Savage Worlds: Deadlands-Reloaded. Initial impressions
Recently during a Dungeon Talk, Evan expressed the desire to try a different genre of Role-playing games. So far, he had only played D&D, though he had played 4e, 3.5 and currently the DnDNext play test packets. I’m pretty much a Fantasy game purist, I likes to kill me some goblins! But, if forced to pick a different game, I like superhero games next and then everything else is a far third. Evan wasn’t too keen on the superhero thing. We started discussing maybe doing a space opera game, a la Star Wars or the like. We didn’t make any hard choices, but left it in the air.
Thinking back over my gaming career I recalled a brief time in college when I had played the original Deadlands game. Although I will say, with great humility, that the GM (or Marshal) of that game didn’t do a very good job, I really liked the system. I can still recall that I played muck-raker journalist. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’d like to be writer someday, and the idea of being a character that was sort of a tag-along that wrote down and reported these crazy adventures appealed to me. I was going to write up a synopsis of each session for the Tombstone Epitaph. Alas, we only played the one or two sessions and that was that.
A few days later I found myself at my FLGS and low and behold I found that a new version of Deadlands had been released within the Savage Worlds game system. I bought the Marshal’s guide, the Player’s guide and the intro module Coffin Rock. Wasn’t till later that I realized that I needed the Savage World’s book as well. Amazon.com to the rescue and I got the Deluxe edition, the Deadlands GM Screen and another module: Murder on the Helstromme Express.
I read through the Deadlands books first and then went to the Savage World’s book. I’m really digging the system. It’s an easy system to grasp, but with lots of depth to explore. Despite its simplicity, it’s still quite different than what I’ve been playing so long that I was concerned that by lack of skill at the system might ruin the experience for the group (see above: that’s what happened to me), so I asked my group to come together for a pre play test, play test. This would essentially be a story free run-through of the various mechanics to help me figure out how to run the game and teach the players at the same time (none of the others in my group have ever played in Savage Worlds and/or read any of the books I bought).
Evan and Travis were not able to make it, so Niko, Jared, Rob and I meet last week and did our run through. Here’s a list of our take-away’s from the game.
- I’m not a fan of point buy systems in general. I like the randomness of rolling dice for creating characters. That being said, the 5 point system works well here. (I did find an alt-method on the internet where you draw cards. Will likely use that system instead).
- I currently suck at making characters. I have the Hero Lab application and pre-made a bunch of PC’s for them to try out of the course of the test. Most of them died multiple times during our run-throughs. Understanding how Toughness and Vigor play into survivability makes a huge difference. Have to balance offense/defense with the PC’s.
- Not sure I’m a fan of using cards for initiative. Maybe just fear of unknown, but it seems clunky right now. Also, being behind the GM screen makes it difficult to deal out. For the actual game I’m going to delegate that to a player, see if that helps.
- We don’t use minis at the moment. Savage Worlds is designed to use them. It’s not like we can’t make it work, but I’d like more info on how to convert. For example, using the Burst Templates has a rule for a random # of people affected. I’d rather you give me the dimensions and I’ll figure it out in game.
- We didn’t understand why you’d ever want to take a skill below your ability score when you just defaulted to your ability, but we figured that one out at the end. You don’t default; you roll d4-2 instead. – D&D rules are ingrained in my head.
- I’ve been using Hit Points my entire gaming career. The wound system is interesting and I think it makes sense with a mechanical effect for getting worse (despite loving D&D, I’m not a fan of HP in general), but we’re worried about a PC being Shaken and never being able to recover. A couple times a PC was Shaken, would become unshaken on his turn and then get Shaken again. Wasn’t much fun for that Player. But maybe the PC wasn’t designed well – See # 2
- A lot of the Savage Worlds book talks about using a lot of Extras and having the PC’s control allies. I’m not a fan of that. Not sure how it will affect the game, but I don’t like my Players to have to divide their attention that way. In a more tactical mini game it makes more sense, but from a role-playing standpoint it hurts, IMO. So no Extra’s for my guys.
- I liked the chase mechanics. That is something that happens in so many of my D&D games: the players walk into a room as the Assassin has just dispatched a valued NPC. He runs, the PC’s follow and boredom and tediousness ensues. I like having a rules mechanic to make the chase scene cinematic and exciting. In our test the PC’s were on horseback chasing down bad guys. The hexslinger killed all three bad guys on round 2 with Bolt. So, not too exciting, but I think we did some stuff wrong there. Or, possibly – see # 2.
- Rob is playing a Voodoo priest. As best I can tell, he uses the same rules a Miracle character but without the Power Points. This is confusing. Not sure how to handle things with various PP costs for things like extended duration. Does he just take a greater penalty on his roll? He also got very frustrated. Probably 3 out of 4 times his character did nothing because he missed his roll – see # 2.
- Lastly, I liked the interlude mechanic. I’ve done something similar in my games for a while now, called Story Time, but I like how this is codified. A certain suite means a certain type of story. I will definitely be up for bonus XP for a good tale.
Well, that’s it. We only played for a couple hours. I’m still reading and re-reading sections of the books so it’s very likely we did things wrong.
If you’ve thought about giving the system a try I would encourage it. If you’re a master at the system and want to tell me everything I’ve done wrong, feel free. I still need help running the system. Just be nice and include page numbers for reference.
Thanks!!
Michael
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