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.

Learning from the Casual Gamer: What I Learned Reading Lauren Orsini's Review of Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers

I've been excited about the upcoming release of Hasbro's Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers board game since I first got news of it last year. The game has already received limited release through brick and mortar specialty stores and on Amazon.com, but has an official wide release date of August 1, 2015. I've got my game on pre-order with a smaller FLGS who isn't on Wizards of the Coast's list of premiere stores and I'm eager to play it. My eagerness is two fold. First, the game has received praise on Boardgame geek and Tom Vasel has given it a big thumbs up. Second, the game looks to be heavily influenced by one of my favorite introductory miniatures games Heroscape.

My eagerness to play the game has only increased after reading an interesting, and mildly irritating, review of Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers from Forbes, entitled "I played 'Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers' and All I Got Was Drunk."

The article was irritating because of its focus on drinking, used for humor I suppose, and the fact that it was a perfect demonstration of the ubiquity of tl;dr culture. If something is too long people will ignore it. It's one of those path dependent results of video games masking the the mechanics underlying game play. Video games implement the mechanics and players don't need to know how a game works in order to begin play and can learn how the mechanics work through play. There is still a learning curve, but it is an active learning curve.

I'm not entirely opposed to this, but it is a mentality that doesn't work too well with board games. You cannot play a board game without having some sense of the mechanics. This is one of the reasons that some games have "basic" and "advanced" rules that can be used. As I wrote, I'm not opposed to working toward making games more "open and play," but I am frustrated by how the transition to digital reading has lowered people's tolerance for long form journalism and games with rules longer than six pages.

The article is interesting because it demonstrates what an encounter with a "light" wargame is to a casual gamer. I have often wondered why Heroscape didn't do as well as I had hoped and Lauren Orsini filled in that gap for me nicely. To me, Heroscape and games like it, are popcorn and soda affairs that are quick to play and don't require a Master's Degree in Rules Acquisition like the classic Advanced Squad Leader does. Compared to the hundreds of pages of rules in ASL, a 20 page rulebook is nothing. But for someone used to pick up and play, or 4 page rulebooks, the story is quite different.

Image Source ICv2

For gamers like Lauren, Arena of the Planeswalkers 20 page rulebook is the referential counterpoint to those hundreds of pages of rule and being asked to flip through those pages to find a rule is similar to us searching for rule A25.45 which refers us to rule F.8, but is really referring to rule A25.53.

In Tom Vasel's reviews of the game, he talks about how quick the game plays and his group is playing it in less than half an hour. In Lauren's review, she describes how she and her group played for over three hours and still hadn't finished the game. She also expressed concern that her group might not have been playing the game correctly.


It would be easy enough to turn this discussion into a screed against Lauren and tl;dr gamers like her, but that's not what I want to do here. Yes, tl;dr culture irritates me. I don't like it when my students haven't read The Federalist Papers because they are difficult to understand and I don't like it when a gamer is intimidated by a "mere" 20 pages of rules.

 Having written that, 20 pages is actually quite a lot of rules. The basic rules of Chess, one of the greatest games ever made, can be written in two pages.

I think that as fans of games and gaming we need to take into account how intimidating a 20 page rulebook can be and not be surprised when someone is intimidated by it. Think about those game sessions when you wanted to play a new game, but hadn't read the rules yet, and read them aloud to the group before play. Remember how long that took? Remember how not fun that was? Playing a game with a longer rulebook requires home work to be done by at least one of the game group. Keep that in mind when designing games, but more importantly keep that in mind when playing with inexperienced gamers.

It is our job as game advocates and fans to familiarize ourselves with games so that we can teach them to others and make their experiences as much "open and play" as possible. I think that Lauren's article gives us some pretty good insight into how an inexperienced gamer approaches our hobby. She did her best to learn and play the game with her group and wrote a relatively positive review for someone as intimidated as she was.


Now...what Forbes was thinking when they assigned this article to her is another matter entirely.

Into The Badlands Looks Like a Post-Apocalyptic, Kung Fu, Western and That's a Beautiful Thing.

I've seen quite a few adaptations of Journey to the West, aka Monkey, in my day. Most of these adaptations fail to capture the wonder I experienced when I first encountered Sun Wukong in Ron Lim's excellent comic book Dragon Lines. It wasn't until Steven Chow's wild and imaginative Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons that I saw a filmic version of the tale that approached what I had always wanted to see. I've yet to see a Western adaptation that properly captures the heroism and whimsy of Sun Wukong. While I appreciated Jackie Chan's and Jet Li's performances as manifestations of Monkey in The Forbidden Kingdom, the film itself focused too much on the wandering Westerner and not enough on Monkey. I've been pretty skeptical of Hollywood's ability to bring this character to screen as the rightful protagonist of a tale.

It looks like AMC might just change my assessment. AMC released a preview trailer for their upcoming series Into the Badlands which is based on the classic tale of heroism and wonder, and I'm really impressed. Yes, it's a Western version of the tale, but it is also a "Western" version of the tale. I'll still go in skeptical, but this show looks like a lot of fun and Daniel Wu's performance as "Sunny" looks great. I was never able to see my much wished for version of the tale with Dennis Dun as Monkey, but Daniel Wu brings a wonderful charisma to the screen.

The cinematography of the trailer hints at the influence of Wong Kar Wai and Ronny Yu, and that is a very good thing.

I can't wait to adapt this to Feng Shui, Chris Pramas' Dragon Fist RPG, or Savage Worlds.

Yay! The Return of Cel Shading! Transformers: Devastation is a Game that Looks Like a Cartoon

While the actual gameplay in the new Transformers: Devastation trailer looks less than inspiring, it looks like a mashup of Dynasty Warriors and Tekken, I'm extremely happy to see the return of Cel Shading in video games. There was a brief period in the 90s/early 00s when Cel Shading was all the rage, mostly in some poor games, but I always thought the concept was a good one. Who doesn't want to play a game that looks like the source material? It only adds to the verisimilitude and can create an immersive experience.

Kudos for returning to the format.

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.

A Short Q&A Discussing THE SIXTH GUN for Savage Worlds

Yesterday, I wrote a brief review/overview of the upcoming The Sixth Gun campaign setting for the Savage Worlds role playing game.

To make a long story short, you need to back this project or buy it as soon as it comes out. It's a great mashup of Westerns, Fantasy, and Horror that provides a wonderful sandbox for creative play.

In addition to getting an advanced look at the rules and initial adventure campaign, both of which are up to Pinnacle's high production standards, I had the opportunity to engage in a brief Q&A with the creators. 

I'd like to share my chat with Shane, Jodi, and Scott.

Shane Lacy Hensley, owner of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and creator of the award-winning Savage Worlds and Deadlands roleplaying games.

Jodi Black, COO and Managing Editor for Pinnacle Entertainment Group, and Game Club volunteer for her kids' Middle School for the past 3 years

Scott A. Woodard, author of The Sixth Gun RPG

 1) What prompted PEG to seek a license for The Sixth Gun? Are you worried about brand dilution or cannibalization from your Deadlands line?

Shane: Oni approached us, and at first I was reluctant, of course. But as I said elsewhere, I DEVOURED the graphic novels, fell in love with them, and said "Who else SHOULD do this game besides us?" No one, of course. And the fact that they'd be 100% compatible with Deadlands (and vice-versa) is a huge advantage from my point of view.

 2) The Sixth Gun looks like it might be more "kid friendly" than a straight Deadlands game, but given that there is a Gallows Tree and a horror tone what age group do you think will be most appropriate?

Jodi: I think teens and preteens will love the dark elements of The Sixth Gun--but, with a little GM editing, Deadlands fits that niche too. One age group The Sixth Gun can adapt better to is the 6-10 age range, depending of course on the child's tolerance for dark. My youngest daughter would have gleefully embraced talking to hanged men at age 6, while my oldest daughter would have needed to be 8 or so. Now that they're 13 and 15, of course, they're at the perfect age for exploring the Weird West!

3) Could you tell me a little bit about the factions (Sword of Abraham and Knights of Solomon) in the game?

Scott: Both organizations are integral to the central plot of The Sixth Gun comic series. Because of that, they simply had to be present in the game. For those unfamiliar with the series, the Knights of Solomon are an order that seeks to acquire ancient artifacts and relics in order to exploit their power for personal gain, while the Sword of Abraham stands opposed to their efforts in order to prevent Armageddon! In the roleplaying game, we present details about both factions, information on their lairs, archetypal NPC stat blocks for both, and the option to actually play representatives from either group. In the comic, Drake Sinclair was once in the employ of the Knights of Solomon, but over time, their paths diverged. Perhaps your PC shares a similar backstory...

 4) The majority of Savage Worlds settings seem to be "high concept" combinations of multiple genres, what is it about the Savage Worlds system that encourages that?

Shane: I'm not sure it's Savage Worlds so much as my personal preference for not just doing another Tolkien knockoff. From the very beginning we've only wanted to do games with a twist. Deadlands and Sixth Gun are Western horror--which didn't exist in the RPG space at the time. Lankhmar is thieves' guild fantasy. 50 Fathoms is fantasy pirates. Sometimes that keeps us from taking on a genre until we have that twist. We'd like to do a classic pulp setting, for example, but haven't found anything with a good twist yet. There are plenty of early Nazi / zeppelin / Indiana Jones style pulp games out there already. What could we do that's different and unique? We haven't figured that out yet.

5) If I wanted to run a Savage Worlds game for 7 to 10 year olds, what is one rule change you would recommend to speed up the learning curve?

Jodi: Rules for magic, regardless of system or setting, tend to be the hardest to grasp so that's always the easiest change to make: Either no magic for their characters, or help them make an easy magic-using character to run (choosing entangle instead of bolt, for example). For The Sixth Gun, I'd probably not use the Critical Failures Setting Rule either, as not all kids do well with complete failure as a plot device. I also suggest taking Hindrances they can relate to, like Impulsive and Short Temper...or maybe that's just MY experience with kids. :)

Savage Worlds, The Sixth Gun, and Infinite Possibilities

"It was human suffering that called The Six into existence. And The Six gave the humans the power to recreate the world."

I've been a fan of role playing games produced by Pinnacle Entertainment Group since the first time I saw a copy of the Deadlands role playing game sitting on the shelf of a friendly local game store. My fandom only increased when they released the Savage Worlds role playing game in the early 2000s. The system, based on a very simplified version of the Deadlands rules, lives up to its tagline and is Fast, Furious, and Fun! It is one of the easiest role playing games to teach people how to play, and it runs combats swifter than any other system I've played. The mechanics are also incredibly flexible and can be used to simulate everything from Sword & Sorcery to Superheroes without missing a beat.

Over the years, Pinnacle has produced a number of settings for the Savage Worlds system, often featuring high concept mash-ups of other genre. Some of my favorites are the Cyberpunk meets Gothic horror Rippers and the Independence Day/V meets The Avengers setting Necessary Evil. Prior to this past month, they have only published one Western inspired setting in their Deadlands Reloaded adaptation of the original role playing game.

Pinnacle is currently finishing up a Kickstarter campaign for a new Western themed Savage Setting called The Sixth Gun based on the Oni Press comic book series of the same name. I've had the benefit of giving the rules a look over, and I can say that this may quickly become my favorite Savage Setting.

While The Sixth Gun is at its base a Western tale, it is far more than that. The quote at the beginning of this post is from the story and it is literally true. Those who control The Six have the power to recreate the world in their own image. In a way, The Sixth Gun is a Feng Shui meets Deadlands mashup and that is a beautiful thing.

While The Six are "guns" in the current setting, they have been clubs and swords in the past. Who's to say they couldn't be "Rings of Power" in another? Not me. I'm already prepping a Savage Supers Setting based on "The Sixth Ring." It's a Savage high concept mashup of Green Lantern, Deadlands, Feng Shui, and The Sixth Gun.

As is typical of Savage Settings, The Sixth Gun is rules are well written and written using active voice. This makes for quick reading. There are a number of small differences in the mechanics from the core rules. It is often said that Savage Worlds is not a "universal" rules set, rather a rules set that can be adapted to any setting. In The Sixth Gun, the standard Arcane Backgrounds are not allowed. Instead, there are specific Backgrounds that are better suited to the core The Sixth Gun setting. This allows the game to have magic "feel" different for the setting than it would using the rules from the core rule book. The setting also uses a couple of key rules like "Born a Hero" and "Critical Failures" to give the setting the appropriate grimly heroic tone.

As a father who is teaching his seven year-old daughters to play role playing games, this setting is slightly more cartoony than the Deadlands setting and allows me to role play "action ghost stories" with the twins instead of the more serious grimdark horror of Deadlands. I'm still waiting for a Savage Worlds "Moldvay/Cook Basic" equivalent to be published, but I've been working on an equivalent for my home game.

In addition to The Winding Way, an adventure campaign for The Sixth Gun game, Pinnacle have two free adventures available on RPGNow entitled Circle the Wagons and The One-Hand Gang. The Winding Way is a great introduction to The Sixth Gun setting and highlights the transformative nature of The Six. I cannot wait for these books to be published, and you have a couple more days to back the project yourself.