Review of fRáGiL (Part 6)

In this sixth part of the series I'm dedicating to the post-apocalyptic game fRáGiL I will give you some guidelines for using it with the game Saints & Sinners, created by Gerardo Tasistro (Blog | DriveThruRPG).

To read the previous installments you may follow these links: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5.

Saints & Sinners

Rust texture by
NaamaYMStock on DeviantArt

Saints & Sinners is a role-playing game conceived to offer referees and players the chance to experiment the actions and sensations a soldier could have in conflicts marking out the 20th Century, like First and Second World War or Korean War for putting a few examples.

To achieve this Saints & Sinners give the needed elements to create military characters and a ruleset that concentrates on managing the corresponding combat situations which can occur during the game.

Saints & Sinners: Contents

Saints & Sinners is structured in the following chapters:

About this game | Read This First

Introduction stating it's a realistic role-playing game and no a heroic fantasy game.

The Character

Explanation of the necessary steps to create character attributes and derived statistics (attribute bonuses, hit points, etc.), a sample character is also provided.

Skills and Branches

Description of the distinct service branches and skills and specializations each one grants to the character:

• Infantryman:
  • Rifleman Role
  • Heavy Weapons Role
  • Medic Role
  • Mortar / Forward Observer
• Artillery:
  • Mortar Role
  • Howitzer
• Armor
• Communications
• Intelligence
• Pilot:
  • Fixed Wing Pilot Role
  • Rotary Pilot Role

Time

Explanation about how to divide the game in different units:

• Scenes
• Rounds (10 second intervals)
• Beats (1 second intervals, each beat usually have 4 tics, although this quantity can vary depending on the level of character training in the used skill)
• Tics (1/4 second intervals, used to take into account situations that are triggered quickly)

Skills and task Resolutions

Explanation of the basic system.

Character Progression

Explanation of how the character can evolve through training and specialization.

Basic Actions and Attacks

Explanation of the basic combat system:

• Spotting and observation
• Initiative
• Surprise
• Firearm Combat
• Damage
• Armor
• Sights
• Hand to Hand Combat
• Grenades, Mines and Shells
• Sample Attack

Advanced Actions and Attacks

Explanation of the advanced combat system:

• Equipment Load
• Movement
• Fatigue
• Actions and Fatigue
• Vehicle Armor
• Hand to Hand Combat
• Transient Psychological Effects

Pro Actions and Attacks

Explanation of a set of rules duly used:

• Sniper Skills
• Flight Time
• Grenade and Shell Misses

Hand to Hand Styles

Explanation of the distinct combat styles you may find:

• Unskilled
• Wrestling
• Jujitsu
• Boxing
• Hand to Hand

Weapons and Equipment

Different types of weapons and equipment you may find in the game:

• Martial Weapons (knifes, swords, bows, etc.)
• Handguns
• Rifles
• Shotguns
• Submachine Guns
• Machine Guns
• Flamethrower
• Grenades and Mines
• Artillery
• Mortars and Rocket Launchers

Appendix A: Quick Table Reference

Contains the necessary tables needed to ease the referee task.

Appendix B: 4d6 System

Explanation of the 4D6 System along the probability distribution.

Image Credits

Origin and licenses of the used images.

Saints & Sinners: Basic Game System

Saints & Sinners uses a mechanics named by Gerardo Tasistro as Red and Blue dice mechanics (or 4d6 System).

Red dice represent the roll's strength and Blue ones its weaknesses, the roll's outcome in the system is also calculated substracting the Red Dice outcome from Blue Dice outcome, and this is always done for a skill roll result as well as its difficulty, using a skill always will be successful it the roll's outcome is more than or equal to the difficulty roll once the corresponding modifiers are applied.

All the above is summarized in the following table, in which you will see the skill levels and difficulties and how to calculate opposed dice rolls.

Character Skill	Task Difficulty	Dice Roll
Unskilled	Trivial	4d6-5d6
Skilled	Easy	4d6-4d6
Professional	Demanding	4d6-3d6
Expert	Challenging	4d6-2d6
Master	Hard	4d6-1d6
Legendary	Epic	4d6

An example of a skill roll would be the dollowing one: A character with a Professional skill level (4d6-3d6=24-11=13) facing a Challenging Task (4d6-2d6=14-10=4) in this case would win by 9 points.

Using fRáGiL with Saints & Sinners

As Saints & Sinners is a military themed game its contents could be adapted to fRáGiL to acheive a game experience akin as the one offered by Twilight 2000, the military post-apocalyptic game by excellence (something which can also be done with games based in the CdB Engine ruleset, like for instance Walküre or its comming supplement Sturm und Drang).

The notes that I will present below are, as in the previous post, a preliminary study which also considers that fRáGiL license (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Saints & Sinners license (CC BY 4.0) are compatible even for creating commercial works, although it must be taken into account that the license of the created work must be CC BY-SA 4.0 as explained in the Creative Commons wiki.

First of all it's necessary to establish the equivalence of difficulty scales between both systems. In this case there isn't a direct correspondence like in CdB Engine case, so I suggest the following table:

Equivalence of difficulty ranges
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0		Saints & Sinners
Difficulty	Task	Difficulty level	Dice to roll
1	Easiest	Trivial	4d6-5d6
2	Easy
3	Moderated
4	Complicated	Easy	4d6-4d6
5	Sophisticated	Demanding	4d6-3d6
6	Crappy	Challenging	4d6-2d6
7	Very crappy	Hard	4d6-1d6
8	Seriously?	Epic	4d6
9	WTF, guy

Regarding attributes and its equivalence levels it's pretty direct, you only have to take into account that in Saints & Sinners there's no psionic ability, although these are easily adaptable in case you will to introduce them into the game taking fRáGiL mechanics as a reference.

For secondary characteristics calculated with attributes as a base it's advisable to use the instructions of each ruleset.

Equivalence of attributes
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0	Saints & Sinners
Attribute	Attribute
Strength	Strength
Leadership	Sagacity
Intelligence	Cognitive
Agility	Dexterity
Endurance	Endurance
Will	Mettle
Power	W / D
Defense	W / D
Extension	W / D
W / D: Without direct correspondence (in Saints & Sinners psionic powers don't exist)

Equivalence of attribute levels
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0	Saints & Sinners
Attribute level	Attribute level
0	4
1	5-8
2	9-12
3	13-16
4	17-20
5	21-24

Regarding skill levels it's possible to get into the following equivalences taking the previous table showing the difficulty ranges as a model.

Skill levels equivalence
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0	Saints & Sinners
Skill level	Skill level	Dice to roll
1	Unskilled	4d6-5d6
2
3
4	Skilled	4d6-4d6
5	Professional	4d6-3d6
6	Expert	4d6-2d6
7	Master	4d6-1d6
8	Legendary	4d6

With weaponry it's necessary to take into account how it works in both games, because in fRáGiL it shows generic characteristics and in Saints & Sinners is more specialized and with references to real world, so depending in the option chosen it could be necessary to carry out a study to create the more suitable option for gaming stats (in this sense it can be useful to consult the category of firearms in Wikipedia and the wiki Internet Movie Firearms Database as well as specialized literature or supplements from other games treating the subject in depth).

Comparison of generic weapons with its equivalent in Saints & Sinners
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0
Name	Impact	Range	Damage	Weight	Damage type	Special
Katana	4	2	5	1.5	Cutting
Pistol	0	6	10	1	Piercing	Magazine (6) Jamming Penetration
Light machinegun	0	7	14	3	Piercing	Magazine (100) Jamming Automatic fire Penetration

Saints & Sinners
Weapon	Damage	Range			Ammo	Weight
Sword	2(d6+1)	Short (1 m)			-	1.5 kg
Colt M1911A1	2d6 SP+3	10/20/30/40/50/80			7 (.45 ACP)	1.1 kg
M1919 Browning machinegun	2(d6+1) SP+2	100/300/600/900/1400/1800			250 (7.62 x 51mm)	14 kg
SP: Stopping Power. It's only applied to damage when the bullet impacts body tissues.

As you may see in the previous table weapons in Saints & Sinners could have a bit unusual damage code, like 2(d6+2) SP +2, but as the game's ruleset explains it means that it's necessary to roll two six-sided dice and add to each outcome +1, so the minimum damage would be (1+1)+(1+1)=4 points and the maximum damage (6+1)+(6+1)= 14 points (the weapon's Stopping Power, in this case +2, will be added to damage if the character targeted don't wear a protection like a bulletproof vest).

If you want to convert Saints & Sinners weapon statistics to STEN 2.0 system of fRáGiL it can be done making the following calculations to have a certain approximation:

• Cutting weapons: Damage (STEN) = Maximum damage (Saints & Sinners)
• Firearms: Damage (STEN) = Maximum damage (Saints & Sinners) (you can consider to add SP factor to damage)
• Range: Use the abstract range proposed by STEN
• Weight: You may consider using the weight appearing in any of both game books or the one in consulted reference books

With protections characters can carry we can see the following:

Comparison of armor with its equivalents in Saints & Sinners
fRáGiL | STEN 2.0
Name	Blu	Cut	Pier	Cov	Eva	Pen	Weight
Leather vest	1	2	2	6	3	1	10
Mad Max Armor	3	4	4	6	0	2	15
Reenactor's plate armor	3	3	4	6	1	2	15

Saints & Sinners
Name				Soak Roll	Blast Bonus
Helmet				2d6	N / A
Bullet Proof Vest (Level IV)				3d6	1 level

As you may see in the previous table in STEN 2.0 protections have diverse stats to define the protection offered regarding different damage types (piercing, cutting, etc.), however in Saints & Sinners protections only offer a protection dice roll and in some cases a special protection against explosions.

To convert these protections stats from one system to the another I suggest the following:

• Protections (STEN): Maximum outcome of the protection roll (Saints & Sinners), the referee should decide how to divide this numbre among the different STEN damage types and how to apply other effects
• Protections (Saints & Sinners): It equals the sum of Blunt, Cutting and Piercing resistance of protection (STEN). any other effect and how to apply it are at the discretion of the referee

Sample character: Roza Shanina

To end this post here you have an historical character sample: Soviet sniper Roza Shanina (1924 - 1945).

I have created the character based on the information contained in the Wikipedia article and the professional branches of Saints & Sinners. I have written her gaming stats in Saints & Sinners format and convert them afterwards to fRáGiL format (I had'nt created weapon conversions or other similary equipment pieces or given combat styles or skills of STEN 2.0 system, although it should be easy to do reading the manual if you need them).

Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain

Roza Shanina (1924 - 1945) Second World War Soviet Sniper Saints & Sinners
ATRIBUTOS
Attribute		Modifier	Hit Points Stamina: Pain Threshold: Action Points: Endurance (rounds):		26 20  4 12  3
Strength Sagacity Cognitive Dexterity Endurance Mettle	14 16 14 16 16 18	0 +2 0 +2 +2 +4
BACKGROUND
Primary school teacher. Central Women Sniper Training School. Senior Sergeant, 1st Platoon 184th Rifle Division, 3rd Belorussian Front. Order of Glory (3rd and 2nd Class). Medal For Courage Four brothers: Mikhail (dead during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941), Fyodor (dead during the Crimean Campaign in 1941), Sergei (missing in action) and Marat.

SKILLS
Skill	Level	Specialization	Level
Communications Forward Observer Grenades Handguns Hand to Hand Combat Indirect Fire Rifles Tactics and Camouflage	Skilled Professional Professional Professional Professional Skilled Expert Professional	Nagant M1895 Revolver Moisin-Nagant Rifle	Expert Expert
EQUIPMENT
Moisin-Nagant sniper rifle equipped with PU scope. Uniform. Other accoutrements as needed.

Roza Shanina: Story of the Girl-Sniper from Natalie Sklobovskaya on Vimeo.

Roza Shanina (1924 - 1945) Second World War Soviet Sniper fRáGiL
ATTRIBUTES
Physical		Mental		Psionic
Strength (S) Agility (A) Endurance (E)	3 3 3	Will (W) Intelligence (I) Leadership (L)	4 3 3	Power (P) Defence (D) Extension (E)	N/A N/A N/A
BACKGROUNDS
Primary school teacher. Central Women Sniper Training School. Senior Sergeant, 1st Platoon 184th Rifle Division, 3rd Belorussian Front. Order of Glory (3rd and 2nd Class). Medal For Courage Four brothers: Mikhail (dead during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941), Fyodor (dead during the Crimean Campaign in 1941), Sergei (missing in action) and Marat.

SKILLS			QUALITIES
Skill Communications Forward Observer Grenades Handguns Hand to Hand Combat Indirect Fire Rifles Tactics and Camouflage		LVL 4 5 5 5 5 4 6 5	ATR I I S/A S/A S/A/E I S/A L	Unconsciousness (= 5xW) Death (= 10xS) Total endurance (= 5xE) Recovery (= E) Initiative (= A+I) Max. load (= 5xS) Max. load in hands (= S)	20 30 15 3 6 15 kg 3 kg

INVENTORY

Moisin-Nagant sniper rifle equipped with PU scope. Uniform. Other accoutrements as needed.

Next installments?

Rust texture by
NaamaYMStock on DeviantArt

With this post this series devoted to fRáGiL ends for now, although my mind keeps working and ideas are flowing, so I do not rule out expanding it in a more or less immediate future with some creation of my own taking advantage of some of the plans that Eneko Menica makes public through EL Tomo Carmesí...

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