Savage Worlds

Tools of the Trade

I've said before that tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons are partially responsible for getting me into writing in the first place. I've even joked that I originally went to university so I could play it again. While Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most well-known of these types of games, I like to run my games with Pinnacle Entertainment's Savage Worlds roleplaying system.

Savage Worlds is a generic universal system which is readily adaptable. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, in which you roll a 20-sided dice (d20) for every skill and the other dice for damage, in Savage Worlds you have a die type for everything. For example, a player with a d8 in the Fighting skill will roll an eight-sided die whenever called to roll Fighting. They also roll a six-sided die alongside the d8, and take the better result. Additionally, if the maximum result is rolled on a die, it's rolled again and the results stack. This often means that a lot of Savage Worlds games tend to be more action-packed than other roleplaying games.

I especially love the array of settings which have been released. Pinnacle's biggest franchise is a setting called Deadlands, a dark fantasy and steampunk roleplaying game which takes place in the American West. In fact, one of the first things I wrote was a Deadlands fan fiction. This spawned several sequels, such as Deadlands Noir, which shifts the setting to 1930s New Orleans but still retains the dark fantasy and science fiction elements. I'm actually running a Deadland Noir campaign, and was surprised how there seemed to be a greater focus on the mystery than action, yet it still flowed.

Other settings which use the Savage Worlds system include: Lankhmar: The City of Thieves, a swashbuckling fantasy based on the works of Fritz Leiber; Rippers, a Victorian gothic horror reminiscent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; and The Savage World of Flash Gordon, based on the characters created by Alex Raymond (and that guilty pleasure 80s cheese).

Last year, I backed a new version of Savage Worlds on Kickstarter; Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, commonly known as "SWADE". There's a cafe in my area which caters to the roleplaying game crowd, so I volunteered to run campaigns there one day of the week. Unfortunately, this had a rough start, as most players are more accustomed to Dungeons & Dragons and seemed intimidated by the character creation process. Fortunately, I'm getting all kinds of ready-made adventures from Pinnacle as part of my pledge, so I plan to run one of those using characters I've made myself.

I look forward to running all kinds of campaigns, and introduce more players to the system.