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Appearance
From the very first glance, SWEE exudes adventure what with the passport and South American pyramid pictures on the front cover, as well as the black band, indicating that this is someone's journal that is so full of stuff that it has to be tied to stay closed. First change I got, I took my copy of SWEE to Staples to get the book spiral bound. Trust me, you will thank me later if you spend the couple of bucks to have this done.
The page backgrounds are yellow with markings along the ends that make you think of a well-loved and used book that has seen some rather rough moments.
The artwork is all in full color and though there is only two full page illustrations, the rest are half page size or less. With at least 1 image per every two-page spread. The font is simple for the text, with a different font for section names and for the names of anything special that is bolded and capitalized. In short, it is easy on the eyes and every time you open the book, there are images that increases your interest and desire to play this system. And to be honest, any game company that uses Storn as one of their artists receives a thumbs up from me.
Setting
SWEE is a generic setting, meaning that there are no specific settings held within this book. Of course, there are a good number of setting books for Savage Worlds, with more every year, from Pinnacle and third-party companies. That tells you right there how much the market loves this system.
Now, that is not to say that you have to have a specific setting book in addition to this one to run a game. The book contains everything that you need to run a game, and if you need something specific the stuff in SWEE sets an easy precedence and benchmark that allows anyone to quickly and easily create their own stuff on the fly. From Robots to Elementals, Zombies to Alligators, Dragons to Orcs, the majority of your protagonists can be found near the back of the book.
System
SWEE utilizes most of the more common dice types: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. It also uses a full pack of playing cards, Jokers included, for initiative and small tokens or stones to be used for physical representations of bennies which are given to the GM to allow damage to be soaked or dice to be rerolled.
There are 5 Attributes in SWEE; Agility, Smarts, Spirit, Strength, and Vigor, that are linked to the skills such as the boating skill links to Agility and the climbing skill links with Strength. These are all purchased with starting points, 5 points for Attributes and 15 for skills, that costs 1 point to raise Attributes up from the starting d4 and 1 point to purchase and raise skills up to the die of that skill's linked Attribute. Going over the linked Attribute's die costs 2 of the skill points. There are Derived Statistics; Pace, Parry, Charisma, and Toughness, that are determined by your Attributes and/or Skills die. Then you pick and choose your character's Hindrances, which give you additional points to be spent on Attributes, Skills, or Edges.
When rolling, the characters and their villain-equivalents, not the mooks, roll an extra d6 dice that is called the "Wild Die" and they take the higher of the two numbers rolled. When a die lands on its maximum, it Aces, enabling another roll of the die to be added onto the number previously rolled. This can go on for as long as each roll Aces. For example, if I were to attempt to jump across a gap, I would roll my Agility die (d8) and a Wild Die (d6). Lets say I roll a 4 for Agility and a 6 on my Wild Die. Since the Wild Die Aced, I get to roll it again and add it to the 6. If it Aces again, I get to roll it again and so on. Every 4 points over the Target Number to beat, you get what is called a Raise, which nets an extra d6 of damage if the attack hits. The basic number to beat is a 4, but depending on the ease or difficulty, there might be a penalty to your rolls.
Combat can get a bit complicated depending on what you want to do, but luckily there are rules for nearly everything you can think of: Grappling, Cover, Disarming, Innocent Bystanders, and so on. Damage wise, there are three types of damage: Scratches have no effect in the game and come from damage totals that are less than the target's Toughness, if the damage total is equal to or higher than the target's Toughness that means they are Shaken (Shaken means that then target can only move half as fast and cannot do anything else until their next turn where they attempt to recover from being Shaken), and if the damage total is 4 points or more over the target's Toughness the Raise means that they are Wounded and to take out a mook all you need is one Wound. Luckily, if a target who is already Shaken is shaken again, it means they are Wounded. So worst case scenario, it will take two hits to take out a mook, making this an excellent game to use when you want to pit the characters against large groups of things to mow through. Zombies are exceptionally fun to take out with this game.
A few things that I really love about the System:
There is an Injury Table you can use to see just where a blow landed. Great for laughs around a table if someone is struck in their unmentionables!
Mass Combat rules! Ever want to play huge battle scenes but the way most games handle normal combat makes you cry in despair at even thinking about doing it? SWEE has quick and easy rules for mass combats, from replaying historical battles to those from Lord of the Rings. Need I say more?
Rules for movement of cars, airplanes, and boats, as well as combat between them all.
Chase rules that work regardless of it is between people who are in vehicles, on foot, or whatever.
Summary
Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition is my go to game that satisfies everything that I want. It is a rules light game that has all of its crunchy parts in just the right places. The blurbs from the back of the book are 100% accurate in all my dealings with this game. SWEE is only 160 pages and is smaller than most traditional RPG's due to it being "pocket sized" (more like a cargo pocket size), but dont let that discourage you for it is jam-packed with awesomeness! So what are you waiting for? It is only $10, go try it out!
