Prepping for KublaCon 2024

In this post-pandemic era of virtual tabletops, a large number of gamers around the globe get their regular RPG fix via apps like Roll20, Foundry VTT, and Fantasy Grounds. For many others, organized conventions offer the rare opportunity to play their favorite games face-to-face.

I’m one of those lucky gamers who actually has a semi-regular, in-person game group, however whenever the opportunity arises for me to attend a convention, I leap at it because cons offer a truly unique gaming experience.

As I write this (in early May), KublaCon, my favorite west coast convention, is just a couple weeks away. This year, I have two games on the schedule including a published adventure (John Goff’s Final Rest Stop (the first release in the new Savage Saturday Cinema line) and an original adventure I wrote for Pinebox Middle School that I will be running as part of our SavageSaturday Night event.

Whenever I run games at conventions, I always bring plenty of “toys” to the table. Themed components, custom character sheets, maps, minis/tokens, etc. Whether people are paying to participate in individual sessions via a ticket system or the events are included in their overall registration fee, they are investing their hard-earned money in the hope of being entertained for a few hours, and I always feel compelled to deliver that experience.

As a designer who frequently runs sessions of his own games, I’m also there to function as a salesperson and company representative, so it behooves me to take an extra step or two in my presentations.

For this year’s Savage Saturday Night (a multi-table event celebrating all things Savage Worlds), I am running an original adventure for my latest game, Pinebox Middle School titled "The Locked Door." Thus far, I have playtested this game with two groups (my regular local game group and a group at DunDraCon back in February). The promotional blurb posted to Tabletop Events reads:

“A locked door alone can be mysterious. It is even more mysterious when one appears in the home of one of the students of Pinebox Middle School! What dark secrets lie beyond this padlocked portal and are the heroes brave enough to find out?”

This time around I decided to go all out, working with my extremely talented friend, David Okum (Okumarts Games) to create a set of custom, full-color cardstock miniatures featuring all the enemies the heroes will encounter. Along with these (and they are absolutely amazing), I have the official, die-cut character pawns for all the heroes, full-color maps and map tiles (some with 3D elements), several handouts, those Gear Cards I discussed here a couple weeks ago, and customized table tent character sheets (with art from the core game) for all my players.

For a few other necessary accessories, I’ll be using those EERIE playing cards I blogged about back in April for my Action Deck/s, special branded Bennies provided by the convention, a jumbo-size set of dice (I find these really help for con games), and all the usual items needed to best run adventures for Savage Worlds.

Lastly, I made some tabletop signs (5” x 7”) promoting the games at each of our six tables and I’ll have a box of “I Survived Savage Saturday Night at KublaCon 2024” buttons for all participants!

Rest assured, I will be posting an after-action convention report (or three) in a few weeks, so watch this space for photos and much more!

"Kuuuuuubla!!!"

O-Level Funnels: Tips for Players

Over the years, I have both played through and run 0-level funnel adventures for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, and I still adore the experience!

If you’re not familiar with Dungeon Crawl Classics (henceforth known as DCC), it is:

“…a fast-paced, open-feeling rules set allowing for epic game experiences without unnecessary tethers. It uses modern game-play while paying homage to the origins of role-playing and the fun that it inspired.”

The game (and it’s seemingly endless range of adventures, settings, and supplements) is published by Goodman Games and has been banging around the face-to-face and virtual game tables since 2012.

My first time playing in a 0-level funnel was at a game convention and the mostly experienced group of players showed me that succeeding in such an adventure requires approaching things from a slightly different perspective.

Most of the time, 1^st level (or Novice in the case of Savage Worlds) characters begin their careers with a decent array of skills, magic spells, weapons, and gear. At least enough to allow them to fare quite well in their first few adventures.

In the case of 0-level funnels for DCC, your characters (and each player typically runs a set of three or four at a time) are bakers, barbers, ditch diggers, gamblers, and of course gong farmers (look that one up if you’re not familiar with the term). You’re also heading out with 1d4 hit points and a couple basic items that include a simple weapon (anything from a pair of scissors to a longsword).

At this stage, your characters really are not ready for what they are about to face in their first adventure (aka, their first 0-level funnel). DCC in general can be pretty brutal and when you’re dealing with a ragtag band of rope makers and street urchins, the lethality of the scenario is increased dramatically.

To succeed, I recommend a few adjustments to your play style:

Put yourself in the boots of the three or four 0-level characters spread out before you. If you were walking into a subterranean network of dark caves known to be infested with bloodthirsty creatures, would you do it with little more than a dagger and a ukulele? Of course not. Additionally, ask yourself what should those characters do as inexperienced civilians in order to (hopefully) survive the what’s to come?

Approach everything with caution. Listen at doors, peek around corners, and try to avoid making noise that might alert anyone to your presence.

Take time to search each area for secret doors, hidden caches, and other items and treasures. This also means, as unpleasant as it might sound, looting the corpses of any dispatched enemies and even collecting items from your fallen comrades.

In my first 0-level playthrough, my group examined every nook and cranny of the first level we entered, the results of which had us wearing armor, possessing at least one helpful magic item, and wielding far superior weapons than those we initially set off with. Without those items, we would have been walking into a meat grinder. It was also because we listened at a door and heard some unpleasantness beyond it that we were motivated to take a little extra time searching for anything that might help us deal with whatever lied beyond that barricaded portal.

In the end, it’s not really the fault of the game or the scenario if your party experiences a TPK (total party kill). Often, the PCs have simply been ill-equipped to deal with their opponents, or the players haven’t considered any tactics beyond just rushing into battle.

A 0-level character with 1 hit point expires with a successful attack. Rolling damage isn’t even required in those instances.

Those who survive the funnel advance to level 1 where they can then choose a class and really begin their journey into the wide (and altogether gonzo) world of DCC.

Zero-level funnels can be a lot of fun and a great way to develop your character/s. Don’t let things like a lack of simple tactics or missed loot prevent your characters from escaping back into the daylight and beginning their careers as full-fledged dungeoneers!

Custom Gear Cards for Pinebox Middle School

Over the years, Pinnacle Entertainment Group has released a few print and PDF sets of handy gear cards for use with Savage Worlds, Savage Rifts®, and Deadlands: the Weird West.

For an upcoming and original Pinebox Middle School scenario that I’ll be running at KublaCon 2024, I decided to create some fun gear cards of my own to accompany the pregenerated characters that the players will be using at the table.

As Pinebox Middle School focuses on heroes between the ages of 11 and 14, I decided to base the design on a long-running and extremely popular trading card game.

I’m all about “toys” at my game tables (minis, maps, handouts, appropriate Bennies, unique Action Decks, etc.) and these cards will not only help both new and experienced players, they should also really help boost the theming of the game overall.

Here are just a few of my custom gear cards for use with Pinebox Middle School.

“Gotta catch ‘em all!”

What's New in Pinebox Middle School?

After a week away, I have returned, and as promised, this time I’m pulling aside the curtain to take a brief look at “magic” in the world of Pinebox Middle School.

Tucked in amongst our other new Setting Rules for Growing Up, Schoolyard Connections, and the new “McCallister Maxim” (see my entry about these from April 13th), there is a brief section titled “Magic is Scary.”

Arcane Backgrounds and mystical powers have been an integral part of Savage Worlds since its humble beginnings.

Despite the presence of the supernatural, Pinebox Middle School tends to hew a bit closer to the real world in many ways, especially since the heroes are children. If we wanted the kids of Pinebox to be wantonly using sorcery against opposing forces, we would have sorted them into houses and dropped them into a secret boarding school in the Highlands of Scotland!

Here in East Texas, magic, though “real,” is handled a bit differently.

“Kids in Pinebox must occasionally perform eldritch rituals to protect their friends and family or repel some terrible beast. Rituals open portals to other places of dark and dangerous energy. Within some of these portals lurk dark forces eager to prey on the innocence of youth.”

First of all, the heroes must acquire the ritual before they can cast it. It could be found in the pages of some old, dusty tome recovered from an abandoned house at the edge of town, passed down from an aging family member familiar with the Old Ways, or even downloaded from the dark web!

While Power Points are used to activate spells in most Savage Worlds settings, here they dictate things like the number and type of components (common or exotic) that are required to perform the ritual. These can range from “a bird’s feather” (common) to “hair from a 50+ year old doll” (exotic). Acquiring these items might well be a large part of an adventure!

As an example, use of the new “consecrate ground” power normally requires 5 Power Points. The Component & Penalties Table shows that 3 common components are needed along with 1 exotic component. Additionally, there is a -2 casting modifier as well. If the heroes want to extend this power’s duration from one hour until “the next sunset,” that requires 5 additional points, thus requiring 4 common components and 2 exotic components. The casting modifier also bumps to -3!

Once the components are in-hand, the mage first devotes some time to preparing to cast the spell (10-minutes per Rank), then the spell is activated by a modified Occult skill roll and conducted as a single-person Difficult Dramatic Task - six Task Tokens collected over four rounds (see Dramatic Tasks in Savage Worlds).

Success means the spell goes off without a hitch, while failure means it doesn’t succeed, all components are consumed, and a roll is made on the oh, so fun Ritual Complications Table. A Critical Failure results in additional unpleasant effects like arcane explosions or even possession!

Note that in Pinebox Middle School, rituals that cause real harm to others or do truly diabolical things like raise the dead are considered “Black Magic,” and its use can corrupt young, impressionable souls. Use of black magic results in a “black mark” indicating that that individual has tampered with evil forces. 

Woe be the student who acquires a second black mark!

Hey, dabbling with the forces of darkness is risky business!

Class dismissed! 🔔

Discovering Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds and me… We go a LONG way back!

Like many of you around my age, my first introduction to tabletop roleplaying games was via an early edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which soon led to my brother and I investing our hard-earned allowances and monetary gifts in books and supplements for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

For many years (all through high school), I collected, ran, and played several RPGs with friends until various real life distractions (college, work, etc.) got in the way.

In the mid-1990s, I stumbled into the world of board games with my focus mainly on European imports like Settlers of Catan, El Grande, and Tigris & Euphrates. My collection of board games surged, I attended a number of board gaming events around the country, and I co-created SoCal Games Day (which is actually holding its 86th gathering as I write this)!

After a few years of that, I found myself with the desire to revisit roleplaying games again and I started to look back at older releases as well as some of the new stuff coming to market.

Around that time, I discovered the first, flaming orange edition of Deadlands, and loved what I saw, even running it a few times and collecting countless sourcebooks, miniatures, and other materials.

At some point in the early 2000s, while visiting my local (now-defunct) game shop, the Last Grenadier here in Burbank, California, I spotted a new hardcover roleplaying game book on the shelf that had been penned by the same designer who had given us Deadlands a few years before. I scooped it up without hesitation and walked out not realizing that because of that one volume, certain aspects of my life were about to change!

"Shane Lacy Hensley's Savage Worlds" was a generic system "... for Both Miniatures and Roleplaying Games!" The interior was mostly in black and white. And there didn’t seem to be a lot of support material available, but there was something about it that spoke to me.

I vividly recall exiting the shop, sitting down on a nearby bench, and spending a good hour in public flipping through the book.

I was instantly hooked and I soon found myself seeking out everything that had thus far been released including settings like 50 Fathoms, Evernight, and Necessary Evil.

From that point on, there was no going back for me and I was officially and completely a Savage Worlds convert, buying new settings, new editions of the core rulebooks, custom Action Decks, dice sets, and whatever else I could get my mitts on.

Eventually I wormed my way into editing a few licensed products which in turn led to my contributing to a couple books for Pinnacle Entertainment Group (the publishers of Savage Worlds), and then my first full writing gig!

But THAT’S a story for another time!

What's New in Pinebox Middle School?

First of all, this week's post is a tad shorter than last weeks. (I can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from y'all.) Sorry about that, I just REALLY love our new system for creating clubhouses in Pinebox Middle School!

This week, I'm going to share a few details about some of our new Setting Rules including Advancement (aka “Growing Up”), the new “McCallister Maxim,” and Schoolyard Connections!

ADVANCEMENT

In normal Savage Worlds rules, most newly created characters begin with a Rank of Novice. As they move through adventures, solve problems, and defeat enemies, they earn awards knows as Advances. Once a hero acquires a certain number of these Advances, they rise through the Ranks going from Novice all the way up to Legendary. Each Advance also grants various character upgrades (new Edges, new skills, increasing Trait scores, etc.) to allow the heroes to grow and become champions!

Since Pinebox Middle School focuses on a relatively short period of time in each character’s life, we opted to revise the above system a bit, basing it around various milestones that middle school students are likely to experience between the start of 6th Grade and the end of 8th.

Looking at the 6th Grade breakdown, we start with the creation of Novice characters. At “End of 1st Semester,” each hero is granted a skill point which can either be a d4 in a brand new skill or a die type increase in an existing skill, as long as it does not exceed the die type of the linked attribute. In other words, if you have Athletics at d6 and the linked attribute, Agility is a d6, you can’t, at this point in your character’s career, increase Athletics to a d8.

The next Milestone is “End of 6th Grade” where the character can take a normal Advance per the Savage Worlds rules PLUS your clubhouse gets an upgrade! (Have I told you how much I LOVE our clubhouse system?)

Finally, at “End of Summer,” each hero is granted an additional skill point as per the above rules regarding the end of the semester. At that age, summertime often means picking up new skills, whether through play or helping an adult repair a car or build a barn!

This system continues in a similar fashion through 8th Grade where the overall experience concludes at "Graduation" and each kid eventually celebrates their three year career as a “Middle School Survivor!”

THE MCCALLISTER MAXIM

While threats to the heroes of Pinebox Middle School are still extremely dangerous (especially the unliving ones or the ones that have crawled up out of the Abyss), to ensure the heroes don’t inadvertently become murderers when squaring off against living, breathing humans (yes, even the bad ones), we offer “the McCallister Maxim!”

Named after the plucky main character of the Home AloneÒ movies, this Setting Rule simply states that when dealing damage against PEOPLE (fellow students, teachers, burger flippers, and even misguided villains), they ALL suffer “nonlethal” damage by default. Sure, they may wind up in Golan County Regional Hospital with a broken bone or three, but they won’t suffer fatal injuries from their encounters with the heroes.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to zombies, evil robots, or other supernatural baddies, and each individual game group is welcome to adjust this Setting Rule as they see fit.

SCHOOLYARD CONNECTIONS

Lastly, Schoolyard Connections is our way of quickly building relationships and history between the heroes and their fellow students should they need to reach out for help or information during their adventures. This system is mainly used for situations where there isn’t currently an established relationship between the characters.

The encounter begins with a simple roll on the Reaction Table, a roll that’s modified by various Edges and/or Hindrances as well as the difference in grade level between the two students (plus or minus). Results from this table range from “Hostile” to “Neutral” to “Helpful.”

If the result is negative, the hero then rolls on the Negative Reaction Table with results there including things like “the kid believes you lied about them to someone,” and “your personalities just clash.”

Positive results look to the Positive Reaction Table where details of the relationship include “you have been friendly since elementary school,” and “the kid either admires your or has a crush on you,”

Finally, we offer one additional table, the Recent Commonality Table that can be consulted to see where the two characters might have run into each other. Everything from “seen each other in the hallway” to “sometimes eat at the same lunch table."

With these and a few other new Setting Rules, your Pinebox Middle School campaign takes on a slightly different and more age-appropriate tone that sets it apart from most other Savage Worlds settings.

In our next session, we’ll delve into the mysterious world of “magic” in Pinebox Middle School! Don’t be afraid!

Class dismissed! 🔔

Which Action Decks Do YOU Use?

As we did not create a custom Action Deck for use with Pinebox Middle School, I had to look elsewhere for something suitable. For those new to Savage Worlds, an Action Deck is a standard 54-card deck of playing cards used to determine Initiative order during rounds. A lot of options presented themselves when I was originally shopping around, but the decks I wound up going for were the EERIE (or "EERI3") decks from Bicycle!

Originally produced for a moderately successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2015 through Texas-based Gambler's Warehouse, these 56-card decks feature a gallery of classic monsters rendered in a bold, cartoonish style making them ideal for Pinebox Middle School!

Available in both RED and PURPLE (I recommend getting both, of course), these decks, while a bit pricey, may still be available directly from Gambler's Warehouse (their site is showing both as being in stock as of this writing).

Themed Action Decks are a great, tactile addition to your face-to-face Savage Worlds campaigns. Try to think outside the box when you're gearing up for your next game!