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!

What's New in Pinebox Middle School?

When it comes to Savage Worlds campaigns where having a home base might be helpful for your band of heroes, both Rippers Resurrected and the Horror Companion offer rules for creating Lodges, the Super Powers Companion includes guidelines for designing Headquarters, and Pinebox Middle School has… Clubhouses!

Spread out over eight pages at the tail end of the Gear & Gadgets chapter in the Pinebox Middle School core book, our Clubhouses system is built around four specific steps that can have you erecting a safe space for your band of middle school students in minutes!

And while players can randomly construct clubhouses for their heroes via a few die rolls, the system has also been designed for those creative groups that would prefer to curate their clubhouse organically - choosing each individual feature from the various tables.

The four steps in the construction process include:

🎲 STEP 1: Roll or select an Advantage.

🎲 STEP 2: Roll or select a Complication.

🎲 STEP 3: Determine the clubhouse’s Form and how the crew acquired it.

🎲 STEP 4: Add any Upgrades the structure may already have when acquired and the gang can guide where it grows from there.

STEP 1: ADVANTAGE

This first table presents six (a roll of 1d6 for those going the random route) unique advantages that are derived from simply having a clubhouse that the heroes can access. These advantages are granted to members of the party and are actually LOST should a hero depart the group (hey, sometimes families move away) or if the clubhouse gets destroyed or is no longer available.

One example (option 3) is “Inspiring.” Very simply, there is something special about the clubhouse that inspires the team. It could be motivational posters or other important iconography contained within or it could simply be a structure that the heroes built with their own hands that makes it so special to them. Either way, those using this space are granted an increase (one die type) on their Spirit die! For those new to Savage Worlds, Spirit is a measure of “… self-confidence, backbone, and willpower. It’s used to resist social and supernatural attacks as well as fear.”

The remaining five possible advantages include Unusual Location, Cool, Mentor, Powerful, and Handy, each with unique properties to assist the heroes in their adventures.

STEP 2: COMPLICATION

Here are presented six persistent issues with the clubhouse that are usually fundamental (and unfortunate) parts of its construction, location, or other factors. While the heroes may come up with temporary solutions to deal with these complications, like a bad penny, they eventually return or evolve into different problems as befits the story.

Returning to lucky number 3 on this table, we find “Foreboding.” Quite simply, the clubhouse is somehow cursed or even haunted! Visitors are uneasy, parents disapprove of its use, and something about it causes unexplained trouble for those using it. All club members are affected by the Bad Luck Hindrance which reduces the number of Bennies by one at the start of each game session. Bennies are an in-game currency in Savage Worlds that can be traded in to accomplish a variety of things including rerolling poor dice rolls or even influencing the story!

The five other possible Complications include Contested, Crumbling, Well-Known, Intruders, and Remote.

STEP 3: FORM

Regardless of whether your players are choosing to roll to randomly generate their clubhouse or they’re selecting each individual aspect themselves, the Form section requires a bit of creative input as this is where the party decides what “form” the clubhouse actually takes (tree house, basement of one of the kids’ homes, or even a disused storage room within the halls of Pinebox Middle School) as well as how the heroes actually acquired it whether they built it from scratch, stumbled upon it out in the Big Thicket, or they negotiated a deal with the owner to use it.

STEP 4: UPGRADES

This section offers several clubhouse improvements available to the heroes each time the party takes a normal Advance. In Savage Worlds, Advances are experience rewards that elevate your characters from Novice (starting) level all the way up to Legendary! In Pinebox Middle School, Novice characters begin in 6th grade and can advance through 8th grade, at which point they graduate and move on to Pinebox High!

There are several upgrades for the heroes to choose from ranging from Cell Phone Boosters/Jammers to some form of Guard (often the family doggo) to Advanced Scientific Equipment to a Specialist Library. Several of these Upgrades offer in-game benefits to the heroes. For example, a Specialist Library grants a free reroll on a chosen skill related to the type of library present in the clubhouse! Those investigating a local cult that operated in the area back in the 19th century would definitely benefit from having a selection of “Occult” volumes tucked away in their clubhouse!

The flipside of each upgrade (you didn’t really think that things benefiting the heroes wouldn’t have drawbacks, did you?) is that each time you improve your clubhouse, you must bust out a d20 and roll on the Encounters table! The result of this roll could be anything from Grown-Up Interference (plans are in-place to construct a new road directly through the surrounding woods and the clubhouse itself) to an Unnatural Visitor (a vengeful ghost, curious werecoyote, or troublesome demon has discovered your clubhouse) to Collapse which can actually result in the loss of an upgrade!

Using this system, your band of pre-pubescent protectors can hide away, make plans, do some essential research, or just meet up for weekly game nights!

In our next session, we’ll dig through a few of the new Setting Rules including our revised rules for character Advancement (aka “Growing Up”), the new “McCallister Maxim,” and Schoolyard Connections!

Class dismissed! 🔔

Pinebox NURSERY School?

Head back to Pinebox, Texas to get to the root of ALL your greatest fears! Prepare yourself for Pinebox Nursery School!

Take on the roles of brave preschoolers between the ages of two and five years old as they confront an onslaught of living nightmares like Bingo the Happy-Slappy Clown 🤡, the Kittens of Kythanil 😼, Monkey See-All 🙈, and the Petrifying Pixelon 👾! 

Pinebox Nursery School is NOT coming soon (or ever) from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. 

APRIL FOOLS!!! 🤣