Everyone seems to recommend it, but no one wants to discuss it. Let's fix that!
What are you playing?
What are you running?
Are you doing your own thing or are you using a published setting or Plot Point campaign?
>>46503202
People don't really discuss it because there isn't much to argue about.
Playing: TimeZero and a Paizo AP converted to Savage Worlds
Running: Not running SW right now, but I've run everything from supers to fantasy to Cthulhu
I've run homebrew and plot points.
About to run a cyberpunk campaign using the Sci-fi Companion, some items and hindrances from Interface Zero and adventures from Triple Ace.
I'm actually struggling with trying to find ways to counter one of the PCs: he's a cyborg ninja owned by a megacorp whoat least as far as his loyalty implant can tellis under direct orders to aid the others.
In test rolls we did for shits and giggles he was effectively impervious to any small-arms fire, only an RPG-7 and his own monoblades did any decisive damage.
Other than EMP grenades and immediately suppressing the area the second he kills one of them, what can my mooks do to challenge him? He isn't very bright and he's only capable of attacking one enemy in melee so far.
>>46505638
This PDF could help.
I take it it's his armour and toughness that's the problem? If there's any exposed part you could have marksmen take called shots at him. I'm not familiar with the gear in Interface Zero, but see if you can get some bullets or guns with AP.
Taunt is a contest against Smarts so if some badass baddie has the balls to taunt him that can make him shaken at least.
If you don't want to be too obvious with bringing out specific counters to him then automatic weapons mean you can get more rolls to hit and damage so you could hope to get a raise or semi-auto would grant a bonus to hit and damage too.
Otherwise maybe have some melee fighters to hold him back and that can give the ranged attackers more of a chance to get a bit of damage in or at least tie him up so the other bad guys can fight the other players. Sending in a couple more low-budget cyborg ninjas at him with monoblades sounds pretty rad.
>>46506061
Mostly, he has a combined Toughness of 11 to his body and limbs. Snipers could plant rounds in his face, but headshots in SW are hard to pull off.
He's using the combat armour from the Sci-fi Companion and that ignores a lot of AP from bullets, as well as the optic camouflage suit that's the real problem. Actually getting a fix on him is the main issue, which is why I'm leaning towards area effect attacks: that and EMP grenades rather nicely deal with both his armour and his optic camo at once.
It's funny you mention other cyberninjas, I found an old NPC I made would be a perfect opponent for this guy. They could have been clones (although, really, they're not).
>>46505638
Mooks shouldn't be a challenge, that's why their called mooks. A Hacker elite, another cyborg ninja with stupid high parry, experimental sonic weapons that cause Vigor or Spirit checks to avoid fatigue, are the things you challenge him with,
>>46506239
Headshot: -4
Aim: +2 Marksmen says you can do it that turn if you don't move.
Unless he has dodge, that means a d10 shooting sniper hits his face 50% of the time.
Are they still doing plot point campaigns? I have Rippers and Necessary Evil from back in the day and, while I'm not particularly keen on the system, I loved the "book with all you need to run a campaign" format (to convert to other things). However I got the impression that lately they moved to a more traditional setting-with-supplements format. Did anything cool come uot in the last couple of years?
>>46506385
You're probably right. I'm probably just paranoid: the last game I ran had him inadvertently make a stupidly broken character/mecha in a Battle Century G campaign by throwing everything into speed, then finding a weapon that converted movement into extra damage.And if he does turn out broken, that loyalty implant could make the final stages of the campaign extremely interesting...
>>46506433
I think most settings still have plot point campaigns. 50 Fathoms, Sundered Skies, Slipstream, and Space 1889 all have the plot point campaign included in the book. East Texas University has it in a separate book.
On the subject of plot point games although I like the concept and the bevy of premade adventures are really useful how to people feel on the general quality of them? I personally think Sundered Skies and East Texas University in particular have really weak campaigns and the starting adventures are especially shitty.
>>46506433
I think East Texas University has that? I'm not sure, I was too busy sifting through for gear and edges I could steal (really made me want to resurrect a short-lived Resident Evil campaign I tried long ago).
>>46506433
They always release plot points with their own stuff, but a bunch of their settings are third party. Deadlands Reloaded has a decent adventure (not really a whole campaign, because Deadlands is meant to be sandbox, and has a lot of backstory they have to include).
That being said a bunch of their books have been coming out with an introductory adventure, then the plot point is a separate book.
>>46506495
The thing is, the Toughness system ins't super-balanced, but people always forget that you don't have to do damage to take someone out.
What are your thoughts on the adventure deck?
>>46506577
Alright, thanks. So, any notably good ones among the latest releases? I'm thinking more in terms of plot than mechanical content.
>>46506602
I know. Now I think about it, just tasing him would work: the guy has average Vigor. He has a respirator, so I can't just tear gas him or try and fatigue him down with something similar.
On a totally unrelated note, is the Necessary Evil prequel any good? I have fond memories of the original.
>>46506623
All the Deadlands ones I've looked at are good. What setting/genre interests you?
>>46506604
I hate it. It really doesn't help most of the time. If you made your own, it might be interesting, but there are to many cards that either let the group just bypass what you laid out for them, or are useless.
>>46506675
I didn't find it that interesting.
>>46506957
Well, I tend to change games and settingsquite often, so I'm open to anything. I liked both Rippers and Necessary Evil as original and very stealable takes on supers, but I'm not married to the genre. If there was something like non-traditional fantasy (I know about 50 fathoms but never looked to much at it) or in general anything that mixes things up it'd be great.
>>46506998
Aww. On paper, "Escape from New York, but with supers" sounds an awesome concept. Was it just a dislike of the genre, or was it just not executed right?
>>46507115
If you like non-traditional fantasy then 50 Fathoms should be your thing. Basically, there used to be a big magic fantasyland that got flooded and now everyone's pirates and sometimes human ships get sucked into the world too. No elves or dwarves, instead you've got big walrus people, fish people, not Illithids, and giant crabs as races to choose.
Plot involves finding a way to stop the world from flooding and overall I think think the campaign is well executed without being too railroady as I've seen in other books. And the world as a whole is interesting and fun so I'd recommend it.
>>46506061
>>46506239
Addition to this - if you're worried about Taunt coming across as a way to specifically counter him, consider enemies doing Smarts tricks - they can be done by anyone, and can shake him or give them a bonus to their next round's action against him.
Agility tricks could do the same thing, but I think people are more likely to beat a ninja cyborg in Smarts than Agility.
Follow up with AP on weapons, remember gang-up bonuses in melee combat for throwing multiple mooks at him.
>>46506433
So all their latest releases have had Plot Point Campaigns.
East Texas University came as three books - a Player's Guide, a GM's Handbook, and a separate Plot Point Campaign, "Degrees of Horror".
Last year's big kickstarter was for the latest Deadlands: Reloaded plot point book, "Stone and a Hard Place", which had the campaign plus thirty-odd Savage Tale one-shots, and some new setting stuff.
I'm currently running Rippers Resurrected (which if you liked the original Rippers I seriously recommend, it's a huge improvement mechanically) as a LARP. The GM's book for that came with a Plot Point, but I felt that it was weak story-wise, especially compared to the other two I've mentioned.
Basically, when you have Matthew Cutter writing a Plot Point Campaign, you know you're in for a treat. Simon Lucas I'm not hugely keen on storywise, but he knows how to build new edges and setting mechanics.
>>46507174
I loved Necessary Evil. I felt like there really weren't any motivations to do anything. Why not just take over the island? If you already played NE, you know escaping is actually a bad idea. I don't know, it just wasn't that interesting to me. It's not outright bad, I'd just rather do NE.
>>46507115
I'm a huge fan of Sundered Skies. They really didn't do much in the way of adventures, though. That setting is a lot of fun though.
>>46507174
Not the previous commenter, but I've friends who are currently playing through the new Necessary Evil, and really enjoying it. Speaking to the guy who's GMing it, it requires a bit of altering to fit your party, but it otherwise a solid enough base to improvise from.
This seems to be a running theme with a lot of their published campaigns - they require altering to fit the PCs in order for them to pack any real emotive punch as a story, and the best bits tend to be the stories which come in between the plot points themselves. This might be a subjective thing, though, with how much my groups tend to focus on emotional investment in plot over the specific details of said plot.
>>46507714
>not busting out of NY and immediately switching to a regular NE campaign, with the players as some of Dr Destruction's most favoured and badass agents
It's like you don't even awesome. I bet you don't end Weird War II campaigns with a fight against Vampire Blood Mage Hitler, either.
>>46507752
Yeah, my GM had little subplots for each of us, like my old archnemesis showing up in an alien prison (I let her out, because I'd be bored after we beat the aliens otherwise).
Then again, part of that can be down to the players: I was playing an old-school villain's villain who leapt at the chance to work with Dr Destruction, which madethe big reveal at the endthat much more fun.
>>46506495
Sounds like your are playing with a twink.
How do your life end up like this?
>>46508136
I know right? I can't even fuck him 'cause he's asexu- oh. You meant the other kind of twink.
>>46508315
An Autist twink no less.
>>46508956
Yeah. Mind you, I can't stay mad at him. And I can sympathise with wanting a decent character. The BCG thing was allegedly accidental.
>>46509223
Just fuck already, the boosted lance isn't even that good.
>>46509278
It is when coupled with shit like Skirmisher Frame and Lightspeed Assault. But I digress.
Anyone know whether the Sixth Gun setting's any good?
>>46509400
The Sixth Gun is... well, it depends. Have you ever played Deadlands? Because it feels like they stripped away all the carry-overs from Deadlands Classic that made it into the Savage Worlds Deadlands Reloaded. It's a very clean-feeling, standardised ruleset with little in the way of anything unusual. I feel like they're playing the setting very safe rather than actually doing something interesting or unique with the rules.
You're better off either using the Deadlands Reloaded rules, which IMO are significantly stronger at capturing Western flavour, or just running something set in the comic book universe using the Savage Worlds core rules. There's basically no reason to buy the Sixth Gun book.
>>46509831
Might be of interest to me, then. I have a love-hate relationship with Deadlands: on the one hand Western horror's cool, but on the other there's a -lot- of shit in Deadlands Classic that got carried over (fuck Stone and whoever thought using him as a beatstick/TPK generator was a good idea).
So there's no cool weapons or edges or anything at all? Sad.
>>46510126
All the new edges in Sixth Gun are just reworded versions of edges from Deadlands Reloaded, which kinda sucks. There's one that's a little different called "Six Sense", which is just Danger Sense from core Savage Worlds but only applies to the six guns themselves, so really limited.
I'm pretty onboard with the majority of the carry-overs from Deadlands Classic, although some of them in a much more "It was the 90s, it was a different time" kinda way. I view Stone in the same way I view Samuel Haight in oWoD - it was back when the common wisdom of RPG publishing was "metaplot comes first, don't let your players disrupt your stories", which I think Reloaded has been really good at undoing.
I must say, there was an immense sense of satisfaction from ending Stone and a Hard Place.
>>46510414
At least there was a chance, however small, of wasting Haight straight-up without cryptic bullshit. Just ask the elder that finally did him in.
My first RPG was nWoD, and it might be because of that I loathe metaplots and pet NPCs so much.
I think Savage Worlds really needs more support for modern or near future games. As it is the stuff I'm using in my cyberpunk game is a clusterfuck of gear from the supers and sci-fi companions with a dash of ETU. Had to use the Supers book to see exactly what level of cyber-enhanced Strength the Adam Jensen ripoff of the team needs to throw fridges at peple, too.
>>46510646
I'm working on third-party support for modern settings at the minute (although it's still got another 18 months or so of playtesting before I'll be happy sending it to Pinnacle to try and sell it), so I've done a lot of thinking about how all that kind of thing works (although mostly in the modern fantasy genre rather than near-future SF).
I'm not too familiar with Sci-Fi companion, so can't comment on how it fares for cyberpunk stuff. I think by and large they expected people to use it for Flash Gordon or Star Trek TOS stuff, rather than 'punk. I'd suggest checking their forums, there tend to be people sharing homebrew stuff for it fairly regularly, and I imagine other people have run into the same issues you have.
What sort of trouble are you having at the minute, besides the Super Strength thing?
>>46511827
The fuk is this shit?
>>46511827
Huh, this is strange. While half seems to be a really good implementation of Borderlands stuff into Savage Worlds the other half is a bunch of overly complicated clutter. Still, cool!
>>46512661
I feel you could apply this criticism to just about every fan conversion or published work in the system. The way Martial Artists pointlessly expand into Edge after Edge to fairly minimal effect in Deadlands Reloaded comes to mind.
Creating edges must be addicting or something.
