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Author Topic: Use Savage Worlds instead of D&D for your fantasy Lose/Gain Compare/Contrast  (Read 5132 times)

tenbones

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I'll approach this from a different direction...

What does classic D&D do that Savage Worlds doesn't do implicitly?

By the mechanics of being a Class Based game D&D limits your progression options into a specialized role. This doesn't mean you can't do this in Savage Worlds, but because SW leave your progression relatively open (via Edges and Skills) without a GM to expressly impose the assumptions of their setting on the players, D&D does it artificially with classes. Couple this with their XP system the hang-time for each character in that progression ascent is usually a lot longer. You gain in smaller more incremental ways in D&D and that gives players the "build-up" factor of looking forward to hitting "milestone" levels where certain abilities are attained.

In Savage Worlds you *can* emulate this... but nothing in the game tells GM's to do this directly. Due to the fact that XP gains are VERY tiny... "leveling up" (they call it Advancing). When you Advance, you purchase Edges, Stats, Skills. When you Advance 5-times you reach a new Rank. The primary difference here is that an Advance is generally MUCH more powerful than a singular level-increase in D&D.

Advances to new Ranks are more condensed. Achieving Seasoned Rank (the second Rank) is Four Advances. So new SW GM's have to determine how/when a PC deserves to gain an Advance. This puts a lot of control on the GM's shoulders and it means that they have to learn to pace things accordingly (and set expectations). You can draw it out as long as you want and achieve the same effects that D&D has built in - or not. But Advancing in SW is *beefy*, and it tends to really impact your character mechanically so it feels good, like hitting 5th level as an arcane caster in D&D... Except in SW, every advance is almost like that or better.

Tyberious Funk

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I've never played SW, but I've GM'ed it a bit... one-shots and a few short campaigns.  D&D, I've played extensively and GM'ed a fair bit... but mostly in in Basic and 2e, with a little bit of 3e.  Never 4e/5e though.

Mechanically, they are pretty different.  There are a few token similarities, although it kinda depends on which edition of D&D you are comparing against.  Obviously, D&D is a class and level based system.  SW has levels, and it kinda emulates classes through Professional Edges -- which are basically a mini-package of abilities, sometimes offset with some disadvantages.  It's not exactly the same, but does allow players to create 'archetypes' if that's their thing.  Races are kinda similar to Professional Edges -- they are a package of abilities, typically offset with some disadvantages.  Edges, though, are generally akin to 3e feats.  Because skills are fairly flat and there isn't a huge skill list, characters can end up (mechanically speaking) being fairly similar and Edges can be a pretty important differentiator.  If you are suffering PTSD from D&D 3E and all the splatbooks with new Feats, then SW might bring back some uncomfortable memories.

IMHO, the really big difference though, is between the feel of the systems.  A typical SW character starts out pretty competent, whereas a D&D character (at least, from the earlier editions) is typically pretty weak.  But herein lies the real issue... because IMHO, everyone's D&D experiences are different.  I played Basic D&D in the late 80s and we (theoretically) played the rules as written.  In practice, though, the DM regularly fudged dice rolls and threw us softball encounters because otherwise, we would have been TPK'd on numerous occasions.  And we used max HP for the first few levels.  The old-school rules could be tough and the first few levels could be a real grind.  But then again, I knew of a few groups that started at 3rd level and regularly found magic items and consumables... so I dare say their experiences were pretty different to mine.

I suspect the appeal of SW to D&D grognards is that it's "rules medium", with reasonably solid, tactical combat.  It doesn't put a huge emphasis on social skills and non-combat actions, but has just enough rules to cover them.  This means that good roleplayers can fill in the blanks themselves, and good rollplayers can just get on with rolling dice.  You're generally not going to be confronted with anything warm-and-fuzzy in the game, like more modern, indie games offer.  It's also pretty hackable, so if the swashbuckling style doesn't suit you, there are more than a few ways to make the game more gritty.  If classic D&D means to you, things like equipment lists with rope, lanterns and a 10 foot pole, and tracking encumbrance... you can definitely do this in SW.

For a fantasy game, it's magic system is pretty boring, and doesn't emulate D&D at all.  But I'm basing this off the core rules... there might be some flavorsome magic systems in some of the 3rd-party supplements.  But I like my fantasy settings to be pretty low-magic, so it's never really bothered me.
 

Slipshot762

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Magic in classic D&D always seems to destroy the medieval world in quite a hurry if used straight as written. I'd bet almost any other system does magic better in that regard. If used straight you quickly find no one would need armies, just mages and clerics, there would be no nobility that are not spellcasters, even castles and fortresses would be obsolete unless mages are involved in the construction to make them immune to transmute rock to mud or teleport or whatever. I'm not familiar with savage worlds, i've never played it, but i would almost guarantee it does D&D better than D&D can especially with regard to magic.

TJS

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Quote from: Slipshot762;1135782
Magic in classic D&D always seems to destroy the medieval world in quite a hurry if used straight as written. I'd bet almost any other system does magic better in that regard. If used straight you quickly find no one would need armies, just mages and clerics, there would be no nobility that are not spellcasters, even castles and fortresses would be obsolete unless mages are involved in the construction to make them immune to transmute rock to mud or teleport or whatever. I'm not familiar with savage worlds, i've never played it, but i would almost guarantee it does D&D better than D&D can especially with regard to magic.

The issue is that a log of the magical effects in Savage Worlds are basically D&D style magical effects.

It really needs a good supplement that gives alternative and more flavourful approaches to magic.

Rhedyn
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I prefer Savage Worlds for fantasy over D&D, but man is it always a problem when people play or run Savage Worlds as though it was D&D with D&D troupes. People have already mentioned that overspecializing is bad in Savage Worlds. So is planning out "your build" (which you have to do in 3.X or even 5e). Organic growth is optimal in Savage Worlds because you cover weaknesses and gain strengths as they come up. It was eye opening watching a caster play and how they didn't take extra power points until deep into Veteran because they weren't running out of power points until then. All theorycraft would suggest that Extra Power points is mandatory, but it actually depend on what powers you have and how you are using them.

The other side is GMs throwing single big monsters in empty rooms against the party. In Savage Worlds, always ask yourself "would this look good on TV or in a Movie", if the answer is "No" then you need to change it up. WotC D&D just kind of expects the BBEG to be in a featureless room and everyone smashing their class features on it until it is dead. That's why you own all those books. In Savage Worlds that's boring because people would just be plinking away until the big explosion happens and hoping for the best. You need terrain, stakes, and potentially enemy extras to keep things exciting.

The only downside for Savage Worlds in a more OSR set up is that your players are going to expect combat. The average Savage Worlds PC is an action hero and it's real hard to inspire the same terror filled creative problem solving that a D&D PC with single digit HP can have.

Lurkndog

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Overspecializing is generally bad in any system that allows it. You end up with a character who is a god in his area of specialization, typically a form of combat, but awkward at best outside of that. Such a character tends to flounder if the situation isn't in their wheelhouse. But when the situation IS in their wheelhouse, they tend to break the adventure. And it is hard for the rest of the party to stay on the same page with them.

My own experience is that it is a lot more fun to play the fifth best pilot in the universe, if it means you can do other things well.

Rhedyn
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Quote from: Lurkndog;1135889
Overspecializing is generally bad in any system that allows it. You end up with a character who is a god in his area of specialization, typically a form of combat, but awkward at best outside of that. Such a character tends to flounder if the situation isn't in their wheelhouse. But when the situation IS in their wheelhouse, they tend to break the adventure. And it is hard for the rest of the party to stay on the same page with them.

My own experience is that it is a lot more fun to play the fifth best pilot in the universe, if it means you can do other things well.

D&D3.5/Pathfinder allowed you to "overspecialize" in casting spells, which was better than anything else. Some casting "overspecialized" in Summoning/Binding and had the unfortunate problem of endless minions doing their bidding and their character being responsible for the most damage, utility, HP soak, and even healing. Meanwhile generalist builds in that game were just trash most of time.

asron819

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Savage Worlds also has some top quality Lankhmar supplements

Tyberious Funk

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Quote from: Slipshot762;1135782
Magic in classic D&D always seems to destroy the medieval world in quite a hurry if used straight as written. I'd bet almost any other system does magic better in that regard. If used straight you quickly find no one would need armies, just mages and clerics, there would be no nobility that are not spellcasters, even castles and fortresses would be obsolete unless mages are involved in the construction to make them immune to transmute rock to mud or teleport or whatever. I'm not familiar with savage worlds, i've never played it, but i would almost guarantee it does D&D better than D&D can especially with regard to magic.


I know about a gazillion people play D&D and love it, including playing magic-users... but IMHO, the magic system is horribly broken.  Or maybe "problematic" is a better term.  Mages are such "boom or bust" characters.  They typically spend their first few levels being horribly weak and pretty boring.  Once they gain a few levels, they're a little more fun to play... and then they start to gain access to earth-shattering, reality-altering spells and your game starts to go pear-shaped.  Even at first level, you get a spell like Sleep which, which either doesn't work, or completely turns the tide of an encounter in your favour.  But since your first level mage can only cast one sleep spell, they can really only contribute to one encounter in the game.  Unless your party mage wants to take a risk and put their 4 hit points on the line by entering into the fray.

I know a lot of people would hack their games to make magic a bit more workable.  And I think this had a huge impact on the different experiences of old-school players... which is why I say that whether SW can replicate D&D kinda depends on what type of D&D are you referring to.  I understand that more modern versions of D&D have tried to address this, by basically incorporating some of the hacks that were already going around.
 

tenbones

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But that's just it... Magic in the game should be contextual to the setting. Savage World's Core just plops out the magic system out there. That doesn't necessarily mean that it the system is supposed to be expressed as such without context.

Most of the fantasy settings in Savage Worlds do modify the core magic system to fit the conceits of their world. Shaintar for example is *very* much trying to do "D&D" fantasy, and its rules modifications for magic is a large departure from the standard core and scales a lot higher. Whereas Beasts and Barbarians, is very much Sword&Sorcery and magic is more restricted.

Savage Worlds does not play like D&D as a system, it does do "D&D style Fantasy" very well. But it is more high-octane (the competent character at the start). And it's a lot more flexible. Flexible systems requires a stronger GM hand in keeping the hyper-specialization problems down by enforcing the conceits of the setting overtly.

If you're allowing everyone to Advance in anything they want without requiring roleplaying-based justifications - yeah you're going to end up with players doing all kinds of crazy things. GM Adjudication goes with the title.

Orphan81

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Savage Worlds is much more "Lord of the Rings", "Conan", and "BraveHeart" than it is D&D... The best example being while you can Dungeon Crawl in Savage Worlds, it's not playing to the systems strengths. Fantasy Savage Worlds is about going on great quests, fighting with armies against one another, seiging castles, and other such things. You don't need the holy Trinity, and it's very important you flavor the Spell system to fit the conceits of your world..

You *CAN* do Classic style Dungeon Crawling, and any D&D world fits well into Savage Worlds with ease... but for Example... Ebberon works so much better in Savage Worlds than it does in D&D... So does DarkSun. Forgotten Realms is fine, but if you want the Dungeon Crawling and exploring the Underdark survival style D&D probably scratches that itch much better.

Resource management, tougher fights, making sure you rest properly, spell management, all of that is more evocative in D&D.

Swashbuckling, lots of hirelings, Armies clashing, Living in the fantasy world, Exploration, and not needing to sweat things like 10 foot rods... is where Savage Worlds shines more.
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tenbones

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I'll grant you that.

But that's because "D&D Fantasy" is its own genre, like "High Fantasy" or "Sword and Sorcery" is.