As he took the girl back, Cuddles was reminded that being a sophont does not mean he possessed complete free will.
Not until he finally found someone familiar enough with archaic systems to jailbreak him.
As the captain utters his crudeness, the clang of a robot facepalming resounds through the area. Cuddles walks over to the manual input for the local speaker systems, and their fingers dance over the text inputs. They press one last button. the ship's standard voice synthesiser kicks in.
「This woman sought passage on a ship. The captain took her money, and sought to take more besides, which why her state of dress is as it is. The altruism subroutines kicked in, and as such, I did not have a choice in the matter when I punched out the trio of Derro harassing her and brought her here.」
「Now, please cease with the insinuations! You know full well from when you fished me off that ruined planet and found I dated back to who knows when that I don't have any features like that. You do this every time, and you're making us both uncomfortable!」
Quill was Lead Ranger of a private flock of Kenku that lived in the area that was devastated by the Catastrophe. His flock were forest guides that mainly lived off the land when they weren't doing trading goods and skills with the visiting city-folk that wandered out this way. He was trying to find out what caused the Catastrophe when he happened upon Rankev the wizard, being assaulted by a forest beast. Naturally, he intervenes! He knows well how dangerous these forest spiders can be.
From his hidden vantage point, he will take a Called Shot to the creature's head, attempting to stun or kill it. Roark the raven follows his master's arrow, harrying the spider with its buffeting wings and sharp talons.
As far as the custom racial move for Kenku rangers goes... Kenku are known for being excellent at mimicking sounds. Maybe I could have the ability to near-perfectly mimic any sound I've heard before? Open to your thoughts as well.
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"Yeaaarrrr, yer a gud one, ya arrrre. I know all that, but ya never can know. Maybe you been keeping a trouser snake hidden from all o' us all this time, never can know.
Alrrright, missy, by what arrre ye called, an' what be yer point an' purpose, yarrr?
An' Cuddles, get that there longcoat thrown about her shoulders, would ya? If'n that shagable arse keeps winkin' at me I'll no hear a word she says."
You dutifully put one of the spare, heavy coats around the lady's shoulders, thinking how odd it is that humans are such slaves to so many outdated conceits, like the taboo against nudity.
Covered and mollified, the young girl tells you her story. Her name is Anya, and she's fleeing her home due to some trouble that now threatens her life. She got involved with a man who kept his gambling problem hidden from her. As his luck turned cold, he started making bets he couldn't cover, until at last he used her as...collateral.
Leaving her life behind she booked passage on the first ship going upwards, but that ship also belonged to the gang that was after her, the aforementioned IronFang. Things went poorly and that where you showed up.
"Oh please! I need only go to the Northern Continent! I have friends there that can see to my safety!" she cries, all but vibrating in anxiety and worry. "And we canst not tarry! 'Tis only a matter of time 'til they learn of what happened and trace me here! Though you are both strong and brave, they are fanatically devoted to their leader, whom they call Lord!
Oh please! We must away! For a ship so powerful 'twill be but a trice and then I shall not burden thee evermore! I...I have no money. Oh! Oh I have this! And, and mayhap when we land I can, I can ask for more! Here,"
Her arm disappears behind her back, and she comes out with 100 credit chip. It's a bit of an oddity, as almost all transactions are digital, but physical money is still used in some circles. "OH I know 'tis not much, but tis all I have. Oh please canst we away?"
"Yeearrrr. An 'undert should audda cover th' fuel it takes for short a jump, aye. But a mere atmo-hop be a bit of a dishonor for a space-worthy vessel as this, yarrr."
"And, um, we're not _technically_ in good shape right now, boss" pipes up Jetwash, the pilot. "Remember there was that small matter of the stabilizers. And, uh, the, um, the buffer panel."
Captain Aterro's face darkens as he ponders the options.
What do you do?
Quill - I was thinking the same thing about your racial move! Sounds good.
From this point on, please post game-related actions in Gameplay...
And, a few character-defining questions :
What was you and your flock's goal before the catastrophe?
Did you get separated from your flock during the catastrophe, or afterwards?
What brought you in this direction? What is your goal now?
And, a few character-defining questions :
What was you and your flock's goal before the catastrophe?
Did you get separated from your flock during the catastrophe, or afterwards?
What brought you in this direction? What is your goal now?
Before the catastrophe, my flock were nomads, wandering from place to place and largely living off the land's bounty. As a group, we had a tendency to hoard shiny and/or magical items, but it wasn't our primary concern. They mainly want to live and let live; my flock was like a big extended family.
I was away on a Long Range, aiding a city-slicker with an escort job, for the past several weeks. I was just returning home to my home forest when the Catastrophe struck.
Since then, I've just been wandering aimlessly, sort of in shock, trying to figure out what the hell happened. I happened upon the wizard entirely by chance.
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While the cold logic of Cuddles might not be affected by the lady's obvious charms, the soft squishy humans of the Captain and Jetwash clearly are. While your internal logic circuits scream that this is a bad idea, the Captain brazenly commands the ship to take to the air. "Arrrrr. Count on us young missy. A wee globe-jump 'twill take no time a'tall for a cruiser such as this. An' yer 'unert will be a right foin token t' start, an' let's jus' see how more'n ya got once we land."
That seems to be an end to it, and the crew make their way back to whatever it was they were doing before, though Jetwash's normal smnile can't be summoned, so nervous is he about flying in atmo with only a half-right ship.
You return to your power-charging station and begin to contemplate--
Running boots can be heard piling into the cockpit as the ship shakes and rattles and twists.
*Um, uh, this is the pilot. Could, uh, could I have everyone, um, here? Here, uh, in the cockpit? Thanks.*
What do you do?
All good things must come to an end. It was a blast while it lasted!
Two things:
I didn't roll DR because I didn't feel I'd met the trigger; the rules are pretty clear that "I look at it" isn't sufficient, you have to closely study or interact with it.
My intent was to fly down to the point where I could actually see the thing, and the Danger I was presuming was "thing notices you". So... Can I tell what the thing is?
Sounds reasonable - see Gameplay!
You can't pistol whip us, there aren't any guns!
That would be SHENANIGANS!
I'm going to invent both pistols and the act of pistol whipping because both are clearly lacking from this game =P
Pro of being a walking Place of Power: you can use yourself as fuel to unleash ancient and powerful magicks.
Con: so can *they*.
This is the internet after all, so insert obligatory allusion to sex and your "place of power".
Or don't! Not doing that is good too!
sprinkle with 'Hur hur' and season to taste. Feeds four.
Heh - loved the last round of posts here!
But seriously, I see "natural" Places of Power as : where fey lines cross, where gods have walked, or places like magical forests where various forces of magic have just become twisted and/or thinned the barrier between this world and the other, etc.
I see "man-made" Places of Power as : places where an ancient ritual went wrong, or there was a huge battle between great armies, or a great monster defeated, etc.
Now, I also think that a Wizard can *make* his own Place of Power, but it will take a long time, and plenty of semi-exotic resources. And once he's made it, he can't take it with him!
In such an ordinary forest as this one Rankev - sorry, no Places of Power nearby...
FWIW, one of the Wizard's 6-10 advances is "you can make your own place of power".
To all of my games:
I am currently operating with limited internet access. I will do my best to update when I can, but I don't think I will have internet until at least monday.
If I am a player in your game, please bot me. If I am a GM, know that I haven't dropped the game and I am committed to keeping it going. Thank you.
Just want to give an update to my games, as I don't have time for a super long post today:
First, I am sorry about the radio silence, but what was supposed to be resolved on Monday with my internet has stretched into Wednesday. I will update everything then.
Apologies for my lack of communication, and know that this is not normal for me.
Still no internet at home (because of course, why would I have internet I am paying for?) but there is now a technician scheduled to come out on Friday, so barring anything odd it should be up then).
So, the rules say that the DM makes a move "when everyone looks to you to see what happens", "when the players hand you a golden opportunity", or "when someone rolls a 6-", and that the latter two should generally be hard moves.
While I'm not exactly complaining about a no-result for that 6- :-) the general rule is bad stuff should always follow one.
(As a further comment, your example of "DM lies to you" is not allowed because the DM must "always say what honesty demands". Reveal an Unwelcome Truth is frequently a good move following a 6- DR; you discerned the reality, and it wasn't what you hoped. IMO, it's also reasonable to say something like "You conclude <totally wrong thing that will cause trouble>, but that's false; mark an extra XP if you act on it.")
Ah, you're right, I forgot about my "making a move" in general. Still learning the system! Ok, let's see...how about Revealing an Unwelcome Truth as the *result* of a botched DR? (Seriously, I'm asking for feedback on that idea...)
That's frequently an excellent response. (Other reliable options include "something bad happened as a direct result of whatever you did to trigger DR" or "while you were doing your DR trigger, something else happened" - both of which are why DR explicitly requires more than just 'I look at it' as a trigger.)
Not coming back yet, I've had a headache for a few days that I can't get rid of, but still keeping track of this.
Thus, I find myself with the question - how on earth did that work? Enquiring minds want to know.
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Hee. In Savage Worlds you can do a "trick" with a skill or attribute. If you roll high enough on the trick, you can make the enemy "Shaken". If you get "Shaken" twice, you take a wound.
In this case, the trapping of my Smarts trick was to stand up, take a deep breath, and yell "HEY! Yo'mammas so ugly, ghouls scare their kids with stories about her! Yo'mammas so hairy, people wonder why she wears a fur coat to nude beach! Yo'mammas so fat, her cereal bowl comes with a lifeguard!"
SW has variable initiative, so I could delay, go, then if I went first next round, I could do it again..and since NPCs (extras) only have 1 hp, if I got another Shaken, it would be fatal, no matter how much armor they had. ^_^
That is brutal and I love it.
If that's the sort of stuff you can pull, then I may just need to try it for myself.
...except the second Shaken from a Trick or Test of Wills specifically *cannot* cause a Wound : "To cause a wound, the latter Shaken result must come from a physical attack of some kind—not a Test of Wills or other maneuver." (SWD)
It sounds like your GM was letting you get away with more than you should have...
Leveling up: +1 Strength, and thinking of taking Hunter's Brother and Communion of Whispers:
When you spend time in a place, making note of its resident spirits and calling on the spirits of the land, roll+Wis. You will be granted a vision of significance to you, your allies, and the spirits around you.
✴ On a 10+ the vision will be clear and helpful to you.
✴ On a 7–9 the vision is unclear, its meaning murky.
✴ On a miss, the vision is upsetting, frightening, or traumatizing. The GM will describe it. Take -1 forward
There aren't any written chase rules for DW, so basically it's "look to the fiction, and maybe Defy Danger" time.
If these beasties are just flat faster than we bipeds, "you chase them and they get away" is fine, but you'd usually want to make another GM move afterward to keep things moving forward.
If they're just plain slower, "you catch them, what do you do?"
If it's somewhere in between, then look at the list of GM moves, and pick one that follows. Say what's making it hard for Zathra to catch them (are they faster? Squeezing through tight spaces? Leaping canyons?), and see what he does; if what he tries is risky, call for a Defy Danger.
Depends how they're getting away, and what the PC wants to try. I can easily make 5 stats fit here...
Dex: it's a sprint, can you catch them quickly?
Con: it's about endurance - they have a slightly higher speed, but can you wear them out?
Str: they're leaping across a huge canyon, can you follow?
Int: They're clearly faster than you; is there some bit of terrain you can use to slow them?
Wis: They're gone already, can you follow their trail?
I could even see Charisma, representing asking faster people to get involved.
For what it's worth, my take is calling for multiple Defy Dangers at once like that isn't really in keeping with the rules. Consider the results:
On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear.
On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.
So, Zathra's defying the danger of "the beasts sprint away". On a 10+, he does what he sets out to do - he's caught up to them, and should probably get the chance to decide what happens next. On a 7-9, something happens that interrupts his chase - they split up, something distracts him, whatever - but his follow-up should either be "do something else" or possibly "ignore the complication so he can catch his prey". On a 6-, either he fails, or something else bad happens.
In any of those cases, "keep sprinting - roll DD+Dex again" shouldn't be an assumed outcome of the first roll.
My intent on rolling DD twice was to catch up to *each* creature separately, not sequential DD's to see if she catches up.
I figured there were two of them, and she could catch up to none, one, or both.
But thanks for the feedback and examples, I'm still very new to the system and will take all the help I can get!
Guys - I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can continue to run this game anymore. I've given DW a fair shake (4-6 games over the last 6 months), but I'm having a hard time relating to it. All my other DW games (as a player) have died but one, and the only reason I joined it was because it started out as a Savage Worlds game, but then switched at the last minute.
In addition, with only two players in this game, it's kind of hard to get a lot of action and ideas flowing.
I hate to be the kind of GM who ends the game, but there it is. Sorry.
No worries, I understand. Thanks for giving it a try!
No worries and thanks for running!