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Savage Worlds Deluxe edition has just a few new Edges and Powers. It also adds or revises "Situational Rules" covering Chases, Social Conflicts, succeeding at high-tension Dramatic Tasks, and handling Interludes between adventuring. The Deluxe edition also includes optional house rules for GMs to tweak their campaign, mainly between more heroic and more gritty flavors, and also suggests alternative rules for handling Powers.
Paging through Savage Worlds Deluxe, the Chapters are organized similarly to the Explorer's Edition: An Introduction, Character Creation, Gear, Game Rules, Situational Rules, Powers, and finally a Game Mastering section and a Bestiary.
Likes
My favorite change is probably the hardcover format, which I feel has a better layout, and seems better organized than the tightly packed information in the SWEX booklet. For me, the smaller softcover for core rules just didn't match the beautiful, high-quality hardcovers released for some of the better Savage Worlds settings.
Here are some of my favorite things that are new to the Savage Worlds Deluxe edition compared to the Explorer's Edition:
There are examples of rules in action throughout the book. Especially valuable is a full-page combat example for World War II soldiers duking it out against a bunch of zombies for several rounds. It can take someone who's new to the system some time to “get it” in terms of how all the Savage Worlds rules fit together. This extended example should make it easier to figure Savage Worlds combat, and (hopefully) appreciate the elegance of the system.
The Character Creation section now includes archetypes, and it also added fantasy race options (which had been in Savage Worlds core books predating SWEX) plus rules for creating new races. Making PCs in Savage Worlds was never hard, but players can now select a pre-built generic character template such as “Mage” or “Pirate,” slap on a few additional Skills and some Hindrances, and hit the ground running. The races cover some of the most common fantasy tropes (e.g., elves, dwarves, cat- and lizard-people), so a GM can run a fantasy or sci-fi pulp game right from the core rules.
There are a few new Edges and Powers that look to me as if they drifted from savage settings rules into the core rules. There are maybe around four or five each of new Edges and Powers in the Deluxe edition, which are always nice to have.
The Situational Rules chapter makes a lot of changes. The best I think are a complete revision for handling Chases, and new rules about Travel that include encounters. Chases now rely on a mix of skill rolls and card draws – the math about figuring out who's where goes away, replaced by more focus on fighting and dealing with obstacles. This revamp looks like it's both a little easier and more dramatic. I never used the old Chase rules with my players, but might use this new set. The Travel rules give some guidelines for speed on long journeys, and rules to use card draws for generating random encounters.
Gripes
My biggest gripe is an odd one: Pinnacle Entertainment Group decided to wedge nine pages of art for its house settings near the start of the book, between the Introduction and the Character Creation sections. They're beautiful illustrations, but they are ads. I just feel that nine pages could've been better used for other content.
I also don't care for some of the Situational Rules, which I think fall flat. Dramatic Tasks and Social Conflict are ways to lengthen a situation by forcing characters to succeed at multiple skill rolls. Dramatic Tasks vaguely remind me of D&D 4th edition's Skill Challenges -- I personally didn't like those either -- and it's something I plan to leave on the cutting room floor. Social Conflicts, to me, drag out through multiple rolls a contest that could be handled with a simple opposed skill roll.
I'm also lukewarm on Interludes, yet another Situational Rule. Whenever there is a lull in the action, the GM can prompt a player to draw a card, and based on the result, share some personal history of her/his player character with the group. That looks to me like a nice thought that will work for some players and groups. But to me, it's too awkward to make a formal rule.
In terms of existing rules, Mass Battles looks to have been largely left alone. The Mass Battles system works and makes sense. The one time I did use it with players in my campaign, it was terribly unbalanced and turned out to be an anti-climactic letdown. I'd like to see Mass Battles get some of the same innovative re-thinking that the authors put into Chases -- less math, more dramatic for the players. Finally, there are a number of One-Sheet Adventures in the back of the book that skim some main pulpy genres (horror, gritty and heroic fantasy, modern day, sci-fi). They're all good enough, but a street-level superheroes page would've been a nice addition. Core rules Supers is a genre I think has been under-represented in Savage Worlds adventures.
Verdict
Savage Worlds Deluxe improves of SWEX by filling extra space with examples of play, design notes, plus reference tables and a comprehensive index at the back of the book. It's better organized and more durable than the smaller soft-cover SWEX. It also costs more: list price for Savage Worlds Deluxe hardcover is $29.99, compared to just $10 for the softcover Explorer's Edition. Is it worth the extra $20? If you like the Savage Worlds ruleset and have enough cash to pay the rent and put food on the table, spending the extra money is absolutely worth it. But if you're strapped for cash, Pinnacle Entertainment Group does right by its customers. People that own SWEX can get the most important rules additions and changes to the Deluxe editions through the company's web site, as a free download.
Style: 5 Stars. This is a luxurious book in terms of quality, and a big improvement in organization/layout compared to SWEX. It seems easy to find material in the book; the pages are nice and clean with lots of headlines and subheads to organize content; and there are plenty of high-quality illustrations. Personally, I would've been just as happy with a few less and/or smaller illustrations and more content, but it makes sense that Pinnacle Entertainment Group wants to keep the ruleset lean & mean.
Substance: 5 Stars. This game system is one of my personal favorites, and I've run long-term campaigns very successfully with a group of casual gamers. Savage Worlds relies on dice-rolling gimmicks: I embrace those gimmicks because drawing a Joker for initiative, or acing a roll (a.k.a. exploding dice) gets everyone at the table excited and involved. I took one star off -- some of my “mathy” co-gamers really dislike Savage Worlds' probability swinginess, and Pinnacle's already had to issue a full page of rules Errata/clarifications for SWD. Then I added a star back because the game system's creators have resisted the temptation of making money by forcing their audience to buy each new edition. I have an old Savage Worlds hardcover from around 2006 that, aside from simple rules fixes, is pretty much the same as the game that's out today.
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