Welcome to the Savage Family, Mechpilot!

It does appear that the Savage Worlds crowd is growing here on the WWG forums. As a SW junkie myself, I am, of course, pleased.

As the Count says, we'd love to hear how your game goes. I've run several SW games now, and I have to say it's the easiest system to run I've ever seen.

Hmmm... wouldn't it be cool if Denny did a Savage Worlds cross-licensed product or something? (hint, hint! )

Hmmm, Deadlands Reloaded for Savage Worlds is going to see a Gen Con release... A little late for my summer game, but interesting...

The Auld Grump

I found out yesterday that my local (which is a large one and a leader in the Auzzie field) will not be stocking Savage Worlds simply because most or alot of support for the game is in pdf files and that was the end of that!

Bugger, like I have the pdf adn a 110lb printed hardcopy.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Lately I have come to suspect that the future of publishing will be Print on Demand. It will be cheaper for the book companies to provide a download and the bookstore to print them on the spot than to ship the books. If you have seen some of the PoD presses in action they are impressive. Most accept PDF format.

The Auld Grump

Could you get books (pdfs) done from DriveThru as PoD?

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

I have a friend who said very similar things about Savage Worlds when we first converted. He thought the character creation was lacking in depth, as well as general game play.

Personally, I think thats ridiculous. Complicated rules do not make for complex stories; in fact, I've found that complicated rules quite get in the way of a good story.

What I think I've discovered about Savage Worlds is the pervasiveness of preconceptions. Almost everyone I've talked to or read posts from who hasn't liked it, went into it with a notion that they weren't going to like it (for whatever reason, good or ill). Folks that have gone in with little notion about it, or a positive spin have really liked the system, and grasped more fully all that it has to offer.

For such a "simple" rules set, it has far more depth than meets the eye.

I've found that - regardless of the game system - if all you base your character on is the character sheet its written on (whether 5 pages of arcane stats or a lonely 3" x 5" index card) then your character will be incomplete. If you consider your character to be more than the sum of his/her attributes, more than just stats on a sheet, then it really doesn't matter if those stats are easy to track, or require a calculator. I get more attached to characters that were developed how *I* wanted them to develop, not how an arbitrary system declared they must be developed.


But that is just me. What is cool about this place is that we all get our own opinions, even if you all are crazy.

Ayup, my complaints with SW are wholly a 'YMMV' problem. Savage Worlds doesn't fit my play style, and overall that's really neither good nor bad.

D20 is, in most areas of the game, just too much material. Acting within the game just gets too confusing and/or unrewarding; except for combat! Everyone's always clear on the results of trying to stick a sword into something.

PS: Upon reveiw, the 3x5 example wasn't the best. I've played systems where the record keeping was easily dealt with on a 3x5 and felt fine about it. I've played games where I need 7-10 pages of material to reference components in an otherwise simple to use mechanics system and felt alright about that (not great, but tolerable).

Ah well, I chalk these posts up to poor self-control.

Savage Worlds is likely to be a good game for quick character generation, and getting the kids into the game, but it would not be my first choice for a system for a regular game, ranking one step below D&D/D20, which is not my first choice either.

1. Call of Cthulhu
2. Ars Magica
3. Changeling: the Dreaming
4. A bunch of other Storyteller games - Vampire: the Dark Ages (Not Dark Ages: Vampire), Vampire: the Masquerade (3rd ed.), and Dark Ages: Fae (very different from Changeling)
5. D20 (all sort of equal in a big pile - D&D, OGL Steampunk, Babylon 5, Spycraft, and while technically D&D Iron Kindoms is different enough for it's own heading.)
6 Savage Worlds

There are a lot of games that share slots...

The Auld Grump

Stay away...I see what you're trying to do... - but pure of hearth will not be tempted by thy words...-but the feel of paper in your hands..the smell...NOOOOOO !...

Well Roby make me a review of the hardbacks (any major fault...) and maybe you convince me...

Well, I don't have the Necessary Evil hardback yet, but I'm going to get it soon. And to be honest, they aren't much different than the PDFs, other than that you can tote them around with you w/out worrying about booting up the laptop (or printing out).

Now, the new Revised Hardback is very, very, very, very nice. One of the nicest gaming books I've had the pleasure to own. Tour of Darkness and 50 Fathoms are both great reads, and I'm looking forward to running each. 50 Fathoms is right up my alley - swashbuckling, mystery, fun and rollicking, but ToD is somewhat outside the realm of my GM'ing experience/expertise, it being more horror oriented. I'm looking forward to both. Evernight is what it is (dark fantasy), and its nice to have the book (since I'm running an EN game). Rippers I just read through this weekend, and I'm REALLY looking forward to the RPG coming out. It looks to be a fantastic campaign world.

And as much as I'm a huge cardstock fan, I'd really like have a set of preprinted SW cards. I have the PDF, and have printed them out and cut them. I'd really like to have them on nice glossy cards.


Now, I will say this. Most of the Savage Worlds books are campaign books, so if you're not going to run them/play them, then there isn't much use in getting them (apart from the fun reads that they are). I wouldn't suggest the bundle to someone who is mostly a player. But then, most people on this forum seem to spend their fair share of time GMing...


How was that?