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View Full Version : How many of you played Savage Worlds? What should I look out for?



Mara
2017-10-30, 07:48 AM
Starting to run some Savage Worlds campaigns. I want to know what your guy's experience has been with the system and what you really liked / didn't like.

Anonymouswizard
2017-10-30, 08:02 AM
Likes: the speed of the system, it really does run faster than average due to keeping down bookkeeping.

The pulp feel, wild cards are tougher than mooks and a well built character can get through several minions before going down (a minmaxed character can down one or two a turn), via having Wounds and players having more Bennies for Soak Rolls.

It really can deal with each of the PCs having a small squad of troops, or a couple of squads between the players. It can easily handle twenty a side faster than anything else I've played (but of course more bodies means a slower game).

Dislikes: how important Edges are. Everybody's going to be buying a few to keep up.

The lack of Edges for noncombat characters. Combat characters can easily nab six Edges without overlap, scientists get about two.

Airk
2017-10-31, 10:29 AM
Likes: Uh... supports a wide variety of characters as long as they all want to kill things
Dislikes: Basically a bland, generic system that seems to want to paper over its blandness by doing weird, meaningless stuff like "You draw CARDS for initiative!"

I don't understand the praise for being so "fast". Yeah, okay, it's faster D&D? Maybe? Unless you engage with a weird subsystem like chases and are constantly looking up how it works. But faster than than games that I actually think of as "running quickly"? No.

Anonymouswizard
2017-10-31, 11:16 AM
Likes: Uh... supports a wide variety of characters as long as they all want to kill things
Dislikes: Basically a bland, generic system that seems to want to paper over its blandness by doing weird, meaningless stuff like "You draw CARDS for initiative!"

I don't understand the praise for being so "fast". Yeah, okay, it's faster D&D? Maybe? Unless you engage with a weird subsystem like chases and are constantly looking up how it works. But faster than than games that I actually think of as "running quickly"? No.

Cards for initiative is actually nice once you've got the hang of it. For normal skirmishes (what the system was designed for) having everybody's cards in the open allows you to easily see who's next, and discarding your card after your action makes it easy to track who has and hasn't gone. Plus it adds the interesting factor that the available score distribution changes until a Joker is called. I tend to use it when I want round by round initiative without calculations and noting it down adding another two minutes to each round.

For the 'fast', you've got to understand that it has as many moving parts as say 3.X, but by minimising bookkeeping it manages to run combat at a much faster pace. Yes, a lighter system will be faster (which is actually neither good or bad). It's faster than average, but not one of the faster systems. Chases aren't that complex, it's literally one table that summarises everything important other than 'can only fire when you've got the initiative'.

On the other hand it is bland and generic, and badly so. This isn't the good bland and generic of Fate, where everything is full of 'you can also do this with it' by virtue of expecting you to change everything, but rather something along the lines of the first draft of Mutants & Masterminds' Descriptors system, almost literally for magic.

Really, where Savage Worlds shines is smoothly going from 'five PCs' to 'five PCs and twenty minions' on the player's side.

LibraryOgre
2017-10-31, 12:02 PM
I'll also add... I like the addition of the Wild Die for heroic characters. It makes it relatively easy to switch from a mook to a Wild Card... you can design them identically, but then roll an extra die for the Wild Card, and you add a fair bit of competence.

Mara
2017-10-31, 12:09 PM
Likes: Uh... supports a wide variety of characters as long as they all want to kill things

I'm curious to what you are comparing too. If it's 5e or 3.x, I don't understand this comment. I'm running the game pretty RAW so anything feasible with a skill has a TN of 4 (+ or - listed modifiers, just not any gut GM mods for difficulty). In 5e the DC's are made up and in 3.x it's just really hard to do any thing meaningful with skills.

Then after that we have magic rituals from the horror companion, which really adds back a lot of utility magic.

Then there are the edges or characters that focus on taunt or intimidate for combat and invest heavily outside of combat.

You also don't have to make a character that can do combat for more social campaigns. There is even social combat rules.

Airk
2017-10-31, 03:39 PM
I'm curious to what you are comparing too. If it's 5e or 3.x, I don't understand this comment. I'm running the game pretty RAW so anything feasible with a skill has a TN of 4 (+ or - listed modifiers, just not any gut GM mods for difficulty). In 5e the DC's are made up and in 3.x it's just really hard to do any thing meaningful with skills.

See I feel like Savage Worlds has the same problem only with the polarity reversed. It's still a relatively heavy game full of lists of "powers" or "edges" or "feats" or whatever you want to call them, that ALL pretty much have to do with combat. It's just that now doing stuff with skills is instead super EASY, so there is barely any differentiator there. The low target threshold combined with exploding dice means that as long as you have some sort of basic level competence, you can pretty much do whatever the heck you want.

So the only real difference between characters and the only thing you can specialize in is basically "how do I kill stuff?"



Then after that we have magic rituals from the horror companion, which really adds back a lot of utility magic.

Then there are the edges or characters that focus on taunt or intimidate for combat and invest heavily outside of combat.

You also don't have to make a character that can do combat for more social campaigns. There is even social combat rules.

I've never seen the horror companion because we didn't choose to invest heavily in this system, and the social combat rules are basically D&D 4e skill challenges. So...yeah, I dunno. The system is fine, but I wouldn't actually RECOMMEND it for anything?

Also, Anonymouswizard - what bookkeeping is present in 3.5 that isn't in SW? It's been a long time since I played D&D 3.5, but all I ever remember having to "bookkeep" was tracking my HP. And spells, I guess if you're a spellcaster, but SW uses a Power Point system for that which is both better (only one thing to keep track of) and worse (Have to pick from the entire list of spells you can cast every round instead of just the ones that you have memorized/ready). So... even if we assume that tracking shaken/wound levels is easier than HP, the gains seem pretty trivial to me?

Nifft
2017-10-31, 04:00 PM
Solid base system.

Some of the supplements are uneven in quality.

Very much a map-and-minis game, which is fast & solid if that's what you want.

CharonsHelper
2017-10-31, 05:04 PM
I'm not a fan because the exploding dice and a few other system bits make combat far too swingy for my taste. *shrug*

Knaight
2017-11-01, 05:11 AM
First things first - I've never particularly been a fan of Savage Worlds, and ever since discovering Ubiquity that dislike has only intensified - everything SW does, it does better.


Also, Anonymouswizard - what bookkeeping is present in 3.5 that isn't in SW?

Attribute changing effects come to mind, along with the fairly convoluted stacking mechanics and their interaction with the equally convoluted buff system. SW isn't as fast or as light as it gets presented as, but it's far faster and lighter than D&D 3.5.

Mara
2017-11-01, 07:47 AM
I think Savage Worlds has bad marketing. Before I read the rules, my impression of it was that it was just another silly rules light system that that ONE guy in the group is always plugging.

Now that I've read/played a bit, my impression is that the game is rules heavy but runs faster than 3.x due to certain structural changes. But it doesn't yield classic d&d high level characters and utility magic really only exist with the horror companion ritual system (which means you are really into the game to get that far into the mechanics)

So I see why people looking for something rules light or something like 4e aren't happy with it. I think it competes better with 3.x and 5e. (5e isn't a rules light system either)

LibraryOgre
2017-11-01, 09:28 AM
First things first - I've never particularly been a fan of Savage Worlds, and ever since discovering Ubiquity that dislike has only intensified - everything SW does, it does better.


Ubiquity? Do tell.

Mara
2017-11-01, 10:28 AM
Ubiquity? Do tell.

I looked into it after his suggestion but I didn't find anything that I liked. Seems to be a more rules lite RPG than Savage Worlds.

Which is a matter of preference. I don't like rules lite and if I felt I had to run Savage Worlds that way, then I wouldn't like it either.

Airk
2017-11-01, 10:51 AM
Attribute changing effects come to mind, along with the fairly convoluted stacking mechanics and their interaction with the equally convoluted buff system. SW isn't as fast or as light as it gets presented as, but it's far faster and lighter than D&D 3.5.

Wasn't 3.5 the game where buffs lasted so damn long that you might as well include them in your permanent stats? I guess ability score damage is a thing, but it seemed rare enough when I was playing to not matter that much in the overall time battle lasted.

I personally don't compare SW to D&D at all; I think it's more like a slightly less cumbersome GURPS, which isn't much of a selling point for me. It's basically in the same category as Unisystem - blandly traditional RPGs with a simple core mechanic, lots of merits/flaws to pick from, and no real strengths to make me say "Yes, I would totally choose this game for <reason X>".

I'm a little confused by all the pushback on calling SW "rules light" though - not because it is, really, but because all of its heft comes in the form of wonky subsystems that you have to look up everytime you use them, and long pick-lists of options, which to me are the two worst forms of rules "heavy".

Mara
2017-11-01, 11:09 AM
I'm a little confused by all the pushback on calling SW "rules light" though - not because it is, really, but because all of its heft comes in the form of wonky subsystems that you have to look up everytime you use them, and long pick-lists of options, which to me are the two worst forms of rules "heavy".

IMO Savage Worlds is as rules heavy as Pathfinder just in less pages.

Which is my ideal for rules heavy games. What you dislike is what I like.

Airk
2017-11-01, 12:13 PM
IMO Savage Worlds is as rules heavy as Pathfinder just in less pages.

Which is my ideal for rules heavy games. What you dislike is what I like.

I don't dislike heavy games. I dislike the list-picking, independent subsystem style of heavy games that got all the attention in the 90s. Yes please, let's move all the decision making into character generation! =/

Mara
2017-11-01, 12:48 PM
I don't dislike heavy games. I dislike the list-picking, independent subsystem style of heavy games that got all the attention in the 90s. Yes please, let's move all the decision making into character generation! =/

We probably have different definitions of a rules heavy rpg if "making a character with limited skills and abilities" is an optional segment of rules heavy for you.

Tinkerer
2017-11-01, 01:48 PM
In all Savage Worlds threads I tend to plug the following resource:

http://www.godwars2.org/SavageWorlds/

Some of the best fan made materials I've seen in there. Aside from that be careful once you get up into the higher levels since the system goes a little wonky. The skills did seem a little anemic to me as well but I've worked around it since then, a bit of homebrew traits and a lot more of defining what separates a base success from a raise. And for crying out loud remove the line which says that Raise/Lower Trait stacks. That just turns what is already the most powerful ability in the game into a complete system breaker.

Knaight
2017-11-01, 04:43 PM
We probably have different definitions of a rules heavy rpg if "making a character with limited skills and abilities" is an optional segment of rules heavy for you.
The weight of the character creation rules and the weight of the rules that are actually used in play are two different variables. They correlate pretty strongly, but you could easily have something like a stripped down GURPS that keeps all the complexity of the GURPS combat engine.


Ubiquity? Do tell.
It's another pulp system with pretty comparable mechanical weight to Savage Worlds, which doesn't have a generic rules set as a separate product but does have a bit of a line from a few companies. This includes at least one that jumped ship from Savage Worlds, namely the new Regime Diabloique. The big thing is that it's a fairly well designed dice pool system which has solutions for a lot of the weirdness around dice pools (e.g. really small pools causing issues), it has a similar attribute, skill, talent structure, and it has a similar degree of narrative focus (extremely minimal, yet it shows up in the advertising for some reason).

It started with Hollow Earth Expedition though, so that's the source to see the system at its purest.

Anonymouswizard
2017-11-01, 05:00 PM
It's another pulp system with pretty comparable mechanical weight to Savage Worlds, which doesn't have a generic rules set as a separate product but does have a bit of a line from a few companies. This includes at least one that jumped ship from Savage Worlds, namely the new Regime Diabloique. The big thing is that it's a fairly well designed dice pool system which has solutions for a lot of the weirdness around dice pools (e.g. really small pools causing issues), it has a similar attribute, skill, talent structure, and it has a similar degree of narrative focus (extremely minimal, yet it shows up in the advertising for some reason).

It started with Hollow Earth Expedition though, so that's the source to see the system at its purest.

I looked it up after you mentioned it in another thread, I'm interested in both Hollow Earth Expedition and Regime Diabloique. Probably going to get one after a physical copy of FUDGE :smallbiggrin:

LibraryOgre
2017-11-01, 05:31 PM
Wasn't 3.5 the game where buffs lasted so damn long that you might as well include them in your permanent stats? I guess ability score damage is a thing, but it seemed rare enough when I was playing to not matter that much in the overall time battle lasted.


3.0 was that way; all the 2nd level buff spells were hour/level, making them pretty stout. 3.5 reduced them significantly.

Knaight
2017-11-01, 09:01 PM
I looked it up after you mentioned it in another thread, I'm interested in both Hollow Earth Expedition and Regime Diabloique. Probably going to get one after a physical copy of FUDGE :smallbiggrin:

There's some cool stuff in the 10th Anniversary Edition of Fudge - I don't regret getting it at all.

Airk
2017-11-02, 10:23 AM
The weight of the character creation rules and the weight of the rules that are actually used in play are two different variables. They correlate pretty strongly, but you could easily have something like a stripped down GURPS that keeps all the complexity of the GURPS combat engine.

Yes, exactly; I am very interested in complicated decision trees IN PLAY, where there are lots of valid options and choosing between them is important.

I am not interested in complicated "tech trees" in character creation where I have to choose what I will actually be able to do later - and therefore will basically reduced to saying "How can I use <thing that I put all my points into> in this situation?". Too many "rules heavy" games fall into the 2nd category.


3.0 was that way; all the 2nd level buff spells were hour/level, making them pretty stout. 3.5 reduced them significantly.

Ah, right, thanks. Sorry, I only played like one campaign each of 3.0 and 3.5, so they tend to blur together in my head.

Lady Tialait
2017-11-02, 11:28 AM
My experience with SW has lead to one important thing to always ALWAYS do when running a game with the system. Create a campaign document for your players. Make sure you outline everything they can and cannot take. If you don't want something in your setting make sure they know that is unavailable for your game. If you don't have the time to make a campaign document, get one of the SW settings, my personal favorite is the Weird Wars series.

Ashes
2017-11-05, 04:04 PM
I'm on my fourth year of running Deadlands, so I've been running Savage Worlds a lot.
In general, I feel it gives me the options I need to do mostly everything. Of course, some areas are more shallow than others.

Mostly, I like how easy it is to make up NPCs on the fly, adjusting and adjudicating skills and deciding if you want to use a specific subsystem or not.

Plus, it's got Deadlands, which is my favorite setting.

Sparx MacGyver
2017-11-05, 05:45 PM
I'm on my fourth year of running Deadlands, so I've been running Savage Worlds a lot.
In general, I feel it gives me the options I need to do mostly everything. Of course, some areas are more shallow than others.

Mostly, I like how easy it is to make up NPCs on the fly, adjusting and adjudicating skills and deciding if you want to use a specific subsystem or not.

Plus, it's got Deadlands, which is my favorite setting.

This. The fact that much of it is easy to do on the fly as needed is probably the system's greatest strength.

On the other hand, I do have a problem with the TN 4. This is likely an anomaly of my table, but my players keep rolling ridiculously high. Not every roll, but it's an absurd rate. Say, 3 out of 5 rolls tend to have 2 or 3 raises. That includes unskilled and and adding penalties. But, as I said, it's likely an anomaly with my group as a whole, even when I have them roll my dice as a test.

Wraith
2017-11-05, 07:07 PM
Things that I like about Savage Worlds:
+ Easy to learn, and easy to play. No long tables or stuff to remember, just your imagination and a little pool of dice will get you through almost anything.
+ Quite hard to kill a Player Character in one go. There's lots of ways to turn Death into a Near Miss, which can be nice if you don't like losing characters.
+ Very broad scope for setting and character concept. Not quite as broad as, say, GURPs, but you need far less books to run virtually any time period and magic/tech level that you want to.

Thins that I DON'T like about Savage Worlds:
- Poorly directed settings. While vaguely "pulp comics" in design, there's little in the MRB to describe what that actually means, so unless your GM has a very precise and well planned vision for what their world ought to be like, plots tend to meander about a bit. Or get one of the setting books, like Deadlands or Rippers.
- Skill/Edges are highly combat orientated. As someone mentioned above, you tend to spend a lot of time looking at ways to get new edges, and all they tend to do it let you fight better. There's not much in it, if yo want to specialise in a non-combat character.
- The nature of the Exploding Dice system and randomly dealt cards means that, despite what I said above about it being quite hard to lose a character in one turn, you're only ever two turns away from a catastrophic failure that wrecks the party! :smalltongue:

I may be exaggerating that last point very slightly, but it is a fairly accurate depiction of my games in Savage Worlds; we spend most of the campaign jogging through the plot, kicking butt and having a great time, but the moment we meet something that is above-average in threat level then we get taken apart in short order, usually due to the dice and bennies running out at the most inopportune moment.

Airk
2017-11-07, 09:44 AM
Things that I like about Savage Worlds:
+ Easy to learn, and easy to play. No long tables or stuff to remember, just your imagination and a little pool of dice will get you through almost anything.
+ Quite hard to kill a Player Character in one go. There's lots of ways to turn Death into a Near Miss, which can be nice if you don't like losing characters.
+ Very broad scope for setting and character concept. Not quite as broad as, say, GURPs, but you need far less books to run virtually any time period and magic/tech level that you want to.

Thins that I DON'T like about Savage Worlds:
- Poorly directed settings. While vaguely "pulp comics" in design, there's little in the MRB to describe what that actually means, so unless your GM has a very precise and well planned vision for what their world ought to be like, plots tend to meander about a bit. Or get one of the setting books, like Deadlands or Rippers.
- Skill/Edges are highly combat orientated. As someone mentioned above, you tend to spend a lot of time looking at ways to get new edges, and all they tend to do it let you fight better. There's not much in it, if yo want to specialise in a non-combat character.
- The nature of the Exploding Dice system and randomly dealt cards means that, despite what I said above about it being quite hard to lose a character in one turn, you're only ever two turns away from a catastrophic failure that wrecks the party! :smalltongue:

I may be exaggerating that last point very slightly, but it is a fairly accurate depiction of my games in Savage Worlds; we spend most of the campaign jogging through the plot, kicking butt and having a great time, but the moment we meet something that is above-average in threat level then we get taken apart in short order, usually due to the dice and bennies running out at the most inopportune moment.

Seems like a pretty decent summary, but unfortunately, the first two "pros" are, while technically correct, also provided for by TONS AND TONS of other games. So unless you're really in need of a generic system, they're not really much in the way of recommendation.

Mara
2017-11-07, 01:02 PM
Seems like a pretty decent summary, but unfortunately, the first two "pros" are, while technically correct, also provided for by TONS AND TONS of other games. So unless you're really in need of a generic system, they're not really much in the way of recommendation.
Yes but his third pro was character concept options, which is a con for you.

Airk
2017-11-07, 02:28 PM
Yes but his third pro was character concept options, which is a con for you.

I disagree; You can cover a wide scope of technologies and settings without resorting to list-picking mechanisms. Fate does it all the time. "Able to support lots of different settings" is not the same as "Comes with 274 pages of abilities to pick from depending on which setting you use."

I am not at all opposed to wide breadth of character CONCEPTS. I am generally not interested in games with large lists of character "features" that you need to pick from.

Anonymouswizard
2017-11-07, 03:44 PM
There's some cool stuff in the 10th Anniversary Edition of Fudge - I don't regret getting it at all.

Yep, although I'm now torn on HEE and Space 1889 as the Ubiquities I'm looking into (I think the new S1889 is Ubiquity? It's certainly an interesting period for a SF game at any rate).


I disagree; You can cover a wide scope of technologies and settings without resorting to list-picking mechanisms. Fate does it all the time. "Able to support lots of different settings" is not the same as "Comes with 274 pages of abilities to pick from depending on which setting you use."

I am not at all opposed to wide breadth of character CONCEPTS. I am generally not interested in games with large lists of character "features" that you need to pick from.

Remember that Fate and Fudge do so by requiring preparation for each setting (barring FAE). Although I do love both games.

Knaight
2017-11-07, 04:43 PM
Yep, although I'm now torn on HEE and Space 1889 as the Ubiquities I'm looking into (I think the new S1889 is Ubiquity? It's certainly an interesting period for a SF game at any rate).

S1889 is Ubiquity. Also Hollow Earth Expedition is generally abbreviated as HEX.

Rerednaw
2017-11-07, 05:09 PM
My only experience with Savage Worlds was the original Deadlands. Loved the setting. Found the mechanics to be a bit clunky at first but gradually warmed to it. It's not cards, it's not dice...it's cards AND dice...AND poker chips.

More important thing to watch out for: Do not play with a kitty cat who likes to jump onto the table. :smallbiggrin:

System works well with player agency and narrative. System has more issues if the gamemaster has to come up with everything (like Dungeon World).

Airk
2017-11-08, 10:27 AM
My only experience with Savage Worlds was the original Deadlands. Loved the setting. Found the mechanics to be a bit clunky at first but gradually warmed to it. It's not cards, it's not dice...it's cards AND dice...AND poker chips.


For what it's worth, Savage Worlds may be based on the Deadlands system, but it's not the same - they stripped out a ton of the card/poker stuff. Cards are basically only used for initiative-like things in SW, which honestly makes them feel like a weird holdover to me.

Mara
2017-11-08, 10:54 AM
I disagree; You can cover a wide scope of technologies and settings without resorting to list-picking mechanisms. Fate does it all the time. "Able to support lots of different settings" is not the same as "Comes with 274 pages of abilities to pick from depending on which setting you use."

I am not at all opposed to wide breadth of character CONCEPTS. I am generally not interested in games with large lists of character "features" that you need to pick from.

What limits your characters in systems you do like? What makes them different mechanically?

Airk
2017-11-08, 01:15 PM
What limits your characters in systems you do like? What makes them different mechanically?

Backgrounds. Stats. Skills/Actions/Approaches/whatever you call them? I don't need the extra layer of feats/edges/specializations/bonuses or whatever.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "What limits them?" though - games are basically a whole pile of limits. Unless you are deeply concerned that the knight from the medieval planet can pilot a starfighter because his dex is really high, in which case, it is the GM's job to say "No, you don't know how, you don't get to roll." This is an example of a background making characters mechanically different. Unless of course the tablet agrees that yeah, the knight can totally pilot a starfighter because why not.

Mara
2017-11-08, 01:44 PM
Backgrounds. Stats. Skills/Actions/Approaches/whatever you call them? I don't need the extra layer of feats/edges/specializations/bonuses or whatever.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "What limits them?" though - games are basically a whole pile of limits. Unless you are deeply concerned that the knight from the medieval planet can pilot a starfighter because his dex is really high, in which case, it is the GM's job to say "No, you don't know how, you don't get to roll." This is an example of a background making characters mechanically different. Unless of course the tablet agrees that yeah, the knight can totally pilot a starfighter because why not.
I would call such a system rules light if the GM is required to make fair and fun rules in regards to what your character can do like in that example.

In your example, backgrounds are basically skill ranks/ feats that build off your stats. You just don't have specific rules and depend on the GM to decide if a knight can pilot a starship. Rather than there just being a piloting skill or a shipmod that lets you use the riding skill.

If a player cannot know what their character can and can't do without GM input (and the GM is running the rules as written), then I define that as rules light. And that is exactly what I don't want to GM. I'm not against making fair and fun rules, but if the system depends on me to do that, then I have little interest in running it.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-11-08, 04:57 PM
There are sort of two ways to handle that sort of generic-ness. One is the GURPS way, where you include specific rules for everything and leave it up to the group to say "these options are appropriate for this campaign, and these are not." Tone and scale have to do with the mechanics as much as the presentation. The other is the Fate way, where you have one set of generic rules and leave it up to the group to say "this is how you fluff the rules to our campaign." Tone and scale have to do with the presentation, while the mechanics remain the same.