Clubs Medicine
Diamonds Components
Hearts Food
Spades Weapons or ammo
Joker Cache (see below)
Card Quantity
2 1 unit or broken archaic weapon
3-6 2 units or damaged archaic weapon
7-10 3 units or intact archaic weapon
J 5 units or broken firearm
Q 5 units or damaged firearm
K 5 units or intact firearm
A 10 units or intact firearm with full ammo
Joker Cache
Caches: A cache is a veritable goldmine of useful objects, food, and ammo. Such hoards hold 2d6+10 units of one resource, plus 1d6 of another; for weapons, the hoard contains 1d6 intact firearms and 2d6+10 units of ammo. Unfortunately, such caches tend to be swarmed, guarded, or both. For the second card after a Joker, any card is a random encounter except for another Joker. A two-Joker draw is an unguarded cache. Time to celebrate! If the second card is clubs, then the GM either doubles the numbers in a random encounter or takes two different random encounters and adds them together.
In the wilderness, a character can still use the Survival skill to find food for himself and his companions (as per the Survival skill description), but he must still draw a card to determine if he suffers an encounter.
Building Weapons: A character can build a new archaic weapon out of mechanical components. For an archaic weapon, the number of components needed is equal to half the maximum damage of the weapon. (So, a sword that does d8 damage requires 4 mechanical components to build.) Building a new firearm takes a similar number of mechanical components, plus half as many chemical components. (So, a firearm dealing 2d6 damage requires 6 mechanical components and 3 chemical components.) Building a new weapon requires twice as many hours as the weapon’s damage die. (So, 4d6 hours of work for a 2d6 damage firearm.)
Building Explosives: An explosive requires half as many chemical components as its damage dice, plus 1 mechanical component per die. (So, a Molotov cocktail inflicting 1d6 damage requires 3 chemical components and 1 mechanical component, while a 3d6 damage grenade requires 9 chemical components and 3 mechanical components.)
Generators: A survivor enclave’s greatest prize is often its electrical generator. Keeping it active is a daily chore, though. For every 10 survivors in an enclave, a generator requires 1 chemical component per day to keep it running. Keeping the generator in good working order also requires 1 electronic component and 1 mechanical component per week of operation. The generator will not work at all without chemical components. Each week without electrical or mechanical components requires a Repair check at –1 for each missing component type, and a cumulative –1 for each week of jury-rigged operation. A failed check results in an inoperative generator; it can be repaired with tools, a workshop, and 2d6 hours of work, as well as 2d6 electrical components and 2d6 mechanical components.
Tools and Workshops: Repairing an object requires tools, while building a new one requires tools and a workshop. Improvised tools impose a –2 penalty on Repair checks, which is cumulative with a –2 penalty for an improvised workshop.
Weapon Breakage
A common problem in the zombie apocalypse genre is that a hero’s weapons suffer damage with use and need to be repaired or replaced. In this campaign setting, if a hero rolls snake eyes (a critical failure) on an attack roll with a weapon, it becomes damaged (in addition to any other consequences); rolling a 1 on the skill die (regardless of the Wild Die) makes a damaged weapon broken. A damaged weapon suffers –2 on attack rolls with the weapon, while a broken weapon cannot be used effectively until repaired or replaced.
Fixing a damaged weapon requires a Repair roll and 1d6 hours of work, in addition to the components needed (see above). A raise on the Repair roll halves the number of needed components (minimum 1). Fixing a broken weapon doubles amount of time needed for the job and increases the number of necessary components by 1. A survivor can choose to break down a broken weapon for parts rather than repairing it. A successful Repair roll turns a broken weapon into 1 component of the appropriate type.
More to come!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Zombies!!!
To continue with the previous post's theme, here are some zombie stats! The common zombie is a little changed from the core rulebook one, and some of the others are based on the stats I did for my adventure "Playground of the Damned." A few you might recognize from some popular four-player zombie video games of late. Are there any more that you would like to see come your way?
Zombie, Common
Sometimes called “shamblers” or “walkers,” these are the most typical undead fiends encountered by survivors. They hunger for the flesh of the living, but they aren’t particularly quick. The greatest advantage possessed by the living over these relentless monsters is their base stupidity—common zombies are less intelligent than animals and are easily distracted.
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Smart Zombie: Even zombies that have retained some basic cognition aren’t very bright—but they’re bright enough to open doors, go around barricades, and use simple tools. A few even seem to be able to understand simple words, though not to speak. A smart zombie has Smarts d4 and Shooting d4.
Zombie, Quick
No one knows why some zombies reanimate with greater speed and agility than others. Such creatures are far more lethal than their slow cousins, especially considering that it is virtually impossible to tell them apart before they start running. They also demonstrate some greater amount of cunning, roughly equal to that of a smart dog.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Fast Zombie: Some zombies aren’t just quick—they’re downright fast. These zombies have a running die of d10 and discard initiative cards of 5 or lower.
Zombie, Child
Children succumbed to the zombie plague in droves in its early days when it was airborne, though few children survive an attack intact enough to rise again. Those that do are a source of terrible despair to survivors.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Size –1: Child zombies are smaller than common zombies.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Zombie, Tough
Sometimes called “thugs” or “heavies” by survivors, these zombies have experienced a dramatic increase in muscle density from the zombie plague. They experience a sudden upswing in body mass and often literally rip their clothes from the size increase. Just as slow as common zombies, they seem to have a far more vicious demeanor. Survivors have reported behavior from these creatures that might be considered vindictive or even vengeful.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d10, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 6; Toughness: 9
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Powerful Blows: A tough zombie’s attacks are so strong that a survivor is likely to be knocked off his feet by them. After being Shaken or Wounded by a tough zombie’s slam attack, a survivor must attempt a Strength check or be knocked prone.
• Size +1: Tough zombies are somewhat larger than common zombies, roughly on the upper end of human normal.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Zombie, Belcher
These hideous monstrosities are so mutated and deformed that they barely look human anymore. Some are horribly bloated, while others have distended or entirely missing lower jaws. These adaptations serve to allow the zombie to project its stomach juices—a vile combination of decomposed tissue, strong acids, and flesh-eating bacteria—long distances at their prey. Survivors sometimes call these wretches “spitters” or “pukers.”
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Shooting d6
Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Toughness: 8
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Vomit: Belchers have a special ability to project a stream of vomit at their targets. This stinking, caustic fluid clings to human flesh and burns like acid. This acts as a Shooting attack with a range of 5/10/15. On a successful hit, the vomit deals 2d6 damage. After using this attack, a belcher makes a Vigor check at the beginning of its turn; until it succeeds, it cannot use this attack again. A creature that suffers any damage from a vomit attack grants zombies a +2 to Notice checks made against him until he spends an hour cleaning off.
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Mighty Belcher: Some belchers put out truly copious amounts of vomit. Instead of a single-target Shooting attack, such variant belchers emit a Cone Template of vomit. Creatures in the cone must attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.
Variant—Exploding Belcher: A few rare belchers are so swollen with the vomit they hold that they literally burst like a tick upon being killed. These belchers gain a +2 bonus to Vigor checks made to recover their vomit ability, as well as +1 Toughness and –1 Pace from their obesity. When an exploding belcher is killed, anyone adjacent to it suffers 2d6 damage; anyone further away than that but within a Medium Burst Template can attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.
Zombie, Fury (Wild Card)
Resembling gaunt men or women dressed in the rags of their former clothes, these viciously clawed zombies are another form of horrible mutation brought on by the zombie plague. Unlike common zombies, who emit a low moan when attacking prey, these zombies actually shriek loudly enough to be heard nearly a mile off. Their sudden attack often catches survivors completely off-guard—to their sorrow. The one advantage survivors have against furies is that they’re not very attentive; they often totally ignore the living unless someone walks right on top of them.
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Stealth d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 8
Special Abilities:
• Claws: Str+d4. Furies do not bite on a raise, so they do not risk transmitting zombie plague.
• Fear: When a fury attacks, those witnessing the brutality of the attack must make Fear checks.
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Frenzy: A fury can attack twice with its claws in one round.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Zombie, Common
Sometimes called “shamblers” or “walkers,” these are the most typical undead fiends encountered by survivors. They hunger for the flesh of the living, but they aren’t particularly quick. The greatest advantage possessed by the living over these relentless monsters is their base stupidity—common zombies are less intelligent than animals and are easily distracted.
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Smart Zombie: Even zombies that have retained some basic cognition aren’t very bright—but they’re bright enough to open doors, go around barricades, and use simple tools. A few even seem to be able to understand simple words, though not to speak. A smart zombie has Smarts d4 and Shooting d4.
Zombie, Quick
No one knows why some zombies reanimate with greater speed and agility than others. Such creatures are far more lethal than their slow cousins, especially considering that it is virtually impossible to tell them apart before they start running. They also demonstrate some greater amount of cunning, roughly equal to that of a smart dog.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d4, Shooting d4
Pace: 6; Parry: 5; Toughness: 7
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Fast Zombie: Some zombies aren’t just quick—they’re downright fast. These zombies have a running die of d10 and discard initiative cards of 5 or lower.
Zombie, Child
Children succumbed to the zombie plague in droves in its early days when it was airborne, though few children survive an attack intact enough to rise again. Those that do are a source of terrible despair to survivors.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Intimidation d4, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 4; Toughness: 6
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Size –1: Child zombies are smaller than common zombies.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Zombie, Tough
Sometimes called “thugs” or “heavies” by survivors, these zombies have experienced a dramatic increase in muscle density from the zombie plague. They experience a sudden upswing in body mass and often literally rip their clothes from the size increase. Just as slow as common zombies, they seem to have a far more vicious demeanor. Survivors have reported behavior from these creatures that might be considered vindictive or even vengeful.
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d10, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d6, Notice d4
Pace: 4; Parry: 6; Toughness: 9
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Powerful Blows: A tough zombie’s attacks are so strong that a survivor is likely to be knocked off his feet by them. After being Shaken or Wounded by a tough zombie’s slam attack, a survivor must attempt a Strength check or be knocked prone.
• Size +1: Tough zombies are somewhat larger than common zombies, roughly on the upper end of human normal.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Zombie, Belcher
These hideous monstrosities are so mutated and deformed that they barely look human anymore. Some are horribly bloated, while others have distended or entirely missing lower jaws. These adaptations serve to allow the zombie to project its stomach juices—a vile combination of decomposed tissue, strong acids, and flesh-eating bacteria—long distances at their prey. Survivors sometimes call these wretches “spitters” or “pukers.”
Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d4, Strength d6, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d6, Intimidation d6, Notice d6, Shooting d6
Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Toughness: 8
Special Abilities:
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Slam: Str.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Vomit: Belchers have a special ability to project a stream of vomit at their targets. This stinking, caustic fluid clings to human flesh and burns like acid. This acts as a Shooting attack with a range of 5/10/15. On a successful hit, the vomit deals 2d6 damage. After using this attack, a belcher makes a Vigor check at the beginning of its turn; until it succeeds, it cannot use this attack again. A creature that suffers any damage from a vomit attack grants zombies a +2 to Notice checks made against him until he spends an hour cleaning off.
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Variant—Mighty Belcher: Some belchers put out truly copious amounts of vomit. Instead of a single-target Shooting attack, such variant belchers emit a Cone Template of vomit. Creatures in the cone must attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.
Variant—Exploding Belcher: A few rare belchers are so swollen with the vomit they hold that they literally burst like a tick upon being killed. These belchers gain a +2 bonus to Vigor checks made to recover their vomit ability, as well as +1 Toughness and –1 Pace from their obesity. When an exploding belcher is killed, anyone adjacent to it suffers 2d6 damage; anyone further away than that but within a Medium Burst Template can attempt an Agility roll to avoid the damage.
Zombie, Fury (Wild Card)
Resembling gaunt men or women dressed in the rags of their former clothes, these viciously clawed zombies are another form of horrible mutation brought on by the zombie plague. Unlike common zombies, who emit a low moan when attacking prey, these zombies actually shriek loudly enough to be heard nearly a mile off. Their sudden attack often catches survivors completely off-guard—to their sorrow. The one advantage survivors have against furies is that they’re not very attentive; they often totally ignore the living unless someone walks right on top of them.
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6 (A), Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d8
Skills: Fighting d8, Intimidation d8, Stealth d6
Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 8
Special Abilities:
• Claws: Str+d4. Furies do not bite on a raise, so they do not risk transmitting zombie plague.
• Fear: When a fury attacks, those witnessing the brutality of the attack must make Fear checks.
• Fearless: Zombies are immune to Fear and Intimidation.
• Frenzy: A fury can attack twice with its claws in one round.
• Undead: +2 Toughness; +2 to recover from being Shaken; called shots do no extra damage (except to the head).
• Weakness (Head): Called shots to a zombie’s head are +2 damage.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Zombie Apocalypse
As some of you might know, I'm a big fan of zombies. It's one of the reasons I enjoy Savage Worlds so much--how could I not like a game whose examples of play inevitably include zombies? I've been playing a lot of Dead Island lately, and celebrating the premiere of the new season of The Walking Dead.
Because of that, I went and picked up War of the Dead, a fairly good adventure path style campaign set from Daring Entertainment. While I would recommend the adventures for people interested in running a zombie campaign, I find the infection rules a little harsh. Yes, I agree that genre emulation calls for a fairly lethal zombie plague, but fun is a higher concern than genre emulation--and seeing at least one PC die every fight isn't all that fun.
Since a lot of video games now posit the idea of player characters as immune to the zombie plague, here's some setting rules and material for a Savage Worlds zombie campaign to back that up.
Setting Rule:
Zombie Plague
All zombies, unless otherwise noted, are infectious. The disease commonly called zombie plague is blood-borne, spread through direct blood contact with a zombie. Just getting splashed with a zombie’s blood isn’t enough to spread the disease to wild card characters (usually), but since a zombie’s saliva has been replaced by blood, getting bitten is a surefire way to catch this terrible plague.
Most zombies attack with a slam--simply bashing their prey with fists and flailing limbs. With a raise on a slam attack, the zombie does not get the usual damage bonus; instead, the zombie has bitten a hero rather than bashed him. With two raises, the zombie gets both the bite and the +1d6 damage for a raise. If a character suffers a Wound from a bite attack, the character must make a Vigor roll at –2. On a failed roll, the character has become Infected.
Once a character becomes infected from a zombie bite, the rate of death and transformation depends on the seriousness of the wound. In Savage Worlds, this is indicated by the number of wounds the character received during the attack that made him Infected.
One Wound: If the character only received a single wound, the bite isn’t usually deep. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d10 days.
Two Wounds: When a character receives 2 wounds from a zombie’s bite, the injury is usually enough that the virus has entered the bloodstream directly. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d6 hours.
Three Wounds: If a character receives at least 3 wounds from a single bite, the depth of the wound pours infected blood into the character's body at a prodigious rate. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 1d6 minutes.
Once the infection begins to affect him, the hero gains a level of Fatigue as the fever starts. This Fatigue does not go away from the character resting. Every day, hour, or minute (depending on the severity above), the character must attempt a Vigor roll to avoid gaining a new level of Fatigue. When a character infected with zombie plague dies, he rises again as one of the undead in 1d6 minutes (unless the head is destroyed before then).
New Edges
Boom! Headshot! [Combat Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Agility d8+, Fighting d8+ or Shooting d8+
When your character makes a called shot against a zombie’s head, you only suffer –2 to the roll rather than –4. When your character takes this Edge, it applies only to the combat skill used to qualify for it (Fighting or Shooting). If the character has (or later gains) d8+ in the other skill, it applies equally to that skill as well.
Immune Survivor [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Vigor d6+
For whatever reason, a few rare people are naturally immune to zombie plague. Your character has already gone through his first exposure to the dreaded disease and come out the other side unscathed. The hero suffers no special effect from a zombie’s bite (other than taking damage, of course).
Because of that, I went and picked up War of the Dead, a fairly good adventure path style campaign set from Daring Entertainment. While I would recommend the adventures for people interested in running a zombie campaign, I find the infection rules a little harsh. Yes, I agree that genre emulation calls for a fairly lethal zombie plague, but fun is a higher concern than genre emulation--and seeing at least one PC die every fight isn't all that fun.
Since a lot of video games now posit the idea of player characters as immune to the zombie plague, here's some setting rules and material for a Savage Worlds zombie campaign to back that up.
Setting Rule:
Zombie Plague
All zombies, unless otherwise noted, are infectious. The disease commonly called zombie plague is blood-borne, spread through direct blood contact with a zombie. Just getting splashed with a zombie’s blood isn’t enough to spread the disease to wild card characters (usually), but since a zombie’s saliva has been replaced by blood, getting bitten is a surefire way to catch this terrible plague.
Most zombies attack with a slam--simply bashing their prey with fists and flailing limbs. With a raise on a slam attack, the zombie does not get the usual damage bonus; instead, the zombie has bitten a hero rather than bashed him. With two raises, the zombie gets both the bite and the +1d6 damage for a raise. If a character suffers a Wound from a bite attack, the character must make a Vigor roll at –2. On a failed roll, the character has become Infected.
Once a character becomes infected from a zombie bite, the rate of death and transformation depends on the seriousness of the wound. In Savage Worlds, this is indicated by the number of wounds the character received during the attack that made him Infected.
One Wound: If the character only received a single wound, the bite isn’t usually deep. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d10 days.
Two Wounds: When a character receives 2 wounds from a zombie’s bite, the injury is usually enough that the virus has entered the bloodstream directly. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 2d6 hours.
Three Wounds: If a character receives at least 3 wounds from a single bite, the depth of the wound pours infected blood into the character's body at a prodigious rate. The character begins to suffer from the infection after 1d6 minutes.
Once the infection begins to affect him, the hero gains a level of Fatigue as the fever starts. This Fatigue does not go away from the character resting. Every day, hour, or minute (depending on the severity above), the character must attempt a Vigor roll to avoid gaining a new level of Fatigue. When a character infected with zombie plague dies, he rises again as one of the undead in 1d6 minutes (unless the head is destroyed before then).
New Edges
Boom! Headshot! [Combat Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Agility d8+, Fighting d8+ or Shooting d8+
When your character makes a called shot against a zombie’s head, you only suffer –2 to the roll rather than –4. When your character takes this Edge, it applies only to the combat skill used to qualify for it (Fighting or Shooting). If the character has (or later gains) d8+ in the other skill, it applies equally to that skill as well.
Immune Survivor [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Vigor d6+
For whatever reason, a few rare people are naturally immune to zombie plague. Your character has already gone through his first exposure to the dreaded disease and come out the other side unscathed. The hero suffers no special effect from a zombie’s bite (other than taking damage, of course).
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Setting Rules
...and we're back again!
I want to take a minute to talk about Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition, which just came out at GenCon. It's a full-sized, hardcover update to the Explorer's Edition rules, and it's entirely worth the time of anyone who like SW. While I'm glad that the EE-sized digest book is coming back (and I'll probably pick up a couple of them for my table when they go back to that size), I'm equally glad that I went ahead and picked up the new "core" in this really posh version. Not just because it's pretty as all get out, but because the new stuff in it are things that are entirely useful to me right now, as a designer and as a GM.
The one that stands out to me the most at the moment is the idea of "setting rules." Most every Savage Worlds GM has had to do this at one time or another, and pretty much every iteration of the game has encouraged it. The innovation with SWDE is that it puts it on paper, which helps certain kinds of GMs think "outside the box" when it comes to setting design, as well as offers a number of very useful variants for different kinds of games. The Guts skill is now a setting rule, for example; the default rules have fear effects target Spirit, while settings that are more focused on horror and terror can use the Guts skill to represent adventurers "hardening their hearts" against fear.
When I ran the TORG setting using the Savage Worlds rules a few years back, I noticed how easily modified the core rules set was to allow extra things to be stuck on the framework, that wouldn't interfere with the core rules at all. Each Realm had its own "world laws" that defined how heroes and villains interacted there. The inclusion of "setting rules" as a default, defined part of the system makes running things like TORG even easier.
That got me to thinking about running cross-world type games, the sort that I've always enjoyed, like Rifts, TORG, and Suzerain. The idea of setting rules allows a GM to make a quick note about each world or dimension or realm or whatever, and use that to create a sense of verisimilitude--not "realism," but a feeling of reality. It's a clever rules shorthand to allow a GM to say "things are different here" without altering the basic way that characters interact with the rules.
For my Mario-inspired setting, "Heroes of the Mandragora Kingdom," one of the major setting rules involves the ability of characters to jump enormous distances. At the time, I was just making a joke about Mario's ability to jump five or six times his own height, but it occurred to me that it's also a good setting rule for any wuxia-inspired campaign, or for one that relies heavily on anime tropes.
Great Leaping [Setting Rule]
Maybe gravity is less in this setting, or maybe heroes are just really good at ignoring it. Whatever the reason, a Wild Card can jump 1” horizontally from a dead stop, or up to 2” with a running. A successful Strength roll grants an additional 1” of distance per success and raise.
When sitting down to run a campaign, I think a GM should always ask himself what rules modifications he can make to turn the rules into something that support the playstyle of the setting. Savage Worlds makes this particularly easy, and the setting rules concept codifies it in such a way that it becomes apparent.
I want to take a minute to talk about Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition, which just came out at GenCon. It's a full-sized, hardcover update to the Explorer's Edition rules, and it's entirely worth the time of anyone who like SW. While I'm glad that the EE-sized digest book is coming back (and I'll probably pick up a couple of them for my table when they go back to that size), I'm equally glad that I went ahead and picked up the new "core" in this really posh version. Not just because it's pretty as all get out, but because the new stuff in it are things that are entirely useful to me right now, as a designer and as a GM.
The one that stands out to me the most at the moment is the idea of "setting rules." Most every Savage Worlds GM has had to do this at one time or another, and pretty much every iteration of the game has encouraged it. The innovation with SWDE is that it puts it on paper, which helps certain kinds of GMs think "outside the box" when it comes to setting design, as well as offers a number of very useful variants for different kinds of games. The Guts skill is now a setting rule, for example; the default rules have fear effects target Spirit, while settings that are more focused on horror and terror can use the Guts skill to represent adventurers "hardening their hearts" against fear.
When I ran the TORG setting using the Savage Worlds rules a few years back, I noticed how easily modified the core rules set was to allow extra things to be stuck on the framework, that wouldn't interfere with the core rules at all. Each Realm had its own "world laws" that defined how heroes and villains interacted there. The inclusion of "setting rules" as a default, defined part of the system makes running things like TORG even easier.
That got me to thinking about running cross-world type games, the sort that I've always enjoyed, like Rifts, TORG, and Suzerain. The idea of setting rules allows a GM to make a quick note about each world or dimension or realm or whatever, and use that to create a sense of verisimilitude--not "realism," but a feeling of reality. It's a clever rules shorthand to allow a GM to say "things are different here" without altering the basic way that characters interact with the rules.
For my Mario-inspired setting, "Heroes of the Mandragora Kingdom," one of the major setting rules involves the ability of characters to jump enormous distances. At the time, I was just making a joke about Mario's ability to jump five or six times his own height, but it occurred to me that it's also a good setting rule for any wuxia-inspired campaign, or for one that relies heavily on anime tropes.
Great Leaping [Setting Rule]
Maybe gravity is less in this setting, or maybe heroes are just really good at ignoring it. Whatever the reason, a Wild Card can jump 1” horizontally from a dead stop, or up to 2” with a running. A successful Strength roll grants an additional 1” of distance per success and raise.
When sitting down to run a campaign, I think a GM should always ask himself what rules modifications he can make to turn the rules into something that support the playstyle of the setting. Savage Worlds makes this particularly easy, and the setting rules concept codifies it in such a way that it becomes apparent.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Collection Services
To make up for the long drought, here's a campaign idea I came up with a little while back, called Collection Services.
Making deals with the devil is easy--after all, the devil wants people to make deals, since it's just about the only way for him to collect human souls at death. Only the absolute worst of humanity goes to hell naturally, so there's a premium on human souls. Various demons offer various things for souls: wishes, vengeance, wealth, money, fame, power, any number of things. The terms of the deal are just as varied: souls collected in one year, ten years, one hundred years, at the moment of death, soul of a firstborn child, and so on.
Unfortunately, many of those people wish for things that they then use to try and cheat the devil of his due. When that happens, the collectors are called in. Collectors are former humans, shaped and twisted by the powers of hell and sent back to earth to act as the agents of demons, who cannot directly affect mortals due to ancient pacts with the Creator. Collectors are sent in small, elite teams that can make quick judgment calls in the field on how to go about the collection, whether to be subtle or blatant, violent or diplomatic, and so on.
In between missions, collectors are given leave on earth to act as they will--rape, murder, pillage, have a happy home and family life, whatever. When the call comes, though, they must drop everything to meet with their collection agent, a demon who gives them their assignments. Fail an assignment, and it's back to the pit. Keep succeeding and damning others, and it's high living for as long as you keep up the "good work." Sometimes, that means sending an absolute sack of garbage screaming into the flames. Sometimes, that means stealing a crying woman's baby, or scraping up what's left of a life of charity and good works after a moment of horrible weakness.
You are a collector, one of hell's repo-men. May god have mercy on you, because your employer certainly won't.
More on Marikuhl soon!
Making deals with the devil is easy--after all, the devil wants people to make deals, since it's just about the only way for him to collect human souls at death. Only the absolute worst of humanity goes to hell naturally, so there's a premium on human souls. Various demons offer various things for souls: wishes, vengeance, wealth, money, fame, power, any number of things. The terms of the deal are just as varied: souls collected in one year, ten years, one hundred years, at the moment of death, soul of a firstborn child, and so on.
Unfortunately, many of those people wish for things that they then use to try and cheat the devil of his due. When that happens, the collectors are called in. Collectors are former humans, shaped and twisted by the powers of hell and sent back to earth to act as the agents of demons, who cannot directly affect mortals due to ancient pacts with the Creator. Collectors are sent in small, elite teams that can make quick judgment calls in the field on how to go about the collection, whether to be subtle or blatant, violent or diplomatic, and so on.
In between missions, collectors are given leave on earth to act as they will--rape, murder, pillage, have a happy home and family life, whatever. When the call comes, though, they must drop everything to meet with their collection agent, a demon who gives them their assignments. Fail an assignment, and it's back to the pit. Keep succeeding and damning others, and it's high living for as long as you keep up the "good work." Sometimes, that means sending an absolute sack of garbage screaming into the flames. Sometimes, that means stealing a crying woman's baby, or scraping up what's left of a life of charity and good works after a moment of horrible weakness.
You are a collector, one of hell's repo-men. May god have mercy on you, because your employer certainly won't.
More on Marikuhl soon!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Heroes of the Tower: New Hindrance
Just so people don't think I reserve all my love for Edges, here's a new Hindrance for Heroes of the Tower.
Roont [Major Hindrance]
You were a child of the Callas once, born in the borderlands between Mid-World and End-World, but as a child you were stolen away to Thunderclap and there things were done to you. You came back big, slow, and dumb, and while you may have gotten a little better since then, you’re never going to be quite all there—and you’re one of the lucky ones.
A roont character gains the benefits of the Brawny Edge (and cannot take that Edge again), but suffers some severe penalties as well. You cannot raise your Smarts above d4, even after character creation. You suffer a –2 penalty on Guts checks because of your occasional fits of irrational terror, and you take a –2 penalty to Charisma due to your slightly deformed and unnerving appearance. Additionally, your life span is only about half that of a normal person’s. Good luck.
Roont [Major Hindrance]
You were a child of the Callas once, born in the borderlands between Mid-World and End-World, but as a child you were stolen away to Thunderclap and there things were done to you. You came back big, slow, and dumb, and while you may have gotten a little better since then, you’re never going to be quite all there—and you’re one of the lucky ones.
A roont character gains the benefits of the Brawny Edge (and cannot take that Edge again), but suffers some severe penalties as well. You cannot raise your Smarts above d4, even after character creation. You suffer a –2 penalty on Guts checks because of your occasional fits of irrational terror, and you take a –2 penalty to Charisma due to your slightly deformed and unnerving appearance. Additionally, your life span is only about half that of a normal person’s. Good luck.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Heroes of the Tower
I'm currently working on making a Savage Worlds campaign based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. The working title is "Heroes of the Tower," and I've just started putting together some arcane backgrounds and campaign-specific Edges for it. Here are a couple of them.
Gunslinger [Professional Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Quick Draw, Agility d6+, Spirit d6+, Guts d6+, Intimidation d6+, Persuasion d6+, Shooting d8+
You have been trained as one of the seppe-sai, a Gunslinger of Gilead. You wear the big iron, the gun of your ancestors, and you carry yourself with the effortless grace of one who knows the face of his father. You gain a +1 bonus on Guts, Intimidation and Persuasion rolls, and a +2 bonus on any roll made as part of a gunfighting duel (including damage).
You are also gifted with a personal firearm--a revolver of fine craft passed down through your lineage for many generations. Such revolvers often have personal flourishes or small enchantments about them, but this is entirely up to the GM.
Additionally, if you take the Trademark Weapon Edge and apply it to your personal gun, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls with that firearm. This bonus increases to +2 if you take Improved Trademark Weapon.
The Touch [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+
Not every person gifted with a little bit of the supernatural is a full-blown psychic. Some folks just have a touch of strangeness about them. Maybe they get a little nudge in their heads when they’re in danger, or they can feel it when a close friend or relative dies. Regardless of the exact manifestation, your character has been touched by fate.
Once per session, you can spend a benny to request a hint from the GM relating to your current situation, or to determine the status of a friend or loved one. Hints should be vague but helpful, and the status is always broad ("He’s in trouble," or "She’s hurt bad, maybe dying"). The GM can refuse to give you any information, but if he does so, you do not spend a benny and instead gain an additional one.
Additionally, if you have the Danger Sense Edge, you make your Notice rolls for that Edge at no penalty.
The design philosophy here is that the Edges grant a tangible benefit, as well as synergizing with standard Edges from the core rules. I think that this lends itself well to creating characters who are campaign-oriented, and who are willing to take things that lend themselves well to emulating the genre. That is, by making a synergistic link between Gunslinger and Trademark Weapon, you encourage characters to build their gunslingers with a personal firearm that has a name, story, and background all its own, just like Roland's guns from the novels. (No spoilers here for anyone who doesn't know the story behind them.)
Gunslinger [Professional Edge]
Requirements: Seasoned, Quick Draw, Agility d6+, Spirit d6+, Guts d6+, Intimidation d6+, Persuasion d6+, Shooting d8+
You have been trained as one of the seppe-sai, a Gunslinger of Gilead. You wear the big iron, the gun of your ancestors, and you carry yourself with the effortless grace of one who knows the face of his father. You gain a +1 bonus on Guts, Intimidation and Persuasion rolls, and a +2 bonus on any roll made as part of a gunfighting duel (including damage).
You are also gifted with a personal firearm--a revolver of fine craft passed down through your lineage for many generations. Such revolvers often have personal flourishes or small enchantments about them, but this is entirely up to the GM.
Additionally, if you take the Trademark Weapon Edge and apply it to your personal gun, you gain a +1 bonus on damage rolls with that firearm. This bonus increases to +2 if you take Improved Trademark Weapon.
The Touch [Background Edge]
Requirements: Novice, Spirit d6+
Not every person gifted with a little bit of the supernatural is a full-blown psychic. Some folks just have a touch of strangeness about them. Maybe they get a little nudge in their heads when they’re in danger, or they can feel it when a close friend or relative dies. Regardless of the exact manifestation, your character has been touched by fate.
Once per session, you can spend a benny to request a hint from the GM relating to your current situation, or to determine the status of a friend or loved one. Hints should be vague but helpful, and the status is always broad ("He’s in trouble," or "She’s hurt bad, maybe dying"). The GM can refuse to give you any information, but if he does so, you do not spend a benny and instead gain an additional one.
Additionally, if you have the Danger Sense Edge, you make your Notice rolls for that Edge at no penalty.
The design philosophy here is that the Edges grant a tangible benefit, as well as synergizing with standard Edges from the core rules. I think that this lends itself well to creating characters who are campaign-oriented, and who are willing to take things that lend themselves well to emulating the genre. That is, by making a synergistic link between Gunslinger and Trademark Weapon, you encourage characters to build their gunslingers with a personal firearm that has a name, story, and background all its own, just like Roland's guns from the novels. (No spoilers here for anyone who doesn't know the story behind them.)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Personal Update and Project
Buying a house is hard, time-consuming work. Remind me not to do this again, assuming I want to have a writing career.
On the plus side, in two weeks I will be out of my cruddy apartment and in a large, pleasant house that has a room my wife has already set aside as a study and writing office. Hopefully, things will flow more easily once I have a dedicated writing space, instead of trying to sneak in a paragraph here or there while I'm having lunch on campus.
The Savage Worlds version of my book Ronin is still up in the air. I've been fiddling a bit with it, but High Moon hasn't given me the formal go-ahead yet. In the meantime, I've been amusing myself with a side project: a wuxia-style setting that isn't set in a thinly-veiled historical China.
I love me some Asian history (as you may have guessed, O readers of this blog), but I think it's almost a disservice to myself to become typecast as "that guy who does historical Asian RPGs." There are worse fates, goodness knows, but I want to write something that isn't just "Sengoku with magic" or "Three Kingdoms with magic." I would very much like to do for China history what Rokugan did for Japan: take all the best parts, and cool things from surrounding areas, and make something new out of it. A Chinese-inspired game rather than a Chinese-historical game.
I can't tell you too much about it yet, not even what system I'm writing it for, but I'm currently doing my research, writing chapter snippets while consulting with my battered copy of Tao Te Ching, casting some trigrams for inspiration, and looking at lots of art about pandas. ^_^ Hopefully, something interesting will come of it.
On the plus side, in two weeks I will be out of my cruddy apartment and in a large, pleasant house that has a room my wife has already set aside as a study and writing office. Hopefully, things will flow more easily once I have a dedicated writing space, instead of trying to sneak in a paragraph here or there while I'm having lunch on campus.
The Savage Worlds version of my book Ronin is still up in the air. I've been fiddling a bit with it, but High Moon hasn't given me the formal go-ahead yet. In the meantime, I've been amusing myself with a side project: a wuxia-style setting that isn't set in a thinly-veiled historical China.
I love me some Asian history (as you may have guessed, O readers of this blog), but I think it's almost a disservice to myself to become typecast as "that guy who does historical Asian RPGs." There are worse fates, goodness knows, but I want to write something that isn't just "Sengoku with magic" or "Three Kingdoms with magic." I would very much like to do for China history what Rokugan did for Japan: take all the best parts, and cool things from surrounding areas, and make something new out of it. A Chinese-inspired game rather than a Chinese-historical game.
I can't tell you too much about it yet, not even what system I'm writing it for, but I'm currently doing my research, writing chapter snippets while consulting with my battered copy of Tao Te Ching, casting some trigrams for inspiration, and looking at lots of art about pandas. ^_^ Hopefully, something interesting will come of it.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
New Design and Development Blog
Since all the cool kids in the gaming industry are doing it now, I figured that I should start up my own design and development blog. This little space on the internet will take up my commentary on my games at home, the work I'm doing in the industry, my trials and travails as a freelancer, and the random ideas for games and game-related projects that come into my head. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a useful web space and not fall into some sort of ugly obsolescence.
Right now, I'm sitting at home and relaxing, putting together the notes for the next system update for my homebrew. I'll try to put up some of the work for it later tonight while I'm on the job. Really, this post exists mainly to inaugurate my shiny new blog. Woo!
Right now, I'm sitting at home and relaxing, putting together the notes for the next system update for my homebrew. I'll try to put up some of the work for it later tonight while I'm on the job. Really, this post exists mainly to inaugurate my shiny new blog. Woo!
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