Savage Firefly - want some "space western" adventures?

Game Master ZenFox42

I go to a few face to face gaming cons every year. Next one isn't until November though...

Went to see Sammy Hagar in concert about two weeks ago. Joe Satriani on guitar, Jason Bonham on drums and Michael Anthony on Bass. Best damn Van Halen concert ever!

I came down with COVID over the weekend, so my posting will be less frequent for a few days. I'll try to make sufficient posts to keep things moving, but 'bot me if needed. My symptoms are not life threatening, just annoying (sore throat, some coughing, slight fever). Hope to be better soon.

I came down with COVID over the weekend, so my posting will be less frequent for a few days. I'll try to make sufficient posts to keep things moving, but 'bot me if needed. My symptoms are not life threatening, just annoying (sore throat, some coughing, slight fever). Hope to be better soon.

Always hate hearing about Covid going around conventions. Rest, drink and hopefully you'll feel better soon!

I came down with COVID over the weekend, so my posting will be less frequent for a few days. I'll try to make sufficient posts to keep things moving, but 'bot me if needed. My symptoms are not life threatening, just annoying (sore throat, some coughing, slight fever). Hope to be better soon.

Please take care of yourself - I was lucky enough not to be hospitalized, but it was rough when I had it :(

Harold - I've taught students who were traumatized in various ways from their military experiences. And my dad outright refused to talk about his many missions as a fighter pilot in WW2. It's sad to see that combat affects people's lives long after the fighting is over. Here's hoping your issues will decline over time.

Harold - I've taught students who were traumatized in various ways from their military experiences. And my dad outright refused to talk about his many missions as a fighter pilot in WW2. It's sad to see that combat affects people's lives long after the fighting is over. Here's hoping your issues will decline over time.

Thank you. I am currently in Therapy for it.

Like anything, I do have good days, and bad days. (I really hate fireworks.) and currently fighting with DVA Canada to get a service dog.

However, I did have a set of rough days, this last few, so I apologize for not posting.
That combined with my home schedule (AKA chaotic) conspired to eat up all my time.

Once again, If I am holding things up, please bot as needed.

No problem, take your time. I really don't like botting PCs unless we're in combat or the situation calls for a Skill roll, where I know what they would do. Take your time posting, if you don't post for a while we'll assume Harold isn't participating in the current action.

For the most part, I don't have an issue with the GM botting for a skill roll.

My work schedule is 4 days on, 4 days off. Work days, are when I really get the time to post.

My days off, are usually busy, so I don't really get time to post, even if I get time to read.

Because of that, I normally give prior approval for the gm to bot as needed.

Thus most of my stuff is on my profile. :)

Player to player: This situation has TPK (total party kill) potential. Even if you think Brock is capable of outdrawing three men with guns aimed, some of those guns are aimed at sleeping PCs who have no defenses. Keep in mind that in Savage Worlds, when rolling damage, a dice situation that would normally just cause a survivable wound can with repeated aces turn into massive amounts of damage that cannot be survived. Think carefully about your next action, for everyone's sake.

Was already reprimanded for cinematic thinking, we're good.

Sorry it felt like a reprimand, I was just trying to give you information that your PC wasn't aware of.

Sorry it felt like a reprimand, I was just trying to give you information that your PC wasn't aware of.

It really is all good

I will re-draft later today

I recovered from COVID but now I've got a cold and lots of grading to do before the end of the term this week. I hope I'll be able to get back to regular posting soon.

I recovered from COVID but now I've got a cold and lots of grading to do before the end of the term this week. I hope I'll be able to get back to regular posting soon.

Always seems if it don't rain it pours. :(

The way I look at it, is take care of self, then other stuff.
Take your time, as both will take it out of you.

We can forgo the casting until it's time for Brook to Boost Arabella, oh btw, clebsch, Arabella's profile labels Charismatic & Hard to Kill as Hindrences ;)

The reference to hindrances explains how she paid for the edges.

Man, that's a *nasty* Hindrance...maybe pay it off with a future Advancement?

True, but she's not much of a fighter, so it's not such a hindrance and might keep her alive in cases where she should not fight. Buying it off would make sense, assuming she got some therapy or some drugs to keep the PTSD symptoms at bay.

Being a Daoist priest, and with all the meditation you do, you still haven't resolved the issues after all these years? ;)

I expect her religious meditation and perspective help her live day to day without past traumas causing depression and other negative states. However, I assume deep trauma is not so easily dealt with when specific and rare triggers, like the beginning of a fight, occur.

Given the violence of Reavers, if she survived an attack in which her comrades were slaughtered and she survived, it would be challenging to recover from.

Perhaps during a paralysis event, she might have a breakthrough insight that would allow her, in the future, to deal with the things that trigger her paralysis.

Or perhaps she could get access to a drug that would deal with the condition.

Or perhaps Brooks powers could help her.

By the by, if Brook is intending to boost one of her attributes, she rolls her spirit trait to avoid the paralysis. That is currently d8.

I expect her religious meditation and perspective help her live day to day without past traumas causing depression and other negative states. However, I assume deep trauma is not so easily dealt with when specific and rare triggers, like the beginning of a fight, occur.

Given the violence of Reavers, if she survived an attack in which her comrades were slaughtered and she survived, it would be challenging to recover from.

Perhaps during a paralysis event, she might have a breakthrough insight that would allow her, in the future, to deal with the things that trigger her paralysis.

Or perhaps she could get access to a drug that would deal with the condition.

Or perhaps Brooks powers could help her.

By the by, if Brook is intending to boost one of her attributes, she rolls her spirit trait to avoid the paralysis. That is currently d8.

From a flavour perspective, I really like the idea of Boost Intuition, like that Brook would subconsciously intuit needs; for me that would almost be like his pathway to the development we've discussed of actual active healing powers.

First off, Arabella - sorry, I was just trying to be funny, thought the ;) would indicate that. But all those things you mentioned to help with the PTSD I assume would be in-game ways to pay off the Hindrance with an Advance?

Secondly, Brook - there is no Intuition Trait in SW. From what I can tell by an on-line search, you'd use Notice (perhaps with a penalty) to unconsciously "see" subtle clues in a situation or a person's demeanor, etc. that then percolate up to your conscious awareness.

It's good to get the rationale for her hindrance out so everyone understands and doesn't judge her when she freezes up before combat, as she's done a few times already. No offense taken.

She could buy off the hindrance or just increase her spirit die to d10, to reduce the odds of failure. If my stats program is right, the odds of a simple success with a d8 - 2 spirit roll are about 50% but for a d10 - 2 it would be 63%. With a d10, most of the time, if it fails, the next roll succeeds, with strings of 2 or more failures in a row relatively rare. Increasing the spirit die would be consistent with her character, representing improving her mental disciplines through meditation and observation of the Tao (Dao).

For intuition, the description of the Notice skill includes detecting if someone is lying or other things that might rely on body language. Otherwise, intuition might be best rolled as either a Smarts or a Spirit roll, since one could argue that smart people are better able to recognize the implications of subtle clues or that one's spirit provides non-rational aspects of cognition.

It's good to get the rationale for her hindrance out so everyone understands and doesn't judge her when she freezes up before combat, as she's done a few times already. No offense taken.

She could buy off the hindrance or just increase her spirit die to d10, to reduce the odds of failure. If my stats program is right, the odds of a simple success with a d8 - 2 spirit roll are about 50% but for a d10 - 2 it would be 63%. With a d10, most of the time, if it fails, the next roll succeeds, with strings of 2 or more failures in a row relatively rare. Increasing the spirit die would be consistent with her character, representing improving her mental disciplines through meditation and observation of the Tao (Dao).

For intuition, the description of the Notice skill includes detecting if someone is lying or other things that might rely on body language. Otherwise, intuition might be best rolled as either a Smarts or a Spirit roll, since one could argue that smart people are better able to recognize the implications of subtle clues or that one's spirit provides non-rational aspects of cognition.

In full transparency I will own that I totally plan to borrow "non-rational aspects of cognition" and really hope that I can use it in a meeting or something.

Hey, no worries on playing out the PTSD.

As someone that has seen some ugly stuff in RL, I fully understand how it would cause someone not adjusted to expect it, to have problems.

Hell, I was trained to expect it, and I am still having issues with it.

So, I'm implementing a combat-tracking system I developed for another game for theater-of-the-mind PbP games.

START OF COMBAT
• If the bad guys are out of combat distance, I’ll say they are Short/Med/Long range away, and tell you how many Rounds until they reach you. You can shoot at them, buff yourself with spells, take Cover, etc.
• If the enemies are already within combat distance, everyone would start non-adjacent to everyone else so that Ranged weapons could be used, and a PC or NPC would have to explicitly say they're closing (you always reach your target in this round) and attacking with hand-held weapons.

IN COMBAT
• Don’t forget the many options to just bashing away : Aim, Called Shots, Defend, Disarm, Grappling, Push, Support, Test, Wild Attack, Withdraw, etc.
• Gang-Up and Sweeps : if a PC is being melee attacked by more than one bad guy (which will be evident in the combat posts), the bad guys get a Gang-Up bonus, and the PC can take a Sweep; and vise-versa.
• If the pre-combat setting description doesn’t mention any, you can create Cover for yourself by influencing the story with a Benny and have Cover immediately available.
• Regardless of the “to hit” roll, always roll Damage in case you hit.
• Always roll a separate d6 Damage in case your Attack roll is a Raise.

In the Initiative post, I will attach a spoiler to each of your names. In the spoiler, I will give you your current status in terms of Bennies, PP, your status (Shaken, Wounds, Bleeding Out, Incapacitated, Distracted, Vulnerable, Entangled, Stunned, Bound), any situational modifiers (Range, Lighting, Cover, Target Size, Gang Up, Prone, Unarmed Defender, etc.), and any spell effects on you and their time remaining.

If a bad guy has done something in the previous Round that you must roll to avoid (like Soaking an attack, becoming un-Shaken, being Grappled, etc.), I'll mention that too. If I re-post your spoiler in a post when I say your PC is up, always re-check the spoiler immediately before acting, because something may have happened in this Round before your Turn. This should be the first roll you make (as a Free Action), before taking any Actions.

So if I want a better roll, I use a Benny and then roll both rolls again?

@ Brook. Always leave yourself at least 1 bennie, so that you can soak damage rolls.

It could save your characters life.

@ Brook. Always leave yourself at least 1 bennie, so that you can soak damage rolls.

It could save your characters life.

Well that's kind of the Beauty of the Brook Build.

Brook - if in your first roll of your post (Skill & Wild), you're not happy with the results, comment in your post that you're spending a Benny, and re-roll your first roll again.

Any chance Arabella can get a benny for dealing with her combat paralysis hindrance? Not begging, just asking as a reminder that "The Game Master should occasionally reward players for clever actions, roleplaying their character (especially any Hindrances), or a great feat of heroism.

Hmmm...how about this : if you are taken out of action for 2 or more Rounds, you get a Benny as compensation?

If you agree, please remind me anytime this situation comes up, I'll never remember it.

Sounds fair. Will do.

So, Innocent Bystanders...

If you're shooting at a target that's melee-engaged with another PC (like if Harold shoots at the beast attacking Brook), if you roll a 1 on the Shooting die, the PC gets hit. There's a 16% of that happening with every shot.

If your Wild die rolls a 3 or less, you hit an innocent bystander (someone not engaged with the target of the attack). If there are none around this has no effect.

If you're using a shotgun, you hit the PC on a Shooting roll of 1 or 2 (33%).

The wording of the rules is glitchy, this is my interpretation of them.

Sorry, the percent chance of hitting a comrade with every shot depends on your Shooting die :

d4 = 25%
d6 = 16%
d8 = 12%
d10 = 10%
d12 = 8%

My interpretation of the Innocent Bystander rules.

"Each skill die that’s a 1 hits a random victim adjacent to or directly in the line of fire to the original target. Wild dice never hit innocent bystanders."

I would interpret that to say that if the main die rolls something other than 1, then if the wild die rolls a 1, it doesn't count as hitting an innocent bystander. The bigger your main shooting die, then lower your chance of hitting a bystander, which makes sense.

Later it says "A Wild Card must miss with his Wild Die for a RoF 1 weapon to hit an Innocent Bystander (except for shotguns, see below)."

This seems to contradict the sentence about Wild dice never hitting innocent bystanders. It implies that to hit an innocent bystander, either the main skill die rolls a 1 or the main skill die fails to hit and the wild die is also a miss. That's basically any time the shooting attack does not hit plus whenever the shooting die rolls a 1, even if the wild die rolls a hit. Seems excessive.

If you shoot at a bad actor in melee with an ally, if you don't hit the bad actor, you would automatically hit the bystander.

Am I misinterpreting something?

Whatever the final interpretation, I don't intend to shoot into melee any more. Too much chance of hurting someone else.

I did say the definition sounds glitchy....

Anytime I can't understand a rule, I Google
"savage worlds" "<name of rule>"
(with the double quotes) and can usually find a forum where its been discussed and clarified.

Bold text has been added by me to the RAW text, as a result of what I read on the forums. It makes all the difference in the interpretation. PEG really should re-word it in a future edition.

"Each Skill die that’s a 1 hits a random victim adjacent to or directly in the line of fire to the original target. A 1 on a Wild dice never hit innocent bystanders."

"A Wild Card must miss with his Wild Die for a RoF 1 weapon to hit an Innocent Bystander."

Combine these two together, and what you have is :
A 1 on the Shooting die and a Miss on the Wild die means you have hit an Innocent Bystander.

And with the clarified text added :
A 1 on the Wild die never hits Innocent Bystanders, regardless of the Skill die result. (Altho under Critical Failures it says an attack may hit a friend as an example of the possible consequences.)

Since the Wild die can "replace" the results of the Skill die, a Hit with the Wild die replaces the 1 on the Skill die, so no Innocent Bystanders get shot in this case.

That makes sense.

Works for me.

Now just to hope that we don't hit each other.

I don't plan to have Arabella shoot into melee in the future unless it's a situation where not shooting is a bigger risk than friendly fire. And she won't use the shotgun, since that's too great a chance to do serious damage.

Well, If I holler for it, please do.

I will judge myself, and not blame you if I get hit after asking you to shoot it, in melee with me. :)

Well, I just had a crappyish week.

First, my knee acts up, feeling like I have a knife stuck in the back of it.

Then, while hobbling around on a cane, I end up kicking the cane, and breaking 2 toes.

Worst thing, is that I lost 2 days of pay. :(

Aw man. Sorry to hear that. Did you kick a black cat after crossing it's path while stepping on a crack after walking under a ladder?

Hope that at least put a smile on your face, Unless of course you are too young to get the references!

Aw man. Sorry to hear that. Did you kick a black cat after crossing it's path while stepping on a crack after walking under a ladder?

Hope that at least put a smile on your face, Unless of course you are too young to get the references!

I was going to say something similar though, like dude, you have GOT to find that mirror you broke. SO sorry :(

Somehow, I think the mirror was a stainless steel one, and I don't know how to weld. :)

As for those references, I got them. Heard them when I was but a child when the earth was cooling. :)

Still dealing with the knee, and nothing they can do about the toes.
But at least back at work.

Hope things get better soon.

While we're on the topic of old timers and their health problems, I'll be having an operation Monday, Sept. 30, which will have me unable to post that day and probably the next day. It's not a high risk operation and will only involve a small cut to my stomach so they can use laparoscopic surgery to remove a growth on one of my kidneys.

Hope it all goes well.

All the best to you Cleb, get well soon :)

As my father (who is in his 70's) likes to say, "Getting old sucks but it's better than the alternative!"

I hope it goes quickly and smoothly. It's amazing the things they can do now and barely leave a scar at all!

Harold - sorry to hear about your problems, hope they get better soon. With intense pain, even the powerful pain killers can do little, but have you considered them?

Arabella - good luck with the operation, here's hoping the growth is benign!

I have a friend who like to say "Growing old isn't for sissies"...

Harold - sorry to hear about your problems, hope they get better soon. With intense pain, even the powerful pain killers can do little, but have you considered them?

Sadly, yes, I am on good solid painkillers (Permanently) due to a back injury caused by my time in the army.

I got nerve deadeners, pain killer patches, pain killers for breakthrough pain, cholesterol meds, Anxiety meds, anti inflammatory, and diabetes meds.

So I got a collection of meds, all paid for by the military. :)

(They broke me, they can pay for my stuff to reduce pain)

Hey. At least the VA/Army is paying for it!

A friend of mine was in the Army mid-90's. He was rappelling down a rope from a Blackhawk and the line wasn't prepared perfectly. Broke his back. He recovered and then freaking Covid got him...

Harold - sorry to hear about your problems, hope they get better soon. With intense pain, even the powerful pain killers can do little, but have you considered them?

Arabella - good luck with the operation, here's hoping the growth is benign!

I have a friend who like to say "Growing old isn't for sissies"...

I first heard that quote from a great movie called Quartet about some retired opera singers dealing with onset of various old age issues.