What’s Unique About Savage Worlds?

For their 50th episode (congrats guys!), The Wild Die podcast spoke with special guest Paris Conté about what makes Savage Worlds unique. It was good to hear a conversation about the “Savage identity,” especially on the heels of the Wild Die’s series about what we know of the upcoming new edition of Savage Worlds.

The guys had trouble finding a meaty answer though. Paris said his favorite part of Savage Worlds is that it’s narratively surprising: of all the systems he’s played, none of them are as good at handling player-driven story twists as Savage Worlds. Manuel Sambs said Savage Worlds is uniquely streamlined: between Setting Rules and Situational Rules, you can boil down things like computer hacking into just a few rolls.

Everyone agreed that Savage Worlds lends itself to thematic games: you can find tons of flavorful options for action cards, Bennies, and other table dressing without spending a ton of money. Likewise, they all mostly agreed that the Savage Worlds rulebook doesn’t tell you how to run your game. As Eric put it, Savage Worlds is not the most “newbie friendly” RPG. Paris agreed: he had to read the rules three times, listen to a slew of podcasts, and talk about the game with several people online before he saw the appeal. Talk about a barrier to entry!

I love Savage Worlds for what it is, but I think the community could get better about understanding it on those terms. Let’s take a look at what Savage Worlds is and what it is not.

The Popular View

Savage Worlds is built around the “Fast! Furious! Fun!” ethos. When it was first published in 2003, Savage Worlds was undoubtedly fast and furious compared to the other popular RPGs at the time, namely Dungeons & Dragons. Fans (myself included) have gravitated around this phrase, sometimes to the point where we don’t seem to be aware of the course the RPG world has taken in the past 15 years.

In 2009, Shane Hensley made the latest update to The Making of Savage Worlds, a document he created in 2004 for fans who were curious about his design process for the game. Here’s what Shane had to say in 2009, I think in reaction to the RPG world’s changed landscape:

“Suffice to say that Savage Worlds isn’t the be-all and end-all of roleplaying games… But at its core, it succeeded in what it set out to do—create a crunchy game that runs reasonably fast and requires very little work on behalf of the Game Master.”

Since 2009, we’ve seen games like Apocalypse World, Fiasco, and Index Card RPG take the RPG world by storm. We’ve seen small story games like The Quiet Year, Lasers & Feelings, and Swords Without Master explode in popularity. So how do we describe Savage Worlds in 2018?

What Savage Worlds Is Not

On the road to figuring out what something is, I think it’s helpful to talk about what it is not. Here’s what I’ve noticed after a few years playing Savage Worlds pretty much exclusively. And please keep in mind: I’m saying Savage Worlds is not these things when compared to other systems.

Savage Worlds is not beginner-friendly.

There’s a solid argument that Savage Worlds is less complex/more streamlined than Dungeons and Dragons. Still, a new player has to know what dice are assigned to which traits, they have to know their Edges and Hindrances, they have to know all the actions available to them in and out of combat, they have to remember Bennies are available for use, and on and on.

Dungeons and Dragons is certainly a bigger, more complex game, but it’s better at introducing new people insofar as it places all the rules mastery behind the gates of class, race, and level. A 1st-level Human Fighter is less complex than a 1st-level Elf Wizard, but both are way less complex than a 10th-level Fighter or Wizard. When you start to look at other games like Lasers & Feelings (which fits entirely on one page), it becomes clear that neither D&D nor Savage Worlds are worthy of the “easy for beginners” tagline.

Savage Worlds is not simple.

Part of what keeps Savage Worlds from being beginner-friendly is that it’s not a simple game. Shane Hensley made it clear in 2009 that Savage Worlds is intended to be a crunchy game, and the RPG world has found many new levels of simplicity in the nine years since then. It’s already tough for new players to remember all the options available to them, and what we know of Savage Worlds Black is that we’ll have new skills and new status effects among all the other updates. Even by its own standards, Savage Worlds is becoming less simple and streamlined than it was.

Savage Worlds is not low-prep.

One of the most common selling points I hear about Savage Worlds is that it’s “easier” on the GM. Easier than what? As we’ve seen so far, D&D is always the point of comparison when it comes to RPGs in general and Savage Worlds specifically. Savage Worlds certainly takes less prep than D&D, but for a typical session a GM still needs to read an adventure, integrate it into their campaign, study the associated stat blocks, factor in the Hindrances and backstories of the PCs, plus additional prep if you use the minis and terrain Savage Worlds was designed for. If I used to spend an hour prepping a 3-hour D&D session, I still spend 30-40 minutes prepping my Savage Worlds games. Even with other crunchy games like Blades in the Dark, I find it’s not just that I can handle all my prep in 15 minutes, but I actually can’t spend any more time than that. The nature of the game’s storytelling prevents me from preparing more than is absolutely necessary.

Savage Worlds is not narratively empowering.

Bennies are the part of Savage Worlds people point to when they talk about player freedom. “Don’t like a roll? Spend a Benny and reroll it!” I love being able to choose whether I want to try a bad roll again, but the Benny mechanic is not the ideal of player empowerment because the GM is in charge of doling them out. As far as the core rules are concerned, players can’t ask to receive a Benny. The Benny economy is at the mercy of a GM’s presence of mind in the midst of the action (you know, when they’re most likely to be distracted). There are other systems (even older systems, like Fate) which are better about placing narrative control in the hands of the player.

What Savage Worlds Is

I honestly love Savage Worlds. All the negative description above is not an expression of hate. It’s just an honest perspective in the context of the wider RPG community. I laid it out to clear away some of what’s accumulated around Savage Worlds over the years. Now, let’s talk positively about what Savage Worlds is.

Savage Worlds is action-oriented.

Part of what it means for Savage Worlds to be “furious” is that you’re never really clear of danger in this game. Savage Worlds isn’t about hit point attrition, and the exploding dice means you could get really screwed really quickly. Even with non-violent mechanics like Social Conflict, you’ve got to work pretty hard to get the best possible outcome. Danger is always just around the corner in Savage Worlds, and that’s exciting.

Also, I think the common understanding is that the “fast” in F!F!F! means the game rules resolve quickly. That’s not wrong—individual mechanics usually involve no more than a couple rolls at a time—but another way to think of Savage Worlds as “fast” is that it moves quickly over a campaign. When you Advance every 5xp and accumulate 2-3xp every session, your character grows and changes faster than in a lot of Savage Worlds’ early 2000s contemporaries. This is its own kind of action-packed gameplay.

Savage Worlds is surprising.

Because danger lurks within every exploding die, Savage Worlds is a very surprising game. There are more responsive narrative engines at this point—Plot Point Campaigns are basically just a bunch of smaller railroads you can jump between at will—but even when the adventure is set in stone, the dice can throw some serious curveballs. Within the rest of the traditional RPG framework of Savage Worlds, exploding dice are a great way to stir things up.

Savage Worlds is tactically empowering.

An effective counter for the deadly surprises around every Savage corner is the sheer volume of tactical options available to players. It’s shotgun blast of rules that makes the game a little unfriendly to beginners, but wow does it level the playing field for everyone at the table! In the galaxy of tactical RPGs, Savage Worlds packs a ton of options into a relatively streamlined and simple package. For my money, there’s no beating that combination if that’s what you’re looking for.

Savage Worlds is universal.

The RPG universe is trending away from all-purpose systems these days. Anyone can create a game and send it out to the whole world, so we’re seeing a lot of small, focused systems that explore just a couple things in detail. On the other hand, Savage Worlds is pretty great at accommodating almost any genre you could imagine. The mechanical pieces are easy to hack, Trappings make it easy to add flavor without changing the mechanics, and the presence of Setting Rules makes it easy to dial things like lethality and tactical options up or down as desired. At this point, I think the only real competitor with Savage Worlds in regards to hackability is Fate, and because it’s a narrative system it really doesn’t do anything to challenge Savage Worlds’ tactical prowess.

So There It Is

I’m not an expert, but this is a summary of what I think Savage Worlds does well, and what I think the community misunderstands about Savage Worlds when talking about it with other people. The easy ideas and buzzwords surrounding this game were accurate 15 years ago, but now we should rethink what’s special about this great game we enjoy. In summary:

Savage Worlds may not be simple or easy for beginners, but it’s action-packed, surprising, and hackable in a way very few of its counterparts can challenge.