Savage Worlds?? Any good?

[Blood axe]

Ive heard a lot about Savage Worlds. Tons of campaign books out for it too. Ive read some reviews, most are pretty good. But this forum has some of the greatest gamers around- so I want to hear what you think.
Anyone play it?

[Vlark]

Yes, it's a fun system. I had the pleasure of playing it for the first time this past summer at a local con. Shane Hensley, the guy who wrote the system, was the guest of honor at the con and I managed to get in a game of SW:Deadlands he was running. He ran it fast and loose, with no rulebooks, narrating and storytelling and making us roll as we played. One thing I like about the system is the exploding dice mechanic, and the bonus chip system. We had a fun run with a great Weird West scenario, although we spent too much damned time freaking out about a possible river monster that turned out to be nothing more than a submerged teepee with zero chance of attacking us.

I was impressed by the system, so I jumped in a Firely-inspired Frontier Space game later that turned out to be a blast to play. I played a sniveling, cowardly rat-man whose mechanical skills ended up saving the day when we had to escape from an exploding ammunition dump and the ship's engines had to be jump-started. I got some lucky exploding dice rolls.

So, yeah, from just these two experiences, I can recommend at least trying it out.

[Blood axe]

Isnt a deck of cards involved somehow??

[Vlark]

The cards are used for individual initiative. Shane didn't use them; he ran initiative by whomever was closer to the enemy. The GM running the Frontier Space Firefly-homebrew used a regular deck of cards.

[Vargr1105]

I have used the SW card-based initiative system once on an BD&D-derived game. It was quite cool and easy to keep track of.

As for SW itself I can't say because I never played it. However, I do know by word-of-god that the combat system was designed to use miniatures. So depending on what one's take is on minis that might be a deal-breaker.

From what I read about it I do not think SW would be superior to D&D/AD&D for medieval fantasy roleplaying.

[Thoth Amon]

I've been running a Savage Worlds: Space 1889 game for nearly a year now. I actually am not a huge fan of the system but continue to use it until we pick up another game. I really, really like the card-based initiative. The players all enjoy it a lot, too - with cheers when one of them, or their NPCs, gets a joker, and groans when the bad guys get one. I may stick with the initiative system with our next game.