Tell me about your Savage World Fantasy Campaign experiences

[Zadmar]

The Savage Worlds Edges incorporate a number of traditional D&D class abilities (a ranger might have Woodsman, a rogue Thief, a druid could have Beast Master, a cleric would likely have Holy Warrior, a paladin would take Champion, etc). Arcane Background isn't really any different in that respect - it covers wizards, clerics and psions, as well as artificers, mad scientists, and even low-powered superheroes (you'd want the Super Powers Companion for the more powerful superheroes).

But with the appropriate trappings it could instead represent cybernetics, genetic engineering, lycanthropy, unusual racial abilities, extraordinary talent or training, or something else entirely. You might for example take Arcane Background (Super Powers) for a highly skilled warrior, giving him powers like Deflection, Smite and Quickness, each with trappings describing specialised combat maneuvers, to create a Wheel of Time style "blademaster". The character wouldn't actually have any "arcane" abilities, but he'd use exactly the same mechanics.

Arcane Background is really just a way of representing limited-use abilities. The rest is just trappings.

 

[amerigoV]

Arcane Background is really just a way of representing limited-use abilities. The rest is just trappings.

Keep in mind that there is no reason you cannot apply trappings to skills, regular Edges and ability advancements. For example, here is psionic trapping that I added to a simple Vigor advance in a recent campaign:

Kinetic Absorption is the ability to psychically take the kinetic energy out of anything. This can be used to slow down opponents, or absorb kinetic energy and slow down a fall that would otherwise kill you. One with this power could even lessen the blow of any object hurled at him and withstand the force of any blow, as it would provide no force after the kinetic energy has been taken from it.

Migraine (my characters) uses this to less the blows of anything that might hurt him. He can also use this to slow the effects of poisons and other harmful effects on the body as he prevents the dangerous substances from circulating in his body.

Game Terms
Increase Vigor by one die type, which also raises his toughness.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Keep in mind that there is no reason you cannot apply trappings to skills, regular Edges and ability advancements. For example, here is psionic trapping that I added to a simple Vigor advance in a recent campaign:

Kinetic Absorption is the ability to psychically take the kinetic energy out of anything. This can be used to slow down opponents, or absorb kinetic energy and slow down a fall that would otherwise kill you. One with this power could even lessen the blow of any object hurled at him and withstand the force of any blow, as it would provide no force after the kinetic energy has been taken from it.

Migraine (my characters) uses this to less the blows of anything that might hurt him. He can also use this to slow the effects of poisons and other harmful effects on the body as he prevents the dangerous substances from circulating in his body.

Game Terms
Increase Vigor by one die type, which also raises his toughness.

Quick question. When it comes to trappings on powers, do people generally interpret the rules to allow only one trapping on an individual power, or could you have multiple trappings to represent different powers? If the latter, how would someone go about getting more without buying the same power a second time?

 

[Zadmar]

The default approach is to choose a trapping when you purchase the power, and if you want a second trapping you have to buy the power again. However it's not uncommon for certain setting or house rules to treat it a bit differently.

 

[amerigoV]

Quick question. When it comes to trappings on powers, do people generally interpret the rules to allow only one trapping on an individual power, or could you have multiple trappings to represent different powers? If the latter, how would someone go about getting more without buying the same power a second time?

The default approach is to choose a trapping when you purchase the power, and if you want a second trapping you have to buy the power again. However it's not uncommon for certain setting or house rules to treat it a bit differently.

To give an example from two official settings, both 50 Fathoms and Hellfrost have the 4 classic Elemental schools of magic. You can learn more than one school (trapping) and it applies the new element to ALL Powers that you have or get in the future. This costs one edge per additional element and until you have all 4, there is a cumulative -1 casting penalty for each additional school (so 0 for 1 element, -1 for 2 elements, -2 for 3 elements, then 0 for all four since you are a Archmage).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

To give an example from two official settings, both 50 Fathoms and Hellfrost have the 4 classic Elemental schools of magic. You can learn more than one school (trapping) and it applies the new element to ALL Powers that you have or get in the future. This costs one edge per additional element and until you have all 4, there is a cumulative -1 casting penalty for each additional school (so 0 for 1 element, -1 for 2 elements, -2 for 3 elements, then 0 for all four since you are a Archmage).

I'd probably have to do something like that. An Edge to add a new trapping option to all of your powers. I'd skip the penalties though.

 

[Von Ether]

For me, I've found that for a lot of players, they need a special bit of hand holding/ sleight of hand. i.e., instead of showing them the core book and say here's your Blast Power with a Fire trapping, you hand them a typed booklet that offers them Fire Fingers with all of the trappings info in the description.

Zadmar's Savage Spellbook is a good tool, if not an example to follow.

 

[Vaslov]

My group has 3 campaigns running with two of them using 5E and the other using SW, a different GM for each game. We play once a week and shift between campaigns around once a month. I run the SW Accursed setting while using the War of the Burring Sky campaign. There is a flavor difference between the systems that lead to different tactics by both players and GM.

SW has a simplistic and fairly consistent rule model that keeps things moving. Once you get enough of it under your belt it really start to shine. Our first SW game was mostly focused on understanding the basic combat mechanics. As we have matured in our rules understanding we started to see the mechanical power of the various tactics like gang up, kneeling and tricks making their way into combat. This is similar how in 5e players will start leveraging conditions, but I find it more so as the SW combat tactics can be used by anyone.

The first big thing as a SW GM I noticed is if you put something on the board it can die at anytime. It doesn't matter if it is your big bad with all sorts of buffs. The exploding dice can and will show up and there is no big hit point pool to absorb damage. The knee jerk reaction to this is to buff toughness, but this can cause all sorts of other undesired issues like players believing they cannot hurt a creature without a big damage explosion. Maybe that is ok for a dragon, but for a gang boss in a city? For this reason I have found my stories have players facing organizations where the loss of one leader is felt, but not a show stopper for the story.

Lots of good discussion above about spells and trappings. I agree trappings are the key to getting the flavor of SW Spells right. For example in SW there is a spell named bolt. This one spell could be used to simulate anything from magic missile to chromatic orbs to searing rays. Trappings are both the description of the effect as well as augmenting the mechanics from tacking on extra effects and conditions like elemental damage. This helps keep the system mechanically simple and robust.

Another fine example of this is the Burrow spell which allows a user to travel underground a short distance. Reskined with ethereal trappings Burrow is used to explain how a ghost is traveling between walls. My advice for any new SW customer is to have a spell result in mind first and then go looking for something that matches it in the rule book. If you try to build from the base spell up it will more likely feel a bit flat. I will jump on the bandwagon of Zadmar's linked spellbook for more examples.

One last point I will add up is my group came to the first game with very combat heavy characters. At the time we had come from D&D 3.5/Pathfinder which is encouraged this mindset. This is the typical reason fantasy is not encouraged as the first system. While a combat focused character can work in SW a broad based character can actually be more desirable. In my group no one took a single rank in Medical, which in a setting without healing magic is down right suicidal. I have abused them to no end on social encounters, knowledge rolls and other skill checks. If the group you play with has not used a skills based rpg system before be ready for this result. The cool thing is as they have been leveling the system has allowed them to address these gaps very quickly. We are now entering the Seasoned rank and it already feels like a different set of characters based on the skills available at a proficient level across the group. This type of growth one aspect of SW that have not seen D&D 5e replicate easily, but D&D 5e forces non-combat skills avoiding the trap in the first place. Just a flavor difference.

Have fun with SW and remember be savage. Throw more mooks at the players if they seem too strong. Or give them allies to run if they need help. Up, down or out makes large combats super simple to run.