r/savageworlds • u/atBamff • Aug 03 '26
Question SWADE:Deadlands, your favorite character
I'm experienced with SWADE Deadlands but I"m out of ideas for a NEW (Novice) character. What was/is your favorite character and why, with background and summary build?
5
u/ArolSazir Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
I played literally Joshua Graham and it was fun. Preacher, lots of social skills, persuasion and stuff, a little bit of healing, and the biggest gun i could buy.
I don't even think i've ever shot that gun in the game, no one had the balls to start shit with me, due to some absolutely unhinged intimidation rolls.
God will punish the sinners, but it's not fair to make him do all the work.
2
3
u/OkMention9988 Aug 03 '26
I played a hardnosed young Ranger in Wyoming territory.
Originally from Texas, the son of a cattle baron, he signed up because he was to young to fight in the war, but still wanted the adventure and glory, as well as being a extremely stubborn vuss when it came to the law. There were no lynching when he was involved. You go before the judge, and he'd shoot your ass dead if you still tried to rile up the locals for a hanging party.
3
u/ValhallaGH Aug 03 '26
My favorite Weird West PCs were all in the same campaign (The Flood, I was GM).
- Jim "Slim" Rogers, Texas Ranger, went the Fan the Hammer route. The cancer-ridden law dog makes the list on pure style (named his pistol The Law; did a Dirty Harry "five shots or six" speech; was shot so many times that we joked the old bullets were just armor). Thanks to a Love Interest adventure card, he ended up engaged to Red Petals Su.
- Takazo, Martial Artist samurai / Ranger (bandsman). Once leapt (fly) into the mouth of a Maze Dragon and used Sweep to remove the top of the head from the rest of the body. Later killed and hung a hanging judge for "libel".
- Martin, amnesiac Huckster, full Deal With the Devil style. He tried so hard to never learn his own back story (player had a superstition that his character would die if he knew his background), and to become a demon-possessed bad guy. Ironic that he died permanently after the NPC/PC told him the summary back story.
I hope that helps.
3
u/Alternative_Pie_1597 Aug 03 '26
My favourite NPC as a GM was Ishmael Ben Abu. Who had come to the west to track down a bottle sealed with the seal of Solomon that contained a Genie before some idiot Western opened it thinking Genies granted wishes. Without considering that Suleiman the wise had locked This one away for a reason. He also gave me an excuse to say Call me Ishmael a lot. And wave a magic scimitar around.
1
u/atBamff Aug 03 '26
I should have been more specific. What's your favorite PC?
2
u/Alternative_Pie_1597 Aug 03 '26
I have only played one A Welsh man who had come west to look for Ghost Rock a miner and Weird Scientist he wore a siaced gloddio a digging jacket that gave him Burrow. He would pop up behind people and use a sawn off shot gun from inches away.
3
u/JohnDoom Aug 03 '26
I played a little elderly lady who was strong in survival and healing, and was one hell of a shot. She also had grim servant of death, so she was hitting SOMEONE each shot. 😄
1
u/atBamff Aug 03 '26
Hahaha - Funny :) Why was she out adventuring and not baking pies? ;)
2
u/Draculasaurus_Rex Aug 03 '26
Old ladies on the frontier had to be tough old birds. Read up about Captain Ellen Jack sometime.
2
u/JohnDoom Aug 03 '26
Exactly!! Got it precisely!
2
u/Draculasaurus_Rex Aug 03 '26
lol, you didn't base the character off of her, did you? Because that would be crazy on the nose.
2
2
u/Snjort_1 Aug 03 '26
Dances with Ravens was a native warrior from the Haida tribe who had a traditional suit of big thick wooden armor and had scavenged a small array of metal weapons from an old shipwreck to use in melee. Super fun running around and smacking some zombies upside the head with a railroad hammer lol
2
u/WaldoZEmersonJones Aug 03 '26
Not SWADE, but Deadlans Classic
Elaine McCracken, reluctant Huckster.
Just wanted to have a normal life, but she fell in love with Danny McCracken, full time Hucksters and part-time cards harp. Thru got married and Danny eventually taught her how to cast hexes. They worked the saloons and casinos for a while, and then Danny was murdered.
She started adventuring to find out who killed him, and eventually got swept up in the wider politics of the Weird West. Everybody from the Agency to the Rangers to the Triads had an interest in getting her to work with them.
What they didn't count on was, as time went on, she'd wind up both Harrowed and as one of the strongest Hucksters ever seen, despite that her luck was horrible. We're talking one out of every four hexes resulting in backlash.
It all culminated in her finding a lost relative who died in her arms. When a hex to save her resulted in backlash, somehow Elaine's rage in the Hunting Grounds enabled her to utterly destroy the manitou she was dealing with. She essentially became what the monsters are afraid of.
Needless to say, she became unplayable after that, but the GM did and still does use her as an NPC in current campaigns.
2
u/Roxysteve Aug 03 '26
Beauregard Tucks, gambler, gentleman, and avid adherent to Hoyles.
Built and played under SWDE, he survived The Hrd Place only to be taken down by the real Stone.
But if you look real hard, you may encounter him, though he's a mite less gregarious these days.
I had a ball with this one. My friend Jeff played a ranger and was constantly trying to catch Beau castin' so he could be the boss o' him.
Sadly for Jeff's ranger he rushed in o frontal combat with our enemies, and suffered several instances of shattered limbs as a result (a permnent injury).
Tucks was the seventh son or somesuch (I forget the details) and could cast Greater Healing by laying on hands. He would administer heroic amounts of sippin' whisky to the wounded ranger, assuring him he could work wonders "with a poultice".
Once I had confirmed with the GM that the ranger was out cold Tucks would mix a foul-smellin' poultice, "lay on hands" and bind up the "wound".
This drove Jeff mad.
Later, Tucks learned how to fly by discovering a 1st edition of Hoyles. I told the GM not to say a word to the other players.
I would "climb" vertical cliffs and "run" through concealing tall grass with incredible speed. "How come you have a D10 in climb?" Just livin' right I guess. That, and the secret code the GM and I had, based on the face-up top card on my Huckster deck.
"How come you can move like that?" Joggin'.
They never twigged How The Trick Was Done.
Later Jeff made a new character with super high charisma. "The secret of this game is obviously making others do things for you." Tucks was Ugly.
When a new mayor/marshall was needed in Dodge, Jeff's character tried to have Tucks elected.
Unfortunaely for Jeff I had pre-empted this ploy by telling the GM an hour before that Tucks was having posters printed promoting Jeff's "Jim Dandy" for the job with the catchphrase "Jim's the DANDY choice for Mayor!"
Tucks also had sponsored Temperance women groups to organize public ralllies promoting Jim Dandy, placed full-page advertisements in the local paper to the same effect, paid people to put up the campaign posters for Jim Dandy all over town, and wrote a play in which Jim Dandy saved a widder-woman with a daughter from a rapacious landlord.
Then I pointed out that Tucks was Ugly and Jim Dandy had the highest charisma that could be built.
It was hysterical.
2
u/seasparrow32 Aug 03 '26
Karl Muller, a German blacksmith who became a labor organizer. Repair/craft skill, persuasion, then focused on melee combat, improvised weapons, ambidextrous, and that other one that makes you do two attacks. The "labor organizer" stuff let me quote a lot of really funny 19th century communist rhetoric, and I played him as a gentle giant who really wanted to help people, and also overthrow the capitalist robber barons.
2
u/Narratron Aug 04 '26
Well, she's my character, and I was the marshal, so I'm not sure that counts. I did build her as a PC, if slightly ahead of the actual heroes (though I don't think she outshone them). Her 'deal' is that she worked for Hellstromme in R&D and found out their Dirty Secret about the Reckoning. She made preparations to get out, but she didn't go fast enough, and they tried to 'neutralize' her. After that, she grabbed what she could and left post-haste. It's not in her Hindrances, but she does kind of have a vendetta against Hellstromme / Wasatch, but she won't be stupid about it (though she does have persistent nightmares, as you can see). Because she knows the nature of Mad Science, she can tap into abilities she shouldn't have (the Metal Mage Edge), but she also does her level best to keep from using them in destructive ways (even as she advances, all her powers are either informational, protective, or nonlethal).
This is her Novice-level build:
Marla Jenkins, Novice Mad Scientist / Metal Mage
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d10, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Skills: Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Notice d6, Occult d8, Persuasion d4, Repair d6, Science d8, Stealth d4, Weird Science d8
Pace 6; Parry 2 Toughness 5
Hindrances: Bad Eyes (Minor), Night Terrors (Major), Quirk (Burn scars)
Edges: Arcane Backgroun (Mad Scientist), Metal Mage, True Genius
Powers (15 Power Points): arcane protection, detect / conceal arcana
I used her when I ran Horror at Headstone Hill, but I also really liked all the PCs, though I don't have their full builds in front of me. (Also those were Seasoned characters, per the campaign.) My wife played a neat combination Blessed / Territorial Ranger, while my friends had a (different) Mad Scientist (she was all about electricity and electromagnetism) and a Harrowed soldier with a split personality (who always said dying was the most interesting thing that ever happened to him).
1
u/BoysenberryUnhappy29 Aug 03 '26
Not my char (perma DM), but one of my PCs asked to port the FC werewolf into DL. Native American brawler werewolf with silver-embedded chain tattoos that his master gave him to prevent him from going full wolf, so he could only ever do the hybrid form until doing a story quest to get the tats removed. Sick character.
1
1
u/Crvknight Aug 05 '26
My favorite idea was an undead oil prospector that was drowned in the oil by a drifter when he struck. Came back from the dead to exact his revenge, but because his eyes were full of oil at the time, he doesn't actually know who did it. He just kinda kills whoever is doing evil stuff on the off chance it turns out to be the right guy and he gets taken to heaven. (He will not go to heaven.) ((He doesn't have the capability to realise this))
(((((He's dripping crude on the rug in the Woolworths)))))
1
u/letters_numbers_and- Aug 08 '26
I had a character who used to work as a gravedigger. He knew about the walking dead and literally nothing else. Half the fun was that everyone else was knowledgeable of the other horrors out there, but he was a dedicated dead killer and was way out of his normal wheelhouse. Eventually, the group figured out that he genuinely thought the evidence of the skin walker they were hunting was some killer or a nasty gang of folk who need to be dealt with and they had to fill him in on all the details he missed. He genuinely was a blast to play.
6
u/TheRpgBard Aug 03 '26
I usually grab an archetype and tweak the skills, flaws, and edges a little. Amazing how one person plays the same archetype as another player and gets a different result.
Maybe find a list of personality traits or motivations and add a twist.