Savage Worlds & "Das schwarze All"

 As my #RPG aMonth for May, I going to review Savage Worlds and a German-only setting book called "Das Schwarze All" (The black cosmos)

Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds is one of those RPGs the claim to be generic, i.e. it should work on all scales and for all kinds of settings. Certainly, you can play characters that act as heroes and shape the world around them.

 I have read the Deluxe Edition of the Savage Worlds which is just the core rules without setting specific details, but with notes on game mastering a beastiary and five one sheet adventures.

The whole document has 161 pages, but contains many pictures and let's be frank ads for setting books. The crunch starts on page 16, where traits (attributes), skills, edges/hindrances (advantages & disadvantages) are introduced. Instead of using plain numbers Savage Worlds uses dice to measure the abilities in traits and skills (from d4 to d12) similar to Cortex+. But instead of a pool like in Cortex+ you just roll your skill die together with an additional d6 called the wild card die and take the highest die. But the dice explode on the highest number, i.e. a 6 on d6.  The average ability for something a character learned is d6 and with the wild die, the chances fo succeeding a check which is always against 4 is 75%. For each additional 4 more than the initial 4 in the result your effect gets a raise, i.e., will get stronger.

On page 18 and 19 there stats für 16 archetypes that are simple characters that can be used as pregens without background or even as foes. An archetype or a character is just 7-8 lines without equipment and the only system with more concise character formatting I know of is Traveller. Next are rules for some specific races like elves and rules to create custom races, lists of hindrances, edges and skills.

The second chapter contains 17 pages of equipment from low tech to science fiction.

Chapter Three contains the standard game rules. It contains rules for trait and skill tests, combat, damage and healing. The most interesting part is that you have bennies to reroll tests, but not damage rolls, and also you can soak damage with it. A special thing for Savage Worlds is the use of card decks for initiative. Each player and the NPCs are dealt cards with determine the order. If someone gets a joker, there is a bonus on all actions for the character.

Chapter 4 contains a potpourri of situational rules, like mass combat, chasings, social conflict or travel for about 20 pages. Next is 20 pages of spells and powers.

A chapter on game mastering and a bestiary followed by 5 one page adventures complete the book.

For my one-shot session, I more or less ignored all situational rules from chapter 4, but we used all the rest of the game rules.

How does the game play feel? Fast and very versatile, but it did not click with me so far in a way that I would prefer to play Savage Worlds instead of other games.

"Das Schwarze All" (The black cosmos)

It is a 138 pages A5 hardcover. After a few pages of foreword, the actual setting section begins, in which the background is described. It is a somewhat over-excited SF parody, such as the The Ice Pirates. For me, the two most interesting things are the xylophilic, i.e. living trees that feed purely carnal, and the artificial intelligences, called E.P.I., which can take over physical beings. Otherwise, it's a collection of puns and many a joke that does not always meet my idea of humor. Of course, there are also various allusions to the classic German role-playing game The Dark Eye, but they are all rather lovingly done and very appreciating to the original. In short, the setting is a mixture of humorous space parody, but not so pointless that there would be no coherent overall setting. There is an empire, three different religous cults and some moreorless believable societies.

The second part of the book is dedicated to character creation, here are new races and backgrounds. For example, there are the backers, an ancient race of beings whose real appearance is unknown, and who walk around in protective suits that make them look like Vorlorn of the Babylon 5. The diggarz are actually quite classic fantasy dwarfs who live in space mines, mutants, novae (a kind of amazons) and xylophiles. Some values and talents are changed or adjusted and there is a new more pronounced version of PSI powers.

This is followed by a section of equipment that covers classic weapons but also microwave emitters or lightwave swords. The lightwave word has a sine wave-shaped blade of light as one may guess from the name. Then some sample spaceships from the space bike to an Imperial Freighter. Starting on page 98, the setting special rules, such as faster than light flight, the FreakRoll rocket or the set-box method for the equipment. Several pages with sample characters complete the work. From the point of playability, the book is great: even as a Savage Worlds noob, I could quickly pour my ideas into an adventure with the help of the book. I just took the background setting and with the help of the sample ships and characters I had a nice one-shot ready. In short, the "Das Schwarze All" is just fun.