Studying the Savage World for Deadlands

Hey guys,

Now that things have sort of panned out work-wise, I’ve found myself reading up on Savage Worlds and Deadlands: Reloaded.  I’ve always been a big fan of the classic Deadlands, even if I’ve never played the game, if only because the writing was entertaining and the setting was unique.

Deadlands scores major points due to the setting elements, including the idea of a Wild West era different from the history books by a massive supernatural event that unmade the world as we know it into the Weird West.  Strange magics, the walking dead, and monsters that lurk the darkness of the frontier all combine to make a fascinating canvas of adventuring potential.

Character creation is an interesting hybrid of an open ended one and a class based system.  While anyone can distribute skills any way they want, and then add edges and hindrances to taste, all of those who have access to other more exotic character options have to buy into a template.  The Blessed, Hucksters, Shamans, Martial Artists, Mad Scientists and other concepts all have a template to make them different, including individual rules on how they pull off the stunts and magic that make them unique.

Savage Worlds is a generic rules system that evolved from the Classic Deadlands, that finally comes around full circle to power the latest edition of Deadlands, called Deadlands: Reloaded.  There’s a lot of things that have changed with regards to the rules, reducing the amount of gimmicky things involving cards, dice and poker chips from the first game, but retaining just enough so that you still need them.

The Gun Dueling rules for example, utilize cards, and so does initiative, and Hexslingin’.  I suspect that these subsystems might slow the game down a small amount, but not enough to detract from overall play.  I haven’t had a chance to actually run a game of deadlands before, so I’m not certain about how feels in practice, but maybe in a few weeks I might get my chance.