Savage Worlds (2003)

Great White Games

Date Reviewed: 7-7-2005 (Edited 6-27-2011)

Critical Kobold Rating:    (3 out of 5 Dice)  

It's a Savage World Out There.

The intrepid explorer, Dakota Smith, wiped the sweat from his eyes as he entered the ruins of the South American temple, then placed his fedora back on. The jungle was overgrown and humid, but the thick rainforest would help hide his trail from the Nazi pursuers who would take the artifact he was after for themselves.

Slowly he crept into the first chamber of the ruins, and as he pulled the ancient map from his leather jacket, there was a flurry of motion from the edge of his vision. He spun to face a robot ninja, its cybernetic arms whirring as it dropped from the ceiling!

Before Dakota could process what he was seeing, the far side of the chamber exploded in a barrage of brick and smoke. As the adventurer and the robot ninja watched, a gallant knight in 15th century armor stepped through the smoking hole in the wall, his laser rifle still trailing smoke from the barrel.

"Oops!" muttered the knight, "Sorry, wrong genre."
 

     Savage Worlds is a fast-paced rpg meant to emulate heroic action in any setting. Unlike the example above, you’re  not necessarily supposed to mix and match your campaign settings, but then again, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you!

     The idea is that players take on the roles of daring heroes, but the rules allow for any campaign idea the game master has; pulp fiction, gangster era, superheroes, WWI or WWII, swords and sorcery, prehistoric, Renaissance, sci-fi, modern espionage, wuxia, etc., etc. Any time frame or role playing world can be designed. In fact, I think this would make a fantastic rpg for a time-traveling campaign of some sort.

     Now, the idea is that the PCs are larger than life action heroes, so no matter what genre you like, your characters should be ready to rumble at a moment’s notice. Action adventure and frantic combat are the watchwords of Savage Worlds. Think Flash Gordon, Indiana Jones, Seven Samurai, and Shanghai Noon for inspiration.

Reviewer’s Note: This game is designed by Shane Hensley, who also developed the original Deadlands rpg. Savage Worlds borrows some game mechanic ideas from Deadlands, so if you’re familiar with that “Weird West” roleplaying game, some of what you read here will sound very familiar.

 MAKING AN ADVENTURER

     PCs are generally human, but if the GM is running a fantasy setting or space campaign, the book gives examples of demihuman or alien races. The GM can easily invent her own races in a matter of minutes, if need be.

     All PCs regardless of race or setting have five basic Attributes:

Agility - Nimbleness, helps defense.

Smarts - Quick thinking, possibly education level.

Spirit - Willpower, wisdom; helps you keep your cool.

Strength - Physical power, and adds to melee damage.

Vigor - Endurance, resistance, recovery speed.

     Instead of rolling a particular number for these attributes, players assign dice types to them. Savage Worlds uses standard D&D dice, from the d4’s to the d12’s. All PCs start out with “d4” in their attributes, which means that if you need to make an attribute check, you’d roll a d4 rather than use a static score like “3”. This gives a little more variety to attribute rolls during the game.

      However, players have five “points” with which they can raise their attributes. Raising a ‘bute to the next higher die type costs one point. (So, if you wanted to raise your Vigor score, you could spend two points to bump it up two steps, from a d4 to a d6 and then to a d8. Your new Vigor score is now “d8.”) Attribute scores may be raised to “d12”, the highest die type you can have; after that, PCs add single increments to their stats, such as d12+1, d12+2, etc., which costs 2 points per bonus point added.

     Then you choose skills. Skill levels, like attributes, start at d4. Players have 15 points to buy skills and skill levels. Each skill is linked to an attribute. How this helps you is that when you raise the levels of your skills, it's cheaper as long as the skill is a lower die type than your Attribute.

     For example, the Piloting skill is based on your Agility attribute. If you have an Agility of "d8", then it takes only 1 skill point to increase your starting Piloting skill from d4 to d6, then costs one more skill point to make it d8. Once your skill die type exceeds your attribute die type, it costs two points per die to raise your skill. So in our example, going from Piloting d8 to Piloting d10 will cost you two skill points.

     Next come the Hindrances and Edges selection.

     Hindrances are things that make your character suck more. Each PC can choose up to one Major and two Minor hindrances. You can be Clueless, or have Bad Eyes, or even be Lame. You can be cowardly or ugly or dim-witted or technologically retarded. What does this get you? Hindrances earn you points with which you may further increase your attributes or buy more skills during char-gen, or to gain an Edge.

     What's an Edge, you ask? It's the opposite of a Hindrance. Edges make you kick more ass, game-wise. Edges include stuff like Combat Reflexes, Very Attractive, Fast Healer, Trademark Weapon, Quick Draw, etc. All pretty self-explanatory.

Luigi began to re-think his decision to raise his Turnip Farming skill to d10 while leaving his Piloting skill at d4...

     Then you grab some gear! There's a useful section of common equipment from many time periods to arm and outfit your heroes. Weapons galore, from the Medieval pot helm and great sword to the futuristic infantry battle suit with molecular knife. Nice lists of handguns, rifles, and laser weapons, and useful basic vehicles from biplanes to jets, cars and carts. The tools and mundane items list is kinda' skimpy, but then again, the game is focused on combat and dramatic heroism, so I guess you won't often need to know how much, say, oven mitts cost.

MECHANICS!

     OK, you've got a Spirit of d10 and a Persuasion skill of d12. What's that mean?

     In Savage Worlds, the default Target Number to successfully use a skill is "4". So if I want to persuade an NPC to so me a favor, I'd roll my skill die of d12 and just have to roll 4 or higher. So you see, having higher die types in skills gives you a better chance of being successful, but there's always a chance you blow it, even with a gnarly high skill die of d12+x.

     Of course, this Target Number will be adjusted according to the difficulty of the task. Persuading a disgruntled, hostile NPC to do you a favor may require a Target Number of 6 or 7. But the idea is still simple.

     Now, the good part of being a PC is that when you roll any attribute or skill check, you get to roll an additional d6, no matter what your regular die is. This d6 is called the "Wild Die". If the d6 roll is better than your regular roll, you get to use the d6 result instead! Woo hoo! But the fun doesn't stop there! If you roll the highest number on your particular skill die, that's an "Ace", and you get to roll again, adding that new roll to your first, ad infinitum. (So if you have a Shooting skill of d8, and you roll an "8", you get to reroll your d8 and add to the first roll.)

     Combat is a matter of rolling your appropriate fighting skill against an enemy's Parry score. The Parry score is either "2", or 2 plus half your Fighting score. (So people without the fighting skill are pretty much pussies.) Shields, cover, darkness, or other situations can of course add to your Parry score as well, making you harder to hit.

     If you are hit, though, you compare the damage done to your Toughness. (Toughness is 2 plus half your Vigor score.) If the damage done is more than your Toughness, you take a Wound, and every wound gives you penalties to your attributes. If you take four wounds, you need to roll on a chart to see if you get knocked out, permanently injured, are bleeding out, or maybe if you'll die within moments. So you see, you wanna stay away from pointy objects and flying projectiles in Savage Worlds!

     As a side note, mooks and goons in the game are assumed to go down more easily than heroic PCs, so it often only takes one good wound to drop a villain's flunkies or nameless guards.

THE REST OF THE STORY…

     The rest of the rules deal with magic for fantasy settings, hazards such as fraying rope bridges and raging rapids, poisons and illness, comprehensive vehicle rules, and a DM's section with suggestions for doing things right. Basically everything you need to run exciting adventures in any campaign in any setting.

The GOOD

     Savage Worlds has an awesome array of published world setting books to help capture the high-flying, free wheeling, "Fast! Furious! Fun!" motto it espouses on the cover for any genre in which you want to be fastly furious. With the catch-all mechanics, creating a campaign for use in any genre, or across several, is easily done.  

     The book has sections with pre-made NPCs, as examples or for use in adventures. It also contains a bestiary with horrific creatures for Call of Cthulu type games, fantasy beasts for D&D -style adventures, and spooky critters for X Files sessions.

     There are simple rules for chases, whether on the ground or in the air or in space, including some fancy maneuvers to affect the pursuit. But the best part is the fantastic mass- combat rules included to resolve army vs. army battles of epic proportions! PCs may play general roles in the battle, but it truly shines as a straight-forward system for determining the outcome of massive battles using ratios between fighting units and a few tosses of the dice. I don't like math in my games, but even I appreciated the clever and streamlined mechanics for this system. (Hensley also wrote the Army of Darkness RPG rulebook for Eden Entertainment, and it contains this same mass combat system.)

     If you go to the website www.peginc.com, you can snarf freebie stuff for this game as well, such as ready-to-go adventures. There are premade settings for you to use if you don't wanna create your own, available from the company as well (some of which have been reviewed by this kobold; check the "Supplements" section of the Critical Kobold Reviews homepage for campaign setting sourcebooks overviews.)

The NEUTRAL

     One thing I didn’t mention in the review is that there's an emphasis on using miniatures. Now, they're not necessary, but the author mentions repeatedly that they're helpful, fun, wonderful, useful additions to the game, and especially recommended during combat for movement and crap like that. Ranges for weapons and vehicle travel, specifically, are given with explanations relating to tabletop minis.

     These references to miniatures can be ignored without difficulty, as they doesn't detract from the rpg, but they don't add anything to the game either.

     Remember when I mentioned that the author also wrote classic Deadlands? His infatuation with western terminology and themes has been inexplicably imported into this rpg as well. For example, PC heroes are referred to as "Wild Cards". Dude, what's wrong with just calling them 'heroes'? And getting multiples above Target numbers are "raises". Rolling the maximum on a die is an "Ace". Well, ok, it's not terrible, but I don't see the need to use poker terms throughout the basic rules for a game that's designed to cross all genres. I think some more generic terms would have served more nicely.

     The initiative system is the only part of the game that requires a deck of cards. You're s'posed to use a set of standard poker playing cards, dealing a card to each player to use as their initiative, high to low cards acting in order. Then you have to worry about suits, and which suit goes first in a tie. In its defense, the book does admit (somewhere) that you can do away with the initiative system as written, and just roll some dice. However, the entire Initiative and Combat sections are written with the deck mechanic in mind. I tend to think that if the only reason to bring a set of cards to the table is to determine who goes first, just roll the damn die and stop adding an extra piece of equipment that needs to be brought to the game. Again, Hensley's love for poker has run amok over an otherwise simple system.

     The 'exploding' dice (Aces) may feel a bit awkward. The general idea is that the higher the die type, the easier it is to succeed. (It's easier to beat a Target Number of 4 with a d12 than it is with a d4, for instance.) However, the lower your die type, the easier it is to roll an Ace, thus earning a reroll. (You've got a one in four chance of rolling an Ace on a d4, but only a one in twelve chance on a d12.) So, while it's harder to succeed on a lower die, your chances of getting an ace and thus rerolling and getting a higher number are better. So, is it better to roll a d4 and get more Aces, or a d6 which gives some higher numbers, but fewer Aces?

NOTE:  On Oct 5, 2005, two months after this review was published, the Kobold received a message from site visitor Elliot Wilen, Math Dude at Large, in response to the above query. Mr. Wilen's message follows:


"...the Kobold asks... 'So, is it better to roll a d4 and get more Aces, or a d6 which gives some higher numbers, but fewer Aces?'

Well, the answer is: it's always better to roll a higher die. One could probably develop a mathematical proof of this, but one is lazy, so an Excel spreadsheet will have to do. Actually, I'll send the spreadsheet if you want it, and just give the method here.

To calculate the chance of rolling at least X in a Savage Worlds die roll using a die with a number of sides D:

1) Divide the target number X by the number of sides D and express the result as a quotient (Q) and a remainder (R). E.g., if you're rolling a d6 and your target is 10, you get 10/6, which has a quotient of 1 with remainder 4.

2) If the remainder is 0, then the probability is (1/D)^Q. In other words you need to roll the max Q times in a row to hit the target.

3) If the remainder is nonzero, then the probability is [(1/D)^Q]*(D+1-R)/D. In other words, you need to roll the max Q times in a row, then you have to roll at least the quotient to hit the target.

So I made a spreadsheet that looks at all the probabilities for d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20 up to a target value of 40, and it turns out that having a bigger die always helps you.

You might have a look at my livejournal entry where I expanded my description a little bit.

Regards,
Elliot


     Um... that's ok, Elliot. The Kobold's head almost imploded back at step #1. But I'm assuming the question has now been answered. Thank you.
 

The EVIL

(EDIT: This section was revised in June 2011, after playtesting.)

     OK, the mechanics sounded simple enough when I read them in the core rules several years ago. And I had recently become so infatuated with the setting sourcebooks that over the past year I collected eleven of them. I was all ready to be Fast! Furious! and Fun! I was ready for Savage Worlds to take over my #1 spot for generic game mechanics. It looked for a brief shining moment as though it would replace the engine in my old Feng Shui rpg, and I could start that campaign up again!

     Then... we playtested a game. I have to be honest (well, ok, I don't; I'm a kobold, dammit! But I'm going to be...) The game got bogged down with the combat. It was most definitely not fast, nor furious, nor particularly fun after a few rounds.

     We were playing the pre-made adventure The Wild Hunt, which was given away by Pinnacle during the 2011 Free RPG Day event. The scenario came with pre-generated PCs, and was quite frankly loaded down with combat. I understand the decision for repetitive fighting encounters, because combat will quickly get players used to the resolution mechanics of the game.

   However, the combat system has an odd glitch that doesn't jump out as a problem when you read through the rules: the extra step of needing to overcome a target's Toughness becomes an all-or- nothing affair. My players and I all found it odd that beating a target's Parry score and getting Raises was worthless if you then had to make a second roll to overcome their Toughness. Because it doesn't matter how awesome your hit roll was at all, or much damage your weapon potentially does, if you roll a low damage score. Failing to beat the opponent's Toughness with your damage negates all the hitting and Raising you just successfully did on your attack roll. And if your PC isn't wielding a powerful weapon, it can be difficult to bypass even a moderate Toughness rating.   

     This became quite apparent and aggravating in our game, as four of the six pre-gens in the Wild Hunt scenario weren't designed as fighters, and none of them had terribly impressive Spirit die types to recover from being Shaken. On the other hand, the opponents in Wild Hunt are all undead, which have bonuses to their Toughness rating as well as bonuses to recover from being Shaken. So while the PCs were Shaken and unable to do a damn thing during a combat turn, the villains were active and kicking PC ass.  We had characters using shotguns who couldn't "hit" the enemy directly in front of them, because even though they rolled Raises on attacks, the shotgun damage rolls didn't consistently overcome the Toughness of the enemy. The combats began to drag out into futile exercises in rolling lots of dice, to very little effect.

     It's unfortunate, but we won't be using Savage Worlds as an engine now. When I originally wrote this review, I gave the core book four Dice out of five, based on how simple but complete the game seemed as a whole. There is a fanatically loyal fan base out there who loves the system, so it obviously works for some groups, but not for me. If you're in one of those groups that can overlook the system hiccup described above, the game really does offer some great material to do whatever you want with, and it is indeed complete and very inexpensive. However, after playing through a session for several hours, I've reduced my rating by one Die based on a combat system I find too quirky and disappointing for a supposedly cinematic game.

        Ah, well. 'Tis better to have loved Savagely and lost, then never to have Savaged at all.

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