Savage Worlds with no combat?

[aramis erak]

Let me define my terms. By “no combat” I mean a campaign where we never use any combat-specific mechanics.

Doable, and not in the Palladium sense of "no social rolls"... There are enough skills, reasonably well arrayed.

Thanks in advance, all of you with experience!

(There also are low-but-not-zero combat options that interest me, but experience tells me if I don’t obviously focus on zero combat first, I never get useful answers about it. Gotta absolutely nail down my right flank before advancing.)

I was going to suggest, if combat becomes needed, borrow the Bloody Versus from Burning Wheel, or possibly use the social conflict mechanics instead

The social conflict mechanics (SWD-2016 p 96, SWADE p 143) are straightforward, and worked well the few times I used them.

The Dramatic Skill Check process is useful; it stops short of the Torg/Masterbook or STA extended task mechanics, it's one step shy of them. But that last step is staging for multiple skills. Easily added.

The only GMing issue is going to be managing the flow of Bennies to match your pace of play and the levels of difficulty you present. This is true for all SW settings.

I'll note that combat is the strongest point about Savage Worlds - it's really «bleep»ing risky. A reasonably statted normal teen one-shotted a combat focused Deadlands PC... so avoiding it is going to be a fight with its reputation. Other than that, and the Bennies pacing issue, doable.

 

[Autumnal]

Thanks! That’s all very helpful. I’m guessing that experience managing the flow of Fate Points in Fate would help with managing Bennies. Not that they’re identical, but that I understand signs of too much and too little.

 

[Reynard]

Thanks! That’s all very helpful. I’m guessing that experience managing the flow of Fate Points in Fate would help with managing Bennies. Not that they’re identical, but that I understand signs of too much and too little.

It has been a while since I have run Fate. I don't remember if Fate has a built in Fate point refresh mechanic the way SW has for Bennies (jokers) outside of GM fiat.

 

[Autumnal]

It gives you options for that, yes, with several different pacings.

 

[aramis erak]

Thanks! That’s all very helpful. I’m guessing that experience managing the flow of Fate Points in Fate would help with managing Bennies. Not that they’re identical, but that I understand signs of too much and too little.

Yeah. You know what to look for, like reticence to use them means not enough.

It has been a while since I have run Fate. I don't remember if Fate has a built in Fate point refresh mechanic the way SW has for Bennies (jokers) outside of GM fiat.

Yes, it does. In certain flavors, that may not be very much, tho...

 

[dbm]

Dangerous Quick Encounters is the built-in implementation in Savage Worlds for de-emphasised combat. It’s a one-round activity, everyone says how their character is contributing and a skill is selected to cover that. It’s usually used for ‘speed bump’ combat where the outcome is pretty much certain and the only question is ‘at what cost?’. But with a crit-fail a character could be incapacitated / die. There are other non-combat mechanics like the previously mentioned Dramatic Tasks, a debate mechanic, and also Interludes which I can best describe as like those campfire scenes you get in BioWare games where people just sit around and talk.

I think Savage Worlds is pretty good for low-combat play. We had a session just this week with three heavy social encounters using the Dramatic Task system and they were really challenging. In our other current Savage Worlds campaign, where I am GM, the players are investigating a derelict space ship and there was no combat at all in a 10 hour session but it was still great fun. And that adventure isn’t completed yet and there is really only one potential combat encounter to come in the next 5-10 hours.

The system has a reasonable number of non-combat skills (there are only two or maybe three purely combat skills in the system) and a fair number of edges to differentiate characters more, though the majority are combat related. Pinebox Middle School is a Pinnacle campaign setting in the ‘kids on bikes’ genre but set in the modern day. Combat is intended to be down-powered as, in these types of scenario, kids don’t typically reach for weapons as an immediate response to the things they are confronted with. And one of the things I really like is that being younger is mechanically implemented rather than just re-fluffing everything. There are also rules for things like mobile / cell coverage and helicopter parents, too.

 

[Autumnal]

I really appreciate those kinds of specifics. Thanks!

 

[dbm]

It’s my favourite system by far, and a big part of that is the ability to put a fun mechanical overlay onto non-combat encounters. Even in ‘regular’ campaigns with combat the rules for tests and support can make non-combat characters viable.

Another interesting aspect is that lack of a CR-style mechanic means that combat scenarios aren’t intended to be mechanically balanced against the players (and the Ace / exploding dice mechanic means even on-paper weak monsters can do significant damage). This encourages other strategies beyond wailing on a monster until you have depleted its HP. In a recent encounter in my game the party were confronted by a massive, tunnelling monster (think ‘Tremors’) which their weapons couldn’t realistically hurt. In the end they drove it off by dropping a water tower on it - it was a really tense encounter against seemingly impossible odds but some creative play saved the day.

 

[Autumnal]

Interesting.

 

[Aldarc]

If you are looking for something Fate-like but also with rated dice as per Savage World, I would recommend looking at games like Cortex Prime. You can create traits with rated dice to form a small dice pool. You roll the pool and basically add any two from the results, with "damage/effect" being a third die of your choice from that pool.

Ryuutama is a bit more cozy (aka "Miyazaki's Oregon Trail"), but it doesn't really have Fate mechanics. Fabula Ultima is a bit more Fate like, but its classes are more combat focused.