TT Ep 68 Tips for Beginning Savage Worlds GMs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- Carl discusses some ideas for new Savage Worlds Gamemasters (GMs). Whether you are new or coming from another game system (like Dungeons & Dragons), these are some lessons Carl learned in his transition to Savage Worlds.
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I just want to say Thank You Carl ! We just started playing Savage Worlfs and We LOVE IT! I have been playing ttrpgs for 40 years and heard about Savage Worlds a lot and your channel made up our minds to try it. I dont think We will ever go back to Brand X ttrpgs just because We can play any setting with it. Your channel has helped Me, especially as the GM to understand the game so much more. Again Thanks for all the Great Vids your channel really helps a lot.
I really appreciate the kind words about the channel. I'm very happy when people get something out of my ramblings (and Eric's too). I love the game and the channel is definitely a labor of love!
Extremely heart warming reply! I've been playing for just over 30 years and I'm hoping to have the same thing with Savage Worlds. This channel is fantastic for that!
I'm still learning the Bennie economy myself. One thing I have learned is that if the bad guys play smart -- taking cover, called shots, bennies for more than just soaking wounds, other things I'm forgetting -- then the players will learn these behaviors. That makes things more interesting for everyone at the table.
You are absolutely right. I mentioned in my video on creating challenging encounters (Ep. 35), having the bad guys leveraging all the rules really makes a difference.
@@ASavageWorldsGM so I need to rewatch that one? I'm good with that.
Imo its better to give to many bennies as opposed to too few. Players with lots of bennies tend to use them more often to do awesome stuff as opposed to saving them for soak roles. Any excuse you can use to hand out bennies do so. Dont forget that players who hinder themselves with their hindrances should get a benny.
I came for the Savage Worlds introduction, I subscribed for the theme song.
i really like the song, Ruben The Understander vibes
Hello. I'm new to your channel (this is the first one I've seen). I ran a successful Call of Cthulhu game using SWADE last year. I started off with trying to stat out every potential NPC or monster the characters would face in the adventures. The campaign culminated with Masks of Nyarlathotep. By the time we got there, though, I was so over statting out friends and enemies. I just ended up deciding that if the NPC in question was "about average", I gave him d6 in everything; if he was "above average", he got d8 everything, and if he was "tough", he got d10 in everything. Unless it was a monster or supernatural critter, I ignored skills, edges, hindrances, etc. My life was much simpler after doing this.
Thank you for coming by and I hope you stay around for more! I have other ideas on saving prep time in Episode 30.
I am so glad I watched this video because I never would have thought of protecting the big bad tbh. I've run d&d for a long time and I always try to spice up combat but it never quite works, so I was fully prepared to put Big Bad front and center with the cronies only coming in later. Thank God I didn't do that because I'm sure they would have been killed in one shot.
I'm very happy the tips helped you!
Just getting into Savage Worlds myself. This was very helpful and reaffirmed some of the things that most interested me about the system like designing encounters/adventures to make sense rather than be balanced.
Thank you! I am a big savage worlds fan and real content is hard to find. I considered making these videos myself but don't know the game THAT well. This is so appreciated.
Glad you like the content! Savage Worlds is my favorite game.
Nice to watch this a year on and see subscriptions (mine included!) Now hitting around the 2,000 mark.
Thanks for the video. My online group is dipping it's toes in different systems (our pf1 campaign through 3 years imploded on player drama) and are getting through a Burning Wheel campaign, so I kinda wanna try Savage for our next experiment.
Two things that have worked well for me in any system. When you were talking about being unsure of some rules. If you know something new is going to be coming up you can print out that that section of the rules (a players new spell for example). It may waste a piece of paper but it saves time rifling through the books. Be sure to write the page number and book of where it came from so if you need to look up a related rule you'll have a better shot of going to the correct section from the get go.
Second thing is to have a collection of index cards, spreadsheet, database of NPCs. You don't even need to fully stat them out. Just go with broad descriptions. EX: Tony "Second Story" Zimmerman. Tony is an accomplished bugler who usually breaks in via roof vents. His face was disfigured in a car accident a decade ago preventing him from getting a job. He doesn't like being a criminal but he has to feed his family. Thieving from people who exploit people in his poverty stricken neighborhood, to him, is a lot better than most of the other illegal activity going on.
^^ When you need a NPC on the spot you can whip out one of the index card. If you're a GM that used a laptop or tablet you can have a profession column with things like child, civilian, senior, merchant, ect. If you have an idea for an NPC cross your mind just jot it down as a note and then put it on the index card.
Using the above example he isn't stated out but since he is a thief you know that he has to have a decent agility, and ugly hinderance, some kind of morality/honor (as he is taking care of his family and is not involved in drugs, prostitution, or violent crimes).
They're not meant to be fully fleshed out, they are just a means to be able to help kick start my brain by giving it a starting point to work off of. The NPC cards works great when the players go sideways and stop into a space port I didn't plan on or when they run into a random shop or tavern when being followed/chased.
After 30+ years of GMing my best advice is to listen to people. It doesn't matter if someone is a newbe GM or an old hat they may have an idea that is awesome. Everyone's play style is different and none is right or wrong. It's like pizza topping or what you get on an ice cream sundae, you go with what you like.
To new GMs - don't worry about the players taking your adventure sideways. An off hand comment I made when GMing a game at a con (Star Trek satire) to a player totally derailed the adventure I wrote... I made the judgement call to go with. The rest of the adventure I basically winged it. I had the map and stats of the enemies so it was mostly a matter of playing off what the characters were doing. The rest of the convention the guy was apologizing about derailing the adventure. As I GM I live for when players come up with an entertaining path I didn't think of, I had to keep thanking him for coming up with a novel concept.... Space Hippies had taken over a space station, the doc sprayed one with an antiseptic spray and the hippy melted. The player came up with the idea to fill the fir suppression system with soap and antiseptic. Of it wasn't a sprinkler system on a space station but it was such a good idea (and fit in with the farcical nature of the setting) I had to go with it.
For a more structured adventure Event A does NOT have to happen at Place 1. If the players decide to go to Funkytown instead of the Emerald City have the bandits attack them in the alley behind the Naked Dwarf Tavern in Funkytown instead of The Prancing Rhino in the Emerald City. Just transfer the events to the places where the characters are instead of where you planned on them being.
Thank you for the thoughtful post. Great ideas. For my one-shot conventions I always print out things like power descriptions, edge summaries, etc. Great idea to do something similar for your group.
@@ASavageWorldsGM Especially if it's something someone always trips up on. Plus with this getting old crap having brain farts happen more often than they did back in the 80s :(.
When someone advances and gets a new power it's good to do the index card thing for the GM and the player. Odd thought but would be cool to have a special cosmetic effect for when a spell or weird science item aces. Top of my head example "lightening bullet" (bullet or gun that causes electrical damage). Normal hit and damage little sparks & hair stands up "fro" style , a single raise small lightening bolts comes off the person's head and between their fingers. An ace could be having arcing electricity in a 3 ft ring around the struck target... As you're adventuring the cosmetic effects of raises and acing can be unique for every player in the party. Almost like canon signature moves. :)
I played in this woman's game at a convention. Special division FBI who hunted down low level supers. Her husband was back in the hotel room with scripts & notes. When an autopsy report came back she'd text her husband to call. He'd play the role of the coroner, assistant director, ect. The player who was talking on the phone would have to relay the info back to the rest of the players. Was a freaking awesome thing to have in a game. It made a big impression on me, one of those people you look for at conventions cause you know they are good GMs.
Bennies and inspiration seem sto have the same problem... you are supposed to give them, for those moments... where people just actually play their character.
Try to use them like XP for GM Intrusions in numenera
Great content, man! I’m subscribing right now
Thanks for all these tips! Great Video for new DMs. :)
Thanks for the advice- it helped a lot !
Thanks, getting into savage worlds as a GM, in particular Pulp adventures.
Really enjoying your content. Thank you!
That was great! Thanks. I haven't GMed SWADE yet, so I really appreciated the advice. I feel more assured that I can pull it off.
I'm only just learning the system, and this was very helpful.
I definitely plan on protecting my Big Bads with mooks, and other stuff to make them stay a threat instead of just throwing one big bad at the player when I know the Action Economy and Aces are a thing. But if push comes to shove, certain villains in my setting have a supernatural reason to survive an exploding dice deathblow. And I'll make sure to at least reward the players by making it take Fatigue Damage or something extra. XD
(The main villain of the one-shot I'm running to learn the system will have the final encounter be multiple rounds of skeletons coming into range, with one horribly shambling terror coming in at the end, possibly hucking spells from long range as he approaches)
Thanks for an excellent video about what an experienced GM should be ready for when running Savage Worlds. This crusty old Grognard who played the original D&D in the day (not well mind you. Wizard with 16 Strength 'cause I wanted a wizard!) I'm always open to advice on running.
So after some attempts back in 2012 to do some Savage Worlds, I'm trying it again. The issues I had with my explorations in 2012 were that the game seemed "coarse", making the adventurers feel a bit generic, the differences rather minimal. I did like it's more cinematic style. After a long stint of Pathfinder, D&D 5e, Chronicles of Darkness games (so underrated IMHO), Godbound, and some other systems (OSR and others), I am choosing Savage Worlds for a Cyberpunk genre saga. Watching your video is part of my prep.
Happy to help! I love running Cyberpunk games with Savage Worlds. You can get super dangerous using the Gritty Damage settings rule or keep it lighter using Wound Caps. If you get bogged down in the players over prepping for every heist, throw in some Dramatic Tasks instead. Good luck!
hey what cyberpunk game did you end up choosing? I wanna do that too but wondering if interface zero is what i want since it's a 300+ page book and i only one to do a 2-shot game at most, i might go with it but interested to hear what you did.
I used IZ 2.0 (this was before Adventure Edition was out). However, some of the rules were not used for my style of cyberpunk (such as no mechs). Also, tweaked the hacking to make it more streamlined. I have IZ 3.0 but have not played it yet. It is very rich in lore and some fairly in-depth rules for cyberware, hacking, chemical enhancements, etc. I'm not sure I would use IZ for my next cyberpunk game since I have my own ideas now. If you are looking for something more streamlined you might check out Sprawl Runners. It does not have much, if any, lore or history but the mechanics are very Shadowrun flavor.
I’m working my way through your videos from the beginning but jumped forward for this one. I hadn’t considered layers of bad guys but it works well. Another benefit that I suspect you use but didn’t discuss is having layers allows you to modify things on the fly. If the first wave of defence gets wiped in a round you can beef up the second wave. If the second wave really hurts skip the third and go straight to the boss.
Thank you so much! I do have a bit of SWADE experience, but great points made!
Got a subscriber! Running my first real SWADE story soon, using Harn world. Thanks for this advice
Tip#31: Schedule the games at your house. When they all show up, text your non-gamer friend to rob their houses while they're playing with you. You have the perfect alibi.
Clicking this, I literally thought: "68 tips in a 13 minute video? No way!"😂
about contetions. you can get cards there descripe the conditions. my plan is to give the players a card, when a conditions is aplied to them.
maby do som early on, so they learn them fast, and they start getting ideas on how to use them against the villans.
also i totlay agree with dnds random monster encounters.
Hi Carl... things that I would like to learn more about is a Chase Rules, Rapid Fire Rules, and Social Interaction! Thanks.
We do have an older video (Ep 15) on the SWADE chase rules (don't have anything on the new Pathfinder ones, however). Thanks for the other suggestions. th-cam.com/video/96it5oWvQkA/w-d-xo.html
I made my own game inspired by my "move the story forward" philosophy, want to take a look?
Coming from D&D, the naming of stuff is really confusing and makes things hard to remember without re-reading the whole rulebook + the setting specific book at leat twice. Things aren’t really logically organized and information you need even for character creation is spread throughout the book. I’ll get it eventually, but the way things are organized is not making it any easier.
I really lean heavily on the index (which is very good) and appreciate that all the page references in the PDF text are hyperlinked. Hopefully, some of our other videos can help too.
Edit yourself and don't over stat npc's are the two biggest ones!