Now Playing: Savage Worlds

The only game I'm participating in right now is a Savage Worlds game in the D&D campaign setting of Eberron. The group is playing over Skype and without any miniatures or maps, so perhaps I'm not getting the as-it-was-intended SW, but so far, I'm not finding it to be the incredible system that many on the internet claimed it to be. I'm not saying that people who dig the system are having bad/wrong fun, but rather that my personal quirks and tastes aren't leaving me with a net-positive opinion. I'm reluctant to call this post a review even though I'll be judging the game in some capacity. Think of this more as a description of the system through my eyes and expectations from the player perspective.

PROS

Simple, Frequent Advancement - When you advance in SW, you do so in a discrete chunk of capability. Characters earn about two experience points per session, and gain one advance for every five points. An advance is usually a boost to a skill or two or a new ability (called an edge), and you're free to shop the whole system for anything that your character meets the prerequisites to get. I'm leaving out a few additional nuances to it, but that's it for the most part. There's no going over your entire sheet to adjust all of the math upward at once. You just pick and go.

Meaningful Character Features - Every widget you can stick on your character is a big thing. This is a nice change from D&D and similar games where you might pick a feat that gives a +1 to a die roll in a specific circumstance. In SW, an advance you pick up might let you do something like attack all adjacent foes at once, or cast a new spell.

Accessible Price Point - Not enough good can be said for having a printed, full-color core rulebook available at a $10 price point. Even the most casual players can afford to have the rules on-hand.

CONS

Spell Points - I'm playing a bard in the game, and finding the spell point system to be a downer. Spell point systems in general leave a bad taste in my mouth because when they're done like they are in SW, they come off as saying, "You may have this much fun before you lose potency."

Lethality - I've heard people say that the lethality of SW depends a lot on the GM, but for what I've played, it seems like characters can be driven from not-a-scratch to death's door in the space of one rotten round. I tend to prefer a game where the characters have more time to intervene over the course of their downward plunge when they're ganged up on.

Death Spiral - The death spiral in SW feels harsh. It takes four wounds to drop a character, and each wound along the way applies a -1 to all die rolls. This seems to have the power to really tip the momentum of the fight quickly, particularly if one side makes a solid alpha strike on the other.

Low Default Starting Power Level - The game isn't kidding when it calls starting characters "Novices." Before you take disadvantages, all of your five primary attributes balance to the human average and you only have an edge if you're a human. (So for every above average one you have, you need a below average attribute.) Now this could easily be remedied by starting at Seasoned (four advances in) or Veteran (eight advances in) ranks, but because the game pitches starting at Novice as the default, I'd speculate that's where most GMs start their games. It's where my GM started ours, and I'm finding a disconnect between the starting power level of a D&D character that I'm expecting to emulate and the SW power level that I actually have.

Disadvantage System Feels Weak - Players can take disadvantages for their characters to gain more resources for character creation, but they're inconsistent in their potency. Some are strictly qualitative while others affect the game math. For example, Heroic (your character can't say no to people in need) has the same value as One Arm (You're missing an arm. -4 to all checks normally requiring two hands). The game advises giving bennies (re-roll tokens) to characters who play their hindrances well, but if your character changes legitimately through play, he might still be stuck with a personality based hindrance until he buys it off somehow (which, to my knowledge, isn't an option in the core rules). Furthermore, the impact of personality hindrances depends on the GM regularly forcing the character into a situation where his quirk causes trouble to make the hindrance actually function as intended.

All of the above said, I reiterate that I play over the internet and without miniatures for combat, which may improve the experience, but the bulk of my distaste for the system is seated factors seemingly not dependent on those missing pieces.