Looking for Some Friendly Advice for Learning to Balance/GM Savage Worlds

[Particle_Man]

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Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group :: View topic - What every new Savage GM should know?

 

[Rel]

I'm not exactly what I'd call a Veteran Savage Worlds GM. But I'd say maybe I'm Seasoned.

I've run several one shot sessions of SW, about 7 or so sessions of an ongoing fantasy game (that I'm adapting from a d20 Dungeon Crawl Classic module) for my wife and daughter and I'm about to wrap up a short (9 sessions I think) run of Deadlands: Reloaded with my regular gaming group.

Off the top of my head I'd first off say that Savage Worlds is, by its very nature, kind of "swingy". Certainly moreso than 4e D&D, which was the last major campaign that I ran. I don't regard swingy as a bad thing though. It's less predictable but that can be fun.

Balance is a tricky thing. In Deadlands they flat out tell you "Don't worry about it. If something is too hard for the PC's they need to learn to RUN." That's because the setting is literally supposed to be a scary place. But I still try and make at least a vague stab at balance.

In general I'd say that about 2 Extras per PC, if the stats on the Extra are in the same general ballpark as the PC's, is about right. One Extra per PC plus one Wild Card bad guy is another combo that is about right.

Bennies have a HUGE impact on this though. I ran an adventure a couple sessions ago in Deadlands where the PC's were being plagued by a Jackalope, which critters have the effect of bringing bad luck on the party, thus not allowing them to spend any Bennies until that gets resolved (often by killing the Jackalope). Man they were SCARED. I ambushed them ( a party of 4) with a group of 6 kind of wimpy Extras and they were worried the whole time because no Bennies means no Soak rolls and no blowing off a Shaken if you need to.

Make sure that both you and the players have a clear handle on how often you give out Bennies so they understand how free they should be with them. My general take on that is that I give extra Bennies when the PC's accomplish something pretty great (like surviving a really tough fight), when they bust out some really amazing roleplaying or when a player screws themself over because of their hindrances. On average I'd say I award about 1 or 2 extra Bennies per session than they start with.

As to the different genres of gaming question, I really feel like SW has become my go-to system for emulating a setting that I don't have a specific sourcebook for already. And sometimes even if I already have a book, I think that Savage Worlds does it better. For example, I'm not all that keen on the World of Darkness system from a mechanical standpoint. But I think a GM could take the fluff from the books, make a few minor rules changes, and run a really great game of Changeling or Mage.

Like I mentioned before, I'm using the Explorer's Edition by itself to run a fantasy game (though I'm planning to get the fantasy companion too) and I'll be running Space: 1889 using SW at GenCon in a couple weeks (you bet your ass I'll be picking THAT book up too though!).

Anyway bottom line is that I think it is a really great system and honestly I wish I'd discovered it YEARS before I really sank my teeth into it. I have Pepster to thank for that and he's somebody else who's input this thread would really benefit from.

 

[Hussar]

I've only run a single, short campaign in SW - an SF adventure of mostly my own design.

I found it difficult to design encounters. Maybe too long playing 3e with the CR rules, but, I found it hard to judge what would be an interesting encounter. Wound up TPK'ing the party and having to Mulligan things once or twice before I got the hang of it.

I found the system surprisingly more crunchy than I thought at first blush. There's a fair number of rules in the combat system that need to be known by everyone at the table before things run smoothly. I'd say rather than a true "rules light" system, it's actually a rules light system with a fairly complex combat system bolted on.

I adore the concepts behind the game and I want to run it again.

 

[amerigoV]

Given your posting here, I presume you have a heavy D&D background or play a lot of fantasy. One trap that I see it to throw a small number of Wilds and high toughness creatures at the PCs. To get a feel of things, throw out tons of low toughness extras. High toughness Wilds turn into grindy fights, especially as the GM when you soak wounds. You also wind up with a big pool of Bennies to soak (the Wilds Bennies and the Pool). These types of fight should be the end of module fight, not the norm.

You might consider a different genre just to get the hang of the game - you have less player preconceptions than if you start with Fantasy. It might get people out of the D&Disms like 5' step/shift, action at beginning/end of moves, etc). (note - I am running Expedition to Castle Ravenloft via Savage Worlds side by side with another guy running one of the Pathfinder AP using 3.5 without any issue).

As GM, be sure to focus on Trappings description. That really brings the magic/power system to life.

Bennies are the currency of the game (vs. HPs in D&D). As GM, you control how tough a creature is by deeming it an Extra or a Wild and how many bennies you use to keep it up.

As for jumping between genres, it is a breeze. In a long session (8 hour), we did Weird Wars (Viet Nam) and then Super Heroes. The group was a mix of Savage veterans and some of us Seasoned players at best. We transitioned easily as 95% of the system translated without thought.