There's a pulp sci-fi setting for Savage Worlds that looks interesting, called Slipstream. What's the SW ruleset like? I've never played it.

I too have an interest in everyone's answers. Being that someone dropped off Deadlands Reloaded last night, one could say I am very interested.

BlueMax

There's a quick synopsis of the system on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Worlds From the looks of things, it's vaguely similar to 4e Shadowrun (fixed TNs, exploding dice, edges and flaws, major characters have a 'luck' attribute). The initiative system is rather interesting (based on random playing card draws, rather than a primary or derived stat). I watched some people playing the Deadlands version a while back, and it seemed to work pretty well.

It's made to be fast and fun and it's quite successful in that. For example, you can have fights with a lot of opponents without bogging the game down. Of course, this is at the expense of realism and detail, though some fans of the system will tell you otherwise.
As for any generic system, you'll have to adapt it to the game you're playing but that's not very hard to do (except if you want to keep some mechanisms or for some more complex situations).

The biggest issue I have with it as a a generic system is that it tends towards a game style: it's made to play games where the PCs are heroes, different from normal men.

Isn't that the case with virtually all RPGs? Even in Shadowrun, where it's a stretch to call the PCs "heroes," they're still individuals of extraordinary capability.

An interesting one to play for Savage Worlds is Necessary Evil, where you play as a supervillain (or hero).

I like Savage Worlds. It's what started me in RPGs. My first Explorers Edition literally fell apart. My second is in the process of doing so. We play a lot of Savage Worlds, because it is extremely adaptable. Want to play a game based off of Indiana Jones? Bam. Borderlands? Yup. My one complaint is that it fails to explain any one setting well, sacrificing the detail for that versitality. Thats what the expansions are for.

It's Fast! Furious! Fun! just like it says. Rules light, but still has a nice amount of complexity.

But just take a look yourself. There's a preview version of the rules available, called Test Drive.

Also the complete rulebook (no setting info, just the rules, in a small softcover, the Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition) only costs $10. A steal!

Bye
Thanee

to me it looks like most of the speed comes from the same concept that feng shui has, that "mooks" drop when hit, no matter the damage done.

in other words, its like the p&p version of dynasty warriors...

Actually, in that respect, it is similar to D&D 4e.

However, you still have to actually HIT mooks, and most games you play in have one wild card for every 4 or 5 people. So, on average, an encounter will have at least 1, sometimes 2 wild cards. Often, the lower the numbers, the higher the percent. (For instance, 1 enemy will always be a wild card, but 20 will probably only have 2, or 3 novices.)

or more correctly, d&d4 is similar to savage worlds, as savage worlds was released before d&d4?

and it becomes more and more apparent that they took the feng shui concept, and made a generic system around it, while borrowing elements from deadlands (dice and cards). Or maybe one should say that they took the deadlands mechanics and fused them with the feng shui concept, making a generic system in the process?

Not sure you know, but Savage Worlds is Deadlands (basically it's 2nd or 3rd Edition, if you count the Revision).

Both were written primarily by Shane Hensley. It's not a coincidence, that Deadlands: Reloaded is a setting for Savage Worlds.

So it's not really borrowing, but more like inheriting in this case.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. I think the 'tough PCs and major NPCs, weak Minions' concept has been around a bit longer already. TORG, IIRC, also had that. And surely other games as well.

ah, i knew there was some level of connection between deadlands and savage worlds, but not aware they had the same creator.

as for how old the concept of many weak enemies, couple of strong ones is, not sure. First i heard of it was in feng shui at least.

Savage Worlds is quite different from SR4. You have a die (d4, d6, d8, etc.) for any particular action that you roll. If you're a Wild Card - a PC or important NPC/monster - then you also roll a d6 alongside it, but you do not add the dice together but instead take the higher result of the two. Topping the die out allows for an exploding result. Base target Number is always 4, but can be adjusted (far less modifiers than in SR).

The speed in the system comes from a greatly reduced quantity of modifiers and less fiddliness on equipment (NOT a gun porn game). There are few special rules, and most of the general rules can be applied easily to a number of situations.

Also, only non-Wild Cards drop in one wound. Note that you have to hit them and do enough to get through their Toughness to drop them. There are some pretty tough mooks out there - especially armored ones, and this cuts down on bookkeeping because after being hit they're either just fine or thery're out of combat.

The FLGS had a Black Friday sale this weekend. One Explorer's Edition purchased.

Now to find time to read it.

BlueMax

Sat down and made a Necessary Evil character this afternoon, and I like what I've seen of Savage Worlds so far. We got an unfortunate phone call with a family emergency that cut our would-be gaming session short so we didn't actually sling any dice or murder any aliens, but I'm looking forward to it after flipping through the book a little and making up my powered armor wearing protagonist.

It's a fun system and setting. We made so many memorable characters and situation during the run, I'm sure you'll also, though remember to come up with more off the wall characters. Like crazy mad scientists who made their body more machine than man (the rest of the party was mooching off my hidden secret lair)... or the hulking being composed of a swarm of cockroaches... with a little girl named Bug who rides in him like power armor and calling him 'papa roach'... or the undead captain america clone... or fox demon inhabiting a dead body (never know when his character will croak)... or the hookah smoking illusionist (ok, just made up that last one).

"why yes, i am seeing things. and so shall you!"

Also a good power limitation flaw, ya gotta need that quick fix to get your powers up. Woohoo!

None of us are familiar with the system yet, so we tried -- for now -- to just take one of the villain archetypes and stumble through tweaking it a bit (here's hoping we've got the rules right). We ended up with an ancient Greek demigod of fear who sought immortality through sorcery and hates the alien invaders for getting on his lawn (sorcerer archetype who shuffled around traits to get the ageless/undead/whatever it was called schtick), a gadgeteer who cooked up a fantastic new alloy that grants him control over electro-magnetics (force control when he shuffled around some points on a gadgeteer archetype), and my guy.

He was a run of the mill mobster, delivering trucks full of stolen electronics to a brilliant supervillain's lab/lair, when the aliens attacked. When the villain -- helmet removed among trusted underworld lackeys -- gleefully announced his intent to suck up to the monstrous invaders and help them pacify the rest of humanity in exchange for access to their technology, my character shot him in the head and stole his powered armor. Having had a little time (and a lot of help from the lab's computer systems) to get familiar with the suit, he's ready to go whoop some alien ass. He's a mobster and a scumbag, but he's human, and Earth-people gotta stick together...even if, meanwhile, his mob contacts and he are raking in the bucks monopolizing the black market.

Should be a fun little group of miscreants and sociopaths.

Just a spoilerish heads up regarding the aliens and a certain power, I'm putting it under the spoiler in case you dont' want to know...

Huh. That's kind of strange, especially since the sorcerer archetype starts with it. I'll let my buddy know, he was thinking about cashing in all his other powers and investing just in Super Sorcery, anyways. Thanks for the heads up, at least.

In a shameless attempt to leverage this thread I've been looking at putting together a PbP Deadlands reloaded game via google wave. If you are interested please send me a PM.

If it were a forum/bulletin board PbP, I'd be all for giving it a try. Real-time stuff, not so much. My schedule's just too wonky.

It won't be real time I can just access wave from work whereas I can't access most forums from here.

I've run several games using the Savage rules Explorers Edition rules. They are just $10.00.... It's a great system for Pulp and cinematic style games. If you like crunchy, gritty, or "realistic" rules i.e. if your a rules lawyering munchkin then it's not going to be a good system for you. If you just want to have a fun game that takes minimal preperation then it is a great choice. It seems like a great system for one offs and convention play as well.