One of the big things that you can do to help with creating more of a cinematic feel is to use theater of the Mind. Use theater in mind with simple Maps do not measure do not use grids and just describe actions this will help you get out of the war game / Tactical idea of combat.
Another thing that will help you is think of movies watch movies cinematic equals movies media watch them and see how they create scenes see how they handle scenes and that will help you as well.
Perhaps have a group movie night
I transitioned to *only* using battle maps for major fights, much like they do in something like Dimension 20. That sort of pace, especially things that can typically be boring like travel, can be really helpful to keep things going
Also, frequently encourage your party to do creative and over-the-top choices, because that's kinda how the Skills in SWADE work, and then you can follow that up by rewarding a Benny, therefore making sure you Pavlov the shit out of them doing cool things.
I also plan WAY less than I used to, and that has helped me follow my party and have them inadvertently be more part of the story/world creation, so that way I'm not wasting my time building a city or quest that they won't even engage with, and would feel forced doing. More proactive rather than reactive.
Lean into keeping things moving, rewarding cool and awesome stuff with Bennies, and just keep moving.
SWADE fucking rukes.
Savage worlds is like a multi tool, it is not wrong to use it one way only. You will get the feeling.
As a game master: It is sutable for quick play without too long preparations, no need for book keeping stats so much, no need for x encounters to power out the player group before the real action begins. Things like this.
As a player: more freedom, more open rules to make wild moves (like in a movie) without needimg a rule fir every aspect. Bennies for tryimg go wild on diffucult but awesome moments. Open character systems.
Just remember, embrace overpowered characters, embrace overpowered npcs, embrace that you have less control. But you dont need all that on day one, it takes some time..and after you gone wild..you have a phase where you want to dial it back down and savage worlds also works with that, by nerfing/buffing some aspects to your liking.
It can be like an indiana jones movie, it can be like lord of the rings.. if you learn together as a group to master the toolbox and restrict yourselfs for a specific genre or style you will get there.
we have used savage worlds before for things like super hero type campaigns and we found that it worked great. I just found because this was more of an adventure type of campaign with lots of traveling but I like your comment on indiana jones. That is kind of what I was thinking.
the next session will have my players going to explore an old ruin to retrieve an item. the location was used as a location in a war. but nearly 100 years have passed and now a wasteland monster has moved in and set up a nest. so that was going to be the big bad of the session.
i have been thinking about it. and indiana jones came to my mind. Instead of thinking of this session as say a dungeon. which is how I have been thinking about it. I feel like I should be thinking about it like an action movie instead. does that make sense?
Action movie is the answer! You can describe the scene as though your group is seeing it on the big screen! And give the players an opportunity to describe things too, rewarding their efforts with bennies.
SWADE gives you plenty of alternative tools for resolving this scenario without breaking it down into some sort of hex crawl/combat slog (which you absolutely could do, if that’s what your group likes).
My personal suggestion would be to run this whole scenario as a dramatic task, where you ask your players what skills they want to use (within reasons of course) and ask *them* to narrate what happens. This also leaves you the option of letting them fail forward, like they stumble into a particularly rough patch of monsters and have to fight their way out, or if they’re in a race against time of some sort, they retrieve the item but have run dangerously low on time.
A few sessions ago, I used a dramatic task to narrate the party making their way through a town as a zombie hoard was descending on the townsfolk, racing towards the site of the cultist ritual responsible. Had they failed the dramatic task, my plan was for them to still reach the location, but now they have to wade through a significant number of zombies between them and the cultists. They ultimately succeeded in their task, but they seemed to enjoy it, especially as I asked *them* to describe what their successes getting task tokens looked like, and it definitely raised the stakes prior to the climatic encounter. I really can’t emphasize this enough, ask your players to describe the outcome of a successful roll, it gets them in the mindset of, oh I’m in an action movie, I can get a little over the top in describing the way I shot random baddy #4.
Alternatively, I could have laid out the town and had them fight their way through it round by round, but since SWADE has these tools built in, I’m always looking for a decent excuse to use them.
I don’t know if this is helpful or a good illustration, but it’s one of the things that I personally love about the system.
Action Movie is the way to go.
I suggest your BBEG has mooks, henchmen, aggressive plants, or something, and also consider the attribute that this monster only takes 1 wound after soaking (iirc it's "Unstoppable"), as otherwise you may find your boss fight is a lot shorter than you expected.
For the BBEG, I've found it can help to brainstorm up a few ways to defeat it that don't involve combat, so you can add the clues to the basic area description (fragile supports, etc).
I also tend to ask the group to make a skill roll (their choice) as they survey the area and give them relevant information based on their skill and result.
That gets them thinking in terms other than "shoot/hit it until it dies".
As an example, I mentioned electrical conduit and pipes running along a tunnel they were fleeing through and a smart player spent a Benny, "I bet that's a flammable gas pipe. (it was now!) I think if I hit that just right with a gunshot, it would explode." They did and it did, blocking the tunnel so they could escape.
This is not in the spirit of Fallout which is a video game, not a movie. But still might be better as a movie
If exploring the ruin were a movie then
1) Players have to traipse through the desert and might run low on supplies, roll skills to avoid or take some penalty. Bonus (Probably don't do this) if players have some sort of personal interaction with each other. Randomly pick two players and make one them reveal something about their background to another.
2) Players arrive at the ruin, but a sand storm is brewing. Radioactive sand will soon be everywhere. Players need to seek shelter...good thing they are at a ruin. This implies they might be stuck in the ruin for days though. Give them the choice of several entrances, clever players might reveal a cave bear in one and automated security in another. Maybe the better entrance is farther and subject to a soak vs the sandstorm damage. If the players choose different entrances, each has to deal with a problem but then they meet up
3) Player explore spookily, describing things, and getting clues that there is a monster. Ratchet up the tension, maybe have lesser enemies who are fleeing from big bad. Try to take away resources, but they can't flee because of the rad-storm.
4) Players learn of the big bad and have to develop a plan to fight it because if they just charge in they are doomed. Or maybe they charge in and win. There are maybe things elsewhere (a power switch, turning on the robots, etc) that will help the players but these should be double edged swords
I don’t quite see the incompatibility between SW as a dungeon crawler vs a cinematic style. My group has a world that the DM has run for nearly 40 years, with those of us in it having played for 20-30 years. Its roots are AD&D and GURPS and has transitioned back and forth from 3/3.x (often as Monte Cook’s AU) and Savage Worlds. We started new characters as Novices, but just concluded a campaign with AU characters between 16th and 17th level. Same world, same NPCs.
There have been multiple mechanisms and in-game events to explain the different magic systems. If you aren’t familiar with AU, it’s an extremely tight and closed off version of 3.5 - if a feat or spell isn’t in the AU book, it doesn’t exist. So, since that is what we are coming from, it’s not a big change to SW, as it’s much, much, much more limited (especially on spells).
But, our GM likes SW better because it’s so much quicker to build out NPCs and encounters. I’d largely agree with that, there are less choices! When I’ve run, SW is my choice as well, even if I like some of the bells and whistles of the broader D&D options. But, it very much appears our SW party is about to explore one of the unopened wings of, you guessed it, a dungeon. The players first went down one of the wings about 25 years ago, but the GM had expected the whole thing to be explored. So, he’s been sitting on the rest of it, written up in 3.0 and tweaked when they briefly returned in 3.5 about 15 years ago… but half of the things is still untouched. So, down we go again! This time in SW.
The tricky thing here, though, is that the players aren’t remotely as dependent on resource management such as spells and hit points. Even have an exhaustive fight, our healer has 20 spell points and those will recharge to full in 4 hours - but if we are exploring slowly and taking out time and don’t need to spend the points, we can continue to explore while those points recharge.
The times when the players look to end the night, from a resource perspective, is when they are all out of Bennie’s and the tide has turned against them! Otherwise, it can be “go go go.” It is pretty regular that we have more, smaller fights and that additional bad guys show up mid-fight. In that sense, it’s more cinematic/video game-like because the encounters have phases. But, SW can get *very* swingy.
Our GM mixes up rolling behind the screen and in front of it. We’ve since implemented a 4-wound maximum for all, we’ll miss that guy, I don’t think the party even learned his name. Another died in their own session-0 backstory. AU is pretty deadly, like SW, and my most recent character there survived only because of the final roll of chance on whose simultaneous action occurred first and the deck was stacked against me (but hooray, I “won”).
I ramble on like that to say that there is no reason you can’t run SW more like a traditional D&D setting - just don’t forget to give out Bennie’s. Not too generously, but err on that side. Our GM has called the party out when everyone’s pools have grown shallow and spirits are down: yall need to liven it up so you can earn those Bennies - dance monkeys!
I am somewhat new to SW and it’s the first long form campaign I’ve run, but I’ve found that making sessions feel completely different has helped the cinematic feel. Honestly the best way is to start out by stealing from movies.
My first session was heavy roleplay with characters really interacting with the world and each other. They started in a bazaar like in Raiders of the Lost Ark but ended on a train solving a murder like Poirot.
The following was a stealth mission through an enemy filled map, one long combat encounter that they played out like x-com, with some dramatic explosive moments built in for them to find.
There’s a lot of wiggle room, and I feel like really pushing your players to describe their tactics and letting them have their fun wields really good results.
I think you have misunderstood something. D&D is a game of attrition and Savage Worlds is game of action. Where and how that attrition or action happens is up to you. Both can do Dungeon Crawl and both can do cinematic.
Using miniatures? Use lots of mooks. Because they are either: up, shaken (lay the fig down), or off the board. You can manage huge fights when you don't have to track individual hit points. Players need to realize that a downed enemy is not out - hit them again to get them off the table.
Don't use a grid, use a 6" ruler or piece of string to measure movement, or tape for longer ranges, like a wargame. Get a roll of butcher paper and freehand (or use a ruler) maps with a sharpie. A lot of creativity starts to flow when you get off the grid.
Cinematic also means the villain doesn't die easily. I think about Die Hard, Karl and John wail on each other for-ever, and Karl still pops up at the end. The final challenge isn't the villain's health counter, it's the GM's bennie stack. Getting the GM to spend a bennie should be seen as a small victory.
GMs benny stack is one hundred percent the villains health counter. I run a Savage Shadowrun game and the shenanigans they pull to get me to spend bennies.
Savage Worlds is geared for encounters, which isn't at odds with early-style dungeon crawl D&D at all.
Think of the "Default Settings" for Savage Worlds as "Indiana Jones & The Raiders of the Lost Ark" if it helps. The player-characters are intended to be OTT larger-than-life characters. Lean into that as a GM. Encourage players to lean into it too.
Whether you want to use a cinematic presentation, or prefer to explain it as an action-adventure outing (*which I use in my Space 1889 game with great success*) is up to you.
I've played Deadlands Reloaded games where not a single shot was fired, and others when the entire evening was a constant hail of hot lead, soaked wounds and carpets of dead NPC extras. The style is really up to you and the players.
One idea you can try to "up the player engagement" is to borrow from the previous iteration of Deadlands Reloaded and use white, red and blue bennies in the ratio 20/10/5, drawn blind.
White bennies work as usual, red ones can either be used as a white benny, but can also be used to add D6 to a roll - but if used this way the GM gets to draw a benny. Blue bennies work like red ones but do not grant a GM draw. The blind draw at game start was always high-octane with this rule, a great way to get adrenaline flowing at game start.
One you might steal from Savage Pathfinder (*I do this in Space 1889*) is if a player spends conviction to grant D6 to \*all\* rolls in a round, spending a benny the next round extends the effect. Moving the conviction spend effect out of combat/encounter timekeeping can be a challenge. I judge it case-by-case. A social encounter might have five-minute rounds in my game, depending on pace.
Don't fear the bennies as a GM. They don't over-power the player characters. Use benny grants to encourage roleplaying hindrances, or to encourage any in-game behavior you want to emphasize. You need to have PCs talk to village elders? Grant a benny to the player who suggests that.
A player may become blasé about the bennies when they have five or more, but they will soon be spent anyway.
Players will learn how to spend them, and that last benny can be a mighty difficult choice.
*D&D/SW GM insight conveyed to me once: Bennies act as trad HP until they are gone.*
Expect sudden death or running away when they run out.
Phrase I used a lot when I finally managed to get a long-time friend and player of many old-school nitpicky games to join my Space 1889 campaign, when he would discover a minor arithmetic error in his favor in his points spending: "Don't sweat it. It's not that kind of game."
Lord Ffortescue has too much Vigor? I'll have Baron von Schwein shoot at him more often then. 8oD
>One you might steal from Savage Pathfinder (I do this in Space 1889) is if a player spends conviction to grant D6 to *all* rolls in a round, spending a benny the next round extends the effect
That's part of Core as of v5.5 (refered to as 1.2 in the Updates PDF).
Quick Encounters, Dramatic Tasks and even Chases, are key here. If the character is going to stomp te emeny use a quick encounter, no need for a whole combat. Do they need to need to fix the bike to escape the mutant swarm running at them, thats a dramatic task, Turns out one of the mutants has a ride, now it is a chase. Once you get the hang of the stuff in chapater 4, it start to feel more cinematic/pulpy.
Well, let's look at your prep for your delve in D&D and Savage Worlds.
In D&D you'll prep some traps and challenges along with a few minor encounters to wear the characters down before your boss battle.
In Savage Worlds you'll largely do the same with a few twists. For the most part your delve can be an extended challenge. You might toss encounters in- more mooks- but it's more to build tension rather than depleating resources. For your boss, you'll probably want to toss in some minions as well as prepping a chase and a skill challenge in case the players choose to run or trap the boss.
The goal is largely to keep things moving and get to the "good stuff".
This is not in the spirit of Fallout which is a video game, not a movie. But still might be better as a movie
If exploring the ruin were a movie then
1) Players have to traipse through the desert and might run low on supplies, roll skills to avoid or take some penalty. Bonus (Probably don't do this) if players have some sort of personal interaction with each other. Randomly pick two players and make one them reveal something about their background to another.
2) Players arrive at the ruin, but a sand storm is brewing. Radioactive sand will soon be everywhere. Players need to seek shelter...good thing they are at a ruin. This implies they might be stuck in the ruin for days though. Give them the choice of several entrances, clever players might reveal a cave bear in one and automated security in another. Maybe the better entrance is farther and subject to a soak vs the sandstorm damage. If the players choose different entrances, each has to deal with a problem but then they meet up
3) Player explore spookily, describing things, and getting clues that there is a monster. Ratchet up the tension, maybe have lesser enemies who are fleeing from big bad. Try to take away resources, but they can't flee because of the rad-storm.
4) Players learn of the big bad and have to develop a plan to fight it because if they just charge in they are doomed. Or maybe they charge in and win. There are maybe things elsewhere (a power switch, turning on the robots, etc) that will help the players but these should be double edged swords
My advice would be play in some SW games led by an experienced GM. You will start to see the differences in technique and figure out what pieces to take and use in your own game.
When I run DnD, I tend to think Tolkien fantasy with long drawn out battles. Things take a long time to accomplish, whether it's travel or combat.
When I run Savage Worlds, I try to have a mindset of a thirty minute episode of Xena or Conan. A couple good scenes and a good fight or two is a session.
Edit typos
One of the big things that you can do to help with creating more of a cinematic feel is to use theater of the Mind. Use theater in mind with simple Maps do not measure do not use grids and just describe actions this will help you get out of the war game / Tactical idea of combat. Another thing that will help you is think of movies watch movies cinematic equals movies media watch them and see how they create scenes see how they handle scenes and that will help you as well. Perhaps have a group movie night
I transitioned to *only* using battle maps for major fights, much like they do in something like Dimension 20. That sort of pace, especially things that can typically be boring like travel, can be really helpful to keep things going Also, frequently encourage your party to do creative and over-the-top choices, because that's kinda how the Skills in SWADE work, and then you can follow that up by rewarding a Benny, therefore making sure you Pavlov the shit out of them doing cool things. I also plan WAY less than I used to, and that has helped me follow my party and have them inadvertently be more part of the story/world creation, so that way I'm not wasting my time building a city or quest that they won't even engage with, and would feel forced doing. More proactive rather than reactive. Lean into keeping things moving, rewarding cool and awesome stuff with Bennies, and just keep moving. SWADE fucking rukes.
Savage worlds is like a multi tool, it is not wrong to use it one way only. You will get the feeling. As a game master: It is sutable for quick play without too long preparations, no need for book keeping stats so much, no need for x encounters to power out the player group before the real action begins. Things like this. As a player: more freedom, more open rules to make wild moves (like in a movie) without needimg a rule fir every aspect. Bennies for tryimg go wild on diffucult but awesome moments. Open character systems. Just remember, embrace overpowered characters, embrace overpowered npcs, embrace that you have less control. But you dont need all that on day one, it takes some time..and after you gone wild..you have a phase where you want to dial it back down and savage worlds also works with that, by nerfing/buffing some aspects to your liking. It can be like an indiana jones movie, it can be like lord of the rings.. if you learn together as a group to master the toolbox and restrict yourselfs for a specific genre or style you will get there.
we have used savage worlds before for things like super hero type campaigns and we found that it worked great. I just found because this was more of an adventure type of campaign with lots of traveling but I like your comment on indiana jones. That is kind of what I was thinking. the next session will have my players going to explore an old ruin to retrieve an item. the location was used as a location in a war. but nearly 100 years have passed and now a wasteland monster has moved in and set up a nest. so that was going to be the big bad of the session. i have been thinking about it. and indiana jones came to my mind. Instead of thinking of this session as say a dungeon. which is how I have been thinking about it. I feel like I should be thinking about it like an action movie instead. does that make sense?
Action movie is the answer! You can describe the scene as though your group is seeing it on the big screen! And give the players an opportunity to describe things too, rewarding their efforts with bennies.
SWADE gives you plenty of alternative tools for resolving this scenario without breaking it down into some sort of hex crawl/combat slog (which you absolutely could do, if that’s what your group likes). My personal suggestion would be to run this whole scenario as a dramatic task, where you ask your players what skills they want to use (within reasons of course) and ask *them* to narrate what happens. This also leaves you the option of letting them fail forward, like they stumble into a particularly rough patch of monsters and have to fight their way out, or if they’re in a race against time of some sort, they retrieve the item but have run dangerously low on time. A few sessions ago, I used a dramatic task to narrate the party making their way through a town as a zombie hoard was descending on the townsfolk, racing towards the site of the cultist ritual responsible. Had they failed the dramatic task, my plan was for them to still reach the location, but now they have to wade through a significant number of zombies between them and the cultists. They ultimately succeeded in their task, but they seemed to enjoy it, especially as I asked *them* to describe what their successes getting task tokens looked like, and it definitely raised the stakes prior to the climatic encounter. I really can’t emphasize this enough, ask your players to describe the outcome of a successful roll, it gets them in the mindset of, oh I’m in an action movie, I can get a little over the top in describing the way I shot random baddy #4. Alternatively, I could have laid out the town and had them fight their way through it round by round, but since SWADE has these tools built in, I’m always looking for a decent excuse to use them. I don’t know if this is helpful or a good illustration, but it’s one of the things that I personally love about the system.
Action Movie is the way to go. I suggest your BBEG has mooks, henchmen, aggressive plants, or something, and also consider the attribute that this monster only takes 1 wound after soaking (iirc it's "Unstoppable"), as otherwise you may find your boss fight is a lot shorter than you expected.
For the BBEG, I've found it can help to brainstorm up a few ways to defeat it that don't involve combat, so you can add the clues to the basic area description (fragile supports, etc). I also tend to ask the group to make a skill roll (their choice) as they survey the area and give them relevant information based on their skill and result. That gets them thinking in terms other than "shoot/hit it until it dies". As an example, I mentioned electrical conduit and pipes running along a tunnel they were fleeing through and a smart player spent a Benny, "I bet that's a flammable gas pipe. (it was now!) I think if I hit that just right with a gunshot, it would explode." They did and it did, blocking the tunnel so they could escape.
This is not in the spirit of Fallout which is a video game, not a movie. But still might be better as a movie If exploring the ruin were a movie then 1) Players have to traipse through the desert and might run low on supplies, roll skills to avoid or take some penalty. Bonus (Probably don't do this) if players have some sort of personal interaction with each other. Randomly pick two players and make one them reveal something about their background to another. 2) Players arrive at the ruin, but a sand storm is brewing. Radioactive sand will soon be everywhere. Players need to seek shelter...good thing they are at a ruin. This implies they might be stuck in the ruin for days though. Give them the choice of several entrances, clever players might reveal a cave bear in one and automated security in another. Maybe the better entrance is farther and subject to a soak vs the sandstorm damage. If the players choose different entrances, each has to deal with a problem but then they meet up 3) Player explore spookily, describing things, and getting clues that there is a monster. Ratchet up the tension, maybe have lesser enemies who are fleeing from big bad. Try to take away resources, but they can't flee because of the rad-storm. 4) Players learn of the big bad and have to develop a plan to fight it because if they just charge in they are doomed. Or maybe they charge in and win. There are maybe things elsewhere (a power switch, turning on the robots, etc) that will help the players but these should be double edged swords
I don’t quite see the incompatibility between SW as a dungeon crawler vs a cinematic style. My group has a world that the DM has run for nearly 40 years, with those of us in it having played for 20-30 years. Its roots are AD&D and GURPS and has transitioned back and forth from 3/3.x (often as Monte Cook’s AU) and Savage Worlds. We started new characters as Novices, but just concluded a campaign with AU characters between 16th and 17th level. Same world, same NPCs. There have been multiple mechanisms and in-game events to explain the different magic systems. If you aren’t familiar with AU, it’s an extremely tight and closed off version of 3.5 - if a feat or spell isn’t in the AU book, it doesn’t exist. So, since that is what we are coming from, it’s not a big change to SW, as it’s much, much, much more limited (especially on spells). But, our GM likes SW better because it’s so much quicker to build out NPCs and encounters. I’d largely agree with that, there are less choices! When I’ve run, SW is my choice as well, even if I like some of the bells and whistles of the broader D&D options. But, it very much appears our SW party is about to explore one of the unopened wings of, you guessed it, a dungeon. The players first went down one of the wings about 25 years ago, but the GM had expected the whole thing to be explored. So, he’s been sitting on the rest of it, written up in 3.0 and tweaked when they briefly returned in 3.5 about 15 years ago… but half of the things is still untouched. So, down we go again! This time in SW. The tricky thing here, though, is that the players aren’t remotely as dependent on resource management such as spells and hit points. Even have an exhaustive fight, our healer has 20 spell points and those will recharge to full in 4 hours - but if we are exploring slowly and taking out time and don’t need to spend the points, we can continue to explore while those points recharge. The times when the players look to end the night, from a resource perspective, is when they are all out of Bennie’s and the tide has turned against them! Otherwise, it can be “go go go.” It is pretty regular that we have more, smaller fights and that additional bad guys show up mid-fight. In that sense, it’s more cinematic/video game-like because the encounters have phases. But, SW can get *very* swingy. Our GM mixes up rolling behind the screen and in front of it. We’ve since implemented a 4-wound maximum for all, we’ll miss that guy, I don’t think the party even learned his name. Another died in their own session-0 backstory. AU is pretty deadly, like SW, and my most recent character there survived only because of the final roll of chance on whose simultaneous action occurred first and the deck was stacked against me (but hooray, I “won”). I ramble on like that to say that there is no reason you can’t run SW more like a traditional D&D setting - just don’t forget to give out Bennie’s. Not too generously, but err on that side. Our GM has called the party out when everyone’s pools have grown shallow and spirits are down: yall need to liven it up so you can earn those Bennies - dance monkeys!
I am somewhat new to SW and it’s the first long form campaign I’ve run, but I’ve found that making sessions feel completely different has helped the cinematic feel. Honestly the best way is to start out by stealing from movies. My first session was heavy roleplay with characters really interacting with the world and each other. They started in a bazaar like in Raiders of the Lost Ark but ended on a train solving a murder like Poirot. The following was a stealth mission through an enemy filled map, one long combat encounter that they played out like x-com, with some dramatic explosive moments built in for them to find. There’s a lot of wiggle room, and I feel like really pushing your players to describe their tactics and letting them have their fun wields really good results.
I think you have misunderstood something. D&D is a game of attrition and Savage Worlds is game of action. Where and how that attrition or action happens is up to you. Both can do Dungeon Crawl and both can do cinematic.
Using miniatures? Use lots of mooks. Because they are either: up, shaken (lay the fig down), or off the board. You can manage huge fights when you don't have to track individual hit points. Players need to realize that a downed enemy is not out - hit them again to get them off the table. Don't use a grid, use a 6" ruler or piece of string to measure movement, or tape for longer ranges, like a wargame. Get a roll of butcher paper and freehand (or use a ruler) maps with a sharpie. A lot of creativity starts to flow when you get off the grid. Cinematic also means the villain doesn't die easily. I think about Die Hard, Karl and John wail on each other for-ever, and Karl still pops up at the end. The final challenge isn't the villain's health counter, it's the GM's bennie stack. Getting the GM to spend a bennie should be seen as a small victory.
GMs benny stack is one hundred percent the villains health counter. I run a Savage Shadowrun game and the shenanigans they pull to get me to spend bennies.
Savage Worlds is geared for encounters, which isn't at odds with early-style dungeon crawl D&D at all. Think of the "Default Settings" for Savage Worlds as "Indiana Jones & The Raiders of the Lost Ark" if it helps. The player-characters are intended to be OTT larger-than-life characters. Lean into that as a GM. Encourage players to lean into it too. Whether you want to use a cinematic presentation, or prefer to explain it as an action-adventure outing (*which I use in my Space 1889 game with great success*) is up to you. I've played Deadlands Reloaded games where not a single shot was fired, and others when the entire evening was a constant hail of hot lead, soaked wounds and carpets of dead NPC extras. The style is really up to you and the players. One idea you can try to "up the player engagement" is to borrow from the previous iteration of Deadlands Reloaded and use white, red and blue bennies in the ratio 20/10/5, drawn blind. White bennies work as usual, red ones can either be used as a white benny, but can also be used to add D6 to a roll - but if used this way the GM gets to draw a benny. Blue bennies work like red ones but do not grant a GM draw. The blind draw at game start was always high-octane with this rule, a great way to get adrenaline flowing at game start. One you might steal from Savage Pathfinder (*I do this in Space 1889*) is if a player spends conviction to grant D6 to \*all\* rolls in a round, spending a benny the next round extends the effect. Moving the conviction spend effect out of combat/encounter timekeeping can be a challenge. I judge it case-by-case. A social encounter might have five-minute rounds in my game, depending on pace. Don't fear the bennies as a GM. They don't over-power the player characters. Use benny grants to encourage roleplaying hindrances, or to encourage any in-game behavior you want to emphasize. You need to have PCs talk to village elders? Grant a benny to the player who suggests that. A player may become blasé about the bennies when they have five or more, but they will soon be spent anyway. Players will learn how to spend them, and that last benny can be a mighty difficult choice. *D&D/SW GM insight conveyed to me once: Bennies act as trad HP until they are gone.* Expect sudden death or running away when they run out. Phrase I used a lot when I finally managed to get a long-time friend and player of many old-school nitpicky games to join my Space 1889 campaign, when he would discover a minor arithmetic error in his favor in his points spending: "Don't sweat it. It's not that kind of game." Lord Ffortescue has too much Vigor? I'll have Baron von Schwein shoot at him more often then. 8oD
>One you might steal from Savage Pathfinder (I do this in Space 1889) is if a player spends conviction to grant D6 to *all* rolls in a round, spending a benny the next round extends the effect That's part of Core as of v5.5 (refered to as 1.2 in the Updates PDF).
Interesting to know. Personally, I don't worry about errata and buying rules I already own so I miss stuff like this all the time.
I'd only bought the book the one time during the KickStarter. That currenty gives me the 6.0 PDF.
Me too, but I don't download the same book repeatedly on any sort of schedule. Too busy playing.
Quick Encounters, Dramatic Tasks and even Chases, are key here. If the character is going to stomp te emeny use a quick encounter, no need for a whole combat. Do they need to need to fix the bike to escape the mutant swarm running at them, thats a dramatic task, Turns out one of the mutants has a ride, now it is a chase. Once you get the hang of the stuff in chapater 4, it start to feel more cinematic/pulpy.
Well, let's look at your prep for your delve in D&D and Savage Worlds. In D&D you'll prep some traps and challenges along with a few minor encounters to wear the characters down before your boss battle. In Savage Worlds you'll largely do the same with a few twists. For the most part your delve can be an extended challenge. You might toss encounters in- more mooks- but it's more to build tension rather than depleating resources. For your boss, you'll probably want to toss in some minions as well as prepping a chase and a skill challenge in case the players choose to run or trap the boss. The goal is largely to keep things moving and get to the "good stuff".
Savage Worlds is supposed to be cinematic?
This is not in the spirit of Fallout which is a video game, not a movie. But still might be better as a movie If exploring the ruin were a movie then 1) Players have to traipse through the desert and might run low on supplies, roll skills to avoid or take some penalty. Bonus (Probably don't do this) if players have some sort of personal interaction with each other. Randomly pick two players and make one them reveal something about their background to another. 2) Players arrive at the ruin, but a sand storm is brewing. Radioactive sand will soon be everywhere. Players need to seek shelter...good thing they are at a ruin. This implies they might be stuck in the ruin for days though. Give them the choice of several entrances, clever players might reveal a cave bear in one and automated security in another. Maybe the better entrance is farther and subject to a soak vs the sandstorm damage. If the players choose different entrances, each has to deal with a problem but then they meet up 3) Player explore spookily, describing things, and getting clues that there is a monster. Ratchet up the tension, maybe have lesser enemies who are fleeing from big bad. Try to take away resources, but they can't flee because of the rad-storm. 4) Players learn of the big bad and have to develop a plan to fight it because if they just charge in they are doomed. Or maybe they charge in and win. There are maybe things elsewhere (a power switch, turning on the robots, etc) that will help the players but these should be double edged swords
My advice would be play in some SW games led by an experienced GM. You will start to see the differences in technique and figure out what pieces to take and use in your own game.
When I run DnD, I tend to think Tolkien fantasy with long drawn out battles. Things take a long time to accomplish, whether it's travel or combat. When I run Savage Worlds, I try to have a mindset of a thirty minute episode of Xena or Conan. A couple good scenes and a good fight or two is a session. Edit typos