Savage Worlds Rule Guidance: Bennies Part 2

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/01/08 – 00:00 -

Yesterday, in Part 1 of this article, we covered what bennies are and how to use them as a player. Today we provide a system for Game Masters to handle giving out bennies, and various related house rules.

Game Master Advice

As a Game Master, you can help prevent player hoarding or overspending of bennies by carefully managing the number you give to players, but at the same time they are a great reward to give players. Here are some tips for keeping a smooth benny economy:

  • Use physical tokens to represent bennies. Sure, you could just mark them down, but all the advice that follows is reinforced when you have to actually hand the benny to someone, or recieve it from them when it’s spent. Poker chips work very well and fit the feel of the game, but cards, glass beads, or polished stones would be nice as well.
  • Give one benny per encounter to each player. As a rule, give this at the end of the encounter. The same advice holds true for any non-combat scene that involves a lot of rolling, because bennies may be spent. This ensures that the players have a steady flow of bennies that they can count on. Of course, if the encounter turned out to be easy and few or no bennies were spent, then don’t give out bennies at the end, lest the players wind up with enough to make future encounters too easy.
  • Take pity when bad luck strikes. Sometimes the dice really hate your players, and the only way they succeed or survive is to blow through their bennies. If this happens, give everyone some extra bennies. In essence, you can use bennies to help balance out bad streaks and keep the game fun. Still, don’t do this until it’s obvious that the players are struggling. This should never be a common occurrence.
  • Use your GM bennies, especially to soak damage or have wild cards recover from shaken on their turn. This helps remind players that they can do the same thing, but it also allows you to raise the difficulty of a challenge when the dice truly love your players.
  • Give extra bennies as a reward for behavior you want to reinforce. Often, this is good roleplaying, but there are other reasons. Every campaign has it’s own tone. In a lighthearted game, you might give a benny for a witty remark, but in a gritty, serious game, you should reward someone who plays the tone to the disadvantage of their character. Other reasons to reward bennies include playing up a character’s hindrances, clever planning, or just doing something that adds positively to the game.
  • Don’t hold every player to the same standard. A long time role-player who always gets into character should have to work harder to get a benny than the newcomer who you want to convince to stick around. Rewards don’t have to be equal so long as you’re giving out a steady minimum of bennies. Rewards are to encourage improvement in players and in the game. Make them earn them, but then overtly give the reward when they do.
  • Limit bennies for hoarders. It’s alright for players to be frugal with their bennies, but if a character starts to amass a pile because they aren’t using them, subtly avoid giving them reward bennies. If they wind up with too many during the big boss fight, they’ll be able to outshine the other players at the very point where you want all of them engaged.
  • Take Edges and Hindrances into consideration. A player who took the Lucky edge, with grants an additional benny each session, should see a reward for that in the form of an extra benny every once in a while. Similarly, a character who took the Unlucky hindrance should occasionally be denied a benny when everyone else receives one. In both cases, do this approximately a third of the time, and make sure to mention why you are doing it to reinforce the effect of the player’s build choices.

Common House Rules

Bennies are one part of the rules that people seem to love to play around with. but several house rules seem to crop up regularly.

  • No Re-rolling Snake Eyes. This is probably the most common rule variant, and it probably speaks ill of humanity, but many groups do not allow bennies to be spent to re-roll Snake Eyes, seeing this as the price wild cards suffer for having the wild die. Alternatively, you can allow a re-roll of Snake Eyes, but require that it cost two bennies.
  • Give a benny when a GM benny is used. Essentially, when the Game Master spends a benny, he gives it to another player, usually the one it most directly affects.
  • A true benny economy. As an extension of the previous idea, player bennies, when spent, are given to the Game Master to use. In this setup, there are a finite number of bennies in the game, and they simply pass back and forth among the players. If someone hoards bennies, he is actively denying them to others, but spending bennies empowers your enemies.
  • The Golden Benny. This is a special player benny that can be given to another player at will (this normally can’t be done without the Common Bond edge).
  • The Super Benny. This can take many forms, but essentially there is a single benny that does something very powerful, such as an automatic success with a raise. The Game Master can reward this to someone, or perhaps it gets passed to a new player when spent, or is handled like the true benny economy above.
  • Cookie Bennies. Use cookies as your bennies. When you spend it, you eat it. This will prevent hoarding, but there are other consequences.

Have we missed anything? Got a killer house rule you can share? Let us know!


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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:

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

And in Part 2 we’ll be discussing:

  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.

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.

  1. You may freely spend one benny per encounter or scene. You’ll probably receive more from the Game Master at this rate.
  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.

Come back tomorrow for part 2 on our suggestions for managing your benny economy!


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Savage Worlds Primer: Trappings

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2009/12/30 – 08:00 -

After writing part 1 and part 2 of this primer I asked you and the good folks over at the Pinnacle forums if there was anything missing, and they came through for me. While another post going over a few insightful aspects of the rules is in order, today I’m talking about one of the concepts that will take your normal D&D player some thought to adapt to.

Trappings

A fantasy setting might have dozens of spells that explode and do damage. Fireballs, insect swarms, icy blasts, etc. Mechanically, they’re nearly identical. Savage Worlds only has one such spell. It’s called Blast. All variations of blast, such as a fireball, are done through trappings. Other trappings might include an expanding sphere of prismatic light, or a cold darkness that causes hemorrhaging. Trappings are mostly descriptive in nature, but they can have some mechanical effect. For example, a Fireball might cause things to catch fire but not damage stone walls, all depending on the description of the spell and the Game Master.

Setting Tone using Trappings

Trappings aren’t limited to spells alone. Many of the games hindrances, edges, and skills can have their names and descriptions changed to fit the particular tone of a setting. This is the most fundamental way to convert a setting over to Savage Worlds. Many times people try to create a special rule for a setting, only have it pointed out to them that the rule already exists under a different name.

This can be unsatisfying for some game masters who are used to dealing with the game in a mechanical manner. They feel the need to create specific exceptions or mechanical descriptions for everything. Thwart this temptation. The philosophy of Savage Worlds is to concentrate on describing the setting and it’s trappings, and then translating, not converting, the existing mechanics.


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Savage Worlds Primer: Part 2

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2009/12/23 – 08:00 -

Last week we told you what Savage Worlds is and why you should care. That’s all you really need, but in the spirit of making the game as approachable as possible, I wanted to share with you some advice on how to get started.

Remember: Fast. Furious. Fun.

The whole philosophy of the game is those three words, and it plays best if you strive to achieve them for yourself. Don’t get hung up on the rules. The core mechanic will cover you until you have a chance to look things up. Throw fun enemies at your players. You can probably wing-it on any monster or group of pirates that might attack. And lastly, have fun. With the rules out of the way, you can concentrate on playing the game.

Savage Worlds Plays Differently

This has to be pointed out before you play. If you’ve played other games, then there are many expectations about how things will work. Try to throw those out. There are big differences as to what defines a character.

If anything, I’d say that a character’s power is based on how capable he is of bending probability to his favor. Because the target number is 4 for any success, a static bonus is immensely powerful, and you don’t get many of them.

But it’s more than that. You’ll likely find that every roll is watched like a spinning slot machine, mostly because you never know when the dice will explode and change things dramatically.

But be aware. This game does not hold toward the averages. Lives can rise and fall on the dice and cards. Sometimes, but not usually, the big bad is taken down with one punch. It’s part of what makes it fun, but dangerous. Your characters should never feel invulnerable.

Read Through the Book

While Pinnacle are fantastic game designers, they aren’t as good at organizing the rules for learning. Read the whole book before you play. Fortunately, is short and small, and the print is large, so it shouldn’t take long. Plus, they are good at writing in a conversational style.

Seek Help if You Need It

If you’re confused about anything, the Pinnacle forums are a fantastic source of information. I know, forums can be intimidating places, but you’ll find this one friendly and helpful, and you can ask the designers directly and expect a prompt response. Also, feel free to ask us questions. We’d be glad to help.

Play it Before You Modify

We all love to tinker with rule sets, and that’s no different with Savage Worlds. There are multiple variations and house rules usable to capture a specific feel.

But don’t do it. At least, not at first. As I said, this game doesn’t play the same at the table as other games, and that won’t come across at first reading. Get to know the feel of it before you start making adjustments.

Experiment Within the Rules

It’ll take you a while to get a feel for it, so experiment. Play around and try different things, just to see how it works. Spend your bennies, soak rolls, gang up on people, shoot into melee. Cast spells, play with super-powers, and be prepared for an accidental TPK. It’ll happen at some point, probably.

Hopefully, this has been helpful to you. If you’re a current Savage, and you have any beginning advice that I missed, please comment and let us know. When done, we want these primers to part of a comprehensive guide to Savage Worlds, and we’d know we’ll need your assistance for that.


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Savage Worlds Primer: Part 1

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2009/12/16 – 08:00 -

Many of you come here for our general content and have asked about this Savage Worlds thing we go on about. We want to tell you, not just because of our love for the game, but also because we intend to make our fortunes selling games based on Savage Worlds.

So, what is Savage Worlds?

Most RPG rules systems are slow to play and require bookkeeping. These aren’t problems until your get older and have limited free time. So the fine folks at Pinnacle Entertainment Group set out to build an elegant rule system that required little work to adapt to various games, was easy to understand, and that played very quickly at the table. The result was Savage Worlds. The slogan? FAST. FURIOUS. FUN.

Removing the Barriers to Entry

The core rulebook, Savage Worlds: Explorer’s Edition, costs $9.99, is 160 pages long, and is the only book you need to play. It contains all the rules, has a section on Game Mastering, and provides guidance for translating any game or setting over to Savage Worlds. For the cost of a single D&D Player’s Handbook, I have purchased four copies of Savage Worlds and freely given them away to interested players.

For those who want more, there are a variety of tool-kits or companions for playing particular styles of game, such as fantasy or superheroes. There are also a number of first and third party settings that cover a range of play styles, from the wild west of Deadlands, to the 30′s serial science fiction of Slipstream. Most settings come with a complete campaign to introduce the world so that groups can hit the ground running.

The Core Mechanics

In order to show you the basics of the game, and how it’s different from most systems, here are the core rules:

  • Each character has a set of attributes and skills, rated from d4 to d12. To use a skill, you simply roll the associated die; roll 4 or higher and you succeed, and for every multiple of 4 above you get a raise, improving the result. There are occasional modifiers to a roll, but they are kept to a minimum.
  • Combat initiative is handled by dealing from a deck of playing cards, counting down from highest to lowest, making it easy to see a player’s initiative from across the table.
  • To remove bookkeeping, players don’t track hit points, but instead take wounds for each raise on a successful attack. A player can take up to three wounds and remain conscious. A fourth renders them incapacitated.

What is this good for?

Savage Worlds is not the end all, be all of roleplaying, but it’s good for many things. Obviously, if you don’t have a lot of prep time, and gaming time is precious to you, than this is your game. But it’s also fantastic for home-brew games, where building a complex rule system isn’t worth the time and effort. Similarly, it’s great for groups who want to try out many different games, but don’t want to learn new rules every time.

The fast nature of the rules makes it a breeze to run larger combats with dozens of characters, or to play games with a large number of players.

Lastly, it’s a game worth trying out simply because it’s fun. This part is difficult to get across just reading the rules. You have to see the system in action to understand how it plays differently at the table than anything you’ve previously tried.

Have we convinced you to at least give it a look? Check out the Playtest Rules and let us know what you think in the comments! For more information check out our Part 2 of this primer.


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