0 hitpoints does not mean instant death in old school

The Labyrinth Lord Flailsnail Google+ Hangout game I took part last week uses the following interesting rule for permanent injuries and mutilation instead of instant death.

Check the table for going down to 0 hitpoints in Trollsmyth's blog!

In the meantime I found a deadlier table on Trollsmyth's blog: Deadlier death and dismemberment table.

Power Sources in Synnibarr

If you want to use Synnibarr with another rule system, it still is necessary to have a list of all the power sources, because it is often about blocking some of them, be it Weremen or Tricancellation or Tunnel.

Physical
Alchemy
Energy
Magic (includes Mage Warrior, Shaman or Ravashem spells)
Psionics
Earthpower
Chi
Mutation
Technology (Electrics and higher tech, but not combustion engines or "chemical reactions". Low tech like that does not count as power.)
Vederant Nalaberong ("language of the universe", supermagic, P. 196)
God Power

Savage Synnibarr

So we created the first characters for a Savage Worlds Synnibarr adventure tonight. It is going to be hard to create the super powered spellslinging Synnibarr characters in the lower powered Savage Worlds, but we I guess we figured out a way by combining the superpower rules from Necessary Evil with more traditional Arcane Backgrounds.

The two characters we created are an Aquarian and Shaman and I spent some time on setting them up as starting super heroes, but I turns out to be quite tricky.

New Race: The Liefeldians

The Liefeldians are aliens that came to Earth and created humanoid bodies for themselves to interact with the locals. But their understanding of the human physique is not very well developed and so they end up creating very over the top bodies for themselves that also regularly shift in unnatural ways when moving. It is easy to recognize that their joints for example are not working like those of normal humans, but are just simulacra. Sometimes it seems their whole concept and presentation of body is just directed towards one single beholder at a time - that they can't keep human form from more than one angle.

While there is something undoubtly uncanny about them, their grotesquely oversexualised bodies also attract normal humans in some way. Therefore they neither gain nor lose compared to normal humans in the looks department. Dumb humans...

Here can find more examples of the Liefeldian look. Compare them also to the New Men aliens in John M. Harrison's novel "Light".

Savage Worlds Racial Edge: Archetype: With their focus on body shape they can spend one additional point on Attributes, instead of getting a free edge like humans.

Random tables for contemporary gonzo settings

Roll a d4 for boring, a d6 for adventure, a d8 for action, a d12 for supernatural (make them aliens for scifi feel) and a d20 for batshit insane. You can raise the stakes with each encounter. Start with a d4 and move it up for each achievement of the player characters! Or use the random die table in the end for mostly standard, but a few strange results.

encounters (1 in 6 chance of kinship)
0 scientists
1 cops
2 junkies or bums
3 celebrity (actor, singer, politician, scientist, writer, model)
4 demonstration
5 street gang
6 disaster (earthquake, flood, huge hole in ground, fire, virus, swarms)
7 (bank) robbers or terrorists
8 (serial) killer
9 beasts or werewolves
10 experiments or vampires
11 zombies
12 fae
13 evil children
14 smallish UFO or magic tower
15 doppelgangers
16 armed nazis
17 dinosaurs or magicians
18 dimension hole
19 giant creature á la Godzilla, King Kong or plain old giant or dragon
20 huge spaceship or god

(Use this for names: Random authentic US names)


Next City Block (you can draw a square on a map, increase die size each roll, if you want)
1 residental (urban or suburb)
2 shops / restaurants / bars
3 offices
4 park /water
5 square / parking lot
6 slum
7 motorway
8 government
9 museum
10 monument
11 church / temple
12 factory
13 harbour / sea
14 prison
15 military
16 airport
17 mountain
18 abyss
19 lava
20 tentacles

Buildings
1 shed
2 slum housing
3 flat
4 family home
5 sub urban home
6 council housing
7 trailer
8 mansion
9 dorm or elderly home
10 fast food shack or diner
11 shop
12 skyscraper
13 power plant
14 stadion
15 university
16 circus
17 zoo
18 mall
19 graveyard
20 park

If you want a more detailed random table for buildings, just use the foursquare categories as random table.

motivations
1 power
2 love / passion
3 wealth
4 pride
5 outside expectiations
6 credibilty
7 helping others
8 the challenge
9 consequences
10 lust
11 hunger
12 mind control
13 addicton / survival
14 evil
15 complete crazyness
16 nihilsm
17 love & peace & drugs
18 suicide
19 absorbation
20 boredom

rumors (those can be crazier than the truth obviously)
[encounters] are in [building] to [fight/start pact] with [encounters] for [motivations]. Nobody can guess how [encounters] will impact the situation.

support (1 in 6 chance of betrayal)
1 family
2 colleagues
3 new love
4 professionals that want money
5 subculture
6 celebrity (actor, singer, politician)
7 class
8 foreigners
9 secret organization
10 bloodline
11 foreigners
12 animals
13 ghosts
14 robots
15 oracle / enigma
16 sentient nature/ city
17 AI internet system
18 aliens
19 angels
20 gods

weather
1 sunny
2 foggy
3 rainy
4 overcast
5 heatwave
6 snow and ice
7 hurricane
8 dangerous smog
9 radioactive
10 eternal night
11 time freezes
12 grey goo

Random die size
1 d4
2 d6
3 d8
4 d10
5 d12
6 d20

Additional gaming material for Carcosa

I really like my Carcosa book. It's probably the most beautiful RPG book that I own. At least it's the one most to my taste.

Now it seems I found an additional game material for Carcosa: the Carcosan Grimoire

I have to give it a read. It's fan made and seems to have at least some neat random tables, etc.

Savage Warhammer: Elderly Mage: Kvothe

Kvothe - Mage

Agility      D6
Smarts     D7
Strength   D4
Spirit       D6
Vigor      D4

Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Charisma: 0; Toughness: 4

Edges: Arcane Background (Magic); Wizard
Hinrances: Elderly; Cautious, Stubborn

Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Healing d4, Investigation d7, Arcane d7, Notice d8, Persuasion d6, Spellcasting d7, Swim d4
Powers: Bolt, Armor, Fear
Robe and Staff

Savage Warhammer: Dwarven Troll Slayer: Brori

Agility      D4
Smarts     D4
Spirit       D6
Strength   D8
Vigor      D10

Pace: 5; Parry: 7; Charisma: 0; Toughness: 7

Edges: Low Light Vision; Tough, Berserk,Mighty Blow
Hinrances: Slow; Death Wish, Big Mouth, Vow

Skills: Fighting: D10, Climbing d4, Brawl d6, Streetwise d4, Taunt d4, Intimidate d8, Survival d4


Leather Trousers, Dwarven War Axe

If I could keep only 10 RPG products

This question has been going around the web lately. This is my list. I am sure, I could do it with less than 10. Probably 3 would be enough. So I will probably end up with 3 rule systems and 7 settings. I also have to add that I know The Dark Eye 1 by heart, so I do not need to add it. But let's do it anyways, because I have too much space. :)

Savage Worlds Deluxe
Primetime Adventures
World of Synnibarr

The Dark Eye 1 - Basis Box
Carcossa
Vornheim
50 Fathoms
Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP)
Mythic Role Playing (Word Mill Games)
Savage Worlds Adventure Deck (The nice card deck for player story intervention)

Savage Warhammer: Taal Priest: Durnhelm

We decided to play the Enemy Within campaign from Warhammer FRPG, 1st edition, with the Savage Worlds rule set. This is one of the 4 player character so far.

Durnhelm - Taal Priest

Strength   D4
Agility      D6
Smarts     D6
Spirit       D8
Vigor      D8

Pace: 6; Parry: 7 (without equipment 5); Charisma: 0; Toughness: 6

Edges: Arcane Background (Miracles), Holy Warrior;
Hinrances: Hero, Loyal, Minor Pacifist

Skills: Fighting: D6; Guts: D8; Healing: D6; Notice: D4; Survival: D4; Swimming: D4; Tracking: D4; Faith: D8.
Buckler and a Rapier.

The development of genre tropes

The transition from historical war games to war games based on fiction (fantasy in this case), also openend a can of worms, because suddenly we are not any longer operating on axioms of realism, but on genre tropes. It took around 10 years (at least that's how I understand it), for this difference to become explicitly noticed. As far as I know CoC and Marvel FASERIP were the first games to hardwire the tropes in the rules.

This is not about having magic in the world, but about having bigger than life heroes, plot immunity, etc. The whole 90ies (AD&D2, WoD) seemed to be a time of struggle, in which people tried to enforce this via best practices ("How to run a good game") instead of just focusing of designing rules according to what they wanted to achieve - at least in the mainstream. Only in the 00ies the rules were fully understood as having another potential: providing an exciting game as well enforcing a genre. Latter not really in D&D 3.X though.