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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vaslov" data-source="post: 6581346" data-attributes="member: 37953">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.</blockquote>

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