Review of Savage Worlds Deluxe, Part 1

Dear JourneymanGM!

I am confused about the new Deluxe edition, and want to know if I should or need to upgrade from my Explorer’s Edition. Would you be able to give us a blog post with the low down on what the changes are, less from a technical and more from a practical perspective? How does the game change from the player’s and/or GM’s perspective with the new rules? Or is there an excellent resource that already covers this?

Surprisingly, the guy is scantily clad while the girl is dressed modestly.

Lindevi over at the RPG blog Triple Crit sent me this comment requesting that I write up a description of the new Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition and how it differs from the Explorer’s Edition. I’m always willing to take requests for blog topics so I’ll happily oblige!

First off, I’ll make it clear that this isn’t so much an upgrade from the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, but truly is a Deluxe Edition. There are some minor changes to the rules, but by and large, it consists of new content to supplement the rules you already have. You can still use settings and book supplements with either version and can mix them freely at the gaming trable. Also, Pinnacle, ever supportive of their fans, is releasing free PDF updates of a lot of the additional content and rules changes on their Downloads page, so you can still get all of the goodness without feeling like you’re being forced into ponying up the extra money.

But still, having all the cool stuff in one book with new art is great and there are a lot of clarifications and such that you won’t get from the PDFs. So here’s a big lowdown of the differences:

Format

The Explorer’s Edition is a paperback 6.5″ x 9″ book and costs a mere $10 (heck yeah!). The Deluxe Edition is a hardback 11″ x 8.8″ book that costs $30. The latter has a completely new layout. Whereas the Explorer’s Edition only had artwork previously seen in their other settings, Deluxe Edition also has some original artwork. My favorite is some great pictures of crusaders charging into battle. There’s also full page advertisements for some of their settings, including a great Deadlands picture of a red-eyed gunslinger at night.

Rules Changes

There’s a nice fan-made list of rules changes at this forum topic and Pinnacle has released the complete text of the updated rules for Damage and Healing for free. These streamline the rules and make them more fast, furious, and fun. I’d also like to point out that Leadership Edges are a whole lot more useful since they now work on other Wild Cards in the party. They’ve also officially axed the Guts skill, but have a note saying that it’s still used in horror settings and specifically mentions Deadlands as an example. All in all, I’m perfectly happy with the rules that are added, and while I was happy before them, I’m glad to have them now.

Clarifications and Notes

The extended combat example even has a picture.

Pinnacle decided that with a Deluxe Edition, they could afford to include more pages with more examples. There’s an extended, detailed description of combat to help people get used to how it works and clarify misunderstandings with Shaken and other situations. Also of great use is a number of “Design Notes” where the people at Pinnacle explain why certain mechanics work the way that they do. It’s a lot of interesting stuff that better explains the game, and if you want that, it may be reason enough to buy Savage Worlds Deluxe. I imagine it could also be very useful for a new player who is still trying to get used to the rules of Savage Worlds.

Additions

There aren’t any new Skills or Hindrances, but there are about twenty new Edges. Most of them are designed for melee characters and martial artists, making them a more interesting character type. There are a few new general purpose Edges, my favorite of which is Liquid Courage (down 8 oz of alcohol and get a bonus to Vigor plus ignore one wound level).

It’s worth noting that there’s also an Edge called Elan which is a bit overpowered because it adds +2 to all benny rolls, including Soak rolls. It was clarified on the Pinnacle forums that this also applied to the initial Soak roll. In order to make it a bit more balanced, I just houserule that the +2 bonus only applies if you reroll your initial Soak roll.

Ten new races are now available in addition to Human, ranging from Android to Elves and Atlanteans to Saurians. Each have their own racial benefits and drawbacks. In addition, there’s rules for creating your own races by picking and choosing from a large list of benefits and drawbacks. If you’re playing a fantasy or sci-fi game, these are invaluable.

This awesome picture was in SWEX, but sadly didn't make it into SWDX

We’ve also got two pages of “Archetypes,” which are partially-made 0 XP characters of a certain profession. So you want to make a Rogue, but don’t have time to stat it? Take the “Rogue” archetype, give him some Hindrances, buy some gear, and you’re good to go. This also works great for a GM who suddenly needs stats for that NPC the players decided to kill.

Arcane Backgrounds will be happy to know that there are new powers like Blind, Confusion, Disguise, Intangibility, Mind Reading, and Summon Ally. There’s also rules for adding specific elemental effects to your magical powers. For instance, you get mechanical benefits if you use the Cold/Ice trapping with attacking and buffing powers. They also tweaked the powers to make them more balanced (namely Bolt because now you can do multiple bolts OR extra damage, but not both). All in all, I think some good additions were made.

Also included is a new section on setting rules, describing different optional rules and what settings you might want to apply them to. For instance, there’s a rule called “Heroes Never Die,” which works well for a Pulp game and “Gritty Damage” that works well for a more lethal game. As a GM, I like making sure that the rules fit the setting of the game that I want to run and I think it’s a great idea to provide rules that you would use sometimes, but not all of the time.

To Be Continued…

There’s a lot to talk about, so stay tuned next week for Part 2 of this review! I’ll be giving a detailed description of each of the new subsystems included, provide a review of the five new one-sheet adventures, and give my final thoughts on what value the book as a whole adds for a GM, Player, and Savage fanboy.

The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild

This semester, I’ve been playing in a weekly campaign in Middle Earth using The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild, a new role-playing game from Cubicle 7. It’s set in the northern parts of Middle Earth after the events of The Hobbit and allows you to play Dwarves, Wood Elves, Men from the Mirkwood areas, and Hobbits. Cubicle 7 is planning to release future sets that move the timeline closer to the War of the Ring while also moving geographically closer to Mordor.

The game comes in a box set containing two books (one for “adventurers” and one for “loremasters”), two maps of the region, and a set of six d6s and one modified d12. The d12 has the numbers 1-10 and an “Eye of Sauron” symbol for a critical failure as well as a “Gandalf Rune” for a critical success (a normal d12 can be used too with an 11 being the Eye and a 12 being the Rune). The basic mechanic is to roll a number of dice equal to your skill level and roll the modified d12 along with it, adding up the total and trying to reach a target number.

Both books are in beautiful full color with a lot of original art that generally matches the style and appearance from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (as opposed to some of the illustrations in the books printed prior to the movies’ release). It really does a good job of capturing the feel of Middle Earth and helping to get everyone excited about playing in the setting.

Character stats are derived from three aspects: their race, their background (i.e. their race-specific upbringing and reason for adventuring), and their calling (i.e. their profession as an adventurer). Each race has six backgrounds and there are a total of six callings, although it wouldn’t be that hard to create your own. One of the players in our group created a custom calling that they called a “Shadowhunter.” My character was a Hobbit named Drogo Brownlock who was a Bucklander and felt called to be a Treasure Hunter. I kind of saw him as a burglar like Bilbo, but he was actually good at his job.

Another aspect of characters is their Wisdom and Valor stats. Each is used to resist the influence of evil, with Wisdom helping against corruption and Valor helping against fear. But they are also an indicator of how much the character has grown personally during the adventure. With each point of Wisdom, the character gains a special ability (similar to a D&D feat) to mark how they have learned special talents. Nothing special there.

Valor really impressed me. When you increase it, your character gains some sort of special or magical item, either as plunder or given as a gift. At first, that may sound a bit strange, but it fits well with the Tolkien theme. When Bilbo tried burgling from the fearsome stone trolls, he likely upped his Valor stat afterwards and consequently he found Sting in the plunder. The Fellowship visited Lothlorien and, because they increased their Valor stats after going through the Mines of Moria and faced all sorts of fear, they were given gifts from the Elves. It’s a mechanic that may be a bit strange at first, but it really does help fit with the theme and make those special items truly special.

Gameplay is divided into two phases, the Adventuring Phase and the Fellowship Phase. The Adventuring Phase is much like you would find in any fantasy role-playing game. You decide to go on a quest, you fight, you save the day. The Fellowship Phase represents an intermediate time where character development is taking place. This may be taking a journey to visit someone, making a return visit to your homeland, spending your treasure, or establishing a safe haven (a.k.a. freeloading off of Elrond’s house). Stat advancements are purchased during this time, so it also represents taking time to train skills or to receive gifts (like the aforementioned Elven gifts). Each player is required to share (preferably as a short story) what their character is doing during that time. All this is probably more suited for long term campaigns rather than one-shot adventures, but it really does support the storytelling and character development common in Tolkien’s works.

Combat is rather simple with characters either being in either a Forward, Open, Defensive, or Rearward battle stance. In the Forward stance, they are more likely to go first and have a lower target number to hit their enemy, but also have a lower target number to be hit. The remaining stances raise the target number to hit the enemy, but also raise the target number to be hit. Ranged attacks are only allowed from the Rearward stance, but a character can only be in a Rearward stance if two or more characters are in the close combat stances. Characters hit by normal attacks lose Endurance, which may cause them to be wearied or too tired to fight effectively. If a piercing blow is delivered, the hero is wounded (and if already wounded, they are dead). Although it may seem rather lethal, it encourages players to run if things are looking bad. Tolkien never felt the need to give much detail to battles (the chapter on the Battle of Helm’s Deep is incredibly short) and this system enables these sorts of fights to take place quickly and easily while still maintaining the overall feel.

The biggest problem I have with The One Ring is that the books are poorly organized. For instance, our group were playing a premade scenario and were told to make a “Corruption Test.” It wasn’t listed in the index and we couldn’t find any reference to it in the chapter on Adventuring Mechanics. Turns out that it was buried in the chapter describing Character Advancement under the section about Wisdom (where you wouldn’t think to look if you don’t know the two are related). Similarly, it took us a long while to figure out how attacking and damage worked in combat because it was vaguely written and in a strange place in the book. It’s not impossible to find what you’re looking for and there isn’t anything missing, but it shouldn’t be this hard to figure it all out.

There’s also some weird quirks in the system. My Hobbit had the “Cooking” speciality meaning that I knew how to cook and didn’t need to make any die rolls for it. However it also says that the action of cooking is handled by the Craft skill, which I was untrained in. We joked that this meant Drogo could cook at leisure, but if he ever had time pressure or had to make it really good, he would panic and forget everything he knew.

Also since every roll includes the modified d12 and a Rune symbol is an automatic critical success, it means that one in every 12 times the character can accomplish whatever they try to do. It’s cinematic, but can get a little ridiculous at times. One of our players tried to jokingly cheat this by rolling his untrained Search skill and saying, “I’m looking around for the secret ruins that nobody has seen in a hundred years. Do I see them?” and rolled, hoping for an automatic success.

Although it does some things poorly, The One Ring does does a lot of things very well and includes a lot of unique mechanics that help evoke the feel of the Tolkien setting. I’m enjoying playing it and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a game system for playing in Middle Earth.

Predictions About a New Star Wars RPG

First off, I apologize for the delay in posting. Now that university is in full swing, I’ve had less time to write for this blog. In the future, you can expect at least one post each week (which may be standardized to a certain day of the week). Thanks for reading and sorry about the delay!

Earlier in the summer, Fantasy Flight Games announced that they had purchased the license to Star Wars card, role-playing, and miniatures games. Furthermore, they already had two games in the works: X-wing, a tactical minis game, and Star Wars: The Card Game, a cooperative card game. No word yet on a role-playing game.

First off, I have to say that I’m really intrigued by this announcement. I’m a huge Star Wars fan ever since I was a kid and saw the Special Edition of A New Hope in theaters with my dad. I’ve bought my share of the figures and Legos, played some of the board games, played most of the computer games, tried the trading card game, read many of the books (got Heir to the Empire signed by Timothy Zahn at Origins!), and even got a chance to talk to the guy who played Chewbacca (also at Origins a few years ago). Fun fact: according to him, Chewbacca didn’t get a medal for destroying the Death Star because Carrie Fisher wasn’t tall enough to give him one.

I have no doubt that they will eventually create a new Star Wars RPG, but I’m wondering a bit about what it will look like and I’ve been wanting to speculate about that on my blog. So far, Fantasy Flight Games has published the Warhammer 40k Roleplay line (consisting of Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Death Watch, and Black Crusade), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition, and a few other minor role-playing games. They are all fairly generic RPGs with a percentile systems and self-contained books, except for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. That one actually comes in a box set with color character sheets, several decks of cards for things like combat maneuvers, standup cardboard character figures, lots of little tokens and chips, and even a special set of dice. It’s all very beautiful and it’s nifty, but it’s also a bit expensive at nearly $100 (although one box gives everything that an entire group needs to have to play).

My prediction is that Fantasy Flight Games will make their Star Wars RPG similar to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition (henceforth abbreviated as WFRP3). Here are my predictions about what the final Star Wars RPG will look like when  it is released.

• It will have similar production quality to WFRP3. There will be color cards and lots of new art depicting exciting things in the Star Wars universe.
• It will come in a box set like WFRP3. This will have the added draw of encouraging Star Wars fans to try a role-playing game if it’s all self contained like a board game.
• It will have fewer cards for combat maneuvers than WFRP3 (which included things like Shield Bash, Twin Shot, etc.). That’s less important in Star Wars where you’re just interested in shooting your blaster at the Stormtrooper or swinging your lightsaber.
• There will however still be cards for basic combat maneuvers. There will be cards for things like shooting, brawling, dodging, and other basic things.
• Jedi will definitely have combat cards. Things like lightsaber blaster bolt deflection, force powers, and other things will have cards to help players more easily keep track of things.
• It will use a career system like WFRP3. In that system, your character could transition from a thug to a tomb raider to a soldier. This fits for Star Wars where we have a farm boy turn into a pilot who then turns into a Jedi.

A career system like this would work out rather well for Star Wars. This Thug could easily be a Bounty Hunter, for instance.

• It will be set in the Galactic Civil War era. It’s the most recognizable era and it’s the same era that their two upcoming board games will be released in. I believe further supplements will allow for play in other eras with The Old Republic being the first era released (to coincide with the MMO coming out) and the Clone Wars being the next one since the TV show is still going on.
• It will have special dice. The WFRP3 dice provide a unique way of describing the battle (e.g. he thrusts his sword and hits twice, but is fatigued by the effort). I think that would help work for the cinematic nature of Star Wars. It will be a different system of dice than the WFRP3 dice, but I predict that we will have something special like that.
• The box set will be priced at $60. I estimate this since I’m guessing there will be about as many components as Arkham Horror, a very elaborate board game that is priced at $59.95. Thus the role-playing game will be within the price point of the same people who buy their elaborate board games. Moreover, it will be less than WFRP3 because Warhammer fans are already spending a lot on armies and such, but a lower price point will be needed to pull in casual Star Wars fans.

Anyway, that’s my predictions for a Star Wars RPG from Fantasy Flight Games. When that does get released, I’d like to revisit these and see what things I predicted correctly. All in all, I’m eagerly awaiting it and I’m cautiously optimistic that they will do a good job with it.

Why Essentials Has Made Me Excited About D&D Again

Since I’ve talked a lot about Origins and Savage Worlds lately, I figured I would change it up a bit and talk about something else.

I’ve been burnt out on Dungeons & Dragons for a long time. Like many gamers, it was my first role-playing game (my first campaign was a 4th Edition game that started in the Fall of 2008). But over time, I just got really burnt out on it for a number of reasons, which I may go into more detail at some point.

But during one of my Half Price Books runs, I was surprised to find Heroes of the Fallen Lands, a Dungeons & Dragons Essentials book that has character information for creating Clerics, Fighters, Rogues, and Wizards. For those who don’t know, Dungeons & Dragons Essentials is a repackaged, slightly simplified version of Dungeons and Dragons 4e. It’s also fully compatible with all the stuff published with regular Dungeons & Dragons 4e. Since the book was in good condition and half price, I joyfully picked it up. When I got home, I started reading it.

And you know what? I was actually excited about D&D again!

Why? Good question. First, I think a lot of it comes down to the psychological power of new packaging. I had grown to despise 4e in the form it was. Seeing something new, even if it had almost all the same rules as standard 4e, made it seem like it was a new product making a fresh start. I think that alone made me interested in trying it. I’ve even heard stories of people who scorned 4e when it came out but are happily embracing Essentials (much to the confusion of everybody who realizes they’re pretty much the same). All in all, new packaging seems to have been able to get rid of the preconceived notions people had. Good job, Wizards!

The first few pages succinctly explain what a role-playing game is and the most basic rules of D&D (even listing the “most important rule” and the other “two basic rules” that pretty much sum up how to play). I also liked how it said upfront how to do the most common combat maneuvers. For instance, Opportunity Attacks are described on Page 27, rather than being stuffed near the back of the book like in the original PHB. This whole section impressed me and I really felt a new player would be able to read it and get a good grasp on what this Dungeons & Dragons stuff was really about. Making it simple for newbies is a win in my book, even if I’m no longer a newbie.

Speaking of simplicity, I happened to like how at some levels the classes are just given a predetermined ability, making things much simpler and more consistent. At other levels, they are given a small list of powers to choose from. One of my big complaints about standard 4e was that there was so much splat (and the Character Builder was pretty much required if you wanted to use things beyond the PHB). Consequently, players tended to focus on their power cards and not on the story. This new system addressed that issue in a way I like and, at least during my cursory glance at the powers, there didn’t seem to be any must-haves or real stinkers. Perhaps someone who liked the crunch would be less happy with this, but to each their own.

In my mind, less is more, and this applies not only to powers, but also to gear. There are only three kinds of magic weapons: Magic, Defensive, and Vicious. Perhaps a tad limiting, but I happen to like the simple nature of it. And for what it’s worth, there are now 3 good magic items and 0 useless magic items. A very good ratio considering that in standard 4e the good stuff to useless stuff ratio was pretty poor.

The book as a whole was really well laid out. I think that a new player could read the book sequentially and not have to flip back at any point. Feats are organized by theme, like “Divine Devotion” and “Learning and Lore” which give a better idea of what a certain type of character might want to take. Essentials also takes great pains to ensure that you don’t miss any steps. Say you’re making a Rogue. There are large, 48 point headers saying what you get at each level. At Level 3 for instance, it says that you gain an extra use of your backstab ability and at Level 4, you gain the +1 Attribute bonus (which all classes get, but they want to make sure you don’t miss it). Simple, yet effective. Even the Character Sheet in the back of the book was much better laid out, and I truly felt I could fill it in by hand (having made nearly all of my previous 4e characters with the offline DDI Character Builder).

And at the end of the book, they have not only an index, but a glossary! So when you need to know what the “Deafened” status effect does (because really, who remembers?), you can look in the glossary and quickly find that a creature who is deafened takes a -10 penalty to Perception checks. I’m not sure it can get any simpler than that.

I haven’t played Dungeons & Dragons Essentials yet and I’m sure that it still has many of the flaws I’m accustomed to with 4e. But I’m amazed that a new cover, a reduction of content, and a more intuitive layout has made me excited to play D&D 4e again. I guess it goes to show that maybe RPG companies should spend a little bit more time thinking about the presentation and organization of their book and get more player feedback from both veterans and newbies.

The Joy of Savage Worlds

I should probably get this out pretty soon: I love all sorts of game systems, but there is one that I consistently turn back to: Savage Worlds. It’s certainly the game system that I’ve spent the most money on and I am constantly amazed by its simplicity and expandability.

One of my favorite game systems, for good reason

One of the great things about Savage Worlds is that it isn’t tied to one sort of genre. Instead, it can be used for anything, from Pulp to Sci-fi, Fantasy to Supers, Westerns to Cyberpunk. Generally it favors cinematic action and it tagline is that the system is “Fast! Furious! Fun!” Personally, I’ve run it with pulp, pirates, zombies, Stargate SG-1, Deadlands (a western/horror setting), and Necessary Evil (a supers setting). In fact, there are only a handful of settings that I think wouldn’t work for Savage Worlds (someday I’ll write about that).

Pinnacle Entertainment Group calls Savage Worlds a “core system” rather than a universal system. The idea is that anybody running Savage Worlds will need a copy of the core rulebook. The current version is the Savage Worlds: Explorer’s Edition, although Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition should be coming out in the coming months, which has more explanations of the rules and a few minor changes.

The biggest strength is that combat works well and is fast. Initiative is done by dealing out playing cards each round and going from high to low. Combatants are generally divided into “Extras” (the generic mooks who are there to be cannon fodder) and “Wild Cards” (the people who are important enough to have a name). All the players are Wild Cards, as are the big villains, and they are more competent than the Extras. Combat also scales well for many combatants: I’ve had characters raid a Home Depot with 30 zombies without it bogging down badly.

SG-1 weapons like the Jaffa Staff Weapon were a cinch to add to Savage Worlds

Many officially published scenarios or settings add new setting rules, gear, Edges, or Hindrances to better express the setting, but additional material from one setting is usually not intended to be combined with another. Most of the time though, the core stuff is good enough. For the Stargate SG-1 conversion I wrote, I only added 2 new edges and 2 new races. The rest was already sufficiently covered in the rules. The only thing I really needed to do was create the gear, which took me about an hour to stat out all the weapons and gear from SG-1 and Atlantis!

One of the greatest things about Savage Worlds is that it not only covers standard combat, but also includes rules for magic, vehicles, chase scenes, and even mass battles. Rather than having a rule for everything, its intention is to create enough rules to provide a strong groundwork that is fairly realistic and relying on the GMs to handle the rest. The rules are streamlined to allow for quick and easy gameplay.

At the risk of sounding like a salesman, I’m going to point out that the best thing about Savage Worlds is probably its value: Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition is a mere $9.99! An entire system, able to cover most settings, and containing rules for combat, magic, vehicles, chases, and mass battles, all for less than a meal at Applebees! I’ll admit that the price was the thing that hooked me first. And at that price, why not give it a try?

Savage Worlds isn’t perfect (another blog post topic for another day), and I don’t think that it’s the “system to rule them all.” But it does what it plans to do very well. I use it a lot and plan to talk about my experiences with it frequently here on this blog.