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Message: <blockquote data-quote="amerigoV" data-source="post: 5229967">Welcome to the Savage World! I've been playing SW for about 6 months (a former long time D&Der), so I'll answer a few of your questions.Reality Blurs made Realms of Cthulu for SW. What they did was add a mental mechanic that worked just like the wound system. It used Spirit to determine "toughness" and you make a Smarts roll to Soak mental wounds. If you wanted less pulp and more horror (either physical or mental), you do not get to Soak wounds (this allowed 4 playstyles depending on what types of wounds you allowed/disallowed to be soaked).This is what I really love about the system - modest adjustments can be made to change the mood.Overall, you are right in that SW is very pulp driven. RoC is a great book to pick up to show what you can do with the system.It adds to toughness. The pre-gens off the PEG site are 25xp. You can increase your PPs once per Rank (novice, seasoned, veteran, etc). Even at creation, you can take hindrances and pick up the Power Points Edge to start with 5 higher.As you observed, it is more "swingy" than D&D. The best thing to do for new players is throw a lot of extras with lower toughness to get a feel for the system. A common rookie GM mistake is to grab something like an Ogre, make them a Wild and go at it. The combat feels like a 4e grind - you hit, but the high toughness/soaks from the high vigor grinds. One players learn some tactics (tricks, test of wills, gang up, called shots), then tackle the traditional D&D BBEG.Once players get the hang of it, it is fast. The big pick up in speed is actually on the GM side. I use poker chips for wounds and shaken. As a result I almost NEVER use a pencil to write things down in combat. My eyes are on the table/players the whole time. It results in better actions and descriptions for me since I am not writing down "-5 hp on Skeleton with the axe". Also with extras, you can just grab a bunch of dice and throw (say 4 zombies attack, grab 4d6 and roll). You can quickly tell if one hit or not.For the players, speed comes with familiarity just like any system. Players learn the base rules pretty quickly. I am in a group that runs 3.5 one week and SW the next (both fantasy, I am running them through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft with SW). The groups is veteran D&D 3.5 ( many years). They have taken to SW with little problems.From the player side, there are some fiddly bits to get to know if you really want to get the most from the system. I do not mean it from a powergaming perspective, but stuff like tricks and test of wills. It is hard to break from D&Disms - example: you can attack ANYTIME during your move (so you can hide behind cover, pop up to shoot, and duck back down).How it plays - well, sometimes it is GM dependent like any system. It can be awesomely pulpy (fits Eberron to a T). The GM just needs to realize that Extras can be dangerous due to the exploding dice (the PCs could easily mow down 3 extras and the 4th could inflict a big hit back on them).SW plays in a narrower range of power than D&D 3.5. In D&D, you go from putz to god. In SW, you go from good to great. Since a player can make a pretty powerful combat PC at the start, the scale of the monster you can throw at them widens. PCs tend to grow in breathe vs. depthI'll find out this weekend <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.One thing you can do in this system is give the players some extras. They have their main PC (a wild) and extras to make sure they have the skills they need. Extras are fast and easy to run. I bet one on one can work very well - a PC Sgt and his squad of 4 or 6 extras. This was a huge reason I switched. Once you get the hang of things, you can almost eyeball opposition. This allows focus on the plot and setting vs. crunching the numbers. If you get the book, it will give you once piece of advice which is golden - if you want the enemy to have it, give it to them. DO NOT BUILD THEM LIKE A PC. Its liberating.As I mention, I am running Ravenloft (EtCR). Conversion is a breeze. As a GM, you do need to give thought to Trappings, as that is what brings the magic system to life. So far, I have use Tarot cards for trappings (Madam Eva the fortuneteller), Undead insect swarms, and my players nearly pissed their pants with the Entomber conversion from the model (used the Entangle power to trap them in a tomb). So this a bit of work sometimes, but it is the "cool" stuff vs. number crunching.If you need to throw together an encounter because the players went off in an unexpected direction, you will have no problems in SW just winging it.Yep. I added some of the Cthulu mechanics (the sanity system) for my Ravenloft game to replicate the Taint system D&D was using. As I said, my group bounces between D&D and SW (fantasy) and both play very well.I notice you like Post Apocalyptic settings. There are several Savage Worlds ones (Hell on Earth is when the bad guys in Deadlands wins, and I think there is another one where the Mindflayers won). One I got recently that is just oozing with ideas is <a href="http://atomicovermind.com/blog/?page_id=339" target="_blank">Day After Ragnarok </a>The best advice I have gotten on the system is play it as is before tinkering. There some items in the rules that make you scratch your head. Once you seem them in action a few times, it starts to make sense. On the $10 rule book, read it close. For $10 bucks, they did not waste words as you can imagine. The are not biblical in that they only say things once. Hang out a the PEG boards - they are very friendly and helpful. Also, make sure you get the 3rd printing. The second printing has binding issues (PEG will gladly replace, although I just got mine spiral bound and it is better in my opinion).At the end of the day, if you understand the shaken/wound system (there is a trick in it), how Bolt works, and using a machine gun then you have mastered the system. Those three concepts all have a mind-twister in it. All other mechanics are straight forward and fast.</blockquote>

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