Welcome to the first installment in a new series that I hopefully won't get too burnt out on to care about continuing. HurryUp Guides is designed to be easy for you, or anyone with Autism or similar syndromes to read, absorb and apply in the time it takes to finish an episode of American Dad. Our first guide will talk about a tabletop RPG ruleset that I really love for a lot of reasons: Savage Worlds. In this game, you can create ANY kind of character you can imagine, and play in ANY setting or world or universe you can think of! Cowboys fighting off an alien uprising? Done. High fantasy world where magick is part of all society? Go for it! Present day RPG that's basically GTA with dice and miniatures? You're the boss.
Getting to the point:::
Character creation is as simple as deciding on a name, a Concept I.E. what kind of character you're playing, a set of Traits, Skills, Edges and Hindrances and a nice wad of cash to buy some starting gear and off you go.
For this example we have a character as follows:
Name: Tinjaguu
Concept: Indigenous native to a remote village
Agility: d8
Smarts: d10
Spirit: d8
Strength: d12
Vigor: d6
Skills:
Athletics d8
Common Knowledge d12
Notice d10
Stealth d8
Arcane Knowledge - Alchemy d8
Ancient knowledge - Herbalism d6
Edges:
Witch Doctor Background 3: Tinjaguu has an intermediate understanding of working with items and curios of magickal properties, being able to work with them to create various elixirs, poisons and other remedies.
Shaman Essence - Nature 4: Tinjaguu comes from a long line of shamans who worked in his craft and taught one after the other, including Tinjaguu himself, to work with shamanic rituals and magick.
Hindrances:
Frail -2: Being a witch doctor, Tinjaguu has lived on various diets of fruits and vegetables, nuts, edible roots and herbs, and occasionally some meats, only as a certain type of ritual. Despite how healthy this has made his body, it unfortunately means he has not been able to retrieve the bounty of strength that comes from the diets others from his home village eat from, so his bones are somewhat weak and he is only as strong as he is due to the growth of his muscles brought on by some of his various "witch diets". Any time Tinjaguu suffers damage he is not already prepared or braced for, he instantly fails a Spirit check and immediately suffers a Wound. If he rolls a natural 1 on a Spirit check, he suffers -2 instead.
In case you do not have an official character sheet: Then somewhere off to the side, you jot down "WOUNDS/HEALTH" or something similar, and next to it, going up, you write -1, -2 then -3 then "Inc" for incapacitated, then finally "Dead" above that. Below this, you'll write "Fatigue" and do the same as before, except stopping at "Inc".
You'll notice that Tinjaguu's attributes of Agility, Smarts, Strength and so forth are rated with various dice instead of numbers. This is because Savage Worlds is a generic system that is designed to be flexible to almost any/every kind of character. You can also add your own rules if you're playing your own custom setting, as well as custom skills, traits edges etc. But more on that later. As i was saying, it's flexible, and the use of different types of dice instead of numbers allows for many possibilities of interactions. What I mean is, unlike D&D where only one dice, a d20, is used to determine the outcome of anything your character can do, realistically, multiple dice for different attributes can cause certain scenes like the following example:
Here we have Tinjaguu visiting a fellow witch doctor in his own hut, trying to befriend him. He decides to first gain his trust by telling him a formula for a powerful elixir that greatly numbs any kind of pain, so he rolls a d12 for Common Knowledge; his goal is to roll against a "Target number", which is usually +4 by default. Higher-numbered dice will usually require this number to be raised or lowered accordingly, vice versa for lower numbered ones, but in this case a d12 is used since thats what die was chose for that skill. In this case the target number is +5 because this potential friend in particular is a worker and does not always have time to stick around so he's in a hurry. Tinjaguu lands a 6, just barely passing the check, and successfully teaches him how to strain loo-too-me over a blend of mugwort and cinnamon and make it into an oil that soaks through the skin and erases any pain. The new friend tests this by pinching himself very hard and rubbing the oil on it, and finds it does indeed work! Tinjaguu is invited to join his new friend to see what his job looks like.
Pretty wholesome, right? But lets say he had to roll a different die for something else in the same situation. So we'll run the scene again but this time the friendship attempt will come from helping the same acquaintance with an injury. He was bitten by a venomous snake and needs something to draw the venom out! Tinjaguu rolls a d6 for his Ancient Knowledge - Herbalism skill, and quickly retrives a leaf from a plant that pulls away toxins in an open wound, and rubs it on his new friend's wound. Within seconds the venom begins to cap over and soon it seeps out and away from his lifeblood!
Now, I know my descriptions are a little clunky; i've been up for a while heh -- but the reason i derailed there with the previous example is that even though I rolled a d6 for his herbalism skill, that die can be moved up to a d8 when Tinjaguu gains some points to put toward more skills or edges or even his attributes (Agility, smarts etc.), or strengthen ones that are already there. How you want your character to grow is entirely up to you!
That's Part one of this guide, the next will come soon because I've been up since 2 am and it is becoming vrlery difdicult ro to type and now my television is talking backwards so I'm going to get some sleep
Getting to the point:::
Character creation is as simple as deciding on a name, a Concept I.E. what kind of character you're playing, a set of Traits, Skills, Edges and Hindrances and a nice wad of cash to buy some starting gear and off you go.
For this example we have a character as follows:
Name: Tinjaguu
Concept: Indigenous native to a remote village
Agility: d8
Smarts: d10
Spirit: d8
Strength: d12
Vigor: d6
Skills:
Athletics d8
Common Knowledge d12
Notice d10
Stealth d8
Arcane Knowledge - Alchemy d8
Ancient knowledge - Herbalism d6
Edges:
Witch Doctor Background 3: Tinjaguu has an intermediate understanding of working with items and curios of magickal properties, being able to work with them to create various elixirs, poisons and other remedies.
Shaman Essence - Nature 4: Tinjaguu comes from a long line of shamans who worked in his craft and taught one after the other, including Tinjaguu himself, to work with shamanic rituals and magick.
Hindrances:
Frail -2: Being a witch doctor, Tinjaguu has lived on various diets of fruits and vegetables, nuts, edible roots and herbs, and occasionally some meats, only as a certain type of ritual. Despite how healthy this has made his body, it unfortunately means he has not been able to retrieve the bounty of strength that comes from the diets others from his home village eat from, so his bones are somewhat weak and he is only as strong as he is due to the growth of his muscles brought on by some of his various "witch diets". Any time Tinjaguu suffers damage he is not already prepared or braced for, he instantly fails a Spirit check and immediately suffers a Wound. If he rolls a natural 1 on a Spirit check, he suffers -2 instead.
In case you do not have an official character sheet: Then somewhere off to the side, you jot down "WOUNDS/HEALTH" or something similar, and next to it, going up, you write -1, -2 then -3 then "Inc" for incapacitated, then finally "Dead" above that. Below this, you'll write "Fatigue" and do the same as before, except stopping at "Inc".
You'll notice that Tinjaguu's attributes of Agility, Smarts, Strength and so forth are rated with various dice instead of numbers. This is because Savage Worlds is a generic system that is designed to be flexible to almost any/every kind of character. You can also add your own rules if you're playing your own custom setting, as well as custom skills, traits edges etc. But more on that later. As i was saying, it's flexible, and the use of different types of dice instead of numbers allows for many possibilities of interactions. What I mean is, unlike D&D where only one dice, a d20, is used to determine the outcome of anything your character can do, realistically, multiple dice for different attributes can cause certain scenes like the following example:
Here we have Tinjaguu visiting a fellow witch doctor in his own hut, trying to befriend him. He decides to first gain his trust by telling him a formula for a powerful elixir that greatly numbs any kind of pain, so he rolls a d12 for Common Knowledge; his goal is to roll against a "Target number", which is usually +4 by default. Higher-numbered dice will usually require this number to be raised or lowered accordingly, vice versa for lower numbered ones, but in this case a d12 is used since thats what die was chose for that skill. In this case the target number is +5 because this potential friend in particular is a worker and does not always have time to stick around so he's in a hurry. Tinjaguu lands a 6, just barely passing the check, and successfully teaches him how to strain loo-too-me over a blend of mugwort and cinnamon and make it into an oil that soaks through the skin and erases any pain. The new friend tests this by pinching himself very hard and rubbing the oil on it, and finds it does indeed work! Tinjaguu is invited to join his new friend to see what his job looks like.
Pretty wholesome, right? But lets say he had to roll a different die for something else in the same situation. So we'll run the scene again but this time the friendship attempt will come from helping the same acquaintance with an injury. He was bitten by a venomous snake and needs something to draw the venom out! Tinjaguu rolls a d6 for his Ancient Knowledge - Herbalism skill, and quickly retrives a leaf from a plant that pulls away toxins in an open wound, and rubs it on his new friend's wound. Within seconds the venom begins to cap over and soon it seeps out and away from his lifeblood!
Now, I know my descriptions are a little clunky; i've been up for a while heh -- but the reason i derailed there with the previous example is that even though I rolled a d6 for his herbalism skill, that die can be moved up to a d8 when Tinjaguu gains some points to put toward more skills or edges or even his attributes (Agility, smarts etc.), or strengthen ones that are already there. How you want your character to grow is entirely up to you!
That's Part one of this guide, the next will come soon because I've been up since 2 am and it is becoming vrlery difdicult ro to type and now my television is talking backwards so I'm going to get some sleep
