Tilting at Windmills: Please Hold

Work has been eating basically all my time this whole year, along with getting back to the gym now that I identified the cause of some internal distress that was interfering (50% dairy by weight diet with randomly acquired lactose intolerance, woo!).

And now I've discovered there's a new edition of Savage Worlds, that might address *some* of the issues I had with 1e (namely, attributes not contributing to skills terribly much, and also gear, plus some new improved rules apparently). Going to grab ahold of that, do another First Impressions like I did for Savage Worlds Deluxe, and then determine what (if anything) is required to fix things.

As much work as I've put into this, having to not homebrew stuff is lazier. And, if they still didn't fix it, it'll still mostly apply probably with a few tweaks.

Tilting at windmills: A question of Savage Worlds probabilities pt1

Got busy and this project was nudged down the list by time and sleep deprivation, but it's still ongoing. With a Deadlands Classic: Hell On Earth game now joined, it seems a good place to examine things from for comparison. The company behind Savage Worlds I believe had little to do with Deadlands, but based their system on a much simplified version of it and purchased the rights to it, now sold as Deadlands Classic.

WHAT'S THE SAME?
Both Deadlands and Savage Worlds use D&D dice, from d4 through d12. Higher is better, and a target number system. Dice rolls explode in both systems if you score a max roll. Both use Edges and Hindrances to describe their system of advantages and disadvantages.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT?
Deadlands has stats drawn from a deck of cards for random generation, distributed into stats. Skills are based on the 10 parent stats, each point of skill nets you another attribute-sized die to roll during tests, which you take the single best result of. Savage Worlds, skills are capped by attributes, but gain no further benefit beyond cheaper advancement. Instead, Savage Worlds grants player characters a Wild Die, which is just a d6 unless they have a few high level edges that boost its power in some or all situations. In SW, Skills level from d4 to d12 just as attributes do.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
The problems with Savage Worlds are at least twofold, possibly more.

The first problem is that high stats give next to no bonus to skills based upon them. A person who minmaxes with a d12 in a skill-controlling stat (dexterity or intellect) will spend exactly the same amount of points to get a wide array of skills to average level as a purely average competing character with d6 stats across the board. For a character to be remotely competent, let alone skilled, they must stay fairly laser focused on a few skills to be good at (at least with default 15 skill points). The wild die allows a d4-skilled character to still have a d6 available, but it's still sub-optimal and leads to a number of character concepts that simply can't properly be made because they require too broad of skillsets (My first experience was trying to port in a weird west bounty hunter, who had ranged skill, melee skill, a vehicle skill, with tracking and perception. In GURPS or Deadlands Classic, such a build was very doable, low investment skills had decent power even without the law of averages to help out if the controlling stat was good.

The second problem is somewhat subjective, the lack of a bell curve. Single die rolls have a flat probability, SW Extras get flat probability and named characters get the luck die for a weird bell curve. Having a bell curve is nice because it gives you some semblance of idea how you can expect to perform on a given roll; ie, average.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
There's a few possible solutions. A simple one could just be to give more skill points starting. Giving everyone at least the same bell curve could be done by giving Extras an Extra Die, perhaps a d4 because fate doesn't give as much of a shit about them as the Wildcards, but still maybe a little. But that still doesn't solve the problem of attributes vs. skills disconnect.

What you could do is replace the wild die with an attribute die. Suddenly a high dex character can bring their natural aptitude to bear with only a little specific skill, while a high dex/high skill character is a true terror. Or, add the attribute die in addition to the wild die, or offer choice of best two out of three. Offering this same upgrade to the NPCs would be powerful, as they're not necessarily built the same way as players, and tend to just automatically have the required skills/stats they should for whatever place they'll be encountered in.


I think that's enough rambling on this for a single post, I'll finish it up with actual probability calculations and such in another post.

Budget wargaming: dollar store edition pt2

Now, as a follow-up to the last post, we get into 2x 35 packs of army men.

Pros: Models are much more detailed, and larger if you want a slightly bigger scale. Includes some specialty gear like minesweepers, flamethrowers, and mortars
Cons: Models are way bigger than the scale of most gaming terrain and anything else, and completely random. Where the 50 packs came with a squad of fireteams in each, this is just a grab bag. Maybe usable for decoration, or if you buy a vast quantity to hopefully random-chance your way to something resembling a distribution of units with which to assemble a team.

I had really high hopes for these, but they were dashed by the reality of opening the bags and actually getting a good look at the contents. There isn't enough consistency to get them for minis, whether for wargaming or as tokens for a tabletop game on the cheap. Also, they're way larger than most gaming minis and terrain so you can't mix them in with other stuff.

Verdict: Not recommended

Up next in part 3, we look at assorted creatures and dinosaurs, and then in part 4 we get to the point of all this!

Tech Tuesday: VR Continues to advance

So it has recently been announced that Steam has their own entry into the VR market, the main feature of which is a set of controllers that are just shy of a glove, allowing natural movement of the fingers copied by your hand in game, allowing you to grab things by grabbing them, rather than retraining yourself to interact via less advanced controllers.

Enter Boneworks, a game built to display the hardware and, I suspect, serve as a game engine akin to how Source was used (but for VR, of course). I have my suspicions that this may be the killer app, once the hardware becomes more affordable ($1000 for a full Index VR rig, plus a VR ready computer). I expect the other members of the VR market will emulate the controllers in short order.

Budget wargaming: dollar store edition pt1

As a lead up to an upcoming gaming convention several months ago, I went to the local dollar store for some figure for running some improv RPGs. Among them, I got 2x 50 packs of army men  25 per side per bag. I wasn't interested in the unbagging, but I was very interested in the unit counts.

Cost: $2 plus tax (two packs of 50)

I was surprised by how fairly uniform they were. 3 of each unit type, roughly.
12 riflemen (3 prone, 3 crouch, 6 standing)
3 pointing men with rifle (NCO?)
3 radiomen
3 shotgunners
3 bazooka troops

Image courtesy of google image search, from an ARMA forum

With 3 riflemen and an NCO, you get a fairly usable squad with 3 fireteams. The rocket troops and shotgunners don't fit anywhere, and either serve as their own squads with no NCO, or the fireteams get buffed up to 6 man teams, with one shotgun trooper and rocketeer each.

One of the tan armies is short one NCO, but all the others are full strength with one bonus unit, to make 25. Get a couple bags and extras will likely offset the occasional miss, riflemen seem to be the most common extras (which statistically makes sense).

Quality: Models are a bit unsteady, but partly my little not-very-stable personal table I'm using is to blame. The quality of the modeling is meh, but it's sufficient to tell who's what, which is enough. For $1, you really can't complain. The degree of completeness and unit distribution is far beyond what I was expecting for the price.

Playability: With a $1 tape measure/measuring tape or just a straight dowel for Line of Sight, $1 for half a dozen dice and a D6 tactics system, or possibly a coin flip system (in most tactics systems, a basic troop winds up with about 50/50 odds), or even no dicerolling at all to enforce tactics and maneuvering, you wind up with a remarkably playable small unit setup.

Cobbling together a WH40k style system and unit cards works well, can fit your entire army's statblocks on a single notecard. Savage Worlds has the roots of a functional tactics game that was made with/in it, but they never really finished it out properly, and it requires the hard-to-dollar-store D&D dice.

Up next, I bust out the premium $1 army men, which are 35 of a single color to a pack.

Training Thursday: Share the pain

Took both my hubby and my housemate to Krav Maga with me. Both greatly enjoyed the training. Neither was in shape enough for the unusually heavy cardio class we got. They're both going to complain at me tomorrow, I suspect. On that note, I've been taking Krav Maga courses for about 4 months now, after a lifetime of taekwondo (reached halfway between first and second degree blackbelt). Different goals, but I felt like I learned more practical, applicable defensive stuff in the two trial courses than I did in all of my TKD. Of course, I'm picking it up incredibly fast, because just like even historical fencing wasn't really applicable to a real fight, it made you BETTER in the real fight.

Also tried out an imitation chik-fil-a chicken recipe for people who don't want to help them pay for anti LGBT shit (which boils down to "Brine it and use seasonings, dumbass") and it turned out quite good. Soak it in pickle brine for a couple hours, add some seasonings, dunk in flour and then egg and whatever. Just google it, you'll find a bunch of recipes.

There's yer problem

Been going pretty hard at various things. Past couple weeks I've had issues with passing out basically any time I stopped moving or actively doing something and was remotely comfortable.

Now, after another one of these impromptu 3+ hour naps, following a 9 hour rest, I'm suddenly full of things like motivation and energy and stuff again. Remarkable what being remotely awake does.

We now return to your regularly scheduled rambling about guns, military futurism, and game systems nobody cares about.

Tuesday Training: Laser rifles?

Not going to make a thing of this enough to get a tag, probably, but I'm looking for a laser training rifle. I've found all manner of bore sights, at least one drop in laser-bolt for AR-15s, and of course the Laserlyte and SIRT pistols. But I haven't found a good, simple blue-gun rifle with the built-in laser, just a Laserlyte rifle. Maybe upgraded to a green laser for the additional range that grants.

Why? I want to practice. I run dot torture drills anywhere from weekly to nightly using my pistol, with both hands, sometimes in armor. Of late, I've been considering getting some nice targets I can hang around the basement with obstructions of some sort, form it into a poor-man's shoothouse. But, I'd like to run it with a rifle as well, and I DON'T want to use it with my real rifle even with a training laserbolt in it. Airsoft would work, but make a mess, same with my AR-15 style paintball gun.

This doesn't seem like it'd be that hard of a concept. A resetting trigger, and a hard plastic shell of the sort that litter the market from airsoft to toys. Like the laserlyte, close enough is close enough, as long as the simple laser mechanism lets you adjust the aim to properly zero it. The SIRT bolt accomplishes this using your existing gun (available in red and green lasers), but as mentioned having a spare fakegun set up to use as a dedicated trainer appeals.

I'm not averse to doing things myself, and could probably even bring it to market, but this seems like something that should already exist which is a far lazier option to acquire.

Interstellar Warfare Wednesday: Combat Droid Applications

As promised in my latest Sci-Fi Friday, I'm going to touch on the potential applications of combat androids as force multipliers, in local and interstellar conflicts. After all, losing a robot in action is far more palatable to the public than losing a living being, at least until such time as people have casual mind-backups for respawn.

As a preface, in the interests of minimizing human involvement even forces that don't make extensive use are likely to have AI/robotic assistance in vehicular applications, such as loader/gunner aboard tanks, subordinate to the commander and able to let any crewman aboard take direct control over the actual aiming. But that's not what we're talking about. We're interested in robot soldiers.

Let's look at the Atlas. It's more graceful and probably faster than many people these days, and in a few robotic generations will likely be more fluid and capable, perhaps with proper hands instead of grippers and problem-solving abilities. It probably won't be able to compete with a competent human for a while, at least until the line between humans and robots blurs, but even then the processing power to make a sapient is substantially greater in size, weight, and expense; Even once robots are people, we'll still have a lot of nonsapient bots that serve the all important role of a body to fill space, the boots on the ground needed to actually take and hold territory.

But how to use them?

The principle behind it is simple; Robots are minimalist to upkeep. When not needed, you can turn them off, and they take no power. Supertech batteries usually have little to no charge loss when not in use, so unless there's a major increase in technology you can just shelve them until needed. On a ship, they're cargo, with nothing but their own mass, their gear, and maybe some spare parts to worry about. They don't draw a paycheck.

The long and short of it is what level they are integrated into the military command structure, and whether they are integrated with human/sapient troops. The star wars prequels are famous for their Battle Droids, opposing the valiant (if ethically questionable) Clone Troopers. In the prequels, battle droids are frequently deployed anywhere from battalion to brigade, with whole companies seeming to be the smallest units seen. Because why not, droids are cheap, where a platoon of men would suffice you can just throw a whole company.


Possible deployments:

Fireteam Level: Human NCO of (Lance) Corporal rank or equivalent.
Robot troops hold duties equivalent to a Private or Private, First Class. This layout has the greatest integration of humans, with every small combat element having a human at the helm to guide it and make intuitive decisions. In games with a small team, this is the Player Character and their 3ish AI controlled companions. A particularly good example of this is Star Wars: Republic Commando

Squad Level: Human NCO of Sergeant rank or equivalent
Robot troops form fireteams in their entirety, with upgraded capabilities on the leadership bots managing each team. The Sergeant is close enough to handle individual management required to account for the lack of flexibility likely to hamper even the robot Lance Corporals. This layout is typical of real time tactics. The player character is still able and expected to wade into combat themselves and as such receives an avatar of some sort, but has control of 2-3 fireteams they can direct via real-time tactics interface, as well as their own more capable team to assist them. A particularly good example of this is Dawn of War 2

Platoon Level: Human CO (2nd) Lieutenant rank or equivalent
Robot troops fill the space of every level of NCO and the forces below them. Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do or die. Such a force will begin to be heavily inflexible, and/or highly dependent upon the problem solving abilities of the AI's operating the combat robots. You will tend to either see micromanagement by the CO to make up for the lack of capability or simple robot-wave style tactics used like a sledgehammer. This is about the highest level of real time tactics, and the player typically either has no avatar or they are a specialist super-unit too valuable to commit to any but the most pivotal battles as their loss is a game-over. Company of Heroes 2 is a good example, with a number of squads and fireteams at your command, able to manage some level of orders and objectives without major input from the player beyond a goal, although for gameplay purposes micromanagement of the fireteams gives best results.

Company Level: Human CO Captain rank or equivalent
A single human will control several platoons with AI Lieutenants, each controlling several AI sergeants, each controlling AI (lance) corporals in charge of fireteams. Function at this level is highly dependent upon the quality of the command AIs, and the individual robot AIs, requires inflexible and predictable tactics, or requires a significant amount of micromanagement by the human CO to jump between questions and firefights as they arise. This is typical of the RTS genre, which will involve not only managing training of troops, but usually the building and maintenance of bases.

At levels above this, changes are largely academic. Beyond platoon level, it becomes increasingly hopeless for the commanding officer to exert the degree of individualized control often seen in video games to respond to situations beyond the AI's capabilities.

It is of course possible to have mixed commands, with units anywhere from solely human for delicate operations to an entire throwaway battalion of robots to hurl into the caverns of the spacemonsters to try and root them out. A troop transport ship might have a substantial force of humans aboard, with large quantities of robots in waiting, to organically shift the force makeup according to the scale of the conflict required. Another option is to produce additional robotic troops on-site, using renewable bioplastics or materials harvested from asteroids or the combat zone. This requires only a capable robot factory. On vessels of sufficient size for some resource processing and a specialized factory to feed them into, it may be the norm alongside a small compliment of troops; Humans can do vital tasks, but as the scope of force required expands so too do robotic supplements to their numbers.

Odds are good, to avoid highlighting human officers AND keep costs down, such androids will be built to simply wear standard armor and use regular equipment. Spacesuits might be left depressurized, or only pressurized enough to not be plainly obvious, or even fakes to cut down on costs. Any weapons usable in spacesuits should be suitably functional to artificial troopers, even if their hands have less dexterity. If the suits are built-in/on, they'll need to be upgraded/altered any time the human crew suits change, assuming uniform spacesuits in military and paramilitary applications.


In fiction, the purchasable army is always the hallmark of the bad guys, like the Trade Federation. But, as discussed, there's a lot of potential for use bolstering the numbers of small forces or in places where literal force multiplication can make a world of difference due to ability to get that force to where it's needed.

Sci-Fi Friday: Boots on the SpaceGround

War for territory is one of the oldest tropes of the space genre. But getting things through space is a challenge, particularly people; people need not only tonnage and space, but life support. How do you conveniently get a whole army, which needs a lot of mass for equipment and the troops to use it themselves.

Hang on, isn't spacewar supposed to be so advanced, that troops are no longer required? Deathrays from space make invasion unnecessary, point defenses make it impossible, and nobody will even bother with anything but spaceships, right?

Wrong. I mean I can't say with certainty until it happens, but every new weapon and invention is the end of infantry and gunfights and everything else forever, for sure THIS time! Just like every new weapon is so devastating it will end all wars forever, although after two world wars it seems like pundits have learned better than to say that now.

Troops will be necessary, any time goals below "extermination" are desired; a population brought into line, a strategic asset taken, etc.


So that leaves us with a dilemma; Even with reactionless drives and FTL transit to avoid century long trips, shipping enough to fight a war across (inter)stellar distances is a pain. Infantry, whether a Galactic Patrol's marine compliment or a purpose built troop transport, will be needed to get things done.

Option one: Big Ships
You can fit a fair few troops in a ship. The point at which you can wage spacewar, you can manage ships of at least capital sizes, from frigates to cruisers. They probably can't land on the surface themselves, but they'll have landers and lighters and perhaps drop pods. Technology will allow the ship to have vast food stores for the voyage and/or food production aboard, with less crew needed for the ship and a larger troop compliment available.

Option two: Stasis
Hypersleep. Suspended Animation. It goes by many names, but the idea of cramming troops into cold storage for the duration of interstellar voyage is an appealing one. Slow them down or stop them and they need little to no food or water, just power if their storage system requires it to maintain function (which is likely, but some wonder materials allow such shenanigans to be harnessed naturally). If you aren't likely to need everyone in an unplanned-for hurry, you can take a whole army and pack them up, perhaps defrosting them in shifts depending on the nature of storage and its ease of sleep/wakeup such that they don't disconnect from the world for weeks or months at a time, keeping enough awake to manage tasks and hold the fort until the rest can be roused to function.

Option three: Droids
What if you didn't need human troops? This has long been considered the future of warfare, with just as many detractors. A robot army, AI programmed to be as empathetic or unfeeling as desired, with none of those human failings and urges to distract from the mission. When they're broken, you can just repair them, or disassemble them as parts to keep the others fighting, and even produce more as required.


Throughout media, usually one or more of these winds up in play. Droids usually belong to the bad guys, unthinking, unfeeling, and merciless in their enforcement of the cruel edicts of their conquering masters. If droids are in play, the good guys will have good honest armies, awake and plucky. Stasis is usually the realm of one of two major tropes; the sealed badass in a can, or realistic space transit where there's no benefit to having huge masses of troops awake and draining resources, bored in the infinite vastness of space.

I've said all I really have to say on the first two options, but the third... the third bears some elaboration, because it has such potential for how underutilized it is. It was the planned topic of this discussion, until I deemed it worthwhile to provide some lead in and background. Look for that on Interstellar Warfare Wednesday.

Tilting at Windmills, Savage Worlds Plan of Attack

In my previous discussion on this topic, I mentioned my intent to rework the absolutely abysmal equipment section included by default. I set out to make some vaguely simple rules for assembling weapons and armor within the way the system works, only for it to swiftly balloon in complexity and still not feel detailed enough. Still, it was handy trying to use the default system to be reminded why this is so important, but that also set a timeline on it;

I need a list. I know what the outputs of the various gear generators SHOULD be, and have a convenient list of everything ever in GURPS to reference for relative power and effectiveness of things. I have some real world measures of effectiveness (A single shot from a pistol is 85% survival rate, a stab from a large knife has the same wound characteristics as an FMJ pistol bullet, etc).

The reasons for making a gear list are twofold; the first is simple expedience. An incomplete gear creation system doesn't help my games queued up waiting on equipment that isn't awful and random. The second is to mine trends out of the completed chart, to make sure that the generator can craft all available options.

This is simultaneously a simpler and greater undertaking, as it will no doubt develop into a book not dissimilar to the GURPS Tech books, albeit a short and brief one.

Wish me luck.

Miscellaneous Monday: BAG DAY

Tax season is once more upon us, and I'm maybe in position to actually pick something new up finally? It's been a long, long time since I acquired anything new. At present I have a few thoughts in mind for what to snag if it's in the budget after trying to pay down all my bills.

Option 1: Cheap Pocket Pistols
I'm signed up with Operation Blazing Sword, although I haven't been contacted for training as of yet. The areas I operate in have people with fancier qualifications (which I honestly should go for myself) and/or areas that are just kinda empty. At any rate, if I have someone come to me for training, and they have specific want to defend themselves, my typical advice of "Glocks are the honda civic of guns; a little spendy for brand name but you know they're boring, practical, and reliable" isn't of much help to those without the ~$600 for a new Glock. My remedy for this is to buy a grab-bag of cheap stuff, Hi-point (maybe with carbine), kel-tec, etc. Stuff around $200 or less. I can get two for the price of something nicer, but I get the benefit of being able to give a true recommendation of stuff based on my own experience with it.
Cost: ~$200xQTY

Option 2: 10mm Auto Glock
Glock now has the G40, 10mm auto with longslide and 15 in the mag. This gun makes me suspicious that Glock has been peering into my brain. I want two of them, but one will suffice for not-stupid purposes (I have no dominant eye, right eye aligns with right hand, left eye with left hand, which means that I can dual wield effectively and even aim two pistols down sights at once with a little coordination). Non-stupid purposes include cold weather carry after I pick up a new long-coat, and carry up north in bear country.
Cost: ~$600

Option 3: PLR-16 or other piston drive intermediate-rifle caliber pistol.
I've long had a fondness for giant rifle-pistols, which seem to have picked up the moniker of assault pistols by people that hate black guns. I've discussed my fondness for stupid guns before, but now I actually have a specific purpose for it and some advancements in technology make it only ridiculous, not stupid (mostly). I've got armor that mostly serves as exercise weight, and would like to pair it with something stronger than my Glock 26 if I need gun and don't have time to get the AR-15 out of the gun locker. The smaller size means it's more easily stashed with the armor, possibly even strapped to it in a holster, widespread reflex sights make it easier to aim, and SBR 5.56 now exists tailored to optimizing in short barrels to get the power to the bullet instead of blinding/deafening/setting-on-fire everyone in the vicinity because only half the juice went into the bullet. No pistol brace, probably a pull-sling style notstock.
Cost: ~$400?

Option 4: Bulletproof coat or vest
BulletProofEveryone has some nice looking coats with NIJ IIA or IIIA inserts. I want armor, even though I'm good at avoiding being stupid places doing stupid things with stupid people. If nothing else, I miss the bonus strength and fitness from carrying a heavy backpack everywhere. This was going to be a birthday present to myself already, but wasn't in the budget. Specifically, the Logan overcoat, which includes protection for the upper leg. Alternatively, they have a nice looking softshell, or I might just snag a low profile vest that fits under my loose work shirts.
Cost: $379 (IIA) or $429 (IIIA) for the Logan, $200-600 for vests

Option 5: Expand/improve rifle armor
I have a nice basic plate carrier with curved front plate and flat back from AR500, but it's just not up to snuff. The carrier doesn't hold tightly enough for me to move vigorously in it, which I would expect to do if I actually were to NEED the armor, and also need to do for workouts while using it as an unnecessarily badass weighted training vest. Furthermore, I want to add an abdominal armor panel, side panels, and make some custom DAP panels that hold the curved 6x8 panels along the outside of my upper arms. Picking up a helmet also seems useful, I may just snag a military surplus steel one because the good ones have similar protection against handgun rounds and lack of protection against rifles, and it's $25ish for a surplus steel helmet vs. $180 or so for a PASGT.
Cost: Varies with panel/carrier.

Option 6: Assorted accessories
This probably still includes a surplus helmet, because cheap, but also handles things like getting some much needed glass for the rifle (currently uses BUIS as main sights), a replacement stock to balance the weight out, some new P90 mags for the AR-57 upper I bought ages ago and immediately lost mags for in a series of moves between apartments, possibly stuff to build a second lower so the AR-15s and AR-57 can be their own separate guns (putting the regular carbine stock on the AR-57 because it's not going to sell for anything and no point leaving it un-attached). Alternatively, buy a second lower with the Magpul UBR attached. I could also do with a proper fighting knife, a grappling hook because reasons, trauma kit stuff, and the like.

Meatspace shindig

Freshly returned from my college gaming convention, it was nice to see the folks who really got me into tabletop gaming, as well as hang with my pal who actually introduced me to GURPS.

We tried running some Savage Worlds as things were wrapping up, and when it came to character creation and gear stats, it was gratifying to have everyone look at both and complain about not having enough points to do what they wanted, and general exclamations of "What the hell?!" on the gear listing, which makes my tilting at windmills of trying to rebuild the entire equipment section because the devs did it wrong.

My next step for that is to pause trying to MAKE gear creation rules, and just make gear with the stats those rules should be able to give it in terms of price/performance and still having those things tied to game mechanics in a way that mostly makes sense. Those windmills aren't going to stab themselves.

Friend of mine also took up coding recently, and occasionally asks for suggestions. I'm working out  GM's Assistant tool that can help with generating town populations (stores, storekeepers, and important NPCs, as well as general feel of the town/district), adventure seeds, and names for organizations and establishments, along with convenient storage for relevant information.

Stat-this Sunday: S333 Volleyfire

A new thing, since I'm working on building a bunch of equipment in Savage Worlds, plus GURPS stats for things McThag hasn't yet gotten to.

The Volleyfire is a strange beast. If a player brought it to me I'd accuse them of trying to game the system to maximize effectiveness, but the way it works honestly DOES make it pretty good for what it sets out to do in being a great novice defensive handgun.

What it is:
An 8 shot .22wmr revolver, that fires 2 shots per trigger pull. It has a two-finger double-action-only trigger, passable sights

Stats:        Damage   Acc   Range     Weight   RoF   Shots   ST   Bulk   RCL   Cost   LC   Notes
S333          2d pi-      1    ~100/1000 1.13/.07   6#     8(3i)     9      -1        2      $369  3       [1]

Note [1]: Always fires 2 shots as a High Cyclic Controlled Burst (simultaneous shots).

2d pi- is an approximation, based on not having stats for a .22wmr in High Tech, but being able to approximate based on its listed muzzle energy in relation to other cartridges. Final stats are likely to be within +/- 1 of 2d.

Acc 1 is due to the exceptionally short pocket sights, and based on other pocket pistols like the Walther PPK.

Now we get into the real fun of it.
First, 3 trigger pulls per second average gets 6 shots, qualifying for a +1 bonus to skill for shots fired. Because of HCCB rules, RCL is 1 similar to a shotgun with buckshot; multiple projectiles are leaving the muzzle(s) before any recoil can throw off the aim, therefore it is recoilless. Further, with practice at fast firing, 4 trigger pulls per second can be reached with no particular detriments (at 5 and 6, recoil increases substantially).

Normally double action revolvers inflict a -1 penalty to skill for heavy trigger pull, the two-finger trigger mitigates this.

On top of all this, I can all but guarantee that this gun will be sold with an integral or add-on laser sight (+1 to skill). Additionally, most .22wmr ammo is hollow point, which raises it from pi- to pi (removing the 0.5 wounding modifier)

So what you have is a gun with no (functional) recoil, probably +2 skill, +3 with an All Out Attack. That gives your typical barely-trained concealed carrier (default skill, defaulting to DX-4, with average DX 10, skill 9 on AoA) a decent chance of scoring a hit, and the slightly better trained one (1 point in Guns (Pistol), DX level of 10, 13 with AoA) will average 3 hits if he fires 6 rounds! With someone more capable, with a Professional level of Guns (Pistol) 12, Fast Firing, and a properly tricked out gun, a total skill of 15 all but guarantees a hit, and on average will score 5 hits! In the hands of a Gunslinger with a bit more skill and their permanent aim bonus, landing all 8 shots in a turn is quite possible.

http://www.stdgun.com/s333-volleyfire/

Tech Tuesday: I Want A Smartgun

I want a smartgun. No, not the pieces of shit everyone's always pushing for full of extra failure points of electronics and rings or fingerprint readers and whatever. I want a smartgun that counts the rounds in the magazine, that tells you if the magazine isn't seated properly, warns you of a jam in case you don't catch it under stress, a gun with an integrated light and/or laser from the start instead of some flavor of aftermarket finagling. The Taurus Curve had the integrated-from-the-start light/laser combo. Now, while it's currently an aftermarket change, there's a slide replacement that adds ammo tracking (with proper magazines) and similar.

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/01/24/shot-2019-radetec-smart-glock-slide/

The video also includes a shot counter, and a traditional smartgun of the "only shoots for some people" variety. Politicians trying to force the latter style of smartgun on everyone aside, I'm not wholely opposed to the concept of the safety smartgun for those who seek it, but I want it to be an OPTION for those who want it.

In the future, it'd be nice to have it able to sync to smartglasses, if it can do it securely, or failing that perhaps a smartwatch. Screens are getting smaller, lighter, and sturdier, but the ability to confirm your weapon's status without actually looking at the thing. That would also be able to warn you it's trying to come loose in the holster, if such sensors are equipped. An integrated camera for AR aiming integration, or the ability to aim without exposing anything but your gun and hand, could be useful if the rest of technology is up to the task, but nothing else springs readily to mind that isn't potentially a detriment. Much of scifi has the ability to change fire modes and such, but that introduces a point of failure if software hitches or gets hacked.

Tilting at windmills: Savage Worlds

Assorted musings and updates forthcoming now that I kind of have time/motivation/topics to blog again.

But this is not a post about those. This is a post about Savage Worlds, my continued fondness for it and gripes against it.

Main mechanics-wise, I have actually relatively few issues. Much of my efforts lie with the equipment being fairly clearly made either by those unfamiliar with actual equipment, or completely focused on game balance things. The latter isn't always bad, but there are ways to balance things in a vaguely realistic manner.

First, enemies gain an attack of opportunity on you when you leave melee engagement (as with most tabletop wargames, melee is counted as both participants actually moving and circling and such per a fight, even as their markers remain stationary on the board), and there's nothing you can do about this without an Edge for it (or two, if you want to be able to retreat from multiple opponents). This puts reach weapons at a large disadvantage, as the only method to gain back their reach advantage once enemies close the gap is to either force them back with a Push (contest of STR that leads to a 1" push per level of success), or move back and give free attacks. This all is pretty readily fixed by adding a 1" step, equivalent to the D&D 5 foot step, or GURPS 1 yard free step. Now you can either shift while remaining engaged, or disengage slightly. It'd consume all of your movement (normally 6" unless modified by something like a leg injury), but perhaps you can roll your run d6 to get another 1-6" away. Simple, easy, and makes combat more dynamic. One and done.

Second, Hunger ticks way too fast and will kill you in a day if you're unlucky. Suffering ill effects from hunger fairly quickly is legit, but it being lethal immediately is not. Default rules have your first hunger roll made a day after the missed meal, and every 12 hours thereafter. Additionally a -2 penalty for having less than half of the food needed. Average vigor is d6, roll of 4 is needed if you have more than half the daily food, 50% chance, with 8 rolls needed and 2 per day. This leads to an average survival of 5 days. This is maybe acceptable if you're constantly pushing and burning energy, but most survival situations indicate that three weeks is more average with no food, or a month with at least some. With a roll period of 24 hours while conserving energy, you get 9 days. Two days to a roll, 17, which is close to the 3 weeks assuming energy is being conserved and the body can go into energy saving mode.

Third, thirst is... I think thirst is actually ok. You get a day without water before your first Vigor/Con/HT roll, at -2 if you have less than half needed. After that you make the same roll every 6 hours. Once you get a full amount of water you recover fatigue levels until you're full, one per hour. A typical person can live for about 3 days, which is 4 failures total. An average person has a d6 vigor, and needs a 4 if they have at least some water, so 50% chance, meaning on average they'll last 8 rolls, 4 per day, to get the target of 3 days on average.

But, there's a problem with both of these: Fatigue levels are all cumulative. Take a fatigue level from bumps and bruises, one from missed sleep, and a bad roll for a missed meal and drink, and you drop dead in a day. The fatigue penalties being cumulative (-1 to all rolls per level of fatigue, up to the 3 before they knock you over incapacitated) sounds right, but it shouldn't be able to incapacitate in conjunction with other stuff.


The final issue I have is gear. Savage Worlds is fairly generic, yet has a surprising amount of depth, and this extends to the gear. What I don't care for is the $500 standard starting wealth, and somewhat arbitrary costs and weights for weapons and such (many weapons and vehicles likely to be issued by a government don't even include a cost, as if mercenaries would be somehow uncommon in the violent pulp worlds the system exists to portray!). GURPS breakdown of fairly standard costs with progressively more wealth as the world advances seems fairly nice, particularly given how much stays the same as time passes (DR2 modern race leathers are not dissimilar from a DR2 leather jack in price or overall weight). Adjusting starting money and reworking prices/weights is one thing, but my inclination is to make a simple weapon-crafting system to arrive at any desired weapon, fantastical or realistic. Gear, and methodology for making sure it's properly balanced damagewise, swiftly ceases to be as simple, and warrants another post.