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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 6076108" data-attributes="member: 85870">So a couple of weeks ago I started up a second gaming group running Savage Worlds (I'm currently a player in a GURPS group as well). And, well, the first encounter went a little differently than I expected. My other group are all seasoned RPG vets, having played various systems for over 20 years (2e, GURPS, Pathfinder, Rifts, Vampire: the Masquerade, etc.). My new group? With the exception of one player, almost totally inexperienced. Once player has some 4e and Pathfinder under his belt, one has maybe a grand total of 3 sessions of Savage Worlds ever. The other two, no experience at all. Zilch. And I almost screwed up the very first encounter because for some reason, I forgot I WASN'T playing with the other group. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm    :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />All of the tactics, bonus conditions, and extra damage I would have fully expected my other group to utilize? The new group just wasn't quite there yet. As a result, what I thought was a fairly routine battle between 5 mooks, 1 full-fledged Wild Card, and one slightly-beefed-up mook ended up being quite a contest. Everyone but one player blew through their bennies in this single fight. One player was incapacitated by the end (but rolled well on his Vigor check to stay alive, and someone got a raise on their heal check to get him back up and running). Needless to say, afterwards, one of my good friends who is one of the players had some constructive criticism to offer, namely--"Dude. We're all newbs at this. We're not going to roll in and make totally optimized decisions. Plan your battles accordingly!"  Obviously beyond just lowering the average enemy difficulty, I'm wondering what other GMs do when they suddenly go from "Super Optimizer Player Bonanza" to a group that's still feeling their way out. One suggestion my friend had was to not "lock down" character builds for at least two or three sessions. Meaning, if they try something out and it's not working for them, don't strait jacket them into those choices. Another, obviously, is to ask players a little more "in depth" time with the rules, but it's unrealistic to expect them to memorize every rule in the system (even one that's far more on the "rules lite" than "rules heavy" spectrum like Savage Worlds). Are there things I can do, or emphasize in game that will be useful, without unnecessarily slowing down gameplay?</blockquote>

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