Thoughts on Savage Worlds? There was a thread about it a few days ago and it piqued my interest.
I've been looking for a system that does a bit of everything but I don't always want to run something super narrative like FATE.
If I do end up using it, are there any tips to keep in mind as a game master?
Ive played with the idea of putting a cap on exploding damage dice. I don't hate the concept but sometimes it can really fuck over your players.
I once tpk'd a fantasy game with a fucking giant crab. Wasn't even a Wild Card
horribly boring game system
uninteresting
How is the fantasy book? I've got Horror, Supers, and Sci-Fi.
The system is generic as heck, but the rules are simple and straightforward. My b players hate the fiddliness of pathfinder and such, but love SW.
Fantasy book is nice. Lots of toys to play with and its Edges let you replicate almost any D&D class or race if you feel compelled.
Adds a few new pieces of gear but it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the sci fi book, but then again the CRB has basically all the gear you'd find in a fantasy game.
Its real strength is the bestiary and the magic item tables. The bestiary has everything from goblins to giant tree men to T-Rexes. And the magic item stuff has basically anything you need for almost any magic item. I'd say it's worth it.
What's in the Horror book? It's the only one I don't have.
Is there a generic system you prefer, or would recommend over SW?
How is it boring?
Its whole schtick is to present options that feel pretty much like the standard fare for other genres. Which, like a lot of generic systems, means that at some point they're gonna make a D&D rip off so that you can both play an elf wizard, but pat yourself on the back for being above D&D.
Which isn't all bad, but I think the GM kinda needs to come to it with a vision for what he wants.
It could be an alright basis for homebrewing, but I personally find the dice scaling annoying.
Secondly, I find it's too light and abstract to be mechanically interesting, but too heavy to be easy to pick up for the kind of casual gamers I play with, particularly because players need to point buy everything. It just sits in a weird no man's land for me where I can't really think of anything I'd want to use it for.
I ran SW almost exclusively last year. I hear the complaint about the abstract and "swingy" mechanics... but I've never been able to understand what people mean by it. I can only assume they never actually ran the game and have only briefly read over the rules. How is a d20 with a Target Number of 10+ (AC D&D) less swingy than rolling a d6 with TN of 4?
I get what you're saying about the rules being a little too heavy for casual gamers. SW gets the rep for being a "rules lite storyteller" game and I have NO clue where that comes from. It was built from the ground up for miniature combat - every range and measurement in the game is in inches. There are modifiers all over the places - from situational modifiers to bonuses and penalties from edges/hindrances. It's a lot crunchier than a lot of systems, but that can all be dialed back depending on the group/GM's preferences.
I struggled for the longest time with the "shaken" status. Until I started running/playing SW, it just sounded forced and retarded. Like some rule just to be quirky and unique. But in play, with proper narration by the GM, it's actually really fun (and rewarding). I also like that actual hits, misses, and hits that inflict damage are all settled mechanically. Always hated that about d20 systems - You're in full plate with an 18 armor class. The goblin rolls a 17 - no hit, so no damage. Did that 17 mean the hit actually connected, but there was no damage because of the thickness of armor? Did the character dive out of the way? Did the goblin just wiff the air? In SW that shit is actually fleshed out in the attack mechanics.
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I also hear people bitch about the initiative being too swingy... and that doesn't make sense at all. Again, referencing d20 systems, SW's card deck initiative gives you a range of 1-14 (if you include 2 through Joker, with the Joker high). d20 has a range of 1-20... far more swingy.
Bennies you might as well compare to something like 5e advantage/disadvantage. It's just giving you a second chance at something you fucked up. I use them for other meta things too, like bargaining for a number of bennies to allow a player to make a small change in the story.
The only thing that bothers me in SW is the XP system - but that's only because I came from a strong d20 background. I'm so used to XP being a big motivator to get the players to do things. When the XP is given essentially just for showing up to the game, it's harder to get your players to follow more conventional gaming bread trails.
Our group returns after a five-year break. We played original rifts, and love them, new SW conversion of rifts worth it?
>SW gets the rep for being a "rules lite storyteller" game and I have NO clue where that comes from
It comes from people hearing third-hand stuff about Bennies or the Wild Die and thinking that a genre-emulating mechanic means it's pigeonholed into being superlite.
Easy to use and learn system with a few concerns to watch out for.
As a generic system, the GM is expected to bring the flavour to the game.
The pitfalls are particularly bizarre events due to limitless dice explosions. This will only come up rarely, but when it does, it can be a breaking event.
Initiative takes some getting used to.
Bennies are utile, but take some finesse to use well, beware of the boring hoarder syndrome that afflicted 7th Sea's drama dice (1st edition). Anytime the resource you use to do awesome things becomes XP when you don't use it, expect them to go unused...
I really like it. It has enough mechanics that I can run whatever setting I want and it'll be represented decently and I'm not going to have to spend too much time fiddling with numbers to make it feel right. I played in a Fallout game that really feels like perfect fit for the system and I've planned out how to do a Starcraft game with very little paperwork and effort needed to adapt and write up new statblocks for enemies.
I've also never had an issue with the exploding dice although I can understand the people here complaining about it. Whenever there was a rare extreme roll it was something that made the group cheer over how crazy it was so I think it's a fun mechanic even if it isn't realistic.
That said, it isn't good for all game types because it's inherently trying to evoke a "pulpy" feel to everything. If you like your players being badasses and running a high action game then it's great, but it's not as good for more serious and gritty games because the players are inherently way more capable than the majority of NPCs they'll encounter.
And as a side complaint if you're using any of the premade adventure/setting books I really like most of the settings, but the accompanying plot point campaigns really fucking suck in my opinion. I could go on for a while about how badly the adventures utilise the cool settings but suffice to say that you're better off taking them as inspiration and doing your own thing.
I've never used minatures before but I'd like too. Any good sites for minatures to use for SW?
I mostly run sci-fi.
>Always hated that about d20 systems - You're in full plate with an 18 armor class. The goblin rolls a 17 - no hit, so no damage. Did that 17 mean the hit actually connected, but there was no damage because of the thickness of armor? Did the character dive out of the way? Did the goblin just wiff the air? In SW that shit is actually fleshed out in the attack mechanics.
It makes perfect sense in D&D. If a goblin is trying to stab you through your plate, it doesn't really matter if he missed or stabbed the armor; you don't get "a little less stabbed" when your armor blocks a hit, it's basically fully blocked.
Not saying the SW method is bad, but an OK way to do things.
I quite enjoy it. It can be used for a wide variety of settings, and has enough crunch to do interesting things while still being simple enough for my group's attention span.
I am a fan of Rifts and Savage Rifts. Palladium vs Savage Worlds does make the game feel different for sure, but if you and your players want to enjoy the world of Rifts with a solid set of rules then go Savage Rifts. System is much better thought out and well supported you can easily get rules questions answered officially on their forums and what not, and the game itself is new and fresh and exciting.
That being said I think Palladium Rifts just FEELS more like Rifts to me, the shoddy system just goes hand in hand with the world so well in my eyes, maybe just due to nostalgia or experience, but I will still play Palladium Rifts alongside Savage Rifts.
>That being said I think Palladium Rifts just FEELS more like Rifts to me
While I can understand the idea (after all, system informs how you interact with the world), I feel that Savage RIFT's Juicer is the first time a Juicer actually feels like a Juicer at the table and not just another shade of super-soldier.
>but it's not as good for more serious and gritty games because the players are inherently way more capable than the majority of NPCs they'll encounter.
I used to think so too until I tried Setting Rules from Realms of Cthulhu. You can limit the amount of Bennies or even reduce the Wild die. It even has a Gritty Damage option that doesn't allow soak rolls at all. Even one single wound can kill surprisingly easy.
>Even, even, even
I really need some sleep
But it feels the same whether you have heavy armor or are less nimble. In games that differentiate, it feels mechanically very different.
explain plox
You can make the two feel different through different means, if you want. Movement speed, stamina, maybe even touch/surprised AC difference.
Sure, if explicitly making the protectiveness of "guy in heavy armor" and "light armor but nimble" different, then I guess having both a dodge value and a DR value works, but I think it's sorta hard to justify that. It usually comes down to "it's realistic!", when it's basically about as realistic as AC, but from the other side.
There's more exciting ways to make your dudes different than being dealt slightly more or less average damage, and doing so has the added benefit of not needing an extra roll.
It's pretty much my favorite system. Almost every long campaign I've run in the last decade has been either Savage Worlds or Cortex Plus.
My only significant GM hint is to remember that most enemies should be Extras. Wild Card enemies are a whole new level of dangerous for PCs, so they should be used sparingly.
Absolutely, yes. I've been running a campaign since the pdfs dropped, and it's been hilariously fun. Honestly, it's the version of Rifts that always shows up in the fiction but was never really supported by the original rules.
Not that guy, but I get what he's talking about. The Savage Rifts Juicer has a stat called "Burn," which he can spend to gain brief moments of vast superhuman power, on top of his already super-soldier level speed and strength. The problem is that when your Burn score runs out, you "burn out" by the end of the next session and go out in a blaze of glory. Your Burn also has a random chance to drop on its own from session to session--a chance that goes up as you spend more of it.
Mechanically, the Juicer finally feels like a living manifestation of the "live fast, die young" concept, or "the candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long." It drives the drama of being on the verge of death due to your enhancements, instead of "at some vague point in the future, long after the campaign is over, you're probably going to die."
Yeah, but thats the players and GM making them feel different, not the game mechanics. If that end result is all you care about then sure thats all good and fine, but it would be nice to see game mechanics actually portray a difference.
Yeah I will agree with you on that. I mean Palladium Rifts has over 600 R/O.C.C.s they certainly aren't all gems.
How is interface zero? Can I run cyberpunk with the sci fi compendium alone?
>how to do a Starcraft game
the zerg were good boys they dindunuffin
Praise Kerrigan
You could run cyberpunk with just the SFC, yeah. IZ2.0 has a lot of extra useful stuff in it, even if it's a little more in love with the gear porn aspect of cyberpunk than I care for.
Thinking of introducing my players to SW by adapting pic related.
Any tips on adapting (not necessarily converting) D&D adventures to SW?
I actually ran my group through the first part of Curse of the Crimson Throne in Savage Worlds a couple of years back. My recommendation is to take a couple of the really cool prestige classes or archetypes you like in Pathfinder and turn them into Professional Edges for SW. It adds a lot of flavor if your character can take an Edge to become an Inquisitor or a Sword of Sarenrae.
it's not only more realistic, it's also more distinctive.
>and doing so has the added benefit of not needing an extra roll.
anynody who believes that an extra roll for damage slows down combat significantly has not analyzed time consumption during fights
I would also recommend cutting out half to two-third of the combat encounters from every adventure. They mostly exist as filler and XP justification, which becomes a real slog in Savage Worlds. Keep the really iconic encounters and anything really interesting, but skip all the random bullshit fights. Also cut down the prevalence of magic items a little bit. You don't need hundreds of thousands of GP worth of magic shit to stay competitive at high levels in SW.
I've run the system for a no magic fantasy game for about 5 sessions. I enjoy the simplicity of it but it's not perfect. I've been trying to pair it with a sensible economic system and decently balanced weapons which has been tedious because either my players would end up with far too much or have no money and rewards would be all over the place.
I also don't particularly enjoy the combat, at least in my limited experience it wasn't very fast and most of the time the characters and enemies could easily parry so it was a bit of a slog for everyone but the two combat specced knights. Will probably go better as my players get more comfortable with the rules but I can't see it ever being super interesting.
Other than that it's fine to run, skills can be a bit wonky with being too broad and the lack of magic in the setting limits a fair number of options in a medieval game, but as they get higher levels I plan on slipping some magic into the world via ancient artifacts and relics.
Why would you bother adapting a Pathfinder adventure path? SW has plenty of its own adventures and settings. Hell, if you want a pirate game like your pic implies then look at the 50 Fathoms book that has useful material even if you don't use the prepackaged campaign. Or are your players the kind who have only played Pathfinder and now are terrified of learning new games?