Turanil said:
Interesting review, thanks.
You're welcome.
Turanil said:
One question I still have is: does it induce a much different feel to play one game or the other (with the same setting)? I mean, I read this, and would like to understand better:
razorwise said:
Savage Worlds, on the other hand, is innately geared towards pulp or cinematic play.
Do you mean that Savage Worlds is before all a game of action and fights, but not of roleplaying? How would it compare to standard d20 in this regard?
Hello Turanil,
Let me clarify the last point first. Savage Worlds is not a game strictly of action and fights, any more than any other roleplaying game, that depends on the GM's and the group's style and the particular setting. While SW handles combat so deftly and cleanly, it affords a great deal more opportunity for roleplaying and story advancement than some other more cumbersome systems.
When I say it lends itself naturally to a pulp or cinematic style of play, that's no knock. That is where the system has its roots. The design of the system with the characters being Wild Cards puts them immediately a cut above the average joe, just like the heros in a movie. Is this a bad thing? Not at all. It just lends a different feel and allows the players to take more immediate ownership of their characters right out of the gate. The ability to soak wounds and spend bennies (like fate points or conviction points) on rerolls and soaking wounds, though a finite source, helps reinforce the cinematic conceit. Is this a bad thing? Nope. Last time I checked, most gamers love movies, and we all love to emulate the more heroic activities. Does this mean your character is bulletproof or invulnerable? Of course not. You still have advancements during the course of the game. Due to the finite number of wounds, you still can be overwhelmed and captured. Again, just like in the movies. SW allows for a lot of liberties. To paraphrase Dante, the system makes you free to stand or free to fall.
I've been mulling over the general perception of SW and T20 as rules light systems and think it may be more accurate to say that they are rules smart. What do I mean by this? Well, Savage Worlds uses broad sweeping skill categories allowing Edges to refine them.
True20, on the other hand, has feats, but has distilled all the roles down into three primary roles. However, they have blurred the line with the ease in which characters can attain multiple roles and reduced abilities (stats) down to their essence on a scale of +/-5 (in general.) They've also introduced a lot more flexibility into the remnants of the roles where they are truly more frameworks for building a character conception with the main constant being the accessibility to certain attributes and their progression tables for saving throws and combat bonuses.
Why do I go over this again? To better answer your first question. How does the same setting play in two systems? This, I can answer with a specific case instance. I've run Starfall Jungle, the first adventure I developed for Agents of Oblivion, quite a bit for both systems. The feeling is very much the same, since the setting is the same, but the play is a bit different. Akin to comparing Resident Evil on a PS2 with an Xbox. Each platform has certain features that can be highlighted and made to shine. When playing AoO for Savage Worlds, there is a more cinematic feeling, akin to a James Bond flick. Granted, overlaying 12 to Midnight's Fear Effects rules, does modify this feeling somewhat, it was not exactly the same as in T20. AoO in T20 played a great deal like Splinter Cell. The characters were filled with suspense and dread as they moved through the scenario. Part of this is due to the more refined Sanity system I developed for AoO, part of it is due to the feel of the setting, and the remaining part is due to the fragility of the characters when faced with autofire and creatures beyond their normal ken.
Combat in both systems is very fast and fluid, once you know it. If one pauses to reflect on the learning curve for both, they are about the same. A good GM can run characters just as quickly through a T20 game as a SW game. T20 is just more front-loaded, but using any of the settings released for it provides archetypes both to define the setting and to allow a low barrier to entry. Yes, you have to jot down a good bit of numbers, but it pales next to some other systems.
To give you a comparison, the last time I ran a d20 game, it was D&D 3.5, and the initial scene for one dungeon level had a goodly number of creatures the characters were to encounter in this gigantic cavern. It was set up to give them a feel that "they weren't in Kansas any more" and to suggest the dangers and new adversaries facing off against them. It took hours and hours to run this one combat scenario. I had three experienced players and things were going along at a normal clip, but they were at a level where it just took much longer to resolve combat than is enjoyable for people that love to roleplay. That is what prompted my search for a more fluid system and drove me to investigate other roleplaying systems, including Savage Worlds. I haven't looked back since, but chose then to develop for systems that are story forward - that have a nifty set of mechanics that don't get in the way of the enjoyment and actually enhance it.
Hopefully, I've offered some comprehensive answers to your questions. If not, let me know.
Regards,
Sean Preston
President, Reality Blurs
www.realityblurs.com
