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What would be my personal number 1 wish would be to find distribution partners in the european union for their kickstarters. I will not back another kickstarter if shipping sets me back 50$ and if I get unlucky pay customs on those shipped products. That's what is holding me back from backing the new Deadlands kickstarter. And it held me back from the Sci-Fi Companion kickstarter. The same holds true for their own store. I have easily 300$ worth of stuff I would love to buy from them, which is hard to get my hand on in Germany. But it just sucks that at the final steps of of their buying stage they asked for 150 more $ shipping.

I’d love more settings, I know you can if you try hard enough make any setting work but it’s cool if more official settings were added. I’d love more African or eastern style fantasy. Maybe a new superhero setting as well, urban fantasy too.

Numenera is Cypher System.

Question: if your target number is 4, but it is a negative 1 penalty wouldn’t they need to roll a 5? So why not just say the TN is a 5? Especially when you start having multiple penalties or bonuses. The GM needs to decide the +/- why should you and the player both suffer the math?

My first session with Savage Worlds was a Pirates of the Spanish Main one shot. 4 hours were plenty of time to aquire a treasure map, organize a ship, sail to the treasure island, get the treasure, fight a boss battle against pirates and escape with the treasure. Fast, furious, fun indeed. But what impressed me the most, and what makes Savage Worlds my No. 1 RPG, is that the system never once annoyed me. And I never played a single session of DnD in 30 years where DnD did not annoy me with its mechanics. Not sure if Savage Worlds is for everyone, but it is the right system for me. I soon start a Fantasy Campaign in a homebrew world. Can't wait. Next week is session zero.

I love how I left my daughter's toy in the background. Whoops.

I am learning more about Warhammer Fantasy's lore and I'd like to eventually run a focused adventure using SWADE, maybe focusing on two factions. One faction is populated by the PCs in leadership roles, the other is composed of antagonists.

Man, these videos are saving my life as a New GM for Savage, thank you so much for the content !! ❤

I disagree with number 1; it would onboard players faster if you just said, "hit a 6" rather than -2. It also slows down the game to have players fish for bonuses/penalties and you always get into conversations about, "did you include the -2 lighting penalty when you said you rolled a 5?" This is a hang over from the days of it being a war game when you had two competing players with a ref who declared the cave section of the board dim light, so players would know there is a penalty if they move over there. Benie baiting is something a gm should learn early; "are you happy with that common knowledge roll, you will know more if you get a raise..." it gets players spending them more instead of holding them. Giving more bennies is genre specific. Not bad advice, but conditional. If you are playing space marines who are the biggest bad ash around, give them a Bennie at the start of every fight. If you are playing space truckers who are in a horror game because the alien egg in cargo hatched, be stingy with the bennies. Open secrets are good. Ie, "roll notice to see the ninjas hiding in the bushes," so they know how to spend their bennies. I disagree with not adding rules too. The system is flexible to allow for a bit of crunch here or there, especially if it speeds something up more than the existing. Ie, supply dice; you keep a die amount of consumables so you do not have to count bullets and trail rations. At the end of a fight roll to see if the die goes down. It makes running out of ammo or supplies fast, furious, and dramatic instead of counting beans. There are a hundred little ways to change the game to fit your table that you have not thought of yet. Just learn why a fence was put there before you remove it.

New to Savage Worlds. Played Deadlands once at a con. Picked up Swade and East Texas University.

Target Numbers - IF you are abut to give a +2 modifier to a roll, think about it again! Is the role ABSOLUTELY necessary!? If the target number is "2", you might as well just give them the sucess! Realisticly, the only reason a player should be rolling with a +2 on a standard Target Number is if you are trying to see if they get Raises. Otherwise, just let them succeed. Sub Systems - Do yourself a favour; make a list of the sub systems and leave it beside your dice tray (or in line of sight). This will help you remember to use them when they are relevant OR to prompt ideas for coming encounters! List them with page numbers so that you aren't stumbling when you need the rules. Eventually, they will become second nature. New Mechanics - Seriously! If you can't find a way to quickly adapt an existing Core Mechanic to your situation, I can almost guarantee it's in another setting book! The Deadlands Setting has a well thought out, smooth Martial Arts system that you can use as an Arcane Background OR just a Combat Edge. The Fantasy books have an Alchemy system you can use for formulating bombs and other concoctions. You can quickly adapt the Mad Scientist AB for sci-fi weapons (or check out one of the many sci-fi settings!). Don't try to reinvent the wheel! If you've thought of it, I guarantee there is a rule for it in a Setting Book that you can tweak to your satisfaction. (Plus, this helps support content creators which encourages more content creation!!) Bennies - this system will be the bane of your existance for awhile!! Don't stress! There is an easy way to fix it. If you are like me you get a little too caught up in the back and forth banter between the characters and fail to really notice when a player is doing something "bennie worthy". This means that your players end up with a lot more trouble than they probably should. The quick and easy fix is this; if you are going into an encounter and any player has one bennie or less have them start an Interlude based on the upcoming encounter situation!! This might slow things down a bit BUT it gives the players a chance to play up their characters and gain a bennie or two before stepping into danger. This will also help you to recognize when players are doing "bennie worthy" interactions during standard game play through repetition. Encounter Balance - Not much to add. There is nothing wrong with trying to control relative power levels when it comes to encountering enemy Wild Cards (especially in pairs and groups) BUT, overall, its best to ignore "balance" and just go with your gut! If the players are trying to infiltrate an fortress, there are going to be a lot of guards; finding a way around them without dying is the players job! Think of Harry Potter and his encounter with the spiders in the woods. Did THAT seem "balanced" to you?!!! Nope!!! But they found a solution (RUN!!!) and even found a friend (Spend a Bennie - I know a guy!!!). This gave them the chance to survive an encounter that, in almost any other game, would have been a TPK for sure!! In some other games (*hinthint*) you would have had to balance the encounter so that only a few spiders were present to fight OR you would have had to drop the health of most of the hoard to make them easy kills! Either way, you would have been pushing on that "suspension of disbelief" pretty damn hard!

Thanks for making this type of video. I'm running my 2nd Deadlands game in a couple weeks!

I'm guilty of #4 - I'm really bad at remembering to give out bennies in any system (inspiration, bennies, so forth)!

I use the adventure deck in every game except for oneshots and curate it depending on the setting. I changed the rules slightly though. The players still get a card for each rank, but they need to choose a single card they want to keep for the game before we even start. Sometimes the card will be amazing, sometimes it will not be used. This reduces the swingy-ness and the head aches for me as the DM. Also, and that's even more important, the players keep their card a secret, even from the DM. They can play them anytime (when appropriate) even for other players, which creates a really amazing effect whenever a player pulls out their card dramatically and saves the day (or engages in shenanigans). This way the cards worked out perfectly for my groups so far. Feel free to try these rule adjustments and see if it fits your game as well. :)

Bennies for bad guys, played in a game where my character pulled off the perfect assassination, got a raise on stealth and another raise on the attack as well as the damage exploding, would have killed the main bad guy in one hit, pretty heroic and memorable, then the GM decided to use bennies to reduce the damage to shaken, and the bad guy then basically wiped out half the party. I was a bit peeved as it was for a moment one of those gaming experiences you talk about forever and I felt it had been stolen from me.

Can you do a video about running chases on VTTs?

While all are so true, especially tips 1-3 seem to make up half of the questions in any social media. „Should I try this“ or „wyt of this rule/mechanic/modification“ pops up so often. I found so many mechanics are already there and most of the time easy. Thank you!

Smart. Concise. Clear. Good video.

The biggest mistake is adapting d&d to do everything insted of using Savage Worlds ;)

What difference does it make to tell them the TN is 6 vs roll with - 2? Either way they need a 6

Keep these episodes coming, men. This is exactly the kind of content the SW space needs.

Oh what a great video! For some reason, I wasn't getting notifications about mentions on TH-cam, my bad!! 🤠

A small group of goblins would have no real hope of moving a 2000 pound horse, I get them leaving those in the road. The real question is why they didn’t move their ambush about a quarter mile up the road to keep the PCs from noticing that fact.

These are all great reasons. Until I got to know SWADE, I never knew how clunky and complicated many / most (?) other systems are. It is easy and lives up to it's motto: Fast! Furious! Fun!

Clearly I missed a few things over the year. Thanks for the pointers.

Thanks for continuing to go through our newsletter. We work hard to make it fun and informative each and every week and I'm glad you enjoy it!

Thanks for mentioning Fun Raiser: Bennies, Bennies, Bennies. Glad you enjoy it at your table.

My favorite underrated spell is havoc. Havoc combined with entangle, in my ruling, is basically "always hits a wall", so it has the extra damage effect. Plus, enemies have distracted before they have a chance to roll against its effects. Trap it as an Icy Gust of Wind and add Hinder (+1) or Fatigue (+2) to slow down whoever is affected. Really fun!

Much appreciated. Just discovered this system and hoping to use it to run a game for my 12 yo son. Dnd seems more detailed than I want. Thanks for the intro and tips

We play rifts, we used an ambush & tactical retreat taunting a tribe of gurgoyles, a couple gargoyles & a gargoyle lord. Took out the mage first, used taunt to get the rest to chase me into a minefield where I had covering fire from the rest of the party, 30 extras & 5 wildcards dead inside of 6 rounds of combat

Peter's "surprise" reminded me of Doakes, although for a PG show its better he didnt continue the quote.

Thank you for the video. Great stuff. Going to chime in with two caveats. I am not an experienced GM by any standard and I understand rules may vary at any table. First, if you are going to run an ambush avoid the forced location without explanation. This particular adventure has a force but you have to follow the road with the wagon. I ran the Red Hand of Doom back in 3rd/3.5. It opens with the PCs walking down a narrow road with steep embankments on each side with no obvious reason. When I read it, I thought nope, I wouldn’t do that. Sure enough, one of my players said nope not gonna happen. In this instance PCs notice the horses at 50ft. Goblins get a stealth roll to set up their ambush. On failure we play it. If they pass I hold that number. The PCs should stop and recognize the ambush as it is straight out of “No s#!t, there we were”. If the PCs recognize it, they get a notice opposed to the Goblins stealth roll that I held as they haven’t moved. The goblins spring their trap when PCs approach the horses. If PCs are oblivious at this point the surprise rule allows for a notice roll when the trap is sprung. Goblins are going to get that first attack but PCs are going to get an unopposed notice roll to avoid Goblins getting the drop on them and to get dealt in.

Nice video, was a good listen. Definitely give the players the opportunity to spoil the ambush, it’s a feel good moment for the players, which drives investment.

I think in a case where 1 character got double raise on notice roll i would deal them a card face up and if that card would be higher then the card of the ambushers i would let that character have their turn. And the ambushers still would have an held action vs the rest of the party. What do you think about such an solution. Note: "English isn't my native language so sorry for wrong spelling and such"

So, this series is really developing well, some good advice in these two episodes. Have you given any thought to tackling the players's side of things for a series like this? My players are pretty good role-players, but sometimes they get so stuck in the mode of doing what they usually do mechanically, they can wind up getting frustrated when something isn't working (they can't hit a certain parry value, they can't punch through the Toughness effectively, the dice keep betraying them, or other rules things), they don't know how to adapt. There used to be a good combat cheat sheet floating around out there, but I think it needs an update based on rules updates that have been ongoing in SWADE... in any case. I'd love to see a series on good player skills to develop, particularly related to Savage Worlds. Like, when to Test, when to Hold an action, when to Gang-up, how to fish for bennies (we tend to use Fate Core-style language in our group, like Compels and Invocations to signal when we think something is worth a benny), and so forth. Stuff that won't break the immersion of the players, but will help players (including GMs) build a cooperative set of skills to help each other tell the best stories.

My preferred system is Pathfinder 2e. For me, balance between players is really important. Balance means that every player feels useful and is equally useful in the party. They don't have to deal the same damage or provide the same utility, but their role in the party shouldn't feel redundant. An example is how a Rogue in D&D 5e is outclassed in every way by a Druid, simply because of their spell list and Wild Shape. I don't like that. For me, niche protection is an essential part of party balance.

about to start my groups first campaign in savage worlds after playing dnd 5e for years! our setting is a high fantasy western gothic adventure in a secluded and mysterious town. i’m gonna be recycling an old scrapped dnd character, a morally dubious “doctor” with a questionable past and even more questionable cures. so excited to give the game a try! thank you for this overview!!

I love the idea of Savage Worlds but I think it falls flat in a few departments, the biggest being that scoring a damaging hit on something can feel a little frustrating. As an example, using a pistol 2d6 AP 1 against even a 5 Toughness opponent means you have to score at least 9 on 2d6 to get an actual Wound. That's roughly a 3 out of 4 chance of failure. Sure there's Raises and exploding dice that can impact this but isn't very satisfying watching a perfectly good hit go to waste on an unarmored average minion with a Stamina of d6 and a Toughness of 5. This problem gets even worse when trying to Savage something like Star Wars where blaster shots are just pinging off of regular Stormtroopers when in the movies they just go down with a single hit. It just sucks having to score a raise or better to take out a minion Stormtrooper.