r/savageworlds

I'm adapting the Dishonored RPG by Modiphius for Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds. So my question will be twofold. I'd like to use Bennies to represent the "Momentum" mechanic from Dishonored, but it's a shared pool, and limited to 6. You gain it with raises. I'd still award them for role-playing, humor, and fantastic feats. You lose one Momentum/Bennie per scene.

So my question is does this sound like too much of a stretch? Momentum seems to function very much like Bennies. I don't like the limit of 6 though because it doesn't account for the amount of players, and besides, Bennies make the game more fun.

It does challenge the players to think more carefully about burning a bunch all at once since they are a shared resource...or they could also play that into their character traits like greed and selfishness.

My other question is specific to Fantasy Grounds, but limited to the Savage Worlds ruleset since Bennies aren't used in other rulesets. Since they're tied to a player's character sheet how would you recommend I implement a shared use of the Bennies?

Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing well! ^^

It's me again with another question and i'm extremely grateful for your helpfulness and patience.

Well... I'm a player obsessed with Weird Science archetype characters (Gadgetters, Tinkerers, and the like), so Savage Worlds allowing me to follow this path is very satisfying. I always consider Weird Science Arcane Backgrounds exactly as another AB option (taking into account its peculiarities, such as the Devices or the Jury Rig).

Because of this, I automatically assumed that rules involving magic as a whole (in Edges like Arcane Resistance, or even Powers like Detect Arcana, and things like that) also encompassed Weird Science ABs (like the Tinkerer or the Mad Scientist from the Deadlands Companion). But looking at the bigger picture now, after a conversation with my GM, I'm wondering if this mindset is really correct, and that's why I wanted to know your opinion.

Do you consider the Tinkerer, the Mad Scientist, or other Arcane Background archetypes focused on Science/Technology to be free from the rules that are restricted to magic? Or do you include all AB within the same rule? I'm asking to understand how the system expects me to take this into account (whether I can change it from setting to setting, or if it's a key balancing element that shouldn't be altered). Thank you in advance for your attention ^^

Savage Worlds uses two concepts: Plot Point Campaigns and Savage Tales. I’ve noticed that these terms can be confusing for new players and need to be explained. Is this something you expect from third-party publishers (e.g., “This supplement contains a Savage Tale” vs. “This supplement contains a one-shot that can be played in a single evening“)?

I'm GM-ing a table of avid 5e players and we have stumbled a little bit with how to play through attacks of opportunity and disengage-ing. Feel free to help me with the rules, but extras get an attack when an enemy Wildcard leaves their threaten space, no? Does this consume one of the extras' actions forcing a multi action penalty on their next turn? I'm also having difficulty finding in the rules how player Wildcards can disengage from combat without earning an attack of opportunity. I have just been charging them an action to do it but that feels very DnD and not Savage Worlds. How do the rules say we should be playing this situation?

I think the title says it all. Looking for a list of some of the best plot point campaigns from third-party publishers, either through SWAG or Ace licenses.

Bullet points:

- I'm from continental Europe (Spain, specifically)

- I'm starting to prep a campaign in East Texas University (ETU) setting.

- I have a "university background" (spent about 14 years at 2 Spanish universities as a student and then a researcher)

-Continental Europe Universities (and European university culture) seem to be hugely different from their counterparts in the USA.

Asking for your help in finding:

- Simple, clear online resources that explain how the USA study plans work — with some detail and starting with the basics.

- Online resources about university culture in the USA — if possible, with some historical background

- Finally, resources about nowadays Texas idiosyncrasy and culture.

Final word

I understand that I don't need my ETU to be "realistic" but I find that every "slice of life" detail I add to my campaigns resonates in the players' minds and helps them to feel that the setting is alive.

I saw there was a stun grenade in the SWADE book pg 78, but didn't see a comparable Confusion-type (flash-bang). Think it's fine to create one that is like the Stun grenade, but has the confusion effect?

So my players will soon attempt to steal an airplane and fly it over the ocean. None of them are pilots. Should be fun. I would like to male this into a (short) session of its own with a variable outcome My idea to play this:
Make a succession of four tonfive quick encounters: one for take off, two or three for the journey and (if they make it that far..) one for the landing. Each quick encounter could be broken into: piloting, navigating and engineering a rickety plane.

Or is someone out there with an addition or a better idea?

I've been playing Savage Worlds for decades. I started running it when I got tired of D&D 3.5. The vesion at the time was the Explorer's Edition.

Despite this ages-old love of the system, playing many campaigns and genres, tonight is only my THIRD session of running Deadlands.

We finished our Street Wolves campaign two months ago. When discussing what to do as our next campaign, my son said, "You know, we've never played Deadlands."

Wow. He was right. The hallmark of SW. And we've never played it.

I started with an urban fantasy game - Savage Dresden Files. Then I ran Fear Agent, several generic fantasy campaigns, Street Wolves, and several other settings and one shots, including Trailer Park Shark Atrack for a few different groups. One of my players ran a year-long ETU-derived high school game. But we've never played Deadlands. Until now.

We're off and running with some great PCs. I'm using the Carnage in the Cascades campaign because I wanted some out-of-the-box support to make my life (and the game) easier , and to get the setting right.

Damn, Deadlands is fun! I'm sorry I haven't run it before now.

This must be what it's like for people who play Skyrim for the first time.

First of all, thanks to all of the people on the forum for giving me tips and answering questions. You'll be glad to know I finally corralled three people to run Deadlands for last night, and it went pretty well!

We used the Thieving Magpies one-sheet for Deadlands, as well as the archetype cards as pre-gens. I also threw in a quick battle at the beginning where they took out some bandits to bring in for the bounty (the marshal not having the cash on hand due to it being stolen led into the one-shot).

I found that everything worked pretty well. Once we got used to it rolling to hit and trait rolls were the easiest part. Initiative was a bit tricky and we stuck to just dealing cards once at the start of a fight. Bennies worked exactly as I expected, with one player spending around four on one roll in an attempt to win at poker. I did notice our resident powergamer kept a hold onto his, which probably wasn't helped by only three of us being there, so once I take into account a potentially larger group that should be easier.

Overall for what was essentially a casual beer & chips game things worked quite well. I particularly enjoyed the mixture of tactical combat and more narrative skill and roleplaying rolls. I'm certainly relieved because I've gotten really into a game on the reading level and found it got out of control in practice!

Hey all,

Getting back into savage worlds after being away for years. I want to run a one shot or short campaign to gauge interest with my local group and teach the system, as none of them have played it before.

10-12 years ago I did a similar thing and I remember finding a one shot where the setting was weird wars (I think). Basically the players all got premade soldiers in a squad and started out in a battle. Something happens and they all get teleported back in time and find themselves in the middle of a battle with Teutonic knights (I think. Maybe just knights/mideval army in general). I've tried googling and searching my old archives and can't find even a hint of it existing. Does anyone know what I could possibly be thinking of?! Any advice is much appreciated.

Yes I know that Savage worlds doesn't have classes but for the slower ones what kind of roles might I suggest. I have species and I have arcane backgrounds and I have a set of backgrounds that don't actually provide any mechanical advantages or disadvantages but instead suggest things about the world without me info dumping. One thing I'm used to with most systems is the classes so what might be something I could offer the players to take its place to give their characters some high concepts of their role within the group to build around.

The premise is a solar punk space opera centering on a group of anarchist space pirates living in the aftermath of a centuries wide galactic dark age who have found their little planet has become a doorway to a new frontier as various powers from the center of a galactic civilization want to exploit the area. The nearby sector was previously closed off because of a reality warping psionic anomaly called "the indigo" but the indigo has since cleared and where this colony of misfits and exiles used to be remote, now they are being targeted from the community they built for removal as squatters so a bunch of sophont trafficking mega corporations can pave over their farms and build a military base there.

Hello Savages,

I am going to be running a SWADE fantasy game in the near future. This will be my group's first Savage Worlds game. I have spent a decent amount of time learning the rules and figuring out what setting rules, ABs, etc I want to use for the setting. I am now working with my players to help them figure out character concepts. One player is very interested in the idea of a shapeshifting companion of some sort. He mentioned daemons from His Dark Materials as an inspiration, though I think he'd also be interested in something less animal-focused.

Basically, I am looking for a way to have the player have a companion that can cast shapechange on itself at least a few times a day (at will may be overpowered). I am not necessarily concerned about the player exploiting something unbalanced, he tends to be pretty group-focused and wouldn't want to outshine the other players. Worst case scenario, if I talked to him and told him that I thought the way he was using the companion was a problem, I have total confidence he would be open to changing things.

I've looked through the Fantasy Companion and the core rules, as well as Cyril Ronseaux's Companions Add-On (big fan of his fantasy add-ons generally, especially the combat one), but I am not seeing anything that feels quite right. The Fantasy Companion has the Familiar edge, which is a good start, but as far as I can tell there isn't really a way to have a creature with supernatural abilities of its own. The player could cast powers on the familiar, but shapechange specifically is self-only unless you have epic modifiers.

Ronseaux's Add-On definitely offers a framework to fulfill this idea, but frankly it offers so many choices and options that I am worried about it being a bit overwhelming, and maybe a lot for me and the player to keep track of. Still, that is currently the lead contender.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I'm open to buying additional PDFs if there is something that sounds good for this idea. Thank you for your time.

I am theory crafting a super powers character. I am going with a "zombie" that can remove limbs but maintain control of the limbs. This would be at power level 2 most likely. Telekinesis with the devices modifier? Summoned minions? He will regenerate at the some level so losing a limb shouldn't be terrible.

For a limited-time, a discounted pre-layout version of the Settingless 6 More Arcane Setting Rules SWAG product. 26 new Setting Rules, with variants it reaches to 50 that amp or limit the might of Arcane Backgrounds and powers to make your setting get the feel you want. Also, 2 Power edges to interact with these Rules.

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/569438/Settingless-6-More-Arcane-Setting-Rules

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Keep an eye out (get those eye patches ready!) for Arcane Options, to expand or alter the way Arcane Backgrounds play in your game... Coming Soon-ISH

Playing savage rifts, and one player is grossly overshadowing the rest. And its not who i would have expected at all - its a sniper focused headhunter. He has abilities that clear up to -6 in negatives, so essentially shooing with none every turn, and ends up with at least +4 to the average shot after these negatives are clear. He's very well min maxed for this. He's good at noticing and shooting, but very little else. The notice checks are almost always relevant though.

He now, wants to add a ton of cybernetics, which would increase all his physical stats by a dice, as well as shore up his h to H fighting. The problem is, i don't see how he cant afford it - money is rather dicey in the setting, as one of the party started with a 2Million dollar SAMAS and they have killed and captured A LOT of tech for the Tommorow Legion.

I expected the SAMAS player to be the issue to be honest, but hes been playing lower power tier and doing fun shit like punching or grappling people when it probably makes more min/max sense to just shoot them, and hes been using his level ups to get good at other skills so he does more other stuff. In short, hes not power gaming so is not overshadowing the others.

The sniper just notices and snipes lol. Headshots are generally no issue.

Designing the map to literally limit one player feels dickish, and takes away the one thing hes good at. The one thing he's good at is making it really hard for me to challenge the group however - last match he headshot two SAMAS, essentially one shotting them. (doing multiple wounds to the face even after saves and soaking).

Back to the pressing issue, he wants to just install like 5 new systems immediately. The whole campaign is based on "the more time you spend being off, the worst its going to get" so im pretty sure his party will be leaving him behind if he chooses to take the time for the surgery and healing. Any suggestions on how to wrangle this in without just having his tommorow legion superiors refuse to give him the time to recover from the surgery and installation?

(hes wants the upgrades that will add +1 dice to his vit, str, agility, fighting and 3 levels of cyber armor)

Cybenetics seem rather broken in that you can increase all stats by 1 dice, as opposed to the level up system where you can increase one per Rank. And he can still stack those cybernetic increases on top of the level up rank.

he's the only one trying to "abuse" the money situation, no one else is really hitting the money, and no one else can really abuse cybernetics as it will clash with thier psychic or magic abilities (or in the samad's case, hes just not)

I really dont want to push the player away from the one thing hes chosen to be good at, but hes so damn good at it i dont want to give him these "free" upgrades to help him be even better at it.

Any advice on how to wrangle him without it being a confrontation is appreciated.

Hi! So i have a playe who is struggling in creating a character (currently at heroic rank) that follows a specific Iron Man or D.Va troupe.

The idea is that the character sheet should have very good armor with excellent toughness, but the character itself, without that armor, doesn't have that much.

I tried talking to him about using powers, and he did, but he's still not satisfied because he didn't have enough toughness and he goes out and put vigor on a 1d12 + 2 (please don't question how), but he and I know that his character would never have that much vigor.

How would you create this troupe? We are using Savage Fantasy.

I'm just curious why someone would choose savage worlds over other systems that do fantasy. I'm looking at swade because it seems more tactical than some other systems, and I like that in my combats, so they aren't boring.

Right now, my group is looking at using SWADE or Vagabond for the next campaign. I'm leaning towards SWADE, but my group is leaning towards Vagabond.

Edit*

Thanks for all your opinions, and I'll read more if they come. I've definitively decided to run SWADE and FC for my next campaign

Running Degrees of Horror and wondering how I should handle Advancements? Is it Freshman = Novice, Sophomore = Seasoned, etc?

We’re getting close to Freshman midterms and I haven’t passed out an Advance yet.