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I'd known of Savage Worlds (SW) for a while. I never got around to have a closer look and, in fact, one of its game terms put me off wanting to (“bennies”, for your information).
So to my surprise, after seeing and flicking through a small but colourful book, I found myself scurrying outside with it grasped in my hand and, most likely, a slightly worried look on my face. Had I just wasted eighteen Australian dollars? To find out just read on...
sav·age - lacking the restraints normal to civilized human beings
the book
Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition (SWEE) is a small soft-covered book of approximately 150 pages. It is not the “tradition” role-playing game book size, being of smaller proportions, making it handy to carry around. Its interior is full-colour, illustrated with pictures from various genres (taken from other products if I understand correctly).
the game
SWEE pretty much leaps into character creation straight away. The system uses dice (d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12) to represent the Traits (attributes and skills) of a character. This dice is what is rolled for tests and a target number of 4 is what is sought. The game also uses a deck of cards, one use of which is to determine initiative in combat. There are various other items used (bennies, raises, wild die) to make this game Fast, Furious, and Fun.
Apart from Traits, Edges and Hindrances are two other defining characteristics of a character. Hindrances being “flaws” and Edges being everything else – from background advantages to magical or super powers. Its this simplification that is the strength of SW enabling almost any genre to be created with the same rules set.
SWEE dedicates an entire chapter on Gear, ranging from medieval, modern and futuristic. And to ensure that the game is complete, another chapter is dedicated to Situational Rules (from Mounted Combat to Fear, Hunger and Poison).
A list of generic powers is given and advice on how to tailor them to your character. There are 5 Arcane Background Edges listed (magic, miracles, psionics, super powers, weird science) to cover the various genres – some are handled more differently than others but all use the same list of powers. Tailoring a Power can be as simple as distinguishing it with a unique Trapping. For example the Bolt Power can have the Trappings of Fire, Ice, or even Bees. The effect will, for the most part, be similar with the Trapping giving the power some special rules (a Trapping of Fire may set alight flammable items or inflict extra damage to beings with a Weakness to Fire).
The Game Master's section of SWEE has two chapters: Game Mastering and Villains and Monsters. Game Mastering contains the expected advice on running a game and creating adventures and also includes some brief rules on designing races. Villains and Monsters highlights the use of the SW rules to create opponents to throw at the characters and provides a range of mostly fantasy monsters (Dragon, Orc, Zombie, Vampire, etc.) to allow a Game Master to start up a game almost immediately. A list of monstrous abilities (Construct, Undead to name a couple) is given that act as templates to help you build your own creatures.
the good, the bad, and the ugly
The system is quite easy to muck around with. The books offers advice and options to allow almost anything you can think of. While reading it I was think on how I can use it to run other games where the rules might not be as good as they should.
Despite being for all genres, fantasy seems to be the easiest to start with despite the lack of any races.
No setting means more work. As I said above, I'm a fan of games that include their own setting. If you cannot find a Plot Point setting produced by Pinnacle Entertainment Group that offers what you want then you are forced to create you own. When I was young I had oodles of time to create my own maps, countries, cities and dungeons – indeed that was something I loved to do on a wet Sunday afternoon (with the red box set of OD&D) – but now I don't have the time nor inclination to do so.
I really like the size of the book. It makes it easy to carry around just in case a role playing game suddenly breaks out.
in summary
This was a surprise to me. I did not expect to like it so much, being a fan of games that offer the full service model: system and setting.
I think it deserves a 5 for Style. Its full colour and oozes style. The cover alone made me want to dress like Indiana Jones while reading it (an unfortunate lack of hat and whip denied me that particular pleasure).
Unfortunately, despite liking it so much, I can only give it a 3 for Substance. It is a light-weight game with the expectation that the game master will create their own setting (including character archetypes/classes and new Edges) or buy one of the published settings.
From my reading of the game I can only recommend it as something every gamer should own. Its price is not an onerous burden on the pocket (running SW should mean that everyone has a copy of their own) and its flexibility should not discourage people tied to one genre.
