Savage Worlds: Question for Ari

[Templeton580]

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[amerigoV]

I cannot comment to Soloman Kane, but I played in a Weird War II one-shot last night using Pinnacles Pregens. Great time (exploding d4 and all - you peeps need to give the d4 a bit of love now and then).

My only comment on the PreGens is they did not give any description to the edges (many out of the WWII book) and the stats for the weapons. Given the space in the PDF, this easily could have been done. The pregens themselves were all interested characters -- from the grizzled sgt whose captain gives him all the assignments to the Replacement*

* A classic moment that I am sure happened in real life back in WWII. We started calling the replacement character Replacement and putting him on point. At one point the player/character goes "I have a name!" Just about about everyone at the table said in unison "no you don't, Replacement."

The system flowed really smooth (about half of us are good at the rules, a couple are OK, and one guy was a n00b to the system). I really liked that the system supports "real life" tactics - cover, popping in and out of cover to fire, suppressive fire with machine guns, double tap, attacking with an entrenching tool, etc. Range weapons are deadly in Savage Worlds and must be treated with respect tactically.

The hindrances come out quickly in the roleplay even in a one-shot. Replacement was clueless, my Medic was a pacifist (only attack in dire situations), the machinegunner was Bloodthirst and Hard of Hearing. The sniper was a small guy that was a goldbrick. One guy was a bullet magnet - so we put him in the back of the marching order. All good stuff.

Here was the beauty of the system in action. The sniper/scout finds us a safe path to bypass a nearby German held town in France. The Replacement, of course, rolls a double 1 on the Stealth check. In our game, the one house rule we have is you cannot spend a bennie to reroll a 1,1 - but you get a bennie and "something interesting happens or will happen" as a result.

In this case, on the fly, the GM ruled the Replacement had wandered too far off the path and fell right into a German foxhole. The Replacement hindrace is that you are kinda slow on the update in combat and you do not get an action in the first round of combat. So even though he surprised the Germans (they were hunkered down trying to keep warm - it was winter), he did not get to attack.

The other complicating factor was we were still close to town - shooting would raise an alarm. So one of the guys comes up with an entrenching tool, wild attacks, and kills one of the germans. Unfortunately, we did not get the other german down, and he fired at close range and nearly killed the PC with the entrenching tool. My medic runs up and tries to save him, but I botch the heal check - I am shaken for the round.

We dispatch the other German and high-tail it out of there. We could not hang around and heal because it takes 10 minutes per heal attempt. He had to half carry him because his pace was lower due to the wounds.

The encounter was fast and fun, and completely off the cuff due to the original botched roll from the Replacement. The GM was able to throw that together without any hesitation (and note, this guy GMs sporatically, so it was not like a GM that runs a weekly game and is used throwing in random stuff on the fly).

If you get the chance to play at a con or just download the testdrive rules, pregens, and one of the One Pagers off of their website, I encourage you to give it a whirl. If you have questions, their board is very friendly and helpful (ie, they understand that a lot of people come to SW from D&D or other systems and can give pointers).

 

[lkjopajdowma]

If you learn the skill on the basic level, you have a d4. Without a -2. It's untrained d4-2, then d4, d6 etc. So you are not necessarily untrained when rolling a d4.

Certainly. I guess my post wasn't worded clearly. I meant if you happen to be rolling a d4, there's a good possibility you are untrained in the skill, with the likely exception of combat-related skills that even people who are primarily non-combatants will at least put a point in to avoid the -2.

 

[coyote6]

i dont think we have ever had a discussion about the % of the dice / target numbers

That's what we have the Internet for, thankfully.

Well, that, and porn, I guess.

Ari, I second Cutter's call for hearing/reading more about the game.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Dude, you didn't read my post, did you? Go back, read it again, and then realize why your statement is silly.

I did, in fact. And while your reaction has made me reconsider your posts intent, it doesn't make my statement(s) "silly."

All I am saying is that when you want the final result on the dice, after considering all modifiers, to be a number of the form 2(n+1) where n is greater than 1, you succeed more often rolling d2n than you do with d2(n+1). This is a mathematical fact.

One that I never disputed.
Seems like we've been "arguing" about nothing. Reminds me of a family reunion.

I'd rather be talking about the death spiral, which is perverse.

So why don't we?
Wound Penalties: to all trait rolls, pace, and melee damage.
Reduced by each level of the Nerves o' Steel edge (2 levels). Negated (for save vs. death) by the Hard to Kill edge (which can be a freebie campaign feature if you want).
Yes, there is a death spiral. Yes, it can be significant. What I don't see is how it is "perverse." Care to clarify?

And so is the Benny mechanic, where Bennies are almost solely used to prevent death in combat situations, but the rules include guidelines for them on a per session basis instead of a per encounter basis.

Did you miss the part where characters acquire Bennies during play? This is an intentional choice, one the rewards playing the character even when a detriment, being a hero, advancing the plot, and going along with GM fiat. All of those situations are supposed to generate a Benny. A player should be getting two to four bennies earned per session, and a player can fairly easily have eight or more as they roll into an particular encounter.
The only reasons players should be out of bennies going into a fight are a) lack of interaction with the setting and story, b) lack of opportunity to interact with the setting and story (unlikely but possible), or c) piss-poor Game Mastering. The first is under direct player control, and talking to your GM can usually fix the others.
So, I wonder what your issue is.

 

[Wik]

Y'know, every time I read my Savage Worlds' Explorer's edition, I feel the urge to play it. Eventually, this urge hits critical mass, and we play it. We play one or two sessions, and then decide we've had enough.

Things that get in the way of our fun:

1) Not enough variation in skill levels: there are only five "levels" to a skill (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12). It is possible to have a character who starts with maximum level in a skill - especially if they're a spellcaster. This is a "meh" for us.

2) No hit points. Or, to put it another way, the damage system annoys the majority of my players. I like how it works on the GM's end, but the players are not fans.

3) Healing Rules are confusing, and we don't like them. Personal preference, really.

4) Death Spiral is crazy. I like death spirals, I really do. And a few of my players do, as well. We have one who absolutely hates them, though, so it's kind of a wash. But the Savage Worlds death spiral is insanely crazy, unless characters are built to avoid it. And where's the fun in that? The idea of houseruling away the death spiral is an interesting one, that amazingly never occured to me.

5) You don't get enough points in Character Creation... at least, it always feels that way to me.

6) It's a classless system, which means any character can use any weapon... or wear any armour... unless you fiddle with the core of the game. This may be fine for you, but I always get bugged by the wizards in plate mail with two-handed swords.

Anyways, those are my six big beefs with the system. All that being said, it is an AMAZING system to GM for, and you can really play around with it. Last time I ran it, my group of five players each had a PC, and two NPCs, under their control. That's 15 characters, and I would run fights against an equal number of bad guys, and the fights were STILL faster than pretty much any edition of D&D out there.

Also, it's incredibly easy to do some worldbuilding. I know a lot of people here talk about the plot points campaign settings, but for me, the real charm of the game is in how you can create your own campaign that actually follows the idea in your head, as opposed to trying to find a middle ground between your awesome idea and the rules you plan on using.

Savage Worlds is a great game, and it has a lot of very rabid, diehard fans. And rightfully so. Unfortunately, it does not mesh well with my group.

For an interesting variant on savage worlds, check out the cortex system, such as the Serenity RPG. It's similar to Savage Worlds, only die rolls do not ace, it has a hit point system, and attributes are more important.

 

[amerigoV]

For an interesting variant on savage worlds, check out the cortex system, such as the Serenity RPG. It's similar to Savage Worlds, only die rolls do not ace, it has a hit point system, and attributes are more important.

Ironically, what you list there is exactly why I despise Cortex vs. SW . To each his own on that. Although, Attributes are very important in SW - they determine cost advancement of skills and are used in gameplay almost as much as skills (Common Knowledge = Smarts, anything athletic not covered by a skill = Agility, Spirit to recover from Shaken, Vigor to Soak, etc).

The thing I really love about SW is it runs most genres very well (some better than others, obviously). We had our annual gamer gathering yesterday - 10 hours of hard gaming with some far-flung friends coming into town. It was all SW. I ran a combo pulp/weird wars II session and another GM ran supers. The players were a mix of veterans (heck, one writes for the some of the SW companies) to complete n00bs to the system. The ease that the system handle both genres still surprises me, and the near seamless transition that the players made between the games is fantastic.

On the HP thing - that one can be a shocker to some. The best advice I have heard is to intro players to SW with any genre BUT fantasy. D&D gets so ingrained into the psyche that just hearing the words "wizard, orc, dragon" immediately puts people into a mindset. That said, I run fantasy using SW side by side with another GM using 3.5 and it is holding up just fine.

 

[Wik]

Ironically, what you list there is exactly why I despise Cortex vs. SW . To each his own on that.

Ha. That's kind of funny. I have to admit, I do like acing, but the other perks of Cortex work for me (and, more importantly, my group) a lot better than SW.

Although, Attributes are very important in SW - they determine cost advancement of skills and are used in gameplay almost as much as skills (Common Knowledge = Smarts, anything athletic not covered by a skill = Agility, Spirit to recover from Shaken, Vigor to Soak, etc).

I guess I should have been a bit more precise. In Savage Worlds, while Skill A might be tied to Attribute A, this is only for purposes of progression. When actually using Skill A, it doesn't matter if your attribute is a d4 or a d12. I've heard some people mention using a variant where instead of rolling a wild die in addition to your skill score, you instead roll your relevant attribute die (so if Skill A was a d8 and Attribute A was a d10, you'd roll d8+d10 instead of d8+d6). This is more or less the route Cortex went, and I prefer it.

The thing I really love about SW is it runs most genres very well (some better than others, obviously). We had our annual gamer gathering yesterday - 10 hours of hard gaming with some far-flung friends coming into town. It was all SW. I ran a combo pulp/weird wars II session and another GM ran supers. The players were a mix of veterans (heck, one writes for the some of the SW companies) to complete n00bs to the system. The ease that the system handle both genres still surprises me, and the near seamless transition that the players made between the games is fantastic.

Agreed. I used it once to run a "halo" game, and yeah, it went really smoothly. It's very easy to write for, and to me, that really is the system's primary asset.

On the HP thing - that one can be a shocker to some. The best advice I have heard is to intro players to SW with any genre BUT fantasy. D&D gets so ingrained into the psyche that just hearing the words "wizard, orc, dragon" immediately puts people into a mindset. That said, I run fantasy using SW side by side with another GM using 3.5 and it is holding up just fine.

That's a good point, and one I never thought of. Mind you, the last game I ran was a fantasy-esque game set in a colonial time period - a sort of gators and gunpowder type of setting, so it wasn't "typical" fantasy. The lack of hit points or granularity in that regard was the most glaring annoyance for my players.

I'm kind of curious to see if it's just the lack of granularity that annoys them, or the complete absence of hit points. I plan on running Shadowrun one of these days (gah!), and I suppose I'll find out then.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I'm kind of curious to see if it's just the lack of granularity that annoys them, or the complete absence of hit points. I plan on running Shadowrun one of these days (gah!), and I suppose I'll find out then.

Wow. I wish you the best of luck with that game. Shadowrun can be awesomely fun or one of the highest PC turnovers I've ever seen. It all depends upon the builds, the plans, and how the GM has the NPCs react. Regardless, I hope it's a blast for your group.

 

[Crothian]

Y'know, every time I read my Savage Worlds' Explorer's edition, I feel the urge to play it. Eventually, this urge hits critical mass, and we play it. We play one or two sessions, and then decide we've had enough.

I have a similar experience except people at cons run neat sounding games using Savage Worlds. The games are fun because of the concepts but there is always rules issue and the game doesn't play as fast or well as it seems people talk about on message boards.