All I know about Savage Worlds is its basic task resolution and its Bennies. A number of the available settings for it interest me - Deadlands, Realms of Cthulhu, Solomon Kane, possibly Rippers - but I'm still not sure if I'll enjoy the system.

So, could you tell me something more about the rules, what you like or don't like about them and why? With regard to crunch and fiddliness how does it compare to what would be my system of choice for similar settings, Cinematic Unisystem?

I was also wondering if the rules as contained in Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane would be sufficient to play any of the settings that officially require the core rulebook.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;579524All I know about Savage Worlds is its basic task resolution and its Bennies. A number of the available settings for it interest me - Deadlands, Realms of Cthulhu, Solomon Kane, possibly Rippers - but I'm still not sure if I'll enjoy the system.

So, could you tell me something more about the rules, what you like or don't like about them and why? With regard to crunch and fiddliness how does it compare to what would be my system of choice for similar settings, Cinematic Unisystem?

I was also wondering if the rules as contained in Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane would be sufficient to play any of the settings that officially require the core rulebook.

I can't speak for the settings that you mentioned above, but I used a Pulp system from Triple Ace, the Daring Tales of Adventure books, and it worked well for me.  Actually, I used it to introduce the kids to RPGs, and the Triple Ace free PDF for the Daring Tales suite worked out great.  Something about Nazis and jetpacks helped them think of Indiana Jones, so I didn't have to work hard at setting the scene.

Seems that Savage Worlds works well in a heroic over-the-top pulp style adventure.  I'm not sure how well it'd work as a gritty, realistic type of adventure, but if you limit the bennies and the extra die in rolls that would emphasize realism.

The Test Drive rules plus Solomon Kane would be enough to handle most settings, if you just didn't want to spend $10 on the core rules.

I'm a huge Savage Worlds guy, having used it to run fantasy, supers, two Deadlands campaigns and Solomon Kane. In fact, I was a big Cinematic Unisystem fan before Savage Worlds.

The overpowered Dexterity isn't an issue like it is in CineUni, and Life Points are ditched in favor of Wounds. I use minis, but lots of folks have ran the game happily without them. I find I actually enjoy using minis in SW (I used to HATE them).

I do hate Power Points. Tracking Power Points (which are not used in Solomon Kane and a few other settings) just feels out of place with how everything else seems to work.

Most of our sessions move quickly, with a couple of combats/action scenes plus ample roleplaying in about a four hour window.

There's this saying that Savage Worlds characters all look alike after a while, and I disagree with that, but I did some character progressions on my blog that you can judge for yourself: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/p/savage-worlds-characters-are-all-same.html

Personally, I feel like there's ample room to differentiate characters without a ton of book keeping, which is one of the things I love about it. Also, it's incredibly easy to run the "PC with Hirelings" kinda game. My Solomon Kane campaign was for a single player, using NPCs that he controlled as his front line (he was a non-combat spellcaster, with the NPCs being his character's sister who was a fencer, a samurai sworn to protect him and his mentor/the family servant).

Quote from: flyerfan1991;579529I can't speak for the settings that you mentioned above, but I used a Pulp system from Triple Ace, the Daring Tales of Adventure books, and it worked well for me.  Actually, I used it to introduce the kids to RPGs, and the Triple Ace free PDF for the Daring Tales suite worked out great.  Something about Nazis and jetpacks helped them think of Indiana Jones, so I didn't have to work hard at setting the scene.

Seems that Savage Worlds works well in a heroic over-the-top pulp style adventure.  I'm not sure how well it'd work as a gritty, realistic type of adventure, but if you limit the bennies and the extra die in rolls that would emphasize realism.

Realms of Cthulhu, as well as Interface Zero and the free Crime City download by Pinnacle make adjustments to the system to make combat harsher (both physically and, in the case of Realms, mentally).

Thanks Tommy, I had that concern about SW. But even though your blog does a fine job showcasing how everyone /can/ be different, is that sort of specialization encouraged by the rules? It's been a while, but my recolection is that it was punatively expensive to raise high stats and become a one trick pony, so it's easier just to pick the low hanging fruit and become the same SW character as everyone else.
 
I don't know the system, so this is a question not a challenge.

It baffles me that the "all characters are identical" complaint is a thing. At the very least characters are going to be distinguished by their hindrances, and a number of Edges can only be picked up during chargen without explicit GM approval.

Only played/run (mostly run) about 10 sessions of it, but I think its a good system. Some people I've played with enjoyed the out-of-combat part of the game (quite rules light) but not the more crunchy combat system, although I think if we'd done it longer they would have gotten more used to it. Others have varied between loving the gritty combat and tactics and wanting back their bloated hit point totals; I'm less in love with the combat system after getting eaten the last time I played it.

Do you like Minis in your RPG play?

Do you like big battles being featured regularly with lots of enemies and allies on the table?

Are you cool with the game working better at low levels than high level play?

If so, SW is great.

SW is great. The Explorer edition is fantastic (get e delux as it has the vehical rules).

Its best at "stuff you get in comics". The rules are very easy to grasp, after 2games of it at a con I was able to write an entire Mod for running Strontium Dog.

It handles Mass combat (well squad size combat) really well but that doesn't mean it can only handle Battles although there is a tendancy to focus on that element.

I have a couple of rules complaints. The wild die d6 is obviously more impactful on very low skill say those with a d4 check. Exploding d4s feel like they are doing something funny with math (on a d4 you have a 6.25% chance of rolling 9 or more which is a raise). Also movement in combat pisses me off and I have houseruled a 'tactical movement' rule to prevent characters moving their whole movement past other charcters who can't act. An AoO rule would work as well but I went for a 1 inch per initivative. ONly kicks in when combat gets intense so its a bit like bullet time


Solid system, fast and flexible. Shane is a really good bloke and I like the entire crew at Pinnacle.

I'm a fairly rules-lite kind of GM. As a  point of reference, I enjoy stuff like Cinematic Unisystem, GenreDiversion i, Barbarians of Lemuria, CoC and the lighter Fudge variants (definitely not Fate). I haven't looked at it in detail but OpenQuest also looks like something I'd be comfortable with. I haven't given Two-Fisted Tales a try but that looks like a fine go-to system for pulp. Classic Unisystem I'll streamline a bit by picking for example the optional static damage and armor and ditching Endurance.

So how crunchy would you people say combat is compared to these? Is there a lot of bean counting involved, lots of rules to keep track of?

Also, I'd like to know from people who really don't like the system what their gripes are with it.

(As I'm not so keen on doing conversions or a  lot of rules tinkering I'd prefer to use the games as they are. Otherwise I'd just convert any setting I like and not worry if I'd enjoy the system.)

I'm a fairly rules-lite kind of GM. As a  point of reference, I enjoy  stuff like Cinematic Unisystem, GenreDiversion i, Barbarians of Lemuria,  CoC and the lighter Fudge variants (definitely not Fate). I haven't  looked at it in detail but OpenQuest also looks like something I'd be  comfortable with. I haven't given Two-Fisted Tales a try but that looks  like a fine go-to system for pulp. Classic Unisystem I'll streamline a  bit by picking for example the optional static damage and armor and  ditching Endurance.

So how crunchy would you people say combat is compared to these? Is  there a lot of bean counting involved, lots of rules to keep track of?

Also, I'd like to know from people who really don't like the system what their gripes are with it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;579612Do you like Minis in your RPG play?

We don't use minis, only the occasional marker to indicate relative positions in a location.

Quote from: Spinachcat;579612Do you like big battles being featured regularly with lots of enemies and allies on the table?

If combat situations involving lots of combatants play out sufficiently smoothly, I'd certainly make use of that. What exactly makes big battles so easy to run with SW?

Quote from: Spinachcat;579612Are you cool with the game working better at low levels than high level play?

This seems contradictory with claims that SW is suitable for pulp or even supers. Could you elaborate a bit on this?

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579535(...)I'm a huge Savage Worlds guy, having  used it to run fantasy, supers, two Deadlands campaigns and Solomon  Kane. In fact, I was a big Cinematic Unisystem fan before Savage Worlds.

What made you change that opinion?

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579535The overpowered Dexterity isn't an issue like it is in CineUni

What difference between the systems causes that?

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;579535(...)I do hate Power Points. Tracking Power Points (which are not used in  Solomon Kane and a few other settings) just feels out of place with how  everything else seems to work.(...)

What are these Power Points used for?


As I'm not so keen on doing conversions or a  lot of rules tinkering  I'd prefer to use the games as they are. Otherwise I'd just convert any  setting I like and not worry if I'd enjoy the system.

QuoteOriginally Posted by HombreLoboDomesticado
 
Do you like Minis in your RPG play?

We don't use minis, only the occasional marker to indicate relative positions in a location.

You don't need to use Minis but the game lends itself well to skirmish level play and there are templates for such like explosive ranges, vehical maneuvers etc that work best with minis.

QuoteOriginally Posted by HombreLoboDomesticado  
Do you like big battles being featured regularly with lots of enemies and allies on the table?

If combat situations involving lots of combatants play out sufficiently smoothly, I'd certainly make use of that. What exactly makes big battles so easy to run with SW?

There are very few states to track. So little bookkeeping.

QuoteOriginally Posted by HombreLoboDomesticado
Are you cool with the game working better at low levels than high level play?

This seems contradictory with claims that SW is suitable for pulp or even supers. Could you elaborate a bit on this?

You don't build up hit points , though you can increase toughness and add armour. Basically you can kill an experienced guy as easily as you kill a low level guy... roughly...

QuoteOriginally Posted by HombreLoboDomesticado
(...)I do hate Power Points. Tracking Power Points (which are not used in Solomon Kane and a few other settings) just feels out of place with how everything else seems to work.(...)

What are these Power Points used for?

Power points are just the battery for running powers. And powers can be magic, psionics, superpowers whatever. You have a ppol of points and you spend them to use the powers. Once you add them in you end up tracking something and really its the only think you need to track in the whole game because there are so few other resources to monitor.

I don't mind it and think it works fine but I haven't used it for a Supers game so I haven't had multiple characaters tracking and using multiple powers nor have I had to run the bad guys doing that.

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;579524So, could you tell me something more about the rules, what you like or don't like about them and why?

Friends of mine really dig the system, so I play it a fair bit. I consider it a serviceable, but not great system. I think it's popular because it's a comfortable medium for many folks between easy to run light system and heavier system with a bit more character detail.

I don't like it in part because I really don't like the damage system. Folks playing D&D will tell you how intensely they hate spells like hold person or effects that stun your PC because they rob you of the ability to act. Savage Worlds standard damage condition is shaken, which is in essence similar to being stunned in D&D. You can buy off shaken with bennies... but bennies are your ability to "be cool", and I find it very un-fun that my ability to impact the game is being robbed to take care of the shaken condition.

The reason this is so vexing relates to point number two...

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;579604It baffles me that the "all characters are identical" complaint is a thing. At the very least characters are going to be distinguished by their hindrances, and a number of Edges can only be picked up during chargen without explicit GM approval.

I totally get why it's a thing. Yes, edges and hindrances do help differentiate a character. But skills matter less than they should, because of a) the wild die and b)modifiers.

Savage Worlds loves using -2 as a modifier. And if you stack just to modifiers, that's a whopping -4. If you consider for a second that most skills are going to be d6 or d8, that's huge.

The net effect is that when things get rough in the game, you are relying more on dice exploding (and spending bennies to reroll so you can try to get them to explode) than you are your skill. I understand the excitement of amazing rolls, but I think SW is geared a bit too much to rely on the amazing success than the skills of the characters.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;579643The net effect is that when things get rough in the game, you are relying more on dice exploding (and spending bennies to reroll so you can try to get them to explode) than you are your skill. I understand the excitement of amazing rolls, but I think SW is geared a bit too much to rely on the amazing success than the skills of the characters.

I'm not sure I agree that you're relying on the dice exploding, but I do agree there's a little less granularity on skill uses than other systems. But when we play Savage Worlds we're looking for a game that isn't bogged down in such things, so we're OK with.

The same goes for the stunned state in a combat. While you do lose the ability to affect the combat immediately, you can still do other things (move at half speed, etc.). I feel like Bennies should flow like water. The players should be striving to earn them at all times and the GM should be handing them out like candy.

The game suggests a lower number of bennies in a gritty game, but as much as I like Savage Worlds, it's not where I look if I want a gritty game of any kind.

I also like the deck of cards initiative system in that certain cards and Edge combos can create excitement in a phase of the game that can seem like a chore in most every other RPG system.

Savage worlds works great in my experience. It is quite easy to play but still has enough rules for different kinds of situations. It is excellent for over the top spy stuff (like james bond), super heroes, pulp, crime, swashbuckling, and i found it worked pretty well for fantasy too. It is general though so if you want to play something very specific with it, like star wars, you will need to make some customizations (though the system is well suited for).

The skills are somewhat broad and there are not too many, but that hasnt been an issue for our group at all (if you like having lots of skills like you have in GURPS, this may not be the best game for you).

Some people have an issue with the way the exploding dice work (because the chance of rolling a four on a d4 is greater than the chance of rolling an eight on a d8 for example), and there are countless breakdowns of the math online should this be a concern for you.

I dont have the delux edition yet, so just going by my old explorers edition.

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;579598Thanks Tommy, I had that concern about SW. But even though your blog does a fine job showcasing how everyone /can/ be different, is that sort of specialization encouraged by the rules? It's been a while, but my recolection is that it was punatively expensive to raise high stats and become a one trick pony, so it's easier just to pick the low hanging fruit and become the same SW character as everyone else.
 
I don't know the system, so this is a question not a challenge.

You can only raise one of your five Attributes once per rank, and those in turn govern the cost of Skills. In my example Archer, I stopped taking the Attribute advances and spent that on Skills and Edges because he didn't really need higher Attributes.

It's not a game where you're spending XP and the costs are scaling upwards once you get past certain scores (like the aforementioned Cinematic Unisystem).

Quote from: HombreLoboDomesticado;579635I'm a fairly rules-lite kind of GM. As a  point of reference, I enjoy  stuff like Cinematic Unisystem, GenreDiversion i, Barbarians of Lemuria,  CoC and the lighter Fudge variants (definitely not Fate). I haven't  looked at it in detail but OpenQuest also looks like something I'd be  comfortable with. I haven't given Two-Fisted Tales a try but that looks  like a fine go-to system for pulp. Classic Unisystem I'll streamline a  bit by picking for example the optional static damage and armor and  ditching Endurance.

So how crunchy would you people say combat is compared to these? Is  there a lot of bean counting involved, lots of rules to keep track of?

Also, I'd like to know from people who really don't like the system what their gripes are with it.



We don't use minis, only the occasional marker to indicate relative positions in a location.


If combat situations involving lots of combatants play out sufficiently smoothly, I'd certainly make use of that. What exactly makes big battles so easy to run with SW?


This seems contradictory with claims that SW is suitable for pulp or even supers. Could you elaborate a bit on this?


What made you change that opinion?


What difference between the systems causes that?


What are these Power Points used for?


As I'm not so keen on doing conversions or a  lot of rules tinkering  I'd prefer to use the games as they are. Otherwise I'd just convert any  setting I like and not worry if I'd enjoy the system.

The reason I like using minis is because of how easy it makes it to track everything. Wild Cards get three Wounds, so you just mark their figures with something to show the Wounds. Super easy to do even if you have 40 combatants out there. Even if you're just using minis or markers for relative position, you can mark those.

As for CineUni: It was never anything about SW that made me go "I'll never play that again"...but it went from being my Go-To game to SW being it, because we just have more fun with it, there's less book keeping with it, there's more material available for it, which in turns makes it super easy to mod if I choose, and so on.

That said, the magic system in the Buffy Magic Box supplement is still one of my favorite Magic systems ever.

Re: Dexterity. Dexterity is used for attack and defense in CineUni. It is the most powerful stat in the game, period. Savage Worlds does rely less on Attributes than CineUni does, removing some of the One Stat To Rule Them All.

As for running things out of the box...the rulebook isn't really meant to be ran straight out of the box, that's why it's so cheap. But the rulebook plus setting book or setting book with rule (like Solomon Kane) absolutely can be.

Quote from: jibbajibba;579642Power points are just the battery for running powers. And powers can be magic, psionics, superpowers whatever. You have a ppol of points and you spend them to use the powers. Once you add them in you end up tracking something and really its the only think you need to track in the whole game because there are so few other resources to monitor.

I don't mind it and think it works fine but I haven't used it for a Supers game so I haven't had multiple characaters tracking and using multiple powers nor have I had to run the bad guys doing that.

The supers rules ditch Power Points in that sense. I love the Supers rules. I want to someday make a Buffyesque setting using them.