Scranford's Savage Iron Kingdoms - The Witchfire Trilogy (Inactive)

Game Master scranford

Cheers Supreme B

Will adjust Morven accordingly.

** spoiler omitted **

We lost our other players? Was hoping for a few more bodies :(

BD

Don't forget you all have free Knowledge slots to spend from your Smarts (Half the die).

Andrej- Yours are done (If you want to increase the rank of any skills you can do that by getting rid of one of your skills)

Morven - One left

Zadlu - Four or five left. (You spent one, but you can retract that die and spend it elsewhere if you'd like, since you get (4)Free ranks due to your Int.

*EVERYONE* You have half your smarts in Knowlege skill dice. You don't have to put one rank in four different skills. You have four ranks to spend however you'd like...ie 4 ranks in one, 1 rank in four, 2 ranks in 2 etc.

We have gone live! At home.

I will get up to speed on this game as soon as I can. But everything has been on hold so it all demands attention. And new rules will take a bit of getting used to.

Thanks for bearing with me Mr Supreme Being.

Cheers

Glad you got things all sorted out, and welcome back.

No problem. Just jump right in whenever you'd like. I'm doing a lot of hand holding till the rules become ingrained.

Got that right. I didn't realize you meant four points towards Knowledge skills until your clarification yesterday.

Zadlu use brain for learning of:
Knowledge (History): d6
Knowledge (Local): d4
Knowledge (Navigation): up to d8

Also increase boating and climbing to d6

A word about dice mechanics...

You roll your skill die, plus as "wildcard" characters an extra d6. You take the highest of the two rolls and apply any modifiers to that roll. For example if your roll a d4 and get a 2, and a d6 and get a 5 you take the 5 and apply any modifiers to that. If either or both dice roll the maximum value on the dice they explode and you roll that die over, add it to the total, and keep rolling till it doesn't explode. In the example above if the d4 came up a 4 it would be rolled over again. If you roll another 4 then your total is now 8 and you roll it again. Let's say you roll a 2 then your total skill roll is now 10 plus any modifiers.

The target number for most rolls is a 4. This total can be adjusted up or down due to modifiers, but that is generally the target number. For every (4) you roll above the adjusted target number you get a "raise" which will usually have some additional positive game effect.

Opposed rolls and combat rolls are handled differently. In combat your target number is 4 plus modifiers on ranged attacks, and the target's parry number on melee attacks. Once it is determined that the target has been hit then damage is rolled...set number for ranged weapons, and weapon dice plus STR dice for Melee weapons. Damage rolls can Ace, but you don't add your "Wildcard" dice to this, and bennies can't be spent to re-roll. The damage rolled is compared to the target's toughness. If higher then the target is "shaken". Each raise inflicts a wound. (Maximum of 2-wounds can be applied to Wildcard characters from one damage). When a character takes more than three wounds they are considered incapacitated. When an extra (Non wildcard character) takes a wound they are removed from the fight...dead, injured or otherwise out of the fight.

Zadlu use brain for learning of:

Knowledge (History): d6
Knowledge (Local): d4
Knowledge (Navigation): up to d8

Also increase boating and climbing to d6

I believe your skill ranks are still wrong. The first d4 when you take a skill still counts as a rank.

You have 15 ranks in skills to start. If I add yours correctly, you have 16 not counting the knowledge skills, so one needs to be reduced by one.

Knowledge skills are free to the cost of half your smarts die. If you want ranks above that you must spend points from your beginning skill pool.

You currently have 6 ranks in knowledge skills, and should only have 4 (Half smarts).

I think what confused you was you spent two ranks initially on Knowledge (Navigation...which by the way should probably be rolled into Geography to keep d20 conversions easy). When I said you could spend two ranks elsewhere, I envisioned you taking two of your free skill ranks for navigation, thus freeing up the two skill points for use elsewhere. I believe you kept those skill ranks, and added two in addition, instead of substituting for the free ranks.

In summary...Change Knowledge:Navigation to Knowledge: Geography, Reduce one skill by one, and reduce two levels of Knowledge skill. You should end up with 15 skill ranks plus 4 free Knowledge ranks.

Zadlu is confuse... used to the Imperial Khador system of counting.

I'll strip back one from Know: Geo, one from Boating and remove his Knowledge Local.

Hey Guys! Mikeawmids is bowing out, but Spazmodeus is going to make a character to join us, and bring the total to 5. I believe French Wolf is now up and running, and should be joining us soon.

If you'd like a PDF of your character done in Hero Lab, just send me a PM with your email address and I'll send it along.

I am definitely in. Will get my head round this over the weekend.

cheers

As you've probably noticed I gave away a lot more info than I normally would without you guys making rolls, but we're all learning this system together, so I'm giving a lot of clues upfront.

I'd like your honest input on what we could change to make the game flow more smoothly, and be more fun for everybody. I think we're off to a great start, but this is the first PbP I've really ran, so I'd like your input.

I did notice that though the playing card deck is loads of fun in tabletop gaming it might slow things down a bit in combat...thoughts? I could draw for bad-guy's / good guys and go in that order, or if you think it's OK we'll keep it the way it is.

I am happy for you to make the initiative rolls, it would speed that up and doesn't effect the game much.

Having you help build the character has made him very different from my usual PC. Never played a gambler before. Never discarded a healing skill to keep - so that is very refreshing.

I reckon the roleplay will slowly come when I find Satinius' voice but for now I'm more focussed on the rules fu.

Cheers

Extremely busy week guys with sales meeting today and Tuesday, and Trade show on thursday and Friday. Should be able to update tonight, and we'll see the rest of the week...so I'm not abandoning, just slow this week.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Works for me Supreme B

Hey guys. Crazy week. I'll post tomorrow morning before the trade show starts...

Unfortunately the PDF of the campaign is DRM protected so I have to type everything in manually instead of cut and pasting... :-(

Hi guys,

Sorry about the slow posting getting this game rolling. I know it's important to keep things moving...especially while were in the feeling out process of the game, but my work schedule has went absolutely bonkers.

I will get a post up this afternoon to move things along, but am in Puerto Rico the rest of the week, and quite extensive business travel the remainder of November. December, and January things should return to normal.

I will endeavor to keep updates coming, just not as frequently as I had hoped when beginning the game. Please be patient, and things will pick up.

Thanks for the update; I wasn't sure what we were waiting for. No worries.

Heads up gang - I'm heading off this Saturday to Houston for Thanksgiving with my bro and sis-in-law. We're on a busy schedule so unlikely I'll get much time/interweb access so will likely be off the grid until beginning of Dec.

Supremeo - please DMPC Morven as necessary

Black Dow, and Mark Sweetman...are you guy still up for continuing. I'm positive the action is getting ready to pick up.

And a question for all. Is there anything I need to do to make the game more enjoyable for you all...Fast forward through the clue gathering...more action...???

This is my first game I've actually run, and I'd like constructive criticism.

Still here and interested - just having a monster period at work. I'll catch up in thread soonish and contribute.

And a question for all. Is there anything I need to do to make the game more enjoyable for you all...Fast forward through the clue gathering...more action...???

This is my first game I've actually run, and I'd like constructive criticism.

My preference would be for a little faster pace, but that's something not entirely in your hands, and some of it is likely because most of us have characters who are operating at a handicap during the initial social stuff that sets the stage for the mayhem to come. I don't think that French Wolf anticipated being the party face; in a party with a Khadoran chauvinist, a Kossite misanthrope, and a couple of foreign nonhumans, though, Satinius got it by default. Fish-out-of-water just makes it challenging in an unanticipated way.

Actually, that probably counts as constructive criticism: make sure that the party matches the module, or be prepared to fast-forward over the iffy parts when it looks like things are dragging. (I admit to not being very good at this.)

If anything that's one of the question marks I have on the Savage Worlds system - it's very easy to lose Charisma, but kind of hard to gain it.

Thanks for the input guys. If Mikeamids had stuck around, I believe he was going to have some Charisma based skills. I believe the system is designed around having Charisma of 0 being the standard...perhaps forcing the players to do the talking instead of waving it with a die roll. The problem with this group is we've got a lot of negative charisma characters. Since we're only beginning this adventure, if anyone would like to rethink their characters please feel free to do so, or even develop a new Character if you'd like. If you want to go ahead with the existing characters we can continue to do so...but there is a price for not playing well with others. :-)

The first adventure especially has a lot of meeting characters, and NPC's that will play a role throughout the Trilogy. If you guys don't want to pursue this adventure (BTW it's a really cool adventure) then we could just tromp around the Iron Kingdoms getting into trouble, perhaps heading towards Five Fingers.

Just let me know. I'm good either way.

Still here too Supreme B

Like Mark I've been busy with family hols and the resultant avalanche at work...

Still not 100% up on the system, but it'll come. Will try and be more frequent in my posting as I love the character and the setting...

I've no complaints, yer doing just fine Scranford.

Hi French wolf here on a different account

I am more out of water playing a gunman. But for now my pc and me is out of action so please npc Satinius when needed.

You are doing fine - but I am struggling with the rules.

Cheers

Hi French wolf here on a different account

I am more out of water playing a gunman. But for now my pc and me is out of action so please npc Satinius when needed.

You are doing fine - but I am struggling with the rules.

Cheers

No Problem. Would it help if I provided more hints about what you might want to consider, until you become more familiar with the rules?

Help with the rules is great but in time it will come. Pbps is all about time so no worries there. Also in case it wasn't clear I can play the face just fine.

Lastly Scranford if you regard this adventure highly then I'm happy to continue with it. a slightly quicker pace would suit me too.

cheers

Best wishes to you all and your families and have a great New Year.

Posting will be very spotty for the next week or two. My family started arriving in the last few days.

Cheers

Cheers French Wolf - looking forward to getting into this game good and proper in the new year

Likewise for all - have a very merry xmas and a great Hogmanay :)

Just to clarify untrained skill checks, first it must be something that is possible. Then it is a d4-2, and your WD d6-2. They can still explode, but the (-2) is to all die rolls...so in Gorrum's case it would be.

1d4 ⇒ 1 Investigation
1d6 ⇒ 3 WD

Since he rolled a 6 on his Wild dice, then a 3 his total is 9-2 or 7 which is enough for a success, but not quite enough for a raise.

ah i see, thanks o supreme being :)

Thanks; I'd inferred the -2 to the base die, but until this last round hadn't realized it also applied to the wild die.

Hey guys. It appears to me that this game has not fully engaged your interest, so I'll just cut off the bleeding. I thank you all for letting me give this a try, and will see you around the boards.

I'm starting a two week business trip Monday, and should be able to post most days, but feel free to DMPC my character as required.

Ah, that's too bad. For my part, my apologies if any slowness in my own posting gave the impression I wasn't interested; RL: family and work have kept me hopping the last month and a half, so my posting suffered some.

You ran a good game and I enjoyed my time in it. Thanks for letting me join up part of the way through.

- Gorrum :)

Ditto on my behalf - I never really got to grips good and proper with the system, and as such probably didn't engage as much as the game deserved.

Agree 100% with Spazmodeus - game was fun and refreshing, thanks for the time and effort on your behalf Scran.

Thanks for the opportunity scranford. I wish I had got into it for all that work you did but I'm sorry I didn't.

See you guys around.

Cheers

I enjoyed it, too, once I got the hang of the system. I think part of the problem was timing; especially over the last month, there were enough of us pulled away for family and such that we couldn't maintain a decent pace with the few who were left at any one time.

Aye - holiday period wasn't kind.

Thanks for the opportunity guys. I still like this system for PbP, and have another game "Savage Conan" if anyone wants to keep playing something.

I did learn to better recommend characters that fit the game. I believe we ended up with a bunch of non-social characters in a game that might require more mundane skills.

I'm going to go ahead and archive the game tomorrow, so any last thoughts get them in soon.

See you around the boards.

Thanks for giving this a shot, scranford. I agree re the character selection; fish-out-of-water parties can work, but IME they take more effort to make work. Combine that with a new system (to some) and a new setting (to some), and...well. Now at least I know a lot more about Savage Worlds and the IK setting, so for me it's a win.