Category: Rules Lawyering
-
Review Part 2: Savage Core Rules Changes
In yesterday’s post, I talked about the content of the Savage World of Flash Gordon as it relates to the actual setting. Today, I’m talking about core rule changes.One of the major shifts is in the skills list. Climbing, Swimming, and Throwing have been combined into one skill, Athletics, which is Agility-based; Lockpicking is generalized to…
-
Superfight – Round 3
The second round of playtesting the superhero setting with the core book rules and No Power Points is in, and the idea of rank-based bonuses still flopped badly. The “Flash” type speedster character completely and repeatedly failed to invoke the quickness power, which sort of defeats the purpose, and players opting to just shoot things were generally more effective…
-
Character “Same-y-Ness” Part 2
In my previous post, I talked about selecting Edges to build different kinds of ranged combatants. This time, I’m talking melee. What are some of the classic melee archetypes? You have your martial artist, your fencer, your greatsword fighter, your hammer and shield wielder, and your two-fisted knife fighter. What Edges would suit each of these, on…
-
Firing into Melee
Savage Worlds has very little to say on the subject of firing into melee. The only rule is the Innocent Bystander rule – if you roll a 1 (or a 1 or 2 when firing full-auto), you hit someone other than the target. With Bennies in play, this doesn’t happen very often, which means that…
-
Character “Same-y-Ness”
I like podcasts to make my commute more entertaining, and one of my favorites is the Secret Cabal Gaming podcast. On a recent episode of their Lords of the Dungeon RPG podcast, they talked about having become tired of Savage Worlds because a combat-optimized character was basically always the same. This is not an original criticism…
-
Third Rail Time – Shaken Rules
On a snowy Saturday afternoon in New England, I decided it was time to tackle one of those third rail rules topics – the revised Shaken rules. In the original printing of Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, a character could remove the Shaken condition either by spending a benny or making a Spirit roll on her…
-
Superfight – Round 2
Last night the Roll20 gang and I ran the first playtest of my forthcoming supers setting. As I thought might be the case, the No Power Points rule resulted in a lot of “squib” superpowers, with the players often invoking their abilities and failing completely to achieve anything. One idea I had to mitigate this…
-
Social Conflict in Savage Worlds vs. Real Life
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US, a traditional day for overeating, misremembering history, getting stuck at airports, and, of course, family arguments. Fortunately, Savage Worlds has a rule for social conflicts – how would this apply to a tense Thanksgiving dinner? Let’s say that Aunt Thelyria is a staunch supporter of Ugnar the Ruthless, while…
-
Design Note – Superpowers and No Power Points
For an upcoming setting, I’m looking at combining the core Savage Worlds super powers arcane background with the No Power Points setting rule. This has some pros and cons. One major advantage is the ability to maintain a power indefinitely – so a hero with the Speed power can keep running at his accelerated pace…
-
Eclipse Phase and Adaptations
Before embarking on my Savage Rifts campaign (my most recent in-person game), I ran a Savage Worlds conversion of Eclipse Phase. I fell in love with the world of Eclipse Phase, but the game system was a bit much for me – too much crunch and detail for my players to learn or for me to enjoy running.…