LEGO Castle fans have wanted more civilians, more women, and more non-equine animals for a very long time — something a little more like this:
Box art for 10193 Medieval Market Village
Welcome to The Haunted Realm…Hope You Survive the Experience!
Posted by Joshua on Oct 15, 2008
Sunday we kicked off my new Savage Worlds Sandbox setting with a bang, or at least a whole passle of players: Wendy, Dan, Paul, Elyssa, Russell, Mac, Walter, and Mike M. Russell and I spent a bunch of the afternoon making a variety of pregens for the people who didn’t already have characters (everybody but Wendy and Dan) to pick from. After they grabbed a character that sounded appealing and assigned a name and gender, we got started.
The roster ended up being:
- Loric, the Physician/Mage – male – Wendy
- Thorvald, the Demonologist – male – Dan
- Aerys, the Duelist – male – Paul
- Qwirk, the Brute – male – Elyssa
- Tyrok, the Dwarven Architect and Priest of Fess – male – Russell
- Dorakyra, the Priestess of Kyr – female – Mac
- Angelina, the Tomb Raider – female – Walter
- Ranth, the Scout – female – Mike M
Because it was the first game, and there were so many players, including ones who only show up once in a great while, I gave them a mission to start out instead of going for the full-on sandbox. That is, I gave Dorakyra and Tyrok a mission, and left it to them to recruit the others.
Dorakyra has been charged by the senior priestesses of her Goddess, Kyr, the Collector of the Dead, to travel to the village of Brightfalls, approximately one day’s journey to the north of Losian and find the church that records indicate should be there, clear it, and consecrate it to the Gods. Tyrok was assigned to go with her and aid her. The pair had been given 500 gold to get supplies and perhaps aid in recruiting (not a lot of money in the economy of the Haunted Realm, since as yet almost all necessities need to be imported from the New Kingdoms).
After some by-play where Dorakyra bet Tyrok that she could find three women to go with them before he could find three men (the stakes were she would let him braid dwarven ornaments in her queue vs. he would let her tattoo “My Heart Belongs to Kyr, But My Soul Belongs to Fess” in henna on his chest), they managed to recruit the rest of the part. Tyrok weaseled out of the bet by getting the women he found (Ranth and Angelina) to stay out of sight until he managed to convince Dorakyra (who had only found men, in the form of Qwirk, Loric, and Thorvald) to call the bet a draw. After the parameters of the task were described to them and remuneration discussed, they all agreed to go, though Tyrok once again had to fib…this time telling Loric, who was a bit cautious and reluctant to venture into the wilderness, that the church at Brightfalls was a famous repository of death records that would certainly aid him in his research into the Soul Plague.
The party decided that they would set out at mid-day, so they’d camp well away from Brightfalls and whatever was currently inhabiting it, and arrive the next day with plenty of sunlight left. They began hiking to the north, passing the newly established farms and tiny villages around Losian, and gradually leaving civilization–or what passed for it–behind.
Shortly before dusk, they were set upon by a pack of skeletons that had been lurking behind some trees near the path that’s what’s left of the road to Brightfalls. To keep things simple, and because it was most of the players’ first introduction to combat in Savage Worlds, there were only 4 Skeletons, and they were all Extras. They made relativel short work of the skeletons, with only Angelina taking a hit hard enough to cause a Wound, which she spent managed to Soak.
After spending time interring the remains of the skeletons and performing the proper rights of Kyra over them, the party decided to camp there, rather than continue in the deepening gloom. They set watches for the night, but aside from something large moving past the camp, the night passed uneventfully.
And there we broke for the night.
It Takes a Thief
Posted by Joshua on Oct 14, 2008
This is something I posted to Dragonsfoot a little while back that I wanted to have a record of, mostly because I could have sworn I had posted it here and just wasted a bunch of time searching for it in vain. It’s also relevant to JM’s (not me, some other JM) post To Catch A Thief, where he talks about Thieves in D&D mostly in answer to the really, really old school (pre-Greyhawk) objection that the problem with adding Thief as a character class in the first place is that it takes skills that everybody was assumed to have pre-Thief and makes it that character’s sole job. My basic suggestion is that you can assume that everybody can still do all those things, but the Thief is the only one who gets a “saving throw” against screwing up so it makes sense to have the Thief try it if there’s one available.
It’s not that relevant to what we’re doing now, because I’ve replaced the D&D as filler campaign with the Haunted Realms, using Savage Worlds.
My players mostly feel that playing a low-level thief is not very fun, because almost all the special abilities (except climbing) are hopeless, if not suicidal, to even try. E.g. Out of every 100 traps the party encounters, a 1st level thief will successfully disarm one. It’ll go off on the thief 9 times, and the other 90 times, the party will have stood around while the thief accomplished nothing.
I could address that sort of thing by fudging die-rolls, but I prefer not to do that very often, since if I do it often enough to matter the players no longer really know what the rule is and if I don’t do it often enough to matter, then…well it doesn’t really matter. And I could amend or replace it with house-rules, but again I’d prefer not to; if I go very far in that direction I might as well be playing one of my home-brews.
Ideally, then, what I’m looking for is way of letting the thief do cool, class-appropriate stuff, that doesn’t contradict the rules as written. This ties in with some advice I saw (I forget whether it was here or in the ODD Guild) that by the time that dice are being rolled, the characters are in trouble…all the save or die stuff is fine, as long as you give the players enough leeway so that clever play can let them avoid being put in a save or die situation; the save becomes an escape from mistakes they made (or at least risks they knowingly took), not something that’s continually thrust upon them until they inevitably fail.
So here’s an approach I’m thinking of taking with Thief special abilities:
Find Traps: the player describes exactly what the thief is looking for, and automatically detects the trap if the player is looking for the right things. It’s only if the player isn’t looking for the right things that you roll, in which case the chance is as listed that the thief notices the trap anyway.
The DM must be scrupulous in noting what will set the trap off or what the clues might be. e.g. if the thief is looking for tripwires in the hallway, or tapping ahead with a 10′ pole, and there is a tripwire, the thief finds it. If the trigger is a pressure plate and the thief only says he’s looking for tripwires, then roll to see if he notices the pressure plate anyway.
Disarm Traps: the player says what the thief is doing to disarm the trap, if it would work, it works automatically; if it wouldn’t, or would require great skill or dexterity to pull off, roll. E.g. the thief has noticed a tiny hole in the door handle, such as a needle might come out of, and announces he’s blocking it with sliver of wood before he turns the handle. If it was a needle trap, that just works. If it squirts gas or some other effect (e.g. a blade trap triggered by covering the hole), then roll vs. Disarm Traps to see if it worked.
Hide in Shadows: thieves can automatically hide if there’s actually something to hide behind; only roll against Hide in Shadows if there’s nothing but shadows to hide in. If the thief is trying to move from place to place this requires a Hide in Shadows roll if there are gaps between the hiding places, otherwise it’s still automatic (though it may require a Move Silently check).
Move Silently: the check is only necessary against alert opponents. Surprised opponents or those that the DM rules aren’t paying much attention or are making noise themselves won’t automatically notice the thief, even if he fails the roll. The DM should still roll, so the thief remains uncertain about whether there are any alert opponents within hearing range.
Hear Noise: as written, but emphasis is on needing to roll only to hear relatively faint noises; ordinary conversation behind a door, for instance, would automatically be heard by any thief or demi-human listening at the door. A successful Hear Noise roll could reveal the substance of the conversation if the listener knows the language.
Pick Pockets: for picking a selected target’s pockets, the rules apply as written, however any thief can attempt the following:
Working the Crowd: the thief attempts to pick the pockets of targets of opportunity–people who are too distracted to notice the attempt and who appear to be carrying money in an accessible location. May only be attempted in a relatively crowded area, such as at a market. Roll against Pick Pockets once per hour. Success means you managed to gather some coin: roll 1d4 for a treasure from tables P-S (Treasure Carried). A Failure is only detected on a roll of 00.
The Bump: two thieves working together can work the crowd, deliberately trying to distract richer-looking targets, e.g. by one bumping into him while the other picks his pocket. Same as Working the Crowd, but roll 1d8 for a treasure from tables P-V. On an 8 at the DM’s discretion it’s a treasure from any of P-V, but it includes something that the owner is bound to come looking for (or will send someone to look for). The Bump, however, is more noticeable; if there are any guards or other busy-bodies who might be observing the area, for each hour after the first that the pair attempts The Bump, the chance of discovery goes up by 1%. i.e. 2nd hour discovery is on a 99-00, 3rd hour on a 98-00, etc. It’s still pretty safe, but as a way to make a living, it’ll eventually end up in trouble with the law.
Open Locks and Climb Walls (and Backstab!) are all interpreted pretty much as written. I’m tempted to try to come up with a more generous interpretation of Open Locks, or perhaps just label a fair number of locks “easy” (meaning no roll required as long as the thief has tools), but the consequences of failing to open a lock aren’t that dire, and the party can usually try to just break through the door or bash open the chest, which have their own drawbacks, making it worthwhile for the thief to at least attempt it.
Note that this whole way of looking at things owes a lot to Robert Fisher’s thoughts on thieves.
Posted in Legacy D&D || 3 Comments »
The Haunted Realm
Posted by Joshua on Oct 13, 2008
This is the write-up of the introduction to my new Savage Worlds Sandbox setting, The Haunted Realm:
Up until ten generations ago, the Bright Kingdoms were a happy, prosperous land, where Human, Elf, and Dwarf lived in peace. Then catastrophe struck. Nobody yet knows exactly what occurred, but something vast and terrible happened. In a single moment every mirror and scrying stone across the realm shattered. One by one the Gods died, and the stars went out and the moon cracked. The clerics went mad, and in the days that followed most of them killed themselves. A plague began to ravage the landand as its victims expired their bodies would rise as Soulless Ones. Demons began infesting the empty shells, while the displaced souls wandered as pathetic ghosts.
Dark fog covered the center of the continent, and out of them strode the invading armies. Creatures out of legend–Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Dragons, and things even more horrible–began conquering what remained of the Bright Kingdoms, rounding up the survivors and enslaving or eating them. The remaining survivors fled: the Elves into Faery, the Dwarves deep below the mountains, and the Humans to the overseas colonies in the New Kingdoms. The Bright Kingdoms were no more; the survivors now called the land Gastmor, the Haunted Realm.
Although much of the magic and knowledge of the Bright Kingdoms perished, the colonies of the New Kingdoms grew and prospered, and the people began following the Gods of the new realm. At first, they could not rest entirely easily after what happened in the West. The mages of the New Kingdoms would repeatedly try to scry for information about the old country, but catch no more than glimpses of a nightmare land where, without the Gods, nothing natural grew or thrived. Gradually, though, the fear of imminent invasion lessened, and Gastmor and the Bright Kingdoms were, if not forgotten, allowed to become the concern of mages and academics, as well as the handful of Elves and Dwarves that had been cut off from their homelands at the time of the catastrophe.
Then, fifty years ago, the magic that had been shrouding Gastmor began to recede. The mages and the Elves investigated and what they found puzzled them. Where the fog lifted, of the whatever had been commanding the legions of Orcs and other creatures, there was not a trace. Instead there was evidence of tremendous battles, with invading hordes turning on each other, and the resulting slaughter decimating their ranks and reducing them to scattered bands squabbling over the ruins. The Soul Plague had apparently burned itself out completely. The Elvish and Dwarven nations were still hidden behind mighty magical barriers, unreachable by the magics of the New Kingdoms.
Through their oracles, the New Gods indicated it was time to re-settle the Haunted Realm, destroy the remnants of the evil forces, restore the natural order and bring it once more under the sway of the Gods. The New Kingdoms came to an agreement to grant land to those who wished to settle across the sea in Gastmor, to fund the establishment of new temples, and to send their criminals and troublemakers into exile.
The characters will be settlers and explorers of the haunted wilderness. They may be adventurers seeking fame and fortune, religious devotees carrying out the will of the Gods, criminals sentenced to exile, settlers seeking land of their own, researchers probing into the history of the Bright Kingdoms or trying to fathom the catastrophe that destroyed them, and so on.
Play will take place intermittently, when we have too few (or too many) players to have a session of one of the regular campaigns, and at least some will take place online (either via VOIP like Skype, or play-by-post on the bulletin board) so that Doug and Paul can participate despite the new babies. I intend campaign time to flow fairly rapidly between adventures, so that the players will see progress in settling the setting, and if all goes well there will be successive generations of characters (similar to Ars Magica covenant play). Players will control four or five characters, so that they’ll always have one or two free for whatever combination of players are available that session even if a particular party ends a session in the middle of some activity. At least for the first few game years, adventures will begin and end in the only settled town (Losian) on the Eastern shore of the Haunted Realms.
Posted in Campaigns || 2 Comments »
Want!
Posted by Joshua on Oct 13, 2008
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Oh yes, it will be mine! I’m particularly interested since we use LEGO minifigs instead of miniatures for most of our table-top gaming.
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The Adventurers
Posted by Joshua on Oct 13, 2008
Left to right they are:
- Ranth the Scout
- Angelina the Tomb Raider
- Aerys the Duelist
- Qwirk (behind), the Fighter
- Dorakyra (in front), the Priestess of Kyr (Collector of the Dead)
- Loric the Physician
- Tyrok the Dwarven Architect and Priest of Fess (God of Fire and Smithing)
- Torvald the Demonologist
Because of special guests from my other game-group, we had about four more PCs than usual last night.