Savage Worlds Adventure Edition

A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Savage Worlds Adventure Edition

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition by Shane Lacy Hensley is a role playing game published by Pinnacle Entertainment and is the core book for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $9.99. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale, and has 212 pages. Two pages are the front and rear covers, two are blank, two the front matter, one the Contents and three the Index.

Any Time, Any Place is a one-page introduction on the system and its improvements over the years.

Getting Started looks at what a role playing game is, what’s needed to play – the system uses the standard full range of dice, plus the Wild Dice – what Bennies are, the optional use of miniatures, the settings and companions.

Savage Worlds Adventure EditionChapter One: Characters starts by explaining several things. Concepts can be pregenerated archetypes for settings. Ancestry is the character’s species. Hindrances are flaws, drawbacks and other secrets that come in Major and Minor forms, and taking up to 4 points of them allows other benefits, such as raising attributes, choosing Edges, gaining skill points or gaining more starting funds. Traits are a character’s attributes and skills, which are ranked by dice type, from d4 to d12. Derived statistics are derived from other Traits. Edges are gained from adding Hindrances, ancestral abilities or Advances during play, and are covered in detail later. Gear is equipment. Finally, background details are player developed history and background.

Ancestries have descriptions and some in-built features. Ten are described in this book; androids, aquarians, avion, dwarves, elves, half-elves, half-folk (halflings), humans, rakashans and saurians. This has the basic fantasy species, along with some others, as Savage Worlds can be played in different genres. Following this are details on how to make a new ancestry with an example.

Next, Hindrances are covered in detail, with their effects. After that are Traits, starting with attributes and how they are used. Attributes in the game are Agility, Smarts, Spirit, Strength and Vigor. Skills are covered next and characters have core skills, Athletics, Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion and Stealth. Each skill is linked to an attribute. A sidebar covers the changes in this edition.

Edges are then listed in detail, and divided into various types. Each Edge has a name, description and what is required to have the Edge. Some Edges have Improved versions. Background Edges are advantages characters are born with, gained from extensive training or from exposure to certain events. Little rationalisation is needed for these Edges, which are chosen during character creation. Combat Edges are self-explanatory. Leadership Edges grant bonuses to allies. Power Edges are used with Arcane Backgrounds, covered in Chapter Five. Professional Edges are gained from years of practice in a trade, profession or similar, or may be blessings from higher powers. Social Edges are used to get others to do what you want. Weird Edges are slightly supernatural. Finally, Legendary Edges are usually specific to a campaign setting, but some, covered here, are more general.

Advancement covers how characters improve. Characters Advance when the GM chooses; this may be after every session for short campaigns, or spread out over more sessions for longer ones. All characters Advance at the same rate. When a character advances, they main gain a new Edge, increase some skills, increase an attribute or permanently remove a Minor Hindrance or reduce a Major to a Minor. Characters also gain Rank as they advance, which allows access to more powerful Edges and abilities. Allies and followers will advance at the same time.

Finally, there is a summary of character creation and summaries of Hindrances, Traits and Edges.

Chapter Two: Gear starts by explaining that characters are assumed to have clothes and personal items, and a place to live in modern settings, as well as probably tools, a vehicle and basic necessities. They also have $500, no matter what the era, and the prices are guidelines. This is followed by explanations as to what various things mean in the descriptions, and when to use encumbrance and how to use it. Following this are tables of gear; common gear, ammo, armour and weapons. These are divided into different eras, including futuristic where appropriate, as this is a multi-era game. This is followed by notes on how to interpret vehicle listings, and then the vehicle listings themselves, following the same method in general as the previous tables and again covering multiple eras.

Chapter Three: Rules starts by explaining that PCs, as well as unique villains, monsters and allies, are Wild Cards, which have a better chance of doing things, with an explanation as to how they are displayed and that they can take three Wounds before being Incapacitated and can roll a Wild Die with their Trait die, taking the highest result. It then explains how to make a Trait roll, which requires rolling higher than 4. The die used can vary, and there may be modifiers. It also looks at the other things that can affect a roll, including opposed rolls, critical failures and ways by which they can be affected. Bennies are chips that can be used to affect the rolls.

Combat, and taking damage, are looked at, including Wounds, Incapacitation and soaking damage, as well as natural healing. There are various situational rules for doing different things in combat; this, given the generic nature of the system, covers a range of different actions, suitable for settings of different genres.

Chapter Four: The Adventure Tool Kit covers various things that the GM can use. It starts off with allies, which are the various NPCs who can be allied with the characters. There are details on determining their personalities, how they can advance, a general way of keeping track of ammo and a couple of typical allies, both soldier types.

How chase scenes are handled is next, and the difference that different types of vehicles can make, compared to being on foot. Chases have their own rounds and manoeuvres that can be done, as well as attacks and the effects of damage on a vehicle, as well as repairing them. There are also some customisation options for making different kinds of chase different.

Dramatic Tasks are tasks that are done in tense or dangerous situations. These vary in difficulty and may or may not allow multiple characters to participate on a case-by-case basis. There’s a warning about creating Dramatic Tasks that can wipe out the entire party if they’re failed.

Fear is a rule that isn’t appropriate for every type of setting. In settings where it is appropriate, characters will need to make checks with different potential results. Hazards are various things that can cause harm and force resource management.

Interludes are a way for having in-character role play and those who do get a Benny. There are different types of interludes; downtime, backstory and trek, the latter for obstacles or challenges encountered during a trip. There are also some simple rules for handling mass battles, including how to have characters make a difference in these. Networking is interacting with contacts, either trying to persuade them or trying to intimidate them; the latter can have long-term consequences as people don’t like being intimidated.

Quick Encounters are ways to handle encounters without playing them round by round. This can be done for different types of encounters; chase, combat, crisis, heist, mission and trek. Naturally, these should only be used in certain situations. Setting Rules are rules that are specific to a setting. There are different rules, and these will help show the tone of a setting. Social conflict is a way of running social interactions without determining things with a single skill roll.

There are some rules on travel and travel times, as well as determining what kind of encounters can be had. Finally, it looks at wealth, which is a more abstract thing in the game and characters will have little problem buying things within their price range, though repeated spends will require rolls and they can end up going broke if they’re too profligate.

Chapter Five: Powers starts by explaining that most settings involve “magic” in one form or another, even if in a setting it is not considered magic but things such as weird science, superpowers or psionics. In SWADE, these are all classed as “powers” which work in the same way from game to game although trappings may change; freezing bolts in a magical setting may become a freeze gun in a futuristic one.

The Arcane Background Edges are covered next. Each has a relevant skill, number of starting powers and Power Points. There are five Backgrounds; Magic, Miracles, Psionics, Weird Science and Gifted, the last being those that don’t fit into the other categories. It is technically possible to have more than one Arcane Background.

Trappings explains that this is how the core powers in the chapter have different appearances, which may have a game effect; a blast power that is fire-related will not affect something immune to fire, whilst the same power that is ice related might. It looks at the various requirements for using them, possible synergy, how Power Modifiers customise abilities and the creation of Arcane Devices.

The rest of the chapter looks at the powers themselves. Each has a name, Rank the character needs to be to learn the power, range, duration, trappings, which are alternatives, and a description as well as any modifiers. Finally, there is a table summarising all the powers.

Chapter Six: Bestiary starts by briefly explaining that NPCs and monsters should have as many Edges or Hindrances as the GM wishes and they are not created like player characters. A variety of special abilities are covered, then followed by the monster descriptions. This is a comparatively short bestiary, with the majority of creatures being either fantasy or generic animals; there is only one that isn’t, which is a mech. Some creatures are noted as being Wild Card monsters, who roll a Wild Die with their Trait checks and can take three Wounds. The more powerful monsters should almost always be Wild Cards.

Chapter Seven: Game Mastering starts by looking at some general principles; that it isn’t necessary to know all the rules before play and how to familiarise with the core rules, working out what you want to play, finding players, arranging times to play and then creating characters. The characters need a reason to meet and some are given. Different types of campaign – not genre, but the different types that span the genres – are looked at next, with some rules on playing horror.

Next are tips for running the game, from introducing new players to balance, which isn’t as important and dealing with failure, which can be more interesting than success. Assuming the characters are not all dead, of course. Assigning experience, the importance of giving Bennies out frequently, because the more common they are, the more players will spend them, although towards the end of an adventure, they will become less common as many things that would gain Bennies have been done. Interpreting the dice rolls and pacing the game are next, followed by a look at Extras. Extras should not be built using the rules, just created, and for many of them all they need is some personality traits. Allies can also be common, and players should run their allies in battle, though the more allies they have, the more minions foes should have.

The final parts of this section have a summary of states and small, medium and large blast templates as well as stream and cone.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents is less thorough and is hyperlinked. The Index is thorough. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations, up to full page in size. Presentation is good.

This is the core book for the system and is, in theory, all that’s needed to play the game, no matter what genre is being played, and indeed there is a variety of material spanning different genres. However, the bestiary is most suited for a fantasy game and less suited for a modern era game whilst the equipment lists do cover historical, modern and futuristic settings though with nothing in the way of fantasy gear. So, whilst it may be suited for any genre as-is, it isn’t that suited for a specific genre, and the various companions are therefore at the very least useful and possibly essential. The way Powers are defined, though, does make them suitable for multiple types of genres, as are most of the character abilities; for the Powers in particular, the specifics are just genre-specific fluff on top of the mechanics of the game.

The base system is simple enough to learn, and the overall mechanics should be easy enough to grasp; this isn’t the lightest game around but it is a long way from being the crunchiest; various elements of crunch should be easier and faster to play than other, more complex systems. It is also genuinely flexible for multiple genres, even with just the base book; many systems, though they may attempt to be suited to different genres are less suited for it in practice. Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is a flexible, fairly straightforward multi-genre system and it can be found by clicking here.


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