Greetings,
it is always great to see people playing with the Savage Worlds system. However there are some general caveats that one should look out for.
Firstly have you played the system extensively "as is". Modifying the game without testing the bare bones system over and over leads to a break sometimes that makes the game "broken" over time.
Of course this all depends on the kind of game you are running. If you are running a "heroes always win" game then sure, make as many changes as you can think of
Secondly, bennies are a free flowing resource if played correctly. As written players should receive a Benny every time the Storyteller sees good roleplaying (subjective) or you could at least award a Benny for the first time a Hinderance comes into play and the player plays on that Hinderance.
I have been Storytelling Savage Worlds for a while now, and these are my opinions to your ideas.
Please do not misinterpret this as criticism but rather very neutral commenting from my own experiences.
- Spend a benny to draw a second initiative card, allowing you to act twice in one round
Acting twice within a round without a multi-action penalty may seem Benny worthy, however it will do a couple of things. Firstly all of your main warrior-types (modern or otherwise) will be spending their bennies to destroy their foes quickly. As such you may find yourself upping the strength of enemies to compensate, and a dangerous cycle ensues.
A better option is to allow them to gain the Quickness or Level Headed edge for a turn (or maybe even a scene). It does not grant extra attacks but gives them the chance of acting earlier, which in Savage Worlds is quite a powerful ability anyway.
Each culture has a favored edge, which costs only 1 flaw (such as Acrobatics for a tree dwelling culture)
This works fine if everyone has the same advantage, otherwise if you have the Sci-Fi Companion look at balancing out the benefit using their race creation rules.
I have done similar things either as a bonus Edge at character creation or reduced costs and it works well to add flavour. Just be careful about which Edges you are giving out cheaply.
you can “buy off” hindrances with XP: 5 XP for a major hindrance, 3 XP for minor
Although it is not specifically in the rules as a general concept, it is listed in the Enemy and Habit Hinderances.
In those Hinderances the concept of buying them off with an Advance is listed. So your idea here is not new, and has been around in most games since I played the original Deadlands.
Your idea at allowing them to buy of a Minor Hinderance in a different way is just extra paper work and one character will always have odd XP counts compared to everyone else. I made this mistake myself and it has made a character a "little off" compared to the rest. When we resume next season I will be correcting that
The one thing I personally do is require a roleplaying justification. For example a player in my current game was a Pacifist to start with. However all of the violence he has experienced, including the loss of a potential true-love to the machinations of the BBG led him to buy it off - no longer would he be tethered to this weak code of honour.
Without an RPG reason I double the cost of removing it.
You can use an advance to claim a favored creature you have previously faced, such as orcs; your wild die increases one step against them for combat and intimidation tests
If you look at the Master Edge, you will notice it does something very similar to what you are talking about, except it is only for one specific Trait (combat and intimidate are seperate Traits). In addition, it requires 2 other Legendary Edges to qualify for (Expert and Professional).
Yes you are limiting it to a specific type of creature, however two things will happen: orcs are everywhere and thus the benefit is a large one, orcs do not appear very often and thus the Advance used would be better spent on an Edge that works all of the time.
Hopefully this gives you some insight into the game as I have run it and experienced it,
D
