Rusty GM
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Preferred Game Systems: Savage Worlds, G.U.R.P.S., D&D 5e, Dread
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Post by Rusty GM on Nov 22, 2016 13:42:41 GMT -8
I've run a few games in Savage Worlds, but they've always been in a fantasy setting. Playing rules as written, I've not run into any issues with goofed up characters or game breaking items or spells that caught me off guard. I'm just about to start a science fiction game and wanted to know, are there any rules, items, or edges in the science fiction companion that you've found can throw really nasty complications into a game? I'd love to hear your advise and experiences playing savage worlds in a futuristic environment.
Setting Details: Psionics are in, humans are the only civilized race, everyone is starting on some backwater outer rim planet as a group of "fixers" for what amounts to the space mafia.
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Nov 22, 2016 13:46:12 GMT -8
Guns.
Everyone having guns changes combat significantly.
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Rusty GM
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Preferred Game Systems: Savage Worlds, G.U.R.P.S., D&D 5e, Dread
Currently Running: Savage Worlds
Favorite Species of Monkey: Loud
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Post by Rusty GM on Nov 22, 2016 13:51:47 GMT -8
Great point! I don't know that I've ever had an encounter with guns in SW before. Looks like I'm running a few sample combats when I get home tonight.
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Nov 22, 2016 13:56:44 GMT -8
Great point! I don't know that I've ever had an encounter with guns in SW before. Looks like I'm running a few sample combats when I get home tonight. Just imagine you are having a regular fantasy fight. Now give everyone crossbows. Now remove the need to re-load after each shot. Now get blasted into red mist.
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sbloyd
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WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
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Post by sbloyd on Nov 22, 2016 14:18:05 GMT -8
Time to get real acquainted with the Shaken rules.
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Rusty GM
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Polygamerous
Posts: 21
Preferred Game Systems: Savage Worlds, G.U.R.P.S., D&D 5e, Dread
Currently Running: Savage Worlds
Favorite Species of Monkey: Loud
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Post by Rusty GM on Nov 22, 2016 14:22:05 GMT -8
Time to get real acquainted with the Shaken rules. Oh, my players in the fantasy games rolled poorly enough to get plenty shaken, so I'm comfortable with that. Lucky for them, we're playing with the revised rules, so shaken isn't quite as debilitating.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2016 15:34:58 GMT -8
Brush up on chases if you plan on having any kind of space battles...that pesky third dimension for movement can get tricky.
Keep things abstract, I avoid giving exact distances opting instead for "short, medium or long range". I house ruled extra distances (close and out of range) to represent quick changes of distance and boarding actions(and because spaceships can punch each other in my game...Outlaw Star setting if you are familiar with that anime)
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Rusty GM
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Polygamerous
Posts: 21
Preferred Game Systems: Savage Worlds, G.U.R.P.S., D&D 5e, Dread
Currently Running: Savage Worlds
Favorite Species of Monkey: Loud
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Post by Rusty GM on Nov 22, 2016 16:19:24 GMT -8
Brush up on chases if you plan on having any kind of space battles...that pesky third dimension for movement can get tricky. Keep things abstract, I avoid giving exact distances opting instead for "short, medium or long range". I house ruled extra distances (close and out of range) to represent quick changes of distance and boarding actions(and because spaceships can punch each other in my game...Outlaw Star setting if you are familiar with that anime) They plan is to start them off planetside working towards a ship. There's the potential for a car chase early on through, so chase rules it is. IIRC they're pretty streamlined assuming you know them well thanks to cards. Outlaw Star was excellent. Great choice for a setting.
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JustAnotherBusyDrone
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Post by JustAnotherBusyDrone on Dec 5, 2016 6:08:14 GMT -8
Hey Rusty. I'm running a Sci-Fi Noir game in SW right now (Think Blade Runner meets Mass Effect meets The Maltese Falcon), and there's some stuff I've run into.
1- As already mentioned, a ranged-weapon centric setting is NOTICEABLY different in practice than a melee centric one. Personally, I prefer having guns as a central type of weapon. The way that Parry Mechanics works makes it so that your damage dealer is also a very effective tank, and an effective parry tank is also a good fighter. Guns are... not that.
The way to handle this is to emphasize the importance of cover to your players. Without proper use of cover (And the crouching / prone mechanics), ranged combat is absolutely devastating. They need to understand that with rules as written, they can -NOT- tank a fight in a traditional sense. Even the most tanky built character is going to go down with a full round of fire from some extras, let alone any wild cards.
2- Communication and readiness of information. If you've primarily played fantasy, then you'll need to really get yourself prepared for a setting where the players can easily communicate with each other across vast distances with commbeads / radios / cyberphones / whatever. More than that, if your campaign intends to have any sort of mystery element to it (or even minor questions about the setting or npcs), realize that the internet is a thing. Even if they're on a back world planet, like you say they are, this factors in- A group of people who are USED to having google would likely be worse off in a dead-zone then a group of people who never saw such a thing.
You can mess with this however you like. Personally I like to put characters in situations where talking using the comms is either impractical or impossible (Often, I make it so that comms are very easy to intercept with a Tech or Hacking roll or some such thing), but that's up to you. For the internet, if your players dont have access to it but should be very used to it, you could feasibly play around with the availability of Common Knowledge checks. That's a quick way to make a group of players feel like they're bumbling around (Assuming they're familiar enough with the system to get the implications.) Either way, When a player asks you "Okay, I look up what space-google has to say about NPC X and Subject Y, then send an email to Party Member Z" You'll need to be able to handle that.
3. Have you picked up the Sci-Fi companion? It's very good.
4. Vehicles will likely be much more significant than in your previous games. This has already been covered before, but make sure you read up on Chase scenes and understand how potential 3 dimensional combat will function if you're using a grid / miniatures.
Hope this helps, if you still needed it!
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Post by mapmanrick on Dec 24, 2016 18:32:07 GMT -8
i GMed a SW game in the Slipstream Universe. It is very good to start in scifi. The rules of Slipstream are nice because there are only Rayguns and melee. It is 2 dimensional for ship combat. that makes the chase scenes easier. I didn't do too good a job with the game because I let one of my players get too powerful for the setting. I hope to do a better job in the future. If you want a scifi setting for the first time, I would suggest Slipstream. I hope this helped.
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Post by ilina on Dec 24, 2016 19:16:46 GMT -8
i will say that in a Science Fiction Game, that characters usually have lower parry values due to the reduced focus on melee combat. because of this, and the enhanced focus on firearms, melee characters will be a lot rarer and will generally have some kind of gimmick to help them close the distance. for example, the Jedi in Star Wars had Psionic Powers that could be used to help themselves close the distance. at the same time, there are some alien hunter creatures with massive stealth bonuses. i mean, a lightsaber does more damage than most energy weapons. but the issue is getting close enough to use it.
i mean, guns are easier to use and have longer ranges. but melee weapons are even better at invalidating appropriate armor and in a duel of power armor against lightsaber. the lightsaber is likely to end up winning based on the books. and because of the reduced parry values, getting a raise on damage rolls with a lightsaber is even easier.
due to the heavy presence of firearms, most science fiction characters will focus less on raising the fighting skill, and those who actually do train in melee combat will likely be delivering lots of kills if they manage to successfully close the distance. all a melee character needs is decent armor for the genre, a decent enough shield and a decent melee weapon.
either you can shoot and pray that your dice can somehow keep landing a hit. or you can swing that science fiction melee weapon against an opponent who likely has a lower parry because god forbid somebody have a high fighting when guns are the dominant thing. have an easier time getting a raise, and with the melee weapons, have an easier time penetrating armor. i noticed this in the Saturday Fallout game when it was still going on.
Guns needed to explode like crazy to deal any actual damage unless you were talking about heavy RoF1 anti vehicular guns. but melee weapons, had such an easier time gaining high AP values and tended to have bigger static bonuses. and even if most of the NPCs had a high parry for a Gun dominated world. shooting an armored target generally didn't deal much damage and shooting a prone target that was behind cover was actually harder than wild swinging against the parry numbers of most opponents. which is why i built a mixed attacker. i had a Rifle for Distance combat while i closed the Gap, then Quicksheathed and swapped to the quickdrawn Sword for melee. every character needed an antivehicular weapon to deal absolutely any damage to the armored opponents. i would return fire on the move for the gamble of taking a foe out or shaking them, as i closed the Gap and went straight to the sword.
so yes, that was a post apocalyptic game. but it is to point out something that is even more extreme in sci fi. ranged weapons have bigger ranges and faster rates of fire, larger ammunition capacity and cheaper but lighter weight ammunition, armor blatantly gets tougher and starts to also provide other side benefits, melee weapons become better at slaughtering armored targets. in fact, in a science fiction game. expect far future melee weapons to fuck over far future armor. and expect far future ranged weapons to require lots of explosions to deal any damage, most science fiction characters are going to be prepared to fight energy based ranged weaponry, because that is what they are expecting. that power armor is pretty much rice paper against a lightsaber and those reflective vests aren't going to block a molecular sword. so yes, melee weapons get extremely nasty at a faster rate, and are generally swung against targets with lower parry values. because most sci fi players see guns and think parry is useless, unless they are honestly afraid of melee weapons and have honest reason to prepare themselves against them. i haven't really seen sci fi characters with parry scores that far above 7ish. if their parry is higher, it is either because they fight up close, or because they are trained to defend against melee characters out of a serious but rare metagame concern.
this is also true in modern games where characters are expected to prepare themselves to survive a gunfight but have very little practical protection against a knife. if a modern or futuristic character has more than a d4 or d6 fighting, they are most likely a wannabe fantasy character with modern or futuristic trappings. special forces soldiers might have a d8 fighting,but most people are lucky to have a d4 or d6. either way, modern or futuristic characters don't usually have the same cultural exposure to melee oriented combat styles their medieval counterparts had. so a character with a d8 fighting and melee combat skill will do better against most kevlar clad foes than a guy firing a gun will. if a modern special forces soldier has a parry higher than 6 or 7. i think it is kind of excessively exaggerated.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jan 2, 2017 13:51:47 GMT -8
*emphasis intended* USE ALL OF THE RULES
Guns do not unbalance combat, and if they do you're doing it wrong. Sure they only have to hit a four, but I have cover, I have concealment, and I have a host of other means at my disposal to change that.
With Savage Worlds it's pretty important to use all of the rules.
Cheers,
JiB
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cousinned
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Post by cousinned on Jan 16, 2017 10:16:04 GMT -8
Redo the prices on pretty much everything, if you intend the game to be balanced. An overview of the weapons section reveals some pretty egregious examples. The Gatling Laser, for instance, does 4 attacks per round at 3d6+4 damage with no recoil penalty and only costs $1000. Compare that with the standard minigun, and you'll be scratching your head as to what Pinnacle was thinking. Players might also seize the opportunity to load up on some devastating hardware with the "Geared Up" edge, which grants $10,000 for equipment at character creation. Gyrojet Boomer ammunition is horrendously deadly, you can expect that to wipe many an encounter.
Walkers prices for modifications and chassis are inexplicably about 10x the price of normal vehicles. Power armor is similarly overpriced.
I redid all the weapon prices using the Super Powers Companion as a guide for how stuff is balanced against each other, and I was pretty satisfied with the results. It allowed Geared Up PCs to get their money's worth, while not completely outpacing the other party members. Let me know if you want the document, I'd be happy to share.
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Post by ilina on Jan 16, 2017 11:44:36 GMT -8
Savage Worlds Science Fiction Games are as Gun Centric as Modern Games are. there is usually a potent armor that counters the weapon of the age.Kevlar for Modern or most Anti Energy Armors for Futuristic. Slugthrowers might be a weaker Sci Fi weapon, but they tend to be going against lower effective toughness numbers and Anti Vehicular Weapons are overpowered. i'd love to see the Repricing Document on PDF or Rich text.
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cousinned
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Post by cousinned on Jan 16, 2017 20:32:22 GMT -8
Savage Worlds Science Fiction Games are as Gun Centric as Modern Games are. there is usually a potent armor that counters the weapon of the age.Kevlar for Modern or most Anti Energy Armors for Futuristic. Slugthrowers might be a weaker Sci Fi weapon, but they tend to be going against lower effective toughness numbers and Anti Vehicular Weapons are overpowered. i'd love to see the Repricing Document on PDF or Rich text. Here it is. Seraphim - New Prices and House Rules.pdf (657.59 KB) You're right about the weapons and armor match ups; I'm guessing they never intended for many of these weapons to be available at the same market or even in the same campaign. But I say why not include them all and make the PCs pay through the nose? Gives them something to do with all that late game cash besides buying luxury furnishings for their space ships ("do you really need ANOTHER Wookie-skin rug?" The basic formula for determining prices was to "buy" the equivalent weapon as a device per the rules of the Super powers companion 2nd edition. Then square the Power Point cost of the device and multiply by 100 to determine the $ price (PP 2 x $100). I had to make up power point costs for such things as "3 round burst" or "-2 to Notice checks to detect," but I think I got close enough. I almost forgot about Weapon Gimbles. For only a few hundred dollars they dramatically lower the weight of weapons and remove the -2 autofire penalty, essentially making machine guns ridiculous at early levels. Consider removing gimbles entirely, or bump up the price by a factor of 10 and call it an "Antigravity weapon stabilizer." Because that sounds pricey.
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