Weird Pulp set-up

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EvilGenius
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by EvilGenius »

So for a little bit more elaboration on character:

Rikard Greystone grew up in a prestigious circus that travelled extensively in Europe and the mysterious Orient. As a result, Rikard had an early exposure to other cultures and today speaks a surprising number of languages with great fluency (Edge: Linguist). Rikard also developed prodigious skill as an acrobat and learned the secrets of Oriental combat.

Rikard grew up with a strong connection to his family and his extended family in the Circus (Hinderance: Loyal). As a kind hearted boy Rikard also found it nearly impossible to say no to people in need, often sharing food with the hungry and helping the peopel of whatever region he visited in any way he could (Hinderance: Heroic).

When Rikard grew older his family persuaded him that the circus life was too limited for someone so gifted. A wealthy benefactor of the Circus offered to sponsor Rikard's education and at the tender age of 16 Rikard attended Yale University where his linguistic skills and exposure to other cultures led him to study world history, archaeology and religion.

Sadly, while Rikard was at University, a mysterious criminal organization in Budapest assaulted the Circus, killing many of its members, including Rikard's family. Devestated, Rikard turned to the study of Criminology and vowed to bring these shadowy criminals to justice and to do so honorably, without resorting to their crudely violent methods (Vow: Never Take a Human Life).

After a short stint as a police detective in New York City, where Rikard honed his investigatory skills, Rikard left the police force behind and embarked on the life of a private investigator, traking down leads to the shadowy criminals who slew his family.
Last edited by EvilGenius on Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by Jonkga »

EvilGenius wrote:
Ken, you're more familiar with the various Savage Worlds rules, is there a marked difference between using a Guts skill as opposed to a Spirit check?
Bob, in the earlier edition, Guts was a skill check that you would have to put points into just like any other skill. In that Edition, they separated out Guts from Spirit. In the Deluxe Edition, there is a note on page 25 (of the .pdf) that explains why in the Deluxe Edition they simply removed Guts and folded it into Spirit - basically for the core rules they decided it didn't make sense for these to be two different things. However, some settings still may use the Guts skill.

I think the implication boils down to this: if playing a D&D game, and your character confronts a zombie, that is a horrific part of the universe, and while that might freak out the character, that character already has the trait Spirit, which will be used to determine if he is overcome by the freakout or not. Basically, zombies are unnatural, and you don't expect them, but you understand them as part of the world. No need for a special mechanic for this.
However, if that was a Call of Cuthulhu game, and the PC was going to investigate some strange noises at the Miskatonic library late at night, he might expect burglars, or even deranged cultists to be the culprits. If he is confronted with crazy cultists wielding bloody knives, this will likely freak him out, and he might need to make a Spirit check. But, if instead, he runs into a Hound of Tindalos that the cultists have unleashed due to reading from books that should not have been opened, well, that is decidedly not of this world, and perhaps Spirit might not cover it. Here, in this setting, a Guts skill might be useful, and hardy investigators who have put points into it (maybe not allowed until they have experienced at least one such occurance) might have a chance to not freak out, where a regular person with no Guts skill, even if they have a good Spirit trait stat, might be reduced to gibbering at the mere sight of the Hound.

So, Ken was really asking what we want to use for this setting. I would say, that given that the update to the rules and the current standard is the Deluxe Edition, that to make things uniform for the group, my vote would be to not use the Guts skill as a separate skill, and just roll that into Spirit. However, if eventually our Weird Pulp is going to lead to our PCs discovering secrets know man can know and remain sane, we may want some sort of "sanity rules" system in play. And, that means we could say our setting does need the Guts skill, or include even more robust sanity rules.

As of yet I'm still exploring the sanity system in the other .pdfs Ken posted, so I don't have a handle on those just yet.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by EvilGenius »

Ok, cool. Thanks for the breakdown, that makes sense. I guess my vote on the matter depends on if we are thinking more mythos or more pulp. If we're running more Indiana-Jones-style then I don't think we need a separate Guts skill. But if we are going to be running or getting into more Mythos tinged stuff then I'd want the Guts skill.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

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EvilGenius wrote:Ok, cool. Thanks for the breakdown, that makes sense. I guess my vote on the matter depends on if we are thinking more mythos or more pulp. If we're running more Indiana-Jones-style then I don't think we need a separate Guts skill. But if we are going to be running or getting into more Mythos tinged stuff then I'd want the Guts skill.
Yeah, I just spent some time looking over the sanity rules in the Horror Companion and the realms of Cthulhu supplement - and while both are good systems, and pretty similar, really, they both seem good for a horror- or mythos- campaign. If we were doing Delta Green for real, I'd say we'd want them. However, they both, to me, seem a bit much for our proposed Weird Pulp campaign. However, by all means speak up if you want to use them, because we certainly can.

Also, in reviewing the spirit vs. Guts situation, I dug further into both the Original Explorer's Edition and the new Deluxe Edition, and found the Fear table. The Fear rules are the same in both editions, the only difference being whether you start with Spirit or Guts. (Fear is on page 100 in the Explorer's Edition and page 85 in the Deluxe .pdf).

I think for what we've proposed, using the Spirit trait with the Fear table is going to work just fine. It still gives us the "freak out" factor for experiencing the weird and unnatural, but doesn't go quite as "American Horror Story" as the sanity rules.

However, chime in with what you think, as I'm ultimately flexible.

And, as Bob said, even if you haven't read through all the rules, what feel do you want for the campaign? More Pulp Heroic, and Spirit will suffice. A bit more dark and horrific, and Guts may fit slightly better.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by setanta14 »

I'm looking for more pulp heroic from Savage Worlds, and leave the horror stuff for when we actually play Cthulhu/Delta Green scenarios.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

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setanta14 wrote:I'm looking for more pulp heroic from Savage Worlds, and leave the horror stuff for when we actually play Cthulhu/Delta Green scenarios.

Nate, cool, and I get the vibe that this is what most of us are looking for out of this campaign.

Just a clarifying follow-up question: Do you have some examples from books, games, movies, comics, etc. that might help me further define this?

For example, face-melting ghosts as unleashed from the Ark of the Covenant? Ok or no? What about actually using the Ark to blast enemies once you've recovered it? What about the ending of Hellboy, as another example - using a strange relic/device to summon a creature? Ok or no? What about having that creature be a Great Old One out of time and space? And, in both these examples, some side characters fainted due to seeing these fantastical things occur, but they weren't driven mad after witnessing savage mutilations and/or vile demonic entities. Is that good for Spirit/Fear effects, and not over the line into insanity?

I guess what I'm looking for is sort of where to draw the line. I think we are getting there, so everyone chime in, even if its just to say "yes, I agree". This is certainly helping.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by setanta14 »

Bob... perhaps our characters were classmates at Yale (and Skull and Bones brothers)?
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by EvilGenius »

Jonkga wrote:Nate, cool, and I get the vibe that this is what most of us are looking for out of this campaign.

Just a clarifying follow-up question: Do you have some examples from books, games, movies, comics, etc. that might help me further define this?

For example, face-melting ghosts as unleashed from the Ark of the Covenant? Ok or no? What about actually using the Ark to blast enemies once you've recovered it? What about the ending of Hellboy, as another example - using a strange relic/device to summon a creature? Ok or no? What about having that creature be a Great Old One out of time and space? And, in both these examples, some side characters fainted due to seeing these fantastical things occur, but they weren't driven mad after witnessing savage mutilations and/or vile demonic entities. Is that good for Spirit/Fear effects, and not over the line into insanity?

I guess what I'm looking for is sort of where to draw the line. I think we are getting there, so everyone chime in, even if its just to say "yes, I agree". This is certainly helping.
I agree with Nate, more pulp heroics with a little mystical/wierd stuff. So yes to the Ark Ghosts and Hellboy and summoning weird creatures, but problably "no" to using the Ark or Great Old Ones (for me at least). :)
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by EvilGenius »

setanta14 wrote:Bob... perhaps our characters were classmates at Yale (and Skull and Bones brothers)?
Yeah, that'd be cool! :)
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by erilar »

I am okay with players taking a mystical power, but IMO we have been discussing a setting where the supernatural is considered superstition. The player will need to be conscious of keeping their powers on the down-low, and maybe disguising them as something else? (E.g. maybe the character is a gypsy fortune teller, except that some of their powers are legit, etc.)

Sticking with Savage Worlds Deluxe for character generation seems like a great plan.

I have already purchased and received a copy of Savage Worlds Horror, and fully intend to bust out the spooky and insanity action for anything I'll be running...
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by NukeHavoc »

Jonkga wrote: Here, in this setting, a Guts skill might be useful, and hardy investigators who have put points into it (maybe not allowed until they have experienced at least one such occurance) might have a chance to not freak out, where a regular person with no Guts skill, even if they have a good Spirit trait stat, might be reduced to gibbering at the mere sight of the Hound.
Right. It's all about developing the mental fortitude to deal with terrible things. :)

In the game, Spirit is used to recover from Shaken (basically your character got beat up a bit on the last round of combat; when he's Shaken he's shellshocked: he can only move at half-speed, and he can't take any actions. It's also tied to a few skills (Healing, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Guts, if you're using that) but not nearly as many as Smarts or Agility. This is important because it determines how expensive those skills are when buying them (e.g. if you have a d6 spirit, buying a rank in a skill at d4 or d6 costs one point; anything over a d6 costs 2 points).

So ... it may be that you have a really athletic, muscular guy who has a high Agility and High Strength scores (say d8 in each) but you use Spirit as your dump stat, and take that as a d4. The same goes for the brianiac scientist who took a d10 in Smarts but kept the rest of his stats low. If they're going to be making lots of Spirit checks because it's a horror-filled game, these characters may suffer for their choices -- they're going to spend a lot of time dealing with fear effects simply because their Spirit isn't high enough.

Enter Guts. Because you can buy ranks in Guts, you can have a relatively low Spirit score (d4, maybe d6) and spend it up to something that won't have you shaking in your boots every time you run into a Ghoul, Ghost, or Poltergeist. It lets you create that athletic soldier who's still a steely-eyed missile man because he took a ranks in Guts. Obviously this is less important in a game where you *aren't* making horror checks as frequently.

Conversely, in a game that doesn't have a lot of horror, not having Guts frees up skill points to spend on other things. If you're rarely making Guts checks, it's not really worth it for characters to spend points on it ... and the character who does spend those points rarely sees any return on his investment.
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by NukeHavoc »

EvilGenius wrote:I agree with Nate, more pulp heroics with a little mystical/wierd stuff. So yes to the Ark Ghosts and Hellboy and summoning weird creatures, but problably "no" to using the Ark or Great Old Ones (for me at least). :)
I agree. Other movie inspirations might include The Mummy and King Kong (the Peter Jackson remake).
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

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I think this is where we are at so far:

The PCs will be part of a shadowy, private organization with an odd name, based out of NYC, and seeking to step in to situations around the globe where their action can right wrongs, especially in situations where the law or governments might not be able, or understand the need, to step in.

Bob: Rickard Greystone, a former circus kid, who was educated at Yale (where he was classmates with Nate's character), and was a cop before turning P.I., looking to bring his family's killers to justice.

Ken: a MacGuyver-like adventurer/scientist.

Nate: a young, aristocratic, Yale-educated (and classmate to Bob's character) former Olympic fencer turned adventurer.

Damon: Judah Schillenberg, a German and Jewish scientist (and amateur boxer?).
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

Post by NukeHavoc »

FYI -- Drive Thru RPG is having a Savage Worlds sale:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/rpg_savag ... rSaleBlast

Of particular note to this topic are "Thrilling Tales 2nd Edition" and "Weird War II".
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Re: Weird Pulp set-up

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Jonkga wrote:The PCs will be part of a shadowy, private organization with an odd name, based out of NYC, and seeking to step in to situations around the globe where their action can right wrongs, especially in situations where the law or governments might not be able, or understand the need, to step in.
I like it. I'm going to build out my Mystic and my McGuyver and see which one I like better.

Here are some secret society name generators:

http://www.random-generator.com/index.p ... ciety_Name

http://random.zebby.org/

http://www.chimpage.com/secret.html
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