I thought I'd make a place to discuss house rules.

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I posted on the peg boards the need for a way of giving a penalty, currently you can use a Trick to lower your foe's parry, or a Test of Will to get a bonus, but making it easier for you to get them, but there is no way to make it harder for them to get you.

Clint came up with:
Tricks:
Distract - This works as written causing -2 Parry and Shaken on a raise.
Confuse - This inflicts a -2 if the target attacks on the next round, and -4 on a raise.

Tests of Will: Intimidate/Taunt
Cow/Enrage - As written, +2 to next action against target and Shaken on a raise.
Rattle/Belittle - Target suffers a -2 to next action, and is Shaken on a raise.

I just got a copy of 50 Fathoms and after looking it over and finally thinking about it I think I have some rules people might be interested in.

I am thinking about adding in a new type of edges called Weapon Edges. Basically I want to take special abilities from 7th Sea and transport them into the game as specialty edges.

Example: Entangle
Requirements: Wild Card, Novice, Fight D6+,
The character gains the ability Entangle at D4 which can be raised normally through skill points. Whenever the character would like to trap someone's weapon in another weapon they must make an entangle roll. If successful the enemy must spend a full turn as well as make a resisted strength roll to get the weapon out of the entanglement.

This is just an example and not fully fleshed out. I will have them all completely finished sometime before next week.

Savagepedia is a good place to add your house rules.

http://savagepedia.wikispaces....e+Worlds+House+Rules

That way, everyone can use them and they are all in one place!

Paul

There is no need to put Novice as a requirement. And why Wild Card? Usually, WC edges apply when it would not apply to extras, such as reducing wound penalties or improving the Wild Die. The so-called WC edges, for example, are based on having a joker; in theory, you could apply these to extras, but since extras tend to get a single card as a group, these edges are best used for single persons and not groups of extras.

Having to buy an edge and a skill is too much for a mundane ability (as opposed to a superpower). Compare Entangle, as you have described, with Disarm, which people can already do for free and is based on a pre-existing skill, and has similar benefits to Entangle.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:14, Wed 05 Sept 2007.

I completely agree with you I was just thinking about a way of giving players more control over fighting. The one thing I feel Savage World lacks is a decent amount of Swashbuckling abilities. This could just be me and I am sure that most such a disarming an opponent are completely covered but things like corps-a-corps or breaking a weapon or lunging are not covered in the book. And while you can say these are call covered under fighting I feel that giving the players the ability to have a specific special skill makes that skill feel all worth it.

Of course this is just me. I do appreciate the feedback though I will work on my requirements.

Anyone looking for more swashbuckling style stuff need look no further than the Pirates RPG. Entangle, lunge, fleche, fencing academies, its all there and more. Plus the pdf is available already for only 25 bucks.

If you wanna test out any of that stuff, and have or will get the Pirates book, take a look at my Pirates game, link below.

link to "Pirates of the Spanish Main - Rebels & Revenants"

Awesome well my players might enjoy that more. I guess I'll have to look into buying that book also.

The only house rule I use is to cap damage at a max of 4 wounds. I don't see it as a problem much in a PbP forum with a dice roller but in my personal table top games I had to incorporate it to give my PC's a chance to soak, as I roll damage equallying 8-12 wounds on a very regular basis.

Welcome to rpol Wyck!

Out of curiosity, do you have the Explorer's Edition? The incap rules in there pretty much solve your problem. When you get past 4 or 5 wounds, you can just save your bennies for making the Incap roll, to see how bad you're hurt. Since that roll is only modified by your wound mods (max of -3), crazy high wound causing attacks aren't as big a deal anymore.

Thanks and yep I do have them. I keep the rule because my players get real dejected anythime they have to go incapacitated. It still happens and I do like the new incap rules better but still would you rather take 8 wounds. Spend bennies for incap roll and recover with 3 wounds on ya or soak against 4 and end up with a couple wounds and still in the fight?

plus heaing 3 wounds is pretty hard.

I guess I understand, though with your house rule I can't imagine anyone EVER going Incap. And with the new rules making that not nearly as bad as it used be, I actually enjoy sending my PCs there every now and again, especially now that they've had a chance to pick up some Wound penalty ignoring Edges. In the Deadlands game I'm running in real life, I told my players to expect at least one death for each of them, maybe even more. Every character has been Incap at least twice, and no one's complained once.

Just different play styles, I guess.

No ones really complained about it. Just no one likes to wait all week to play and be Incap the first round of combat.They go incap all the time though. Like i said I roll really well. there bennies disappear quickly. I sometimes have to refresh them once or twice a session to keep playing. Otherwise it would be character generation every week.

I saw a really cool idea in a Necopolis game.

Basically, the GM edits the player posts with the resutls of the post.  If the target goes down, or spends a bennie, or whatever, that way the results are with the action.

>blush<
In necropolis we have often many enemies on a large battlefield. I had to do this to see the results especially if there are 10 ghouls and five Knights and 5 Sergeants firing on them while the first are in close combat.
To dont lose track in large combat I simply had to write to each action/message a result. :-)

Figured this might be the best post for this. This idea came up in the POTSM game that MagusRogue is running.



This make the system similar to Cortex. Any thoughts?

would attribute still limit skills by making them more expensive?

Yes, that won't change. (as far as I know)

it's a little harder to crunch the odds, but I'll give it a shot

currently, a d4 skill has a 62.5% chance of success vs a tn of 4, as I recall. a s6 skill is 75%

a person with a low attribute (d4) and low skill rolls d4 + d4, the lower of which can be replaced by the wild die.  Using excel, the odds of success are 58.33.

for a d6 skill and d4 attribute (or the other way around) it's 72.5%

for a d6 skill and attribute, it's 80%

for higher skill / attributes, I would assume it continues to be better.

Unsurprisingly, it makes attributes more important for skill use

Which is the main reason MagusRogue was talking about this idea.

Takes away from FFF though yeah?
Maybe not for us here on virtual rpol games.  But on a table full of mini's.

You'd also have to consider things like - Tricks, Soak, Common Knowledge, etc etc

Not a fan of the idea myself, just wanted to get it into other folks noodles for some thoughts.

I don't like it, and here's why

you have fighter and a rogue as partners.

Fighter only needs Fighing under agility to be high, he's ok with only a d6 shooting for his crossbow.  He saves his attribute advances for Strength and vigor, and spends full advances to buy his fighting to d8 and d10

rogue needs stealth, fighting, and throwing.  he likes a high vigor, at the cost of a lower st.  WHen he raises fighting, he also raises stealth or throwing.

under core, that's fine, they both had d10 fighting

under his house rule, the fighter can't hit as often.

For more details and crunch like that peeps might as well just go to a system that has more, well.... details and crunch.

I've got to think that the main reason SavW is so cool is because it's light without sacrificing much.  So much of what you get out of the system as-is makes so much sense that you don't feel like you're playing an RPG that's (as an extreme example) just flip-a-coin as its only rule.

(My point is if you do feel that way, there are other systems that do the whole 'more detail' thing really well).

---
edit: sorry this post probably doesn't really belong here.  the name of the thread is "house rules" after all
This message was last edited by the player at 16:47, Wed 04 May 2011.

I don't think it's a matter of more detail.  I mean, you still have the same number of skills, weapons, etc.

it just makes stats more important, which means that it's not more important for warrios to have high agility, which I don't like.  I like the way a melee character can have an average agility

Bully:
You may make a standard action to use Intimidate or Taunt on an ally. You roll for shaken but use your taunt or intimidate skill instead of his spirit. If the ally has bonuses/penalties to his shake roll your roll get's those to. On a success the ally is unshaken and may act normally on his turn. On a raise your Taunt/intimidate roll becomes a free action and no multi action penalty.

Is that too powerful?

Hi all-
I may be asking this in the wrong place and if it's already addressed elsewhere can someone provide a link?

I'm looking to do a SW Fantasy game inspired by the Basic/Expert D&D settings and rules.  SW Fantasy looks like it will get me through most of what I'm looking to do, but the races have a few glitches I don't like (namely "All Thumbs" for Elves doesn't fit my concept... not to mention the disaster that would be in a Shadowrun type setting!)

I was considering making Elves and Orcs (or Goblins) Racial Enemies, or giving Elves a -1 Toughness to reflect the slimmer/frailer build described.

Has anyone else seen an alternate race build that doesn't involve the "All Thumbs"?

Thoughts/Suggestions?  I'm new to running SW and am still getting a feel for the system.  I'm looking for a house rule that would allow me to keep races consistent across various genres.

Thanks!

Like you said, just swap the All Thumbs hindrance out for an equivalent hindrance or -1 Toughness. That's all you'd need to do.

This is what I did for a recent fantasy campaign I put together but never got off the ground.

Dwarves
Dwarves are a stout, earthy people renown for mining and building communities in great underground complexes, but they are also farmers, brewers, and craftsmen. Loyalty and honor as well as stubbornness are traits commonly ascribed to dwarves. They have a natural lifespan of over 200 years.

• Arcane Resistance: Dwarves have natural resistance to magic act as if they have 2 points of Armor when hit by damage-causing arcane powers, and adds +2 to Trait rolls when resisting opposed powers. Even friendly arcane powers must subtract this modifier to affect dwarves.
• Low Light Vision: Dwarven eyes are accustomed to the dark of the underearth. They ignore attack penalties for Dim and Dark lighting.
• Slow: Dwarves have a Pace of 5”.

Elves
Elves are a thin, mercurial people with a deep attachment to nature. Though commonly associated with forests, they can be found in all climes and environments. It is said that elves are immortal, though all eventually fade into the Wyld within a couple hundred years.

• Arcane Background (The Wyld): All elves have magic, though some are better at it than others. Elves do not begin with the spellcasting skill automatically, though any elf can use it unskilled (-2 penalty).

Xenon - I like those ideas, but wanted to keep the Agility bonus to Elves.  I could borrow the Bane idea from Marchland setting and tie Elves to the FaeWyld by making them susceptible to Rowan Wood and/or cold-wrought iron (suffer extra d6 damage from attacks).

Hi everyone - Has anyone found a table (or flowchart for Dramatic Task) that could be used to emulate trying to figure out how an unknown/alien device works?  I'm picturing the tools/tables from Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, etc., but was leaning towards levels of success, where the explorer may only be able to deduce part of the functionality.

I suppose assigning as a Dramatic Task and letting the player describe how they're trying to go about analyzing the object in question would work, with critical failure or clubs on the first check indicating breaking the item or potentially discharging a weapon in a harmful manner accidentally?


Thoughts?  Recommendations?

Yeah, sometimes I wish there was a middle ground between a simple check and a dramatic task.
-

I'm currently working on a house rule to help players know what I'm looking for in a campaign, and to incentivize taking hindrances or backstory elements that I need to use as hooks.

The current iteration is something along the lines of:

Extra Hindrance Points
The following list of Hindrances and Background Details represents a connection to the plot of the campaign. Each of these Hindrances are worth 1 extra Hindrance point (so a Minor hindrance nets you 2 points and a Major hindrance gets 3) at character creation. In addition, working any of the below details into your character's history will gain you the number of Hindrance points in parentheses following the detail. Finally, any characters who have a substantial history together (we had a drink together won't suffice) each gain an additional Hindrance Point. The maximum number of hindrance points a character can have at creation (before spending any of them) is 8.
--

I used to offer a free advance, but this led to confusion when new players joined up and I felt like giving them substantially less power was unfair. This way, it's numeric and the players know about it. The cap of 8 means that a player who takes 2 Minor and 1 Major from the list can only benefit from EITHER a history or a detail (and only if the detail is a cheap one). Contrariwise, a character who has no interest in the hindrances offered could take several details (up to a total of 4 points) or intertwine their history with each other party member (thus saving me some early-campaign trouble in bringing them together)

I found a technique that might work (or I can at least adapt from) in Savage Gamma World Revisited on Savagepedia.  I seem to remember Darwin's World having something similar, but not finding it at the moment.

Essentially, each item has a complexity rating and a technology rating.  The complexity rating is the cumulative number of successes/raises needed to figure an item out, while the difference between the technology rating of the item and the investigating character serves as a modifier to the die roll.  So if a primitive (TL1) character was fidgeting with a blaster pistol (TL3/CR4), each check would be made at -2 and 4 successes/raises would be needed to figure out the item's operations.

I think assigning certain functionalities at the success levels works a bit better, so it's possible to 'partially' figure out an item, but not understand it totally.  In the example above concerning a pistol, maybe 1 success and you figure out how to fire it (or eject a powercell/clip), but not that the first switch actually releases the safety (treating ROF as only 1 or a multi-action for that character because they always toggle the safety switch before pulling the trigger).

Some players may stop there, others may continue fidgeting to see everything their new toy might be able to do.

Maybe they think the item is 'broken' if given the description "there's a 'click' and slight 'hissing sound' then something falls out of the flat part nearest to you" when the powercell is ejected.  Perhaps they discard the item, where others might try to 'fix' it by putting the piece back.

If the player gets all the successes needed on the initial check, then you'd describe (Complexity Rating) number of 'discoveries' for each step along the way.  If the Complexity Rating isn't announced, then it could be fun seeing what the players do with what they have figured out.

Other suggestions/ideas?
This message was last edited by the player at 19:49, Sat 04 Feb 2017.

In reply to bashful_batrean (msg # 33):

That sounds excellent and usable in a lot of different settings.
You could even use that for unraveling mystery clues if you wanted to use rolls and not player smarts.

Has anyone tried using the experience points method from Dungeon World with Savage Worlds?

I don't even use the XP rules from Savage Worlds on PBP. I just give people advances periodically.

Same here. Much easier to manage.

In reply to cooneydad (msg # 36):

Same here. It's easier for me to award an Advance after a chapter than keep track of odd amounts.

When using a Plot Point Campaing, I usually plan all the "chapters" (Plot Points and Savage Tales) that I want to use. Then I map one chapter per Advance.

Makes it easy to plan for "I want them reaching Heroic by the time they are through this part of the campaign".

How do you manage the initiative draws on RPoL?
I'm using the option in the dice roller to use the deck of 54 cards including jokers, but this way you have to do a new draw each time (it is like you mix the deck of cards each time), while strictly speaking the ruleset says that you should mix the deck only if you find a joker.
As a "house rule" I do accept this small deviation from the ruleset (in practice mixing the deck at each draw).
Do you manage it differently?

Nope, I just accept the fact it's wrong and move on.

I have played with people who were so devoted they kept an actual deck of cards next to their computer with a discard pile and just told us what they drew.  That went away a long time ago though, it's too much for most people to deal with.

Some people (who even do this in person) do simple dice rolls.  I hate to say it but the card initiative gimmick doesn't do too much in Savage Worlds if you're not playing in person, and a lot of people do roll 1d20 with 1 and 20 being the Black and Red Jokers.  I know there's things that go wrong if you draw clubs or whatever but it's not like that mechanic can't be improvised just as easily when it pops up.  But I just draw cards because I started in Classic.

In person, people can hide their cards from you, sleeve them, etc. so there's more reason to do it.

Yes, that's too much for me as well.

The campaign that I'm currently running (https://preview.drivethrurpg.c...6/end-times-campaign) does exactly the same: one advance for each adventure / chapter of the campaign.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:21, Fri 03 Nov 2023.

You can use a d54 for the deck of cards. 13 cards with the suits in order of Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades with 53 and 54 being the Black and Red Jokers.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 44):

The dice roller have the option for 54 card decks (including jokers) and it also allows drawing a number of cards in one go; my "problem" (hence house rule) is that the rules state that you should draw from the same deck without mixing it until you find a joker. If you roll every time you want to do the initiative draw, then it is like you are mixing the deck at every draw and not only when you draw a joker.

In reply to Yaztromo (msg # 45):

Hence why I say use the d54. The GM can keep track of the rolls or do the rolls themselves ignoring repeats until a Joker is rolled.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 46):

You could do the same thing with the card puller, but you'd still have to manually track every card pulled and make people redraw them.  There's no solution to the problem there.

Your method also involves not only tracking every roll but also translating it into the corresponding card, unless you specifically made the cards go in descending order (Maybe Ace of Spades is 52 and 2 of Clubs is 1).  But that still seems like the same problem as using physical cards, it's just too much for most people to keep track of.

In reply to drewalt (msg # 47):

I use a table and have no problem as all of the early RPGs I started with were table based like 1E AD&D, Marvel FASERIP, DC Heroes, and others.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 48):

Using a table doesn't solve the problem.

The die roller is already doing that. It uses an r54 script to randomly generate a number between 1 and 54, then has a table that has the name of each result, which is what it exports as the result. It starts at AH for 1, goes Ace-King up through Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and finally Diamonds, and then The Red Joker is #53 and the Black Joker is #54.

I know this, because this is what you find if you input numbers into the Rig The Roll box as a GM.

You are literally doing what the die roller is already doing.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 13:05, Sat 04 Nov 2023.

GM could even append the numbers to the bottom of a current post so all the players know to ignore repeats until a Joker is drawn.

Pulled Cards: 4,8,15,16,23,42

Even easier? Just list the already pulled cards, so folks could just use the die roller normally. Otherwise, this is just not ever going to work with the amount of attention people typically pay. Or do you think anyone other than the GM is really going to care to:

1) check a list of numbers

and

2) convert those numbers into cards pulled?

This is unnecessary busywork for the sake of a consistency that doesn't actually affect the game all that much. It's pointless and time-wasteing for a game that's supposed to be Fast Furious Fun. This is a solution to a "problem" that isn't problematic in the first place.

Simply depends on the group playing. Some groups pay more attention to rules and details, especially in pbp games... others... not so much, can't be bothered to reread the last few posts. ;-)

I feel like it's a solution for those that this sort of thing might bother. Listing the cards pulled would be easier, but the players would still need to make the *effort* to pay attention to the list either way.

Thank you, this is the point I keep trying to make.  People are not going to memorize "14 is seven of hearts" or whatever, and even if they did, there's no benefit whatsoever into translating the "seven of hearts" result into a numeral for purposes of tracking what's already been pulled.  It'd be like selecting 54 Pantone shades of red and mapping each one to a card and listing "carmine, cardinal, maroon, crimson" or giving each card a name and listing "Joe, Julio, Ramit, Sally".  It's not helpful at all, it's just adding a layer of complication to the basic problem.

Using an aid to translate it back to the card it represents doesn't solve the problem either (that's just reversing what you just did unnecessarily to begin with), because none of that gets around the fact whatever notation you use, whether it's the actual card, or a numeral or anything, you would have to track what's already been drawn and then redraw it whenever appropriate and that is tedious.

I'm not a developer or a coder, but I suspect recreating selection without replacement using an electronic dice roller would require the application to store a memory of what's already been pulled somewhere and also know when to reset itself.  When you do it in person, the discard pile is effectively the memory, so basically you need a way to code a discard pile.  In that context numbering or coding the cards might be essential but unless we're going that far I don't see how it helps at all.

In practical terms, the only thing I can see that goes wrong is two parties can wind up with duplicate cards, and the frequency of Jokers is off.  Using a real deck, the longer you go without a Joker the more likely you are to get one, RPoL games can have a bad Joker rhythm but given how slow PbP is it really doesn't bother anyone much.

The d54 thing doesn't offer a solution that the die roller doesn't already provide, though, and it adds an unnecessary layer of abstraction to the whole initiative process that you could just as easily get tracking the cards everyone's pulled already and asking them to redraw duplicates. With the generally slow pace of pbp compared to any other form of ttrpg gaming (seriously -- even multiple posts a day won't match the speed of, say, a group actively meeting on Discord or Roll20, let alone actually getting together in a physical space), this does not strike me as a very useful workaround for the die roller's lack of object permanence.

Agree upon an order cards will be drawn for players in for the game.  GM should privately draw 54 cards and place the results in a private thread.  Then GM can tick off cards, inform players which they were assigned and those to their opponents.  Once a Joker is reached in the sequence its time to draw a new set of 54.

Players would certainly need to trust the GM and would be a little extra bookkeeping.

We usually use decks that have more than 2 jokers in them, so the die roller is essentially including 2 jokers per person utilizing the die roller.

*shrug*

If you really want to keep it like a physical deck of cards, have the GM or one player run the die roller to draw 53 cards in a single pull and cycle through the PCs/NPCs in the same order until you hit a Joker.  (This might require several combats to get to the Joker.)  Then ignore everything after the first Joker drawn and pull another 53 cards.  Rinse and repeat.

So in the above example using the below draws, only the aqua values would be used and after the Red Joker acted, or all cards after it to represent the full draw for the round, a new draw of 53 cards would be made.

9:53, Today: bashful_batrean drew the 53 cards: 5C, 8S, 6S, QC, QH, 7C, 8D, JS, AC, 2C, 2S, RJ!, QS, 10S, AH, JH, BJ!, 10C, 6D, JC, 3S, 4D, 2D, 3D, KC, 5H, 7D, 9S, KS, 4H, 10H, 4S, KH, 4C, JD, 2H, 6C, 5D, 7H, 8H, 10D, 9C, AD, 7S, 9H, 8C, 3C, 9D, 3H, 5S, 6H, KD, AS using a deck of 54 cards.

And just why would you be fixing a die roll for initiative Mr. GM?  *suspicious side-eye*    :P

In reply to bashful_batrean (msg # 58):

Maybe this is the only way around... it requires extra admin work on the GM side and it must be a secret roll to avoid spoiling the initiative draw ahead of time, but it is in line with the ruleset...

*shrug* I wasn't. I was trying to figure out how it would work. If I needed to. Just in case.

And you're assuming a lot. SW uses cards for things other than initiative, especially on the GM side (particularly in adventure building).
This message was last edited by the player at 14:29, Mon 06 Nov 2023.

I know that - just teasing you! ^_^  (After I posted I recalled you had multiple Deadlands games where it might be needed..  Or old Ravenloft where certain ominous cards in fortune-telling builds the atmosphere. )