So, the Rifts thread reminded me that Savage Worlds exists. I had recently been thinking of taking a break from Mekton after I finish running my current arc, and was considering running a space pirate game. In the process of trying to find any piratey resources, I had come across Pirates of the Spanish Main, which also uses Savage Worlds. Also, since I had recently been looking at my Space 1889 books, I accidentally ran across Space 1889: Red Sands, which uses Savage Worlds too. The universe was aligning to point me towards Savage Worlds. I had never paid it much heed before, but since the Deluxe Explorer's Edition was under $9, I decided to burn some rewards points and order it.
After work, it was waiting in my mailbox. I popped a Robotech DVD in for background noise and started reading. I was pleasantly surprised to find most things fairly well explained and intuitive. I read the character creation section (minus reading Edge/Hindrance lists). Then I read the Game Rules chapter all the way through, and skimmed the rest as I browsed whatever seemed interesting. By the time a few episodes of Robotech had played, I felt like I had enough of a command of the system to do something with it. What's more, it seemed interesting and I was eager to do something with it.
At the suggestion of the book, I decided to take one of the pre-made character templates and run a fight against three orcs. I chose a Marksman with a bow, and the fights did not go well for my bowman (even after I switched to Goblins), but the mechanics seemed fun. Happy with the experience so far, I changed out the DVD for some Martian Successor Nadesico, and decided to make up a character.
What kind of character should I make? I glanced around the room for some inspiration. I found it in my Real Action Hero Saber Lily figure. I decided to make her up as a character.
I start by looking at the two melee fighter templates: Fighter, Fencer and Fighter, Great Weapon. I decide she has characteristics of both. Since she's an anime girl, I figure she'll follow the standard fighting game trope of agile and fast, but not a bruiser. Fencer fits more with the idea, but the character look itself is more of a Great Weapon fighter. I'm going to fuse the ideas. (But in the end, I just make her a Fencer with different Edges.)
She's human. So that's easy.
For her Attribute Traits I use the Fighter, Fencer unchanged. I note that she has 6 points assigned here, but I figure having only 5 points for Attributes is a typo or something.
I chose Quick Draw because my sample combats with the Marksman showed it was very useful. I pick Trademark Weapon because that fits the background I dreamed up. I pick Attractive because she's pretty cute. I really wanted some others. Sweep and First Strike looked pretty good.
I start her off in some hypothetical fights with three goblins. She mops the floor with them. Hey, this is pretty cool! She's doing much better than the Marksman. I decide to try her against the three orcs.
I'll mention now that I messed up another rule. I missed the Minimum Strength rule. Whenever Altria rolled damage, I rolled 1d6 (her Strength) + 1d8 (the Longsword). I should have been rolling a 1d6 for the Longsword, because her Strength was lower than the die code. It's OK, though. Excalibur is magical. Maybe Excalibur could be a Katana (+1d6+2 damage)? I guess I'll have to beg the GM to please let me have cool stuff.
The fight with the orcs didn't go so well. By ganging up, and one of them getting an Ace on his attack roll, Altria got hit. Then the orc Aced on his damage roll and scored a 20 on his damage roll. That was three raises and three wounds. Altria was going to drop in one hit! I remembered the Damage Soak rule and had Altria spend a Benny to make a Vigor Check. She succeeded, but only barely, and therefore got to remove one of the three inflicted wounds. The situation was still bad, but at least she was still standing.
Next initiative, the orcs drew an ace of spaces. I figured Altria was about to die, but I drew a Joker for her. Cool! Now she'd get +2 to her rolls to offset the -2 to Trait Rolls for having two wounds.
Once again, I misread something. I figured as long as she wasn't moving she could use Defend and still attack at -2. So, that's what she did. She managed to hit an orc! Then the damage roll Aced about 5 or 6 times. The orc fell to Altria's blade and there was suddenly hope that she might make it through this sample fight.
Since this was a pure hypothetical fight, there was no terrain, and I didn't have Altria do any tricks. However, at Altria's awesome damage roll (which must have vaporized that orc like he was hit by a phaser), I decided to roll spirit checks to see if the other two orcs were Shaken. One passed his check, the other failed. The next round, Altria tried to push her advantage on the Shaken one. She hit, and more or less whiffed on damage (damage roll less than the orc's 9 Toughness). The orc then recovered from his Shaken status.
For several rounds Altria Defended and made cautious attacks. At least the orcs couldn't hit worth a damn without their +2 modifier. The rules said Altria's -2 modifier for being Wounded only applied to rolls, so I figured it didn't affect her Parry score. After a few rounds of stalemate, Altria finally dropped her second orc, and the third followed the round after.
After the fight I read some more stuff in the book and saw my error regarding the Longsword damage. I probably made some other mistakes, but it was all in the process of learning.
I was a little concerned about how Altria had the maximum skill level a character could possess in melee fighting until Legendary level, and still had such problems with a couple of enemies. Then again, things would play out differently in a real game where the character was actually in an environment and not a blank featureless area. The tricks Edges provide seem to make up for the shortfall in other ways. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was a bit mixed on how well it would handle the kind of one versus many action I typically go for in my games.
Regardless, I had fun just playing around with the system, and I think it would be fun to play a real game with it. I'm wanting to get a one shot going as soon as possible. The game plays blazing fast, and I like that a lot. It doesn't hurt that it's so easy to learn and absorb the rules.
And at that, the fourth episode of Martian Successor Nadesico ended, so I called it a night.
After work, it was waiting in my mailbox. I popped a Robotech DVD in for background noise and started reading. I was pleasantly surprised to find most things fairly well explained and intuitive. I read the character creation section (minus reading Edge/Hindrance lists). Then I read the Game Rules chapter all the way through, and skimmed the rest as I browsed whatever seemed interesting. By the time a few episodes of Robotech had played, I felt like I had enough of a command of the system to do something with it. What's more, it seemed interesting and I was eager to do something with it.
At the suggestion of the book, I decided to take one of the pre-made character templates and run a fight against three orcs. I chose a Marksman with a bow, and the fights did not go well for my bowman (even after I switched to Goblins), but the mechanics seemed fun. Happy with the experience so far, I changed out the DVD for some Martian Successor Nadesico, and decided to make up a character.
What kind of character should I make? I glanced around the room for some inspiration. I found it in my Real Action Hero Saber Lily figure. I decided to make her up as a character.
http://ift.tt/1QJXSXsSaber Lily comes from Fate/Unlimited Codes, a fighting game based on a popular visual novel/anime/game franchise called Fate/and then some other name depending on the installment (Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Fate/Extra, etc.) I really don't know anything about her as a character. The only things I know are that she's King Arthur (I imagine it's a long story), she wields Excalibur or Caliburn, and she's the best "Saber" class fighter. The only other thing I know is that she looks cool. With this in mind, I'm not making up a character based on the source material. I'm just using the character design as a springboard to make something inspired by it.
I start by looking at the two melee fighter templates: Fighter, Fencer and Fighter, Great Weapon. I decide she has characteristics of both. Since she's an anime girl, I figure she'll follow the standard fighting game trope of agile and fast, but not a bruiser. Fencer fits more with the idea, but the character look itself is more of a Great Weapon fighter. I'm going to fuse the ideas. (But in the end, I just make her a Fencer with different Edges.)
She's human. So that's easy.
For her Attribute Traits I use the Fighter, Fencer unchanged. I note that she has 6 points assigned here, but I figure having only 5 points for Attributes is a typo or something.
Agility d8Now I do her skill Traits. I mostly use the Fighter, Fencer again, but I remove Taunt. The Real Action Hero figure has a "I mean business" option face which exudes confidence. I figure she should probably have Intimidate instead. But for the time being, I just leave my options open and leave 4 points unspent.
Smarts d6
Spirit d6
Strength d6
Vigor d6
Fighting d12I calculate her derived values. That's easy enough.
Notice d6
Stealth d6
4 skill points
Parry 8The template has 1 major and 2 minor Hindrances. That seems normal for all characters, and I'm not going to buck the trend. I start with Heroic as her Major Hindrance. I follow that with Loyal as her first Minor, because that just fits the paladin style personality I think she looks like. For the last, I have a backstory in mind kind of like in the movie Excalibur. She draws the sword from the stone and since she's not one of the approved people to draw it, she gets people pissed at her. I'm not sure what to make this. Criminal seems to fit. I go with Enemy(Minor) because I figure she's already run away from those people and won't meet them that frequently yet.
Toughness 5
HeroicNow I get to choose her edges. As you can tell from what I said about Attributes above, I've already misinterpreted some things. I figure my Major and two Minor Hindrances give me two Edges. Then I get a free one for being Human. I think what is actually happening in the templates is all of them are human, and already have the free Edge pre-assigned. The Major Hindrance pays for the extra (6th) Attribute point, and the two Minor Hindrances pay for the second Edge. But I didn't grok that at the time, so I figured I had three Edges, the ones show and one free one for being human.
Loyal
Enemy (Minor)
I chose Quick Draw because my sample combats with the Marksman showed it was very useful. I pick Trademark Weapon because that fits the background I dreamed up. I pick Attractive because she's pretty cute. I really wanted some others. Sweep and First Strike looked pretty good.
AttractiveFinally, I get to choose Gear. She has $500, and that's not going to buy her much of anything. It immediately becomes apparent she isn't going to be able to afford her cool armor. In fact, her longsword alone eats up over half her money. She's going to have to start out as the non-armor variant of the figure.
Quick Draw
Trademark Weapon
No Armor VersionI think about buying a buckler and saying it's her scabbard. Another, non-posable, version of the same character has an oversized shield that looks like it could be used for this purpose.
http://ift.tt/1GweOZa
Shield as bucklerI also think about saying her pretty white/off-pink dress gives her something like bulletproof nudity and acts as leather armor. I forgo these options. The buckler idea makes sense but I won't use it right now. The dress as armor idea is really stretching it. So, I'm finished.
http://ift.tt/1GweOZc
Gear: Longsword (Excalibur??)Now that I've mostly statted her up (still some open skill points), she needs a name. I decide to name her Altria. She's now ready to kill stuff, and even after character creation, I'm still in the mood to play around.
I start her off in some hypothetical fights with three goblins. She mops the floor with them. Hey, this is pretty cool! She's doing much better than the Marksman. I decide to try her against the three orcs.
I'll mention now that I messed up another rule. I missed the Minimum Strength rule. Whenever Altria rolled damage, I rolled 1d6 (her Strength) + 1d8 (the Longsword). I should have been rolling a 1d6 for the Longsword, because her Strength was lower than the die code. It's OK, though. Excalibur is magical. Maybe Excalibur could be a Katana (+1d6+2 damage)? I guess I'll have to beg the GM to please let me have cool stuff.
The fight with the orcs didn't go so well. By ganging up, and one of them getting an Ace on his attack roll, Altria got hit. Then the orc Aced on his damage roll and scored a 20 on his damage roll. That was three raises and three wounds. Altria was going to drop in one hit! I remembered the Damage Soak rule and had Altria spend a Benny to make a Vigor Check. She succeeded, but only barely, and therefore got to remove one of the three inflicted wounds. The situation was still bad, but at least she was still standing.
Next initiative, the orcs drew an ace of spaces. I figured Altria was about to die, but I drew a Joker for her. Cool! Now she'd get +2 to her rolls to offset the -2 to Trait Rolls for having two wounds.
Once again, I misread something. I figured as long as she wasn't moving she could use Defend and still attack at -2. So, that's what she did. She managed to hit an orc! Then the damage roll Aced about 5 or 6 times. The orc fell to Altria's blade and there was suddenly hope that she might make it through this sample fight.
Since this was a pure hypothetical fight, there was no terrain, and I didn't have Altria do any tricks. However, at Altria's awesome damage roll (which must have vaporized that orc like he was hit by a phaser), I decided to roll spirit checks to see if the other two orcs were Shaken. One passed his check, the other failed. The next round, Altria tried to push her advantage on the Shaken one. She hit, and more or less whiffed on damage (damage roll less than the orc's 9 Toughness). The orc then recovered from his Shaken status.
For several rounds Altria Defended and made cautious attacks. At least the orcs couldn't hit worth a damn without their +2 modifier. The rules said Altria's -2 modifier for being Wounded only applied to rolls, so I figured it didn't affect her Parry score. After a few rounds of stalemate, Altria finally dropped her second orc, and the third followed the round after.
After the fight I read some more stuff in the book and saw my error regarding the Longsword damage. I probably made some other mistakes, but it was all in the process of learning.
I was a little concerned about how Altria had the maximum skill level a character could possess in melee fighting until Legendary level, and still had such problems with a couple of enemies. Then again, things would play out differently in a real game where the character was actually in an environment and not a blank featureless area. The tricks Edges provide seem to make up for the shortfall in other ways. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit I was a bit mixed on how well it would handle the kind of one versus many action I typically go for in my games.
Regardless, I had fun just playing around with the system, and I think it would be fun to play a real game with it. I'm wanting to get a one shot going as soon as possible. The game plays blazing fast, and I like that a lot. It doesn't hurt that it's so easy to learn and absorb the rules.
And at that, the fourth episode of Martian Successor Nadesico ended, so I called it a night.
My First Day With Savage Worlds
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