Tell Me About Savage Worlds (please)...

[innerdude]

Had a great (though short) run of Savage Worlds gaming earlier this year. We used a fan-mod for the Serenity/Firefly setting with the Savage Worlds rules, and it was fun.

It's very fun for modern/gun fight combat. There's lots of interesting ways it keeps things streamlined, yet still offers lots of tactical options and interesting decisions.

We didn't try it with fantasy (yet), but it seems to be flexible enough to manage it quite well.

The only real thing to be aware of about the system is that in my experience, the "curve" of character progression is relatively shallow. In D&D terms, it's basically like playing with characters that are levels 2-9. The "high end" power cap ceiling is pretty low, mostly because of the way combat damage is handled. So, if you're wanting "superhero badasses" for characters, the system doesn't really handle it well. But it's great at modeling "heroic" characters without making them feel like they can just break the world on a whim. One lucky damage roll and a failed "soak" roll, and a hero can be severely hurt or dead.

 

[Greg K]

The Chase Rules and Mass Combat rules are both great, simple, and fun, and worth checking out.

Both have been rewritten for the upcoming deluxe edition which was announced last week.

The deluxe edition will also include:
a) a section on designer insights
b) new powers from the fantasy companion
c) an expanded section on setting rules and how to apply them to your campaign.
d) new situational rules like interludes and dramatic tasks (extended skill checks for things like disarming bombs, persuading influential npcs etc.)
e) new one sheets
f) Clint revealed that there will also be some new equipment like F-15 jets, Abrams tanks, and some futuristic equipment

This will be a $30 hard cover. However, they will be posting a free pdf of the new and updated material for those with the Explorer's Edition. Once the, current, Explorer's Edition sells out, they will release a new Explorer's Edition using the deluxe material, but in the current Explorer format.

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).

Well, the GM can tell the players no. Plus, the disadvantages coming into play is one way the GM rewards bennies during play. So, the players are screwing themselves out of a beneficial resource.

 

[Stormonu]

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.

The game was built off Rail Wars, so the game seems to handle skirmish-level combat well (10's of combatants easily - 100's, you might need to develop some shortcuts). For the most part, each generic individual in the fight will be rolling one dice and (barring modifiers) anything over 4 hits, so you can roll attacks for a handful of opponents at once (damage is a little slower as often two dice are involved vs. toughness). It should be very easy to scale upwards (1 die representing 10 soldiers and such).

We've regularly been running Left4Dead style scenarios with a score of zombies vs. PCs + allies; a small army at least. Combat was generally very quick though we were too engaged to time things for individual rounds. No combat that I remember, even at this scale, took more than about a half hour.

 

[Greg K]

I have not run anything for a few months, but I love the game.


There are some important things to remember
a) a +2 from an Edge is a big deal. It means you are only going to fail on a critical failure when it comes to standard difficulty TN 4.

b) Knowledge skills vs common knowledge individual knowledge skills are only used if they will see regular use. Otherwise, they default to common knowledge based on the character's background.

c) The combat maneuvers list may appear small at first glance. However, between the existing maneuvers, tricks, and raises, there are a lot more things players can do that one may, initially, realize.
Here is a list of d20 maneuvers in Savage Worlds terms Also add this addional maneuver, Push/Trip, from the brand manager, Clint Black. Between the existing maneuvers, tricks, and Push/Trip, there are several ways you can have "Push", "Pull" and "Slide" effects in Savage Worlds without needing lots of powers.

My only real complaints are
a) Stealth is too broad for my tastes as it covers both hide/move silent and sleight of hand
b) I wish the Push/Trip maneuver had been included
c) I wish Clint's guidelines for dialing lethality up or down by adjusting incapacitation had been in the setting rules; and that
d) Clint's Illusions as trappings had been in the core book or the upcoming deluxe book. His advice also includes a variation of Obscure. I was surprised that this was not included, because it is a common question and it was not covered in the fantasy companion.

 

[TarionzCousin]

[MENTION=99]Rel[/MENTION] loves the system. Maybe he'll stop by and tell us about it.

 

[scourger]

We love Savage Worlds. It really is fast, furious & fun as advertised. Running it changed the way I game. My preparation time decreased about 90%, and I felt like I was able to develop the story more than worry about the rules; as compared to d20.

I still like D&D 3.5 for all the minis that I have and want to use for another game, though.

And the new Gamma World is very similar to Savage Worlds in its fire & forget nature, which is why I am running it right now. The drawback to GW is that it lacks depth of character development for the players. It's the price of a simpler 4e game, but it leaves the game a little wanting.

 

[kaomera]

Fairly simple, mostly generic, if you like what it does it can end up being your go-to game for any genre; if you don't then it can get annoying when it gets brought up as a suggested game for every genre... I like it, actually (and I think it's valid to keep bringing it up as a suggestion so long as it meets any other criteria...), but I've never gotten so far as actually recruiting players specifically for it, and the people I tend to end up gaming with by default prefer D&D...

 

[Greg K]

And the new Gamma World is very similar to Savage Worlds in its fire & forget nature, which is why I am running it right now. The drawback to GW is that it lacks depth of character development for the players. It's the price of a simpler 4e game, but it leaves the game a little wanting.

Have you checked out the Savage Worlds edition of Darwin's World?

 

[Rel]

[MENTION=99]Rel[/MENTION] loves the system. Maybe he'll stop by and tell us about it.

Thanks for the mention. Just got home from a Savage Worlds session as a matter of fact.

Most of the basics have been covered (and I'm far from the SW Guru around here). I guess I'll just say that probably my favorite thing about SW is that it is so "limber". It's VERY economical on page count for things like spells, skills, edges, etc. But these things are designed to be so flexible as to allow you to do tons and tons of stuff with only a very small set of rules. This makes it an absolute breeze and pleasure to GM.

Also, for fantasy games, I love LOVE LOVE the way Spells and Trappings work such that you can take a simple spell and add different sorts of Trappings to give it wildly different themes and effects. Again, it lends a huge amount of flexibility to a very small set of rules.

 

[Greg K]

Also, for fantasy games, I love LOVE LOVE the way Spells and Trappings work such that you can take a simple spell and add different sorts of Trappings to give it wildly different themes and effects. Again, it lends a huge amount of flexibility to a very small set of rules.

I have been waiting for my tax return just to get the Fantasy Companion and give it a whirl for fantasy.