Comments on: Savage Worlds: Three Don’ts

By: Joshua

Joshua — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:55:47 +0000

Absolutely, run several combats yourself or maybe with a friend outside the context of the game. My advice about making monsters Wild Cards came from running the same combat with the weasels as Extras and again with them as Wild Cards. SW combat seems simple–and it is in a lot of respects, particularly compared to things like 3e–but I think you need to run it a few times before it clicks. In particular you want a good handle on what kinds of dice to roll when, how the wild die works, and so forth. Until you do, you won’t be able to make the NPCs behave sensibly in terms of taking special actions (like going prone, seeking cover, going for aimed shots or wild attacks).

Quicky version: Damage rolls are different. Damage is the only time you add the dice together, it’s the only roll against a variable target (Toughness), and it and soak are the only rolls where you care how many raises you get. Don’t divide by 4, because you don’t care about the remainder…just subtract the toughness and compare the result to 0, 4, 8, 12. That can be done mentally in a flash to see if it’s Shaken, 1 Wound, 2 Wounds, 3 Wounds, etc.

By: Brent P. Newhall

Brent P. Newhall — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 03:22:59 +0000

Thanks! This is very helpful. Might it be useful to run through a Savage Worlds encounter by oneself before attempting a real game?

By: The Seven-Sided Die » D&D spells in Savage Worlds: Feedback?

The Seven-Sided Die » D&D spells in Savage Worlds: Feedback? — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:24:53 +0000

[...] just read Savage Worlds: Three Don’ts at Tales of Rambling Bumblers, I’m not in a hurry to settle on a system until I’ve got [...]

By: Random News Table for September 28th | UncleBear

Random News Table for September 28th | UncleBear — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:26:01 +0000

[...] Savage Worlds: Three Don’ts The key to SW is the mantra Fast! Furious! Fun! There’s lots and lots of places where you could add more detail and special cases to the rules and it would add something to the game–but the game is built around abstracting that stuff away to concentrate on moving play along. [...]

By: Joshua

Joshua — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:45:37 +0000

I’m of two minds about the NPCs being valid. I think for a system like HERO it’s an absolute must; I feel free to make the villains cost however much they cost to make it a good battle, but I feel like it would be cheating if I didn’t accurately account for their powers. On the other hand, it certainly makes things easier to GM if you adopt the SW attitude. I suppose for me it comes down to whether I’m looking at the system as defining the rules of the game-world, in which case it’s a problem if the NPCs don’t conform (e.g. if I let a 2nd Level NPC wizard in D&D cast Fireball at the party), or whether I look at it as a rough approximation of what’s possible.

By: Grogtard

Grogtard — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:16:49 +0000

I kinda try to do all three of these no matter which game I’m running