riff
Initiate Douchebag
Let me check my notes....
Posts: 36
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Post by riff on Jun 25, 2012 20:30:10 GMT -8
I'm going to revamp a game I played/ran in high school. I blame the Sliders-ish game mentioned in Episode 8.2. See my real first "group" did one of these too. We used a real odd take on Champions, but it worked at the time. I'm thinking a new style to a new group, why not a new game system too... only one issue, I'm just as new as they will be to Savage Worlds... kinda. I bought Savage Worlds Deluxe before I left Houston, about 7 months ago, and have read it cover to cover maybe twice. I get the jist of the system, but was wondering if there is anything that was a little less intuitive, or even just plain wish someone had told you before your first session. So any advise in general?
Also my biggest "fear" is character gen. For decently heroic characters where would you start them out? On average how many skills should a character have?
Thanks all for talking to me. Wish us luck!!
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HyveMynd
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Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
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Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 25, 2012 23:27:35 GMT -8
This may be my own personal experience and preference speaking here, but I get the impression that Savage Worlds doesn't do high-level play well. I think I remember JiB saying something along the same lines somewhere in the back-log. I couldn't tell you where though, so you'll have to find it on your own. With the exploding dice in Savage Worlds it can be really hard to judge a character's capabilities. When we played our fantasy game, we started with the standard rules (5 points for stats, 15 points for skills, 1 free Edge, and the option of 2 Minor and/or 1 Major Hinderance) and then gave our PCs 6 Advances (which is 30 XP). We were trying to make characters that would be the equivalent of Level 11 D&D 4e characters. Some of the group thought this was too weak, of which I was one. But the GM was specifically going for an epic-level game. Are you going for a street-level game or an epic one? If it's the former then standard characters with 1 or maybe 2 Advances would be appropriate. The latter and you might want to give the PCs 4, 5, or even 6 Advances to start with. This may just be me, but I think that a "heroic" game is more the tone of the game and the actions the PCs take rather than how high their stats are. Good luck.
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Post by shadrack on Jun 26, 2012 6:43:04 GMT -8
The thing it took the longest for me to get past in Savage Worlds was the wounds when shaken issue.
If you remember that you can only inflict at most as many wounds as raises you got over the WC's toughness you'll be fine.
Since you are all starting off as noobs to Savage Worlds, might I suggest that you maybe do a very rapid advancement instead of starting out uber tough?
Maybe for the first 5 sessions you give an advance each session. Or if you game for a long time, allow 20 minutes for a mid-session advance (1 per fight/social encounter, perhaps). I think that would give you and your party time to become familiar with the system and see what stuff they might actually use, as opposed to, "that looks cool, and that, and that..."
This would also let you see how well the characters are doing and let you judge if they are 'heroic' enough for your main plot. I personally think halfway through seasoned (30 xp) would be pretty boss. Actually just starting out at Seasoned is pretty boss too. I was in an Aliens game and we started as seasoned, felt pretty cool, a point-man/sniper with quick and alertness... pretty cool.
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Post by HourEleven on Jun 26, 2012 7:20:31 GMT -8
Whenever I start a new campaign with a new system; one that's unfamiliar to me and the players, I like the first session to go like this:
Write a quick (1 hour tops) session with pregen characters you made. The session should consist of a few basic skill checks and 1 good sized combat.
After this, you should all feel comfortable with the system. Once the quick session is done, your characters should have a pretty good understanding of how the attributes work and should feel comfortable making a character for the real campaign.
(I'm a big fan making a tiny prequel, or little side story of the real campaign - if there was some epic battle in the history/lore of the world you made, let them play it out).
Then you can start the real campaign next session without the stumble-through part of educating the players and you know the players were able to make character that use the system to express what they are supposed to be (I always hate when I can tell my players didn't understand the system well enough, and there is mechanical parts of their characters that they regret).
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riff
Initiate Douchebag
Let me check my notes....
Posts: 36
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Post by riff on Jun 26, 2012 8:11:25 GMT -8
Since I know none of them come here I'll tell of my plan...
First, I have HeroLab for Mutants and Masterminds, so I used demo mode on Savage Worlds last night and made a fistfull of 25 exp seasoned characters from a ton of genres and styles. This was both a thought exercise on how to make characters, and giving me a stable of, what feel to me, heroic powered characters.
For session 1 the plan is use the seasoned pre-gens to introduce the setting/plot thing. Give all the players a seasoned character from different tech levels/eras in time, have a chaotic summoned into a battle field intro combat. After that a little investigation, maybe a small scrap, then dimension hopping Mcguffin and "boss" fight with special environment. This is set and planned a little railroady, almost like a con game. The idea is a taste of the system and wet the appetite of the players. If they enjoy it properly we'll do joint character gen from the ground floor, and pick up the campaign from either the group finding the Mcguffin, or the Mcguffin bringing the group together depending on how char-gen goes.
I like the idea of a mildly quicker advancement until 50-60 exp, kinda the crazy messed up thing forged a hero... but to be AWEsome takes time.
I appreciate the advice I've gotten so far. Oh, by the way, a few fights of "3 orcs vs 1 fighter" and "5 orcs vs 1 fighter & 1 archer" really helped get the combat groove down better.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2012 8:50:43 GMT -8
Good luck, riff! I wrote the letter about the "Red Shift" campaign with all the dimension-shifting... and if I did something similar again, I'd probably want to use Savage Worlds. Let us know how it goes!
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Post by jazzisblues on Jul 4, 2012 10:17:30 GMT -8
I've never found Savage Worlds to be a problem for higher "level" games with more power. Basically it is a point buy system so level is a rather nebulous concept. The only concern I would have with starting out at a high level of play is that it gives less room for the characters to grow, and it somewhat denies the players that sensation of being totally out of their depth.
Most of the convention games I run in Savage Worlds are with seasoned or higher level characters, but when I'm running a campaign I start them out with 5xp (one advance).
I hope the game goes well, looking forward to hearing about it.
JiB
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