The Evolution of Savage Worlds Damage and Effects: Toward a Faster, Furiouser, and Funner Process.

When I had my first opportunity to see Savage Worlds in action at a Gen Con demonstration in 2002, I was blown away. There were two things that jumped out at me.

First was the bravery of Shane and crew at Pinnacle. The gaming industry was in the midst of the d20 boom, products like d20 Stargate and d20 Everquest were being released, and it looked like the entire hobby would be Hero or d20 based. Even Green Ronin's innovative Mutants and Masterminds game was d20 adjacent and based on the OGL. For a company, especially a mid-range company that would be more vulnerable to shifts in the market winds, to release a new system in that environment was a truly brave move. Doubly brave considering the push-back they eventually received on their Deadlands d20 line when fans failed to notice that future products were double stat-ed for d20 and Classic rules sets.

Second was how the game lived up to the "Fast! Furious! Fun!" tagline on the cover. If you take the time to watch any of the how to play videos from Saving Throw or Wil Wheaton's TitansGrave series on Geek & Sundry, you will notice that roleplaying games can bog down during combat pretty quickly. This is even the case with good Game Masters (like Wheaton) and experienced gamers (like the Saving Throw crew). Savage Worlds isn't immune to this problem, but it is suffers from it less than many other systems. Combat in the game is definitely Fast and Furious. Whether it is Fun can depend on the Game Master and Players, but I think the default is yes.

Savage Worlds was designed to be able to handle combats of a relatively large nature in very little time and to achieve this goal it incorporated a couple of key mechanics. The first was the use of different categories for different kinds of characters. Characters who are meant to be fodder, or at least easier to defeat than others, are classified as "Extras" and those who are meant to stick around a while - like the Player's characters - are called "Wild Cards." It's a system inspired by games like Feng Shui, but it's a very effective system. The second way that Savage Worlds speeds up combat is through its Keep It Simple/Is It Simple Enough philosophy. A perfect example of this is the "Up, Down, or Off the Table" principle of combat (pg 68 of Savage Worlds Deluxe HC) which was the underlying reason for the recent change to the game's "Shaken" rules. This rules change isn't the first relatively major change in Savage Worlds' combat system and I'd like to take you through many of those changes to show you how the game has changed in order to keep things moving Fast! and Furious! in order to maximize the Fun!

In the 2003 edition of the game (which you can play using the v3 of the Test Drive Rules), combat worked in the following way. A player rolled to hit. If the player hit the opponent, then they had to keep track of how much they hit that opponent by and for each 4 points over the number needed the player added +2 to the damage dealt to an opponent. This damage was resisted by Toughness and could be "soaked" if the victim spent a "Benny" to make the roll. If a player took more than 3 wounds, then that character would suffer the effects of a knockout blow. The effects of this knockout blow depended on the amount of damage the attack did while the character was at three wounds. For example, Hugh Manley has taken 3 damage from attacks earlier in combat. He suffers another attack and it would do 2 points of damage. This would leave Hugh incapacitated, but Hugh could spend a "Benny" to soak the damage to prevent the knockout effect.

This system was fast, but probably wasn't fast enough for the designers because by the time that the 2004 Revised Edition, the bonus damage had been changed from +2 "per raise" to "+1d6 per raise." Given that the average damage of a d6 is 3.5 and that these dice could "ace" (be rolled again and added on a 6) it made it possible to do more damage. The system for incapacitation remained the same for this edition.

Counting how many successes one has achieved, and rolling an additional number of d6s equal to that number, can be time consuming. This is likely why the team changed the rule again in the Explorer's Edition in 2008. You can play this edition using v6.0 of the Test Drive Rules. In this edition, the attacker rolled +1d6 if he or she rolled any raises, but only an additional +1d6. Using the older Incapacitation rules though, this might still end up bogging things down. With this new edition Players made an "incapacitation roll" when their character takes more than their three wound allotment. Now, instead of comparing the amount of damage from the final attack against a chart and deciding whether to soak the damage, the player would decide whether to soak or make an incapacitation roll where if the character rolled high enough then it would still be active. This system was quicker than before and worked pretty well.

Then Necessary Evil came out, and with it characters with enough Vigor to almost always get a raise on an "incapacitation" check and thus who were nigh impossible to knock out of a fight. So this brought about one more change. Like the Explorer's Edition, damage in the Savage Worlds Deluxe edition was an additional +1d6 if the attack had any raises (and only +1d6), but incapacitation changed. This time, any time a character suffers more than three wounds that character is incapacitated...period. A Vigor roll is made to see if there is permanent damage or death, but the character is out of the fight period...unless the character makes a soak roll, but that requires a Benny.  This change made combat much faster, and scaled well with the new Super Hero rules and characters with higher stats.

But combats could still bog down a little and so Pinnacle made one more change, this time to the Shaken rules.  It's a small change, but it has some significant effects on combat. One of the most significant of these changes is that it speeds things up. Players can still spend Bennies to keep their characters moving, but the importance of Bennies has been increased. Given how the rules have been written since day one, this seems intentional. The designers want there to be a good and moving Benny economy.

Since the game was released in 2003, it has seen a number of changes and editions, but it seems that uniformly the question underlying the changes is "How can we make this simpler?" The thing that most impresses me with Savage Worlds is how it strives to capture all the granularity of a complex game like Hero or 3.x while keeping the game as simple as possible. I think that they manage this feat remarkably well.

If you are interested in playing Savage Worlds, and you should be, you can download and play the modern day adventure The Wild Hunt for free. It even includes a recent version of the Test Drive rules. There is a more recent version of the rules in the Lankhmar set, but that is for another post.

TitansGrave, Fantasy AGE, and Stunt Dice -- Probabilties of Rolling Doubles on 3d6

Green Ronin's AGE game system is one of the more innovative role playing systems on the market and the company has begun a major marketing push to promote the system. As a part of their promotional campaign, or as a bit of wonderful serendipity, the AGE system was selected by Wil Wheaton as the role playing system that would be featured in his entertaining TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana webseries. I've begun reviewing the show episode by episode, and will continue to do so, but one thing struck me as I was watching the second episode that prompted me to do a post that wanders down Probability Lane in the middle of Statisticsville.

One of the things that really sets the AGE system apart from other systems is its "Stunt" system. This system allows for an increase in player agency at key moments during a game session. It's a mechanic that evolved from early Greg Gorden designs like James Bond 007 which had pools of points players could spend that would allow their characters to do special actions that were out of the realm of possibility for normal "non-player" characters. Some early games that were inspired/influenced by this mechanic include Marvel Superheroes (Karma) and DC Heroes (Hero Points). This mechanic has been very influential in the story game genre where player agency takes priority over game master storytelling. Modern games in this school include, but are not limited to, D&D 5th Edition (Inspiration), Through the Breach: The Malifaux RPG (Twist Decks), and Savage Worlds (Bennies).

While the "Stunt" system falls within this design school of modeling character heroics through the increase of player agency, the AGE take is relatively unique. Where most systems have a set pool of points, or have GMs give points to players, AGE allows probability to decide when players get points to spend. Additionally, and most importantly, many systems have either set effects like rerolls (Bennies) or allow for players to radically alter the elements of a scene (Hero Points and many story driven games). AGE takes a middle ground philosophically between these two extremes. While stunt points allow for more than "mere" rerolls, the Dragon AGE role playing game provides lists of effects that can be achieved by spending stunt points and assigns each a cost. For example, attacking two foes simultaneously might require 4 stunt points while adding a die to damage might only require 2. These are only two, of a large number, of effects that can be achieved. What is important here is that while AGE allows for increased player agency, it does so within constraints that are balanced to ensure players feel challenged.

So how does one acquire these extremely valuable stunt points?

In any AGE game when a player attempts to accomplish a task, that player rolls 3d6 and adds whatever attribute is relevant to that task. For example, when picking a lock a character might add her Dexterity score to the roll. This number is then compared to a Difficulty Number. If the roll plus bonus equals or exceeds that number, the action is successful. If lower, then the action fails. One of these die is of a different color and in Dragon AGE is called the "dragon die", but we'll call it the "stunt die." How successful a character was with the action is sometimes (in the case of extended actions) determined by the value of the stunt die.

If any two of the die come up doubles (or if all three come up as a triple), and the action is successful, the player acquires stunt points which may be spent to make that action special. Maybe the attack hit vulnerable spots or a lock is permanently disabled.  These things are determined by the expenditure of stunt points and a player acquires a number of these equal to the stunt die value. Note that this only occurs when a player rolls doubles (or triples) and is successful.

It's elegant and allows characters to feel extremely heroic in their actions, but this leaves open the question. How common are doubles on 3d6 and how do we even begin to think about these things. There are a couple of books that might be helpful. Chapter 3 of Reiner Knizia's classic Dice Games: Properly Explained is a good place to start, but I have found O'Reilly's Statistics in a Nutshell to be a wonderful resource to return to once the basic idea is understood.

The first way we can see how frequently doubles, or triples, turn up is to write out all the possible combinations.

In this case, it isn't too much work, but if more die had been rolled then it would have been far more time consuming and really we don't want to have to do this all the time. What we really need to understand is that this kind of problem is an example of an intersection of independent events. This means that it is an example where we are looking for matching results from things that are independent from on another. This is the case in all die rolls since what a die rolled on one roll does not effect what gets rolled on the next die roll. If you roll a six on a d6 and pick it up, you still have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a six the next time you roll the die. These are independent events.

When determining the probability of independent events, we need to know the total number of combinations possible. In this case, that's simple because we are rolling 3d6. This makes the total number of combinations as follows:

6 × 6 × 6 = 216 

 Now we need to know the probability of rolling doubles (or triples) on 3d6. This is equal to:

P(Rolling Doubles) = 1 - P(Not Rolling Doubles)

Since this is a case of an intersection of independent events, we will use the following equation and modify it as a chance of not rolling doubles and then subtract that probability from 1.

P(D1 ∩ D2 ∩ D3) = P(D1) × P(D2) × P(D3)

We know that the probability of rolling a number on 1d6 is 100%. The first number we roll doesn't matter, so that makes D1 = 1.

We know that there are 5 ways to not roll the number rolled on the first die and that leaves us with D2 = 5/6.

We know that the chance of not rolling a number on either of the first two die is 4/6 which makes D3 = 4/6.

This gives us the following equation:

P(D1 ∩ D2 ∩ D3) = P(1) × P(5/6) × P(4/6) = .66667

P(D1 ∩ D2 ∩ D3) = P(1) × P(5/6) × P(4/6)  = .55554

The odds of not rolling doubles is .66667. Thus the odds of rolling doubles is:

P(Doubles) = 1 - (.66667) = .44443

P(Doubles) = 1 - .55554 = .44446

This leaves us with a 44.44% chance of rolling doubles or triples. If you want to double check the equation, you can count the 16*6 combinations above and divide that by 216. Another way of looking at this intersection is using this Venn diagram. As you can see, there are 6 ways of rolling triples and 30 doubles combinations at each intersection of any two dice (making a total of 96).

As for calculating the odds of earning stunt points at any given Difficulty rating, that is beyond the scope of this conversation and I'd leave such analysis up for those much better versed in probability and statistics than I am.

Titansgrave: Ashes of Valkana | Episode 1 Review

I was pretty skeptical when I first heard the news that Geek & Sundry would be running a Tabletop Roleplaying Game Let's Play with Wil Wheaton as the Game Master. I wasn't skeptical that Geek & Sundry would actually produce the show, rather I was skeptical that it would work as a piece of entertainment.

I've been a fan of playing RPGs since I was ten years old, but I've learned one thing from standing around watching RPGA sessions at various conventions. With the exception of the fictional world of the Gold web series, where roleplaying games are a spectator sport, it isn't often fun to watch other people play them. There are so many ways that the spectator experience can be fouled. The Game Master might not be willing to engage in theatrics. The Game Master may be bad at theatrics...although that can have its own short term entertainment value. The medium isn't very visual on its own and requires participants to fill in the "spectacle" of the tale. The players may not be evocative in their explanations of what their characters are doing. The game play might get caught up in the spiral of discussing things that aren't at all game related, and thus turn the experience into merely watching a conversation about which version of Highlander 2 is worth watching.

The answer is neither.

It's one thing for a roleplaying game session to be fun for the participants, which it can be with all the above failures, it's quite another for it to be fun to watch.

David Nett and his friends did a great job of creating an entertaining to watch roleplaying game experience with their second season of Gold entitled Night of the Zombie King, but they did so in an entirely scripted format where the roleplaying game session was merely the setting for a host of dramatic tensions. Being scripted, the session is also heavily edited and time compressed. The question is whether the entertainment value of a well-written and well acted "scripted simulation" of a roleplaying session can be recreated in a real gaming session where things are much looser.

If the first episode of TitansGrave: Ashes of Valkana is any indication, the answer is yes. I won't say that it is a "resounding yes," for reasons I'll articulate as the review goes along, but I will say that Geek & Sundry did manage to create an entertaining viewing experience.

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT TITANSGRAVE

Before I comment on what I believe the show has done wrong, let me begin by praising what it got correct. A lot of work went into producing this web series, and it shows. Wil Wheaton has recruited a number of actors, of the tradition and voice varieties, to play the game with him. Before you assume that the "recruiting of actors" means the "recruiting of non-gamers/non-geeks," let me cue you in on a little secret. D&D is the secret language of Hollywood. There is an entire community of rpg geeks in tinseltown, and while not everyone games a lot do.

The show has also selected a game system, the AGE system from Green Ronin, that has a lot of improvisational narrative potential. All roleplaying games have at their root the potential for improvisational narrative, it is after all what really defines a roleplaying game, but given the tactical wargame roots of the hobby the game can sometimes descend into a series of "I roll a 13, I do 5 damage, You roll a 15, I take 3 damage" comments that are mindnumbing to watch. Roleplaying is best watched when "roles" are being "played" and that means that actions are being described rather than mere die rolls. AGE's "stunt point" system aids in making combat sequences more narrative, rather than quantitative, by mechanically encouraging players to create descriptions of their actions in return for benefits. Players respond to incentives, and if you incentivize narrative descriptions you tend to get more of them.

The show hired adventure writers from the game industry who worked with Wil Wheaton to bring about his world. It's one thing to hire talented writers, but it is another thing to hire people who can take a story and translate it into a game experience. Experienced adventure writers have a knack for it. It takes more than breaking a story down beat by beat and then creating stats to gamify a story. It takes an intuition regarding how players will respond to circumstances. You also need to be able to create a small enough segment of a story that it can be played (after being edited) in less than an hour and still have narrative movement. This includes taking into account the delay that mechanics will cause as actions are resolved. What separates roleplaying games from mere improvisational theater is the fact that actions are arbitrated by mechanics. This is something that not only is at the core of what makes roleplaying games "games," but is a key to ensuring that all players get an equal chance to participate/succeed.

Hiring Wes Otis for the sound effects and musical loops was wise. Otis has done good work as a sound professional, but he has also made some great effects for home play.

The show is well edited, which cuts down on the digressions that players are prone to making, and has incorporated sound effects and some minor animations to increase the visual appeal. The editing is key for this show, and they seem to know it. They have edited out the distracting digressions, while leaving some of the more entertaining ones in, which gives the session a nice play flow.

The cast does a good job of staying interesting without trying too hard. One of my person peeves when watching some episodes of Tabletop is that the players often seem to be trying too hard to entertain. They seem to have the sense that watching a board game isn't exciting in and of itself, and thus feel the need to spice it up. Wil Wheaton, Hank Green, Laura Bailey, Yuri Lowenthal, and Alison Haislip may be doing that a little in TitansGrave, but it is indistinguishable from the normal one-upsmanship I've witnessed in my playing experience.

WEAKNESSES

This show is not made for a wide audience. It's hard to tell if the show is meant to only appeal to those who are already gaming, or whether it is also meant to bring more people in. I say that because the first episode already has a couple of inside jokes that might appeal to long time gamers, but which will be missed by new viewers.  Additionally, the first story is "age confined" in that they had to bleep out profanity and that it's about drinking. This isn't a bad thing per se, and I found it quite entertaining, but it does limit your viewing audience.

Lack of use of voice actor talent. C'mon people! Let's get crazy! We've got funny people here, but they seem to be holding back a little in combat. This could partially be because they are still learning the AGE system, and don't feel comfortable with it, but I want more verbal sound effects from the players. Laura Bailey and Yuri Lowenthal are trending in this direction, but I want more as a viewer. You really can't "commit" too much for me. Think about it like a comedic role. You have to be willing to fully commit to the joke/process. That doesn't mean go over the top, but it does mean you have to immerse yourself in the play and lose the wall of "I'm being judged."

The show hasn't quite captured a way to make the depiction of combat visually interesting. I both like and dislike the battle display they are doing. I like that they aren't showing miniatures on the table, which can be good are bad for spectators, allowing the actors to free form act rather than move game pieces. What isn't working for me is how static the display is. If you are going to present a graphic virtual tabletop, have the images move about on the hologrid you've presented. I also noticed that Wil Wheaton began to fall into the "I roll an x and do y damage" drone. It's hard not to, and Wheaton was great most of the time, but it's something he'll need to fight.

The show isn't perfect, but it did entertain me. We'll see how the season progresses. One thing is certain, I will keep watching. I will also be buying the tabletop campaign supplement as soon as Green Ronin releases it.