dm talk

Getting More from Interludes in Savage Worlds

Interludes are a wonderful mechanic in Savage Worlds that allow players to get to know their own characters, reveal parts of their backstories, and have a hand in building lore in the setting.  They are also an excellent way to abstract out time during journeys in a meaningful way. While most of the tables that I have been at have used Interludes, my experience has been that the role-playing richness that is offered by Interludes is not often tapped into. 

It is commonly believed that the DM is the (main) storyteller at the table, but this is the furthest thing from reality. The DM only really tells the story of the environment, but it is the players who tell the story of the heroes — and the heroes are central to the story. This is why I always refer to playing TTRPGs as a game of collaborative storytelling. Interludes are a mechanic of storytelling that is completely driven by the players, with the DM playing a passive role if any at all. 

My experience with player Interludes is that most of the time the players approach it with a passive storytelling voice. The key to making the most of Interludes as a player is to step into an active storytelling voice and take on aspects of the role of DM. In this article, I’m going to explore two uses of Interludes: as a means of developing your character and as a way to make travel meaningful. Additionally I will point out how cinema uses moments of character development and storytelling, as examples of what Interludes might be like and the material they might cover.

When Interludes happen, the player draws a card from the Action Deck. The theme is based on the suit of the card. Each suit has three general options, Downtime, Backstory, and Trek. Downtime and Backstory are both ways for you to present backstory, hindrances, character arc and mechanical elements of your character. These are covered in the first section, while Treks are covered in the following section.

Interludes for Backstory Character Development

Let’s start by looking at an example. So player A draws a 4 of Clubs for an Interlude and picks Backstory (a tale of misfortune from your hero’s past, perhaps revealing something of his Hindrances or a dark secret). Most of my experiences witnessing Interludes  have gone something like this:

Player A: My character witnessed a murder when she was growing upon the streets. She didn’t know the person, but it happened in front of her while at the market. The murderer just grabbed the victim’s purse and walked away. No one said anything. It was then that she really realized that the world was harsh and there was no justice. She became determined to bring justice to those the law doesn’t care about. That is how she got her Heroic hindrance.

Notice how Player A is telling a story about their character? Talking about your character can only be done with a passive voice that can be hard for others to connect with in a way beyond “that is a cool story about your character.”  Interludes like this also tend to be very brief, only taking one to two minutes.

As a DM, I would totally celebrate this and give the player a benny for doing an Interlude. There is nothing wrong with an Interlude like this. This article is all about taking the game play at our table to the next level and improving our skills as storytellers. 

If you are looking to take both your experience and gameplay to the next level, step in a little to the role of the DM to tell your Interlude. This is your scene, you get to set the stage and paint the details. Tell the Interlude from your character’s perspective and voice instead of talking about them. This doesn’t mean that you need to do a bunch of voice acting, that is not something everyone can do or is comfortable doing. It means creating the scene and then speaking from the place of your character. This is coming at the Interlude from a much more active role.

You can even paint a wider picture to specifically allow, or create the space for, the other players to interact with your character in their Interlude. They will likely be asking questions that bring more depth and verisimilitude to your story. As a DM, I give my players permission and full encouragement to do some world building in this as they weave their tales.

So let’s take the example above and add these principles. To get an idea of what is possible.

Player A (Oarsen): At night, since we have arrived in Fairhaven, we would have gotten a room at the Gold Dragon Inn. As I come into the common room, if I was not so cross, I would have found the juggling act by the Phiarlan entertainer with balls turning into flaming gold dragons as they arc through the air, very impressive. (A little world building). Seeing Kahlia at the table I would join her, slamming my fist on the table and uncustomarily yelling at the changeling barkeep for an ale. When the barkeep comes over, I growl at him, causing him to change his face from mine as he hurries away. (A little world building here, setting the scene. Not the DM painting it.)

Player B (Kahlia): Why are you so cross?

Player A (Oarsen): I am pissed that Arrun got away.

Player B (Kahlia): We stopped him from kidnapping that orphan we found on the street. I’d say that was a victory.

Player A (Oarsen): That orphan has a name. Arrun got away which just means he will do it again. There is no justice for the street rats. No one to protect them. They are vulnerable and without means to both get off the streets and find real protection. It’s not right.

Player B (Kahlia): I don’t understand. We stopped five of his goons, were able to call over the city watch to take them away. We earned our coin, what more is there to do. What is really bothering you?

Player A (Oarsen): The city watch will likely be bought off and release his goons. We need to stand up for those kids. I remember growing up on the streets down in Callestan. There was this street vendor who sold daily produce, outside the Imp and the Boar. Everyday I would watch him feed street urchins with food from his cart, he would even make them laugh by making copper crowns vanish only to pull them from the oddest places. One day the Boromar clan goons take him around a corner and beat him senseless. I never saw him again. There was never any city watch in the area to do anything about it, Khber’s arm pit, no one on the streets did anything to stop it. They just walked on by, even leaving the body where it lay. Bleeding out.  I don’t think he ever recovered. Some of those kids on the streets starved after that. If we don’t put an end to people like that, not just stop them, but end them, then no one will help those poor kids. That is the way things work in this world, and I refuse to stand by and watch it happen. So yea foiling his plans today isn’t enough, Arrun’s ability to prey on the weak needs to be broken. If we don’t do it, no one will. I won’t stand by and watch that.

Do you feel the difference between the two kinds of Interludes? Can you see a more active and engaged way that this scene is presented? This kind of Interlude should be brief, but not as brief as an Interlude done in a passive voice. Aim for something in the range of three to six minutes, maybe up to ten with lots of engagement from other characters.

An example of this from Savage Tales of Eberron is the flashback story between Rus and Daina in Episode 10 of Mourners of Lhazaar. This Interlude starts with Elly (playing Daina) sharing a story of an experience she had as a soldier years before the events of the campaign. She details historical units, unit members, battles from the Last War, and a bunch of other good lore stuff. Kevin (playing Rus) comes into it later talking about how he was one of the hippogriff riders that helped save House Deneith troops that Daina was a part of, allowing both him and Elly to reveal parts of their backstory in a meaningful way, participate in worldbuilding, and make a stronger connection between their characters.

One of the important things I want to call out is how to paint to create the scene. In backstory Interludes, what is important is the story trying to be told, not the scene generally. Focus on the story within the scene you are creating. If you are talking around a campfire, jump into that scene like you have been there for a bit, you don’t need to set up how you and your party got topped for the night, made camp and cooked (unless that is the place the story is going to be told). Focus on the moment the story is going to be happening, not every detail of the scene that is leading up to that moment. In the example given above there are only a few sentences spoken to how the party got to the scene it did. Do not worry about taking player agency here. You are not saying what another player says or does, you are only talking about a moment you are together. Just name that moment where you find each other.

Interludes for Travel

Travel Interludes are an excellent way to handwave travel in TTRPG’s while simultaneously giving that travel a meaningful place in the overall narrative of the story. When doing an Interlude for Travel you take on the active role here primarily by fully stepping into the role of DM. You get to narrate a section or encounter that your party has in their journey. You don’t need to come up with an encounter that will need a bunch of die rolls, rather an encounter that your party had along the way. While you can lay these Interlude scenes out in an interactive way with the whole party or a group of NPCs, this kind of Interlude works well in a narrative fashion as long as you own your temporary role as DM. Use this as an opportunity to give life to the journey, your party, and the world that you are playing in.

In The Voyage Home from Seekers of the Ashen Crown, Michael shared an Interlude about traveling by boat across the Hilt on their way to Sharn. He narrated a moment about spotting a school of rainbow fish, which the ship’s captain told him had a powerful psychedelic effect when eaten.  This is a really cool piece of world building about some sea life giving further life to the setting. This was an Interlude about something the party met along the way (Hearts— Trek)..

In another Interlude I remember, the player described how the party found a group of scavengers that they were passing on the road and shared some small time with. They had ventured into the Mournland, where the scavengers had horrible luck, losing half their party to a deadly living spell. As they traveled with the party, they offered up a map they had which led to some salvage in the remains of Metrol. They wanted nothing more to do with the Mournland, and bartered with the party to trade the map. This was an Interlude that was about how the group found something (Diamonds— Trek).

As a DM, this kind of Interlude is a gold mine. You have an adventure hook that was created by one of the players, so it is clearly an adventure hook that they are interested in. In my experience these are some of the best adventure hooks, as there is very little that you need to do to get the players interested in it.

Let us say for this Trek Interlude you draw a Clubs and need to detail out a hardship that the party has to overcome. Describe  how the party got caught in a blizzard on the road, wth the whole party on the verge of suffering frostbite before finding a cave to shelter in…which is occupied by a hibernating bear.  They accidentally disturb the bear, but are able to slay it with some difficulty. The party then uses the bear’s pelt to stave off the cold while they wait for the blizzard to pass. This is an excellent story that gives life to the journey in a way that doesn’t involve a bunch of meaningless rolls. It gives life to the struggles the party shares, and makes both the journey and the world as a whole seem much larger.

TV and Movie Scenes as Interludes

Another way to look at Interludes is through a cinematic eye. There are scenes in the movies and TV series that we watch that offer moments of character depth and development. They show us the character’s inner motives, the hidden reasons for their faults and what drives them to take the actions that they do.

Game of Thrones has some great examples of this such as the scene from Season 1 in which King Robert and Queen Cersei sit down over a glass of wine and have an honest conversation about the course their relationship took. This scene is key for presenting some humanity to Cersei. Imagine creating this scene with Cersi as your character and sitting down with the player playing Robert, actually playing it out as an Interlude instead of just talking about it. This scene could be seen as a scene of Robert telling the backstory of his greatest love (Hearts— Backstory)

Imagine playing out the scene of Jamie in the bath with Brienne from Season 3, finally sharing why he killed the Mad King. I see this as Jamie sharing the origin of how he acquired the Shamed (Major) hindrance (Clubs— Backstory). Again, paint the scene, place yourself in it, and have your character share the story.

These kinds of scenes for character development also happen in a private or personal way, with just the character on scene. Two scenes from The Expanse come to mind. Season 3 has a fantastic scene in which Alex contacts his family back on Mars. In a one-way conversation with his terminal, he opens up and finally reveals the truth of what has kept him away from them. If this is your character, paint the scene of being alone on the main deck of the ship and decide to send off a message to your family, narrating through the struggles you have in even hitting the record button. This could be an Interlude that is talking about what Alex wants or what his greatest love is (Diamonds— Backstory or Hearts— Backstory) In Season 2 Alex is scarred from the battle at Thoth Station, where he blames himself for not having prevented twenty-five members of a boarding pod from dying. Alex runs the simulation over and over again, determined to learn from his mistakes and never again be responsible for the end of someone else’s life. This is a skill practicing Interlude (Hearts— Downtime) that you can play out as an Interlude touching on how the death of others is now driving you to improve yourself.

One Final Note

One final note on Interludes: As Dungeon Master, I will reserve the right to jump in and tweak world lore if necessary. At times I may start voicing NPC’s that the player puts in to give some nice RP back and forth for the player to have fun with. Sometimes I add some flavor to the Interlude that will give clues or flavor for the campaign as a whole. Though I reserve the right to do this, I do it with caution and discernment. I don’t want to put a wet blanket on the player’s creative chops. I want to either just make slight tweaks or,most importantly, add to what the player is bringing to the table. Interludes are for players to shine in the driver’s seat of what happens, encourage them to shine.

With all this in mind, get active in your Interludes. Dive into the Interludes and use them as a tool to develop your character in a way that doesn’t happen with the encounters the DM presents. Develop the world you are playing in as an active storyteller with the DM. Make your journeys through the wilds more interesting. All this and more is in your hands with Interludes. 

April 8, 2022 by Table Talk 0

Dragonmarks in Savage Eberron

So let’s talk about the Eberron Campaign Setting, and how I do my Dragonmarks in my Savage Eberron. I know this is something of great interest to anyone who is moving to using Savage Worlds in their Eberron campaign, or playing in a Savage Eberron game.

First let’s talk about a little history and context. My first implementation of Dragonmarks was in a method that was very similar to what Kristian Serrano has in his Eberron for Savage Worlds document. Where the Dragonmarks were arcane backgrounds. These provided access to a few specific powers and a skill bonus to a skill relevant to the dragonmark.

While this worked, I still was not quite happy with the implementation. During my Seekers of the Ashen Crown campaign, both Ivello and Kayde had dragonmarks. The main thing that I really had a problem with was that it was possible for the characters to fail to activate their dragonmarks. I remember a couple instances where Kayde failed to activate his mark, and definitely a few cases where both players needed to spend a few bennies to activate their mark. Now, considering all the lore about dragonmarks it is pretty clear that the powers of the mark are an innate ability to cast the magic that is part of the mark. So this was disappointing. Additionally, the powers list available for this very short and couldn’t be expanded. There was the need to advance a completely separate skill for casting. Ultimately, these only seem an attractive edge to take if you knew the lore of Eberron.

Then Pathfinder for Savage Worlds (SPF) came out. Personally I have very little issues with conversion/implementation of SPF. Eberron came out originally in the 3 and 3.5 D&D days which was soon succeeded by Pathfinder. So in so many ways I see the original Eberron Campaign Setting as built in mostly what would be the Pathfinder system. So having a Savage Worlds conversion of it, to me is the obvious choice for the game base of how I play my Savage Eberron. I saw in the Mystics Powers edges for the core “magical” abilities of Paladins, Monks, and Rangers as a means to implement the powers abilities of various dragonmark

Lore and Edition Changes

When the Eberron Campaign Setting first came out, there were different “levels” of dragonmarks, with the Least, Lesser, Greater, and Siberys marks. While 4E had paths of growth for dragonmarks, it seemed to do away with this concept. In Keith Baker’s independent release of Wayfinders Guide to Eberron, he brought back these ideas. But this was again left out in Rising from the Last War. I personally loved the scaling aspect of the dragonmarks and wanted to bring it back into my implementation of dragonmarks.

Another lore change that Keith Baker has been very vocal about is that the spell abilities of the dragonmarks are actually one of the least interesting aspects of the marks themselves. It’s been brought up in his blog and the Manifest Zone podcast, as well as how dragonmarks evolved in Rising from the Last War. The dragonmarks give you access to focus items as well as some skill that just makes you better at certain things. So these two points do come out in how I implement my dragonmarks.

One side note that I added to my Eberron, is that full blooded orcs can manifest the Mark of Finding. I was always disappointed in how they were excluded.

Basic Implementation of Dragonmarks

I created two core dragonmark edges for each mark. A dragonmarked skills edge and a dragonmark powers edge. Additionally there are some core powers edges that could be taken after the dragonmark powers edge to improve the use of those powers. It is in this that I created the different kinds of dragonmarks.

Least Mark

  • Dragonmark Powers Edge or
  • Dragonmark Skills Edge

Lesser Mark

  • Dragonmark Powers Edge and additional Powers Edge (like Power Points or Concentration)
  • Dragonmark Powers Edge and Dragonmark Skills Edge

Greater Mark

  • Dragonmark Skills Edge and Dragonmark Powers Edge and additional Powers Edge (like Power Points or Concentration)

While I would love to have a Siberys dragonmark edge, I have not figured out how to implement that yet. One thought that I had was to make the accessing of Epic Power Modifiers (see Pathfinder for Savage Worlds) as a means to get a Siberys mark. However not all the marks has powers that have access to Epic Power Modifiers. So if any of you have ideas let me know or I figure out something in the future, I will share it.

Dragonmarked Skills Edges

I will start off with the Dragonmarked Skills Edges since these all follow the same format and are pretty simple to get out of the way. For balance in Savage Worlds, edges that give a bonus to skill rolls generally either allow a free reroll to one skill, or give up to a +2 bonus to a skill. I didn’t want to go with a straight free reroll, as that would create some edges that would be almost exact duplicates of existing edges.

What I decided to do was to give a list of possible skills that are relevant to the mark/house. The player can choose two of the skills and get a+1 bonus to those skills. Then as an added cool flavor for the dragonmarks the heir can also get one free reroll to either of those skills once per session. Adds a nice flavor without seriously changing the game balance of the edge.

The following are the skill choices available to each mark. Please note: I made some tweaks to the core skills. Academics has been renamed to Lore, Occult has been renamed to Arcana, Repair encompasses healing warforged, Piloting is specifically used in manning elemental powered vessels. I have added the skills Animal Handling (which I consider very different from Riding) and Deception (I did not like making Persuasion an uber skill encompassing both deception and regular persuasion).

Mark of Detection
Requirements: Novice, half-elf
Skills: Common Knowledge, Fighting, Survival, or Thievery

Mark of Finding
Requirements: Novice, half-orc, Human, or Orc
Skills: Athletics, Notice, Survival, or Thievery

Mark of Handling
Requirements: Novice, human
Skills: Animal Handling, Athletics, Riding, or Survival

Mark of Healing
Requirements: Novice, halfling
Skills: Common Knowledge, Healing, or Science

Mark of Hospitality
Requirements: Novice, halfling
Skills: Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion, or Survival

Mark of Making
Requirements: Novice, human
Skills: Arcana, Lore, Repair, or Science

Mark of Passage
Requirements: Novice, human
Skills: Athletics, Common Knowledge, or Riding

Mark of Scribing
Requirements: Novice, gnome
Skills: Common Knowledge, Lore, Language, or Persuasion

Mark of Sentinel
Requirements: Novice, human
Skills: Athletics, Battle, Fighting, or Shooting

Mark of Shadow
Requirements: Novice, elf
Skills: Athletics, Deception, Performance, or Stealth

Mark of Storm
Requirements: Novice, half-elf
Skills: Athletics, Boating, Piloting, or Survival

Mark of Warding
Requirements: Novice, dwarf
Skills: Arcana, Notice, Stealth, or Thievery

Dragonmarked Powers Edges

SPF implemented core “magical” abilities by Paladins, Monks, and Rangers through the use of an edge called Mystic Powers. These are edges that give the character access to a short list of thematic powers (often with some kind of power limitation built in) that are activated simply by spending power points. No roll was needed. No additional skill was needed to be advanced for a limited arcane background. It was in these edges that I clearly saw as the means to create dragonmark edges that really fit the lore of the world in a meaningful way. I gave each edge access to five different powers using the model from the Class Mystic Edges, but a number of them have specific limitations based on the theme of the dragonmark.

Now a note regarding the powers and the skills. I have added a few more powers to my Savage Eberron. Some of these are from other Savage Worlds setting books, while some are to really create some of the signature spells that were core to the idea of a particular dragonmark.

These are Dragonmark Edges as I have them in my Savage Eberron.

Mark of Detection
Requirements: Novice, Half-elf
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Augury, boost Trait (Agility, Smarts, Fighting, Notice, Thievery, and any “knowledge” based skill only), detect arcana (no Identify), locate (can only locate traps), mind reading, and scrying.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. He automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for an additional 2 Power Points. He may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Detection doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Detection (and vice-versa).

Mark of Finding
Requirements: Novice, half-orc, human, or orc
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Analyze foe, detect arcana (Identify only), darksight, farsight, and locate. Darksight and farsight have the range of touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Finding doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Finding (and vice-versa).

Mark of Handling
Requirements: Novice, human
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Beast friend, boost Trait (animals only), empathy (animals only), speak language (Beasts for the power only), and summon beast. Boost Trait and speak language have the range of touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. He automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. He may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Handling doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Handling (and vice-versa).

Mark of Healing
Requirements: Novice, halfling
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Accelerate healing, boost Trait ( healing, survival, and Vigor only), healing (not Mass Healing), relief, and resurrection. All powers are touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. He automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Point. He may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Healing doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Healing (and vice-versa).

Mark of Hospitality
Requirements: Novice, halfling
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Conjure item, empathy (humanoids only), elemental manipulation, plane shift (Extra-dimensional space for the power only), and slumber.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers if desired.

The Mark of Hospitality doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Hospitality (and vice-versa).

Mark of Making
Requirements: Novice, human
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Conjure item (not including Create Food and Water), detect/conceal arcana (not including Alignment Sense), object reading, repair, and smite. Smite have the range of touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Making doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Making (and vice-versa).

Mark of Passage
Requirements: Novice, human
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Fly, leaping, speed, summon beast (mount only), teleport (not including Teleport Foe). All powers (except summon beast) have a range of touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. He automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. He may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Passage doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Passage (and vice-versa).

Mark of Scribing
Requirements: Novice, gnome
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Confusion (spoken or written words trapping only), magic mark, message, secret writing, and speak language.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Scribing doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Scribing (and vice-versa).

Mark of Sentinel
Requirements: Novice, human
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Arcane protection, deflection, gift of battle, protection, and warrior’s gift. All powers have the range of touch only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. He automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. He may use applicable Power Modifiers and any Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Sentinel doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Sentinel (and vice-versa).

Mark of Shadow
Requirements: Novice, elf
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Darkness, disguise, illusion (excluding Deadly), intangibility, and scrying. Disguise and intangibility are self only, but the heir gains no benefit from the Limitation.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Shadow doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Shadow (and vice-versa).

Mark of Storm
Requirements: Novice, half-elf
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Barrier (air and water trapping only, not including Damage or Deadly), darkness (air and water trapping only), elemental manipulation (air and water trappings only), havoc, and telekinesis (air and water trappings only).

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for 2 additional Power Points. She may use applicable Power Modifiers and Epic Powers if desired.

The Mark of Storm doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Storm (and vice-versa).

Mark of Warding
Requirements: Novice, dwarf
As a limited free action the dragonmarked heir can cast one of the following spells: Arcane protection (including Epic Powers), barrier (not including Damage), glyph, lock/unlock, and sentry.

The heir has 10 dedicated Power Points that recharge normally. She automatically activates the power with success for its regular cost, or with a raise for an additional Power Point. She may use applicable Power Modifiers if desired.

The Mark of Warding doesn’t grant access to Edges requiring an Arcane Background. If the heir also has an Arcane Background, none of its Edges, abilities, or Power Points can be used with the Mark of Warding (and vice-versa).

January 10, 2022 by Table Talk

Savage Worlds and Bennies: The Bennies must flow!!

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Bennies

Savage Worlds has a wonderful mechanic in the form of Benefits, generally known as Bennies. All Wild Cards have bennies. Player Characters, as well as main baddies (or other NPCs) that are meant to be tougher than your average mook, are all Wild Cards. Bennies can be spent on a wide variety of stuff, including:

  • Rerolling any trait roll
  • Rerolling any damage roll
  • Soaking any Wounds to reduce or even negate those Wounds
  • Removing the Shaken status
  • Draw a new Action Card to improve your initiative
  • Recover Power Points
  • Most uniquely, to influence the story. This can be anything from finding an additional clue, finding a mundane but needed item, or anything else, though this is up to DM discretion

Now the most important thing to understand about bennies, is that they allow the Player to create epic moments for their Character. Savage Worlds really sees Player Characters as heroes (or anti-heroes) within the story of the game. This is a theme that is strongly presenting in the original release of the Eberron Campaign Setting. The setting even introduced Action Points as a mechanical way for Players to create the epic moments that they want so their character can shine as a hero. Bennies in Savage Worlds serve the same purpose within a different game system. Personally, my opinion is that bennies do it for Eberron in a way better way, as it allows the players far more options to create those epic and heroic moments.

The thing about bennies and the Benny Economy is that they only work to create epic moments when then bennies are generously given by the DM. Elly has written a great article from the player side that talks about how she has seen that in play during our campaigns.

So each Wild Card, generally, starts with three bennies each session. They don’t carry over from session to session, so are use or lose. I have personally played Savage Worlds games where the Game Master never gave any bennies during the sessions, or at best just one. I hated that experience. What this creates is a hoarding of bennies by the player for one particular moment. More often then not, this is for a mechanical moment, like a Soak roll or to Unshake. There are no real epic moments, there are just moments of saving your character or doing one, maybe two, things slightly better. So when there is no flow of bennies, there really is no opportunities for epic moments.

As a player this is very frustrating, because I found that the things that I think or want to be important for my character I might not be able to accomplish. I mean come on, players don’t remember a particular stealth roll they make in a given campaign or that Wound they didn’t take very often. They remember those moments where their character shined in a way that they were built for, or in a unique situation, or in that kobayashi maru scenario that they were actually able to beat.

I believe there are two general reasons why DM’s don’t hand out bennies during a game. The first is that they think lot’s of bennies breaks the game. The second that all the work that a DM has to do in a session, and adding one more thing on top of it, and so handing out bennies just gets lost in the shuffle of work by a DM.

Bennies don’t break the game, they enhance it

I make up that a lot of DM’s out there don’t hand out bennies because they think too many might be game breaking.

Savage Worlds is built around this mechanic. So having these available and their effects are built into the system itself. I have been playing Savage Worlds since Kristian Serrano turned me onto it through listening to Manifest Zone and I jumped into the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (SWADE) kickstarter. I have been running two groups through a couple different campaigns, I was a Marshall on a Deadlands West Marches group, I have run several one shots, a couple multi-session Intro to Savage Eberron, as well as been a player in multiple different adventures/campaigns. I remember multiple sessions where some my players have had up to nine bennies at one point and I can categorically say it is not possible to have too many bennies. There was nothing game breaking about these experiences.

First of all, mechanically speaking, there is no guarantee that spending a Benny will get a success. I am still surprised how often a player will spend three, four, five bennies and still couldn’t roll higher than a 3 or land that raise that they were fishing for. Additionally every new roll increases the chance of rolling a Crit Failure. At one of my tables, we actually refer to spending a benny as “fishing for a crit failure”. It happens that often, and the players know it happens that often.

However the greatest enhancement to the game for generous bennies comes from the effect it has on the players. Every player creates a character that is good at something, fills some sort of niche. There are few things that will take the wind out of the sails of your players then their characters failing at that thing that they built their characters to be good at. I have seen the frustration and disengagement of players when their rogue can’t succeed at a basic stealth check. Or even worse for the player, that moment to shine on a really tough stealth move that their character who is built for it should be able to pass when no one else on the team can, but that one random roll doesn’t allow the character to do that.

This dynamic belies the most important aspect of bennies in Savage Worlds. Players will spend bennies on what they think is important, often for the story of their character. They will do this with bennies more than anything else. So that Legolas archer that one player built, can always have his moment of those impossible shots. This in essence allows the player to have more control over the moments and ways that their character gets to shine in the game. This has a very real effect on the game, the players become even more engaged in the story that is being told at the table. I mean how empowering is it to a player when they know they have the means to create an epic moment for their character, particularly one that let what that character was made for shine. I had a player with a wandslinger, who wanted to create that epic spellcasting moment for his character, by spending a benny just to make more mooks appear so he could cast some dope magic. I mean H.F.C.I.T. (How F&%king Cool Is That). The player loved his moment, he thought it was so cool.

However the player will generally only spend bennies on creating these stories for their character when they regularly get bennies from the DM, and most importantly, they know they will have opportunities in the future to earn more bennies. Otherwise they will just hoard for mechanical benefits that one or two times.

This is also a cycle that creates an incentive to encourage your players to greatness. You are creating incentives for better role playing, more creativity in combat, and more engagement.

This dynamic also plays out in another interesting way mechanically. Since the players spend bennies on what they think is important, I have found they often spend those bennies on things that I think (knowing the bigger story) are silly, or irrelevant, or unnecessary. But they built their swindler to be a smooth talker and even though they got a success (which from my perspective was all they needed) they are fishing really hard for that Raise, but you know, this is their jam. So that unbalancing that you are afraid might happen, actually doesn’t happen.

Handing out Bennies

Man is there a lot of work and things to keep track of as a DM. Not remembering to pass out bennies is a valid thing. It gets lost in all the bookkeeping stuff we have to do in our craft. It is still something that I have to work on myself at all my tables. So first of all, handing out bennies is a habit. The more you do it the easier it gets to do.

So here are some of the things that I do to try and help me create and maintain the habit of being a generous DM.

  • Say something really funny in character? Here’s a benny.
  • Do something that is totally in character but might be determinant to the party? (And no I don’t mean the Mockery-be-damned moves of lazy roleplaying that usually ends in “Well that is what my character would do…”). I am talking about the Curious character opening the door, the player knows is a bad idea to open, but hey their character is curious after all. Here’s a benny.
  • When I ask you in combat how you take out the opponent, if you answer “I cut their head off”, meh no benny. But you say, “I dodge over their swing by stepping up on the wall and kicking off diving forward to drive my blade in a chink in their armor, watch their life slip away I say that was for what you did in Tavick’s Landing.” Well hey here’s a benny. (Incidentally if you notice here, I let my player describe killing blows. One more thing to off load off your plate from having to come up with in the session.)
  • Two players engage in a great dialogue with each other, sharing back story and the motivation(s) of their characters with each other. Here’s a benny.
  • You participate in an Interlude sharing a story or something deeper about your character. Here’s a benny.
  • You swing from the chandelier to cross the room to rescue the bar wench that is being threatened by that big bully Throck. Well here’s a benny.

This gives you a basic idea. Reward your player for engagement in the game and the story. Feel free and tailor this to specific players as well. I have a couple heavily introverted players at one of my tables. Their diving into some story about their character doesn’t often have quite the depth of some other players, but for them it was a big leap. So here’s a benny.

There are also a few other tricks that I have picked up that help me hand out more bennies in each session.

At all my tables I also start every session with a question about your characters Backstory. Elly shares all these in her Recaps from Seekers of the Ashen Crown as well as Mourners of Lhazaar. All my players love these questions at all my tables, and honestly I believe all of them would do it even if I didn’t hand out bennies for these backstory opportunities. So I basically have the understanding that at my tables my players start with four bennies, not three.

Lastly I ask for my players help. If my players see another player or even themselves that has done something in character, or epic, or cool, they have my full permission to call it out that it deserves a benny. “That was awesome, they deserve a benny.” Me: “Ok here you go.”

I can’t tell you how much this helps. This generally takes a while for the players to really get into, but when they see that it actually works and I award bennies because of their input, they will start to get into the groove. This trick goes into the good old sneaky DM tool of off-loading your work to the players.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that Savage Worlds in built around and intended to function with the free flow of bennies during a session. This is part of the game design, and in my experience the game clearly works better when this aspect of the game is embraced. If you are still skeptical, just give it a try for a few sessions. Have the experience and see how being more generous with handing out bennies effects the game at your table.

January 3, 2022 by Table Talk

“Leveling” in Savage Worlds

Mourners of Lhazaar is heading towards their first advancement and so I thought I would talk about advancing your characters.

The title of this article is a bit of a misnomer. In Savage Worlds you don’t level in the way that you might be used to in other d20 systems. You take Advancements, and each 4 advancements are organized into a Rank. You start in the Rank of Novice, then move to Seasoned, Veteran, Heroic, and finally Legendary. I kinda think that the names of the ranks really convey the types of adventures and tales that are engaged with by the characters. With Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, the whole system moved to just milestone advancements. So advancements happen when the GM feels it fits with the story. Which has already been my long standing method of leveling. I prefer the players chase the story, not XP.

But with each advance, you as the player can do one of the following with your character:

  • Bump one of your Attributes up one die type per Rank. An important distinction is that this can only happen once per Rank, not once per advancement. 
  • Bump two skills lower than their attached Attribute by one die type. For example; Athletics and Fighting are tied to Agility. I could bump a Fighting and Athletics from a d6 to a d8, if my Agility is a d8.
  • Bump one skill that is equal or higher than the attached Attribute by one die type. Using the above example, for my next advance I would only be able to bump my Fighting to a d10 since my Agility is still a d8.
  • Take a new Edge
  • Remove a Minor Hindrance, or change a Major Hindrance to a Minor one (if there is a Minor available.) You can also save up two advances to remove a Major Hindrance completely if there is no Minor version. Generally it is encouraged that this is done with a strong story component to make sense.

So I wanted to present this as a background to get to my main point. One of the best things about Savage Worlds characters is the sandbox of options for advancement. You can truly create whatever you want for a character. Any path is truly available for your character to take. This is one of the best strengths about Savage Worlds. I mean any path. You can have a master swordsman magic blasting wizard, or commander of the guard that is a great fighter but better at directing the group and allies tactically, or that tinkerer who is a parkour pickpocket on the side. The options are truly endless. 

There is no right or wrong in making you character. There are even multiple paths towards the same direction. I have made a barbarian type character that is a drunken dwarven berserker, one that is a shifting pugilist, to one that is a focused warforged juggernaut killing machine. These were all different takes on the classic berserker that looked nothing like each other, all taking different paths towards the same general goal.

This level of choice and openness, while amazing, creates a problem when advancing. The problem being, there are too many choices.

The main point I want to present is that planning the advancement of your character is hugely important. Whenever I create a character, I definitely start with the concept that I am looking to play for the campaign, then I hop into https://savaged.us/ and plan my character out to 14-16 advances. I don’t go fully up to 20 as not all campaigns go that length, and to leave room for new ideas based on how my character grows and interacts with the campaign. I have NEVER been able to create a character plan that has all the advances that I want to take. 

I have witnessed more than one player stay into a campaign with no plan of where they want to take their character. What happens is that the player generally picks advances that solve the most recent pain point in a campaign. Then towards the end of the campaign the player is not having as much fun as their character doesn’t really do anything well in the way they would have hoped. One of the other things that I have seen happens is that a player suddenly wants a particular edge to deal with a certain pain point, but they do not meet the requirements of the edge because they did not plan to be able to take it. Often when this happens, they will then even abandon trying to get that edge or path in the future through planning further advances. Overall this lack of planning reduces the enjoyment of the campaign by the player in question.

I never see a character plan as a hard path. I will often tweak the path, taking a different advancement as the character grows in personality and develops a role in the party. Or maybe the campaign takes a different direction than I anticipated, and I will tweak my path based on that. It is easier to make tweaks to an existing path than to wander down a path with no direction.

There is no right or wrong in what advance to take, or when (outside of requirements for a particular advance). While an attribute bump can only be taken once per rank, with a plan I find that some ranks I will skip the attribute bump because I find something else more important. You can not make these kinds of decisions on what is really important for your character arc, if you are just now picking the latest advancement.

My main goal in this article was to first explore the importance of having a vision for your character in Savage Worlds, and then explore how to help make sure that vision will play out in a satisfying way over the course of your campaign. I hope this helps you enjoy the Savage Worlds system even more by increasing the enjoyment you have playing your character.

November 8, 2021 by Table Talk

Why I Play Savage Worlds

Hi, your friendly neighborhood Savage DM Freewolf here (AKA Phillip). Yes, I have been playing RPGs long enough that I still call myself a DM, not a GM. So being the Eberron Campaign Setting nut that I am, I of course started listening to the Manifest Zone podcast when it got started up. Of all the things that I listened to, there was something about the way that Kristian and Scott talked about this system called Savage Worlds that really struck a chord in me.

You see, while I was immensely happy not to have to map top math calculations to determine bonuses to hit or AC or whatever, and I was grateful that 5E really launched me back into the hobby after a long hiatus, there really was a lot about 5E that I really had trouble with as a DM. I have been a DM long enough (and I have grown personally enough) that I don’t DM just to DM. I DM because I am having fun. 

What is the most fun for me in a TTRPG is the collective story that we tell together. I am not the storyteller at a table, we are the storytellers. I was starting to have trouble with how the 5E system would limit our thinking in how we would tell the story, particularly in combat and with the lack of ways to handle complex abstract encounters. But the whole, the first swing at a sack of hit points was no different than every other swing at a sack of hit points, was kind of wearing on me. Not to mention I often played with some creative thinking players, and the best I could say was “ok you have advantage.” That just didn’t seem to capture some of the creative thinking my players dished out. And don’t get me started on the extreme difficulty in creating challenging encounters that don’t involve a hoard of mooks, for higher level players.

So I guess I was hungry for something a bit different when I was listening to Kristian and Scott on the original episodes of Manifest Zone. I can neither confirm nor deny that I have a problem with Kickstarter, when Pinnacle Entertainment had their next version of Savage Worlds (Savage Worlds Adventure Edition or SWADE) up on Kickstarter. After my four year campaign ended, I began looking at the next adventure in Eberron, being run with Savage Worlds. I can say that I have not, and can’t see myself, looking back.

Savage Worlds is a system that really allows a table to tell a great narrative, cinematic story at the table. Combat is not really bogged down with a bunch of difficult or complex mechanics, yet it has more options. I just love that in SW, I can have a mook throw a platter of food at one of the players and it can actually have a combat effect. These kinds of actions are known as Tests. Extending that, you can create a character that is useless at fighting, but can honestly be a real contributor to combat through Support Actions to others and Tests. In fact the more that I have played SW the more that I have seen, fighting big baddies in SW is far more of an exercise in teamwork than it ever was in 5E.

Eberron is a setting that is meant to be very pulpy with lots of noir. The players are epic heroes that can do epic things. SW have dice that “ace,” known in other ways as “exploding”. I have a d6 in a skill and roll a 6, I get to keep rolling ’til I don’t get a 6. This is all the time. I have seen players one shot the big baddies with a dagger and they weren’t the rogue with sneak attack. Epic times. 

SW also has some really cool mechanics to handle those other more complex and abstract situations. There are Dramatic Tasks that are akin to the Skill Challenges from 4E. Instead of handling a situation in a turn by turn type way, you abstract the idea out rolling a series of skills to collect tokens. The more dangerous or complex a dramatic task is, the more tokens you need. But overall it is handled narratively, with the dice assisting the story. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy running for freedom after stealing the idol, that is a dramatic task. In our very own Seekers of the Ashen Crown, the party had to distract a crowded market square with patrolling guards. This was done as a dramatic task, that the players found epic and fun.

There are Social Conflicts, which allow a more nuanced and complex way to influence a large group or judge or something similar. These are like dramatic tasks but the mechanics are slightly different. The goal is to gain success tokens over three rounds by making a good argument for your particular case or cause.

Hands down one of my favorites is the chase mechanics in SW. I was constantly frustrated with how any kind of chase in 5E generally amounted to who had the highest movement and the best athletics checks. Now with some mechanics that support it, we can tell an awesomely narrative chase scene like the chase scene from Casino Royale. No kidding, I have now run those kinds of chases at my tables.

There are also Quick Encounters, which allow me as the DM to run an encounter, but do it narratively with one roll to resolve everything. I mean have you as a DM or player found your game bogged down in constant encounters, not because they furthered the story, but because they were needed to whittle down the resources of the party so an encounter down the line could actually be challenging? Yea I don’t have to do that anymore in SW. 

I think this is a good place to leave my thoughts for now. In future articles, I’ll get more into the weeds of specific game mechanics in SW or conversions to Eberron. But overall I am in love with Savage Worlds because it is a lightweight system that allows me and the players at my table to tell a fantastic story. The kind of story that we turn around and end up telling each other over and over again for years to come. Isn’t that the best part of TTRPG’s?

September 23, 2021 by Table Talk