Savage Dungeons: Character Attributes

In the game, we need some way of describing your character, the fighter you will pretend to be. We can say the fighter is "strong, fairly nimble, not too smart"— but we need to describe the character a little better than that. We call these descriptions abilities.

-Dungeons & Dragons Players Manual

CHARACTER ATTRIBUTES

The Basic version of the game that I am mostly drawing inspiration from calls these character defining traits abilities. Since Savage Dungeons is a designed for use with Savage Worlds we can refer to these defining traits as attributes.

In Savage Dungeons every Basic Quickdraw Wildcard Character has 3-6 defining "Attributes."

[needle scratch]

WHAT? 3-6? what are you talking about? Savage Worlds has FIVE attributes! (see pg. 16 Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition)

Yes I am aware of the rules as written, but since Savage Dungeons has grown out of my home game which includes children ages 5, 8,10, 22, and "older than 22", I am experimenting with how minimal things can get and still work with Savage Worlds rules as written—remember the monster stat block experiment?  (I've been able to run a game quite well using only one die type to represent all attributes and skills for monsters.)

The basic set of attributes for Savage Dungeons are Strength, Agility, and Smarts. While they are broad categories that cover many different but related aspects of a character,  having only three makes it as easy for young players and extremely new players to keep track of what die they need to roll for a given task. 

Strength defines how strong and durable your character is. The attributes of Strength and Vigor are both folded into the Strength attribute. Strength relates to physical actions such as forcing doors, fighting with melee weapons, physical endurance and resisting disease. Strength is the primary attribute for Fighter and Dwarf archetypes.

Agility describes how fast and physically coordinated your character is. Agility is quickness, movement, dexterity, and reflexes. Agility relates to actions such as dodging attacks, sneaking around quietly, picking locks, throwing objects, and shooting weapons. Agility is the primary attribute for the Thief and Halfling archetypes.

Smarts determines how smart, knowledgeable, and likable your character is. This attribute includes both Smarts and Spirit. Smarts relates to solving puzzles, remembering facts, telling convincing lies, using Magic and mental resistance. Smarts is the primary attribute for the Magic-user, Cleric, and Elf archetypes.

Since Savage Dungeons is trying to maintain the feel and flavor of the basic version of the original fantasy RPG, all the archetypes have fixed stats at the start of the game. So far this approach has worked well especially for players coming from a traditional F20 RPG background where the d20 does most of the rolling for attacks and skill checks and the concept of potentially rolling a different die type for each action can be as difficult to grasp as the classical dynamics of spinning tops.

What's your thoughts on this minimalist take on Savage Worlds attributes? 

Savage Dungeons: That Old Black Magic - Making the Magic-User Archetype

While the Fighter Archetype gains Edges common to their background, the Magic-User Archetype must always have the Arcane Background (Magic) and Power Points edges, so that their character flavor will be developed by the spells that they choose.

Since trappings seem to be a hard notion for some old school style gamers to grasp, I’ll be rewriting the spell descriptions from the Open Game License (OGL) and applying the appropriate Savage World Powers. The spell trappings will then become part of the Wildcard PC background by choosing from a prescribed list similar to Edges in the Fighter Archetype Quickdraw Wildcard character creation.

Vancian magic was at the core of the original dungeon crawling RPG, but I am more concerned with reproducing the effect of the spell rather than converting the original mechanics-- this is still a Savage Worlds setting and I do not want to recreate the “fire and forget” style of magic on the whole. There may be certain spells or circumstances that I may include Vancian style as an option or setting rule.

We’ll start with the first and second level Magic-User Spells for the Basic Rules:

First Level Magic-User Spells Charm Person Detect Magic Floating Disc Hold Portal Light Magic Missile Magic Mouth Protection from Evil Read Languages Shield Sleep Ventriloquism

Second Level Magic-User Spells Continual Light Detect Evil Detect Invisible ESP Invisibility Knock Levitate Locate Object Mirror Image Phantasmal Force Web Wizard Lock

An example might look like this favorite first level spell, Magic Missile:

Magic Missile:

Rank: Novice

Power Points: 1 per missile

Range: 12/24/48

Duration: Instant

This spell causes a missile charged with magical energy to dart forth from the caster's hand and strike its target unerringly, as long as the target is at least partially visible to the caster, causing 2d6 damage per magic missile.  If multiple missiles are cast they can target a single creature or several creatures. A single missile can strike only one creature.

At 7 and 14 XP a magic user can cast an additional Magic Missile-- up to 3 per turn. 

Trappings (Choose one):

1.     You learned to cast this spell by careful study with the village fortune teller. Through careful use and manipulation of a special deck of cards you learned that you could send them slicing through the air like razors, hitting their mark every time.

2.     The crazy old hermit on the edge of town who was once the king's Mage has taught you supernatural secrets. By marking a small stone with the correct rune, it becomes magically charged and strikes your target as a bullet of pure energy.

3.     The old wizard showed you the arcane secrets of the universe. By opening your mind and body to the flow of energies around you, you create a glowing blue arrow made of pure energy that sings through the air unerringly hitting your target.

4.     While being pushed around by the village bullies one day you suddenly uttered words in a language unknown to you and while pointing your finger, conjured a bright stream of light energy that instantly struck one of them. You have since been able to remember the incantation and can cast magic missile at will.

5.     While exploring in the ancestral barrow mounds you found an antique book of strange notes and drawings. Most of the book seems incomprehensible, but as you spent months studying it you were able to decipher some of the writings and symbols. By carving an arcane symbol into the air and singing the correct notes, you cause space itself to ripple from your finger and instantly strike any visible creature.

6.     Magic has always been in your family. Your mother has it, your father has it, and you have been taught from birth how to harness the power inside of you and bend it to your will. By pointing your finger at a creature and forcefully speaking a single word, you release a green bolt of arcane energy at your target.

This approach will certainly take the most time when recreating the Basic spells for Savage Dungeons, but I think the results will be worth it.

Savage Dungeons: Goblins and Kobolds and Bugbears, oh my!

 The Basic red box for me was not just about ease of learning how to play the game, but also ease of GMing a game. I want to add that same notion to Savage Dungeons. Like the Quickdraw characters and possibly choose-your-own adventures for players, I'd like to develop  simple paint-by-number styled adventures for beginning GMs.  I am playing with how to present monster stats simply but still remain Savage. Looking at the stat block for monsters in the Basic F20 adventure, there is still a lot of information presented that didn't come up often in a typical dungeon crawl or encounter. After reading the article Instant NPCs for Fifth Edition D&D by +Mike Shea, in which he refers to a blog post Monte Says: PCs versus NPCs in which +Monte Cook talks about simplifying NPC (and creature) details. Monte goes on to talk about how the Cypher system makes it easy to create NPCs and monsters on the fly. In the Cypher system NPCs are represented by one number that is essentially their level of difficulty. In early F20 games this difficulty was represented by the Hit Die as well as treasure type and PC experience point value--Risk vs. reward. In his article Mike concludes that for Fifth Edition D&D, "We likely can't design a system as simple the one in the Cypher system for combatant NPCs. Monsters in D&D have quite a bit of crunch to them with their six attributes, hit points, armor classes, attack scores and the like.", but what about Savage Worlds?looks at NPC creation through the lens of the Cypher System, I began to wonder if Extras in Savage Worlds could be reduced to just a few stats?  How much information is actually needed for a typical combat or non-combat encounter? Since Savage Worlds already makes a distinction between Wildcard and Extra NPCs half the work of simplification is already done, but can we get even simpler? Can we design a "Quickdraw" Extra?

Starting with the most common of fantasy monsters, I created my Basic version of the Savage Worlds Goblin:

Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d4, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d4, Climbing d4, Notice d6, Stealth d6, Throwing d4
Charisma: -1; Pace: 5; Parry: 4; Toughness: 4
Weapons: Short Sword (Str+d4), Spear (range 3/6/12; Str+d4)
Special Abilities:
     • Infravision

For the most part the average goblin's role in a typical dungeon setting tend to be fighting, creating mischief, and draining the PC Wildcard's resources. with that in mind, the most useful information about goblin Extras is their Fighting (d4) and Throwing (d4) Skill, Parry (4), weapon damage (Str+d4), and Infravision. Aside from Infravision, all the base difficulty of a goblin extra is 4 or d4. A Wildcard Extra stat block in Savage Dungeons might look something like this: Goblins (d4, Parry 4, Toughness: 4, Damage: 2d4,  Morale d4, No. Appearing 1+1 per Wildcard, Special: Infravision)

To check the numbers I ran some simulations on +Richard Woolcock's Build Comparison and Savage Worlds Battle Simulator which are fantastic resources. Compared to his Goblin stats the d4 goblin is slightly less intimidating, but in numbers will definitely keep a party of novice wildcards on their toes.

I'd love to get some feedback on this concept. Do you think its a viable solution to rate Extras based on a single die type?

Savage Dungeons: BECMI, Ranks, and a look ahead at the Magic User

  In our recent discussions here at The Middle-kingdoms HQ, we've talked about how Savage Dungeons should be modular in its approach adding new parts as characters (and GMs) go up in Ranks— Basic would use only the simplest core rules, Expert will add more moving parts, Companion/Master being the  version using all of the core Savage Worlds Deluxe rules, and Immortals using the complete Savage Worlds Deluxe rules plus some additional setting rules for epic play. It's still unclear how far we'll take this concept, but we'll have a better idea as we play through each. 

 

The current proposed breakdowns are:

·       Basic Setting Rules - Novice to Seasoned Ranks

·       Expert Setting Rules - Seasoned to Veteran

·       Master Setting Rules - Veteran to Heroic

·       Legends Setting Rules - Heroic to Legendary Ranks

·       Immortals/Epic?

We’re working on the Basic Setting Rules for character generation and we have been able to playtest the Quickdraw Wildcard creation using only Wildcard attributes predetermined by archetype and an edge. The edge is either chosen from a list of character backgrounds or can be rolled for as a random table. Hindrances and additional edges can be introduced after the first or second game session in a similar playbook fashion or perhaps written into the adventure. As I said in the first post, Quickdraw Wildcards were originally conceived as a way to quickly introduce Savage Worlds to my family play group who were mostly familiar with Labyrinth Lord and had never played Savage Worlds, so far they are working out great. We’ve been play-testing the Fighter Archetype and will start work on the Magic User Archetype next. Since trappings seem to be a hard notion for my old school style gamers to grasp, we’ll be rewriting the spell descriptions using the spells from the OGL and then applying the appropriate Savage World powers. 

We’ll start with the first and second level Magic User Spells for the Basic Rules.

First Level Magic-User Spells Charm Person Detect Magic Floating Disc Hold Portal Light Magic Missile Magic Mouth Protection from Evil Read Languages Shield Sleep Ventriloquism

Second Level Magic-User Spells Continual Light Detect Evil Detect Invisible ESP Invisibility Knock Levitate Locate Object Mirror Image Phantasmal Force Web Wizard Lock

I found with the Savage Worlds Basic Character Record Sheet that if I keep things familiar enough the transition from Labyrinth Lord to Savage Worlds is easy and fun. I look forward to posting some of the spells as and the Magic User Quickdraw Wildcard as it progresses.

Savage Dungeons: Grognar the Veteran, Edges, Leveling Up, and A Cooperative Roll

     First let me say this is turning into quite the fun challenge. The biggest challenge is remaining faithful to my original goals. Because I don't live in a vacuum and tend to read RPG system and setting books like they were page turning novels, the harder it is to keep all the new ideas I find out of Savage Dungeons and remain true to the original idea of Savage Worlds with the trappings of Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons. Fortunately I have help. My good friend +Victor Diaz who has been a sounding board and playtester for my previous projects, has graciously decided to lend a Cooperative Roll and lend his talents to the project–especially his talent for keeping me on task.

I'm still working on getting character creation using Quickdraw Wildcards just right. The challenge here is to keep things simple but still maintain both Savage Worlds and Basic D&D flavor. I have to get the mixture just right or the whole thing will explode. The initial concept is to keep character generation simple enough for an eight year-old to pick up a character sheet and start right away with little or no help. In my home playtests with the Inkling we've found that character generation grinds to a near stop if he has to choose too many things or has too large of a buffet to choose from. To help this I'm going to break character creation up into smaller steps with game play in between.  To do that I'm thinking of breaking up the Rank into three segments. When playing with new or young players, they like the feeling of leveling up quickly. As the character gains experience they can add a new edge or hindrance appropriate for their archetype and adventure experiences. Those choices may also be something that gets written into each adventure.

Along with dividing the Novice rank into three segments, another idea I want to include from the Basic Rules is level titles. In the basic rules a character would have a title which coresponded to their level for instance a 1st level fighter would be called a Veteran, a 2nd level a Warrior, 3rd Swordmaster, etc. The only current system that I know of that keeps this tradition is Dungeon Crawl Classics. The idea was that when meeting with other characters or NPCs you wouldn't say, "I'm Grognar a first level Figher," but, "I'm Grognar the Veteran." For me there's a little more "character" in that. 

Here is the first playtest draft of the Fighter Archetype Quickdraw Wildcard.

Savage Dungeons: Classes, Archetypes, and Quickdraw Wildcards

In Basic D&D a character's capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses are largely defined by his or her chosen class. Basic D&D included seven classes: Cleric, Fighter, Magic User, Thief, Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling.  While Savage Worlds doesn't have classes, I want to keep Savage Dungeons characters simple and attempt to emulate each of the class capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses by using archetype templates.

I want to make Savage Dungeons simple and easy to get started and since my target audience is new-to-Savage Worlds players between the ages of 8 and 98 character generation needs to be simple, and fun—not a completely custom wildcard, but not exactly a pre-gen either.

I think a menu style approach may work well where an archetype begins play with a given set of attributes and skills and then chooses  Edges and Hindrances from prescribed lists of possible character background options. 

Example:

Archetype: Fighter
Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d8, Vigor d6
Skills: Fighting d10, Throwing d4, Notice d4, Shooting d8
Charisma: –, Pace: 6, Parry: 7, Toughness: 5

While the stats will most likely remain the same for every basic wildcard, there will be an opportunity for character customization by picking Edges and Hindrances from a prescribed list similar to character creation in Dungeon World or Beyond the Wall. If you wanted to add to the old school feel you could randomly determine Edges and Hindrances with a dice roll.

I'm thinking it might look something like this:

Edges (choose one):
1.  As a runaway slave you have learned to be on your toes and ready for anything, capture would mean certain death. Gain the Alertness Edge
2. Some say its because you were born under the sign of the bear, but only the fates know why in battle you are often overcome with an uncontrollable rage that can be woeful to both friend and foe. Take the Berserk Edge.
3. Working on the family farm has made you freakishly strong. Your feats of strength are well known. Take the Brawny Edge.

Hindrances will be a bit more complex. With each hindrance the player will have two additional choices to make:

Major Hindrances (Choose one):
1. More is never enough. Growing up poor and never knowing where your next meal was coming from has made you constantly hungry for your fair share. You have the Greedy Hindrance.

Choose one:
1. Raise Spirit to d8
2. Raise Agility to d10
3. Choose an additional Edge

Minor Hindrances (Choose two):
1. The world has dumped nothing but misery on you, at least that's how you see it, so why does anyone else deserve better?  You have the Mean Hindrance
Choose one:

1. Gain the Survival Skill d4
2. Double your starting money

Hopefully this will create some interesting characters quickly. I'm calling them Quickdraw Wildcards, they are a nice middle ground between pre-generated characters and Wildcards created from scratch. It will also help control the mood and setting of the game to help give it that old school flavor. As I refine each archetype template I'll begin posting complete character generation menus and finished record sheets.

Savage Dungeons: An Idea

What started as a way for me to get my Basic/Expert D&D playing family into Savage Worlds as well as help me learn how to be a Savage Worlds GM, has evolved into something more. In order to entice my family into playing Savage Worlds I created a Savage Worlds Basic Character Record Sheet. I wanted to give them something that looks familiar and it worked.

My Basic Savage Worlds Character record Sheet

In order to help the learning curve, because my family of players ranges from 8-20, I also trimmed the character creation process and some of the rules down a bit. Classes became archetypes and Edges and Hindrances became racial traits and in some cases just cool stuff your character can do. At first there wasn't much choice in customization other than choosing fighting over shooting or magic user over fighter, but for new players learning the rules that was just fine. 

B2: The Keep on the Savagelands?

The more we played this basic version of Savage Worlds the more we realized we wanted to play this version. Most of our adventures so far have been short random dungeon crawls, but now we're ready for something with a bit more meat on the bones. So I began looking at my old Basic D&D adventures to convert. (B2: The Keep on the Savagelands?)

After posting a fun photoshop mock up of what a B/X D&D/Savage Worlds mashup rule book cover might look like it became apparent that we were not the only players wanting more of this old game reimagined. I'm not necessarily saying a word-for-word conversion, but Savage Worlds with the trappings of Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, after all if we wanted to play Basic D&D then that is what we would play. My initial goal is to create something that is as close to the core rules as written and maintain the flavor of Basic D&D. 

Stay tuned!