Create your pulp hero

When planning your character, make someone who would be up to thwart evil across the globe. Of course, it is interesting if the character has some reluctance to putting herself in peril (e.g., family at home, a movie to star in, experiments to complete), but a party full of reluctant heroes who all need to be coaxed into action before an adventure creates friction in our story that we want to minimize.

You can use the setting in Savaged.us at https://savaged.us/s/fxwm2vka and click User Setting to create a character. To use savaged.us, you need an account and you can create at leasts a few characters without having to pay any money.
Pregenerated characters

The Daring Tales of Adventure scenarios were built with the following characters in mind

There is no reason why you cannot take one of these characters and adapt them to fit your play interests.

Motivations

Suggested motivations:

  • Money

  • Higher purpose (e.g., preserve, protect, redeem)

  • Adventure and thrills

  • Reputation, glory, and fame

  • Professional rivalry

  • Redemption

Races

Heroes are humans.

Initial rank and advances

The characters begin with 2 advances.

Skills

Pulp heroes are more capable than most. At character creation, they start with 15 skill points as per the "More skill points" setting rule.

Changed skills

  • Hacking is reskinned as Cryptopgraphy
    It assumes some knowledge of codes and code breaking (e.g., Morse code) and mathematics

Removed skills

  • Focus, applies to the Arcane Background (Gifted)

  • Faith, applies to the Arcane Background (Miracles)

  • Language (see the Multiple Languages setting rules in SWADE p 149)

  • Psionics, applies to the Arcane Background (Psionics)

  • Spellcasting, applies to the Arcane Background (Magic)

Edges

Changed edges
New Powers (SWADE p 47)

Renamed as "New Power and New Trapping"
The weird scientist adds one new power by choosing this Edge (which may be taken multiple times) and one new power trapping. For the new power, the hero may choose from any powers of her Rank or lower that are normally available to Arcane Background (Weird Science). For the new trapping, the hero adds an effect to an existing power. For example, the player might add an electrical trapping to her hero’s existing freeze bolt; she can then switch between shock and cold trappings.

Removed Edges

  • Linguist (as per the Multiple Languages setting rules in SWADE p 149)

  • See Arcane Backgrounds below for other unavailable edges

Arcane Backgrounds

Only the Weird Science arcane background is available for heroes. Edges that are associated with unavailable arcane backgrounds are not available to heroes.

Why No Psionics?

In this setting, heroes do not control the minds of others, wipe others' memories, and project mental blasts. Let’s focus on fists, bullets, and car chases and leave the superhuman and supernatural stuff to the big villains.

The unavailable edges are:

  • Extra Effort (SWADE p 46)

  • Holy/Unholy Warrior (SWADE p 46)

  • Mentalist (SWADE p 46)

  • Wizard (SWADE p 47)

Men of Mystery and Street-Level Superheroes

If we were to build heroes such as the The Shadow and Doc Savage, we’d likely be using the Arcane Backgrounds of Gifted or Psionics. In this campaign, we are focusing on a low-powered, classic pulp adventure game a la the Indiana Jones movies or the Mummy series.

Hindrances

Cocky (minor)

The character is a braggart and will typically spend the first round of any combat announcing how great he is, or what he’s going to do to any and all opponents. Cocky is like a minor version of the Overconfident (major) hindrance (SWADE p 26).

Powers

Fly (SWADE p 162)

For heroes with the Arcane Background (Weird Science) edge, Fly is available at Novice rank.

Starting resources

$500 as per SWADE.

Advancement and experience points

The following rules on experience points and advances originate from Savage Worlds Deluxe Explorer’s Edition (p 42). If a rule is not adjusted here, assume that we are using the SWADE rules on "Advancement" (p 54).

Most VTT sessions we play are 2.5 h long or less.

A character will typically receive 1-2 experience points per session. All characters are awarded the same number of experience points.

Every 5 experience points that a character accumulates grants 1 Advance.

If a player is absent from a session, his character does not receive experience points.

Ranks

As a character gains more Experience Points, he goes up in “Rank.”

This is a rough measure of how powerful the hero is. As characters progress in experience, new Ranks allow access to more powerful Edges.

Table 1. Rank Table
Experience Points Rank

0-19

Novice

20-39

Seasoned

40-59

Veteran

60-79

Heroic

80+

Legendary

Once a hero reaches Legendary status, the rules for Advances change a bit. The character now Advances every time he accumulates 10 Experience Points instead of 5, but a world of new Edges opens up to him as well.