Man, Savage Worlds is Swingy!

[The Monster]

I like the SW system; I've found it works well for casual one-shots like convention games. Easy to run, easy to teach, and fast-moving. And yeah, swingy is spot on. The problem I run into is when you try to do a climactic boss fight, it boils down to just cycling turns until one of the players gets that lucky roll, while everyone tries not to die. (On the other hand, that forces me into better end-scene design, with more creative options and effects...).

 

[Xenonnonex]

The problem I run into is when you try to do a climactic boss fight, it boils down to just cycling turns until one of the players gets that lucky roll, while everyone tries not to die. (On the other hand, that forces me into better end-scene design, with more creative options and effects...).

This tends to happen in 5e as well. 5e combats out of the box are terribly boring.

 

[Retreater]

This tends to happen in 5e as well. 5e combats out of the box are terribly boring.

But at least in 5e they are somewhat predictable. I can add cool effects and interesting scenery. Changing the mechanics of the rules is something else.

 

[cmad1977]

This tends to happen in 5e as well. 5e combats out of the box are terribly boring.

That’s a DM issue.

 

[aramis erak]

Untrained skills are very difficult to use. You have to get 4 on a d4-2.

PC's have the Wildcard die (SWD 2015 p.62) so it's 4+ on 1d6-2... NPCs generally cannot do it, lacking the wild die.

While I have not played nor run Savage Worlds, I have sat in on a couple sessions by a GM who loved it... (His car was in the shop, and I agreed to run him to his game and home again)

The swingy is really, really problematic for me. Bennies are supposed to reduce the impact on PCs... but players who have yet to learn to work the bennies system or whose GM is stingy about them, are going to have random nastiness.

One random reduction I've seen is making the standard roll 2d for NPCs and 3d for Wildcards (including PCs). Standard becomes d(Att) + d(Skill) keep high, with wildcards also keeping the d6, but the unskilled becomes simply d(Att)-2.

I've never pulled the trigger on playing SW, but I have a number of setting books for it from bundles...

To list the drawbacks I see, which are why I've not run it myself ...
Minor: Essentially level-based advancement (every advance costs 5 points)
Minor: only 5 levels of ability per ability.
Minor: bennies gain very subjective
Minor: pure point build
Major: super swingy
Major: Up/down/off

Now, one thing I've considered is using the Cortex Plus mechanics (either from Firefly or from Marvel Heroic) with the characters being built using SW, then adding 3 distinctions.

I will say the writing is top-notch, and the design does largely what the designer claims... fast and furious, low bookkeeping, miniatures friendly combat. For me, it doesn't look fun, but my friend Jerry enjoys the hell out of it.... for him, the level-like advancement, the swingyness, and the up/down/off are edges, not flaws.

 

[S'mon]

This tends to happen in 5e as well.

No, in 5e the hp tally grinds down to 0. The opposite of waiting for a random die roll result to pop up in SW.

Edit: I tend(ed) to find that the randomness is good for 'I could die!' sense of immersion, but not for the claimed 'Fun!' Playing SW we tended to do all we could to avoid combat, more because it was boring than from fear of PC death. Conversely I enjoyed the SW non-combat skill use a lot more than in D&D. I think it's a better action-adventure system than minis skirmish game.

 

[Hurske]

If combat is boring because of not being able to land a wound, or to hit, which is something I learned as a GM when I first picked up the system, I try to balance my encounters so it doesn't bog down into a hundred rolls just to do something meaningful.