Some Savage Worlds questions...

[Obryn]

Alright, so I am going to be running some Realms of Cthulhu soon as my group's first foray into the Savage Worlds system. While Call of Cthulhu d20 is fun, too, I need some added motivation to break through some writers' block, and finally getting to try out Savage Worlds is really appealing to me.

I am trying to decide on "Normal" vs. "Gritty" variants for both damage and sanity. The thing is, I have absolutely no conception of how gritty "Normal" is and how deadly "Gritty" is.

So, I'm desperately looking for anyone who could give me a hint in this regard. How easy is it to get killed/disabled in normal Savage Worlds games? If you have tried Gritty, how gritty is it?

Thanks, folks!

-O

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I'm not familiar with the specific Gritty rules variant you mention, but I can tell you that with exploding dice, it is really, really easy for a single attack to take a PC from 100% to flat on his or her back. If they have a benny or bennies to burn, they'll almost certainly be okay, but the possibility is always there.

 

[amerigoV]

I am trying to decide on "Normal" vs. "Gritty" variants for both damage and sanity. The thing is, I have absolutely no conception of how gritty "Normal" is and how deadly "Gritty" is.

So, I'm desperately looking for anyone who could give me a hint in this regard. How easy is it to get killed/disabled in normal Savage Worlds games? If you have tried Gritty, how gritty is it?

Thanks, folks!

-O

First off, welcome to Savage Worlds!

Normal Savage Worlds: The Bennies help regulate the swing of the system. As an example, we are currently running a D&D -esque game (Ptolus) using the normal mechanics. We started at 0Xp and are now early Legendary (85xp). We have had close calls, but no PC has died or been permanently crippled. So while you can get one-shotted, it tends to be more close calls.


Realms of Cthulu: You have the second pool of mental wounds. Even playing on Pulp/Normal mode for both pools will be more challenging than a regular Savage Worlds game. Players still get 3 Bennies, but now you can get knocked out of the game with either physical wounds or eventually going insane. The Death Spiral (tm) is steeper since "wounds" in both categories are cumulative. Example: -2 from physical wounds and -2 from mental wounds = -4 to all rolls and pace. Given we are talking "normal people investigators" and not "D&D superheros", things can get ugly quick.

You can ramp it up by picking Gritty for either or both pools. You do not get to Soak any damage on the pool you designate Gritty. That hurts. Think D&D without ever letting HPs increase (you can think of Bennies as the "heroic luck" that is built into the HP of D&D - the difference is you have the choice of spending that luck on rerolls or absorbing damage - D&D just puts it all to absorbing damage). Also, you have to make an immediate check once you take a "wound" to see if you have an "injury" (quotes meaning a physical type or mental type, depending on which is gritty). So even if you only have a -1 from a physical wound, it might result in an injury that lowers an attribute a die.

Doing normal on physical but Gritty on Mental translates into a game where the PCs will mow down the Cultist but might go Insane at the end when the Horror shows up.

Gritty Physical / Normal Mental means even a simple gunfight is really going to hurt. People will be running to a Doctor after a fight due to a build up of wounds. When the Horror shows up at the end, they have a decent shot of not going Insane.

Gritty/Gritty - Great for one-shots and very short campaigns. Investigators are very fragile. IIRC, that is the setting to replicate the traditional CoC game. Players should be very cautious. D&D style play (Violence and kicking in the door) will get the PCs killed/insane very quickly.


Also, the Bennie Economy can help set the mood as well. You can get a grittier game using the normal rules by not passing out as many Bennies during the session.

Hope that helps. Be sure to drop by PEG's boards or Reality Blur's boards. Very helpful folks. On RB's boards, the guy that wrote the RoC setting is very accessible.

 

[Corathon]

I'm a player in a Realms of Cthulhu game using the "normal" damage rules. So far it has not been deadly (no deaths, no insanity, and I don't think I've even taken a wound), but I've only played 3 sessions so far.

In regular Savage Worlds beginning characters are harder to take down than ordinar people, and experienced characters are very hard to take down - but a lucky hit (e.g. a raise with a pistol shot followed by a few exploding damage dice) by a mook might kill anyone.

 

[Obryn]

First off, welcome to Savage Worlds!

Very, very valuable advice - thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for.

I am leaning towards going the "dark spiral" route with Pulpy damage, but Gritty sanity.

While the gritty/gritty does resemble a more "normal" Call of Cthulhu, I've found that this style is kind of unsuitable for long-campaign play. I want both action and consistency of characters.

This really helps me - the bennie rate was I think the missing ingredient here. I'll think about starting them out with only 1-2, and keeping them fairly infrequent.

It looks to my inexpert eyes that the Sanity rules are a bit less dangerous than the damage rules. I mean, you're making a Guts roll at usually -1 or -2 instead of comparing, say, d8+d6 to your Toughness. And you can presumably spend bennies on that Guts roll. I'm worried it would be kind of toothless if I went the pulp route on that side of the coin.

I'm a player in a Realms of Cthulhu game using the "normal" damage rules. So far it has not been deadly (no deaths, no insanity, and I don't think I've even taken a wound), but I've only played 3 sessions so far.

Also good to know some first-hand experience. I think with my play-style, I should err on the side of caution with the Pulpy damage. I like fights with mythos creatures - what can I say?

-O

 

[amerigoV]

Very, very valuable advice - thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for.

You are quite welcome!

Keep the 3 Bennies per PC as per normal, just be stingy on giving out any more (normal play you target to hand out 1-2 per PC above the 3 they get). Let them have their false sense of security. As the little girl from Aliens once said "it won't make any difference."

As for anything else, I recommend you go HERE to discuss any other adjustments. Razorwise is Sean Preston, the primary developer of the setting. He can help you fine tune the rules to get the effects you want.

 

[Obryn]

Alrighty, JQM, amerigoV & Corathon ... Thanks for your help, but I have yet more questions! I didn't find any character sheet I was totally happy with. The Realms of Cthulhu one is too intentionally obtuse & confusing, and although the Savage Worlds "training wheels" one was good, it lacked the Madness track and spaces for sanity/corruption.

So I threw my own together, kind of incorporating elements from both. I liked the rule summary at the bottom, but it seemed like it wasn't the right stuff, if that makes sense. In your experience, what rules (mostly combat options) should go on the bottom of the sheet? Or is that space better-used for other stuff? (The formatting went a tad askew after exporting to PDF; sorry about that!)

Thanks again!

(Edit: Also, based on a suggestion from the forum, I snagged [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1589946006/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00]these[/ame] for bennies. The little ones will be perfect.)

-O

 

[amerigoV]

Your layout is nice. However, its not to my style due to one thing - the skills under the associated attribute. Its one of those things that seems logical and it is very helpful when doing your advances, but in play it can slow things down as people have to hunt down the skill until they are very familiar with the PC (and if you play infrequently, they never learn it and have to dig around).

So I am always in the camp of just write down the skills in its own list and note the attribute. But YMMV.

 

[Obryn]

Your layout is nice. However, its not to my style due to one thing - the skills under the associated attribute. Its one of those things that seems logical and it is very helpful when doing your advances, but in play it can slow things down as people have to hunt down the skill until they are very familiar with the PC (and if you play infrequently, they never learn it and have to dig around).

So I am always in the camp of just write down the skills in its own list and note the attribute. But YMMV.

Good idea - I'll make a second version with blanks once I finish the formatting on this one.

We're doing group character creation, though, so I thought it'd be nice to have for us at first. We're all n00bs, so it seems more helpful than not right now.

How about the rule summary? Any major ones that come up a lot that I'm missing, or else ones I have that are useless?

 

[S'mon]

IME 'Normal' damage was very much not-gritty, and it was extremely unlikely PCs would be killed unless for some reason they had spent all their bennies. Conservative bennie-hoarding PCs shouldn't have much to worry about.