There are a lot of reasons to join in a role-playing game. There is the comeraderie with friends, the challenge, the imagination that goes into it and just the general feeling that you did something special and cool that you'd never really have gotten to do. If anyone hasn't tried getting into a role-playing game and thought that maybe they'd like to, all I can say is go for it! It's an awesome good time if you can find a group that jives with you. I wanted to talk about one particular game though, Savage Worlds.
Despite the name, Savage Worlds isn't some sort of Hyborian Sword & Sorcery setting, though it could be! Savage Worlds is actually a generic rules system that is flexible enough to accommodate most any genre of role-playing setting. I've used it for fantasy, Cyberpunk, wild west, pirates and more! If you're looking for a system that you can use to run your next game, I'll tell you why I'd recommend it be Savage Worlds.
Obviously it's adaptable. No system is able to cover every setting, but Savage Worlds covers a pretty wide range. The tagline, "Fast! Furious! Fun!" covers what the system is shooting for, and hitting. I equate the general feel of a Savage Worlds game as being that of pulp fiction. If you look at movies like "Indiana Jones" or "The Mummy", you have protagonists that are not exactly overly exceptional, but definitely capable and who often succeed through luck and ingenuity as much as skill.
After years of struggling with systems that required me to take hours to create even a single NPC adversary to face off against my players, and then watch as they destroyed that NPC in a couple of rounds of play, the ease of preparing a Savage Worlds game was entirely welcome. I used to try and keep my prep time down to one hour for every hour of play. Prepping a game of Savage Worlds can take me as little as thirty minutes (not including countless hours thinking about plot, characters and setting!) I feel like the ease of Savage Worlds speaks to the reality of being an adult and having responsibilities outside of games, sad as that may be. Savage Worlds is rules-light, and once you're comfortable with the rules there is very little you can't come up with off the top of your head, no need for hours spent studying the minutia of character options or spell descriptions.
Despite the rules-light approach that Savage Worlds takes to game design, the system still does not feel flimsy. A lot of thought went into creating the system so it flows nicely, but it doesn't seem to have come at the cost of solid rules. Savage Worlds draws a distinction between high detail Player Characters and major NPCs, and less detailed "extras". This divide allows for large numbers of combatants to square-off against one another without the resolution taking the entire evening's play. That speed and ease of play are my favorite things about Savage Worlds.
Being able to run fast combats and resolve non-combat scenes with only a couple dice rolls means that you really have time to get a lot in with every session. If you want to have a throw away encounter that gives flavor but isn't really challenging, do it. It won't take long. Same thing with running a combat when the players so unwisely split the party. You can run that fight too since it won't leave half your players waiting an hour before they get back in the action. Tired of making excuses why no one from the village wants to help out? Have a dozen miltia sign-up for the job. Probably most importantly, all that speed and ease means that you'll have time for the most important thing, role-playing. You can have three or four fights in an evening and still have time for planning, character interaction, story telling and all that jazz. You know, the stuff you actually remember about a game years later when you're talking about it with friends. It's almost never the rules or rolls that are worth talking about, but the stories they helped tell.
Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it. Head over the Pinnacle Entertainment Group's website and give the "Test Drive" rules a download.
http://peginc.com/downloads.html
Then head down to Gryphon and grab yourself a copy of the Savage World's Deluxe edition! I think you'll be glad you did.
- Sherman, Gryphon Games & Comics
Obviously it's adaptable. No system is able to cover every setting, but Savage Worlds covers a pretty wide range. The tagline, "Fast! Furious! Fun!" covers what the system is shooting for, and hitting. I equate the general feel of a Savage Worlds game as being that of pulp fiction. If you look at movies like "Indiana Jones" or "The Mummy", you have protagonists that are not exactly overly exceptional, but definitely capable and who often succeed through luck and ingenuity as much as skill.
After years of struggling with systems that required me to take hours to create even a single NPC adversary to face off against my players, and then watch as they destroyed that NPC in a couple of rounds of play, the ease of preparing a Savage Worlds game was entirely welcome. I used to try and keep my prep time down to one hour for every hour of play. Prepping a game of Savage Worlds can take me as little as thirty minutes (not including countless hours thinking about plot, characters and setting!) I feel like the ease of Savage Worlds speaks to the reality of being an adult and having responsibilities outside of games, sad as that may be. Savage Worlds is rules-light, and once you're comfortable with the rules there is very little you can't come up with off the top of your head, no need for hours spent studying the minutia of character options or spell descriptions.
Despite the rules-light approach that Savage Worlds takes to game design, the system still does not feel flimsy. A lot of thought went into creating the system so it flows nicely, but it doesn't seem to have come at the cost of solid rules. Savage Worlds draws a distinction between high detail Player Characters and major NPCs, and less detailed "extras". This divide allows for large numbers of combatants to square-off against one another without the resolution taking the entire evening's play. That speed and ease of play are my favorite things about Savage Worlds.
Being able to run fast combats and resolve non-combat scenes with only a couple dice rolls means that you really have time to get a lot in with every session. If you want to have a throw away encounter that gives flavor but isn't really challenging, do it. It won't take long. Same thing with running a combat when the players so unwisely split the party. You can run that fight too since it won't leave half your players waiting an hour before they get back in the action. Tired of making excuses why no one from the village wants to help out? Have a dozen miltia sign-up for the job. Probably most importantly, all that speed and ease means that you'll have time for the most important thing, role-playing. You can have three or four fights in an evening and still have time for planning, character interaction, story telling and all that jazz. You know, the stuff you actually remember about a game years later when you're talking about it with friends. It's almost never the rules or rolls that are worth talking about, but the stories they helped tell.
Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it. Head over the Pinnacle Entertainment Group's website and give the "Test Drive" rules a download.
http://peginc.com/downloads.html
Then head down to Gryphon and grab yourself a copy of the Savage World's Deluxe edition! I think you'll be glad you did.
- Sherman, Gryphon Games & Comics
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