Can you tell me about the combat in SW, how is it tactical and how bennies are used, if they are?This isn't an entirely unreasonable way to look at it, and I certainly do this regularly, though since I use Savage Worlds and don't get to roll a d20 that often anymore, I typically do a straight d20 roll instead of a d100, but the basic effect is the same.
The real issue, and the reason I started this thread in the first place, was because I wanted to get ideas on how to do it better. Meaning, instead of just pulling out the d20 and saying, "Okay, on a 14 or higher, you get what you want," I wanted to find ways to make those "GM determinations" more connected to players' interests. I wanted to find ways to introduce scenes/fiction/obstacles that allowed my players the freedom to really pursue what they wanted without me as the GM simply throwing up roadblocks all the time.
Part of brainstorming for me meant asking how and where and why other GMs make these sorts of decisions. In some ways my situation is a bit . . . paradoxical. I find myself leaning towards less "traditional" GM-ing methods these days, preferring to allow the players more freedom to create more of the game world and to actively pursue character goals and trajectories. I'm very much NOT concerned with trying to create the "illusion" of a living breathing world, or adhering to some standard of "world simulation." Our group only meets twice a month for approximately 4 hours. We are all working adults with families. We don't have time to waste spending an hour of a game session "hunting for that one secret door" or aimlessly roaming through town looking for adventure hooks.
Yet despite my current GM philosophy, my preferred system of Savage Worlds is a fairly "traditional" sort of system in terms of action resolution. It does incorporate degrees of success and does give players some meta-game control with "Fate" points / Hero points / "Bennies", but the core mechanic follows a fairly straightforward action/task resolution paradigm ("I want my character to do this" / determine trait or skill that relates to declaration / roll and see if it succeeds, wildly succeeds, or fails).
Yet I'm fairly committed to Savage Worlds now, because my players want the discrete level of combat-based and skill-based rules that Savage Worlds has. We actually tried Dungeon World for 3 or 4 sessions at the start of the current campaign, but switched back to Savage Worlds when it became clear that they really did want to have a more tactical combat focus than Dungeon World really provided.
At some point I'm actually somewhat anxious to try Genesys, as it seems to fill a similar niche as Savage Worlds, but moves another step in the "narrative gaming" spectrum while still giving a solid groundwork for task resolution and combat.
Also, the whiff factor is really an issue?
Thanks