Sell me on Savage Worlds

[BrokenTwin]

I find Savage Worlds combat can be a slog if the players treat it like D&D combat, ala everybody just tries to deal as much damage on their turn as possible. It runs really smoothly when they work as a team to set up big hits.

And the best way I've found as a GM to teach that to my players is to make sure I'm using the full toolbox of combat options against them. Have enemies taunt, and distract, and set each other up. Usually starts as "that's not fair!" for a round or two before they realize they can do the exact same thing back to them.

I primarily like to run Savage Pathfinder now, though I had to tweak some of the class edges (fighter in particular needed a bit of a buff).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The book recommends (core p199):
“A good fight for a party of heroes is two Extras per hero plus an enemy Wild Card leader with roughly the same number of combat Edges (or other advantages).”

If people are regularly facing multiple Wild Cards in a fight scenario then the GM isn’t following that guidance.

And I kind of doubt they would with supers, which is kind of my point. Its just one of the few genres where fighting what looks like at a distance as groups of Wild Cards appears to be what frequently happens (which doesn't say the other can't happen--single supervillain with thugs or agents is a thing too, but I just don't think you can write off enemy super teams as a trope, and I stand by my opinion most people wouldn't think of those as Extras).

 

[Dalekdad]

There are ways to split the difference in the more recent editions using:

1. the 'Resilient/Very Resilient' in the SWADE core which gives an Extra one or two wounds
2. the elite extra rules (I'm blanking on which book they are in, but I've seen them in a bunch of settings) where you can give a talented Extra a wild die, but they otherwise function as an Extra (i.e. they get taken out with one wound)

This way you could have a team of villains led by a WC Leader with a few elite/resilient extras and some mooks mixed in

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are ways to split the difference in the more recent editions using:

1. the 'Resilient/Very Resilient' in the SWADE core which gives an Extra one or two wounds
2. the elite extra rules (I'm blanking on which book they are in, but I've seen them in a bunch of settings) where you can give a talented Extra a wild die, but they otherwise function as an Extra (i.e. they get taken out with one wound)

This way you could have a team of villains led by a WC Leader with a few elite/resilient extras and some mooks mixed in

Its a good compromise, but I'm not sure how many GMs would think of it, even if they were aware of it.

 

[dbm]

Your premise seems to be ‘most people don’t bother to read the GM advice or bestiary powers’ @Thomas Shey? Both my comments and @Dalekdad‘s comments are drawn from there.

 

[Dalekdad]

In fairness, I think those rules were introduced first by Savage Worlds Deluxe era third party settings (I'm pretty sure I first saw both of them in Beasts & Barbarians).

One of the strengths of Savage Worlds has been, in my opinion, incorporating solid material from Savage Settings into the core products.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Your premise seems to be ‘most people don’t bother to read the GM advice or bestiary powers’ @Thomas Shey? Both my comments and @Dalekdad‘s comments are drawn from there.

Its more "in this case it wouldn't matter if they did"; supervillain teams as extra is sufficiently counter-intuitive that its just not where they'd go. As I said, whatever the game says, people are going to associate Extras with one of two things: 1. Generic opposition without much if any individualization, and 2. Mostly non-combat NPCs if they happen to become significant. Past that, the game can make any recommendations it wants and its unlikely to change anything (and this is made even more likely since those supervillain teams are liable to be repeat opponents presented in relatively small numbers as part of major battles).

I might see cases where you get "Really Major Supervillain and his super-team backup" with the latter being Extras, but even in that I'd expect them to be the sort of augmented Extras you saw referenced up-thread, because the alternative if you don't want them to be in the typical Extra "one hit and they're gone" mode is to ramp up their Toughness more than is desirable (all the more since there's some issues with Toughness and damage dice when using supers as-is).

 

[Reef]

I’m not sure you can make a blanket statement like that, other “people see extras as generic”. I’m sure some people do. But I’ve run three full Savage campaigns across multiple genres (including Supers), and I use Wildcards sparingly. Always have. To me, Extras are one of the strengths of the system, especially when you can customize their durability to taste.

Obviously, I’m just one data point. But I don’t think there’s any definitive proof that people don’t know how to properly either.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’m not sure you can make a blanket statement like that, other “people see extras as generic”. I’m sure some people do. But I’ve run three full Savage campaigns across multiple genres (including Supers), and I use Wildcards sparingly. Always have. To me, Extras are one of the strengths of the system, especially when you can customize their durability to taste.

Obviously, I’m just one data point. But I don’t think there’s any definitive proof that people don’t know how to properly either.

I'm not saying its universal, but as I said, I'd be willing to put money on it being the common case. I don't consider proof particularly necessary on this, just my experience with the way people tend to distinguish between supervillains in every other game that makes a distinction like the Wild Card/Extra one, and that follows the pattern I've said. Other people are not required to agree with me, but I'm unlikely to change my opinion here, so here we are.

To make it clear, from my POV I have rather a lot of data points. They aren't proof and there's no way to demonstrate they exist, but its the reason I'm fairly firm in my opinion.