Review : Savage Worlds

[Oberoten]

Almost as much in search of new and fast and fun systems as Snickle...
I of course almost drooled when I got my hands on SW. Well, it was and IS good. REAL good.

The system itself is simplicty itself and still manages to add in Edges and hindrances to make the characters more individual.

The ruleset itself is beautifully programmed, with a NICE big helping of all the features you wish you yourself had thought of for your own rulesets.

Graphics
The graphis are more than adequate, they are in fact very nice and mood-setting maybe they could have been a bit darker, but that is more my personal reference. Perhaps the one real flaw I have found is that sometimes the search-option is a bit hard to see and in the main ruleset window it will glitch a bit. Nothing I trust that won't be fixed on an eventual update.
7 / 10 stars here.

Programing
Now this is where the ruleset SHINES. There are clever little things all the way through. Like the way they have managed to get a deck of cards in there for your use as well as the ability to share the combat-tracker as well as NPCs and Veihicles that can be linked directly from the character-sheet.
10 / 10 stars

[Tropico]

Graphically, I gotta say the chatbox is a HUGE relief for me, and I consider it superior to FG2's original one, which has a couple areas of 'dirt' or 'crumpled up' or something that are very dark and really get in the way of reading for me, and I very often find myself leaning my head waay into the screen and squinting to be able to read (I play at 1280x1024 which is a moderately high res but not *that* high). The tan-brown color also tends to blend in with the red of the actions.

SW took care of all this both by being strictly smooth and uncluttered within the actual chat area and by choosing a color that contrasts well with all of the text within it :)

I know that's like a minor little personal thing to mention among all the other cool stuff the ruleset does, but it's just been the thing that's struck me the most so far. Well, that and the sharing the combat tracker, that was awesome.

[Andugus]

Nice job on the programming work Joshuha!

[Thore_Ironrock]

Thanks for all the great comments guys, and thanks to those that supported this product with their purchases. Now that it has been out for a few days, and I have a chance to catch my breath, I want to say a few things:

* Josh is a genius! Without him the card mechanic would have never happened. Nuff said. :)

* Thanks for all the feedback on any issues and lacking features. In the next week or so we'll review everyone's comments and decide how to proceed on future updates. Please understand that this is not going to happen tomorrow, but will in the "to be determined" future. Right now we have a functional ruleset for playing SW online, and that was our goal in getting this product to you all.

* The boys from Smiteworks have offered to help us try and up any product updates for Savage Worlds (and other future projects) in the FGII updater. If we can get this working, then that is how we'll likely distribute said updates in the future.

Once again, thank you all for your support, and look for more exciting FG stuff in the future.

Regards,

[Kalan]

I'll ditto exactly what Thore says - if it weren't for Josh - the ruleset likely won't have been what it is now. Our goal was to make and design it so that you could play any SW setting "out of the box" with the ruleset, and I think for the most part we succeeded. There's still somethings we want to do - but for now, I know I'm taking a bit of a break from it and focusing on more SW goodness ;)

[Dachannien]

Cool :) I'm tempted to buy it just to see how the card functionality was implemented, although I was also considering trying to roll my own. Guess I'll decide once I have more time to look at it either way.

[andro1d]

Hoping this thread isn't dead yet...

Just a quick question. I purchased SW and have been getting myself familiar with it.

One thing I can't seem to figure out is how to get the Combat Tracker to auto-sort if you manually deal a character a card.

For instance, if I add 4 Orcs and want them all to share the same card, I deal the cards and drag one of the cards over from Orc to the other three, but they won't reset themselves into the tracker at the correct location. Am I missing something?


Andro1d

[Kalan]

Hoping this thread isn't dead yet...

Just a quick question. I purchased SW and have been getting myself familiar with it.

One thing I can't seem to figure out is how to get the Combat Tracker to auto-sort if you manually deal a character a card.

For instance, if I add 4 Orcs and want them all to share the same card, I deal the cards and drag one of the cards over from Orc to the other three, but they won't reset themselves into the tracker at the correct location. Am I missing something?


Andro1d

If you want four orcs to share the same init - the best and easiest way to do this is to double click on the Wounds box for the "main" orc, then add in the three other Orcs there. You can manage all their wounds from that same box.

[Sorontar]

If you want four orcs to share the same init - the best and easiest way to do this is to double click on the Wounds box for the "main" orc, then add in the three other Orcs there. You can manage all their wounds from that same box.

Say whatwhat? :)

[Kalan]

;)

On the Combat Tracker, you can double click the Wounds box for an NPC, this brings up a small box in which you can create entries for members of the same "group". At this time you can not assign distinct tokens to them, but we're working on it :)

[andro1d]

Yeah, I've monkeyed around with this function and I like it. You addressed exactly it's biggest failing IMO, you can't assign tokens to them.

I have to say I've become so accustomed to the players clicking on their targets so I can better manage the combats that this is almost irreplaceable for me!

I assume from this new box you just manually enter states (like staggered, or prone)? I thought about just adding descriptions like Orc A, Orc B, Orc C then dragging the letter tokens on to each image to better track them...

Will any improvements be available as a free update to previous purchasers?

[mr_h]

Havent/don't play Savage Worlds, but I see there's a card deck included. I'm assuming these are special cards for the game?

Has DA given any thought to making a regular, plain jane, deck of cards? I'd love to have one of those for my modern games (Spies and gambling, I mean, c'mon!).
I'd pay money for a deck of cards module, that's for sure:)

[Thore_Ironrock]

Havent/don't play Savage Worlds, but I see there's a card deck included. I'm assuming these are special cards for the game?

SW uses a standard 54 card deck (52 + two jokers). The deck included in this product is pretty standard; however we are looking at incorporating the Adventure Deck in the future as a module -- there are a few things to figure out on that first.


Has DA given any thought to making a regular, plain jane, deck of cards? I'd love to have one of those for my modern games (Spies and gambling, I mean, c'mon!). I'd pay money for a deck of cards module, that's for sure:)

Ummm ... maybe?

OK, OK ... we are! You wormed it out of me, hope you're happy. ;)

More soon,

[Thore_Ironrock]

Will any improvements be available as a free update to previous purchasers?

It depends on whether or not it is an enhancement, or an update. Because of our license agreement I would have to charge for enhancements, depending on what it is. Overall, we're hoping that any improvements to the ruleset will be free of charge.

[Sgain]

the cards are used for initiative and for spells (if using Deadlands:reloaded) for Hucksters and Hexslingers (mages and sorcerors). My group loves using cards for initative rather than dice throwing as its become a source of 'tension' during combat as I pass out the cards. I haven't played much FG yet (just bought it), and am curious as to how it will handle some of the 'card' edges; level headed, quick; which allow players another draw under certain circumstances.

I've never used the Adventure Deck, my group played with it in testing and decided not to bother.

[Kalan]

the cards are used for initiative and for spells (if using Deadlands:reloaded) for Hucksters and Hexslingers (mages and sorcerors). My group loves using cards for initative rather than dice throwing as its become a source of 'tension' during combat as I pass out the cards. I haven't played much FG yet (just bought it), and am curious as to how it will handle some of the 'card' edges; level headed, quick; which allow players another draw under certain circumstances.

I've never used the Adventure Deck, my group played with it in testing and decided not to bother.

Well - with regards to the LEvel Headed and Quick edges - the Level Headed we have "hard coded" to deal the appropriate number of cards, then automattically take the best one.

As for the Quick - the GM can "redeal" a single card to the Player as necessary.

Hope that helps :)

[mr_h]

SW uses a standard 54 card deck (52 + two jokers). The deck included in this product is pretty standard; however we are looking at incorporating the Adventure Deck in the future as a module -- there are a few things to figure out on that first.


Ummm ... maybe?

OK, OK ... we are! You wormed it out of me, hope you're happy. ;)

More soon,

I'm so buying that deck of cards. :D

[andro1d]

Kalan,
So how does SW know you have level headed so that it auto deals the best card (I don't recall seeing this in the manual, but could've over-looked it.) Do I just drag in the Edge from the handbook?
Andro1d

[joshuha]

Kalan,
So how does SW know you have level headed so that it auto deals the best card (I don't recall seeing this in the manual, but could've over-looked it.) Do I just drag in the Edge from the handbook?
Andro1d

Yes dragging the edge in or having having typed it in as:

Level Headed
Improved Level Headed

Once thats done, make sure to remove and redrag the PC to the combat tracker. Also for quick (or other things) you can right click on a card in the combat tracker and hit Deal for an individual deal.

[Sgain]

how do I get weapons damage to match the newer system (the Way of the Brave damage uses STR + dice damage), right now when I attempt to correct my modules with the mouse wheel it just adds +1, +2 ect rather than d4 d6 ect.

[Thore_Ironrock]

Please refer to this post if you own the Savage Worlds Ruleset:

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7208