Vampirates of Caribdus - Kor

Kor is less pudgy and doesn't have a parrot or sword, but this mini helped inspire the character image.

So +James Walls is currently GMing our group through some Savage Worlds action combining Accursed with 50 Fathoms. You can find his own blog posts about the game and our first two sessions here:

• Campaign Design
• Episode 1: A Captain's Barque
• Episode 2:  Maiden Voyage

My character "Kor" is a Revenant from Accursed and I figured I'd share my build and some notes on his background for kicks and giggles.

Kor - Novice

Agility	Smarts	Spirit	Strength	Vigor
d10	d4	d6	d10	d10
Parry	Pace	EXP	Charisma	Toughness
7(6)	4	16	-2	8 (9)

Acceptance/Defiance
			X

Skill	Stat	Rating
Throwing	Agility	d6
Fighting	Agility	d10
Stealth	Agility	d4
Boating	Agility	d6
Swimming	Strength	d4
Climbing	Strength	d6
Notice	Smarts	d4
Intimidation	Spirit	d6

Hindrances	Edges
Lame (major)	Brawny
Clueless (major)	Strength of the Grave (x1)
Loyal (minor)
Illiterate (minor)

Gear:

• Leather coat (armor 1)
• 3 rubies
• Anchor & Chain Str+d10 / 15 lbs / AP1 / Parry -1 / 2 hands
• As Great Axe

Notes:

• “Kor” is not his real name, but a reference to his anchor
• The anchor affixed to his leg is his cause of death, it was chained to him and he was drowned - for the purposes of a "death wound" the anchor acts as his death wound
• “Kor” was once a seaman; a captain who was killed in a mutiny
• The way that he died caused his mental problems because unlike other revenants he died from suffocation/drowning instead of violent trauma
• Kor’s goal is revenge, but he doesn’t remember who he needs revenge on

Rant: My Thoughts During the Savage Worlds Rifts Kickstarter

I'm going to say this upfront: I have not backed the Kickstarter, and I don't know if I will.

Author's Note: I did throw $1 into the pot so I could keep abreast of the updates more easily, but I hardly count that as "backing" it. 

I'm also going to say this: Rifts is what made me a gamer.

Yup, I have a history with Rifts. I've copped to it, and I've also shied away from it at times. It's a complicated property for me on a personal level. Without Rifts I may never have done more than skim the fringe of the hobby and ricochet off into some other part of the gaming world.

You see the first RPG I ever played was some variant of D&D, I know not which, and I can't honestly that I had fun, but that's just because I don't recall it clearly. I was in elementary school and I think I just didn't get it, but it certainly didn't register as a thing. Fast forward to middle school and Rifts. It was like shooting fish in a barrel I suspect. I just didn't stand a chance against a game with wizards and robots and power armor and cyborgs and EVERYTHING. The setting grabbed me too. You could eke out a post-apocalyptic life in the ruins and wilderness, or play cyberpunk style in ChiTown, or perhaps you could travel the megaverse and see all the weird that there was out there. I was hooked from the cover really.

Rifts, by its very nature is/was as much shrewd marketing as it is a cool game setting. It essentially retro-converted all of the Palladium catalog into supplements, and during those first few years when supplements were few and interest was high Rifts helped me discover TMNT & Other Strangeness, Ninjas & Superspies, Heroes Unlimited, and more. Even when we didn't play Rifts my friends and I were playing the games we were because of Rifts.

Looking back now I don't have many "that was so cool" memories from Rifts itself. Those memories from that time come from the TMNT alt setting After the Bomb, or running my friends through Ninjas & Superspies adventures, or the weird superheroes you got out of random power assignment in Heroes Unlimited. So while I can't point to very many discrete Rifts memories, I also know that Rifts helped to make those others possible.

I think my exposure to the Palladium house system also explains why when I played AD&D 2nd Ed in high school I disliked it. THAC0 was counterintuitive and confusing. Memorizing daily spells felt lame after running around with a pool of PPE I could use to fuel whatever spell I needed at the moment, and why did D&D Psionics suck so much? It was like owning a Ferrari and having somebody try to sell you a Datsun. At least it felt that way at the time. (Author's Note: I still hate Vancian magic.)

The Palladium house system started to lose it luster in college as I got exposed to other games. White Wolf's Storyteller system seemed so much faster and more elegant (and better balanced) for instance. But that didn't stop me from forming a new group to play with. A group that I never bothered to show Rifts to. Instead we ran Palladium Fantasy, which had an interesting setting and used the rules I knew way too well (at one point I had the stats for the common spells memorized outright).

Since then I've not really looked back. There's been other games and other systems that have come and gone, and while I still have very fond memories of a lot of Palladium's properties (Nightbane remains a favorite setting of mine and TMNT's Transdimensional TMNT is a favorite supplement) Rifts has faded in mind.

When the Savage Worlds Rifts project was announced my first reaction was astonishment (as I suspect was similar for many folks) because Palladium's history with allowing their IP to touch other companies was both limited (Rifts Manhunter) and storied (let's just say it was tough to be a fan at times).

So here we are, it's happening and it's funded. I've seen pre-release reviews (like this one) and the art direction is certainly appealing, and I've played Savage Worlds a few times and it seems a decent enough set of rules. All of this is encouraging. And yet I can't help but be reminded that for me Rifts wasn't a game of great early gaming memories, but instead it was (somewhat ironically) a gateway to finding other games that generated those memories. Without Rifts I'd never have escaped a nuclear explosion in a hot air balloon, or seen what happens when a cocky player rolls 100 while trying to avoid a freeway sign at 80mph on the back of a trailer truck. I'd probably never have rolled one after one after one while fighting a dragon, or run through an almost continuous 24 hour game session in college.

If I back this Kickstarter it'll probably be more for the hope of seeing other Palladium settings converted to non-Palladium rules sets then it will be for Rifts itself, and in that respect I hope it does well. I also hope it does well because even if it never gave me those great memories directly it is directly responsible for my being in this hobby, and finding those other games. And also Rifts is a pretty great setting idea, it's over the top and crazy, and maybe no longer my cup of tea, but it's a good thing that it has this chance to maybe grow its fan base by jumping into a new set of rules.

At any rate thanks for reading if you made it all the way through this rant. I had to get these thoughts off my chest, because I found it weird how unexcited I was. I think I get it now, and I really do hope that this goes bananas for the Rifts fans, and for those of us (or maybe just me) who would like to see other Palladium settings get new treatments.

Addendum: Now that I've had time to think on what I wrote here I realize that while I think I always liked Rifts in concept I rarely found it worked out in execution. More to the point, I now realize that most of my "warm n fuzzies" with regards to Palladium come out of their other game settings. I think I can probably safely say that unless I feel there is enough new setting material to be worth my while I'll not back this in favor of falling back to my current library of Rifts titles.

Nuts & Bolts #17 - Quattro con Carnage - Savage Worlds RPG (a look at gaming across systems)

This blog references the Quattro con Carnage experiment being run by +James Walls and specifically the fifth and sixth sessions featuring the Savage Worlds RPG segment, and my prior blog posts discussing my thoughts on Basic Fantasy RPG and Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Quattro con Carnage goes fully into the modern realm! The transition to Savage Worlds RPG was a somewhat significant shift in game mechanics. After six sessions of play the characters have really come together and started to feel very much the same despite the change in mechanics at the core. That said, how those mechanics transferred to in game experience turned out to really impact the feel of play.

First off all basic statistics change from a simple system of numbers that give bonuses to a die roll (with d20 being the "base") to a variable die mechanic.  Your stats start at d4 and get "bought up" on the dice scale to d6, d8, d10, and at the upper range d12. Given that the standard target number for a roll is 4 for most tasks this makes it possible to very much control your character's destiny in the build phase of character creation. Lommán who's high Wisdom in BFRPG and Personality in DCC ended up with a d10 Spirit, this meant that for most uses of spells and actions in his "core area of expertise" he had a 70% chance of success (actually higher because all player characters also roll a d6 "wild die" when they make any check). This didn't make him infallible (on the contrary, dice rolls once again proved the great equalizer during these two sessions), but it was a clear indication of his area of focus.

The wild die is an extra d6 that is always rolled along with the relevant skill or attribute die. The higher result of the two dice is used as the check result. Only player characters and special NPCs called wild cards get the wild die. If you are facing off with a goblin warband there might be 10 goblins and 1 goblin warlord. The regular goblins don't get a wild die, they are the peons, and stand around making the heroes look awesome. The warlord could be a wild card though, especially if he's important to the story, he'll get to add a wild die to all his rolls.

On top of all of that dice in Savage Worlds explode! No, not literally ... sheesh ... When you roll the highest result on the die it "explodes" (happy?) and you get to roll it again and add the new result to the old. Rolling a d6 you could roll a 6 and then roll again and get a 4 for a total of 10 on your check result. If the die rolls the maximum value on the 2nd roll it will explode again, and again, so long as you continue to roll the maximum you continue to roll again and add to the total value. This is pretty key, and with luck can result in some crazy successes!

This die mechanic also has a gradient effect similar to DCC's.  When players roll for a task if they hit their target number they succeed, but if they exceed it by 4 or more they gain a raise. You can gain raised multiple times for each full 4 you exceed the target number, in combat this is especially powerful as it adds to your damage.

An example of dice rolling... Bob has d8 for his attack skill and wants to smack a goblin in the face. The GM tells him what the goblin's dodge or parry (depending on if the attack is ranged or melee respectively) and that becomes the target number for Bob's roll; in this case let's say its a 5.  He picks up a d8 (for the relevant combat skill) and a d6 (the wild die) and rolls them. The d8 comes up a 7 which is a hit, but the d6 (the wild die) comes up with a 6. Bob's pretty happy because now he grabs a new d6 and rolls it to add to the first, that die comes up a 6 as well! Things are looking up, and he grabs a third d6 and rolls it getting a 4.  His total check result is a 16 which not only beats the target number of 5, but gains him two raises (one at 9+, and a second at 15+). If he'd rolled another 6 he could have tossed yet another die and possibly scored a third raise (or more). His remarkable success grants him bonus damage dice (or some other kind of bonus for non-attack rolls), as his crushing attack slaughters the poor goblin.

Maybe if Bob is lucky the Warlord won't get explosions on his attack...

Unlike DCC and BFRPG Lommán's clerical powers are now based on a pool of power points, he can use them however he wants so long as he can pay for them out of that pool of points.  During play the pool didn't impinge on my ability as the player to have Lommán use his powers so in this respect there was little difference between DCC and Savage Worlds. I can see this may not always be the case however, and in some encounters using healing and other abilities might tax his power point pool to depletion.

Class features in DCC also became Hindrances and/or Edges. Where in DCC Lommán had a Disapproval mechanic, in Savage Worlds it becomes a Vow hinderance. It can be leveraged by the GM to provide bennies to the player for role playing that hinderance. Likewise his turn dead class ability became the Holy Warrior edge, which allowed his to repel evil creatures.

Bennies are ... actually I did a whole thing on bennies here, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice to say that spending a bennie allows you to reroll. You get more for playing your hindrances. It's a straightforward economy that helps the players retain some control over events and shine when they need to.

So how did I like Savage Worlds?

These two sessions were only my 2nd and 3rd times playing Savage Worlds, so I was on relatively even footing with DCC and BFRPG in that regard. I think that the SW system is pretty interesting, and clearly geared toward quick and simple play. The addition of bennies adds an element of player control that I enjoy as well.  I had a lot of fun with Savage Worlds, but I don't know that it matched the feel of the prior two game systems. The system seems a lot more forgiving in regards to character wounds and death. It's pretty hard to kill a Savage Worlds PC by comparison to DCC and BFRPG and from that standpoint it was the most obvious departure from the OSR feel of the prior four sessions.

In the end I think Savage Worlds does a fine job for a fantasy game, but it may be a little too gentle with characters to really mimic that OSR feel where any minute you could drop dead.