Savage Worlds Combat Is NOT Too Slow

[@YukonJack88]

1st Off Thank you for your thoughtful work here in these videos. Great questions and insights and table wisdom. My initial reaction to: speed of table play, is to point out that high quality gaming requires all players and Gms to player the hell out the system, the gaming situation, their characters, and NOT bring entitlements to the table, or ask that sessions act as a distraction from one's life's issues, given that quality anything requires a humble passionate ..Focus... High end TTRPG action is an art form, akin to a Jazz band. I've had several truly magical engaging highly complex narrative battles, in both 5e and now Symbaroum and it was the quality of imaginative skills and sheer creativity, that put the turn time into a stream of conscious experience...... These battles used grids and tokens and turn crunch. Our Epic 5E BBG fight took 3 full gaming sessions to run, and it still talked about by all of us. That 5e battle was a seamless narrative experience to the whole campaign. I mention this because, I suspect you could be playing the most elegantly designed RPG and turn time length would still be an issue for some players and tables.

[@DungeoneerShow]

I think you really hit on something with "it feels slower" which, I think really means, "It feels like we're not making progress" which is a complaint I got when I ran a one-shot last week. Roll to hit Roll to wound Roll to soak That's 3 opportunities to be ineffective. BUT, it's three opportunities for drama, too! And knowing that all you have to do is land 1 good hit on a regular bad guy (with a raise) changes that dynamic as well. I think if the "to hit" and "wound" rolls were combined it wouldn't feel so bad but it's not necessarily an improvement either.

[@pacio49]

Heyyyy, it's a Yinzer! I'm a recent Savage Worlds convert, along with my gaming posse, and I love the channel. Didn't realize you were in Pittsburgh! I lived there for four years before Covid (lucky me moved back to Manhattan 2 months before the outbreak hit). I used to live in Uptown on 5th Ave, and then later for a year in Carnegie, of all places. Stop by Market Square and grab some Burgatory for me. (I gotta make it back to Bridge City USA soon. Folks who don't realize it, Pittsburgh has a little bit of everything all in one place with some phenomenal culture, music, sports, art, in a thriving and historic setting. Like, best kept secret for a weekend getaway city. Seriously. Check it out. (Pittsburgh Salads notwithstanding, lol.)

[@mgakidd]

Anyone who thinks Savage World is slow has never played D&D any edition beyond level 5-7. Slog!

[@mrskwid1]

I think each turn of 5e is faster, but overall 5e combat run long because the players and monsters are all pretty tanky. I also think SW has more interesting fights. 5e can have interesting fights, but it starts to slow down even more when you have to keep track of new monster abilties and features of the environment.

[@AxiomofDiscord]

Very well put. Could not agree with this more

[@PEGShane]

Rifts and Pathfinder are definitely the chunkiest, but I don't think the relevant question is whether it's slow or not--and that's largely a function of how detailed you want to be, how many combats you feel need the full tactical experience, etc. I think the relevant question is is it FUN? I certainly hope you all think so. Cheers :)

[@TheSavageGoose]

I definitely do. I hope the title and thumbnail didn't scare you though. ;)

[@PEGShane]

@@TheSavageGooseCan't say I liked it. So many people won't watch the content...they just see that and decide not to give our game a chance. So that's unfortunate.

[@TheSavageGoose]

@PEGShane Hmm... That's fair... I'll try to keep that in mind. I'll have to think how I could reword and thumbnail this one as well. The unfortunate part on the KZbin side is that negativity often leads to more clicks and engagement. However, I aim to encourage people to play, so it's a balance.

[@twistedtechmike4866]

We've shifted to Quick Encounters and Dramatic Tasks for any combat scene which isn't relative to a major plot line. Only boss fights get tactical for us now, and it has drastically changed the pacing.

[@TheSavageGoose]

Glad to hear it! That's one of my tips for new GMs. Quicker encounters and and Dramatic tasks are amazing subsystems.

[@FungalHorror]

Doesn't this end up shortchanging players who have invested into a lot of tactical edges or powers like smite? I've tried this at my tables and it always ends up frustrating those players who want the grit of combat. Dramatic tasks are great for many adventuring situations but I'd say a simple skill roll doesn't really represent a combat character's potential very well since much of their power can come from situational things that wouldn't be part of a DT. How do you overcome this without dragging the dramatic task out and getting bogged down in details?

[@twistedtechmike4866]

@@FungalHorror Dont get me wrong. When we have combat, we go all out. We simply dont want/need non-stop combat to enjoy our game. Since Pathfinder is all combat, this was our solution to keep the pacing at an engaging level. See Dangerous Quick Encounters in the books. We dont use combat in SWADE to force resource attrition, so random monsters/fights dont need to be an hour long drag.

[@DrWaites]

My group fell off SW and went to 4e D&D. They didn't like the math involved with AP ratings vs Toughness, dividing by 4. Each round also lost pacing by passing out cards. We played for a couple months and they never got the hang of it.

[@svenk5221]

Combat feels slow if you don´t mix things up (repetative) I use Quick Encounters for bar fistfights fo instance, mix things up with dramatic tasks und I take my time to describe the details of the fight in an exciting way. And I always raise the stake during a fight by usiong back up that shows up, the enviroment changes (fire, buildings collapsing etc) Nobody ever complained about it.

[@TheSavageGoose]

Sounds to me like you are doing combat really well!

[@ARKavli]

The Deluxe version of Solomon Kane also has the full rules. Which is of course why I don't need another version, along with all the other Deluxe products I have. I don't feel compelled to convert and buy all these things again in SWADE flavor.

[@TheSavageGoose]

I only had a limited collection of Deluxe edition stuff, and I love the changes in SWADE enough to just complete the SWADE set.

[@zadmar]

You failed to mention which whisky you were drinking! At 35:40 you said you'd played Savage Worlds solo a few times -- I'd be interested to hear more about that in a future video, as it was solo gaming that first introduced me to Savage Worlds.

[@TheSavageGoose]

It was King's County Distillery Straight Bourbon. As for Solo play, I have not done a whole lot of it, but I want to do more. I am still experimenting with certain GM Emulators. I want to get my hands on the Mythic GM Emulator since it is the most popular. Once I have some more experience under my belt with it I will probably do a video about it.

[@zadmar]

I started out with the Mythic GM Emulator! Then I joined their mailing list, and saw several people recommending Savage Worlds, so that's how I got into Savage Worlds :)

[@TheSavageGoose]

Have you watched Me, Myself, & Die?

[@zadmar]

@@TheSavageGoose I've seen a few episodes, they're very good, but I'm always interested to hear about different people's experiences

[@timparks9833]

The Crater Lake Chronicles for Deadlands is a pretty fun solo experience. Ive played through it a few times now. I wish it offered a bit more branching paths, but it still does a great job of making almost any positive or negative aspects you have your character have some impact, and a few decisions can alter the story quite a bit, even if all paths leads to the same destination.

[@philipboardman1357]

Thanks for making these videos. I'm about to be a player in my first SW campaign.

[@peschionator7873]

I dmed for 2 seperate groups in the deadlands setting and in both I sooner or later changed toughness to health points. The prime motivation is how unsatisfying it feels to manage to score a hit but not progressing the combat (through wounds or takedowns). Especially low level characters struggle to both hit and deal enough damage. Since my groups dont focus one guy down a shaken result doesnt nessecarily progress the fight, it just prevents the opponent from dealing damage as well. HP at least makes you think that you contribute to the fight. My secondary motivation is to allow me as DM to homebrew weapons and items easier. Increasing damage makes a massive difference with toughness, especially if one player tends to have higher damagespikes than others. In that case balancing encounters makes either one character a god or all other characters useless.

[@NotaroName]

It sounds to me like the answer is yes, Savage Worlds is slower than D&D combat which is already on the slow end of RPGs when compared to say Blades in the Dark, Masks, Fate or Ironsworn. And I agree with the point that thinking of combat more narratively rather than mechanically but there are lots of RPGs that have mechanics for combat, that don't require measuring distance or a damage calculator but still allow tacitcal combat and I would say that it is the responsibility of the game designers to create games that encourage play. if savage worlds wanted quick combat they could have written rules to allow that.

[@mjsgrass78]

I’m a new player to savage worlds and to the channel. My group and I have been playing for about a month now. I like the system and the combat, it’s fun it’s swingy. Here’s my gripe. Now, this might be because I’m a new GM, but when I look at a 5e stat block for a monster I know exactly what that creature does, it’s abilities are printed on the stat block. In savage worlds it will give me the traits of a monster but I need to keep looking back at the books to see what that trait does. This might be a new player thing which gets better through time, but I found this kind of tedious.

[@TheSavageGoose]

Don't feel bad. This is one of my complains about Savage Worlds as well actually. Sometimes when prepping I will actually put in the abilities and reprint the stat blocks of the more important monsters/enemies.

[@mikec64]

Do you mean what the monster's edges do? Have you found a good reference card for edges?

[@TheSavageGoose]

@@mikec64 That is what I am referring to. When I see Edges on a monster that are written out, I am like "Ugh, I need to go to the book to remember what these Edges do." I could just print off the Edge summary page from the book. Tha's not a half bad idea.

[@mikec64]

@@TheSavageGoose The only thing better than an Edge summary is a Combat Edge summary. A few decks of cards would be nice, so during prep I could put the cards with the monster card. I'd make the cards with a 2-line summary at top, details below, so you could stack the cards and make just the summaries visible.

[@antieverything1]

Pathfinder 2e is the same. It drives me crazy.

[@dane3038]

I don't think spped of combat should be a factor. Or at least should be synonym with fun combat. GURPS has more steps than most but to me it is much more fun.

[@TheSavageGoose]

I agree. Speed does not equal fun. Perceived speed though can affect fun. The way to ensure perceived speed and fun occur is ensuring to keep players engaged with combat.

[@simontemplar3359]

I think savage worlds was a revelation, but games like ICRPG, knave, cairn, and into the odd really took the fast and furious mechanic and universal setting to the next level. Still love me some savage Pathfinder though. WAY less crunch than Pathfinder 2e.

[@TheSavageGoose]

And definitely less crunchy than Pathfinder 1e

[@erikbuchanan4648]

Ive been playing SW since it came out, and usually, combat is fast. Sometimes, the swingyness of the dice rolls can slow things up. This just happened to me. I was running a game that also had someone observing just to see what rpging was all about. Of course, this would be the night where the dice conspired to keep the villian alive. On character got Shaken locked for three rounds as all the others either missed or couldn't beat Tough on the villian. I wasn't spending any bennies on the villain, and even nerfed it, but the combat took 6 rounds, and the players were getting bored. I explained to the observer that combat is usually much qiucker, but felt a little deflated after the game. This kind of slog is a rarity in SW, but the swingyness occasionally puts you in a bad spot.

[@dentheduck2095]

Yeah, they fixed that shaken stun in deluxe and later editions...

[@curseofyig6727]

Too many bennies slow combat. I try to give one out to the players at the end of every encounter and nothing extra. Too much soaking and rerolls ya know? I also do damage by subtracting toughness from damage and then finding how many multiples of four fit into the number.

[@AxiomofDiscord]

I find the AP versus armor calculation to be the one that really makes it feel a bit rough to calculate. I think my favorite game system have an offensive roll against a defensive roll and damage roll versus armor roll. I also like it because it leads to a system in which you can have luck carry you to any height or the deepest depth. I like the uncertainty. If no hit no need to roll that second roll. Both rolls at the same time each player adding their own up and comparing. And I say each player because the GM is also playing the game in my mind.

[@abelhernandez7809]

​@@AxiomofDiscord Sounds like you might enjoy Cyberpunk or Witcher's system

[@mikec64]

I'm also stingy with Bennies, mostly to make the game more predictable. I use a raise table to do the multiples of four math, but some players still have trouble doing that. I think I'll make one of those wheels you turn with a window to show the result. (Google 'verb language wheel' to see what I mean.)

[@AxiomofDiscord]

@@abelhernandez7809I know of the Cyberpunk system but not the Witcher so might look into that one as well. And yes I do like a lot about Cyberpunk. To be fair I play Savage World for Rifts because I do prefer it over Megaversal. I also do enjoy Basic Roleplaying for low power games.

[@shampdg]

Savage worlds--too slow? lol It is Fast, Furious, and Fun!

[@TheSavageGoose]

That was the conclusion I came to. :)

[@shampdg]

@@TheSavageGoose Oh I know. That is why I subbed!

[@Thisworldistoobig]

So I have just finished reading the rules for Savage worlds and now I want to play it. Is combat slow?? I have no idea ... yet. But I'll tell you what is slow - The preamble of this video before getting to the topic stated in the title. Once it got into the meat of the topic material though, the info provided was good stuff.

[@TheSavageGoose]

By preamble do you mean the discussion around the news for the week, or something else?

[@BobMcDowell]

I may be in the minority, but I think the "Fast, Furious, Fun" branding has always been cringe. Let your customers decide what adjectives to use, particularly whether or not they are having fun.

[@antieverything1]

When Savage Worlds released, it *was* fast and furious...relative to systems like 3.x and 4e. By today's standards it is right in the middle of the pack in terms of crunch and speed of play. It is being compared to OSR games and 5e (and, yes, 5e is as fast as SW and more streamlined than SW, deal with it).

[@simontemplar3359]

You mad?

[@antieverything1]

@@simontemplar3359no, I'm calmly and confidently stating correct information that I know will make people like you upset (because your identity is wrapped up in which products you consume).

[@TheSavageGoose]

I will respectfully disagree as someone who has played 5e since it launched in 2014, but I imagine every group is different. Thanks for your thoughts!

[@timparks9833]

I’ve played 5e on nearly a weekly basis since its launch and I completely disagree. 5e is fast at levels 1-4, and every level after that makes 5e very slow, with higher levels being one of the slowest combats of any rpg of all time.

[@dannylampron9879]

if you thinks savage worlds combat is too slow, try dnd or pathfinder LOL

[@AxiomofDiscord]

I find D&D to be much faster outside of 3-3.5 with a lot of sourcebook support. Base books still not bad. AD&D 2nd can be slow if you are bad at math.

[@curseofyig6727]

Hero system is probably the slowest but you sacrifice speed for tactical depth. Same with Savage Worlds Its pretty quick but if it was too fast you wouldn't have all these great options in combat. You end up with these rules lite games where you have no choices to make in combat.

[@dannylampron9879]

@@AxiomofDiscord Im sorry but I never saw a combat round of one hour in savage worlds... but I saw that in many high level D&D campain...

[@dane3038]

@@dannylampron9879Key word there is "High Level". But if combat is taking that long then the player's aren't high enough level for their characters. Don't expect a new driver to pilot a fight jet.

[@AxiomofDiscord]

​@@dane3038 I was going how much of that time is waiting on people to make a decision. D & D rolls faster than Savage for me.