it would fall under his skill if he had alien gunnery.

From what I can see there is no alien gunnery, or even human gunnery. Anything that involves a ranged attack and isn't a thrown weapon is done using the Shooting skill.

To expand on the example, as I wasn't clear about what I'm envisioning: this alien culture is one that tries to avoid violence whenever possible. As such it makes all of its military weapons incredibly difficult to use because it wants to ensure that anyone using the weapon has gone through the proper training (which includes mind control procedures that prevent the trainee from using the weapon without orders). Somehow this person who has never even seen a scifi movie or read a scifi book is magically capable of shooting this weapon just as well as he can shoot the rifle he's grown up with as a kid.

To avoid any hassles that might a=occur trying to argue about alien technology, here's another example:

Captain Jack, lifelong archeologist and Indiana Jones fan has practiced with firearms for decades. On his most recent excursion into the South American jungles in search of the Lost Nutsack of Tutenkamen he is ambushed by a tribe of pygmies firing at him with blowguns and bows from the treetops. He manages to drop 6 of them but then his trusty revolver is out of ammunition. Unable to reach them he needs a ranged weapon and he needs it fast!

Aha! One of the fallen pygmies had a blowgun! He races over, snatches it up, and uses his extensive training in pistols and rifles to unerringly hit 5 more pygmies before running out of darts. Luckily one of the newly dead midgets of mayhem has dropped a bow. Racing over, he once again uses his incredible knowledge of firearms to unerringly fire the bow, finishing off the pygmies with narry a scratch to himself.

Here we have a character with really good shooting and no specializations. He's trained only in pistols and rifles, because he didn't even know blowguns existed and had never seen a bow outside of a museum. But, because of his training with guns he is able to snatch up and instantly master both blowguns and bows.

This to you is a good system?

I agree. It's one reason I'll probably never play a non-House ruled version of Savage Worlds.

First of all, Captain Jack, being an archaeologist of the first order, is probably already familiar with blowguns. He's at least not totally unskilled with them. I'm not an archaeologist, and I've fired a blowgun once or twice, and a bow a lot more than that. It's impossible that any trained archeologist wouldn't be at least passingly familiar with them.

Second, he's probably got a Trademark Weapon edge, or similar edges relating to his use of revolvers. So, when he picks up that blowgun, he's suddenly not able to use all these nifty edges and abilities he's picked up. Mechanically speaking, he's not as good with a blowgun as he is with his pistol. Instead of a punitive system, where players are penalized for using unfamiliar weapons, Savage Worlds tends towards a "carrot" system, where players are rewarded for staying withing their concept.

I know you've expressed an interest in punitive play styles before, so YMMV. However, I've discovered that the reward system is generally a lot more fun that applying penalties left and right whenever a player gets out of line.

As for your alien culture example, you simply say that it requires a Mad Science roll to use, as opposed to a standard Shooting roll. In the case of really foreign objects, you can require an appropriate Knowledge skill to recognize it as a weapon in the first place. You're also free to use the Improvised Weapon rules for certain things not quite designed to be a weapon.

So you're saying that I have to put a familiarity with blowguns into my character history if I want to play Captain Jack, someone who I would prefer to have never had see a blowgun? I am also not allowed to represent study in all manner of firearms with just the shooting skill but must spend several trademark weapon edges on each particular one? Man, now I know I don't want to play this game.

What if Captain Jack were instead captain of the marksmanship team and not an archaeologist. Does he still automatically know all about blowguns and bows, despite having never seen one even inside a museum? LOL

"Carrot system?" There's no reward for someone who has studied all manner of firearms to stay within firearms. In fact, it's exactly the same when he shoots a pistol as when he shoots a blowgun or bow. That's neither carrot nor stick, it's just plain silly.

Just because I like to add nothing to a debate that isnt going anywhere.

First the green beret was around before Viet Nam, but became official in 1961 because of JFK. The special forces in Viet Nam were Green Berets, but not officailly named that till 1961. Saying precursors and modern day is a bit silly. Not much has changed in their training or their whole esprit de corp. Of course weapons and equipment will change so that training will be changed or added. But ultimately the special forces before 61 are the special forces of today.

And to give you a counter point to your Noobie SCA players becoming master swords men 10 minutes after putting down the butter knife (because they are similar weapons).

I was in a combat group and one guy in our group had a foriegn exchange student who was an award winning fencer from france. As a fencer he thoroghly destroyed me. Though I was catching on. We changed to broadswords and not rapiers. Guess what, I destroyed him as that was my weapon of choice. But not only did I beat him thoroughly but continued to do so for hours. He tried fighting other people in our group with broadswords. He couldnt beat even our newest recruit (several weeks of practice). He just couldnt grasp the ability to use the broadsword. And I find that more common then not, I see people struggling with one weapon then getting almost completely flustered when trying to move to a new weapon.

In Savage Worlds (at least the test drive rules) he'd just be one die lower when using a radically different weapon. If he never spent the points on specializing in fencing he'd have the exact same skill.

I'm not saying Savage Worlds is a horrible system. I've got no experience beyond reading far enough into the test drive rules to realize I don't like the way something as basic as combat is oversimplified. But I will say that it is indeed overly simplified and that if it's greatness is demonstrated in it's popularity then it is barely a pale shadow to the awe inspiring uberness that is the wildly popular d20 system.

Platinum, you're absolutely right. But the discussion is about Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds has no "Edged Weapons." It has "fighting." If you have a skill of 8 with a foil it's because you have a skill of at least 6 in every melee weapon known to man, and possibly every melee weapon not known to man. If you don't have "Trademark Weapon (Foil)" then your skill with a foil is exactly identical to your skill with a broadsword, club, nunchuku, kung-fu, Muy Thai, Tai Bo, Jiujitsu, and kusari-gama.

Which is why I said I'd probably never play a non-house ruled version of Savage Worlds. I feel that SR's choice is more realistic than SW's choice.

I hate the idea of someone being equally skilled with every weapon on the planet. For some folks that idea is palatable. That's cool. I don't demand that everyone agree with me all the time.

i do. SUBMIT!

You can take away our keyboards, but you'll ne'er take our FREEDOM!

what i really hate about the way SR3 handles things is the fact that a badass master of, say, jiujitsu turns into a stumbling moron the moment he tries to use something from the muy thai class he attended last week. that, more than anything, is why i say SW's treatment is just as realistic as SR's. SR4 has at least ameliorated this somewhat, by combining large groups of skills.

SR2 handled it the best... Armed combat for if you have a weapon, unarmed if you don't, and firearms to shoot, gunnery to launch. simplistic and balanced. You didn't have to worry about all of your players taking mystic ninjitsu and having 25 fighting styles and all that jazz. Everyone had 1 fighting style .."unarmed combat" if your dojo fights with weapons, then heck ... take armed combat on top... no 1 style does all.. / bs matchup styles garbage. Simple clean.

You do not have to worry about someone who uses a pistol not knowing a thing about a rifle.

But you also end up with something similar to savage worlds but not as extreme: someone trained in a few weapons knowing how to use them all.

that is true..... but you could also "encourage" or house rule it that they have to either concentrate or specialize. Then you have someone that is good at one thing, and can handle the others. much better than having you skilled at only 1 thing and incompetant in everything else.

True. Which is why I'll probably never play a non-house ruled version of Savage Worlds.

That's great, go do that, who the eff cares? The world gonna explode or something? Oh wait, I'm gonna go play it non-house ruled. *gasp*

Sorry, being snarky because gawd, you guys are going back and forth and back and forth and...

So then ignore us.

More or less I do, I'm trying to find the relevant stuff in the thread that's on topic. But it's getting a bit like mush at times. Ah well, on par with dumpshock.

edit: hell, I'm not even gonna touch the knife amnesty thread and I'm the one that started it.

I don't think anything's been on topic for 2 1/2 pages.

I'm just glad Cain and James (whichever one it is there) decided to break the TN thread in the SR4 forum instead of my thread.

You'll never find a thread where I bring up Savage Worlds first. That's Cain's fetish.

I'm a fan of the SR4 approach; players get a choice of whether or not their character is good at a specific aspect of a skillset (pistols, for example) or if he's good at the skillset in general, at a slight discount.

This means it's possible to make a rifle shooter who really can't shoot handguns to save their life, or someone who's just a good shooter all-round.

The blowgun/bow example above would be fairly easy to handle as a situational modifier. I'd just subtract 2 from Cap. Jack's roll, maybe 4 if I was feeling mean, to represent him using a weapon he's unfamiliar with. Heck, even if he were as intimately familiar with blowguns or bows as he was with pistols I'd give him a -1 just for using someone else's weapon without getting used to its balance and such.

(Edit: Removed ssecond paragraph as it wasn't really constructive.)

I'd do something similar, but that would be "applying silly nonproficiency penalties." The other alternative would be to either apply roleplaying penalties (rarely a good idea for the game) or for the character to have to spend build points in order to gimp himself.

It takes 2 build points to gain an edge or 1 build point to increase a skill. Thus the character could either spend 2 points to get a +1 to pistols, or spend 2 points to get a +2 to every single ranged weapon ever invented, or that ever will be invented. That means taking 4 hindrances just to be able to gimp myself by restricting my abilities.

Another problem I just saw is that a lot of the hindrances are roleplaying penalties which aren't actually penalties. For instance, if I wantt o play someone who is loyal, cautious, and curious with a few minor habits and quirks (which have absolutely no game effect) I get a free 9 build points without actually losing anything. Someone else wanting to play a heroic character doesn't get any bonuses.

Can someone with the main book tell me if Novice level is a character with 1-19 experience points like it is in the test drive rules? If so, a starting character has to be trained in every weapon known to man equally because you have to be a Novice to take Trademark Weapon. If you want to be noticably better in the weapon (Improved Trademark Weapon) you have to have 40xp under your belt.

The following assumes that 1d10 is olympic level ability. If it's different, just adjust the numbers accordingly, the point remains unchanged. That improved trademark weapon is only +2 means that someone who has trained exclusively all their lives with a sniper rifle and has reached a supreme level of ability (he's rolling d12+3) will be one of the best on the planet with a bola, blowgun, or sling as well.

Transfer that over to fighting for a guy who has specialized in stand up striking will also be one of the best in the world at wrestling, despite never having grabbed another person with intent to harm. While it's just sport fighting, I've watched quite a few bouts where incredibly good strikers lost in a heartbeat to wrestlers because they had no ground skills. The opposite is also true, where thoe with great ground skills fall flat on their faces if the fight stays on it's feet.

Or what about the guy who has studied beating people with a wet noodle all his life. Stick him in a kung fu tournament and he's quite likely to win, even if the rules specify that any move not found in the style being used for that round will cost you the match. If you feel like arguing the wet noodle reference due to lack of a sense of humor compatible with mine, feel free to replace it with the most outlandish hand weapon you can think of.

A little bit more info, to knock this thread back on track

A little more info: SEC report.

What do you think of this? Does anyone here know the two new dudes?

Can't say I know anything at all about Jordan Weisman's reasons for stepping down, but he is also running another company that he founded. That company is doing quite well, it seems, and taking on at least one new major project. So it might be that he was just having trouble running two companies, which would be pretty understandable.

Quick followup question re: fighting:

Since it doesn't apply to everything, is it like

a) the Incompetent flaw where you rely on GM Fiat to determine which skills each character can use or

b) the Incompetent flaw where you rely on the players to not abuse it?

edit: or is it like the edge rules, where you rely on GM Fiat to prevent abuse? Or maybe it's like the edge rules, where you rely on player restraint to prevent abuse?

Perspective is everything.

Three-sectional staff.

~J

The problem I see with an all encompassing melee skills isnt so much that learning to swing a flail isnt much different then swinging a nunchuk, because its the same damn weapon. A flail is a stick with a rope and another stick on it, it was meant to be used to knock the grain from the chaff, guess what, the nunchuk is the same thing. It was used entirely differently because of cultures. Try comparing weapons that are reasonably the same, but really different. Like a two handed sword, like a claymore and a 2 handed long axe. Its basically a crushing weapon and really long. But in the details they are nothing alike. Its at higher levels, the finese to make yourself a world class fighter with that weapon is in the details. Details you can only learn with using that weapon. But with that rule, I can master a Claymore but still keep the mastery of the axe.

I also would like to know how much real experiance everyone has with weapons. Yeah a short swonrd is basically the same as a long sword, but once you get to a point the short sword is totaly different then a long sword. You can stab and slash with both weapons, but how you get into possition to do it are two different things. Fighting with a dagger is nothing like fighting with a sword, so you can take a walk with that idea. Watch the UFC stuff once in a while, watch when you have a striker fight a grappler. The striker will pound the other guy for a long time, but once the grappler gets the striker to the mat, the grappler usually wins, if the stirker just doesnt knock the grappler out. Now both fighters are masters in their chosen forms, by the SW rules, the striker should be able to grapple as well as the grappler and the grappler strike as well as the striker. Add a sheild to yoru sword fighting or a second weapon and youll totally change the game again.

Firearms are just as complicated. Firing a pistol has completely different skills then long arms, not to mention a bow. Shooting at extreme ranges is also a new ball game. The firing postions of a pistol are nothing like a rifle. Hell firing a 22 pistol is a lot different then using a 45 in a combat situation, sure you can use both at a target range but try using a 45 like a 22 in a running shoot out. And the next person that says you dont really need to aim a shotgun using bird shot gets kicked in the nuts, because they have never fired a bird shot shotgun at a bird flying 15 or 20 yards away and watch as your wadding just misses and the bird continues on its way. Id like to see an olympic archer shoot at a marine sniper shooting match and the marine do the archery ans see which hits the most targets.

Just look at the training the military and police get and how the mixed martial arts fighters train. The military doesnt train a soldier with a rifle then say, well now that are excellent rifle shots, their training is over. They send them off to learn the crew served weapons, grenade launchers, rocket/missile launchers how to use such weapons from mounted positions liek on Hummvees. Mixed martial artists cross train in many forms of martial arts including wrestling because they have too. They maybe a black belt in karate but a world class wrestler will still out wrestle them.

You can roleplay it out, but I see situations where your players lose their pistol and pick up a crew servered machine gun and lay waste to the enemy just as easily an heated arguement over why he cant do it, the rules say he can. It makes more sense to split up all the skills.

*suggests moving this to any other thread*