Naked Savages

I ran some more Savage-Worlds-in-Dungeons-&-Dragons-clothing this weekend. It was a really incredibly good session. Here's some highlights.

Deck of Many Things: They were facing the demonic-tinged ghost of the grandfather of one of the PCs, and he had a Deck of Many Things. I actually got out a prop version - Green Ronin Games' beautiful copy. Since I wasn't stuck with the letter of D&D's laws, I could improvise a lot. He would basically flick cards at PCs, and they'd see the drawn card and be affected by it. You'd be a real jerk to do that in D&D, since it's not only against the rules, but also there's cards that just bone the PCs. There's a card that casts Imprison on you - that's a 9th Level spell and pretty much ends a character's existence unless they're very high level. Instead, since it wasn't D&D, he just got sucked to a lower level of the dungeon. Without armor. Or weapons. Or clothing. The card says "all gear and spells are stripped from the victim", and I took that literally.

Streaking: So, the Barbarian gets sucked down a few levels by a magic card, sans everything. Naked and unarmed. In most other games, this would be a death warrant. However, we were playing Savage Worlds, which has decent chase rules, and using my 1 hit = 1 wound houserule. I split the table in half, laid out dungeon tiles, and let him run for his life. Meanwhile, the other players raced down into the dungeon trying to find him. They hit more resistance going down than he did coming up, and he had lucky rolls, quick thinking, and bennies to protect him. When they met in the middle, the scene was quite enjoyable.

Kobolds: Part of the adventure involved Kobolds, and I really wanted them to feel miserably weak. So I gave them d8 Agility, but only d4 fighting. Nimble, but unskilled. To hit the PCs, they needed the die to explode, and to swarm in for the gang-up bonus. This would make them vulnerable to Sweep attacks. I also gave them a d4 Vigor, so their toughness became a mere 4. Then I made them extras, so 1 wound takes them out. That still didn't say pathetic to me, and I wanted these guys to make goblins look hearty, so I went one step beyond. They couldn't be shaken by damage - any hit that shook a kobold incapacitated it. Now they went down in droves, and it made for very epic combat dynamics. It also all meant that Agility tricks were useless against them, so the Rogue-Ranger had to use very different tactics than she did in the other fights.

The battle ended, by the way, with the naked barbarian running into the room, flanking the Kobolds. He was armed only with a branding iron (not hot) that he'd stolen off the wall of the room full of dark elves two levels below. He crashed into Kobolds, and in two consecutive Sweep Attacks wiped out the whole room. In two actions he killed over 12 kobolds - and they didn't even hit him despite his lack of armor or shield. A very memorable scene.

One of the two female players in the group said "I used to game, years ago, with a bunch of teenage guys, and the horny-little-bastard GM would always manufacture excuses to get my characters naked. So thank you turning the tables just once." It probably didn't hurt that her husband was playing the naked barbarian, either, or that everyone saw the completely random draw of the Donjon card that had rendered him naked and alone. Good times, good times.

Edit: I just realized the context there implied her husband was the horny-little-bastard GM of days gone by. He is a horny bastard, :) but he's not the horny bastard she was complaining about. :)