Savage Worlds Rule Guidance: Bennies Part 1

I asked the great folks over at the Pinnacle forums for advice on using bennies, and they blew my mind with the quality of their discussion. I can’t thank them enough. They’re all brilliant.

In this part I’ll discuss:

1. What bennies are and why they matter.
2. As a player, how best to manage your bennies.

And in Part 2 of this article, I’ll discuss:

1. A system for a Game Master to handle giving out bennies.
2. 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, though this will change depending on the tone of the campaign. Fewer bennies means a grittier, more dangerous game, where more bennies leads to a very pulpy game.

Common Problems

Many 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.

1. You may freely spend one benny per encounter or scene. A wise Game Master will be handing bennies out a similar rate. If not, be a little more cautious.
2. Be cautious spending a second benny in the same fight, but do so when you believe it’ll make a significant difference.
3. Never spend your last benny except to soak an attack or to reroll on the Incapacitation table. This is your emergency “Keep me alive” benny.

How you use your last benny is critical to the survival of your character. If you take just enough wounds to incapacitate you, then you probably want to roll to soak. But if you end up with a total of five or more wounds, you’re best off accepting the wounds and saving your final, precious benny for a second chance on the Incapacitation table. It’s better to be unconscious and alive than to die trying to keep in the fight.

Come back tomorrow for part 2, where I give suggestions for managing your benny economy!

Savage Worlds Primer Articles

• Savage Worlds Primer: Part 1
• Savage Worlds Primer: Part 2
• Using Trappings
• Rule Guidance: Bennies Part 1
• Rule Guidance: Bennies Part 2