Grade the Savage Worlds System

[HaroldTheHobbit]

For our group, it still works without an extensive bennie flow - basically, the only times someone gains a bennie is a) for doing a full recap at the beginning of the session, b) when a joker is drawn for initiative, c) when someone extensively plays into their chosen flaws. But then we only have 2.5-3h sessions, so it works out with less bennies in most cases.

I'm generally very generous with my bennies, and even more so in our current Savage Pathfinder campaign, mostly because my players tend to spend them very frivolously - which make for a fun game where players aren't afraid to take risks. Even though our games are mostly focused on roleplaying, politics, intrigue and social stuff, that also means that when it's time for combat, they are never loaded to the gills with bennies which keep the excitement up.

An example from my last session: The players had decided to free a teen girl (a fringe, on the spur created npc that the players took a shine to, you know how it is...) from a well guarded prison. From networking they knew that there most probably would be at least one tough fight there. Now, to get into the prison they needed to get through an underwater passage. So, one of the players decided to spend three bennies on rerolls to succeed haggling down the price for a batch of underwater breathing potions, even though the party had lots of gold. As it was in line with the character, background and hindrances I gave the player a bennie of course. The character was low on bennies for an upcoming fight, but managed to farm another one from me for clever thinking finding the entrance to the underwater passage.

So the player enter the fight with the evil sea hag and her sahuagin minions with three bennies, enough to survive and move on from the set piece, but not so many as to make the encounter trivial. Defeating the encounter gave everyone a bennie each, and up to the prison they went.

Since many of our (four-hour) sessions are without combat, I dole out a bennie per hour if they don't earn it in other ways.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Speaking of nuance, I've noticed the same word keeps coming up in the comments about Savage Worlds: "pulpy."

I'm familiar with pulp paper: an inexpensive and low-quality paper used by some publishing houses to turn out high volumes of inexpensive books at a relatively low cost. And I'm familiar with pulp novels: cheap and often seedy books that were published quickly and sold cheaply, and were so named because they were usually printed on that aforementioned "pulp" paper. And the dictionary defines pulpy as "pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling magazines or books considered pulp; sensationalistic; trashy."

None of these sound like good things, but the context is always positive. "I love this system, it's so pulpy!" I feel like I'm missing a bit of nuance here, because when I think back to all of the pulp novels I've read, they are usually...bad. Like, really bad. Intentionally bad. But clearly, 'pulpy' is a good thing in this context...

It just means evocative of the kinds of stories you'd find in pulp magazines, but the whole point is that a lot of those things have good, entertaining stories. Black Mask, Weird Science, and Amazing Stories were very influential on pop culture throughout the 20th century. Indiana Jones, Flash Gordon, Star Wars, Cthulhu, Conan, Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op, James Bond, Johnny Quest, Sealab, The Mummy, etc. are directly from that era or directly inspired by it. I'd include Jaws, Logan Lucky, The Goonies, Hackers, Lucky Number Slevin, Ocean's Eleven, Johnny Mnemonic (the movie) and Back to the Future, too.

Basically, genre fiction that is focused on swashbuckling action or action-adventure driving the story more than character development. Character development that does occur will be things like falling in love with the romantic interest, or learning that the real treasure was the friends you made along the way, etc.

Did you accidentally set of the dungeon's load-bearing trap? Just run through the room full of pressure plates! You'll be fine!

Do you have one chance to blow up the star fortress with a one-in-a-million shot at a secret vulnerable spot? Just turn off your targeting computer and use the magic that the old space wizard taught you that nobody else believes in!

Is your island home threatened by a giant man-eating shark? Just sail out there to catch it and kill it! When it swallows an air tank after eating your buddy and his boat, just shoot the tank with your M1 rifle! No need for dense symbolism with this white whale.

Is your time machine out of power? Just use a lightning bolt that you somehow know exactly when and where it will strike, apparently down to the millisecond! I sure hope there's no other time pressure!

What makes Savage Worlds good pulpy system is that it tends to make success fairly easy, and exploding dice can make success extraordinary. The system would be pretty lethal without the advantages wild cards get (bennies and the wild die). It doesn't exactly encourage players to do things that are imaginative, unrealistic, or ridiculous... but it definitely supports that style of play. If you want it to be over-the-top, you can do that. There's a lot of room for things to escalate when you fail, rather than just killing you outright.

It doesn't require that you lean into cheesy or over-the-top action, but it definitely lets you do that, and the game tends to release settings designed to let you do that.

 

[overgeeked]

I know the definition; that's the problem! I'm struggling to see how it applies to Savage Worlds. It sounds like people are saying "Savage Worlds is trashy and that's a good thing," and my brain shorts out.

Well, that’s the problem. You’re using the wrong dictionary definition and, as already stated, it’s wrong. This is a piece of jargon.

Merriam Webster, definition 4. a magazine or book printed on cheap paper (such as newsprint) and often dealing with sensational material.

Note how the word trashy is not there.

Pulp and pulpy. From the pulp paper used in the pulp magazines of the late 19th and early 20th century. Inexpensive and mass produced. Sensationalist fiction, typically of the action-adventure, mystery, and horror genres. But there were pulp magazines for every genre. Recognizable pop culture stuff that originated in the pulps: Doc Savage. The Shadow. The Phantom. Tarzan. Zorro. Sam Spade. Hard-boiled detective fiction. Conan. The Cthulhu Mythos.

Modern stuff that’s recognizably pulp: Superheroes. Indiana Jones. Star Wars. The Rocketeer. Action movies.

In gaming contexts it generally refers to over-the-top action-adventure.

People with their noses stuck in the air might have a negative connotation to the word pulp, but there’s no negative implied when most people use it. Especially when self applied or in gaming contexts.

 

[Umbran]

I think it's meant to be a pejorative term.

It is "meant to be"? By whom? A pejorative is an insult. So, in this case, who was offering the insult?

Pulps, the successors to dime novels, were popular competition for other forms of literature, before the rise of the paperback novel. The pejorative thus isn't based in unbiased assessments. While, yes, the original pulps were mass-produced, for mass consumption, without a lot of what we might consider much editorial effort by today's standards, that doesn't mean it has no redeeming qualities that we can now take as the focus of the work.

"Pulp writing tends to aim for visceral reactions. There are contemplative, even insightful, pulp stories, but pulp as a label tends to apply to stories that are trying to elicit excitement, horror, or even arousal – primitive, instinctive responses that get the heart racing."
-Robert Wood

Which sounds like good stuff in an RPG context. Excitement? Visceral reactions? Melodrama? All fine tabletop RPG fodder, and all pulpy goodness.

Spoiler: More from Mr. Wood on pulp writing...

Pulp writing was usually some form of short genre fiction, with its legacy most defined by lurid horror, crime, war, sci-fi, fantasy, and Western stories. Though eventually killed off by rising costs and competitive media such as comics, paperback novels, and television, the pulps were vastly influential in their day.

Pulp characters include Flash Gordon, Zorro, Conan the Barbarian, Buck Rogers, and John Carter of Mars, while writers as illustrious as Arthur C. Clarke, O. Henry, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, H.P. Lovecraft, Upton Sinclair, and Tennessee Williams all saw print in pulp magazines.

Pulp magazines were publications in which you’d find a range of stories that tackled wild ideas as penned by some of the most skilled and imaginative writers of the time, but they were also a business. Author Kurt Vonnegut lamented that the quality of pulp stories (and thus the reputation of certain authors) was often lessened by the writer’s knowledge that editors would be as likely to accept their first draft as their eighth, and there was little reward for developing an idea that already had a story in it.

Pulp writing, then, is writing emblematic of pulp sensibilities; writing which is visceral, imaginative, and unafraid of mass appeal, but also writing which is disposable, sometimes under-baked, and often repetitive in its approach.
...
It’s this aspect of pulp writing that pairs so well with frequent publication; craft has merit, but if you’re aiming for simple thrills, there’s more to be said for choosing ‘good enough’ over endless polishing. This can also be seen in pulp’s fondness for archetypes and even clichés.

So, another aspect of this is that the form is designed for sustainable volume - like frequent game sessions. Polished art and complex plotting are great, but you've got folks around the table tomorrow night. What are you going to do? Give them some excitement!

 

[Bacon Bits]

I’ve always found SW to be intuitive. I just don’t think too hard about it.

Yes. The more you can push the system out of using the table's time, the better. The system isn't bad, but the game tends to be more fun when you're more concerned with focusing on the action. Nobody is really at the table because they love executing the game's procedures.

I think Shooting needs looked at generally, I’d probably look for a ranged Dodge attribute based on Athletics the same way Parry is based on Fighting. Shooting is just too easy based on the core mechanics. You really have to look at cover/obscurement to make it more difficult.

See, I like it.

It's certainly one of the reasons that I don't like SW for fantasy settings, but once you get to modern weapons, shooting things is easy. At least, it's easy in that the target can't do much to get out of the way of the weapons that appeared in the 19th century and later. That's what body armor is for.

That said, I wouldn't object to a Seasoned or Legendary Edge that let your shooting defense be equal to your parry or similar. Deflecting bullets with your sword and all that. Or even certain weapons that let you do that, like laser swords, or certain powers that did the same. Actually, it's been awhile since I read SWADE's powers. Is there a "deflect shot" power? It seems like there should be.

I do think that Agility is over-represented, and Smarts is as well. They've siloed skills in kind of an odd way. I don't object to asymmetric attributes, but I do think SW's skill design is a little weird. I genuinely don't understand why Vigor and Strength are still separate stats. I'm not convinced the system benefits from them being separated. Sure, you miss out on very strong but frail characters, or really beefy but weak characters. But... can't you do that with Edges and Hindrances? Isn't it more in-line with the tropes if strong and tough were the same thing? Not a big deal. Just more of a, "Huh, that's odd. Why is it like that?"

It's like the whole issue in 3e monster design with HD and Con scores. Monsters in 3e tend to have really high Con because giving out more HD means the creature's saves and attack bonuses go up. So the only other degree of freedom is Con. Except none of that matters. You could just write down "HP: 240" and then just be done with it, and give them a +10 attack bonus because that's what you want.

 

[thullgrim]

Yes. The more you can push the system out of using the table's time, the better. The system isn't bad, but the game tends to be more fun when you're more concerned with focusing on the action. Nobody is really at the table because they love executing the game's procedures.



See, I like it.

It's certainly one of the reasons that I don't like SW for fantasy settings, but once you get to modern weapons, shooting things is easy. At least, it's easy in that the target can't do much to get out of the way of the weapons that appeared in the 19th century and later. That's what body armor is for.

That said, I wouldn't object to a Seasoned or Legendary Edge that let your shooting defense be equal to your parry or similar. Deflecting bullets with your sword and all that. Or even certain weapons that let you do that, like laser swords, or certain powers that did the same. Actually, it's been awhile since I read SWADE's powers. Is there a "deflect shot" power? It seems like there should be.

I do think that Agility is over-represented, and Smarts is as well. They've siloed skills in kind of an odd way. I don't object to asymmetric attributes, but I do think SW's skill design is a little weird. I genuinely don't understand why Vigor and Strength are still separate stats. I'm not convinced the system benefits from them being separated. Sure, you miss out on very strong but frail characters, or really beefy but weak characters. But... can't you do that with Edges and Hindrances? Isn't it more in-line with the tropes if strong and tough were the same thing? Not a big deal. Just more of a, "Huh, that's odd. Why is it like that?"

It's like the whole issue in 3e monster design with HD and Con scores. Monsters in 3e tend to have really high Con because giving out more HD means the creature's saves and attack bonuses go up. So the only other degree of freedom is Con. Except none of that matters. You could just write down "HP: 240" and then just be done with it, and give them a +10 attack bonus because that's what you want.

Combining Strength and Vigor into a single atteibute would make it a god mode state for fantasy games. Both Toughness and melee for a single stat would be an issue. You could address the toughness thing with a Frail hindrance but I think overall that design gets problematic. It’s the D&D dex problem for melee damage base games.

That said because the system is so easy to hack there’s not really a reason you couldn’t do that.

 

[Kannik]

I was pretty sure I would like Savage Worlds: it seems very popular, it seems like a nice light and flexible system, and one of my best friends runs games in it and loves it. But I've tried getting into the system 3 times -- with each subsequent time because to the above, I keep wondering if I'm missing something -- and each time it just falls completely flat for me. It seems to live within this uncanny valley where it's not crunchy enough to be a good crunch system to me, but it also isn't narrative enough to be a good narrative system. In addition it feels very uneven, with certain elements getting into an unusual amount of minutia compared to the rest for reasons I can't fathom.

While I don't dislike it per se, I'm one step down from 'meh' about it.

For me, Cortex Prime gives me 1000x more bang for the buck. (Delightfully I recently had the opportunity to introduce the friend referenced above Cortex and they really enjoyed it!)

 

[kronovan]

...My other complaint is mostly about PEG. They keep releasing fantasy books and I'm really tired of waiting for the Sci-Fi book to be updated. It's basically untouched since the mid 2000s and is desperately in need of an update. The KS is due any time, but I'm so tired of waiting only to see them release more fantasy crap when I don't think it's a very good fantasy system.

In terms of a mid 2000s publication of a Science Fiction Companion, I think you're confusing the most recent SFC with the Sci-Fi toolkit guides written by Paul Wade-Williams (now of Triple Ace Games) during that time. The most recent SFC was published in 2014 and was compatible with the Deluxe edition of the rules. For the most part it's compatible with SWADE. In fact the updated Race building rules in SWADE were originally written for that SFC. The biggest difference is that Climb and ACCeleration speeds for vehicles has now been replaced by a single manuverability value in SWADE, which I'm personally not a big fan of - currently attempting to code it back in for a Virtual TableTop.

I share your frustration thought with the glacial pace of PEG releases for the other genres - albeit, they did release the new SWADE Horror Companion last month. My biggest problem with all the recent Fantasy publications stemming from Savage Pathfinder, is that it's one of the genres I don't particuarly care to use with SWADE. I've been a fan of the rules since the SWEX edition, which I first picked up in 2010. Genres like Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Supers and Heroic/Epic Fantasy, have always felt like a miss for me, whether I was playing or running adventures. Historical Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Pulp, Action-Horror, Sci-Fi and more specically Sci-Fi subgenres like Cyberpunk and Steampunk, I've always found to be a terrific fit. I'm mostly a homebrewer though and WW Tour of Darkness is the only PEG setting I've ever run a campaign with.

I like SWADE, but I can't say I'm entirely enthused with some of the directions PEG is taking the rules in. I bought the Savage Pathfinder book, but how poweful starting PCs are in general, made me cringe. I also don't care for all the changes to powers in SWADE, especially the modifiers. I allowed all of the power modifiers in my Historical Fantasy campaign, but the Arcane Background PCs played more like low level super heroes than the magic-capable archetypes they were supposed to be. As well, I was a fan of the emphasis on Power Trappings in SWD, but that barely gets mention in SWADE - not that I though PEG did a good enough job with those in SWD, but it was a start. My biggest complaint though is making PCs gaining an advancement after every session the default method - sorry, but I like my campaigns to run for more than half of a year and like some flexibility when advancements occur. Easy enough to just use the XP system from SWD instead, which I have.

I like the vast majority of SWADE though and as there was with SWD, there's enough sliders and knobs for a GM to tune things to what best suits their campaign.

I'm not going to venture into the "Pulpy" argument. I'm just going to mention that Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar, Lovecraft's horror stories, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry and Robert E Howards Conan stories, all first appeared in pulp publications. IMO the term "trashy" is defintely out of place when referring to any of them.

 

[innerdude]

Love Savage Worlds. My go-to system for over 8 years. For certain kinds of campaigns, there's nothing else I'd rather use.

The one change I would make to it would be to modify the "rising toughness impenetrability loop" to allow for some form of gradual chipping away rather than waiting for "big bang" attack+damage explosions all the time. This goes against the "Fast | Fun | Furious" ethos and the "Up | Down | Off the table" status for enemies, but it really does need to be done.

It's been 4 years or so since I've read the core rules, though, so I'm not sure how I'd do it. There really just needs to be some combination of additional condition statuses / flow that makes every combat check more meaningful.

When they introduced distracted and vulnerable as conditions in SWADE, I thought they missed an opportunity to have a tighter, interlocking mechanism between shaken, distracted, and vulnerable to make fights more strategic and less reliant on just rolling high numbers.

Frankly, I'd probably just bite the bullet and implement something along the lines of the way Genesys does it with separate fatigue track equal to the character's spirit+vigor, and then a "crit" table to cause wounds once the fatigue track reaches zero. Fatigue reduces = damage rolled on all attacks that don't cause a shaken condition or wound.

Slightly less fast, but much more "furious" as every attack can now impact the fight.

 

[mamba]

I don't disagree, but...that definition came directly from the dictionary, which suggests it is most often used in a pejorative manner. I think it's meant to be a pejorative term. Which is why I thought it was a little jarring to see it used in a positive context.

I don't think pulpy has a negative connotation, or if your dictionary does, then that is the dictionary's problem.

If you look at what was published in those pulp magazines the name is derived from, you will find Lovecraft, Conan, Flash Gordon, John Carter or Mars and others. Pretty good company for TTRPGs.