Encounter Savage! Races of Vanth

Since its debut in 1979, Encounter Critical has become a beloved classic of science fiction fantasy roleplay. It may be the original universal system, allowing you to play any type of story simply by leaving out all of the other stuff you don’ta want. Unfortunately, many players today do not appreciate the timeless qualities of the game system and refer to it as “dated” or “retro” or “is this is joke?”. To help expose those players to the wonderment that is the world of Vanth I have embarked upon a mission to bring the joy of Encounter Critical to a modern-day universal roleplay system, Savage Worlds.

The motto of Savage Worlds is Fast! Furious! Fun! That is very applicable to Encounter Critical. What is presented in what I am calling Encounter Savage! is not intended to be a direct conversion between the two systems. You cannot convert your Klengon Half-Frankenstein PsiWitch directly into Savage Worlds, you will need to recreate that character from scratch. These rules will help you do that. However I have worked hard to apply the principles of True Scientific Realism so that Encounter Savage! characters will be as much like Encounter Critical characters as possible. In some cases more so!

Part One is the Races of Vanth explaining the races you can play and what abilities they have. Part Two which will follow later will cover the character classes those races can become!

A copy of Encounter Critical and the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition are required.

Requirements
These are things the player must buy for his or her character in order for the character to qualify as a member of that race. These things are not free! If it says you must have a Strength of d8 you must pay for a d8 at normal cost!

Edges
Savage Worlds puts the negative first but Encounter Critical is about possibilities so let’s start with the positive! Edges are important things characters of your race can do. These are FREE. They are balanced by Hindrances according to the rules for races in the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition. You should buy that book so you know what the Edges mean.

Hindrances
A Hindrance is a bad thing or something the character can’t do or isn’t good at. These are taken so you can have more Edges and be better are important stuff. A race’s Hindrances already balance the Edges they get so you don’t get more Edges for having these.

New Hindrance: Robot Nature
Robot Nature is a very important statistic in Encounter Critical that does not have an equivalent in Savage Worlds. It is not always a bad thing but it seemed most appropriate to make it a Hindrance because it changes the way you will play your character. It also allowed me to give some races more Edges! If your character has a robot nature he will do what everyone around him is doing or will fall back on the stereotypes of his race or culture rather than do something different or unique. The player must make a Spirit check to do something the Journey Master feels would be opposed by Robot Nature. For instance if a Vulkin wanted to do something illogical they would make a roll. A Klengon given a choice of two courses of action would roll and if it fails will do what the JM things a Klengon would do even if it’s not what the player wants to do.

Amazon
Requirements: Agility d6, Strength d8, Vigor d6
Edges: Attractive, Command. Amazons get 1 die type increase on Survival because they are a heart warrior culture.
Hindrances: Outsider. The Arcane Background Magic costs 4 points instead of 2 because they are not good with magic.

Dwarf
Requirements: Strength d8, Spirit d8, Vigor d8
Edges: Brawny, Hard to Kill
Hindrances: The Arcane Background Magic costs 4 points instead of 2 because they are not good with magic.

Elf
Requirements: Agility d6, Smarts d6
Edges: Arcane Background Magic, Command
Hindrances: Robot Nature, Unlucky

Frankenstein
Requirements: None
Edges: Arcane Resistance Psi, 4 die type bumps to Strength
Hindrances: Bad Luck, Clueless, All Thumbs, Outsider, Robot Nature

Hobling
Requirements: Agi d6, Smarts d6
Edges: Great Luck, one die type increase in both Stealth and Lockpicking
Hindrances: Small, Robot Nature

Klengon
Requirements: Strength d6, Vigor d6
Edges: Brawny, Arcane Background Magic (if Shaman)or Pick One (if not Shaman)
Hindrances: Robot Nature

Lizard Man
Requirements: Agility d6
Edges: Brawny, Quick
Hindrances: Clueless

Planetary Ape
Requirements: None
Edges: Brawny, Luck
Hindrances: Arcane Background Magics costs 4 points instead of 2 because they are not good at it.

Robodroid
Requirement: None
Edges: Arcane Resistance, Fast Healer (which means they are quickly repaired as robodroids do not really heal)
Hindrances: Robot Nature

Vulkin
Requirements: Smarts d10, Spirit d8
Edges: Arcane Background Psionics, Jack of All Trades
Hindrances: Robot Nature

Wooky
Requirements: Strength d8, Intimidate d6
Edges: brawny, Command
Hindrances: Clueless

Encounter Savage! Update

After greatly over-thinking it, I’ve thrown out my first draft of Encounter Savage!, my Encounter Critical-to-Savage Worlds adaptation. EC is supposed to be lighthearted, and SW is supposed to be Fast, Furious and Fun, so the intersection of the two should not feel like the errata from [INSERT GAME YOU HATE HERE].

I’m sticking with the “Creating Worlds” section on page 134 of the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition. This will not be a conversion document to allow you to port EC characters into SW and vice-versa. This will present rules on writing up EC races and classes in SW. It will be all crunch, and no fluff; the “flavor text” in EC stands fine on it’s own. As most of the powers, mutations and abilities in EC are left open to interpretation, so they will remain in Encounter Savage! Monsters, weapons and armor will likewise be nothing but tables, tables, and tables.

I’m hoping to have a free PDF ready at the end of the month.

Encounter Savage: To Do List

This is me thinking aloud and making a specific plan to tackle “converting” Encounter Critical to Savage Worlds. Not really a conversion from one system to the other, just a way to write up EC-style characters and abilities in SW. I’m just going page by page in Savage Worlds, looking at what needs to be addressed.

I want to do this only using the Savage Worlds Explorer Edition, which is all of $10, and Encounter Critical, which is free. If anyone wants to expand in this using any of the SW fantasy or scifi toolkits, knock yourselves out.

Notes below will form the basis of several separate posts. Again, this is just rough notes.

Statistics

I’m seeing some of the EC statistics being represented as Edges or even Hindrances in SW (you have it, or you lack it). Some may even work better as EC skills. I’m not going to screw with SW Traits by adding new ones or trying to suggest conversions. The best plan is to try to capture the feel and flavor of EC.

Races

These will be easy to establish based on the SW rules for creating races.

Race Feature

I’m torn between writing these up under the SW race rules, or maybe making them Edges. Strongly leaning toward doing them as races, as they give multiple attribute modifiers.

Mutations

These will obviously all be Edges and Hindrances, although I may tinker with “Mutatation” as an Arcane Background as well.

Skills and Talents

These will be SW skills.

Character Class

These will be SW templates.

Magic Powers

I need to familiarize myself with how SW magic and Arcane Backgrounds work before I can begin to speculate on how I’ll tackle this one.

Weapons and Equipment

I’ll only add stats for things not already represented in SW rule.

Monsters

These will be statted out appropriately.

DIY Planetary Ape Tunic

When I first got my sewing machine, I had visions of making my own custom shirts. But buying shirts was so easy, I just never did make the time to start sewing my own. However, when I decided that I needed a Planet Of The Apes male chimpanzee uniform, I was faced with either taking out a second mortgage to buy one, or getting down to sewing in earnest. Link

Encounter Critical LARP, anyone?

The Art of Frankenstein : Jez Hall

“I think it’s the Frankenstein Monster,” says Jez. Well, it works for me. This stark, powerful design would make a great Frankenstein book cover or a poster for a play or a movie.  Link

Or artwork for an Encounter Critical frankenstein player character?

Klingon Happy Meal Ad (1979)

BADFILM RPG 2.07: Invasion of the Bee Girls

It started when I got these two DVD boxed sets of old, bad movies. 50 Scifi flicks. 50 Horror flicks. 100 flicks total. Then I decided to review them all and mine them for roleplaying game ideas. Welcome to BADFILM Saturday.

Taking a break from my boxed sets of public domain scifi and horror flicks, I present to you the first BADFILM RPG/Encounter Critical crossover. I’ve been slowly working my way through a number of 1960s and 70s “classic” scifi and fantasy flicks that were influential to the design of EC. Most of them have some relative merit in terms of groundbreaking visual effects, social commentary, or cultural relevance. Invasion of the Bee Girls, however, belongs here in the realm of BADFILM, because it truly is unadulterated crap and one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. What makes this sad is that it’s the first film written by Nick Meyer, who went on to write brilliant revisionist Sherlock Holmes novels and is probably most famous for writing and directing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

A female mad scientist (an original and interesting concept) is tired of horrible men getting away with abusing women. So to fight this, she kidnaps the exploited women and conducts experiments on them. This turns them into “bee girl” drones, who might have powers but really just wear big-ass Jackie O-style sunglasses to give them an insect-like appearance. The bee girls are sent out to seduce, sleep with and murder abusive men. Yes, the plot had me going “buh?” for the whole movie.

While this flick has science fiction and horror overtones, it is a “grindhouse” exploitation movie. There is a lot of gratuitous and disturbingly un-sexy nudity, graphic (for the 70s) violence, and rape scenes. It get campy at time, but it’s hard to laugh when you just watched a woman get gang-raped on the hood of a car. I recommend this film to no one.

Use in a Roleplaying Game
Bee girls are a “monster” in Encounter Critical, so let focus first on how they could be used there. Because EC is an “old school” game from 1979, there’s no real description of bee girls other than a single line of stats. I’d play them like sirens, incubi or harpies, seducing male player characters and luring them to their doom.

If we go with the movie origin that bee girls are made, not born, then female player characters run the risk of being captured and converted. A bee girl culture would by necessity involve small communities (or hives), as they kill males immediately after mating and would likely kill male infants as well. This would force them to constantly be seeking males to reproduce with. Perhaps they engage in the slave trade to get new blood. Bee girls doxies, disguised as other races, could hide withing the cities of other races, operating almost as a murder cult. Bee girls would also make twisted assassins, mating with their targets first. The major motivation would be survival of the “race”, rather than a particular revenge motive against men.

In other games, the idea of a female mad scientist with a grudge against men could have some mileage. Obviously more concerned with getting revenge against males than protecting innocent women, she’ll experiment on and manipulate women to do her foul deeds for her. This could be toned down to something as simple as a woman scorned or jilted, or as dark and grim as having her a victim of sexual assault or physical abuse. For bee girl powers, I’d fall back to the classic flick the Wasp Woman; royal jelly restores youth and beauty, but also increases aggression (and maybe some relative-to-size increased strength and agility). For my tastes, I’d play things far more innocent and campy than the events portrayed in the film

Links
* IMDB gives it 4.9 stars out of 10.
* Rotten Tomatoes has it listed under its alternate title, Graveyard Tramps, and rates it 50% fresh.
* Wikipedia has a lengthy article about it.

Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant

Highlights from the Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant; DragonCon 2006, Atlanta Ga.

Klingon Ministry of Tourism

Stormtroopers vs. Klingons

The place: Bubonicon in Albuquerque New Mexico. The time: Late the 25th of August 2007. The reason: what else is a trooper to do when they come across a group of Klingons with some Cheerleaders to impress?