Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

TommyBrownell · Veteran Joined: 27 Aug 2003 Posts: 757 Location: Oklahoma

So all my gaming for the last, oh, almost year has been done with Savage Worlds.

The other day, against my better judgement, I was considering trying to run the Buffy/Angel RPG again. I say against my better judgement, because that has always turned into a group killer for whatever reason, though everyone insists they enjoy the game.

Then I hit a roadblock: I don't want to screw with a game in which my players have to have pencils ready near their character sheets at all times, anymore.

Right now, we sit down, I pass out character sheets, Adventure Deck cards and bennies (using glass stones). They give me back Adventure cards as we play, and we swap bennies around as needed.

Having to mess with tracking hit points and Drama Points suddenly has me beating my head against the wall.

This means that the only other RPG I have that I can now run is Marvel SAGA, because it's a similar deal: I pass out character sheets and then I pass out their hand of cards from the Fate deck.

Way to go Savage Worlds...way to ruin it all for me...stupid fast, furious fun...=(
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Amaril · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:26 pm Post subject:

Yeah, I feel the same way about D&D v3.5. I miss a lot of elements about it, but there are a lot of things I don't want to have to deal with ever again (e.g. - monsters with endless lists of spell-like abilities, creating cleric or wizard NPCs, monster types and subtypes and how they affect game mechanics, etc.)
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Averjoe · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:03 pm Post subject:

I too have been spoiled by Savage Worlds. Just looking through the books of other systems makes me cringe a little. Laughing

jasales · Seasoned Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 395

After 17+ years of running DND games I am now running two Savage Worlds Campaigns (Sanctuary/Thieves' World, and a Home brew). I play in two other intermittant DND 3.5 campaigns and it is positively painful. I bite my tongue but I just cringe at all the rules look-ups, how ineffectual beginning skills are, and how players just don't trying things because unless they are really good at it, it wont work anyway. Plus the combat is slower than death. I want to encourage the new DMs in their endevor but part of me wants to jump up on the table and scream, GO SAVAGE FOR EVERYONE'S SAKE OR SHOOT ME NOW!

Amaril · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:24 pm Post subject:

Well, skills at low levels are often poorly played. The rules do allow for reasonable success via three options.

Taking 10: If you're not under duress, you can take 10. A +4 at first level would yield a +14.

Aid Another: Get +2 per individual helping you. I think there are some additional rules (or possible variant/house rules) for an even higher bonus depending on how many ranks the helper has. This can be coupled with Taking 10.

Taking 20: If failure doesn't yield a negative result, take your time with trial and error.
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Poor Wandering One · Veteran Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 536

Amaril · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:44 pm Post subject:

Noshrok Grimskull · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:53 pm Post subject:

Compare that to the Mad Scientist in my new (classic) Deadlands game. Last session he rigged up "The Amazing Wind-Up Miniature Ventilation Air-Screw", i.e. a clockwork fan. He installed it onto his conestoga wagon. Smile

But yeah, I mostly run SW these days. And I mostly play SW these days, too. The only exceptions are a homebrew fantasy system and setting (we play this since about 1989 or so / I'm player and GM), Deadlands Classic (I'm the Marshal) and White Wolf's Scion (I'm a player).
The first is always in flux rules-wise as we constantly tinker around with it, adding here, streamlining there, tossing whole sections overboard on a whim, etc. The second is ... well, it's Deadlands! And while Scion is a bit clunky, the setting is just way cool and it is lots of fun to play.
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shadd4d · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject:

You might have something there...I have to say that I'm kind of...wary of trying new games now that I know how SW works (and plus that I've been playing, read GMing, SW since 2003) so I'm...hesitant, although looking through my buddy's Scion stuff looked really interesting...and I'm thinking about trying out nWoD at some point.

Don
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Amaril · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:01 pm Post subject:

Oh, I'm not saying it's better or faster than Savage Worlds, just that most D&D players overlook basic rules regarding skill use.

Now the one skill in D&D v3.5 that totally blows chunks is Use Magic Device.
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Amaril · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 4:03 pm Post subject:

skylion · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:30 pm Post subject:

I'm spoiled, and my gamer friends can smell it a mile away. Thou I run all of our SW sessions, I player other games too. I sat in on a 4e D&D game; and after scratching my head over a few points the DM (a fellow SW player) looks at me and says, "No, it isn't Savage Worlds....D&D is exactly what it says on the tin."

I had to work out a 4e to SW back to 4e conversion. Don't ask me to show you how. I can't. It was awful. The cat is still missing.
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AFDia · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 6:34 pm Post subject:

I miss the bennies in every other RPG. Gaming is too hard without those little helpers. Wink

Ogma · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 10:13 pm Post subject:

I too miss bennies in other games, etc., and I also find myself wanting to Savage pretty much everything, but too much of the same thing can make it go stale, so I do try to play (and even run) other games and systems when I can, just to mix things up.

TommyBrownell · Veteran Joined: 27 Aug 2003 Posts: 757 Location: Oklahoma

Dave.B · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 12:17 am Post subject:

we've been involved with Savage for over a year now. it has become the favorite of the group over Labryinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, 3.5 (totally gone, thank god), D6 (my ton of conversions went Savage Smile

), and about a half dozen other modern or scifi or generic games.

it is wonderful when run properly, and i prefer it for modern, scifi, and Victorian games (Rippers is a lot of fun, although i can go with Masque of the Red Death for this genre out of nostalgia.)
Pirates of the Spanish Main and Solomon Kane round out our Pirate/Supernatural urges nicely as well.

for D&Dish fantasy, i still have to go to Basic D&D/Labryinth Lord/Swords&Wizardry. love Savage, but i love the old timey feel of the clones.

David
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Ogma · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:01 am Post subject:

chugosh · Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 1:31 am Post subject:

I really really like Savage Worlds, and it really easy to work with, but I do not feel ruined for all other games as the origional poster does.

Each of the games mentioned so far has a lot to add to the hobby as a whole and to a gamer's fun experience. The intracacy of a GURPS character buildout is perfect for a more detail oriented player or setting. D&D is the mother of all games, afaik, and the latest versions and offshoots and clones (oh my) each has a lot of fun between the covers. Even the monsters of complexity have a lot to offer.

That all admitted gladly, I will say I entertain a marked preference for playing Savage Worlds or another simpler system. My other fave these days would be Ubiquity, the system in Hollow Earth Expedition. It has a lot fo keen mechanics that have great game speeding ability. The two systems would not be so good to ram together, but the spirit is the same, with less time ruling and more time playing.

There are ways to make any game out there a little more "Savage" by aproaching them with the notions of playing fast, furiously and having fun, no matter what is thrown at you. Hey, you are gaming, after all, not mowing the lawn or slaving away at work or bored out of your skull at home.

Big Bad Jack · Novice Joined: 10 Dec 2006 Posts: 94

I freely admit that Savage Worlds has ruiend me as well... I can still play White Wolf without issue (primarily Exalted or Scion, these days, but others too, Old and New systems), and I enjoy D&D 4th Edition quite a bit for what it is, but trying to play 3.X D&D, or these days even my old stalwart love Mutants & Masterminds, feels painfully clunky (far less so M&M than 3.X, but still)... and if its not anything with an easy set of mechanics or in the very least a very flavorful set of mechanics that don't also give coniptions, I tend to pick up my Explorer's Edition....

Jackson · Veteran Joined: 16 Oct 2003 Posts: 501 Location: Texas

Talk about being spoiled and ruined by SW....I have a company. We used to produce for d20, and I'd spend hours combing over those big dumb-s.... stat blocks only to have some smart guy tell me how I messed one thing up in math somewhere....

Now....while we may still do stuff for OGL....

Everything I write is in and for SW. I don't do stat blocks. I don't play 4E, and like Clint likes to tell me...

I'm a SW fanboy to the core.

#gunbattle

I play this card and get an extra 2d6 damage to my roll...(shucka shucka) A 21! Surely I got it!...what? Your kidding? What's the toughness? Who wrote this crap? Oh...yeah...I did...Geez!
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