Druthers for Ghosts of Albion, Witch Girls Adventures and d20

Druthers

For Ghosts of Albion, d20 (3.x) and Witch Girls Adventures.

Druthers are special sort of magical construct often associated with witches and witchcraft. Their kind has not been seen on Albion's shores in many centuries, but they were known to have existed and are referenced in many rarer occult tomes. It is believed that the secret is still known to some witches and to encounter one is a sure sign of witchcraft.

The name comes from an old piece of doggerel scribbled inside a witch's Book of Shadows

"If I really had my druthers,
I'd have my wooden druthers too."

A wooden druther is a corrupt form of "wouldn't I'd rathers", or something the witch doesn't want. So the wooden druther performs tasks that the witch would rather not do herself. The druther can understand simple command phrases of about 15 words each. Typically druthers are used for menial labor or to perform a task that the witch can not do or won't do herself, like killing or scaring an enemy. Often a witch will have a few druthers protecting her home while disguised as trees, requiring a Perception + Notice check of 3 or SL to detect.
A druther cannot communicate at all. Some witches have used woody reeds in the construction of their druthers. When the wind blows across the druther it sounds like a deep bassoon.
Druthers can appear in any form. Usually they are biped and always made of wood. The wood can be carved or a collection of sticks tied together. The appendages need to be attached separately if the druther is to move at all. They can be precisely carved to appear as anything the witch wants, but they typically look like walking bunches of sticks.
Legend has it that there was a witch that had such beautifully carved druthers that they were often mistaken for wood nymphs.

For Ghosts of Albion
Druther
Motivation: To follow orders
Creature Type: Magical Construct
Attributes: Strength 7, Dexterity 2, Constitution 6, Intelligence 1, Perception 1, Willpower 1
Ability Scores: Muscle 20, Combat 7, Brains 2
Life Points: 67
Drama Points: 1
Armor Value: 4
Powers: Hard to Kill 3, Immune to cold, fear, poisons, sleep, water, and any mind effecting spell, Natural Toughness, Vulnerability to fire.

Manoeuvres
Name Score Damage Notes
Punch 7 14 Bash
Slam tackle 7 14 Bash
Stake 8 14 If equipped with stakes
Takedown 12 7
Dodge 7 Defence action
Grapple 9 Resisted by Dodge

Combat
A druther is mindless in combat. It instinctively strikes with its wooden fists with almost no regard to what else is going on. One thing druthers excel at is killing vampires. The druther is equipped with built in stakes in the form of fingers if the witch so chooses. The druthers biggest weakness is fire, something a vampire is not likely to use and they have no blood to drink.
Immunities: A druther is immune to cold and water. Stabing weapons only do 1 point of damage per hit. Fire damage against a druther is treated the same as against a vampire.

Some magicians value the wood from an inanimate druther to use to make magical fires.

Animating a Druther
The only know spell came from an ancient tome called the Manual of Druthers. The spell has been copied, but it is still very rare to find. Only an Occult Library of Amazing has a chance of having the spell and even then it must specialize in the tomes of Witchcraft. It is also known to be used very rarely among Shamans, but since Shamans do not write their spells down the chances of acquiring that version is even rarer still.

Construction
Witches can construct a druther if she can learn how.
The witch will need at least 200 pounds of wood, either as sticks, planks or individually carved pieces. She must gather and form these pieces herself. The witch will need her consecrated witch tools, special oils and fine incense. After creating the body for the druther, the witch will have to cast the animating spell, then sprinkle the ashes from the burned incense on the wood.

Animate Druther (Ghosts of Albion)
Quick Cast: No
Power Level: 3
Philosophy: Witchcraft, Shamanism
Requirements: The manual creation of a druthers body and an hour long ritual in which the spell components are burned and poured over the druther.
Components: Rare oils rubbed into the wood of the druther, incense to be burned. Price at least £100.
Effect: The witch must prepare the druthers body out of wood and/or sticks. This should take at least a day to gather materials and make the body. Longer times are needed for more complex druthers. The oil is then rubbed into the wood while muttering the spell. Incense is burned and the ashes are sprinkled on to the druthers body. Successful casting means the druther is animated and will respond to the witchs commands.
Spell failure results in a druther that can never be animated. The witch will need to burn the wood and start over. Spell Backfire can result in a Rogue Druther.
Creation: Alteration (+5), Casting Time (-2), Touch (-1), Permanent (+6), Unusual materials (-2), Philosophy ().

Drudges
Sometimes druthers are referred to as "Drudges", mostly due to their ability to menial work, usually around the home. While a druther may be used to do the witch's dirty work, a drudge will do the witch's dirty laundry. Adventurers have reported of a witch with intricately carved wood drudges as her household staff. A drudge butler was so well made that they could not tell it was a magical construct at all.

Rogue Druthers
The druther has a strong tie to its animating elemental force. Sometimes though, a druther will break free of the witch's control, but not of its wooden body. These druthers are known as rogues and take out their frustration the only way know, to throw themselves into any combative situation it can.
A rogue druther will enter into any situation where its goal is to get itself destroyed, preferably by fire, to free its spirit.

For d20

Druther

Medium Construct

Hit Dice: 9d10+20 (69 hp)

Initiative: -1

Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares)

Armor Class: 17 (-1 Dex, +8 natural), touch 9, flat-footed 17

Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+11

Attack: Slam +11 melee (2d6+5)

Full Attack: 2 slams +11 melee (2d6+5)

Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.

Special Attacks:

Special Qualities: Construct traits, damage reduction 10/magic, darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, immunities, fire vulnerability

Saves: Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +3

Abilities: Str 20, Dex 9, Con , Int , Wis 11, Cha 3

Skills:

Feats:

Environment: Any

Organization: Solitary

Challenge Rating: 6

Treasure: None

Alignment: Always neutral

Advancement: 10-15 (Large); 15-20 (Huge)

Level Advancement: None

The druther can understand simple command phrases of about 15 words each. Typically druthers are used for menial labor or to perform a task that the witch can not do or won't do herself, like killing or scaring an enemy. Often a witch will have a few druthers protecting her home while disguised as trees, requiring a DC 25 Spot check to notice.

A druther cannot communicate at all. Some witches have used woody reeds in the construction of their druthers. When the wind blows across the druther it sounds like a deep bassoon.

Druthers can appear in any form. Usually they are biped and always made of wood. The wood can be carved or a collection of sticks tied together. The appendages need to be attached separately if the druther is to move at all. They can be precisely carved to appear as anything the witch wants, but they typically look like walking bunches of sticks.

Combat

A druther is mindless in combat. It instinctively strikes with its wooden fists with almost no regard to what else is going on.

Immunities: A druther is immune to cold and water. Piercing weapons only do 1 point of damage per hit.

Construction

Witches can construct a druther. If the witch has access to a manual of druthers, then she can create a druther from that work. Otherwise a witch may opt to create one from scratch. The witch will need at least 200 pounds of wood, either as sticks, planks or individually carved pieces. She must gather these herself. The witch will need her consecrated witch tools and fine incense. After creating the body for the druther, the witch will have to cast spells, then sprinkle the ashes from the burned incense on the wood.

CL 10th; Craft Construct, air walk, bless growth, feral spirit, lesser strengthening rite, minor creation, caster must be at least 10th level; Price 3,600 gp; Cost 2,000 gp + 1,000 XP.

Legend has it that there was a witch that had such beautifully carved druthers that they were often mistaken for wood nymphs.

Treants, dryads, and wood nymphs view a druther in the same manner a human views the undead or a flesh golem. Most will attempt to destroy them when they can. Some witches and wizards value the wood from an inanimate druther to use to make magical fires.

For Witch Girls Adventures

Druthers

In the world of Witch Girls, Druthers are a fairly common sight.  Often charged with doing all sorts of repetitive minimal tasks, in fact self respecting witch family would do without a couple in their homes.   While such tasks as making diners is beyond them, setting tables or doing dishes are common enough tasks.

Rank 1 Monster

Druther

Body: D8 Mind: D2 Senses: D2

Will: D4 Social: D2 Magic: D2

Life Points 16

Skills: Fighting +1

Magic: Druthers are immune to many magical effects especially ones that affect the mind.  They do however take double damage from any fire based attack.

Cryptozoology fact: Druthers (and Drudges) are near mindless constructs made of wood.

Cryptozoology fact: Druthers take extra damage from fire.

Animate Druther

Elementalism Rank 4

The Witch can bind an elemental spirit to the form of a Druther she has built.   Often it is customary to only compel the elemental spirit to service for a year and a day then the Druther falls apart.  

Ailuromancy: Metaphysics of the Bast for WitchCraft

What is Halloween without witches and black cats?  How about cats that are witches?


Ailuromancy: Metaphysics of the Bast

Similar to invocations, Ailuromancy is the metaphysical philosophy of the Bast. They have remained undiscovered because the Bast do not write down their formulae or teachings, nor do they share these with humans except under the rarest of circumstances. These can only be learned from master to student and are almost all exclusive to the Bast.

Casting Ailuromancy is the same as an invocation. Bast can gather in groups for group castings, they can use places and times of power, use rituals to tap ambient essence and are subject to crowd effects.
Where humans typically need hands free or be able to speak, the Bast must be able to see or otherwise sense what is around them. For example to Steal Breath, the Bast must be able to see the creature they are stealing from. They must also have their tails free. In some Ailuromancy intricate tail movements replace human hand gestures.

Number 9
For Bast nine, not seven, is the more potent magical number. So Bast covens and group castings are some multiple of nine, or at least three. Three groups of three is a very powerful magical grouping. Treat nine Bast as seven in castings. Seven is still powerful, but not as much as it is to humans.

Group Magic Essence Table: Bast
Size of Group Increased Essence
3 54
5 50
6 81
7 70
9 135
11 110
13 132

If Bast are in a group of humans then the standard rules apply. These are only for Bast casting Ailuromancy.

Names
Very important to Ailuromancy are the names (plural) of the Bast using it. While not related to Ailuromancy itself (other than both being unique to the Bast), the importance of names is in the casting.
All Bast have three names. First is his human or common name, the one that he usually goes by and will answer to from anyone. There is his Bast name, the name he is given by his family or ancestors. Even Bast born and removed from their family at a very young age will still always know his Bast name. These names are often unique since they include a personal identifier and a family name. They can be one used in by another Bast in the same family, but the other family member must have died years ago before that name can be used again.
Lastly, and most important to the topic at hand, is his magical name, his very personal name that he shares with no one. Each name is unique and is passed down throughout the Basts multiple lives. The Bast must sit in deep, deep concentration in order to retrieve his own name. Once this is done then the Bast may use Ailuromancy.

The Essence imprints of Ailuromancy have a particular smell to Bast. Humans must always pass a Difficult Perception test in order to detect it, even if they have experienced it before. While they never share this information with others, the Essence pattern is like a signature of their one true personal name.

The Invocations
Ailuromancy has three basic powers.

Spiritual
The spiritual ailuromancy are ones that effects spirits or essence patterns. Unlike humans, Bast have spirits and not souls. This gives them a different outlook on how essence is used and manipulated.

Bad Luck
2 Essence Points per -1 penalty given (up to -5 max)
One of the most classic ailuromancies used. The Bast must actually cross the path of the victim to impose a -1 penalty to any one task or test per 2 Essence points spent. Gifted can easily notice this sort of ailuromancy, given its similarity to Good Luck. So only a simple Perception task is required. Many Bast are unwilling to use this for that very reason; it instantly brings attention to themselves.

Whisker Bane
Same as Warding WC p. 224

Caterwaul
2 Essence Points
The Bast lets out a discordant wail that can cause irritation or damage depending on their mood.
At level 1 the Caterwaul is merely annoying. It causes no damage.
At level 2-3 the Caterwaul cause d4(2) points per level of LP damage to any that can hear it.
At levels 4-5 the Caterwaul can do d6(3) points per level of LP and causes a Fear reaction to anyone that fails a Willpower (doubled) roll.

Steal Breath
5 Essence Points
A Bast can come close to a person a literally steal their life force away. By inhaling the victims breath (and thus being in close proximity to do so) and spending five (5) Essence points the Bast causes the victims life foce to leave their body for the duration of the breath. This inflicts D6(3) Life Points of damage (undead are not affected) and D6(3) Essence and Endurance loss. The victim also needs to make a Constitution check (doubled) or be rendered unconscious for the next 1 to 4 turns. Sleeping victims do not wake up till this is over.
The Bast must be close enough to be able to steal the victims breath so this is most often done while the victim is prone or asleep.
The Essence stolen is actually lost. Bast can only perform this three times per victim or they themselves also begin to lose life points and essence equal to what is stolen.

Favor of Ra
Same as Essence Shield

Physical (effects the body)
The physical powers maybe purchased in levels where every level usually confers extra time or amount the power may be used. For example a Bast with Monkey Hands level 5 can use the power for 5 minutes for each Essence point spent.

Monkey Hands
1 Essence Point per minute per level
This invocation allows the Bast to manipulate objects while in Bast form that normally would be restricted to humans. Their dexterity does not change as this is a mild and directed form of Telekinesis.

Got Your Tongue
1 Essence Point per minute per level
The Bast can speak like a human while in cat form. This is useful on occasions where telepathic conversation is not desired or possible. In order to this the Bast must borrow a voice. They target a nearby human and use their voice. Once the initial contact is made (the Bast must be able to see the human) then the human can not speak for a matter of seconds. The voice the Bast uses is not exactly like the humans voice, it is often higher pitched and cannot be used to fool friends or voice recognition software.

Lick Wounds (Pashts Cure)
10 Essence Point per 10 LP per level healed
Similar to the Healing invocations the Bast can lick a wound to heal life point damage or remove poisons and toxins (at levels greater than 3), or cure disease (at levels greater than 5). The Bast must state what sort of cure it is performing, damage, removing poisons or curing disease.

Claws of Sekhmet
1 Essence Point per combat turn
The Bast invokes the name of Ras protector Sekhmet to lengthen and strengthen their own claws. Damage then becomes d6(3) x Strength+1 LP of damage.

Cait Sidhe
5 Essence Points per 5 minutes per level
The Bast can increase in size to about the size of a mountain lion. Strength and Constitution increase by 2 each, with Dexterity decreasing by 1. One level of Hard to kill is also added. Life Points are increased accordingly.
A Bast with Cait Sidhe at level 4 can spend 5 Essence points to remain this size for upto 20 minutes. The Bast may switch back at any time but to use this power again will cost another 5 Essence points.

Travel/Time
Cats and Bast are not bound by the same laws of time and space. They are believed to be able to enter dreams, travel to far away planets or simply be right underfoot when it is most inconvenient for them to do so.

Level 1: Disappear / Reappear
1 Essence Point
By spending a single point of Essence a Bast can seemingly disappear or reappear in any spot within eyesight. This is most often used for short hops of less than 10 feet. To use this Ailuromancy the bast must concentrate on the spot they are traveling too. This makes ill-suited for combat applications since the Bast would spend their attack moving; it is useful to avoid being hit.

Level 2: Return
3 Essence Points
This power allows the Bast to return to any spot she once visited. The spot is marked by the Bast in their minds. The travel to this spot can mundane or magical, but regardless of the spot, the time past, or reincarnation, the Bast can return to it.

Level 3: Moonjump
7 Essence points per 10 yards
The relationship between cats and the moon is a long standing one. With this power the Bast can move great physical distances during the light of the moon. Typically it can used from moving from roof top to roof top, or cross great physical distances. A Bast could also use this power to prevent damage from a great fall by simply moonjumping to a lower point in the fall. For example, someone pushes poor Mojo off of a 95 ft. tower. By spending 15 Essence points he moonjumps 90 ft (30 yards) and only falls 5 ft, something any Bast can survive.

Level 4: Dream Dance
14 Essence Points for 10 minutes
Bast are natural, but untrained Dreamers. Bu means of this Ailuromancy and 10 Essence points the Bast may enter the Dreamscape of a sleeper. The Bast can read the dream (understanding requires a Intelligence doubled roll) or very subtly influence it (Willpower doubled roll to plant a small, 10 words or less, suggestion). The Bast can attack other creatures sharing the Dreamscape (Mara, Vampires using Nightmare) but can not harm the dreamer himself.
(See WitchCraft: Book of Hod, Mindream)

Level 5: Greymalkin
21 Essence Points
The Bast can move from one place of Power to any Place power by walking through them as if they were a gate. Unlike Return, the Bast need not have been to their destination before, simply knows that it exists. To the Bast, different places of Power exist in addition to ones known. Nearly any Bast coven is built on a place of power, or as near as they can be. Most cities have a place or two hiding away.

Chaos Magick for the WitchCraft RPG

More stuff for the WitchCraft RPG, still my most favorite game that I didn't write myself. ;)


Chaos Magick for the WitchCraft RPG

“Nothing is True and Everything is Permitted”
- Traditional saying of Chaos Mages

Chaos Magick (with a ‘k’) is a new sub-tradition that at first seems to be a parody or even a mockery of the traditions that came before it. While this may in fact have some truth in it, what can’t be denied is there is a fascination for what they do and are (or what is commonly believed they are) and it may be one of the fastest growing traditions. The other truth that cannot be denied is that Chaos Magick, for all its seeming self-contradictions, does actually work.
Practitioners are called Chaos Mages or Chaos Witches by outsiders, but they prefer the term Chaote or at worse Chaos Magicians. The tradition is loosely formed and very disorganized. To refer to them as “chaotic” is not just a play on words, but a very adequate description.

History
Chaos Magick Grew out of the merging of various traditions of the 1960s it was not formalized till 1976-8. Some claim its birth was more properly placed in the 1890s during the Victorian Occult revival. It gained more ground after that with Austin Osman Spare, one of Crowley’s contemporaries. His philosophies of magic embraced many various traditions, but not a part of any of them. It blended with the ideas of both Wicca (it’s positive influence) and Discordianism (it’s more ‘negative’ side). It had rapid growth in the 1990s due to the popularizing of various chaos math theories, end of the millennia hysteria and the ability to connect and exchange ideas via the Internet. It has its obvious roots in the various solitary practices that began near the end of the millennium, but it also has influences as diverse as the Wicce traditions of the 1960’s and the Rosicrucians of the 1890’s.
One should not underestimate the power that technology has had in the formation of this tradition. What might have been separate, disparate ideas from isolated groups found interconnections and intraconnections thanks to the rapid communication features of the nascent World Wide Web. Practitioners naturally claim this is the very nature of Chaos Magick; the elements were all in place to provide a spontaneous generation of the Tradition itself. Many believe that if occultist had embraced the telegraph they way that they embraced the Internet, Chaos Magick would have be created 100 years prior.

Beliefs

First, it is difficult to make claims about the “average” Chaote. Indeed, no such thing exists. Despite this certain assumptions can be made about the common threads that hold all Chaote together.
The Chaote believe that there is no such thing as an objective truth. That everything is determined by a point of view. For this reason the Chaote embrace such disparate fields of science and philosophy such as Taoism, quantum physics, and Jungian psychoanalysis. Of course chaos math is another prime field of study for the chaote. Many in fact derive their incantations and magical effects from such works.
Chaos magic tries to avoid the things that define the other Traditions or philosophies, or a least using them the exact same way. Athames could be sharp for example, to the horror of most traditional Wicce, or using “made up” gods and rituals. To the Chaote, Cthulhu is just as real as Yaweh or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The Chaote believes that their magic should work and therefore it does. An interesting side effect of this is that chaos magic is less effected by the crowd effect if there is a suitable and logical explanation can be offered. An elemental fire display is explained away by a ruptured gas line. If someone sees a “demon” then they are sure that they heard about someone filming a horror movie on the radio. Another effect is that people will tend to believe the Chaote is nothing more than a “street magician” or some sort of illusionist ala David Blaine. Effects will be explained away as slight of hand, or a trick with mirrors.
The Chronicler should decide whether or not the crowd effect is negated (can it be explained away) or do they not lose as much Essence.

Ritual, Essence and Chaos
The Chaote is typically fond, or even required, to use rituals and traditions mixed together. So a traditional rite is often followed by a “spell” found in a science book, and ending in a Gnostic or Taoist (maybe both) rite while invoking a fantasy god. The Chaote believes that they work and therefore it does.
They believe Essence comes from within and ritual is only used to focus the mind, there is no inherent energies within the ritual itself. The ultimate goal of the Chaote is to produce magical effects without the need of any rituals. A state they describe as maximum entropy. It is by returning to this primordial chaos that they are able to obtain the peak of the their spiritual and magical evolution.

Spirits and Gods
The individual Chaote may believe in many gods, goddess, spirits or what have you, or even none at all. No particular gods or goddesses though are unique to them. They have adopted various deities, notably various ones of litature and science fiction. The works of H.P. Lovecraft and Micheal Moorcock are among the favorite. Many Chaote have even adopted Moorcock’s “chaos wheel” or “chaos star” as part of their personal symbol.
They do share the belief in Cardea as Goddess of the Internet with the Wicce TechnoPagans. They will even sometimes share a belief in the modern parody religions, such as Church of the Sub-Genius or the Pastafarians.
Despite this nature of chaos, the Chaote is no more prone to worship a Mad God than any other person and they are no more or no less susceptible to taint.

The Number 8

For the Chaote, the number eight, the Octarine, is the most magical number, not seven. Of course eight is the number of arrows of the chaos star it is also represents the number of “magical colors” the Chaote believes in. The Chaote will use these colors to focus their magic workings. They believe that eight is the true number of raw pure magic. There is of course a certain level of arrogance in this. While everyone else believes the proper number is seven the Chaote believes that it is actually one more than that. For this reason the extra essence normally reserved for 7 casters needs to have 8 Chaote casters. Seven chaote casters only produce 90 points of extra essence, but 8 will produce 115 points. Chaote casters with other traditions can not contribute extra essence when there are only seven casters due to their beliefs. Other numbers of casters are unaffected.
Colors: Black – death magic, necromancy. Blue – controlling people. Red – war and combat. Yellow – Ego magic or magic associated with the self. Green – love. Orange – mental magic and thoughts. Purple – sex magic.

Characters
Attributes, Qualities, Drawbacks and Skills: Chaote come from a variety of backgrounds and points of view but a few things are common. Nearly all are college educated and many come from middle-class backgrounds. Their natures tend to lend them to more “free spirited” professions; artists, authors, graphic designers, musicians, actors, and so on. Again, saying something is “typical” for a Chaote is problematic at best; dangerous at worse.

Metaphysics: The Chaote considers all magic worth learning. Magic then becomes their personal philosophy of how they relate to the universe. Invocations then are most used. Seer Powers and Necromancy are also learned, but these usually require prescribed skills that the Chaote may not have or see the value of. Divine Powers are, unless deemed necessary by the Chronicler, off limits. Again, exceptions are the rule.
Chroniclers may want to impose an added cost of 1-2 extra metaphysics points per level of some types of metaphysics. This offsets the access the Chaote has, but represents their different paradigm of learning.

Special Abilities: Chaote, also due to their nature gain a +1 to any one knowledge based skill of their choice, expect for Occult Knowledge. Common examples would be a bonus in artistic skills, or math. Typically this relates to how they came to their own specific points of view of their Chaos Magic.

Other Associations
Most associations believe the Chaote to some new sort of Solitary (partially true) or one of the Wicce bastard children (also partially true). Most of the attitudes are predictable. The Wicce tend to have the most positive point on view with regards to the Chaote, though they disagree with way they interpret philosophy, not the philosophy themselves. Rosicrucians look down on the Chatoe as amateurs, often referring to them as “Wikipedia Witches” due their connections with the internet and their habit of throwing everything together. They are interested in their methods though. Their seemingly random, and “unskilled” approaches to arcane research and to their use of Invocations baffles the Brotherhood. Confusion and ignorance are not things the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross enjoys. Sentinels have the widest variation of attitudes. Most think they are children playing at miracles and are at best annoying or at worse troublesome. Others see them as deluded souls taping the power of a great primordial evil.
What the Templars think about this group is at present, unknown. Most of the other associations (the Storm Dragons, the Mockers) are only peripherally aware of the Chaos Mages. Some have tried to study with the Storm Dragons, but ones to date have not had the attention span to complete their training (from the point of view of the Storm Dragons).

Chaos Magick - Invocations
To date most Chaote have only been able to replicate other invocations and some necromancy. Though constant debate and discussion on whether or not they will be able to create their own forms of invocations. In theory they should be able to re-create any magical effect and more.

I need a Dracula Chess set

“So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry `check' in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls.”
 -Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

So I have started to re-read Dracula again.  Something I like to do every so often. Inevitably I get back to something I have always wanted, a Dracula themed chess set.
What I want is the Franklin Mint to come out with one so I can agonize about it for years and finally find one on eBay.  But to my knowledge they never have made one.  The closest I have seen is a Scooby-Doo chess set.  So I want something nice, a show-off piece.

So far it doesn't look like anything like this exists.  I have found one ancient blog posting about it, but that is it.
Plus, when it comes right down to it, I am not a chess junkie.  I enjoy the game. I know it's importance in the communities I frequent (education, psychology and gamers), but I don't play very often and when I do play I do it only causally.

But this is something I'd still like to have.
I would make it a traditional chess set (no alternate rules) and I have had the pieces in mind for years.
Black
King - Dracula (obviously)
Queen - Lucy in her vampire or "Bloufer lady" form.
Bishops - Dracula's other brides (yeah missing one)
Knights - his gypsy henchmen
Rooks - Castle Dracula
Pawns - Wolves (with bats maybe)

White
King - Van Helsing (again an obvious choice)
Queen  - Mina Harker
Queen's Bishop - Jonathan Harker
Kin's Bishop - Dr. Seward
Knights -  Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood
Rooks - Seward's Sanitarium
Pawns - Holmwood's dogs.

I like how these fill out honestly.  Though I do need a place for Reinfield.  Maybe as one of the black Knights

I might have enough D&D minis to do this with, at least on Dracula's side of things, but not really for Van Helsing's side.

I guess my search goes on.

.

Superheroes

I am planning on doing a series of posts next on Superhero RPGs, focusing on some new ones I have picked up with some retrospective of some older ones.

I have spoken at length about Mutants & Masterminds, my "go to" Supers game, but I have also talked a bit out Silver Age Sentinels and Smallville.   Games I want to cover are the DC Adventures, Icons, BASH and Villains & Vigilantes 2.1.

Obviously one of the things I like to look in any system are the magic rules.  I like to think that Supers and Horror games are reflections of each other.  They share a lot of the same tropes and even plot designs.  Supers are obviously the "light" world and Horror is the darker reflection.  The core philosophies are are also very different.  I think two quotes sum this up perfectly by two of the "kings" of their respective genres.

"We believe in heroes because, ultimately. we believe in ourselves." -Jack "King" Kirby
"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones." - Stephen King

Horror helps us deal with how the world is.  Superheroes help us by showing us what the world could be.

Of course I see this link since I was re-introduced to horror from comics.  "The Tomb of Dracula" took me from Marvel (which took me from DC) into the world of Horror, Occult and all sorts of things that go bump in the night.  It should also be no surprise that my favorite parts of AD&D were the horror-themed elements; the gothic tradition and the weird horror of Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.  Supers comics even got into the game, alot, and not just Dracula. Read a copy of Dr. Strange, or anything with John Constantine in it; monsters abound.  Twilight is less about vampires than it is about super-powered humans.  So yeah there is a lot crossover.

So as I review these games this is something I want to keep in mind.

LEGO Minotarus

I don't talk much about board games here.  Nothing against them, they are just not something I talk a lot about, but I would hazard a guess and say that a full half of my game room shelf space is devoted to board games.  My kids and wife love them and it is something we can all do together.

So if you were at Gen Con this year you saw the LEGO booth.  And if you saw it then like me I am sure you looked at their new board games, Minotaurus, Rames Pyramid, and Lava Dragon.  I am sure that LEGO is still kicking themselves for not bringing product to sell, because they would have raked in the bucks.

We went to our local LEGO store and picked up Lava Dragon and Minotaurus.  The salesman mentioned that they had been selling out of them over the last three weeks and couldn't keep them in stock.

Well I can see why.

We got the games home and my LEGO loving son wanted to build them right away.   That is part of the appeal of these games over say most board games.  You have to build everything first.

It was easy for him (he regularly builds the big Star Wars LEGO sets, so something under a 100 pieces is nothing) and we all sat down.

The rules are simple.  Roll a die, move your pawns.  Try to get to the center of the maze and don't get hit by the Minotaur.  Oh, and you have to build the die too.  On some rolls you can move the Minotaur to send a pawn back to "home" or move a wall to block an opponent.  The game move quick and I can see how it will be a little different each time.  The rule book also comes with some suggested "house rules" like more or less powerful Minotaurs, the ability to jump over some walls and how many pawns you need to get in to win.

In truth this game reminded me of the old Mattel "Electronic Dungeons & Dragons" game from the dawn of the D&D age.

If LEGO is moving into the board game world then I think they are going to do very, very well.  For the RPG crowd this game is nice little diversion and I am sure it will not be long before there are house rules about how the pawns can attack the Minotaur and even rules separating the three pawns each into "classes".  Maybe that is too much, but I can see ways to do it now and certainly someone else will too.

Anyway, see more here.  http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=3841&cn=595&d=70

Cortex, Part 6 - Final Thoughts

I have spent some time with Cortex and Cortex Plus.  I like the games, they are a nice mix of elements I enjoy in games.  Cortex does not give me anything new, say over Unisystem or Savage Worlds, but it is a nice presentation of ideas in a different way.  Cortex Plus is new and has a very interesting element to it.  Character creation though takes a long time and is typically only suited for groups who know who and what their characters are about already.  Sometimes you want to discover these things in game.

I will discussing Cortex Plus more as I move over to super-hero games.

Cortex, Part 4 - Building your Cast

The Smallville version of Cortex Plus has an excellently detailed character creation method.  If you , like me, love to develop characters  for a game then this a very cool thing.  The trouble is though you really need a good idea who your characters are, what the game is going to be and how the Players will work together.  This is great for 99% of the groups out there, but for me, trying this out by myself, it will take some more work.
So I have to play the part of both player and GM for this.  Come up with the world, the setting and the characters.

I am going to have to cheat then.

I need a world and a cast.  I want to use five characters since I like the way dynamic would work, and I like the visual appeal for the diagrams.  Here is the diagram I am going to use.

So here are my choices.

"Sunnydale"
A Season 5 game set in a similar, but not quite the same, cast in a similar town.
Characters would be Willow, Tara, Buffy, Xander and Anya.  Focus on the relationships.  Maybe even have Xander sleep with Buffy once just stir the shit a bit.

"The Hallows"
Using the characters from Kim Harrison's Hallows/Rachel Morgan series. I would pretty much run it as is.  This one actually has a lot of potential.  The main cast has five characters, and all have very complicated relationships that range from utter loathing to love to love/hate.  So I would include Rachel, Ivy, Jenks, Trent and Algaliarept.

Yeah I like that.  I think I'll use The Hallows characters.  Plus it gives me a nice collection of supernaturals to deal with: a witch, a vampire, a pixie, an elf and a demon.  Sounds like fun.  Here is my new chart then.

Not all the details are there yet.  Obviously I want to detail the relationships more.
So obvious ones first, Ivy LOVES Rachel, but Rachel doesn't feel the same way.  Jenks is the business partner of Ivy and Rachel, and is Rachel's best friend.  Algaliarept has alternately wanted to kill, bed, kill and now teach Rachel.  He has also bent sent to kill Trent and Trent and Rachel both thought the other summoned him.  Al has a lot of Power, Trent does too.  Rachel finds often that Power gets her into trouble.

I'll need to get into more detail of course.

More later.

Cortex, Part 3 - Cortex Plus

So everything I have told you is wrong. Or rather, everything I have told so far about Cortex is fine, but it does not cover what is going on in the newest Cortex game, Smallville.

Now a few things to get out of the way first and foremost. I have never watched Smallville really. I saw an episode way back when because it had some witches in it and it was when Clark learned he was vulnerable to magic, and I tried to catch the Zatanna episode, but my DVR took a nap and it didn't happen. So I can't judge this game on the merits of how well or not it emulates its source. What I can so though is judge it on how well it emulates young adult drama, with a supernatural/paranormal/super twist. In that case we could be talking about almost any show on WB/UPN/CW, and many of the ones on Fox too.

So what is the deal with Smallville anyway?

Well the biggest thing is the character development which according to the book will take your first session. Now let me pause here a bit. I loves me some character creation. I have pages of character notes on D&D characters and that is not counting what I have on characters for other systems. So I can dig this sort of interactive character development, but will everyone else? This feels rather indie for a mainstream license. I am going to roll with it all the same and see what it does for me. Granted my doing it will be a tad artificial since it will be just me at the moment.

Now this new interactive character development does pose one issue; you need to have a really good idea of what you want your series to do and who is going to be in it. This is the same issue that Cartoon Action Hour has; it might make a pick-up game a bit harder to do.

So how is it different? Well. There are no abilities or skills. How much stronger is Clark than Chloe? Don't know. Is Lex smarter than Brainiac? No idea. But it doesn't matter either. Clark and Chloe are not going to be arm wrestling and Lex and Brainiac are not going to be playing Trivial Pursuit against each other. But what we do have is how do Clark's actions affect Chloe, or Lois, or Lex. How can he do what he feels is right. So instead of Attribute + Skill +/- Assets we have Drives (Values + Relationships) + Assets. You are still using the Step Die methods from the previous version of Cortex, just in a new way.

So what are these? Well Drives are what motivate you or your character. The first set are called Values. Thes are Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power and Truth. Each of these gets a die and a defining statement. If we go with the idea of setting a game in a theoretical "Season 5" (the default power level) then we can provide some examples. So I could look at my witches in a theoretical show called "Sunnydale" and it's Season 5. Willow would have Power at d12 with the text, "I need to be able to control the chaos around me." Tara would have Power say at d6 or d8 with the text "Power is a responsibility and one that can't be ignored." It's kind of a neat way of looking at your characters really. These Values then tell you why you are motivated to do what you do. So Willow would seek out a dangerous occult text, but Tara would caution against it.

We have Drives in Values and they affect your Relationships. The player characters are called Leads and the NPCs are "features" (though I like Guest Stars better) and how they relate to each other, friend, enemy and lover alike, are called Relationships. These are mutable obviously. These are also ranked with a die and description. So between Willow and Tara we can write "in love with". So on Willow's sheet I write under Relationships "d12 TARA is my soulmate." and similarly on Tara's "D12 WILLOW is my soulmate". Since it is Season 5 I could even write on Willow's sheet, "d8 XANDER is my best friend" or "d4 I don't like ANYA". It is bit freeform at this point since it is just me. Relationships work out best when discussed with the other players. It looks like the die value's don't have to be equal, so Clark has a d10 listed for Chloe in the book, but Chloe has a d12 for Clark. This matches reality really; not all relationships are equal.

Relationships can be with other Leads or Features (PCs and NPCs). You also can have Resources, people or things you can call on to do things.

Assets are the closest to what you could describe as "Powers" or "Qualities". In my quick read over of the rules these seemed to be the most similar to Classic Cortex. Clark has things like Super-Strength and the like. But these again are more descriptive and are not a measure of his strength per se but rather a measurement of what using his Super-Strength means to the show and to the characters around him. If an asset is not here then adding one is not too difficult really. I could see an asset like Megan Maclay's Spellbook (Magical Artifact), with the text "add d8 to Trouble to use a new spell" or bit of occult knowledge as the case may be.

All of this though is designed around the interpersonal relationships the character have with each other. It is an interesting focus for a game to be honest, and one that leads itself to certain level of tinkering. Think about it for a bit, you could take any group of characters and provide a "Cortex Plus" sheet for them as well. They would have their powers, skills and other details in Assets and then you focus on the interpersonal dynamics.

I think I should try this out. Plus a game like this needs to be tried in order to get the proper feel.

Cortex, Part 1

I think it is high time I devoted some photons to Cortex.  In truth I already have with these posts:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/06/supernatural-rpg.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/02/cortex-and-unisystem.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/02/magic-in-cortex-savage-worlds-and-witch.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/03/sympathy-for-succubus-part-2.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/savage-worlds.html (a little)
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/tale-of-two-supermen.html

I am going to talk about Cortex, or I guess what could now be described as "Classic Cortex".  The Cortex in Smallville and Leverage is something called "Cortex Plus".  There are more differences between Classic and Plus than there are between Classic Unisystem and Cinematic Unisystem or even between D&D 3.0 and 3.5. Enough that I want to detail them as separate systems.

Cortex has a generic book (pictured above) which is the core of the Cortex System. There are many licensed products that Margaret Weis Productions makes.  These include Supernatural, Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Demon Hunters. Smallville and Leverage use the new Cortex Plus system.

So what is Cortex?  Other than a system that seems to be doing a lot of TV shows?  Well I have described Cortex in the past as the love child of Unisystem and Savage Worlds.  The system is closer in feel to Unisystem and is a step-die system like Savage Worlds.

So unlike other reviews I want to hit some very specific things with Cortex.  These might sound a tad negative, but they are not really. I am just focusing on a few things here.  I do want to spend some time still talking about why I like this system.

Magic -  I have gone on about how Cortex needs a better magic system, and it does, but to be fair none of the licenses the Cortex currently has does anything near the magic you see in Buffy or Ghosts of Albion.  Supernatural and Demon Hunters, while they do have magic, are also not at that level.   I have toyed around with converting the magic system from Ghosts and even using the one from Witch Girls Adventures. While these are passable, I really think something new and excited is needed here.  For starters I would take what I learned for Ghosts and keep it simple.  I'd also want to split magic up into different types of magic.  Say like "Earth Magic" and "Diabolic", not just the descriptors I used in Ghosts, but separate "Skills", this would control the power levels some and keep things at that "human" power level that Cortex works well at.

What Book Do I Buy? - Interesting thing about Cortex.  I have never watched any of the shows they have games for.  BSG was good, but I lost interest.  Never watched Firefly (and no plans to start really).  I watched Supernatural and I loved it, but could never find the time in my days to watch the episodes I had recorded.  Same with Smallville and Leverage.  So I can't judge the books on how well they emulate their respective universes.  My gut feeling is that Supernatural is really, really damn close and so is Smallville.  But say you are new to Cortex, what should you buy?  Well...I guess I would start with, what show are you wanting to emulate?  I knew nothing of "Demon Hunters" till I signed up for it one Gen Con.  Cam Banks ran it and it was a blast!  The background is bit more silly that I normally take my modern/horror, but there is no reason at all you could not play it straight.  Supernatural is one of my favorite games presently as well.  It is a great game if you want to play normal human versus things that go bump in the night kind of game.  Actually, Supernatural is a GREAT game if you loved Chill.  If you want to play in outer space, well they have two games for that too.
Smallville, and from what I can tell Leverage, are different.  These games are for interpersonal relationships and drama, regardless of background.  Sure Clark can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but how is going to do if Lois starts filtering with him?  Some people don't like this kind of game, but personally (as a gamer and a designer) I find it fascinating! But I am getting ahead of myself...

Why do I need this if I have this? And this is a good question to ask.  Why would I play Cortex if I have Unisystem or Savage Worlds or True 20 or GURPS?   I think the answer here is people will play it because of the licenses.  This certainly worked great for  Buffy and Unisystem and it seems to working great for Cortex so far.  I think to get them to the next step is to have more products out for the "generic" rules that can be used with any book they sell.  Cortex Plus expands this and the system itself now becomes something of an interest above and beyond the license itself.  So say you are like me and you have Buffy, Chill, Ghosts of Albion, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu and Ghostbusters; what does Supernatural give you?  Well I guess that depends.  If you are a fan of the show then you have that.  The book is one of the nicest looking RPGs I have seen in a long time. Beyond that Supernatural is about normal people.  Characters in Ghosts of Albion are not normal.  Same is true for Buffy, CoC and World of Darkness.  Chill, like I mentioned, comes the closest, but Chill is a very old system now and there are parts that are showing that age.  Supernatural + the Cortex Core Rules gives you plenty on doing a "hunter" game or even a "survivor" game.

Why I Like Cortex
I will be honest, I like Cortex.  The math geek in me loves the step die progression and the fact that you have die + die/dice to get to a success.  While my love for Unisystem know no bounds, the d10 + numbers is a bit of flat outcome. I have talked about my fondness for Supernatural already and even in re-reads I still think it holds on well.  Here is how I feel about Cortex in general.
- The system is easy to learn.  Look, I have done my tenure with tables, insane formulas and dozens of subsystems.  I don't have to do that anymore.  If game wants my attention then it needs to be simple or have a good reason for the complexity.
- The game is improving. You can track Cortex's development through it's licensed games.  Yes there were some issues with earlier games, but now I feel they have a good handle on what they want to do and how to do it.
- Cortex has some great looking books.  I know that is not the end all be all, but a lot of work, care and effort goes into producing these books.  Supernatural and Smallville in particular are two of the best looking games I have seen in a while.  Minor quibble, not enough pictures of Lenore and Zatana respectively.
- Most importantly I feel it is a system that can do more than it currently has.  The core book is presented in a very "tool box" way and I'd like to try to build something with that.

I will do some Unisystem/Cortex conversions next and talk about magic and what Cortex Plus adds to the mix.

Links
http://www.margaretweis.com/
http://cortexsystemrpg.org/

Putting my money where my mouth is...

So I spent a lot of time and text ripping into Outlaw Press, James Shipman and his art stealing ways.

See:

• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/12/outlaw-press-uses-stolen-art-and.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-from-outlaw-press.html
• http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/06/outlaw-press-is-back-and-still-stealing.html 

So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is.
I am going to buy a copy of Tunnels and Trolls directly from Flying Buffalo this week at Gen Con.

I have no idea what edition, what book or anything.  But I want to show my support this way.  It looks like 7 (or 7.5) is the most up-to-date edition.  But maybe an older edition would be cool to have too.

If you are going to Gen Con and want to support one of the true pioneers of our hobby, then I suggest you do the same.

A Tale of Two Supermen

I have stated here in the past my preference for DC Comics heroes over that of Marvel.  Don't get me wrong, I read the hell out of Spiderman and X-Men as a kid, and reading The Tomb of Dracula was one of the things that got me into horror full scale.
But I have always liked DC's heroes more.  To me they were always more heroic than their Marvel counterparts.  So it should come as no shock that I am MAJORLY geeking out since I have not just one, but two DC-based RPGs out now.

 

I have seen both games now and I like them for very different reasons.  DCA is of course the sibling to the new Mutants and Masterminds 3.  It has some changes from the previous editions, most of which I am thinking are needed.  Abilities are rated different, and there are some new ones.  But all in all I like it.  

Smallville is Cortex but it is VERY different than previous versions of Cortex.  This is both good and bad.  I like the character creation system and it appeals to my desire to create a detailed character.  I like that the system has been opened up to play all sorts of different kinds of games now.  I can completely see how Leverage will work now.

Plus I still have Icons and BASH to look over, a full Cortex review to do.

I'd like to do up a character that works in all these systems.  I think I have the perfect choice too.  A while back we re-started our supers game and the world was a mixture of DC and Marvel.  Basically DC was Golden and some Silver age and Marvel was Silver and some modern age.  We were doing post modern.  Well I had read "Kingdom Come" and it dealt with Supes, Batman and Wonder Woman in a new age.   The final scenes dealt with Batman discovering that Wonder Woman and Superman were going to have a baby.  I thought wow, how power would that character be?  Half Kryptonian, half Amazon and Batman as a godfather?  Yes.  So that was my character.  Details to follow.

All of this will have to wait till after Gen Con of course.

Savage Worlds: Characters

In my previous post about Savage Worlds, I mentioned that converting to and from Unisystem is a breeze.

Typically here I'd throw in my witches. But given the gritty feel of SW, the level of magic in the system and as nod to the author I think Ill convert a different iconic Unisystem Character, Ash.

The Savage Dead
Ashley J. Williams is a great choice really. He fits the feel of Savage Worlds well, he has really cool Qualities and Drawbacks and most everyone that would play either game knows who he is.

This is a fairly direct conversion. No real attempt has been made to massage these numbers into place. Given that, I think they look and feel about right.

Ash (there would be one of those grinning skull things here)
Rank: Heroic (my best guest)               
Race: Human

Attributes
Agility d12, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d12, Vigor d12+2

Skills
Climbing d4, Driving d6, Fighting d10, Guts (d6)*, Intimidation d8, Investigation d4, Knowledge d4, Notice d6**, Persuasion d8, Repair d8, Riding d6, Shooting d10, Survival d4, Swimming d4, Taunt d8, Throwing d4

Hindrances
Enemy, One Hand, Quirk (Schmuck)

Edges
Attractive, Combat Reflexes, Fast Healer, Hard to Kill, Inspire, Natural Leader, Mr. Fit-it, Nerves of Steel

*Not converted from the source, but rather derived.
** Converted from Notice and Perception

In most cases the Hindrances and Edges convert right from the quality of the same (or similar) name. Others, like Schmuck, Really Big Chin and Promised One don't and are broken up into their components.

For weapons give him a chain saw and a boom stick and we are groovy.

Ash is good example of a Unisystem character that feels right at home in SW, what about the other direction?
For this I want to go with Rippers.

Ripped Slayers
In Rippers there is a group of monster hunters called the Rippers. A faction of these are known as the Slayers. The current leader of the Slayers is a 17 year old girl (In 1892) named Tara LaGrange. So young girl fighting monsters and calling herself "The Slayer"...sound familiar yet? Well to be fair she is a slayer, not a Slayer. But the idea is there so lets see how she looks in Unisystem using the Ghosts of Albion rules. Also, since we can, lets go ahead and make Tara here (what? I didnt name her) an honest to goodness Slayer. In Ghosts of Albion she is an Apprentice or in Buffy a White Hat. To make a her a Slayer we will change her to a Journeyman or Hero and have those stats follow after. So for Strength she has 3 if she is just a normal girl, or 6 if she is a full Slayer. The normal human is a direct conversion of the Rippers rules with no attempt made to massage the stats. As with Ash I think it works out well.

The Slayer of Victorian Age, Tara LaGrange.  Flanked by Victorian Willow and Tara by mqken.

Tara LaGrange, the slayer
Type: Apprentice Normal Human (Ghosts of Albion Rules)

Life Points: 49
Drama Points: 20

Strength: 3
Dexterity: 4
Constitution: 3
Intelligence: 4
Perception: 2 (again based on best estimates)
Willpower: 4

Qualities
Contacts (Rippers, 3)*
Contacts (Supernatural, 3)*
Fast Reaction Time
Hard to Kill, 5
Nerves of Steel

Drawbacks
Adversaries, 2 (vampires, demons, werewolves and the like)
Minority (woman) (From Ghosts of Albion)
Obligation (Rippers, 3)*

Skills
Armed Mayhem 3, Athletics 1, Crime 3, Engineering 2, Fisticuffs 3, Influence 3, Knowledge 2 (part of the SW/Ripper Common Knowledge rule), Languages 1 (English read/write), Marksmanship 5, Notice 3, Occultism 2, Wild Card (Ripper Tech) 1

* Not in the Savage Worlds character stats but assumed as part of being a Ripper.

That worked REALLY well in my mind. Sure, she is a bit light as a Slayer, but this is a normal girl with a really big chip on her shoulder. Her skills ended up a tad high for a starting character, but this is an NPC with some history, so that is fine really.
Adding the Slayer Quality makes the following changes:

Tara LaGrange, the Vampire Slayer
Type: Hero Slayer

Life Points: 73
Drama Points: 15

Strength: 6
Dexterity: 7
Constitution: 6
Intelligence: 4
Perception: 2 (again based on best estimates) (note this is actually too low for a Slayer and really should be raised to 4)
Willpower: 6

Qualities
Contacts (Rippers, 3)*
Contacts (Supernatural, 3)*
Slayer
- Fast Reaction Time (part of Slayer)
- Hard to Kill (part of Slayer) 5
- Nerves of Steel (part of Slayer)
- Regeneration (part of Slayer)
- +1 to Armed Mayhem and Fisticuffs (part of Slayer)
- Lesser Sensing (in the Buffy book, but the name comes from Ghosts of Albion)

Drawbacks
Adversaries, 4 (vampires, demons, werewolves and the like)
Minority (woman) (From Ghosts of Albion)
Obligation (Rippers, 3)*

Skills
Armed Mayhem 4, Athletics 1, Crime 3, Engineering 2, Fisticuffs 4, Influence 3, Knowledge 2 (part of the SW/Ripper Common Knowledge rule), Languages 1 (English read/write), Marksmanship 5, Notice 3, Occultism 2, Wild Card (Ripper Tech) 1

* Not in the Savage Worlds character stats but assumed as part of being a Ripper. In this case the Rippers take the place of the Watchers.

I like it. So Miss LaGrange is now my official Slayer in 1892.

Ok, next time I go back and try some Savage Worlds magic.

Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds & Rippers

I have talked around Savage Worlds in the past, here and here in particular, but never about Savage Worlds directly.  Well, I'll change that now.

Savage Worlds is a multi-genre (I dont think Generic is the right word here) action RPG from Pinnacle Entertainment Group, the same people that gave us Deadlands. And the game itself is written by a very familiar name to Unisystem fans, Shane Hensley, who has given us Fistfull of Zombies for AFMBE and Army of Darkness for Cinematic Unisystem (among others of course). This seems to be a genre that works well for Shane since you can see similar DNA in Savage Worlds.

I had the chance a couple of Gen Cons ago to sit down and play some Savage Worlds. Its tagline of Fast! Furious! Fun! certainly held up in character creation, I was able to roll out my standard witch-like character very quickly.
One thing became very, very clear to us right away, well more than one thing, but I digress. The one thing that was clear that if you want to play a pulpy style game, then Savage Worlds could be the game you are looking for. But I don't play a lot of pulp, I play horror and magic. Is Savage Worlds the game for me?

Well.that depends. There are certainly some things about it like and things I don't like. One thing I do like is Rippers, a Gothic, steam punk Victorian Horror style monster hunter game for Savage Worlds; but I have a softspot for those. Ill detail Rippers and how it compares to Ghosts of Albion in a bit. When I detail my conversions, Ill indicate whether or not I am drawing from Rippers or some other source, otherwise assume I mean Savage Worlds core.

Crunch
Ok. So what can Savage Worlds give me? Well for a crunch guy like me there is a lot to look at despite the streamlined system. Savage Worlds uses different die to represent different levels of ability for example like Deadlands. So a d4 is base level, d6 is a little better and so on up to d12 (no d20) and all are rolled against a target number, typically 4. The largest number on each die explodes (called an Ace in this game or the Rule of 10 in Unisystem), so you actually have a better chance of Acing when your die is lower than higher; 25% chance on a d4 vs say a 10% chance on a d10. The neatest thing thought is the addition of a Wild Die. The Wild Die, a d6, can be rolled in any action, but only once per action. If the Wild Die rolls higher than your normal die you can take that roll instead. Given this Id like to figure out a Wild Die mechanic for Unisystem, but given the flat distribution of the Unisystem task resolution I dont see it working as well. Like a regular die roll a Wild Die can Ace as well. There are also cards used, but I wont get into that here.
Savage Worlds also has something called Bennies. Think of these as advanced Hero Points or somewhat lesser Drama Points (this is a recurring theme really. Characters in Savage Worlds are just slightly less powered than their Unisystem counterparts, but more later). You only get four of them and they dont transfer from session to session so use them while you have them.

Game Play
We played one of the downloadble adventures for our first time. I had not bought the books yet, but one of the guys I was with had them. It was the Core Savage Worlds book, Rippers (which we only looked at) and a couple of others. We played a pulpy style adventure where the characters were a professor of Archeology, his assistant who happened to be a witch (that was mine) and an 8-foot tall Cat-humanoid. Ok I gotta admit that any game that allows this out of the box has my attention! Turns out it worked REALLY well.
We did get up an running rather quickly. Combat seemed to be a little slow, and the magic system took a little to get used too. Now my group is used to playing odd things. I have playtested many new games with them and combined we all have about 80 years worth of RPG experience. Combat I think we just need to get used too, Magicis a different story.

Basic Conversions
Conversions between the two systems are surprisingly easy. I say surprising, it isn't really since I feel both games appeal to the same kind of gamer and similar kinds of game worlds. Both games assume normal humans (at least at their core) and a small set of skills. Both games have Qualities or Edges and Drawbacks or Hindrances.

Attributes and Skills
Conversions here could not be easier. From the Unisystem perspective the lowest human score is a 1, but most heroes will have a minimum of 2 in their Attributes. Savage Worlds heroes start out as fairly hardy folks, so they all begin with a d4 and can go up with creation points. The max for Unisystem humans is 6 and for Savage Worlds is d12. This is pretty much the same conversions I use for Cortex, so I'll include them as well.
This give us this:

Unisystem	Savage Worlds	Cortex
1	d4-1	d2
2	d4	d4
3	d6	d6
4	d8	d8
5	d10	d10
6	d12	d12
7	d12+1	d12+d2
8	d12+2	d12+d4
9	d12+3	d12+d6

As we move up an Attribute of 9 in Unisystem is an automatic success. Likewise in Savage Worlds a d12+3 will be an automatic success in just about anything as well. Ok, technically an Attribute of 8 + 1d10 is an automatic success in most cases. But that is picking nits and most humans won't be this high.

Quick converting NPCs from the Savage Worlds Core and Rippers and breaking down the basic Savage Worlds rules reveal that your starting Savage Worlds character converts out to 15 Unisystem Attribute points. This is the same as a White Hat or Primitive Screwhead in cinematic Unisystem or a Pre-Heroic character in AFMBE. This parity between the two games continues.

Attribute classifications line up really nice as well. They even serve very similar functions.

Unisystem	Savage Worlds
Strength	Strength
Dexterity	Agility
Constitution	Vigor
Intelligence	Smarts
Perception	- Not Used Here -
Willpower	Spirit

So at this point it is rather easy to spot convert characters. A Savage Worlds character with Strength d6 is roughly the same as a Unisystem character with Strength 3.

When converting to Unisystem from Savage Worlds I say give the character a base Perception of 2. No worries, the Notice skill converts as a Notice skill.

Both games have Secondary or Derived stats too. As in most cases it is best to convert Primary Stats and then use the system in question to derive the secondary ones.

Skills
Like the Attributes running the numbers on Savage Worlds skills gives us the equivalent of 15 skill points; again, Primitive Screwhead territory. The issue comes when spliting these skill points up. Cinematic Unisystem has 18 skills (or 16 for Ghosts of Albion) and Classic has more. Savage Worlds has 24 points for skills (in Unisystem terms). Some of these crossover with their Unisystem equivalent, enough to make me call them all the same. If you are converting a Unisystem character to Savage Worlds this is only an issue if the character is Pre-Heroic.

Some skills do not have exact duplicates. On the Cinematic Unisystem side there are Acrobatics, Art, Computers, Languages, Occultism and Science. Art, Computers, Languages and Science are mostly covered by the Smarts attribute. Acrobatic can be covered by Edges (more on that below).
Occultism in terms of Occult Knowledge would also be covered Smarts. Occultism in terms of knowledge to cast spells is handled in part by the Arcane Background and various Arcane Edges.
On the Savage Worlds side there is Guts, which has some equivalents in Unisystems Willpower, Nerves of Steel and Resistance (Fear) or Coward.

Up to this point our hero and his Mirror Universe counterpart are still mostly the same. The differences begin to show when we get to Edges and Hindrances.

Qualities, Edges, Drawbacks and Hindrances

One of the hallmarks of Unisystem are the Qualities and Drawbacks. There are the basics Hard to Kill and Nerves of Steel, but in order to be a Protector, have a Really Big Chin or be called a Slayer you need the associated Quality. Edges and Hindrances also work a little different than Qualities and Drawbacks. First off you get a lot fewer of them in Savage Worlds than in Unisystem. Secondly Hindrances come in two types, Minor and Major. A major Hindrance for example gets you two Edges. You can gain a new Edge (or buy off a Hindrance) only when you level up. Level is not the same as d20 levels, more like Chill really. But Edges do remind me of Feats and the magic system works much the same. An enterprising Game Master could figure out a way to convert True20s magic system to Savage Worlds very easily in fact. But I digress.

In general when converting look for Qualities, Edges, Drawbacks and Hindrances that have the same names, it will work out better for you. Minor Hindrances in Unisystem terms should be worth about 1 or 2 points (mostly one), while Major Hindrances are worth 3 to 5. Some 3s could go either way depending on what they are.

There are no combo or package Edges like some of Unisystems package Qualities, there are Professional Edges that are a combination of Edges, Hindrances, skills and prerequisites that do the same job though. The Wizard Edge is roughly analogous to the Witch Quality. One I really liked was the McGyver professional Edge, sounds like something that needs to be in Army of Darkness. ;)

Something like a Slayer or a Protector from Ghost of Albion is going to take a little more work. With Weird Edges, Wild Edges and Epic Featser sorry, Legendary Edges, there are quite a few neat things here. Enough to keep anyone busy for a while.

At this point in comparison sake our SWs character is a tad weaker than his Unisystem doppelganger. I think this is fine given the Wild Die mechanic and Aces you get in SW.

Magic and Other Powers
Ok, Ill be very blunt here. I dont like SWs magic system. I am sorry, but after Ghosts of Albion and WitchCraft very, very few systems could compare. That being said there are some neat ideas.
First thing is characters do not have a lot of start up powers, this not that big of a deal in a Two-Fisted Pulp adventure, but my witch character ended up using her revolver just as much as her own powers in the combat situations, so to me it is a big deal. Rippers expands on Magic, but not quite enough really for my tastes.
Now looking inside the game itself the Powers system sits somewhere in between the free wheeling hands-off rules of BESM or Mage and the static magic of D&D, but still not quite where Unisystems Metaphysics or Sorcery/Magic rules are. They are though internally consistent and flexible enough to provide some nice upgrades. This is another place where the rules feel like a cross between Unisystem and True20.

Now what I DID like are the rules for Weird Science (which is just another Power, like Arcane or Psychic, so there is nothing really different about it). In fact I like them much more than Buffys Super Science (which I never liked in the rules and less in the show), but here Weird Science (and I like this name so much more too) FEELS right, it feels like it fits the system well both in terms of mechanics and in terms of themes. I can see a 30s Mad Scientist right out of those old serials built with this rule. I might work on converting these back into Unisystem or take what very little I like of Super Science and mix it in with a little Sons of ther. Given how much this reminds me of True20 I am also half tempted to convert this power to True20 for a Weird Science Adept whose power feats are gadgets.
Powers for Magic, Super Heroes or Weird Science are bought like Metaphysics and they even look similar to Cincematic magical Spells. Translations are a breeze.

Rippers

I should pay some special attention to Rippers. After all Rippers, like Ghosts of Albion, is a gothic Victorian game in which monsters and the supernatural are real. Like Cthulhu by Gaslight, Masque of the Red Death and Victorian Age Vampire, Rippers takes place in the later 19th Century. Ghosts of Albion takes place at the dawn of the Victorian Age in the 1840s. Rippers though also incorporates some Steam Punk ideas.

The epynononmous Rippers are a world-wide group of monster hunters that are under the guidance of Van Helsing and the Harkers from Dracula. So shades of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to be sure (Allan Quartermain and Mina Harker are in the book, but I dont think they get it on here), with little bits of the Watchers (take your pick, the Buffy ones, the Highlander ones or the Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death ones) and maybe a dash of Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter. What sets Rippers apart is the idea of Rippertech or taking artifacts from the various creatures the characters hunt to improve the characters. Now this is a neat idea, but I do find it curious that many pages are devoted to rather interesting Rippertech enhancements, but they are almost always described as dangerous and generally unsafe to use. In Unisystem they would work like Qualities, with maybe needing a Will doubled roll to resist the bad side effects.

There are other issues that would go unnoticed by most, but not a WitchCraft RPG player. I nearly choked on my coffee when I read that the Rosicrucians taught Enochian magic. But that is REALLY nitpicky of me. The monetary system was a bit weird, using decimals for Victorian era pounds just seems wrong. I got used to converting gold pieces to silver pieces in the 80s I think converting pounds to shillings would be fine.

All in all, Rippers and Ghosts of Albion could exist side by side. The Rippers might know of Protectors and maybe even have one or two on their side. The Protectors would certainly know of the Rippers, anyone that goes around their lands hunting down supernatural creatures is going to attract their notice. How they deal with other of course depend on their first meetings. If a Ripper is trying to extract Ghostly essence from Lord Byron against his will, Tamara might not be too happy about that. The trouble is there is nothing in the Rippers or Core book that comes close to level of magic the Protectors could wield, or even Occult Poets for that matter (but I bet someone that knew the Savage Worlds magic system better than me could pull of an Occult Poet). I might do some more conversion since I love Victorian age games. The spells would convert really nice. Even the Gypsy curses in the Rippers Companion would convert to Ghosts of Albion as a Magical Philosophy: Gypsy Curse. Rough conversion (not tested) Rank converts to Level, keep Range and Duration the same, Trappings become Requirements. Drop Power Points unless you are converting to Classic Unisystem, then they represent Essence loss.

Converting characters between Rippers and Ghosts of Albion is very easy, as you can see with Dirty Nellie, the Street Faerie prostitute.  Given that Rippers and Ghosts of Albion are separated mostly by time; Ghosts in the early Victorian, Rippers in the later, one could see each game as being a reflection of the other.

Gaslight

If you like Savage Worlds (or even d20 for that matter) and Victorian adventures, but not so much the Ripper Tech, then there is Gaslight from Battlefield Press.  Gaslight is a pretty straight-forward game setting, it is the late Victorian Era.  SW Gaslight and Rippers could actually play side by side.  With Gaslight providing some of the real world history that Rippers left out.

Gaslight is certainly more of a sandbox game.  You are given the world, the rules and then let go.  There is no over arching plot or theme like Rippers or Ghosts of Albion.  It is in feel much closer to the old Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death game.  Which is pretty cool.

Nel works fine for Gaslight as well.

Next time, let's play with conversions.  Armies of Darkness in Savage Worlds, Slayers in Rippers.