Shades of Green
First Post
What is this?
I've never owned or played any edition of Savage Worlds or any derivative of it; however, I've heard many good things about it recently. My RPG experience is mostly with D&D 2E and 3.0E, BFRPG, Traveller (both Classic and Mongoose) and Shadowrun (2E, 3E and 4E). Since Savage Worlds is dirt-cheap (10$ not including shipping), I might be tempted to buy it if it will suit my needs and gaming style.
Pinnacle Entertainment Group has a Test-Drive version of the Savage Worlds Rules available for download for free from its web-page. There are also several short adventures and pre-generated characters of various genres available for download from the same site. Since it is free of charge, I seem to have every reason in the world to check it out in detail. I've read through the Savage Worlds Test Drive Rules (v6) in the last few days and I'll post my comments here today.
Things I Liked
1) The mechanics are simple, very very simple, at least at the basic level. Attributes and skills are rated (by point-buy, if I understood the rules correctly) by a die type. They range from d4 (weakest) to d12 (strongest). In almost all cases, actions are resolved by rolling 4 or more on a trait die; for example, if you're shooting someone, and have a d8 Shooting skill, you need to roll 4 or more on d8 in order to hit the target. Dice also "explode", that is, if you roll the highest number on a die (e.g. 4 on a d4), you get to roll another die and add the results together. If you roll 4 or more above the target number (i.e. 8 in most cases), you get a "raise" which means that you've performed the task particularly well. I like that; the whole basic rules can be easily memorized, and there is no need to wonder which die to roll for a task as the traits themselves are dice types.
2) There are "Bennies", i.e. fate-points, which all important characters (PCs and NPCs) have a few of them (usually three) per game session, which could be used to add a certain level of player control over play, usually re-rolling dice but also saving the players' skins from being killed by bad dice rolls. This is a nice luck mechanic, yet not too overpowering; I like that.
3) There are Edges and Flaws (called Edges and Hindrances in SW); they seem to be a quick and easy way to make characters more interesting.
4) There seems to be very little paperwork involved in combat. Combat - which uses quite simple mechanics - either produces Wounds or a Shaken result (which temporarily disables a combatant). Being Shaken when you're already Shaken also creates a Wound. Most Extras (i.e. mooks) are removed from play by one wound; Wild Cards (i.e. heroes) can survive three wounds before they're in a danger of dying. No need to track HP, especially for mooks. I like that!
5) Combat initiative uses playing cards rather than dice! Cool!
6) Both attacks and damage use exploding dice, so even weaklings (including lowly punks and goblins) may get lucky from time to time; this means that combat is a little more swingy than, say, in D&D.
7) Magic - called "Powers" in this game - is quite generic but has "Trappings" to allow customization and flavor; so a Blast power may be a fireball, a swarm of insects or an ice explosion using the same game mechanics but a different flavor.
Thing I didn't Like
1) The layout and art of the test-drive rules and all the other free material available from the Pinnacle Entertainment site, while very good-looking, don't look very printer-friendly, especially due to the amount of color art and color background. In other words, if I'm going to buy SW, I'll probably buy it in print rather than in PDF form.
Things I am not so Sure About
1) The game is written in a somewhat slang-ish language. This would be perfect for the atmosphere of a pulp game, but I'm not sure how this will fit games such darker fantasy, hard sci-fi or Cthulhu-type horror where a serious tone is desired.
2) The game supposes an heroic setting; PCs (and major NPCs) are "Wild Cards", that is (somewhat) larger-than-life heroes who are harder to kill and more successful to succeed in tasks than ordinary people. This fits pulp and D&D-type fantasy perfectly, but I'm not sure if this ruleset will be appropriate for harder SF or Cthulhu.
3) How does Armour work? is it added to Toughness, or to the Parry roll?
4) The Test-Drive rules state that spellcasters start with 10 Power Points, yet most pre-generated mages I came across had 20 Power Points... Why is that so?
5) Strangely enough, a machine gun (M60) which was statted in the Test-Drive rules, had the same stats as an assault rifle except for a larger ammo capacity; shouldn't it have a higher rate of fire?
6) SW miniature combat is in inches, and, I assume, fits 28mm figures. I prefer to use a metric system (i.e. cm) and 15mm figures; how easy are things - especially the blast templates - to convert to this scale?
Questions I Have
1) How does combat "feel"? Is it fast and furious, with a lot of cool results (which is the impression I get from reading the Test-Drive rules), or slower and more gradual? How interesting and/or cool is the typical combat encounter in SW? How lethal is combat?
2) How does the game, in general, "feel"? How easy to play is it in actual use? How easy are the full rules to learn by new players (especially ones who don't like complicated rules)?
3) How easy is SW to run with a small group, say 2 players and a DM or one-on-one?
4) How easy and/or quick is prep for SW? This is one of the biggest issues for me in any rule-system, as RL time is becoming more and more limited and some systems (such as D&D 3.xE) take quite a time to prep for.
5) Could it be used to play D&D-type fantasy? Semi-hard (think Traveller) sci-fi?
Settings I might want to Run using These Rules (will they work well with SW?)
1) Sword & sorcery, if the rules will fit that style well. Probably using my post-apocalyptic Wounded Gaia setting.
2) A modern quasi-pulp conversion of X1: Isle of Dread, with some inspiration from Lost. The PCs' plane will crash on an island stuck in a pocket in the time-space continuum, where dinosaurs and other weird creatures are trapped along with the alien Kupru (and their crashed spaceship, which is the reason for the temporal anomaly), and the quasi-abandoned facilities of a DHARMA-type organization (MJ12?) which found a way to get to the island in the 1970's but later killed most of themselves in a civil war instigated by the surviving Kupru. The game will focus on survival and exploration, and later on unlocking the mysteries of the island; the climax would be destroying the Kupru spaceship's jump-drive, hence returning the island to the main time-space continuum and allowing easy escape.
3) A fantasy/steampunk hybrid crime-centric game inspired by the Thief series of computer games but maybe with some D&D or Shadowrun elements (such as dwarves) added in for good measure.
4) A post-apocalyptic setting similar to this.
The Bottom Line
I seem to like the direction at which the Test-Drive rules were hinting; fast, furious, fun and easy to play, all while not burdening the game too much. A the ruleset is cheap (10 US$ not including shipping), I'm seriously considering buying it...
I've never owned or played any edition of Savage Worlds or any derivative of it; however, I've heard many good things about it recently. My RPG experience is mostly with D&D 2E and 3.0E, BFRPG, Traveller (both Classic and Mongoose) and Shadowrun (2E, 3E and 4E). Since Savage Worlds is dirt-cheap (10$ not including shipping), I might be tempted to buy it if it will suit my needs and gaming style.
Pinnacle Entertainment Group has a Test-Drive version of the Savage Worlds Rules available for download for free from its web-page. There are also several short adventures and pre-generated characters of various genres available for download from the same site. Since it is free of charge, I seem to have every reason in the world to check it out in detail. I've read through the Savage Worlds Test Drive Rules (v6) in the last few days and I'll post my comments here today.
Things I Liked
1) The mechanics are simple, very very simple, at least at the basic level. Attributes and skills are rated (by point-buy, if I understood the rules correctly) by a die type. They range from d4 (weakest) to d12 (strongest). In almost all cases, actions are resolved by rolling 4 or more on a trait die; for example, if you're shooting someone, and have a d8 Shooting skill, you need to roll 4 or more on d8 in order to hit the target. Dice also "explode", that is, if you roll the highest number on a die (e.g. 4 on a d4), you get to roll another die and add the results together. If you roll 4 or more above the target number (i.e. 8 in most cases), you get a "raise" which means that you've performed the task particularly well. I like that; the whole basic rules can be easily memorized, and there is no need to wonder which die to roll for a task as the traits themselves are dice types.
2) There are "Bennies", i.e. fate-points, which all important characters (PCs and NPCs) have a few of them (usually three) per game session, which could be used to add a certain level of player control over play, usually re-rolling dice but also saving the players' skins from being killed by bad dice rolls. This is a nice luck mechanic, yet not too overpowering; I like that.
3) There are Edges and Flaws (called Edges and Hindrances in SW); they seem to be a quick and easy way to make characters more interesting.
4) There seems to be very little paperwork involved in combat. Combat - which uses quite simple mechanics - either produces Wounds or a Shaken result (which temporarily disables a combatant). Being Shaken when you're already Shaken also creates a Wound. Most Extras (i.e. mooks) are removed from play by one wound; Wild Cards (i.e. heroes) can survive three wounds before they're in a danger of dying. No need to track HP, especially for mooks. I like that!
5) Combat initiative uses playing cards rather than dice! Cool!
6) Both attacks and damage use exploding dice, so even weaklings (including lowly punks and goblins) may get lucky from time to time; this means that combat is a little more swingy than, say, in D&D.
7) Magic - called "Powers" in this game - is quite generic but has "Trappings" to allow customization and flavor; so a Blast power may be a fireball, a swarm of insects or an ice explosion using the same game mechanics but a different flavor.
Thing I didn't Like
1) The layout and art of the test-drive rules and all the other free material available from the Pinnacle Entertainment site, while very good-looking, don't look very printer-friendly, especially due to the amount of color art and color background. In other words, if I'm going to buy SW, I'll probably buy it in print rather than in PDF form.
Things I am not so Sure About
1) The game is written in a somewhat slang-ish language. This would be perfect for the atmosphere of a pulp game, but I'm not sure how this will fit games such darker fantasy, hard sci-fi or Cthulhu-type horror where a serious tone is desired.
2) The game supposes an heroic setting; PCs (and major NPCs) are "Wild Cards", that is (somewhat) larger-than-life heroes who are harder to kill and more successful to succeed in tasks than ordinary people. This fits pulp and D&D-type fantasy perfectly, but I'm not sure if this ruleset will be appropriate for harder SF or Cthulhu.
3) How does Armour work? is it added to Toughness, or to the Parry roll?
4) The Test-Drive rules state that spellcasters start with 10 Power Points, yet most pre-generated mages I came across had 20 Power Points... Why is that so?
5) Strangely enough, a machine gun (M60) which was statted in the Test-Drive rules, had the same stats as an assault rifle except for a larger ammo capacity; shouldn't it have a higher rate of fire?
6) SW miniature combat is in inches, and, I assume, fits 28mm figures. I prefer to use a metric system (i.e. cm) and 15mm figures; how easy are things - especially the blast templates - to convert to this scale?
Questions I Have
1) How does combat "feel"? Is it fast and furious, with a lot of cool results (which is the impression I get from reading the Test-Drive rules), or slower and more gradual? How interesting and/or cool is the typical combat encounter in SW? How lethal is combat?
2) How does the game, in general, "feel"? How easy to play is it in actual use? How easy are the full rules to learn by new players (especially ones who don't like complicated rules)?
3) How easy is SW to run with a small group, say 2 players and a DM or one-on-one?
4) How easy and/or quick is prep for SW? This is one of the biggest issues for me in any rule-system, as RL time is becoming more and more limited and some systems (such as D&D 3.xE) take quite a time to prep for.
5) Could it be used to play D&D-type fantasy? Semi-hard (think Traveller) sci-fi?
Settings I might want to Run using These Rules (will they work well with SW?)
1) Sword & sorcery, if the rules will fit that style well. Probably using my post-apocalyptic Wounded Gaia setting.
2) A modern quasi-pulp conversion of X1: Isle of Dread, with some inspiration from Lost. The PCs' plane will crash on an island stuck in a pocket in the time-space continuum, where dinosaurs and other weird creatures are trapped along with the alien Kupru (and their crashed spaceship, which is the reason for the temporal anomaly), and the quasi-abandoned facilities of a DHARMA-type organization (MJ12?) which found a way to get to the island in the 1970's but later killed most of themselves in a civil war instigated by the surviving Kupru. The game will focus on survival and exploration, and later on unlocking the mysteries of the island; the climax would be destroying the Kupru spaceship's jump-drive, hence returning the island to the main time-space continuum and allowing easy escape.
3) A fantasy/steampunk hybrid crime-centric game inspired by the Thief series of computer games but maybe with some D&D or Shadowrun elements (such as dwarves) added in for good measure.
4) A post-apocalyptic setting similar to this.
The Bottom Line
I seem to like the direction at which the Test-Drive rules were hinting; fast, furious, fun and easy to play, all while not burdening the game too much. A the ruleset is cheap (10 US$ not including shipping), I'm seriously considering buying it...
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