Talk:Savage Worlds

Bennies

As a GM, I'm stingier with bennies than I'd like to be. I'll use these guidelines in future games.

• Joker's Wild: When somone draws a Joker, everyone gets a benny (including the GM). This was used in Stalingrad with good effect.
• One benny per encounter: I will award one benny per encounter. Depending on the campaign, this will be at the beginning of an encounter to encourage initiative or afterwards as a reward for survival. I will probably use the former as default and the latter in cosmic horror games (such as Realms of Cthulhu).
• Hindrances: Bennies will occasionally be awarded when hindrances come into play.

See Jeff Carlsen's Savage Worlds guide for bennies: part1 part2

RAW

Some things we may have missed in earlier games...

Wounds and Pace

Note that wound penalties affect Pace, and not just Trait tests!

Modifiers and Wild Die

Modifiers for high traits (such as Fighting d12+2) are added do the wild die as well (in this case, d6+2). From this thread:

More specifically, you roll the Trait Die and Wild Die, take the better result, and then apply the bonus.

Semi-Official

Semi-official stuff.

Illusion Trapping

Clint Black about illusion trapping:

In hindsight, I probably should have done an Illusion trapping section.

How about this...

Illusions are really about two different things. One is an illusion power, the ability to make someone see or hear what is not there. The other is to actually affect the person in some way via illusions, which is applying an illusion trapping to an existing power.

How to do both have really already been mentioned.

To create an illusion power, expand the Obscure power.

Illusion is as simple as applying a trapping to Obscure where you can create any appearance in the area, but to balance it, instead of affecting a Large Burst Template, say it affects a Small Burst Template at the base cost. The area can be increased to a MBT by doubling the cost (4) or increased to a LBT by tripling it (6).

It then takes a Notice roll at -6 to see the illusion for what it is, though it can still penalize any attack through or out of it due to the distraction even if known to be false. On the flip side, it has no substance, so even if someone sees it as real, they don't have to react to it that way if they have a reason to believe it to be an illusion. For instance, finding a wall where they know there used to be an open hallway.

But if you wanted a different effect, then you look at applying trappings to other powers.

Want to create illusions so real in a target's mind that they have to react to them as if real? That's Puppet with illusion trappings.

Want to create an illusion of setting fire that seems so real people's bodies react exactly like it's really happening? Burst opposed by Spirit (or Smarts) instead of Agility.

As in the Fantasy Companion, altering the effects of powers based on their trappings is a key part of the system.