Savage worlds: the good the bad and the ugly
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Savage worlds: the good the bad and the ugly
Once again I am trying to pick the brains of you denizens regarding another RPG system. So give me the skinny, why should I or should I not consider investing my time and money looking into Savage Worlds. What does it do well and what does it embarrass itself trying to do.
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I have played 2 or 3 savage worlds games in the last 3 months, the most recently being a couple of days ago. For what it is supposed to do, I like it. I don't own the books and have seen it only from a player side with a very experienced GM at the helm, but it played fast and had just about the right level of detail for action resolution. Here are my thoughts:
Good Points:
Does a fine job at handling cinematic/TV-like combat (think Buck Rogers or Star Wars blaster battles). Combat resolution is fast and intuitive with only a few modifiers. Hand to Hand combat was reminiscent of the original Star Trek series-style fights. The good guys could get beat up or overwhelmed, but against mooks they pretty much whupped ass.
Mooks are just that, mooks. They get a single d6 or d8 (depending on skill) to hit a target number of 4 to get a "success" whereas character types get an accompanying d6 with their d8 to roll on their tests (a 4+ on either die is needed to pass), which increases their odds of success on tests. This clearly distinguishes heroes from mundanes with a simple mechanic that nonetheless means mooks are dangerous in groups or if ignored.
Wounds affect later tests, which is something I value.
Vehicle to vehicle combat uses almost exactly the same rules as regular combat. We were able to do a 20-spaceship battle with virtually no learning curve. It played fast enough for 8 players controlling a total of 20 ships to fight a space battle in under 4 hours, with system resolution handling turn radius, accel/decel/max speed, weapons range and type variations, special maneuvers and critical hits. 5 of the 8 players had never seen the system before at the outset of the game and 2 of those 5 were kids. Yes, it is that easy, but still pretty satisfying.
The Savage Worlds default setting looked kind of interesting to me. I didn't read much about it, but it looked like Planescape: a place for every kind of story you would want to tell and a unifying theme that more or less plausibly stitched them together.
Other (Maybe Bad) Points:
The combat system is lite and is designed to reflect pulp space action (at least the stuff I saw). I am not sure how a gritty campaign would play out using such a system. It may be too lite for Star Wars in the same way Buck Rogers is less gritty than Star Wars, depending on the amount of grittiness in your SW universe.
I have no idea how character advancement works, so no comment there.
I have only seen the space rules. I think there are other rule sets/additions for other genres.
Summary
I think I am going to pick up the core book now that I have played a few times. Nothing about the things we did made me wince and I had a lot of fun playing. About the only thing that would stop me from buying at this point is if someone with a lot more experience with the system posts below and lists things that are deal breakers for me.
Good Points:
Does a fine job at handling cinematic/TV-like combat (think Buck Rogers or Star Wars blaster battles). Combat resolution is fast and intuitive with only a few modifiers. Hand to Hand combat was reminiscent of the original Star Trek series-style fights. The good guys could get beat up or overwhelmed, but against mooks they pretty much whupped ass.
Mooks are just that, mooks. They get a single d6 or d8 (depending on skill) to hit a target number of 4 to get a "success" whereas character types get an accompanying d6 with their d8 to roll on their tests (a 4+ on either die is needed to pass), which increases their odds of success on tests. This clearly distinguishes heroes from mundanes with a simple mechanic that nonetheless means mooks are dangerous in groups or if ignored.
Wounds affect later tests, which is something I value.
Vehicle to vehicle combat uses almost exactly the same rules as regular combat. We were able to do a 20-spaceship battle with virtually no learning curve. It played fast enough for 8 players controlling a total of 20 ships to fight a space battle in under 4 hours, with system resolution handling turn radius, accel/decel/max speed, weapons range and type variations, special maneuvers and critical hits. 5 of the 8 players had never seen the system before at the outset of the game and 2 of those 5 were kids. Yes, it is that easy, but still pretty satisfying.
The Savage Worlds default setting looked kind of interesting to me. I didn't read much about it, but it looked like Planescape: a place for every kind of story you would want to tell and a unifying theme that more or less plausibly stitched them together.
Other (Maybe Bad) Points:
The combat system is lite and is designed to reflect pulp space action (at least the stuff I saw). I am not sure how a gritty campaign would play out using such a system. It may be too lite for Star Wars in the same way Buck Rogers is less gritty than Star Wars, depending on the amount of grittiness in your SW universe.
I have no idea how character advancement works, so no comment there.
I have only seen the space rules. I think there are other rule sets/additions for other genres.
Summary
I think I am going to pick up the core book now that I have played a few times. Nothing about the things we did made me wince and I had a lot of fun playing. About the only thing that would stop me from buying at this point is if someone with a lot more experience with the system posts below and lists things that are deal breakers for me.
- LL
I've only played deadlands savage worlds which suffers from extremely unbalanced traits. One of them is literally the equivelent of giving a spellcaster in D&D 4 extra caster levels for the purpose of determining spell slots, but! It comes with randomly rolled disadvantages that range between
A) Character wrecking
B) Something you don't care at all
C) Actual advantages.
Also, the powers system is beyond retarded. Faith is so much better than all the other 'magical powers' its not funny, except that sometimes it will randomly screw your character and erase all your powers until the DM decides to give them back to you. That is not balance.
Also the core resolution system is broken so sometimes a worse gunman has a better chance to hit, but thats just one of those things.
But! For all that, the core resolution mechanic problems arn't that jarring, and if you just ban all but 1 type of magic in a game it could work. Deadlands savage worlds emphatically does not however.
A) Character wrecking
B) Something you don't care at all
C) Actual advantages.
Also, the powers system is beyond retarded. Faith is so much better than all the other 'magical powers' its not funny, except that sometimes it will randomly screw your character and erase all your powers until the DM decides to give them back to you. That is not balance.
Also the core resolution system is broken so sometimes a worse gunman has a better chance to hit, but thats just one of those things.
But! For all that, the core resolution mechanic problems arn't that jarring, and if you just ban all but 1 type of magic in a game it could work. Deadlands savage worlds emphatically does not however.
Last edited by cthulhu on Mon Jun 01, 2009 11:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
