Tell Me About Savage Worlds (please)...

[Mallus]

Give me everything you've got (and have the time and inclination to post): praise, criticism, amusing anecdotes, etc.

My group's recently put our D&D 4e campaign on hiatus --we'll wrap it up as soon as one of the DM's figures out how to run a doomed, quasi-religious Communist revolution-- and started playing Savage Worlds. Specifically, the pulp sci-fi Slipstream setting.

So far, the system itself look interesting. Not too heavy, not too light. The combat reminds me a bit of M&& (where the idea is to set up a big knock out blow). How's it play?

edit: heh... there's no Savage Worlds (or Other RPG/Misc) prefix... there should be.

 

[Bedrockgames]

When I have played Savage Worlds its been a blast. Works really well for modern settings (haven't used it for other periods but I have Pirates of the Spanish Main and hope to try that out one day soon). Having your skill rank be the actual die you roll keeps things simple.

However the exploding die (you re-roll highest results for each die---so 4 for a d4, 6 for a d6, etc), has been the subject of some debate at my table. Some say it produces funky probabilities, others feel it washes out in the end. I think there are a few online essays on this as well.

Haven't used Savage Worlds for fantasy, and suspect that would take a little work before hand. The system looks like it can handle fantasy fine; the problem is you have to do a little customization before hand I think with the powers, spells and races. One good thing about the powers and spells is you can adjust it pretty easily to achieve the precise flavor you are looking for. Plus there is tons of fan material out there on the web. I've seen several Star Wars Savage rules online for example.

 

[Wik]

great setting for the Gm, because it's very easy to wing things and create custom content. It's great for those who want to design their own settings; I would never run a pre-pubbed SW setting, simply because making your own is so easy and fun.

There are a few problems, of course. Combat can definitely be swingy, and if you play with allies, expect them to get killed fairly frequently unless they're wild cards (basically, everything that's a "wild card" has three hit points. Most other NPCs and monsters have one hit point).

Our only real problem with the game is that it's easy to start with a d12 in something, and then have a character whose top skill, what makes him awesome, never improves over play. I prefer playing with a house rule saying no skill can start over d8 for that reason. Though, to be honest, I prefer Cortex's system (Roll Skill die PLUS Attribute die, with no exploding results but PCs can spend plot points to add extra dice to the roll) to be a bit better, and I think a Cortex + Savage Worlds cross would be awesome.

Savage Worlds is fine in a fantasy game. I ran the first pathfinder adventure (Burnt Offerings) using SW as my rules system, and it ran fine - and combats definitely SEEMED quicker than 3e... though I think it might have just been the observer effect, because SW fights can sometimes get bogged down into "I hit, but don't inflict enough damage".

It's also, in my opinion, too easy to heal PCs between fights. Some people love that; I don't. Different strokes, different folks, and all that jazz.

The Chase Rules and Mass Combat rules are both great, simple, and fun, and worth checking out. And the disadvantages rules are fun, too, provided you don't have players who will pick disadvantages they will never use just for the mechanical benefit (I don't... I have players who pick disadvantages who they know will be terrible, but also fun to play).

 

[frankthedm]

Can be fun, but real swingy, especially after the revision that turned weapon damage from a bonus into exploding dice. Lopsided characters are also an issue for some.

And a huge problem is covered by this thread.

Why is Full Defense Worse than Defend?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

As someone looking at taking this for a spin, could I quickly ask what's needed to get started in SW?

I understand there's a core rules book, and many setting supplements. Is it sufficient to get the core (Explorer's Edition, iirc), and a supplement or two in the genre of interest, or am I missing something?

 

[Bedrockgames]

As someone looking at taking this for a spin, could I quickly ask what's needed to get started in SW?

I understand there's a core rules book, and many setting supplements. Is it sufficient to get the core (Explorer's Edition, iirc), and a supplement or two in the genre of interest, or am I missing something?

That is plenty. You could get by just with the explorer's edition in my opinion. you will also need dice and a pack of playing cards.

 

[Thasmodious]

Yep, that's all you'd need. And the core book is $10, to boot.

My group's played SW exclusively for the past two years now and we've had a blast with it. It's very much a system for experienced gamers who don't have the time and focus they once did perhaps as teenagers. There aren't a constant stream of supplements to keep up with or a lot of system mastery to attain. The system largely stays out of the way and lets you play. I wrote up a very shortened version of all the core gameplay rules, combat options, healing, bennies, etc., and it fits on two landscaped sheets of paper that are taped to an old DM screen, with leftover panels for player stats the DM needs to know and a generic weapons/gear list for me to use for NPCs.

 

[Stormonu]

I've been running SW games off and now for about 6 months, love the system. I've been using it for my new fantasy game world and my wife & kids love the system, they picked it up very easy and it's very flexible to allow it to be the type of fantasy they want to play (I haven't even really used the Fantasy Supplement I bought for SW, except for a monster here and there).

It may be a personal preference, but I really like their training wheels character sheet (available on the web site). They also have a 1-sheet combat sheet that helps reminds players (and the GM) what options are available in combat.

It's also hard not to like a game where a night's adventure can fit on one side of an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper.

On the flip side, the only beef I have with the system is how some of the skills are "tied" to certain abilities, I would have liked to see a better skill distribution among the ability scores (though all it really does is change point costs for maximizing certain skills). In modern or future games, a d12 agility seems godly, and its a shame there's no skills tied to Vigor. However, it hasn't been enough to affect our enjoyment of the game - it just looks lopsided skillwise on the sheet.

 

[Mallus]

Thanks for the responses, folks.

I'm interested in the mass combat rules (haven't read them, yet). Can anyone give me a quick summary? If they're really good, it might be worth converting our D&D 4e game over to Savage Worlds for the finale, which, as I mentioned earlier, will involve playing out a Communist revolution.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Thanks for the responses, folks.

I'm interested in the mass combat rules (haven't read them, yet). Can anyone give me a quick summary? If they're really good, it might be worth converting our D&D 4e game over to Savage Worlds for the finale, which, as I mentioned earlier, will involve playing out a Communist revolution.

Haven't had mass combat yet myself (at least haven't had anything with armies and that sort of thing). But I do know that they have a minion rule very similar to 4E (and I haven't played much 4E so I am going by what others have told me), so I would think that aspect of the game would be easy to transfer over. Exciting scenes where one character dispatches a room full of henchmen are really easy to pull off.