First Impressions of Savage Worlds Role-playing Game

I recently bought the rulebook and the PDF of the SavageWorlds RPG system. Last night, I got my first chance to play and GM. Unfortunately, I had only read through the rules a couple of times.

The Setting:

The Lost Valley

The year is 1928. An English lord assembles a group of explorers in hopes of mounting an expedition to explore Antarctica.  As their plane nears the continent, a strange phenomenon causes them to plunge into a strange valley. The valley turns out to be a lush rainforest filled with prehistoric beasts. Think, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, The Lost World.

The Characters:

(Since I was still unfamiliar with the system, I had everyone use the preprinted character archetypes.)

Dr. Edgar Douglas (played by Jake) – A scientist who specializes in biology plus a university professor, who was recently widowed. By taking the elderly hindrance, medical doctor was added to his resume. He’s a grandfather and a veteran of the Spanish-American War. He adds a ton of value to the group not only with knowledge, but with repair and jury-rigging abilities.

Jedediah Donnelly (played by Don) – A trapper/mountain man using the marksman archetype. A WWI veteran with a secret lost love, who has taken to trapping and living off the land. He was recruited to trap exotic animals. He provides a lot of combat prowess.

Robert Foster (played by Caleb) – A movie director/producer based on the “Face” template. Coming off of a short, rocky marriage to a beautiful starlet, he’s broke and in debt.  Also, he is plagued by his heavy drinking habit. He convinced some Hollywood friends to give him a small crew and camera equipment. He’s hoping to make his comeback feature film.

Ayla (played by my lovely wife Erin) – A beautiful cavewoman who uses the Fighter, Fencer archetype. While out hunting, she saw a great silver bird plunge into the forest. She has befriended our heroes and has proved very helpful in their survival in the Lost Valley. Also, she has a bad habit of stealing shiny objects.

John Slaughter (played by myself, just for getting use to the system) – The WWI ace come daredevil and adventurer pilot. He's fun-loving and cannot resist any adventurous pursuit. Though, he has a bad habit of wanting to talk baseball at the worse possible times. 

Adventure:

I set the stage at the crash site. Our heroes had been there for eight days and they had already met Ayla. We determined the co-pilot and Dr. Douglas’ young assistant were killed in the crash.

Mr. Donnelly constructed a blind to watch the approaches to the crash site. Mr. Foster began secretly filming him wanting him to be the star of his next big hit.

Dr. Douglas created a water collection system that is quite ingenious.

The group decided to have Ayla lead them to a nearby river to explore plus the Doctor wanted to test the water and Donnelly wanted check the local fauna.

On the way, they were attacked by two giant spiders. Mr. Foster was hit, but suffered no ill effects. Mr. Slaughter drew his pistol and promptly it misfired (critical fail). Ayla and Donnelly quickly dispatched the spiders without any help as it turns out. Ayla quickly ripped off a leg and began munching on it. The Doctor took some venom and is planning on making a medicine from it.

Once at the river, the group was attacked by a T-Rex. It proved to be a challenge for the Novice group, but they prevailed in the end. I was treated with some interesting strategy including Mr. Foster using his whiskey and Ayla’s torch to breath fire at the beast. Finally the group tied a rope between two trees and lured the T-Rex in and tripped it.

First Impressions:

I loved this system. I bungled the wound status, but everything else was simple and easy to use. All of us enjoyed the initiative system using playing cards. I’ve never really had a system that was this easy to learn or teach. Don had never role-played before and he was onboard quickly. A fun, simple RPG system.

Also, it was fun to play in a new time period. I’ve been GMing a lot of Star Wars recently, so this was a great chance of pace.

I’m looking forward to playing in the Savage Worlds system for a long while.