jordangreywolf | [FALLOUT] Wok-a-Doodle Shootout

I am reluctant to refer to them as "house rules," because Savage Worlds has a long tradition of having a few tweaks to the rules to modify the way things play for different settings. Examples would be things like how "Guts" or "Fear" or "Sanity" are handled in a heroic vs. a pulp vs. a horror setting.

But regardless of what I call it, it's important to lay down how the game is going to be played, whether I've got Savage Worlds veterans at the table who are used to playing the game some OTHER way, or someone completely NEW to the system who might mistakenly take my "house rules" for the real thing when moving on to someone else's Savage Worlds game.

So on Saturday, we had a very simplified game. I hadn't really fleshed out the "Wok-a-Doodle" scenario nearly well enough to make a full-fledged adventure (even one meant to fit in a 4-hour game slot). Up front, I clarified that this was mostly going to be a mindless combat scenario, to help me get back into the game after so long playing another system, to try out some of the pre-gen characters, and to see how troublesome some of my setting/house rules tweaks were.

The basic scenario consisted of:

1) The PCs start off at the Wok-a-Doodle. I gave a rushed narrative about the location, the world setting, and why the PCs would be here. I left it to the players to describe their entrances, with a chance for an extra Benny for playing along and at least trying to be creative. Our heroes included:

* The NCR Ranger: a Veteran NCR Ranger with a power fist and a big ol' gun, and pretty decent mid-level armor. Most combat-focused of the group, with some outdoorsy skills.

* Ranger Robby: a Protectron robot liberated from an old Pre-War "Wild West" dude ranch, hence programmed with lots of stereotypical "wild west" colloquialisms. Slow-moving, but heavily armored (and not tasty to meat-loving mutants), with a built-in laser.

* Billy, "Kings" Ganger: a roving Elvis impersonator with rogue and demolitions skills, able to make makeshift explosives from all sorts of chemical compounds. Combat-wise, he's a grenade-tosser, essentially.

* The Salesman: a ghoul with an Electrosux 3000 vacuum cleaner -- he was a salesman (and licensed Electrosux repairman) before the Great War. Role-play-wise, he still talks as if the Great War never happened, and refers to his pack brahmin as his "Corvega." Play-wise, he has a lot of tech/repair skills, but also his overcharged vacuum cleaner can be turned into a makeshift and highly random projectile launcher that effectively never runs out of ammunition.

2) The chickens are loose! Locals immediately started using tables as barricades. The proprietor begged for help in capturing the chickens, offering a free meal to anyone who helped ... and offering a bonus for each chicken captured alive.

3) Lo and behold, those chickens look awfully like VELOCIRAPTORS! (The NCR Ranger crushed the head of one with a power fist, but it was still twitching, so he got a partial bonus from the proprietor. "It's still fresh!" The Ghoul Salesman trapped the tail of another in his Electrosux 3000 vacuum cleaner, and managed to bag one alive that way.)

4) Midway through the incident, raiders attacked! (The NCR Ranger took the bulk of their attacks, which was fortunate, since he was the main guy with plenty of armor. Billy chucked a Molotov cocktail at the raider with the flamethrower, and -- KABOOM!)

5) Much mayhem was had, with a sort of three-way contest going on with the last remaining loose "mutant chicken" randomly dashing about and attacking whomever looked the most vulnerable at any given moment.

After the battle was over, we talked a bit about the game, what went well and what didn't, and (vaguely) about what the "real" adventure would be like for the convention. (I left open the possibility I might run a "deluxe" version of this adventure, wherein an emphasis would be placed on the PCs searching various other businesses at the strip mall before encountering the hidden "mutant chickens," and then the attack by the raiders. There, characters might have more opportunity to make use of non-combat skills -- Billy to use his roguish skills to pick locks, or chemistry abilities to mix up additional explosives; the Salesman to make more improvised weapons/gear from abandoned tech, etc.)

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Pre-Gens:
* Billy, the Salesman, and the Protectron gave ample opportunities for "amateur acting hour" role-play. The Protectron, with its "Wild West personality," gave an excuse for the player to make up southern-or-western colloquialisms and such. Billy gave an excuse for bad Elvis impersonations and puns. The Salesman could extol the many features while giving a "demonstration" of his vacuum cleaner in combat.

I don't think the NCR Ranger had quite as much of a hook: too much of a "strong and silent" type, I suppose. Not that it's bad for anyone to play such a character, but for a convention one-shot it's probably best for me to give players "hooks" for getting into things and not JUST rolling dice to see how many enemies die this round at your hand. CT offered the idea of encouraging the heavy fighter types to be the sorts to do it "with style" -- like, a tendency to give an Arnold Schwarzenegger type pun each time you dispatch a bad guy, or perhaps just encourage the player to describe what sort of stunt he pulls when he takes an enemy out, rather than JUST Incapacitating him or turning him into a fine red mist.

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Game Play:
* My "Benny Miss" rule came in handy, but the general consensus was that it ought to be that you declare that you're going to spend a Benny to force your enemy to reroll an attack BEFORE damage is rolled. Doing it after opens a can o' worms about what to do if the attack was made with a raise, etc.

* We had some issues with someone scoring really high on an attack roll, but then rolling double-ones (or pretty close to it) on damage, to the point where, say, a random unarmored raider might be pegged with a rifle blast, yet he just shrugs it off, because it's not even enough to cause a Shaken result.

On the one hand, I've invented a bunch of weapons that deal more damage, but more-damaging weapons in Savage Worlds tend to also be MORE RANDOM, because greater damage is presented by rolling bigger dice (which means a wider range of possible outcomes). On the other side, there's access to better types of armor (combat armor, power armor) that offer more protection, and I allow defenders to add their Armor value to any Soak rolls, but they come with "Armor Penalties" to Climbing, Swimming, and Agility rolls, so there's still a reason for the lightly-armored scout to still have a role.

But a handgun still listed as dealing 2d6 damage won't even scratch an unarmored raider a good portion of the time, has a decent chance of merely "Shaking" the raider, and only very rarely would take the raider out of the action in a single attack. (Note that this is assuming a SUCCESSFUL hit roll. This isn't about the chance to miss.)

One proposal the players came up with would be to just "max out" the secondary damage die for every damage roll. The Salesman, with his junk gun that rolls 1d20 when using "debris" as ammo, would stay the same. A pistol that would normally be listed as 2d6 damage will instead be listed as d6+6 damage. A dagger that deals Str+d4 would instead deal Str+4. A grenade that deals 3d6 damage would instead be 2d6+6.

It'll push the average damage result upward, but slightly reduce the chances for Acing damage getting out of control.

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The jury is still out on how to handle Shaken status. An "official" rule change to Savage Worlds that was floated out was that when you recover from Shaken status, a simple success now means you can act normally. This effectively means that zombies, robots, constructs, and anybody with the Combat Reflexes ability CANNOT FAIL to recover from Shaken status and immediately act, unless he or she rolls double-ones on the recovery (guaranteed failure). That renders various tactics that cause a Shaken effect (tricks, taunts, intimidate, stun gun, certain other nonlethal methods) nearly useless.

Missing an action because you've been Shaken is no fun, but the PCs usually have plenty of Bennies to spend. I think if anything I'd want to try to lessen the effect of Shaken status, than to make it so easy to recover from it. E.g., maybe you can still take an action while Shaken, but at a massive penalty. Or, you can deliberately take an action to recover (not do anything else this round), to get a BONUS to your recovery attempt next round.

A big fear I suppose is the "downward spiral" effect where, once you're Shaken, an enemy can just keep pounding on you, and if you have any Wounds, it's harder to break out. But sometimes against some "big boss" type, or a Romero-style zombie, the best the PCs can hope for is to momentarily give such an enemy pause. If the enemy has a high chance of instantly negating the effect on his next activation (and then acting as if he were never Shaken at all), it makes certain tactics into a wasted effort.

I don't think we have much consensus on this one. For now I'm sticking with the written Shaken rules in the book, not the "official patch."

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For the adventure, I definitely need to flesh out other locations in the mall. The trick will be to try to keep things moving QUICKLY. I can eat up a whole lot of time by having a PC encounter some strange piece of technology and be reticent about messing with it, because it might blow up sky-high. It'd be a lot better if each "encounter" can be resolved in the equivalent of one or two turns of action/reaction, rather than dragging it out for too long.

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My (partial) checklist for next time:

1) Make a "Hindrance Cheat Sheet" for GM reference, listing the PCs, and listing each of their Hindrances. When someone actually plays a Hindrance, I should be able to catch it, and not require players to wave their hands and go, "Hey, GM! I PLAYED my HINDRANCE! Do I get a BENNY?!?" The rule of thumb is that a player should get 1 Benny per Hindrance role-played at some point during the scenario. I've tried to avoid giving anyone any Hindrances that are crippling: I want players to be rewarded for being active and involved.

2) Make an Initiative Chart. My design idea is basically a long strip of cardstock, with little "docking" spaces (a square about the width of a playing card) for me to set down the cards that I draw for Initiative, with space for PC names (and enemy groups) to be written in. I used to just set down cards left to right and then go clockwise around the table based on player seating, but at conventions, many people get up and MOVE AROUND the table to get a better look, sometimes throwing off my scheme.

3) Make a "quick-reference" card of some sort to list additional rules that aren't specific to any given player, but are either house rules of importance, or else more obscure Savage Worlds rules that nonetheless could be useful. The option to "Wild Attack," for instance, can be vital for melee-focused PCs. It's also vital for "Mook" Extras to have any significant chance of posing a threat. (Mooks not using Wild Attack? Entirely possible not a single one of them will land a hit. Mooks all using Wild Attack? They may not survive a counterattack, but odds are good they'll at least Shake a couple of PCs before they go down.)

I'm trying to limit my "setting rules" to things that can be spelled out on the character sheet itself -- for instance, to help offset the fact that this is a world littered with heavier-hitting weapons, I'm letting PCs apply their Armor bonus to their Soak rolls, and Soak rolls don't suffer a Wound or Fatigue penalty. (But also because of the increased value of having Armor, there's a big Armor Penalty for wearing Medium or Heavy armor to certain skill checks, such as Climbing, Swimming, or doing Acrobatics tricks.) Those things are pretty readily spelled out by having a "Soak Roll" box on the sheet (and writing in the Armor bonus), or having an "Armor Penalty" box on the sheet.

Things such as the rule of "You can spend a Benny to force an enemy to reroll an attack against you" -- that sort of thing needs to go on the quick-ref sheet. I might explain it, but someone might miss my explanation.

4) Make some custom Fallout Adventure Cards. I might dial down the disruptive effects compared to some of the core Adventure Cards (no "double damage" or "instantly turn any NPC into a love interest for your PC"), but I think a few themed cards like that, using "Vault-Boy" illustrations from Fallout Perks, could be a cute addition to contribute to the "mood" of the game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

tuftears

NCR ranger - you mentioned Arnie-style puns but did you consider that Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually the "gubernator" of California? };) Totally appropriate imagery IMO.

It's an interesting problem re: damage rolls. What about 'last die of weapon damage type divided by two plus one' so handgun is 1d6+4, dagger is str+3, etc.

I'm not fond of the 'recover immediately from Shaken on a normal success' idea - that sounds more like an Edge, and there's already Combat Reflexes (+2 to Shaken recovery rolls). Maybe Improved Combat Reflexes. For players, maybe give them a freebie +2 every time they fail a Shaken recovery roll so they're guaranteed they'll eventually recover.

Hopefully people had fun. :)

From:

jordangreywolf

Re: "half + 1" -- I think just taking the max value is a much quicker calculation, AND I wanted to beef up the damage values of weapons across the table anyway. When damage "Aces" like crazy, there's the problem with the "fine red mist" factor (i.e., some poor PC got hit with a bazillion points o' damage and there's NO WAY he's going to be able to soak that), but I'm trying to address that in other ways.

Hmm. I thought I posted all my house rules here, but I guess I didn't. I wrote up a bunch to send out to the player group to get their feedback. I suppose I should post it here, to give some context. I'll get back to you on that. ;) (Another post.)

Re: Easy Shaken Recovery:
Yeah, I'm not keen on it. Now, I sympathize that no player wants to be in that situation where he's Shaken and misses a turn. It probably wouldn't be so bad if I could somehow make turns go faster.

I really like your idea of a bonus to your next roll if you fail Shaken. It means that if a buddy can distract the enemy long enough to stop pounding on you, then you've got a good chance to make it next turn. Yeah, it's a little more bookkeeping, but it's worth it for a PC. It would also be useful for a Big Bad.

Now, there's still the possibility that if you've wandered off on your own and you're surrounded by ghouls and they're attacking you every round, that you're just going to be overwhelmed. The thing is ... I'm fine with that. It's what SHOULD happen. (And therefore the PC should simply strive not to wander off alone and get surrounded by ghouls!)

But it's also totally legit that if there's some big bad Radscorpion, some PC firing full-auto every round could keep Shaking it (or worse) and preventing it from getting in one of its several attacks. Or, the "non-combatant" who doesn't have a heavy-hitting weapon, but has Tricks or Taunts could Shake a big bad and distract it long enough for the group's combat-master to finish off some of the other hording monsters, and finally get around to this one. If Shaken is TOO EASY to shake off, Taunt and Tricks aren't nearly as useful anymore.

And that's the reason I really, really hate this "supposedly official" rule. It's a big messy attempt to fix one player complaint -- "It's no fun when I'm Shaken and miss my turn!" -- but at the expense of just about every other Edge and ability that either helps you recover from being Shaken, or exploits Shaken status on enemies.

So I'm not using that one.

Random thought on your +2 bonus idea: Maybe this is something that should only apply to non-Extras. If a Wild Card or Henchman* fails a Recovery roll, he gains a +2 to his next attempt. Extras don't get this. (Hence, the zombie horde doesn't benefit from this rule, thank goodness, so I don't have to keep track of who failed a Shaken Recovery roll, and thus gains a +2 on his next attempt.)

(Hmm. But what if he gets hit again? Does that undo the +2 bonus? Argh.)

From:

tuftears

I'd make it a Wildcard thing only - players or bosses that should be rivals to the players. I'd reset it on the next turn in which they were able to take action. So: if they recover with Raise and are able to take an action, that resets the +2 cumulative bonus. if they recover with no Raise, but are immediately Shaken again, they retain the cumulative bonus.

Fair enough re: wanting to buff weapon damage. :)

From:

jordangreywolf

Slight Tangent & Clarification (since I never got back to that asterisk next to "Henchmen"): A "Henchman" refers to a character who gets a Wild Die, might possibly get Bennies, but doesn't get Wound Levels. So, he's competent, has chances of success at a basic action comparable to the PCs (minus a giant stack of Bennies or Adventure Cards, of course), but if the PCs clobber him, he's not going to linger around and take multiple hits with wound levels.

"Henchmen" aren't defined in the core Savage Worlds rules. I first ran into the term in Slipstream. A few other Savage settings/sourcebooks have revived the same mechanic, but given it some other name. (I've never been terribly satisfied with the term. "Henchmen" as a term evokes the idea of "minor underlings" or "extras." I'm not sure what WOULD be a good term, though.)

In my games, I end up using "Henchmen" an awful lot in lieu of true Wild Cards as the leader of a group of raiders, as a semi-formidable monster, etc. -- basically as any sort of adversary who's meant to provide some sort of threat to the PCs, but isn't designed to take a hit and then go, "Mwahahaha! *smoke bomb* I flee to fight another day!" and rush off before the PCs can do anything about it.

All too often, the "raider leader" is the guy at the back of the pack, and the PCs have to battle through his underlings before they can land a solid punch on him. And if they can do THAT, then they've probably already dealt with most of his lackeys and they're just mopping up anyway, so why drag it out with a mid-level baddie who can linger around, taking hits, but can't actually pose much of a threat anymore because he's suffering wound penalties?

From:

tuftears

Maybe you could call them 'lieutenants' (City of Heroes), 'elite' enemies (WoW) or some such?

From:

jordangreywolf

Oh, and yeah, the group had fun. Goober_Chris played Deputy Robby the Robot, and really got into the cheesy "Wild-West-isms," plus he's a bit of a Fallout fan as well, so he was able to easily get into the setting.

NinjaTheWolf was absent (off on a trip to the Philippines), but he'd introduced a new player (I'll label him as "JD" for now) to our group at our last Iron Kingdoms game; he's a college student, too young to get some of the dated cultural references I was tossing around, and he'd never played Savage Worlds before, but he HAS played Fallout -- he ended up playing the Salesman because he thought it would be fascinating to try out a ghoul. He wasn't about to keep up the raspy voice usually associated with ghouls (it hurt his throat) but he did a great job at playing up the ghoul's psychological quirks and "salesman pitches" and such.

SV played Billy the Kings Ganger (AKA Elvis impersonator). He of course latched onto the Elvis-isms, and made his mark, but the character would've been better suited to the "full" version of the adventure, with some use for his noncombat skills, and not just tossing Molotovs around or smashing rad-chickens with his guitar.

Digital_Rampage was only there briefly to play the NCR Ranger, and had to leave partway (he warned me about this likelihood in advance), due to prior obligations. He's not so much a Fallout fan, and I think his character was the weakest in terms of role-play opportunities; I had optimized him a little too much as a combatant, without focusing enough on personality details.