I ran my Savage Middle Earth game for the third time last weekend at KublaCon, and I'm very happy with how Savage Worlds is working for epic Tolkien, at least as far as core rules.

I've been mulling over how to do magic properly, and I'm still not satisfied with it, so I want to avoid magic in my next one-shot. During the Third Age, that's not hard.

I'm thinking of an all-dwarf party during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs - a devastating war in the time of a young Thorin (from The Hobbit) and his father Thrain. I think an all-dwarf group is (a) a good showcase for how well SW can differentiate characters; (b) a fitting nod to Tolkien and his fascination with dwarves, who were largely left out of the Lord of the Rings. Especially, I feel that dwarves in later fantasy have often been one-note imitations of the single character of Gimli, rather than representing the range of dwarves that Tolkien wrote about.

Reflection on the Savage Worlds system:

• I still hate having a pool of general-use GM bennies. I am fine with bennies for Wild Card opponents - it makes sense to play them in keeping with that NPC's wishes, so I've been giving Wild Card NPCs 3 bennies each instead of 2. But spending out-of-character as the GM from the pool feels either like being the player's enemy (if I spend them tactically) or going easy on them (if I don't).
• I realize I haven't been doing "Joker's Wild" of giving everyone a benny when a Joker is drawn. That was an oversight, but on reflection, it feels like too much and I'm thinking of keeping it. I do give out bennies pretty freely for role-play.
• I prefer combat to resolve in just a few rounds as part of the epic feel, rather than having 5 or more rounds with many shakens without wounds. Thus far, I've done this by making opponents more damaging but less tough, but I think I'd prefer it to be an optional setting rule. The "Gritty Damage" optional rule is too fiddly for this purpose, because it adds extra rolling and complication to every wound, and that slows things down.
• The slowest thing about combat has been calculating the number of raises - i.e. Parry 7 and roll 14, is that one or two raises? In practice, with mostly newbies, I've been mentally calculating the number of raises for everyone - but that's draining for me as GM. I'm sure if we were playing a campaign everyone would eventually get better at it, but I'd like to come up with a newbie-friendly option.

If anyone has SW system thoughts or ideas about dwarf-focused adventure in Middle Earth, I'm happy to hear them.

Here's my early draft notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fhk2oCR14Ou30K6YnKqFY_c-yvva-GuipcfH2OK1Fb4/edit

And here's a more full document by another author with a different take, for what it's worth:

https://dokumen.tips/documents/savage-middle-earth-the-trove-worldsfansavage-2018-12-27-savage-middle-earth.html

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PMI've been mulling over how to do magic properly, and I'm still not satisfied with it, so I want to avoid magic in my next one-shot. During the Third Age, that's not hard.

I suggest looking at Adventures in Middle Earth or Lord of the Rings RPG. Most of the "magic" characters can do are found in culture specific virtues (feats). Which I believe will translate to edges in Savage Worlds although I am not particular familiar with SW.

The designers did a good job of incorporating low key magic through this subsystem. If you are interested I can post some examples. Also note they are very much roleplaying oriented as opposed to D&D 5e combat oriented feats.

Quote from: estar on May 31, 2024, 04:30:23 PM

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PMI've been mulling over how to do magic properly, and I'm still not satisfied with it, so I want to avoid magic in my next one-shot. During the Third Age, that's not hard.

I suggest looking at Adventures in Middle Earth or Lord of the Rings RPG. Most of the "magic" characters can do are found in culture specific virtues (feats). Which I believe will translate to edges in Savage Worlds although I am not particular familiar with SW.

The designers did a good job of incorporating low key magic through this subsystem. If you are interested I can post some examples. Also note they are very much roleplaying oriented as opposed to D&D 5e combat oriented feats.

Thanks. I hadn't intended to talk about magic, but it has been on my mind.

I've played the Lord of the Rings RPG (Decipher). I liked the flavor of many spells, but I wasn't satisfied with the magic system as a whole. It was easy for PCs to get too magical, I felt. As a player, I made a Beorning who had a ton of magical power, including wide-ranging transformation.

I've got Adventures in Middle Earth, but haven't played. The enormous number of virtues listed seemed too fiddly for the feel I am going for in my Savage Worlds games. I see "Broken Spells" for dwarves and "Wood Elf Magic" and a few others for elves. I like the feel of those (as with many ), but I'm wary of having several little entries on the character sheet with little features.

I think I might go more like AiME and write up some of these for Savage Worlds, maybe pulling in a few more from LotR RPG spells.

I LOVE Middle Earth, and modified Castles and Crusades to run an adventure arc (modified and expanded Keep on the Boarderland with some ole ICE ME things thrown in) in ME as the introduction to may daughters' and their best friend to role playing. It was a blast.

I did end up having to add more human settlements etc than btb (as opposed to the completely depopulated and NO civilization / settlements other than the SHIRE and Bree) . I forgot where I got the maps etc for it, but they were from before the Witch King's invasion and then the plague. I used them and wrote off half to 2 / 3 of the villages and even the towns that remained were depopulated significantly. However, even with that change to the lore/setting , I was able to keep it a very Tolkien feel and not muck anything up where it didn't fit the books (other than NO settlements other than Bree)

Interesting idea on making an all dwarves campaign set in that time. That should be good fun . Especially with the knowledge that it is a losing fight. You can win a battle, heck most battles, but eventually slowly the orc's will out breed out number the dwarves and push them out of the area,

I have no experience with SW so I can't add anything to this, other than wishing you good luck with it !

Quote from: Lurker on June 01, 2024, 06:46:38 PMInteresting idea on making an all dwarves campaign set in that time. That should be good fun . Especially with the knowledge that it is a losing fight. You can win a battle, heck most battles, but eventually slowly the orc's will out breed out number the dwarves and push them out of the area,

Thanks. Some more thoughts on this...

What I'm postulating as the win condition would be leaving without a massive battle. In Tolkien's history, Thrain leads a massive battle at the East Gate of Moria - which he wins, killing hordes of orcs, but the losses were so great that the win was meaningless. Thrain may have been driven in greed and vengeance by his Ring - the last of the Seven Dwarf-rings. After the battle, the dwarves retreated from Moria and the whole of the Misty Mountains anyway. Thrain ended captured by the Necromancer to take back the ring, and his son Thorin went in exile to the Blue Mountains in the West.

I'm thinking that like with my first one-shot adventure, this would be an alternate history. What if Thrain could be stopped? The quest would be a party who go to stop Thrain from his disastrous battle. The PCs would head down from the dwarf exile community in the north, down the length of the Misty Mountains, and to near Moria. Some of that journey would be underground, and be passing through the aftermath of previous battles - with surviving dwarves and orcs at a few points.

I'm also considering that when they go through the dwarf-conquered orc caverns halfway there, that one of them might stumble upon a ring and be faced with an angry strange creature that demands it back. I think it would add a curious twist to the alternate plotline.

In general, I want games to be an explicit departure from the canonical story, so that the players feel like they can make a difference in the end.

Middle Earth is one of the few major fantasy settings where I actually the like Dwarves, and this thread got me thinking about why. I think it's because out of all of Tolkien's demi-humans, they are arguably the most human. Tolkien's dwarves have this incredibly deep history going back to the first age, but in the modern day their concerns are much more parochial. I always think of that quote from The Hobbit:

Quote"There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much."

If I was running a dwarf-only adventure for Middle Earth, I think I'd really lean into that dichotomy. So I'd have a party totally bereft of great warriors and legendary smiths. Instead it'd be made up of essentially blue-collar dwarves: tinkers, blacksmiths, merchants, etc. I'd start them off very lightly equipped, as well. No axes, hammers or plate armor, just knives, short-swords and bows. Maybe a couple of them in light armor, but mostly equipment that travelers would carry. And then I'd insert an opportunity in the adventure for them to uncover a cache of ancient dwarven arms and armor, and turn themselves into warriors of old, much like what happens with Thorin and Co. towards the end of The Hobbit.

In general, I think I'd build off the themes and tone of The Hobbit, more than LOTR. A smaller-scale, more light-hearted adventure, with smaller threats and less violence. One of the things I always point to when it comes to the massive tonal shift between the Hobbit and LOTR is the fact that the Dwarves in the Hobbit try to talk their way out of almost every conflict they get into. Even in Goblin Town, they try to negotiate. It doesn't work, but the fact they even try it shows a very different attitude to the Goblins than you see with LOTR's orcs. The Hobbit, in general,  is a book were everyone is a bit more human, a bit less cosmically aligned on the side of good or evil than in Tolkien's other works, and I find it a bit more engaging as a result.

Continuing on the Hobbit influence, I think another quest to recover some lost bit of the Dwarven heritage is a natural fit. My favorite bit of Dwarf lore from the Silmarillion comes from (IIRC) the Battle of the Sudden Flame, where it is mentioned that the Dwarves wear special iron masks to battle, which make them immune to the terror normally inflicted by Dragons, Balrogs, etc. That'd make a pretty good McGuffin for an adventure scenario.

Quote from: ForgottenF on June 01, 2024, 11:53:29 PMIf I was running a dwarf-only adventure for Middle Earth, I think I'd really lean into that dichotomy. So I'd have a party totally bereft of great warriors and legendary smiths. Instead it'd be made up of essentially blue-collar dwarves: tinkers, blacksmiths, merchants, etc. I'd start them off very lightly equipped, as well. No axes, hammers or plate armor, just knives, short-swords and bows. Maybe a couple of them in light armor, but mostly equipment that travelers would carry. And then I'd insert an opportunity in the adventure for them to uncover a cache of ancient dwarven arms and armor, and turn themselves into warriors of old, much like what happens with Thorin and Co. towards the end of The Hobbit.

In general, I think I'd build off the themes and tone of The Hobbit, more than LOTR. A smaller-scale, more light-hearted adventure, with smaller threats and less violence.

Nice! Our thinking is similar though not identical.

My current thinking on the adventure is for the party to be a group of people who were all for one reason or another not drafted into the war. King Thrain is out with his army -- and the PCs are a group of Thrain's non-soldier relatives and their friends, who are on a quest to catch up with Thrain's army and stop him from his destructive plan to war on Moria.

So, like you, I'd have a group of starting non-combatants. Maybe too young, too old, and/or with important peacetime role - and perhaps including Thrain's wife or daughter. (Dwarf women being a neglected point in Tolkien.)

I'd add in another thought here. Sauron's seven Dwarf-rings are a bit of a plot hole for him. Sauron carefully collected back 3 of the 7 rings, but what he does with them is unclear. He offered the three he recovered as a bribe to the Dwarf-King Dain Ironfoot, but Dain refused. Was his whole purpose in recollecting the Dwarf-rings just this failed bribe?

Given the importance of the rings in general, I think there's potential for a plotline where Sauron uses the Dwarf-rings in another way over the time he is collecting them.


So an open question would be - how might those rings have been used, once Sauron had his hands on them?

Maybe he could create some parallel to ring-wraiths with them? To do so, he'd need wearers who are different than normal dwarves in some way, but still thematically related to them. (My understanding is that the 7 rings were given to dwarves, but it seems like they weren't made separately and specifically for dwarves. The lore describes a set of 16 rings that Sauron divided up.)

I use this table to quickly calculate Raises. Maybe you'll find it helpful, too.

Quote from: smcc360 on June 09, 2024, 07:37:12 AMI use this table to quickly calculate Raises. Maybe you'll find it helpful, too.

Thanks. Yeah, I was going to put a chart like that on the rules reference sheet for players.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PMReflection on the Savage Worlds system:

• I still hate having a pool of general-use GM bennies. I am fine with bennies for Wild Card opponents - it makes sense to play them in keeping with that NPC's wishes, so I've been giving Wild Card NPCs 3 bennies each instead of 2. But spending out-of-character as the GM from the pool feels either like being the player's enemy (if I spend them tactically) or going easy on them (if I don't).

This is a solid rule. Getting the Benny economy correct for the tone of play you want is important. And it needs to be consistent.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PM

• I realize I haven't been doing "Joker's Wild" of giving everyone a benny when a Joker is drawn. That was an oversight, but on reflection, it feels like too much and I'm thinking of keeping it. I do give out bennies pretty freely for role-play.

Caveat - very few of my players use them, but Edges that depend on rifling through the deck for Jokers *is* a thing. That said, Joker pulls are very important in my games because my players tend to run dry of their Bennies so that Joker is often a much-needed burst of juice.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PM

• I prefer combat to resolve in just a few rounds as part of the epic feel, rather than having 5 or more rounds with many shakens without wounds. Thus far, I've done this by making opponents more damaging but less tough, but I think I'd prefer it to be an optional setting rule. The "Gritty Damage" optional rule is too fiddly for this purpose, because it adds extra rolling and complication to every wound, and that slows things down.

This is me too. The SOLUTION is to show your players by having your NPC's use tactics that are brutal and deadly. TESTS! MORE TESTS. When your NPC's *don't* do damage and instead Test your players and slap Shaken on them without having to deal with ridiculous Parry and Defense ratings, getting Shaken is the Deathspiral. Gangup and supporting Edges will end fights quickly - and your Players would be smart to learn from them, because they can do them too. It adds more tactical considerations to combat that go beyond the ol' Stand-and-Bang.

I also recommend using a lot of Grappling checks - contested rolls will scare the shit out of them.

I play with Gritty Damage because it keeps players in check (and it gives healers, Skill or Powers-based, busy and needed).

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PM

• The slowest thing about combat has been calculating the number of raises - i.e. Parry 7 and roll 14, is that one or two raises? In practice, with mostly newbies, I've been mentally calculating the number of raises for everyone - but that's draining for me as GM. I'm sure if we were playing a campaign everyone would eventually get better at it, but I'd like to come up with a newbie-friendly option.

Use THIS

It'll help.

Quote from: jhkim on May 31, 2024, 03:18:51 PMIf anyone has SW system thoughts or ideas about dwarf-focused adventure in Middle Earth, I'm happy to hear them.

Here's my early draft notes:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fhk2oCR14Ou30K6YnKqFY_c-yvva-GuipcfH2OK1Fb4/edit

And here's a more full document by another author with a different take, for what it's worth:

https://dokumen.tips/documents/savage-middle-earth-the-trove-worldsfansavage-2018-12-27-savage-middle-earth.html

General Thoughts

Your conception of Middle-Earth is *brutal* LOL. Dropping Toughness by 2 has *massive* implications to regular combat. I question how often you're using Wildcards. Most monsters are killed in a single hit, which is usually only requires bypassing Toughness on a normal check. Dropping Toughness by 2 makes even Wildcards easily killed. I guess I'd have to see how you're running combat, it's rare that my combats go more than 5-rounds with normal rules and normal Benny economy.

So I'd have to know what it is you're doing to justify this. LOLOL -2 Toughness is like saying in D&D everyone gets 1-hp/level. Not saying it's can't or shouldn't be done, but sweet jeebus, that's cut-throat!

I'm assuming these are just general rules you're using for Middle-Earth overall? Or are you saying all of this is on the table at all times?

My interpretation of Middle-Earth is more mythic than yours. I'd have different setting conceits between the Ages as a reflection of the assumptions of each era. Third Age is closer to what I'd attribute to "D&D" but at the same time you've scaled the power-level down much further than I would have for big-ticket things. But if it works for you, rock forth!

This is excellent. I'm planning a Savage Worlds Middle-earth game myself, and was just thinking about how to go about it, so it's fantastic to see these resources already there.

My plan is to use SW to run some of the old MERP material, for which I think it will be great. I'm not a fan of the current 'minimalist' interpretation of Middle-earth taken by TOR and AiME, where there is basically nothing happening outside of what is written in the source material, no magic, and everyone has to be constantly miserable and getting weary..

Quote from: tenbones on June 10, 2024, 11:40:55 AMYour conception of Middle-Earth is *brutal* LOL. Dropping Toughness by 2 has *massive* implications to regular combat. I question how often you're using Wildcards. Most monsters are killed in a single hit, which is usually only requires bypassing Toughness on a normal check. Dropping Toughness by 2 makes even Wildcards easily killed. I guess I'd have to see how you're running combat, it's rare that my combats go more than 5-rounds with normal rules and normal Benny economy.

So I'd have to know what it is you're doing to justify this. LOLOL -2 Toughness is like saying in D&D everyone gets 1-hp/level. Not saying it's can't or shouldn't be done, but sweet jeebus, that's cut-throat!

I'm assuming these are just general rules you're using for Middle-Earth overall? Or are you saying all of this is on the table at all times?

My thinking here is that Savage Worlds is by default tailored for pulp genres, and I think a typical pulp fight is quite different from the epic feel of Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's fight scenes are infrequent and short, often with major consequences. Helm's Deep goes on a while, but it is an extended battle rather than a single combat. It's common for even major figures to go down quickly.

You say that it's rare for fights in your games to go more than 5 rounds, but I'm aiming for fights to be typically 2 rounds, and rarely go 4 or more rounds. This also gives initiative a high importance that I like.

Also, I'm not sure what power level is typical for you. It felt to me like characters with many advances broadened abilities and allow a lot of extra options as well as some defense, but there aren't many edges to directly boost damage. So fights get longer with higher power characters.

Quote from: tenbones on June 10, 2024, 11:40:55 AMMy interpretation of Middle-Earth is more mythic than yours. I'd have different setting conceits between the Ages as a reflection of the assumptions of each era. Third Age is closer to what I'd attribute to "D&D" but at the same time you've scaled the power-level down much further than I would have for big-ticket things. But if it works for you, rock forth!

Interesting. One of the main reasons I went with Savage Worlds was precisely because I didn't think that D&D-based games were mythic enough. I want more epic fights and action when it happens.

The PCs in my one-shot have around 10 advances, which makes them pretty tough by SW standards, but you say that I've scaled the power-level down. I'm not sure what gave that impression.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2024, 11:08:00 AMMy thinking here is that Savage Worlds is by default tailored for pulp genres, and I think a typical pulp fight is quite different from the epic feel of Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's fight scenes are infrequent and short, often with major consequences. Helm's Deep goes on a while, but it is an extended battle rather than a single combat. It's common for even major figures to go down quickly.

The beauty of Savage Worlds is you can skin Helms Deep in several different ways:

1) You can run it as a series of combat encounters. Hell you could probably run several *sessions* on it, if you want to get down and gritty. Would be a lot of fun. Probably lethal as fuck with your rules.

2) You could run it as a Dramatic Task. Which is potentially less lethal, but a LOT faster.

3) You could run it using their Mass Combat rules. The Mass Combat rules are *awesome*. They can really enhance your campaigns and allow PC's to do some truly epic ass stuff that not only feels good, there is still very real chances for TPK's.

4) You could *easily* mix-n-match all of the above.

When I'm speaking of Mythic qualities - I'm talking in the literary sense. Where the events themselves require people of certain standing to do great things that mere mortals couldn't hope to achieve. Fighting Morgoth in a duel where he's leaving 40-ft craters when his hammer falls, is not something Dingo McDougal from East Farthing is going to find himself in unless the Amazon writing team is telling some kind of story for your players.

While it's easy to say Savage Worlds is a "pulp" game emulator - originally it was and remains so. Now? I would happily say "Not really". You have so many levers, bells and whistles, buttons and options between the Core book, the Fantasy Companion and the rest of the Companions, AND the First and Third party content, you can literally run anything you want and dial up the gritty-to-mythic elements as needed.

So Mythic to me, means symbolic, dramatic, where the PC's very actions impact not only the world at large, but its history in how it relates to itself going forward. That is *not* pulp. Frodo didn't just goof and toss the ring into the volcano and kill the big bad. But yet... he did. There is a tone in there that means the difference, if you follow me. And that's where currently Savage Worlds *really* excels. It can mechanically allow a GM to support that nuance.

Using current mechanics you *can* fight that duel of Finrod and Morgoth and make it mechanically more impactful than a Shadow Giant with a massive warhammer, fighting a Elf with a sword, and going tic-tac back and forth. You can be leveraging Dramatic Tasks within the combat, you can be using tactical battlemat rules with Blast impact craters, you can use modern optional rules to let Finrod run up Morgoth's back and drive his sword home, you can leverage Mega-Damage rules to represent the power of the beings fighting. There is a LOT you can do to emulate that mythic feel beyond pulp setting assumptions.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2024, 11:08:00 AMYou say that it's rare for fights in your games to go more than 5 rounds, but I'm aiming for fights to be typically 2 rounds, and rarely go 4 or more rounds. This also gives initiative a high importance that I like.

MOST of my fights are done within 5. But again, I don't force anything. Long fights definitely bring up tension because my PC's tend to be very skilled at what they do. I don't have to drop Toughness ratings to force fights to be quicker. My NPC's use tactics commensurate to their general intelligence and cunning. I will slag a party with basic Goblins using Gang Up tactics with a couple of Goblin Wildcards possessing some basic Leadership Edges and the PC's will know fear *really* fast*.

Have a PC with really high Parry ratings? Have a bunch of <X> with decent Athletics gang tackle and wrestle him down. Use Taunt/Test to slap Vulnerable/Distracted on them. You have options without taking anything away from the PC's or their players feeling/being badass.

Savage Worlds let's PC's be/feel more heroic because unlike D&D where you tend to fight fewer creatures due to their construction as HP-punching bags, in Savage Worlds you can throw more "realistic" amounts (closer to 1e/2e in encounter strength) without fear to get honest reactions from the PC's. It's *DIFFERENT*. PC's tend to feel more heroic, but you as the GM can really fine-tune the octane of the encounters without using a broken challenge rating system. Mainly because PC's can (and should) be slaughtering shit left and right.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2024, 11:08:00 AMAlso, I'm not sure what power level is typical for you. It felt to me like characters with many advances broadened abilities and allow a lot of extra options as well as some defense, but there aren't many edges to directly boost damage. So fights get longer with higher power characters.

So I don't scale my world directly to challenge the party. The World Is. The Party Is. So if the Party goes to where things are challenging, it is only because it's challenging because that's how things are in that place, not because the party is X-Rank. My PC's earn each and every Advance they get. Just like in my D&D campaigns - if the players get to post-10th level (or Veteran Rank in Savage Worlds) they are now regional movers and shakers.

I place no limits on power-levels. My fantasy games are prepped to scale to God-mode (Savage Rifts starting characters average to about 90-120 points. SOLIDLY Veteran-Heroic for "normal Savage Worlds.) I'll happily go there if warranted. So yes, in terms of relative power the PC's will tend to outgun most NPC's... until the circumstances say otherwise. Depends on the game and setting. My campaign worlds react to the PC's and NPC's alike.

Quote from: jhkim on June 12, 2024, 11:08:00 AMInteresting. One of the main reasons I went with Savage Worlds was precisely because I didn't think that D&D-based games were mythic enough. I want more epic fights and action when it happens.

The PCs in my one-shot have around 10 advances, which makes them pretty tough by SW standards, but you say that I've scaled the power-level down. I'm not sure what gave that impression.

10 Advances while lowering Toughness is a big dichotomy depending on what kind of game you're running. 10 Advances is tough for "starting characters". I don't really count one-shots since it's self-contained and contextual to whatever the adventure is.

Starting PC's with 10-advances is like saying "Well in Spelljammer or Darksun you start at 3rd or 4th level." Okay. that's a starting point. But then when you add things like "Well your character has -2 Toughness". Is akin to saying - "You're starting at 4th level, but everyone gets 1d6+Con Bonus for HP... and that's it. Forever." That's a very different conceit.

By that standard I *assume* that you'll have a very high-lethality game. Which is not necessarily "mythic" per se, but tends to be more gritty. I'm not pooping on your idea, I'm just saying that -2 Toughness is *hardcore* which is not something I'd associate with Middle-Earth *generally* - but certainly there are elements of Middle-Earth in various eras that could certainly play that way. -2 Toughness is a massive negative in any respect.

Quote from: tenbones on June 18, 2024, 11:12:30 AMBy that standard I *assume* that you'll have a very high-lethality game. Which is not necessarily "mythic" per se, but tends to be more gritty. I'm not pooping on your idea, I'm just saying that -2 Toughness is *hardcore* which is not something I'd associate with Middle-Earth *generally* - but certainly there are elements of Middle-Earth in various eras that could certainly play that way. -2 Toughness is a massive negative in any respect.

By high-lethality, you mean more PCs killed, I presume. That one rule option seems like a sticking point that you hit on a lot - I think I'd create another thread on it. I acknowledge your advice, but I'd still want to give it a try and see how it goes, and then consider going back to standard Toughness if I don't like the effect.

Any thoughts on Tolkien and dwarves and stopping the war in Savage Worlds?