Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[GANDALF970]

I have yet to play any Savage Worlds, but have been gaming for 30+ years. My players are looking for a new experience and Savage Worlds is it. A few of the experienced players and GM's are worried that they would get the GURPS experience and run out of player development as they got deeper into their characters. I too worry about this with Savage Worlds as it is similar in ways to the aforementioned GURPS and not set specifically in Fantasy (our preferred genre).

Has anyone played a long running SW Fantasy campaign and what does the characters look like later in the Heroic and Legendary ranks? Are your campaigns managable and are the characters deep?

I know most of this is driven by the story of the millieu and that is no issue, my characters are a bit of power-gamer and love broad strokes of character in depth driven by the system. Any suggestions on adding things to make this happen?

One thing for sure I am doing is bringing in the skill advance mechanic from Burning Wheel, it is very in depth and with as easy as SW is to add things will be a welcome addition.

If anyone else has some suggestions on how to make SW not just a few month campaing game, please add your thoughts as I would love to hear them and add them to my house rules.

[ValhallaGH]

The depth of most Savage Worlds characters comes from Edges, not skills or attributes (collectively called Traits).

Thanks to Edges, two characters with identical Traits can be very different in play. Bruiser vs. Two-Weapons vs. Sword & Board vs. Monk. All four could easily be built with d8 Agility, d8 Strength, and d8 Vigor, with a d10 Fighting. But the different choices of Edges will make the characters feel and play very differently.

Even characters with the same Traits and Edges can be completely different due to different Hindrances. The best illustration I ever saw was in my Savage Star Wars game, where I had two two-blaster-kids in the same group. One was an enemy-making, wanted, pornography-addicted scoundrel that would not die. The other was a compulsive lying, secret-spewing, nonsense-talking, weirdo (seriously, gives his name as "Clive Johnson" in Star Wars?) that never seemed like the big hero but continually changed everything. Both characters are at Heroic and have only a few differences in Trait and Edge choices (one of them has Persuasion, the other has Intimidate; they've also got one different Edge choice that I can't remember at this time).

With over 100 edges (without counting the "repeats" that can be, and generally are, taken many times) and around 40 powers, there is a ton of room to develop characters before they begin to look alike. Characters need around 600 xp before they will all have the same stuff - at the recommended xp rate that equates to ~275 four hour gaming sessions (5 or 6 years of once per week gaming).


If you think the game absolutely needs more depth then here are two suggestions:
First, create some setting-appropriate edges to give them even more options for character advancement.
Second, use the Skill Specialization setting rule from Deluxe.

[GANDALF970]

Thank you ValhallaGH, these are the things I needed to hear. I will run the game as it is written and see what falls out. I am hoping to run them through Shaintar as my first campaign and see what shakes out.

[ValhallaGH]

I wish you the best of luck.
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[77IM]

+1000 to ValhallaGH's suggestions.

I will only add -- a common misconception is that the game somehow ends at Legendary; that PCs are expected to "retire" or something, after earning only 16 advances. This is not the case though! Campaigning past Legendary is perfectly doable, and some character concepts really don't hit their stride until Legendary. It's not like D&D where level 1 is gimped and level 20 is über and then you kill a god and the campaign ends. It's more like, you get some cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges... and then more cool edges...

-- 77IM
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Stuff I made: Arcane Abilities · Talent Edge · Savage Fading Suns · Savage Wuxia!