Savage Worlds Rule Guidance: Bennies Part 1
Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/01/07 – 00:00 -
I asked the great folks over at the Pinnacle forums for advice on using bennies, and they blew my mind with the amount and quality of their discussion. I can’t thank them enough. They’re all brilliant.
In this part we’ll be discussing:
- What bennies are and why they matter.
- As a player, how best to manage your bennies.
And in Part 2 we’ll be discussing:
- A system for a Game Master to handle giving out bennies.
- Various house rules for bennies.
Bennies: Making your own luck
For the uninitiated, each player starts a session with three bennies (and the game master gets his own), which can be spent at any time to do one of three things:
- Re-roll any test. If you roll a test and don’t like the result, you can roll again and keep whichever result is better.
- Recover from being Shaken. When a character takes damage, he is shaken and has to recover before he can act. This usually takes a Spirit roll, and can eat up an entire turn. Not with a benny.
- Soak damage. Getting hurt sucks. A benny lets you roll to reduce the number of wounds you take from an attack.
These are not just tacked onto the system, either. Management of your bennies is a critical part of Savage Worlds strategy and character power. In fact, there are hindrances and edges that can give a character more or fewer bennies.
It is also expected that the Game Master will give each player somewhere from three to five additional bennies throughout a gaming session.
Common Problems
Most experienced role-players aren’t used to having a system like bennies be integral to a system or their characters, and thus several problems occur.
- Players hoard their bennies. Some players are afraid to spend their bennies, thinking that they may need them later, but in doing this, they make game challenges harder on themselves and more frustrating. This can make the game less fun for them.
- Players run out too quickly. Lets face it, players like to succeed. Often, a player will blow through all his bennies re-rolling failed tests, and suddenly not have one to soak a death dealing blow, killing their character and ruining their fun.
How to manage your Bennies
Guidance for how to spend your bennies really isn’t complicated. It follows a fairly simply progression.
- You may freely spend one benny per encounter or scene. You’ll probably receive more from the Game Master at this rate.
- Be cautious spending a second benny in the same fight, but do so when you believe it’ll make a significant difference.
- Never spend your last benny except to soak an attack.
Come back tomorrow for part 2 on our suggestions for managing your benny economy!
Tags: bennies, economy, jeff carlsen, pinnacle entertainment group, Players, Savage Worlds
Categories: Savage Worlds, Savage Worlds Primer |
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By Don on Jan 7, 2010 | Reply
A couple of points for revision:
1) On re-roll, you can re-roll and take the best, where best is the highest result. If your first result was a minimal success and you want or need to try for better but don't make it, you're stuck with your minimal success, not with a failure.
2) On recover from shaken, it should read that this can take an entire turn. Having a high spirit, a couple edges which add to the roll or reduce wound penalties means that you will more often have a raise and be able to act after recovering from shaken.
3) Your most role-players will be unfamiliar with bennies seems to pre-suppose a certain segment which haven't played games like Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, Legend of the Five Rings, Shadowrun, 7th Sea, Deadlands (classic iteration) or other games with a re-roll/bonus mechanic. It might come across as either demeaning or insulting. Having never played a d20 game despite 14+ years in the hobby, your comment appears to focus on those persons coming from that background rather than those from a possibly different gaming background.
4) Your number 3 on how to manage is possibly wrong, especially if a player is looking at trying to soak 6+ wounds, at which point that last bennie is probably better served as a 2nd chance at a better result on the incapacitation table. It's one of those situations where players want (and need) to succeed at stage one when it might be best to risk it all on stage 2 with the promise of possibly only being shaken and at -3 wounds or surviving but unconscious.
5) The expectation of how many bennies the GM awards may appear slightly inflated; I've seen games that hand out more and some that hand out less. Certain settings, like Realms of Cthulhu, encourage an almost miserly approach to handing out bennies in certain atmospheres, while something like 50 Fathoms or Solomon Kane might be a bit more generous to encourage a more “swash-buckling” feel as opposed to a gritty military game a la Tour of Darkness.
On the whole, I like the article, although I as a long-time SW player am probably not the intended audience. Regarding the handout of bennies, I hope you'll also note how the GM tends to hand out bennies affects their use by the players.
By Jeff Carlsen on Jan 7, 2010 | Reply
You give some solid advice, especially with point (4). It's an aspect I hadn't considered, and should make it into the revised document in the future.
Also, you are correct about points (1) and (2) and it has been changed.
As for number (5), I'm forced to rely on experience, but I've very rarely met a roleplayer who's greatest experience isn't with D&D. But even when I have seen a mechanic like bennies, it's mostly a re-roll mechanic. In Savage Worlds, they aren't just tied to your ability to stay up in combat, they are the biggest shield you have. They represent more of your character's power than similar systems in other rule-sets.
Though, while on that topic, I would love to hear more about how Warhammer and 7th Sea handle it, as I've admittedly never read or played those games.
It's true that I'm in the camp that believes in a high flow of bennies, but I like to see players get their re-rolls. They seem to have more fun that way. It comes to taste, but I'd like to guide others to do what I see as fun.
Definitely stay tuned tomorrow for the Game Master advice. I look forward to your insights on it.
By Don on Jan 7, 2010 | Reply
“Though, while on that topic, I would love to hear more about how Warhammer and 7th Sea handle it, as I've admittedly never read or played those games.”
7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings were a modified WoD engine, instead of counting successes, you tried to get a certain number of dice to equal something. It's called roll and keep. Basically, you could be rolling 5 dice and can keep 3 and need to get a total of 20. 7th Sea and Legend of the Five Rings had void points/drama points which added dice, making it rolling 6 dice, keep 4. Certain spells, items or special abilities allowed for an entire re-roll like bennies. 7th Sea's drama dice did better in that you got a certain number based on your character build and then could earn a (theoretical) unlimited amount via role-playing, much like players (theoretically) can earn bennies in Savage Worlds.
Warhammer RPG (Hogshead edition) had fate points, allowing for someone to both 1) ignore damage and 2) re-roll. They were limited at character gen and refreshed according to either the feel of the campaign or never, depending on the feel of the campaign.
Shadowrun had the Karma system, where you had a limited pool that let you get a certain number or re-rolls (Shadowrun in all editions have been more or less dice pool/buckets of dice games). The current edition has a luck attribute which does the same or similar things.
Deadlands Classic had fate chips, which are the forerunners of the bennies and their effects in DL: Reloaded. There are also bennies as drama points in Cinematic Unisystem (Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness from Eden Studios). Not having those books, I'm unsure of the refresh rate off the top of my head, but I think it's a per-session thing.
I would hazard that they exist to mitigate situations in games where death by a single blow is a very viable outcome, such as in Savage Worlds or in 7th Sea or Warhammer. I wonder if they aren't present in, say D&D or d20, as these systems are set up so that a character cannot or only in extreme circumstances die via a single blow.
By Chris Fuchs on Jan 27, 2010 | Reply
Is there a part 2 for this yet? When I click the link, I get an error. Same when I click a link for the primer.
Chris
By Jeff Carlsen on Jan 27, 2010 | Reply
This is a part two, but somehow we broke the link to it. It was probably the gremlins. We've been getting nasty letters from their union.
I've fixed the link to the second part of the Bennies article, but to save you some time, here's the link: http://www.apathygames.com/2010/01/08/savage-wo...
Unfortunately, I can't find which link to the primer is broken. If you could point me to it, I'd be grateful. In the meantime, the here's the link to that as well: http://www.apathygames.com/2009/12/16/savage-wo...
By Chris Fuchs on Jan 27, 2010 | Reply
Is there a part 2 for this yet? When I click the link, I get an error. Same when I click a link for the primer.
Chris
By Jeff Carlsen on Jan 28, 2010 | Reply
This is a part two, but somehow we broke the link to it. It was probably the gremlins. We've been getting nasty letters from their union.
I've fixed the link to the second part of the Bennies article, but to save you some time, here's the link: http://www.apathygames.com/2010/01/08/savage-wo...
Unfortunately, I can't find which link to the primer is broken. If you could point me to it, I'd be grateful. In the meantime, the here's the link to that as well: http://www.apathygames.com/2009/12/16/savage-wo...