Tell me about Savage Worlds

[Morrus]

I've not had the pleasure of playing it before, but I do have the quickstart rules (only 4 pages). I know the game has quite a following, that lots of third party stuff is published for it, and it's used for a variety of settings. What are its strengths and weaknesses? How well does it handle different settings, genres, moods? Could it do traditional fantasy, Star Trek, horror well? What books do you recommend - I assume there's a core rulebook; what else is needed? What's the third-party licensing setup? Tell me everything!

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I enjoy Savage Worlds quite a bit. It's been described as a "rules medium" system. There's definitely less math involved than 4e or Pathfinder. It's also got exploding dice that can either be a lot of fun, or be incredibly brutal to your character. My main complaint is that the wound system can lead to a death-spiral pretty easily.

It handles most genres and settings pretty well. Definitely classic fantasy and sci-fi. It does supers okay with the supers companion, but not as well as some other systems specifically for the genre. I've not tried it for horror. Also note that there the system assumes you will institute setting specific rules for the setting and genre you are playing.

The third party license is free. From my own experience (coming out with my first book any day now) and what I've heard from others, the important things is that they want to make sure you have high production values. If you're thinking about it for ENP, I don't think you should have any difficulty with that.

 

[innerdude]

I've not had the pleasure of playing it before, but I do have the quickstart rules (only 4 pages). I know the game has quite a following, that lots of third party stuff is published for it, and it's used for a variety of settings. What are its strengths and weaknesses? How well does it handle different settings, genres, moods? Could it do traditional fantasy, Star Trek, horror well? What books do you recommend - I assume there's a core rulebook; what else is needed? What's the third-party licensing setup? Tell me everything!

Strengths:

• Once you're over the initial learning curve for the system, a GM with nearly any level of system mastery can prep an entire session in 10 minutes. This is not an exaggeration. It's that easy to set up encounters.
• As a result, as a GM you can spend nearly all your time setting up plots, and hooks, and stories, and scenarios, and locations, and maps, and just generally doing the "fun stuff" of being GM.
• Combats are active, engaging, and require good teamwork. There's lots of "setting up your buddy" to make a wicked-good hit using tactics. Plus, characters with any fighting ability are automatically assumed to be able to do most maneuvers. There's no "feat tax" to be able to grapple, or trip. Typically it's just an opposed roll of some kind.
• Tricks and Tests of Will make it possible for someone who's not specialized in combat to contribute to combats, and have a distinct effect on the outcome.
• While the wound system isn't perfect IMHO, it's still overall a step up for me from D&D-style hitpoints. Why? Because combat is always taken at least somewhat seriously. There's no heavily armored fighters running around in battle with archers and crossbowman everywhere saying, "Oh, I'll just eat that 1d8 damage attack. BWAHAHAH!" In the wrong circumstances, a single PC facing two or three low-level crossbowmen will think twice before doing anything stupid. While the exploding dice mechanic nearly always plays into the PC's favor, it still only takes one lucky hit from a mook with a sword, and your character can be in a world of hurt.
• Speaking of exploding dice, they're just flat out awesome. Yeah, it sometimes makes stuff really "swingy" and a little random. To me this is clearly a feature and not a bug. It makes the tighter damage modeling of 3e, and especially 4e, feel a bit too predictable, even a little uninspired.
• Literally every single character I've ever seen played in my games, from fantasy to modern spy / military, has been useful. There simply are no dead-weight characters. Every character contributes, every character gets to play fun situational tactics.
• This is more of a personal preference, but Savage Worlds plays right into the types of combats I like to run---lots of "human" foes of varying skills and tactical awareness. I rarely liked D&D's typical "CR 20 Giant Slavering Muncha-muncha of Demonoid heritage." I like my campaigns to be "human"-centric. Campaigns are interesting because of character and NPC motivations, not because the characters got to go plane hopping and "pown" a Tanar'ri.
• That said, with the right system knowledge, and a little bit of tweaking, it's easy to set up "boss monster" foes that are fun and challenging.
• In the same vein, combats can support virtually any terrain or interesting "spacing" you can imagine. Fire pits? Narrow rope bridges? Crumbling stone walls? Bring it on! And don't forget to let your players know what's actually in the room---pots, glasses, broken bottles, a chair leg, a roll of cloth or burlap. A creative player can use all of these to devastating effect with fighting "tricks."
• As easy as the core system is to "grok," it's pretty difficult for players to go on total "autopilot." It's hard to explain, other than in my experience, players are consistently asked to engage with what's happening in the game world. The fact that every combat can pose a real threat, and every GM hook can be pursued without fear of going someplace "unprepared," means as a GM you can totally mold the narrative to what the characters want. It's almost impossible to NOT make the characters the heroes of the story, because it's so easy to give them what they want, when they want it.

Weaknesses:

• The wound mechanic isn't for everyone. It's a mechanic that makes no bones about the fact that in a lot of ways, it's a purely metagame concept. Some players find it disheartening when they think, "Yeah, I totally destroyed that guy!" only to have the foe get a raise on their soak roll and negate the damage. My players are very good with this though, in that they understand what the system is emulating (a simplified hitpoint system)---but it also makes those hits that do finally score real damage that much more satisfying.
• There are no "throw away" combats. Every combat has the potential, with some good/bad luck on the GM's dice, to cripple the party. If you're looking for a game where players can just have a "casual" combat every session, just to get their kicks out of some combat tactics, it's tough to do that without making the combat a total pushover.
• The hardest part as a fledgling GM is figuring out how to balance encounters. There's really no guidelines, and it really does take 2-5 combats as a GM before you really start to get a feel for what your characters are capable of. Once you sort of understand the basics (3 mooks = 1 "Wild Card" character), it gets a little easier. Furthermore, there's lots of help on the forums with encounter setup.
• I don't personally find this a weakness, but some do---the power curve for Savage Worlds PCs is very tight. It's the equivalent of D&D PCs progressing from levels 2-9, or maybe 3-10. Players looking for the "epic," super-gonzo feel of high-level D&D are going to be disappointed. Personally, I love this, but be aware it is what it is.
• There's absolutely nothing wrong with Savage's out-of-the-box magic rules, they're just far from the highlight of the system. They're merely good, or adequate, though if you're sick of high-powered D&D magic-user nonsense, this might be a welcome change. Otherwise, if you have players that REALLY want to be the "Mage of mages," Savage probably isn't a great fit.

Genres:

I personally have run a "classic" fantasy campaign (FANTASTIC!), a paramilitary / covert ops modern day campaign (pretty good, could have been better because I know the system better now), and a Serenity / Firefly campaign (great system for this world). Savage Worlds handled all of these genres with aplomb.

I'm itching to try a Star Wars campaign with it, a cyberpunk campaign using the Interface Zero campaign setting, a "Pirates of the Caribbean" campaign using 50 Fathoms and / or Pirates of the Spanish Main, and Weird Wars Rome.

Genres I think Savage Worlds would handle extremely well:

• Classic fantasy
• James Bond-style spy thriller
• Urban fantasy, in a multitude of time periods (modern, Victorian, etc.)
• "Kinetic" cyberpunk (think the old '90s movie Strange Days and not Blade Runner)
• "Pulp" Sci-fi
• Really pretty much any sci-fi that avoids more "hard tech" tropes
• Any Age of Sails / Victorian era settings
• With the right sanity mechanic (see Realms of Cthulu), a Cthulu-style game.
• Pulp to semi-gritty "film noir." I haven't purchased it yet, but everything I've ever seen about Deadlands: Noir makes it seem like a truly fantastic setting.
• Western

Genres for which I think Savage Worlds would not be the best choice:

• "Hard" sci-fi
• High-powered superheroes. It MIGHT be okay doing a somewhat low-powered, X-Men-ish style, but certainly not Green Lantern / Superman. If you hunt the Web, this is a fairly common comment about the system in general.
• Hard-core mystery / investigation campaigns (though someone willing to do their homework and tweak some skills could probably more than do it justice)
• Truly "high" fantasy. It's just not built for it. "Medium" and "pulp" swords-and-sorcery however are amply and fantastically supported.

I honestly can't comment on horror. I have never once in my life ever wanted or cared to play RPGs in a horror setting. I'm just not equipped to comment.

As far as Star Trek . . . man, that's a tough one. If you're really, really wanting to emulate the tropes of the TV series pretty much dead on, I don't know that Savage would be particularly good at it. If you're willing to take some liberties with it, and really build on the "extended challenge" mechanic presented in the Deluxe rules, you could probably have a good-to-very-good time with it.

Recommended Books:

• Savage Worlds Deluxe core rulebook, of course. Hardcover or soft, take your pick.
• I really, really dig Interface Zero as a campaign setting. If you really want to give Savage Worlds a shot, and see what it's really capable of before trying to shoehorn it to a "classic" fantasy campaign, this is a fantastic place to start. Based on what I've seen over at Pinnacle's Web site and elsewhere, the people who seem to struggle the most with coming to grips with Savage Worlds are groups that try and switch from D&D directly to Savage Worlds fantasy.
• That said, Hellfrost and Sundered Skies are FANTASTIC settings, if you're dying to make the plunge. Shaintar isn't bad either, though once you get into Savage a little bit, you'll find yourself going crazy with all the homebrew worldbuilding you can do on your own.
• If you have any desire at all to try your hand at a fantasy campaign, pick up the Fantasy Companion, for the magic items alone.
• Beyond that, just pick and choose what looks interesting---Deadlands, Weird Wars, Space: 1889, Rippers, Soloman Kane, whatever.

 

[Greg K]

Savage Worlds is my favorite rpg for non-supers. However, I almost passed on it, because I did not like the quickstarts. It was award nominated and award winning d20M third party companies Adamant, Battlefield Press, Dog House Rules, RPGObjects and others switching to Savage Worlds that got me to give the full product a look.

First thing to know is that many people coming from other games shoot for a high skill die. However, skill die are really for accessing edges. Many edges grant a +2 bonus and, against a standard TN 4, that bonus means you are only going to fail if you a roll a 1 on both the skill die and the wild die. The bonus also brings you closer to a raise.

Combat:
1. Ranged Attacks: Against ranged attacks you don't want to be out in the open. You want to be behind cover! Standing out in the open is a good way to get oneself killed.
2. At first glance, Savage Worlds combat does not seem to have as many options as D&D 3e and 4e. However, first impressions can be deceiving (see this for d20 Combat maneurers in Savage Worlds). The Deluxe version now has Push maneuver. Add to this Tricks and Tests of Wills and there are numerous options

3. Lethality under the Deluxe edition is a dial. People say the game is pulp, but the default is a little more deadly. A lot of people try to control how the deadly game is by the amount of bennies. However, examples from PEG (e.g. Crime City) tend to control lethality through Setting Rules by adjusting the rules for wounds and incapacitation.
The core book, however, does not present a lot of dials for lethality. Here is a list of dials posted online by Clint Black, SW's brand manager that cover Cartoon violence to super gritty by adjusting incapacitation dials (unfortunately, it was not included in the Deluxe edition).

Skills: The game has a skill list. However, as with Lethality, the GM is supposed to adjust the list based on the campaign. This might be renaming a skill, introducing a new skill, etc. A general rule is that, if a skill will not appear every couple of sessions, have the skill instead be handled as Common Knowledge (provided it fits the character's background). If you want to read more, check out this post by Clint

Trappings play an important in the game when it comes to spells and altering powers based upon trappings is a key part of powers.. Sometimes trappings can be confusing for players coming from D&D. For instance there is no Illusion Spell. Illusion is a trapping for Puppet (if you are trying to get a the target to react). If it is supposed to hide, it is the Obscure power. Unfortunately, Illusions as trappings was not covered in the Fantasy Companion nor in the Deluxe Edition despite having been covered by Clint on here on rpg.net

Setting Rules: If not obvious from the above, setting rules to tailor the game for your campaign is a key aspect for running the game. The Deluxe Editon provides several examples.

Settings: the game does many settings very well and between PEG and third party companies there are a lot of sources.
From PEG
1. The Fantasy and Horror Companions from PEG. Sourcebooks with edges, hindrances equipment, monsters, advice and more for creating a variety of campaign based on the genre (Note: The Science Fiction Companion is supposed to be released soon).
2. Pirates of the Spanish Man
3. Deadlands Reloaded which is Wierd West
4. Deadlands Noir: Hardboiled Detective in the Big Easy of 1930's Deadlands

Many genres are covered by great third party products including
Cyberpunk: Interface Zero (Gun Metal Games)
Espionage: Agents of Oblivion (Reality Blurs) The default assumes Men In Black, X-Files and similar, but drop the weird and you can do straight espionage.
Fantasy, High: Hellfrost (Triple Ace Games)
Fantasy, Post Cataclysmic: Sundered Skies (Triple Ace Games)
Fantasy, Robin Hood: Sherwood (Battlefield Press)
Fantasy, Swords and Sorcery: Beasts and Barbarians (GRAmel)
Fantasy, Three Musketeers meets Cthulhu: All For One (Triple Ace Games)
Horror, Cthulhu: Realms of Cthulhu (Reality Blurs) which provides 4 different takes
Horror, Zombie Apocalypse: War of the Dead (Daring Entertainment)
Planetary Romance: Mars: Savage Edition (Adamant)
Post Apocalypse: Darwin's World (RPGObjects)
Pulp: Thrilling Tales 2e (Adamant)
Urban Crime and Corruption: Streets of Bedlam (Fun Sized Games) think Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Sin City, Four Brothers
Victorian Age Urban Fantasy: Gaslight (Battlefield Press)

Possible Drawbacks
1. Unless you have a campaign in mind (and even then), in addition to the $10 core book, you will want one of the Companions or a Setting Book.
2. Some people have an issue with Acing (rolling max on a Test or damage roll and getting to roll the die again and add to the total) when the TN =the die type. A small statistical anomaly, occurs. However, lower dies also increase the chance of a critical failure.
3. Some people think powers are too "samey"
4. Some people have an issue with "death spiral" and "swingy" combat.

 

[Witchfinder General]

I've not had the pleasure of playing it before, but I do have the quickstart rules (only 4 pages).

Only 4 pages? Have you checked out the current test drive, The Wild Hunt? It's 16 pages, has more rules and includes a complete scenario.

I agree with most of what innerdude said. However:

Genres for which I think Savage Worlds would not be the best choice:

High-powered superheroes. It MIGHT be okay doing a somewhat low-powered, X-Men-ish style, but certainly not Green Lantern / Superman. If you hunt the Web, this is a fairly common comment about the system in general.

Savage Worlds may not be the best rules for superheroes for everyone, but it certainly is for me. I prefer the simplicity of Savage Worlds over more detailed systems such as Mutants & Masterminds.

In the core rules, super powers are balanced against other arcane backgrounds (miracles, magic, weird science). Characters designed using the Super Powers Companion are real super heroes and significantly more powerful. In such games, the other arcane backgrounds are replaced with powers such as "super sorcery". If you want to run a supers game in Savage Worlds, I would recommend using the Super Powers Companion instead of super powers in the core rules.

I would say that Savage Worlds is great for X-Men heroes if you use the Super Power Companion. The supers rules has settings for varying power levels from street level to cosmic heroes. That said, I've only played in supers game using the default settings in a Necessary Evil campaign. I've also used the SPC for a cyberpunk game (cybernetic devices as powers, street level heroes).

Support for sci-fi is a bit limited since the Sci-Fi Toolkit is no longer available from the Pinnacle store. A sci-fi companion is in the works.

 

[Morrus]

Thanks, guys.

So my reservations (I grabbed the PDF from RPGNow, though I've not read the whole thing yet) are pretty much the things you are all saying they will be: the limited character advancement and the wound system. And initiative is just completely random, unaffected by the character/creature? That said, it does seem ideal for non uber-heroic games.

I am always a fan of games designed to make things easy on the GM.

So there's a core book and setting books. The setting books additionally contain optional rules, as I understand it? So they also fill the role of splat books?

What sort of optional rules would I expect to see in a setting book? Is it just a a few new weapons and a trait or two? Or are there more extensive rules modifications?

How do those vehicle rules play out? Do they work?

Only 4 pages? Have you checked out the current test drive, The Wild Hunt? It's 16 pages, has more rules and includes a complete scenario.

6 pages of rules, not 4; my apologies!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I like the way the system handles mass combat but, really, it's difficult to add to what [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] has posted.

 

[FickleGM]

Edges and Hindrances can modify initiative. Drawing a Joker is awesome.

That's all I have, as my tastes no longer favor Savage Worlds.

 

[Witchfinder General]

So there's a core book and setting books. The setting books additionally contain optional rules, as I understand it? So they also fill the role of splat books?

The real splat books are the Companions (Fantasy, Horror, Super Powers). They contain new rules (Hindrances, Edges, Powers, etc.) as well as advice for running games in the genre, but no setting specific information.

Setting books typically have some rules, such as new Edges and Hindrances, or setting specific equipment. Some settings exclude certain rules (such as Arcane Background that do not fit the setting), or introduce new rules systems, such as sanity in Weird Wars II or rippertech (magical implants made from monster parts) in Rippers . A setting book typically comes with a plot point campaign as well as a few stand-alone scenarios ("savage tales").

 

[Greg K]

So my reservations (I grabbed the PDF from RPGNow, though I've not read the whole thing yet) are pretty much the things you are all saying they will be: the limited character advancement and the wound system. And initiative is just completely random, unaffected by the character/creature? That said, it does seem ideal for non uber-heroic games.

Character advancement is really about edges and skills (skill ratings, while giving an increased chance of success and reducing the chance of critical failure, open up edges). That is what defines the character. Being untrained in a skill applies a -2 to the skill die roll and the wild die roll.

As I mentioned above, Incapacitation and Wounds are one of those things you are going to want play with depending upon your campaign. In the Setting Rules section, they give you two examples. The Crime City sample (p152 of the pdf) gives you an example of using the gritty rules variant from Chapter 4 of the book.
The link I gave to Clint Black's dials is a good resource for playing with lethality and I wish the Deluxe edition had included all of them.

So there's a core book and setting books. The setting books additionally contain optional rules, as I understand it? So they also fill the role of splat books?

What sort of optional rules would I expect to see in a setting book? Is it just a a few new weapons and a trait or two? Or are there more extensive rules modifications?

Well there are the Core Book, Companions, and Setting Books.

Companions are official rules that help you tailor the game to the genre. They provide new edges, hindrances, powers, equipment and monsters that are genre appropriate . They may change edge prerequisites and provide alternate ways to handle magic.
Companions also advice on creating and running a genre based campaign. For example, the Horror Companion, discusses Dark Horror, Horror in Fantasy, Horror in Science Fiction, and thinking of the Time Period. The book also makes reference to splatter punk, horror vs. gore, and tips for creating atmosphere..

Think of the Companions from PEG like GURPS or d20Modern genre sourcebooks. We are not giving you a setting but the tools to create your own setting (those little d20M capsule campaign examples aside)

Setting Books are, well...settings (usually). You get a setting based around either a particular genre or a combining of genres (which PEG loves to do). Sometimes you get an older rpg (e.g. Earthdawn or Space:1889) coverted to Savage Worlds
Setting books include setting rules that tailor the rules for the setting. In some instances this includes Incapacitation and Wounds. There are usually, new edges, hindrances, new powers, changes to power (e.g. in Shaintar, Boost/Lower trait are broken down into two spells Boost Trait and Lower Trait ) and other rules for that setting.
You can take the new material and use them in your own campaign, but do it with caution. Rules for one setting are not meant to, necessarily, be compatible in another setting (Think of d20 and many people, mistakenly thought products like Rokugan and Swashbuckling Adventures were meant to be directly usable with Third Edition, because they used the d20 Logo and required the PHB. The d20 logo and use of the PHB was required by the license to use character generation, character advancement rules, as well as saving space by not repeating many of the basic mechanics).

Then you get a product like Adamant's Thrilling Tales 2.0 which is more like an indepth overview/genre sourcebook. It discusses how Pulp is not truly a single genre and then goes out to cover the various things that fall under traditional Pulp heading including Ace Reporters, Daring Pilots, Nobel Savages, etc. in terms of Savage Worlds with archetypes, new edges, hindrances, etc.


Hope that helps