I just got back from Wayward, where I ran Og for the Emerald City Game Feast group. So. Much. Fun. Everybody was in stitches, we laughed really hard and got all crazy. I'm now going to be running it again on November 15th at the yearly free Con the group puts on. Go Bang Big Smelly Thing!
Mark and John knew Land of the Lost nearly as well as I do. I GM'd, I have an excuse. I had to do research. They're just geeks. :)
No one (but me) was expecting Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential Inaction Rangers to show up. Instead of Al Gore, Gary Gygax, Nichele Nichols, Stephen Hawking and Deep Blue (per Futurama's VP Action Rangers), we had Palin, Joe the Plumber, Charles Keating, Elian Gonzales and Jenny McCarthy. They got sucked into the Land of the Lost via Pylon, landing in the midst of a fight between the PCs and Alice (the Allosaurus) when Grunting Caveman grunted. When all was said and done, only Palin survived, running off into the woods with her Moose Rifle to live a life not unlike Danielle (the crazy french woman) from Lost.
This was the most miniatures-intensive game I'd played in a long while, but that's too be expected of Og. With limited PC vocabularies they need something to gesture at, and it's a great excuse to buy plastic dinosaurs. The PCs were all D&D minis - quaggoths, primitive orcs, ghouls, mongrelmen, and anything else that liked like a caveman or Pakuni. The Sleestacks were D&D lizardmen, troglodytes, sahaugin, and kuotoa. I had an infernal T-Rex for Alice, and then picked up a couple of Papo and Safari Limited figurines to be the other dinosaurs (Spike, Junior) and a Dodo to be a random Terror Bird. It paid off, the game ran smooth, fast, and funny.
It was Ogsome.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Savagetics (Updated)
Update/Edit: This post is a nightmare. You'd be far better to use my new system, which is far more elegant, and doesn't add all this unnecessary complication to the character creation process. I'm leaving this old post here for posterity, but the new Cyber Die system is a huge improvement. It puts Cybernetics into Savage Worlds without adding ridiculous numbers of Edges to your typical character, as the system below did...
Background: as seen in previous post, I'm toying with the notion of Cyberpunk in the Savage Worlds setting. So I'll need rules for Cybernetics, Genetic Modification, Bioware, Wetware, and the like.
A quick search of the interwebs turned up Cyborgs as a monster trait and Cybernetics as an Arcane Background on Savagepedia. Neither is quite what I want, but it's got my brain cells running.
I don't want Cybernetics as an Arcane Background. Specifically, I don't think Power Points really capture the feel of CP2020 cybernetics. Your standard cyberarm doesn't run out of power and need to shut down for an hour. For that matter, most of the 31 powers in the Explorer's Edition don't match up to Cybernetics terribly well. Your cyberarm's extra strength doesn't line up well with Boost/Lower Trait. My cyberarm doesn't make my legs stronger, or make your arms stronger, or make you weaker, or make me Smarter, all of which can be done with Boost/LowerTrait. Sure, Trappings can reign that in, but you'd have to pump up theother aspects of the Power to balance. If you're gonna do that, why notjust make a Cyberarm Edge that does it for less complexity. There maybe Cybernetics that make sense as a Power or Arcane Background, butthat'd be the exception.
Afterall, I'm not looking for CP V3 level supertech. I'm looking for good old fashioned chrome and bolts.It's not Clarkean, it's not the Lost In Space remake, it's not sonic screwdrivers. It's mostly just wires and bitz where your flesh used to be.
That said, here's my gut instinct / second draft.
Players start off by making normal novice characters. There are no Arcane Backgrounds, and it’s generally understood that at this point they are buying the “meat capabilities” of their characters, un/pre-cybered.
Once normal character creation is done, everyone get’s cybered up. They get the following Edge for free: Cybernetically Enhanced.
Cybernetically Enhanced (Background Edge)
Requirements: Novice
You’re wired in, chromed up, and/or cyber-enhanced. Some portion of your flesh has been cut out and replaced with metal, and/or your nervous system has been computer integrated. No doubt about it, the machines have made you better than you were before, but some would say you’ve lost a bit of your soul in the process.
Your Charisma is reduced/penalized by –1. This cannot be removed, but it does not prevent you from taking other Edges that give you Charisma bonuses. You’re no longer entirely human, and that makes you a little cold.
As compensation, you gain 4 bonus Edges. Most often these will be Cybernetic Edges, a special category of Edge that represents hardened components and cyborg devices integrated into your body. However, you may actually take any Edge you want for the bonuses, provided you can justify it by pointing to a cyber device in a Cyberpunk book and explaining that the Edge is a logical benefit of having that bit of cyberware.
Examples: You could take Ambidextrous, and explain it’s a result of your advanced neural processor and targeting link. You could take Jack-Of-All-Trades to represent your “skillsoft” chipware and augmented memory database. Trying to justify “Noble” and “Filthy Rich” as the result of your cyberware might be more than the GM is willing to accept.
Cybernetic Edges may not normally be taken unless you have this Edge first.
Any time a Cybernetically Enhanced character takes a 3rd wound or is incapacitated, it is assumed their Cyberware is badly damaged in the process. The GM selects one of their bonus Edges to be deactivated by the damage (two if a single fight did a 3rd wound and incapacitated them. They cannot use or access that Edge until it has been repaired. Getting it fixed takes a Repair skill roll, with a –2 penalty if not done at a properly staffed and resourced cyberware facility, and 1d6 hours of work per Cybernetic Edge being repaired.
If the PC party makes a big score, the GM may choose to reward them with some number of bonus Edges to represent new cybernetic upgrades. Other than such awards, cybernetics can’t be purchased. This perhaps doesn’t make a lot of sense from an in-character and monetary viewpoint, but it is required for the sake of character balance and avoiding rampant inflation within the campaign. Savage Worlds is a light system, not intended for lots of economic book-keeping.
Bonus edges do not count as advancements, nor do they affect a character’s Rank. Starting characters still count as Novices, regardless of cyberlimbs and gadgetry, until they’ve accumulated 20 xp (and the 4 advancements that come with those XP).
Update/Edit: This post is a nightmare. You'd be far better to use my new system, which is far more elegant, and doesn't add all this unnecessary complication to the character creation process. I'm leaving this old post here for posterity, but the new Cyber Die system is a huge improvement. It puts Cybernetics into Savage Worlds without adding ridiculous numbers of Edges to your typical character, as the system you just read did...
Savagepunk 2020
An aside: The "best" thing about Savage Worlds is how easy it makestitling blog posts. Just add Savage to front of things, or swap outwords for Savage. I'm so glad the game wasn't named "Buttweasel Worlds".
We used to have this MOC campaign... it was a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign withrandom craziness furnished via Morton's List. I loved that campaign,but it had one problem: the PCs had to be total freakin' cowards. Wewere a freakin' booster gang, and the sort of nutcases happy to puttheir lives in the hands of the Morton Boulder as a weeklysemi-religious experience - those characters shouldn't be cowards! Butwe were dirt poor gangers, and the CP2020 system isn't kind to thosewho can't afford armor, so we had to play cowards or die repeatedly. Wedidn't end up dying...
While talking today, Sarah and I lamentedthe passing of that game, and she mentioned that it bugged her that wewere such scaredy cats. In her experience, she maintains, CP2020 ain'tthat lethal. But she'd played mostly in high school, with power gamersand munchkins, where subdermal armor, skinweave, and metalgear wouldfrequently all end up on the same PC. Short of that kind of abuse ofthe layering system (which our poor gangers couldn't afford), headshots are nearly always lethal in CP2020, and 10% of hits areheadshots. Bravery gets you killed in Cyberpunk.
The otherproblem with CP2020 is how long it takes to build a character (PC orNPC). Even if you just need the random chombatta in an alley, he needscyberoptions, weaponry, and the SP values for every limb. It's a fun,gritty system, but it's a big pain in the ass to improvise.
Aswe discussed those truths, our eyes collectively lit up. Savage Worldscould get us back the MOC campaign concept without having to playcowards or deadmen. We've got recent experience with a very flexiblegeneric system, with low PC lethality and very simple NPC statimprovisation.
We used to have this MOC campaign... it was a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign withrandom craziness furnished via Morton's List. I loved that campaign,but it had one problem: the PCs had to be total freakin' cowards. Wewere a freakin' booster gang, and the sort of nutcases happy to puttheir lives in the hands of the Morton Boulder as a weeklysemi-religious experience - those characters shouldn't be cowards! Butwe were dirt poor gangers, and the CP2020 system isn't kind to thosewho can't afford armor, so we had to play cowards or die repeatedly. Wedidn't end up dying...
While talking today, Sarah and I lamentedthe passing of that game, and she mentioned that it bugged her that wewere such scaredy cats. In her experience, she maintains, CP2020 ain'tthat lethal. But she'd played mostly in high school, with power gamersand munchkins, where subdermal armor, skinweave, and metalgear wouldfrequently all end up on the same PC. Short of that kind of abuse ofthe layering system (which our poor gangers couldn't afford), headshots are nearly always lethal in CP2020, and 10% of hits areheadshots. Bravery gets you killed in Cyberpunk.
The otherproblem with CP2020 is how long it takes to build a character (PC orNPC). Even if you just need the random chombatta in an alley, he needscyberoptions, weaponry, and the SP values for every limb. It's a fun,gritty system, but it's a big pain in the ass to improvise.
Aswe discussed those truths, our eyes collectively lit up. Savage Worldscould get us back the MOC campaign concept without having to playcowards or deadmen. We've got recent experience with a very flexiblegeneric system, with low PC lethality and very simple NPC statimprovisation.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Savage Idea
I not only missed that Joshua had more than just 3 pages on Savage Worlds, I also missed the coolest page. His specific, concrete advice on how to make Savage Worlds combat more exciting is very cool.
Italso just inspired an idea... Fights tend to be more exciting if there's stuff in the environment to interact with. A battle amidststeaming geysers is far more interesting than one that's set on afeatureless plain. Some games spend a lot of word count achieving this,with rules to govern every possible terrain type and improvised weapon.However, Savage Worlds doesn't have quite the complicated run-down ofterrain features that, say, D&D 3.5 has - and that's largely a goodthing, as it makes SW combat Faster and more Fun (though I suppose itdoesn't make it any more Furious). FFF is what it's all about.
Here'sa simple house-rule for Savage Worlds - it's not even a house-rule somuch as a philosophy or plan to use existing rules in specific ways.Basically, as a SW GM, you'd just commit to including in every fightscene one feature which you'll apply as a modifier to one specific typeof action/roll. Possible roll types include Agility Trick, SmartsTrick, Intimidation roll, Fighting roll, Shooting roll, Damage roll,etc. In the steaming geysers example, you might add +2 damage to anyattack that involves knocking or backing a foe into a geyser. You stillremain open to applying modifiers where appropriate when the playerscome up with something cool. The only difference is you're preplanning/ guaranteeing at least one such modifier is out there per encounter,and telling the PCs this at the start of the adventure. It's sort oflike there's a puzzle to figure out - a hidden bonus in every scene.
Theplayers already want to describe their actions colorfully, as the gameis more fun when they do. Sometimes, however, someone's having "writersblock" and keeps falling back on "I shoot them again!" Sometimeseverything's going so fast, people just jump at only the most obviousmoves. If they know, however, that there's a bonus out there waiting tobe discovered, and all they have to do is work it into the descriptionof their actions, I think it will jazz-up combat nicely. You'll want tovary it a lot, probably putting it on Tricks and the like slightly moreoften than straight-up attacks, so that you reward cleverness andexperimentation.
NPCs can use the bonuses too, by the way, but only once a PC has discovered / used it.
Update: An obvious alternate is to do it like Stunts in Scion. Anything coolthat uses the established terrain / setting gets +2 automatically. Thatmay be a little too powerful, but at least it doesn't require any prepwork on the GMs part.
Italso just inspired an idea... Fights tend to be more exciting if there's stuff in the environment to interact with. A battle amidststeaming geysers is far more interesting than one that's set on afeatureless plain. Some games spend a lot of word count achieving this,with rules to govern every possible terrain type and improvised weapon.However, Savage Worlds doesn't have quite the complicated run-down ofterrain features that, say, D&D 3.5 has - and that's largely a goodthing, as it makes SW combat Faster and more Fun (though I suppose itdoesn't make it any more Furious). FFF is what it's all about.
Here'sa simple house-rule for Savage Worlds - it's not even a house-rule somuch as a philosophy or plan to use existing rules in specific ways.Basically, as a SW GM, you'd just commit to including in every fightscene one feature which you'll apply as a modifier to one specific typeof action/roll. Possible roll types include Agility Trick, SmartsTrick, Intimidation roll, Fighting roll, Shooting roll, Damage roll,etc. In the steaming geysers example, you might add +2 damage to anyattack that involves knocking or backing a foe into a geyser. You stillremain open to applying modifiers where appropriate when the playerscome up with something cool. The only difference is you're preplanning/ guaranteeing at least one such modifier is out there per encounter,and telling the PCs this at the start of the adventure. It's sort oflike there's a puzzle to figure out - a hidden bonus in every scene.
Theplayers already want to describe their actions colorfully, as the gameis more fun when they do. Sometimes, however, someone's having "writersblock" and keeps falling back on "I shoot them again!" Sometimeseverything's going so fast, people just jump at only the most obviousmoves. If they know, however, that there's a bonus out there waiting tobe discovered, and all they have to do is work it into the descriptionof their actions, I think it will jazz-up combat nicely. You'll want tovary it a lot, probably putting it on Tricks and the like slightly moreoften than straight-up attacks, so that you reward cleverness andexperimentation.
NPCs can use the bonuses too, by the way, but only once a PC has discovered / used it.
Update: An obvious alternate is to do it like Stunts in Scion. Anything coolthat uses the established terrain / setting gets +2 automatically. Thatmay be a little too powerful, but at least it doesn't require any prepwork on the GMs part.
Yellow and Blue make Ork
So, apparently a 5th Edition of WH40k has released sometime earlier this year, and, along with it, a new Orky Codex. This edition continues the gritty ork style of 3rd and 4th edition. To me, that is a such a downer. The new ork deathcopta's, which come in the new main rule set, are very sweet, but other than that, they just don't feel like orks to me. They feel like Goff Orks only, and fairly uncolorful Goff Orks at that.
As a former WH40k Second Edition player, Orks are all about flavor and color. I like the goofy Orky glyphs painted on my Bad Moonz Yellow armor, and the blue face paint for good luck on the drivah of my big red buggy. I want Gretchin with blunderbusses, and Runtherdz pushing snotlings, squig wargear, and all sorts of ridiculous artillery that's only slightly less dangerous to me than the enemy. When I'm playing Orks, I want random, I want crazy, I want to scream "Waaaagghhh!" at the top of my lungs. But most of all, I want the six orky clans with all their flavor and foibles.
And it's a good thing, too, because if it weren't for that disconnect between what I want and what the rules provide, the very charismatic manager at the GW store down the road would have had me sold on that beautiful boxed set with 3 ded sexy deathcoptahs.
As a former WH40k Second Edition player, Orks are all about flavor and color. I like the goofy Orky glyphs painted on my Bad Moonz Yellow armor, and the blue face paint for good luck on the drivah of my big red buggy. I want Gretchin with blunderbusses, and Runtherdz pushing snotlings, squig wargear, and all sorts of ridiculous artillery that's only slightly less dangerous to me than the enemy. When I'm playing Orks, I want random, I want crazy, I want to scream "Waaaagghhh!" at the top of my lungs. But most of all, I want the six orky clans with all their flavor and foibles.
And it's a good thing, too, because if it weren't for that disconnect between what I want and what the rules provide, the very charismatic manager at the GW store down the road would have had me sold on that beautiful boxed set with 3 ded sexy deathcoptahs.
Savage Links
A few interesting links that a google search for Savage Worlds turned up:
On some guy's blog from a month ago, he talks about 3 things he hates about Savage Worlds. In adjacent posts he also discusses things he likes about it, and things the GM should avoid, but the "Three Bad Things" post is most interesting to me. Not because I want to bag on the game, but because his 3 nits are different from the nits I pick. I love bennies, and hadn't yet noticed the character generation issues he belabors. He considers the damage system (which I dislike) to be one of the best features of the game. The three consecutive posts make for an interesting read.
This Savage Worlds probability analysis pretty much confirms what I'd felt: the odds in Savage Worlds are a little strange. If the difficulty is 6, you're better off with a d4 than a d6. If the difficulty is 12, you're better off with a d10 than a d12. That much I'd begun to suspect, but I'm glad to see that once the numbers are crunched out further, the differences are only a percent or so off. I was a little worried the mathematical paradox would be far greater. Just the same, I still see little point in taking anything above a d8.
What every new Savage Worlds GM needs to know, according to the Pinnacle Forums. The most useful to me is the "balanced encounters" system. "System" may be too generous a term for it, but it's a step in the right direction. I've been playing Scion for the past year and change, so I'm sick and tired of RPGs that give you no clues how long a fight will last and whether the PCs will slaughter, be slaughtered, or just spin their wheels ineffectively till the GM improvs a solution. In a nutshell, the "almost a system" presented on the forum is this: determine average damage for the heroes. Set the Toughness of the foes at 0-1 points above that average damage. For every PC, add 2 extras or 1 wild card villain, or increase the toughness of an existing villain by 1. Roughly. YMMV.
Savagepedia is a wiki, so anything I say about it could be completely invalidated at the drop of a hat.
Combat Survival Guide is technically just a table of modifiers, but it's organized as a problem-solving tool, so you can figure out what you need to do depending on the situation. Even traditionally "non-combat" characters will find something in that PDF that they can do to help the group win the fight. Tricks and Tests of Will are some of my favorite parts of the Savage Worlds system.
On some guy's blog from a month ago, he talks about 3 things he hates about Savage Worlds. In adjacent posts he also discusses things he likes about it, and things the GM should avoid, but the "Three Bad Things" post is most interesting to me. Not because I want to bag on the game, but because his 3 nits are different from the nits I pick. I love bennies, and hadn't yet noticed the character generation issues he belabors. He considers the damage system (which I dislike) to be one of the best features of the game. The three consecutive posts make for an interesting read.
This Savage Worlds probability analysis pretty much confirms what I'd felt: the odds in Savage Worlds are a little strange. If the difficulty is 6, you're better off with a d4 than a d6. If the difficulty is 12, you're better off with a d10 than a d12. That much I'd begun to suspect, but I'm glad to see that once the numbers are crunched out further, the differences are only a percent or so off. I was a little worried the mathematical paradox would be far greater. Just the same, I still see little point in taking anything above a d8.
What every new Savage Worlds GM needs to know, according to the Pinnacle Forums. The most useful to me is the "balanced encounters" system. "System" may be too generous a term for it, but it's a step in the right direction. I've been playing Scion for the past year and change, so I'm sick and tired of RPGs that give you no clues how long a fight will last and whether the PCs will slaughter, be slaughtered, or just spin their wheels ineffectively till the GM improvs a solution. In a nutshell, the "almost a system" presented on the forum is this: determine average damage for the heroes. Set the Toughness of the foes at 0-1 points above that average damage. For every PC, add 2 extras or 1 wild card villain, or increase the toughness of an existing villain by 1. Roughly. YMMV.
Savagepedia is a wiki, so anything I say about it could be completely invalidated at the drop of a hat.
Combat Survival Guide is technically just a table of modifiers, but it's organized as a problem-solving tool, so you can figure out what you need to do depending on the situation. Even traditionally "non-combat" characters will find something in that PDF that they can do to help the group win the fight. Tricks and Tests of Will are some of my favorite parts of the Savage Worlds system.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Next Up: Wham Trek
I think sometime in November I will run Wham Trek. In a nutshell, I plan on using Savage Worlds to make a one-shot that's part Star Trek, part the board games of Tom Wham (most especially Awful Green Things From Outer Space and the Snits games). I can use the boards from those games as maps for the PCs to reference.
Right Over My Thick-Skulled Caveman Head
According to the Og design journals at the firefly games site, I missed a pretty major joke in the original Land of Og. Characters never level up. Or rather, it takes 25,000+ xp to level up, and the biggest single award is about 2,000 xp per PC - and that's for the nastiest biggest dinosaur you'll never kill anyway. As Robin Laws describes it, it's like D&D if you had to kill Asmodeus (or some other major demon/devil/dragon/titan) a dozen times in order to get to second level.
I'm so jaded and used to house-ruling XP systems, I completely missed the joke (when I read Land of Og).
I'm so jaded and used to house-ruling XP systems, I completely missed the joke (when I read Land of Og).
Monday, October 20, 2008
Land of Cha-Ka
It's my turn to GM for the Emerald City Game Feast group this week. Last Friday morning I toyed with the idea of running Land of Og. I've always wanted to play (or GM) Og, the caveman RPG where you get a handful of words to express yourself. The total list is 18 words (Fire, Hairy, Rock, Stick, Smelly, etc), and each character gets just a fraction of them. I love the idea of players using charades, half a dozen useless words, and lots of pointing to try to convey their actions, it makes me laugh.
But, truth be told, Land of Og was a barely playable game. Funny as heck to read, but not a good game, I'm afraid. I've never really admitted that before, as I've met Aldo Ghiozzi (the author of the first two editions) on several occasions, and he's always struck me as a not just a really nice guy, but a really smart man, too. When Wargames West went under, Aldo offered me a part time job despite my being in another state, and you just can't dis a guy who went out of his way to make sure you had a safety net. Aldo is a prince among men. I kept Land of Og around hoping to one day play it, and did my best to overlook unnecessarily complicated rules and the fact that one character class ("Smart Caveman") seemed brokenly better than all the other classes. So, Friday morning, I resolved to play it within a week, and knew I had to honestly look at Og's warts. An hour or two later, I started brainstorming simplified rules of my own based on the Og concept. It was designed during a time when RPGs were clunkier as a matter of fact, and didn't have the benefit of today's more streamlined design ethos, and I planned to update it for my own use.
Later that afternoon, on my way home from my chiropractic visit, I stopped in at Gary's Games, and what should I discover by Og Unearthed Edition sitting on their shelves. I didn't even know this third edition of Og existed. It seems Aldo figured out his awesome concept wasn't being done justice by the previous rules sets. So he hired award-winning game author Robin D Laws to simplify it. Needless to say, I bought it on the spot. I then swung by Top Ten Toys on my way home, where I purchased several quality painted plastic dinosaurs to use for miniatures. At home I found a bunch of D&D minis that, while they won't work for cavemen, per se, they would work for Pakuni, the monkeymen like those appearing in 2001, Land of the Lost, or - get this - the antagonist section of Og Unearthed Edition. I've got quaggoths, primitive orcs, grimlocks, ghouls in animal skins, a dinky little mongrelman, and a really fat Taer. Perfectly mismatched, and just about in-scale for the dinosaurs. I will be running a heavily Land of the Lost influenced Og session this Thursday, and the PCs will be Cha-Ka's clan. It's gonna be fun.
I also hauled out the minis from my Betrayal At House On The Hill boardgame to be Marshall, Will and Holly, or perhaps Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential Action Rangers, gone back in time to prove mankind and dinosaurs coexist. I love it when a plan comes together - especially a plan that mocks young earth creationists.
The Unearthed Edition is an improvement over Land of Og in nearly every respect. It's far more elegant, less fiddly, and both play and character creation look to be much faster. It's no longer level based, and doesn't have numerous derived statistics. You don't start with one word, you start with 1d6+2. You only use d6's, and generally just one per action. The writing remains entertaining, and the game portions are better than ever. You can still "forget how" to do things, so you're still playing dumb cavemen. I'm grateful that Aldo and Robin made this happen.
Here's a cute little "small world" moment. I posted to the group's list saying that I'd decided on Og for Thursday, and Mark replied. Turns out that he, Sophie, Edmund and Laura had playtested this edition of Og before it released last year, so a couple players will already know the system. On closer inspection, their names show up in the credits on the first page of the book. How funny.
But, truth be told, Land of Og was a barely playable game. Funny as heck to read, but not a good game, I'm afraid. I've never really admitted that before, as I've met Aldo Ghiozzi (the author of the first two editions) on several occasions, and he's always struck me as a not just a really nice guy, but a really smart man, too. When Wargames West went under, Aldo offered me a part time job despite my being in another state, and you just can't dis a guy who went out of his way to make sure you had a safety net. Aldo is a prince among men. I kept Land of Og around hoping to one day play it, and did my best to overlook unnecessarily complicated rules and the fact that one character class ("Smart Caveman") seemed brokenly better than all the other classes. So, Friday morning, I resolved to play it within a week, and knew I had to honestly look at Og's warts. An hour or two later, I started brainstorming simplified rules of my own based on the Og concept. It was designed during a time when RPGs were clunkier as a matter of fact, and didn't have the benefit of today's more streamlined design ethos, and I planned to update it for my own use.
Later that afternoon, on my way home from my chiropractic visit, I stopped in at Gary's Games, and what should I discover by Og Unearthed Edition sitting on their shelves. I didn't even know this third edition of Og existed. It seems Aldo figured out his awesome concept wasn't being done justice by the previous rules sets. So he hired award-winning game author Robin D Laws to simplify it. Needless to say, I bought it on the spot. I then swung by Top Ten Toys on my way home, where I purchased several quality painted plastic dinosaurs to use for miniatures. At home I found a bunch of D&D minis that, while they won't work for cavemen, per se, they would work for Pakuni, the monkeymen like those appearing in 2001, Land of the Lost, or - get this - the antagonist section of Og Unearthed Edition. I've got quaggoths, primitive orcs, grimlocks, ghouls in animal skins, a dinky little mongrelman, and a really fat Taer. Perfectly mismatched, and just about in-scale for the dinosaurs. I will be running a heavily Land of the Lost influenced Og session this Thursday, and the PCs will be Cha-Ka's clan. It's gonna be fun.
I also hauled out the minis from my Betrayal At House On The Hill boardgame to be Marshall, Will and Holly, or perhaps Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential Action Rangers, gone back in time to prove mankind and dinosaurs coexist. I love it when a plan comes together - especially a plan that mocks young earth creationists.
The Unearthed Edition is an improvement over Land of Og in nearly every respect. It's far more elegant, less fiddly, and both play and character creation look to be much faster. It's no longer level based, and doesn't have numerous derived statistics. You don't start with one word, you start with 1d6+2. You only use d6's, and generally just one per action. The writing remains entertaining, and the game portions are better than ever. You can still "forget how" to do things, so you're still playing dumb cavemen. I'm grateful that Aldo and Robin made this happen.
Here's a cute little "small world" moment. I posted to the group's list saying that I'd decided on Og for Thursday, and Mark replied. Turns out that he, Sophie, Edmund and Laura had playtested this edition of Og before it released last year, so a couple players will already know the system. On closer inspection, their names show up in the credits on the first page of the book. How funny.
Savage Waffles
Brace yourselves - I'm gonna waffle on my Savage Worlds position a little more. In this post I'm gonna criticize it all over again, and then talk about little nuggets I really admire. I have yet to make up my mind fully on the game, and will no doubt be getting my $10 worth (and then some) before I settle on a position.
The damage issue remains the stickler. On further reflection (and after hearing counter-arguments from the rest of the Thursday group), I'm forced to conclude that you do, indeed, add up your damage dice. How'd I miss/misinterpret it? I'd pretty much skipped the Gear chapter, reading the Character Creation chapter and the Rules chapters first. I figured the equipment section of a non-genre-specific game wasn't vital to understanding the way the system worked, since half that equipment wouldn't be available in any given one-shot. Whoops!
The answer was there amidst the Gear. That chapter explains how damage codes for weapons work. It's still not crystal clear, but it'd be hard to interpret a Str + d6 +2 Katana to do anything other than 4-14 damage in the hands of a character with d6 Strength. Likewise, most rifles do 2d8 damage - compare that to a Bazooka, which does 4d8. Clearly, they intend the dice to be added together - if you were only using the single largest die, the bazooka would roll 3d12 or even 2d20, not the same size dice as all those conventional sidearms. If you were using just the highest die, PCs would laugh off LAW rockets, .50 cal MGs, and artillery. As much as I hate the delay as someone counts up the damage total from 2d8+1 and a d6 raise where 2 of the 3 dice exploded, I must admit that's preferable to PCs soaking Panzershreks.
The more serious offense is the book's complete lack of a clear example that would render it unambiguous. The damage and healing section is pages 74-78, but the muddied evidence of how it works is buried on pages 42 and 53. None of the three "examples" in the damage / healing section involves any actual dice rolls - it says Buck "does just enough damage to get a shaken result" instead of something more useful like "Buck rolls a 2 and 4, doing 6 damage, which is just enough to get a shaken result against the foe's Toughness of 6". This detailed example is not omitted for lack of space, since the 5-page section in question has two large pictures and a quarter column of (wasted) blank space. It's just sloppy, the sort of thing that should have been caught by blind playtesting and fixed in editing.
Oh well, I've seen worse - if this were Scion, the rule wouldn't just be vague, it'd be implied to function differently in every chapter it got mentioned in, with some instances being undeniably contradictory to each other. Savage Worlds dodged that bullet, but I'd still rather see Pinnacle set the bar just a tad higher than it did.
Here's a few other things I'm griping about today:
Rather than ending this on the downer note, I'm going to talk about the bits of Savage Worlds that I really like...
The damage issue remains the stickler. On further reflection (and after hearing counter-arguments from the rest of the Thursday group), I'm forced to conclude that you do, indeed, add up your damage dice. How'd I miss/misinterpret it? I'd pretty much skipped the Gear chapter, reading the Character Creation chapter and the Rules chapters first. I figured the equipment section of a non-genre-specific game wasn't vital to understanding the way the system worked, since half that equipment wouldn't be available in any given one-shot. Whoops!
The answer was there amidst the Gear. That chapter explains how damage codes for weapons work. It's still not crystal clear, but it'd be hard to interpret a Str + d6 +2 Katana to do anything other than 4-14 damage in the hands of a character with d6 Strength. Likewise, most rifles do 2d8 damage - compare that to a Bazooka, which does 4d8. Clearly, they intend the dice to be added together - if you were only using the single largest die, the bazooka would roll 3d12 or even 2d20, not the same size dice as all those conventional sidearms. If you were using just the highest die, PCs would laugh off LAW rockets, .50 cal MGs, and artillery. As much as I hate the delay as someone counts up the damage total from 2d8+1 and a d6 raise where 2 of the 3 dice exploded, I must admit that's preferable to PCs soaking Panzershreks.
The more serious offense is the book's complete lack of a clear example that would render it unambiguous. The damage and healing section is pages 74-78, but the muddied evidence of how it works is buried on pages 42 and 53. None of the three "examples" in the damage / healing section involves any actual dice rolls - it says Buck "does just enough damage to get a shaken result" instead of something more useful like "Buck rolls a 2 and 4, doing 6 damage, which is just enough to get a shaken result against the foe's Toughness of 6". This detailed example is not omitted for lack of space, since the 5-page section in question has two large pictures and a quarter column of (wasted) blank space. It's just sloppy, the sort of thing that should have been caught by blind playtesting and fixed in editing.
Oh well, I've seen worse - if this were Scion, the rule wouldn't just be vague, it'd be implied to function differently in every chapter it got mentioned in, with some instances being undeniably contradictory to each other. Savage Worlds dodged that bullet, but I'd still rather see Pinnacle set the bar just a tad higher than it did.
Here's a few other things I'm griping about today:
- Edge Summary: The chart is a pain to read. There should have been three lists - one organized alphabetically, and a second organized by Rank requirement, and a third by category/type. As it stands, you search by the name of the Edge, not by what it does, nor by whether or not it's available to you. Until you're really familiar with the options, that organization scheme is not so useful.
- Chart blindness: For that matter, all the charts in the book could use lined or colored backgrounds to demark entries - it's easy to wander a line up or down the Edge chart by mistake, and the same goes for the Hindrance Summary and the various Weapon charts.
- Social Stuff: The Tests of Will mechanic (see below) is pretty sweet, but ultimately leaves you unable to Intimidate someone into fleeing. I'm happiest with games that allow you to play a character smarter and/or more charismatic than you (the player) are, and Savage Worlds comes really close but ultimately fails. In the end, it seems they were worried that social power would wreck too many plotlines. I think that's a shame, since they could have made social powers really strong against Extras but not Wild Cards without too much effort. It's the sort of thing I could see myself crafting a houserule for, possibly stealing some ideas from 7th Sea's awesome Repartee system.
- Allies: I like that the PCs get to play thier own henchmen. However, I think it's dumb that you can't get Edges to accumulate a sidekick or followers until you've reached Legendary Rank (which means you've played at least 27 sessions). Even worse is that those henchmen are very vulnerable and go away if they die. This seems like it might not have been playtested as thoroughly as it should have been. On a related note, the game deals well with mass combat, and claims to deal well with allies. The truth of the matter is, assigning a squad of 10 allied soldiers to accompany the PCs would bog the game down nightmarishly. Brute squads, were are you when we need you?
- First Strike (and the like): This power seems just a bit buff for it's meagre requirements. I guess that's supposed to be mitigated by the GM moving his villains carefully, but it's hard to say how often that will happen as planned. Most disturbing is the fact that many of the bonus-action Edges (of which there are 9 in the book) have similar requirements, so a combat-focused PC might stack several of them. Combining Two-Fisted, Frenzy and Improved First Strike on one PC would allow for a sick number of attacks each round, but at least it's not a combo you can start with as a Novice character.
Rather than ending this on the downer note, I'm going to talk about the bits of Savage Worlds that I really like...
- Pace: Some games have movement systems that are so vague everyone pictures the fight differently. Other games avoid that by use of miniatures, but this usually results in all humans moving at the same pace, or predetermined speed per character that means if two PCs race the same one wins every single time. Savage Worlds neatly balances this - standard pace is the same, but running gets a nice random (yet measurable) boost, and you can make a character (without too much effort) who's faster or slower than average. It does all this elegantly, to boot.
- Fatigue: The game scores more points by coming up with simple, interrelated systems for resource deprivation and environmental hazards. Staying up all night and not eating for days makes it that much harder to resist succumbing to freezing weather, as it rightly should, but without clunky complexity. Bravo!
- You play your own Allies: The actual system for Allied NPCs isn't terribly innovative (in fact, I complained about it above), but I like that they go to such lengths to clearly spell out that players control their henchmen and followers in combat. I already do as much in most RPGs, but it's nice to see a published book specifically insist on this way of running things.
- Mass Combat: The mass combat system isn't quite as colorful or detailed as the one in 7th Sea, but it's very playable and nicely abstracted. PCs are a major force on the battlefield, without having to play out hundreds of skirmishes.
- Powers: The books only 160 pages, yet they manage to fit in the tools for an a very large number of genres and settings, including 5 different mix-and-match "magic" systems. There's a lot of overlap in those systems, but I'm fairly amused by the way they made each feel different.
- Built For Success: The typical difficulty is 4, which even the weakest / least prepared PC will hit a good 20% of the time. When working in their specialty, the PC has a better than 50% of succeeding on the overwhelming majority of tasks. It's a feel-good experience, unlike many games where the average roll is a miss or failure.
- Initiative: The reverse alphabetical order tie-breaker somehow rubs me wrong, but the rest of the card-based iniative system is beautiful. It keeps combat from getting too predictable, yet the cards serve as an easy reminder of who goes next. I especially like the bonus-effect of the Jokers, and how they provide unpredictable moments in the spotlight.
- Tricks and Tests Of Will: These are likely to become my favorite parts of the combat system, though the game really desperately needs an Edge that removes the multiaction penalty for performing a Trick and an attack at the same time.
- Hold, Standoff, and The Drop: Many RPGs can handle Held Actions, but few provide workable simulations of Standoffs and/or The Drop. In Savage Worlds, if the bad guy has The Drop on you, you play along if you know what's good for you. Pinnacle gets kudos for elegant mechanics to simulate all this.
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