The Making of Savage Worlds By Shane Lacy Hensley and Tens of Thousands of Savage (From the original web articles) Copyright Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All rights reserved. This file may not be distributed without writ- ten consent of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The Making of Savage Worlds This article was this one was no exception. We had a Harrowed with originally written twin chainsaws (Ashe Marler), a dedicated Templar as the game was (Charles Ryan), a Doomsayer who nearly blew us all being developed. to Hell (Jason Nichols), and little old me, a Ravenite It was then named Tommy Two-Women (yeah, that was my updated and character who sold arms to the bad guys). And despite annotated in all that, the Black Hats and their .50 caliber machine 2004, about a gun on the schoolhouse roof and the assault rifles from year after the game debuted the windows were too much for us. in March of 2003. The “Updates” you see The original Deadlands was built from the beginning are from this 2004 version. A condensed and edited to simulate “The Outlaw Josey Wales” type action. A article written for the Shark Bytes Fanzine appeared few rounds of gunfire takes big chunks out of people sometime in 2006 as well. and ends up with someone in Boot Hill. But a big fight Notes beginning with “2009 Update” were new to with 20 Black Hats, 5 player characters, and a couple this edition, which was written in February of 2009. of NPCs we talked into soaking up bullets for us can The article is, of course, self-serving and full of take a while. If you know what you’re doing you personal anecdotes that many will care little about. mark wounds with chips, count down the But people have asked for it so here it is. Suffice to cards fast and don’t let people take too long, say that Savage Worlds isn’t the be-all and end-all but you’re still looking at about two hours of roleplaying games. Rest assured we know this, for a fight the size described above. and that there are flaws we continue to iron out It’s a problem faced by every to this day. But at its core, it succeeded in what RPG out there—how to handle it set out to do—create a crunchy game that big fights—unsurprisingly runs reasonably fast and requires very common in our adventure genre. little work on behalf of the Game Master. Wizards of the Coast’s D20 system in Of that I am proud—and humbled that so principle is fairly easy, but because many people have given it a try. the power curve is so wonky, you —Shane Hensley have to throw a horde of bad guys at a mid-level party, and just try keeping February, 2009 up with all the minions’ hit points (“I did 2 points to the skeleton figure with Part I: Black Hats the chipped paint on his sword!”; “I did 8 points to the penny!”) Throw and Tall Orders in a few allies and try to remember It all started with a mess of Black Hats. all their special abilities and it gets We were playing the adventure “Ground really slow. For me anyway—your Zero” from the Radiation Screen for Hell mileage may vary. on Earth.™ One of my best friends and There are lots of great games out there. fellow author John Hopler was the Marshal I love GURPs, Hero, and my favorite of all (Game Master), and he’s known for big, time, TORG. I think D20 is nifty for D&D, bloody fight scenes. It was a blast. Villains and I love oddball systems like Castle (and characters!) were dying left and right Falkenstein or Blue Planet. Even if they and it was one of those big climactic losses don’t suit my particular gaming tastes, you talk about for months afterwards. I can always find a few cool things in Yup. We lost. We actually got our tails kicked. each. Deadlands combat is “chunky” and bloody and 2 Copyright Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All rights reserved. This file may not be distributed without written consent of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. But what I really wanted was a game system that did Part II: something new. All those games, Deadlands included, are strong for what they’re supposed to do, but suffer Taking Out the 88s a little if you want something a little faster and most of The next phase on the road to Savage Worlds started all EASIER. Today’s audience seems to feel the same while our gang was watching John Hopler’s favorite way. We’re spoiled by TCGs and pre-painted minis and team, the Giants, get their butts handed to them by the Cheapass Games. Awesome products we can get into upstart Ravens in Superbowl XXXV. I told John I was and play in minutes. But the few RPGs, mostly home- thinking of running a World War II game with a little grown rules, that tried the same thing were really too horror thrown in, and I even had a name for it: “Weird simple and just didn’t have any real depth. Wars.” Hopler’s a big WWII nut, and in between a I wondered if there was a way to get the same great flurry of Raven touchdowns, came up with some action and feeling we did from our big Hell on Earth nifty ideas for the game. We got excited enough that I battle, but in half the time. decided Hop should write it and I’d publish it. Hey, I do own a game company after all! The Great But about that time, another very interesting thing Rail Wars was happening in the gaming industry. Wizards of the Provides Coast (WOTC) introduced the D20 System as an Open Inspiration Gaming License. Friends of mine who had already So sometime around done several D20 products were experiencing double 1999, the PEG staff was and triple their normal sales. We were also getting sitting around thinking good vibes from distributors about bringing new fans about this and got to into Deadlands with our upcoming Deadlands D20. talking about how well 2009 Update: the Great Rail Wars Curiously, we sold (GRW) was doing. tons of Deadlands D20 A quick note for but it had an overall those of you who aren’t negative effect on our in the biz. GRW won business. In hindsight, the Origins Award for Best Miniatures Game of ‘99, what happened we got rave reviews from everywhere, and even we was two-fold. First felt it was a very elegant game and the most fun we’d off, we didn’t really ever had playing minis (and we’ve played LOTS of embrace D20 and minis games). We also thought it had a good amount of make it our own. We detail for a miniatures game. You could make a custom added some cool stuff character complete with RPG Edges and Hindrances in the Epitaphs that and game out a fight withhundreds of figures and even followed, but by then vehicles in just a few hours. it was too late. But we had no advertising to speak of, and fighting More importantly, our core “Classic” fans with stores for blister space is highly competitive. To believed we had stopped producing original make matters worse, our management at the time had Deadlands and converted entirely (which wasn’t other priorities and didn’t push through the expansions true—we were “dual statting” at that point). and new minis. This isn’t a blame game—just a period Other companies with smarter leaders than where I was mostly writing and editing while others ran myself, such as Kevin Siembieda with Palladium, the company and their plans were different than mine. Steve Jackson with GURPs, and Stephen Wieck Of course the idea occurred to us to modify the GRW with Vampire, all stayed the course with their rules a bit and use them as an RPG system. Except that game systems and rode out the D20 wave and we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t turn around and tell subsequent crash much better than I did. all our loyal fans who had bought scores of books to suddenly change their Deadlands game over to the So it seemed only natural that Weird Wars should Great Rail Wars system. I think I might even have be a D20 product. We immediately started playtesting advocated this once, but the other management, who and had a blast, but there were glitches. Attack bonuses was right in this aspect, immediately said no. in D20 games with guns are a little weird since no one So we forgot about it and moved on to other things. in WW2 wears armor, and hit points can be very off- 3 putting when you hit someone with a .50 cal and they 2009 Update: I have a Masters in military shrug it off. To make a long story short, we came up with history and served in the Virginia National about 50 different ways of doing damage, including Guard, but I’m not particularly interested in WOTC’s Star Wars® “wounds/vitality” system. Then getting every military detail just right. What I we started hearing lots of people complain about some am interested in is rewarding good tactics and of the other games that had done this, and that they sound planning (though chance will always play weren’t compatible with all the cool monsters and a factor as well).