Coronavirus Craft Week 01 - Gamer Box

So I've been watching a lot of Adam Savage's One Day Builds, feeling the week long cabin fever setting in. So I decided to treat myself to a gamer box. My stepdaughter donated the box. It was one of these.

This is what I wanted it to hold:

Full set of Jumbo Koplow Dice

Dice rolling tray

Clay poker chip bennies

Generic villain tokens of medium, large, and huge sized.

Savage Worlds and D&D GM screens

A blank Paizo Flipmat

Pencils and wet erase pens

5 minis

2 decks of playing cards

Water spray bottle

So firstly, the box was well used and beat up, and all the dividers for the top tray were missing. So after I disassembled the box, I sanded it down to strip the previous stain and get rid of the dings. Then I chopped the bottom tray's dividers down to 1 1/2 inches high. I also cut and glued in some more dividers. I did the same with the top tray. The top tray should hold cards, bennies, dice, and the big section is the dice tray. So I can pull out just the top tray to use for most games. I made sure there was a long section in the bottom tray that would hold some pluck foam and have spaces for five of my character minis.

Next I added so,e rails into the lid as spacers, cut a board with a thumb hole to fit in the lid, and I will put magnets into the rails and board to create a pocket in the lid for the GMs screens (once Ace opens so I can get the right sized drill bit). Then I stained the wood with Kona, and lined it with green felt.

The white ribbon in the left tray is to help get the poker chips out.

And finally, I created a stencil with my  Cricut Maker and painted my name in gold letters.

Stay safe out there!

Musings on the New SWADE

Yup, I'm still pouring over the rules but I have noticed a couple of changes I will be making in my home game.

EXPERIENCE

I'm just going to leave the old experience points rules in. It's not that the idea of the GM deciding when heroes level is bad. It's fine, if you have a regular game or granting a new level after every game session.

I'm a gamer of the older variety so running a continual story is difficult as is getting player schedules to match up. So it's hard for me to remember how long it has been since the heroes leveled up. Did I decide they earned half a level last time, or was that the game before (4 weeks ago)? If only there were a way to have my players write down how close to the next level they are.

Oh...yeah.

WEALTH

I used to be really bugged about coming up with a wealth system that bypassed the bean-counting. Turns out, you don't need a system for everything. Common sense works better as an abstract.

No rolls. If it sounds like something your character's wealth could afford, you can buy it. If it's expensive or hard to get, then it's time for some role-play. Nothing is added to the game by telling a player "no, you can't rent a car". If they make a huge payment that pushes their finances, I will just rule that they are tapped out for the rest of the adventure.

CHASES

The new chase rules are remarkably like a cleaner version of the SWEX chase rules, but I don't like the second deck of cards. Instead, I'll print out a 1x10 grid for chases and a 8x8 grid for dogfights, like these:

I printed 4 of these for a game board.

 I use the action card suits dealt to indicate complications just like in SWEX. Other than that, I use the maneuvers from SWADE.

THE THINGS I LIKE

Skill Changes: I was iffy on these, even working out my own skill list. After a while, SWADE's list grey on me. My proposed changes didn't really outweigh the confusion I would have to suffer with new players who read the book but were unfamiliar to my house rules.

The New Statuses: This does streamline things.

The New Creature Size/Wounds chart: I like that larger creatures gain extra wounds, but I still think that beyond a certain size, a creature has natural heavy armor. Just as a swarm of mosquitoes can't sting a human to death (unless you count poison effects), pistols and rifles aren't going to do anything but annoy whales and dragons. So Huge or larger creatures in my games will have natural Heavy armor. Of course, called shots to the eyes and other vulnerable areas will bypass armor.

An Issue of Tone...

I've been silent for a while. Part of it is chaotic home life. Part of it is I am still developing Starpunk, now for SWADE. I'm having difficulty gauging how silly I want to make it (leading me to create the meme above.

I'm leaning somewhere between Star Wars Holiday Special and Lilo and Stitch. Honestly, the games usually end up like Stitch, but I have had a few players that want something more "serious". When I do, they still end up playing Stitch.

I'm mulling over publishing Starpunk. I'll need to scrub it. I began this setting using Daring Tales of the Space Lanes. I'll need to scrub out anything that plagiarizes his work.

Savage Worlds Edition Wars?

The sneak peaks of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition have me cautiously enthused. But I drank the Kool-Aid and bought into the Kickstarter. I love Savage Worlds, but that doesn't mean I think it can do no wrong.

I am very under-excited about the skill changes. I have a homebrew skill list and I will likely continue to use it, but the problems I had with the Deluxe skill list are not fixed with the new one. It's just that Adventure Edition is now more of a departure from my list than Deluxe Edition.

I'm on the fence about dropping Charisma. Since it is now based on Edges and we haven't seen those yet, I will wait until I have my copy to review.

As for the new Suppressive Fire rules: Am I the only one that thought the old rule was fine? I think the new rule adds more unnecessary complication than before.

I do like the new Status rules as well as the flat 3 action limit. That, imho, has actually made the game more F!F!F!

And the new Chase rules? Hmmm. I was quite a bit confused on my read through. Granted, it's only a snippet of the rules and I plan on running it a few times just to see how it feels but my first impression is that it's just like the Explorer's Edition Chase rules although there is a layer of complication that seems unnecessary with the "chase center point".

I am definitely eager to read through the "Behind the Scenes" add-on to get a better understanding of why they did what they did. Hopefully it may change my mind.

But here's the thing. With my mindset right now, it is easier for me to mod Deluxe Edition with the new rules I know I like than it would be to mod Adventure Edition. There is enough of a shift in how Savage Worlds appears to play between the two that for the first time I feel like I have to pick a favorite. Is this the beginning of Savage Worlds Edition Wars.

For those who don't know what Edition Wars are:
When a new Edition of a game system comes out and if it radically changes the gameplay, the fanbase of that game will become sub-divided. A perfect Example of this is Dungeons and Dragons where you find groups that only play specific editions of the game. There are people who prefer the very first Basic Edition of D&D over any of the newer editions.

While that seems "meh, there's no badwrongfun in that", it does mean that the publisher is selling to a smaller market (the fans willing to buy into a new edition). D&D has a fanbase split between 6 different editions of the game and WOTC only continues to support the current version. They became acutely aware of the issue and did their best to design 5E to be appealing to all groups in an attempt to re-consolidate their market.

Well, here I am. I've just dumped Pathfinder Society because of the second Edition. Not that it's a bad game, it's just that I don't have the time or energy to learn yet another complicated d20 system. And more than a few of my Pathfinder friends are of a similar opinion (although mostly their decision is based on the financial cost of buying into a whole new Pathfinder system). And now I am wondering if I am about to become an Edition Grognard, saying things like "Pah, Savage Worlds Deluxe was the best version!"

Time will tell. I am trying to keep an open mind on this because Savage Worlds has trumped my tweaker-gene before. Here's hoping I'll continue to be the same Grognard I've always been.

Breaking Good

Let’s talk about breaking things.

I recently played Savage Worlds with a gm who didn’t have a solid grasp of the Breaking Objects rule so I figured it would be a good subject to discuss here on the blog.

First up: Objects have a Parry of 2 as per the rules. I typically ignore this for as the North American Spotted Jib says “We only roll dice when we disagree about the result of an action”. You want to kick a statis, non-animated object? I think we can agree you will succeed.

Second: As per RAW, you do not count aces or raises on the attack roll because doors and vases do not have vulnerable spots! So an attack roll does not generate that extra d6 damage for a good hit. It’s another reason to forgoe the attack roll if you want, since its only effect is that a roll of 1 misses against a stationary, inanimate target.

Finally: The damage roll must equal or exceed the object’s Toughness in order to break the object.

Starpunk Update

For those that have been following my blog, I have been working on a sci-fi setting called Starpunk. It's kind of like Daring Tales of the Space Lanes but with an actual setting (and I'm leaning more toward a comedic bent). One of the biggest hurdles has been generating starships because the Sci-Fi Companion generator never sat right with me, and I have worked on a lot of Starship generator ideas. Here's what I have discovered:

a) I shouldn't need a starship generator ruleset. The point of the game is to play, not munchkin the ruleset to see what cool combo can be built.
b) The more complicated the starship builds get, the easier it is to introduce overpowered ships and weapons.
c) The more complicated the system, the less F!F!F! it got.

Well I finally have something worked out, at least for capital scale ships. It borrows concepts from a variety of sources but also required me to change my thinking process.

In every rpg that involves large starships, they have always treated them the same way as they treated smaller vessels: listing each individual weapon and its damage. If you ended up with two capital ships fighting each other, then you were expected to roll for each gun to hit, roll damage for each hit, etc. This takes too long, but thankfully it is rarely ever used since the players don't command these type of vessels in an rpg. What GMs should be concerned about is what affect all of those guns have on our hero's stock light freighter.

Here's my solution:
Don't sweat the details. Worry about the overall effect.

Capital ships have three weapon entries: Port Batteries, Starboard Batteries, and CIDS (Close In Defense Systems).

CIDS are what capital ships would use against small craft. It's treated as a single weapon, but with a RoF. The bigger the ship, the bigger its RoF (rated 2-4). A capital ship can make a single CIDS attack against each enemy fighter or missile per round.

If I do want to run two capital ships duking it out, the the Capital ships fire their batteries at each other. Each battery is considered a single attack roll. A starship can only attack with one side Battery per target unless they draw a face Card, and Ace, or a Joker for their action card. If they do, then the ship has maneuvered in a way to bring both side Batteries to fire on a single target.

Of course, if I'm going to involve more capital ships and fighters, then I would just bring out the Mass combat rules.

Curbing the Lethality

Savage Worlds is brutal. Any character, regardless of rank, can be one-shotted by a novice or extra. Dice explode, death happens. For some people, this is a feature. The players should be thinking twice before jumping into a toe-to-toe fight.

But there is also the common complaint from people used to attrition based games like d&d that combat is too quick. They don’t like the idea that their wild cards can drop like flies. I have one such friend. He loves Savage Worlds with this one exception. His rationality is that he wants heroes and villains to have time to switch tactics when they start to get hammered. I offered up this as a setting rule:

BEAT HIM DOWN
No character (Wild Card or Extra) can deal more than 1 wound in a single attack. If the attacker’s damage roll would have caused two or more wounds (>target’s toughness +8) then the attacker receives a benny. Bennies cannot be spent on soak rolls.

This guarantees that it takes at least 4 successful attacks to down a wild card. However with only dealing one wound, soaking would only kill the Fast!. The ruling doesn’t affect the ease of dropping extras. It also keeps players from hoarding bennies for soak rolls.

So far he has liked the new rule.

All that said, I prefer the unpredictability of Savage Worlds combat as written. It’s faster and more dramatic when you know you can be dropped in a single attack. I think that D&D and later videogames have reinforced the idea of long drawn out slugfests as the norm. It takes a reshaping of expectations to enjoy SW combat. Oddly, you need to set your expectations toward realism a bit more.