Savage Worlds Newcomer Tips and Suggestions

[Arsilon]

We were discussing this on the FG Discord and since I don't see that anyone else has posted this yet, here goes....

New to Savage Worlds? Coming from another game system?

Here's a thread that we can start collecting tidbits to help you get used to Savage Worlds compared to what you might be used to from other systems, eg 5E. I'll post a few items here from my experience to get us started and the community can add more as we go.

Here's my initial top 10.
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• Things like Wild Die, Aces (exploding dice), Raises and Bennies completely change the mechanics of how combat and skills flow. Embrace the fast, furious, fun philosophy that the mechanics create as a result of what you might be used to
• Adapt to the classless system; any character can be anything depending on how the player wants to build it. The system of skills, edges, hindrances is meant to be entirely flexible and extensible. The only limits to what a character can or can't do is the player's imagination and ability to describe what their character is trying to do (and for the GM to allow it)
• Everything is defined less rigidly than it is in systems like 5E; its meant to work in pretty much any genre, setting, theme, etc. In order to do that most of the rules/mechanics leave you a significant amount of leeway in how you apply them. As you look at things like Edges and Hindrances think as much about the possibilities as you do the specific wording. This is especially true for things like Powers.
• Narrative trumps rules/mechanics (GM discretion permitting); Don't start with your skills and say "Hrmm what can I do?" Instead think first "What do I want to do?" then work with the GM to figure out what skill is most appropriate. Narrative freedom is where Savage Worlds shines.
• Tests and Support Actions; get used to using your skills in creative ways. Combat isn't limited to Shooting and Fighting and/or casting (Powers). All your skills can be used in combat creatively. Shooting and Fighting can also be used in tests in support vs as direct attacks too.
• The power of the benny is immense (GM discretion permitting); in addition to rerolls and whatnot, spend a benny to effect to narrative (within reason). Need a pebble to be in that couch cushion? spend a benny.
• Wounds matter; unlike systems like 5E where you go from fully capable at 100 HP or 1 HP then instantly are out of combat at 0 HP, Wounds matter. That -1 and -2 and god forbid -3 penalty points really make a huge difference.
• Countering the previous bullet, don't let malices scare you, eg multi-action penalty. Wild Dice and Exploding Dice, creative turn planning, cooperation across the party and intelligent combination of edges really can make a huge difference in offsetting any penalties. Don't be afraid to try things even if it gives you a -1 or -2; just plan around it knowing you'll have to deal with it. Plus its that much more fun and exciting when you pull such a maneuver off.
• Dynamic Initiative -- keeps things interesting that you don't necessarily know what turn order each round will yield. Don't forget using things like going on Hold can help you work with your party mates.
• Teamwork matters -- Savage Worlds gives players much more agency over narrative outcomes than many other systems. This may feel a bit like metagaming but try no to get too hung up on it if it leads to a fun and exciting story and play session.

What's on your list?

[Arsilon]

[Reserved for future use if appropriate]

[Jiminimonka]

Nice one Arsilon!

[zarlor]

Per Pinnacle themselves, let the Bennies flow! They recommend being fairly generous early game and letting the stinginess settle in near the end of the session, but since they can be used in so many ways they consider it an integral part of the normal Savage Worlds game flow to have them available often for use. I will add, though, that it also depends on the flavor of the game you might be running. Pulp, camp, superhero or even just high fantasy games are great for lots of bennies letting players have their characters more easily fill that fantastic heroes arc, while dark, gritty games might be suggestive of making the use of bennies be a real part of the tension of decision making.

[HywelPhillips]

Encounter Balance
Especially coming from 5E, don't sweat about encounter balance. Savage Worlds combat is much swingier than D&D with exploding dice meaning that even the strongest character can be taken down with a lucky roll. But conversely the difference between the raw combat stats of a party of starting adventurers and a party with a few advances under their belt is much less significant than in 5E.

Tactics like ganging up, taunting, testing your foe to make them distracted or vulnerable, taking cover from ranged attacks, and so on are significantly more important in Savage Worlds than in D&D.

Add bennies into the mix (LET THE BENNIES FLOW! Do not be stingy with them!) and be generous as the GM to allow players to escape (or wake up tied up rather than dead) if you do end up over-facing them with a strong opponent early on.

They probably won't be able to fluke taking on a dragon as a bunch of novice characters, but with experienced players and excellent tactics they might. Whereas in 5E, it's a straight forward total party kill.

Embrace The Metagaming
It's really a lot of fun to use bennies for influencing the story, but it's even more fun when you start using the Adventure Deck to add more meta-game control. With experienced players, excellent tactics AND a couple of really useful adventure cards, defeating the dragon with beginning characters starts to be a tale for the ages... and they can still get too ****y and get taken down by the kobold warband angry at their dragon god being slaughtered.


Use the game systems to control pacing and focus

5E basically only has two "scales" for resolving what happens. You're either in free-flowing exploration mode, or you are zoomed in to strict combat initiative. Savage Worlds has tools like Quick Encounters, Dramatic Tasks, Chases and Mass Battles so you can spend as little or as much time on a certain part of the story as you like. If the battle against 40 foes is a climactic one, you can "zoom all the way in" and resolve it as a combat. But maybe they are fighting through a nest of giant spiders on the way to confront the Spider Queen and you just want to get through it faster - Savage Worlds lets you choose the scale. A quick encounter lets you cut to the boss battle and just figure out that some characters may have got wounded or fatigued on the way in. Or a mass battle gives you an intermediate scale.

Use this to skip past the boring bits where you've already fought three groups of giant spiders and know how those go, or do the opposite and draw out a chase through the spider nest to prevent the one escaping spider raising the alarm with the Spider Queen at a really detailed level of focus.

When you start to get familiar with these scales and systems they really are great for letting you choose which parts of the story to emphasise and which to skip through quickly once the direction of the battle is clear.

Cut to the Chase: Allow Bennies for Retrospective planning

Heists can be fun but generally doing the planning in the level of detail the CHARACTERS would do isn't a lot of fun. Allow the players to come up with an outline plan, then allow them to use bennies to fill in "As it happens the doorman is a friend of mine..." retrospective planning on the fly, and get stuck in to the action.



In general: throw what you like at them and see what happens. Be generous with your bennies (both in handing them out and in allowing changes to the narrative) if you are worried about total party kills.


Cheers, Hywel