Tag Info

Unless this makes the game boring for you as a GM, don't make it a goal in itself to have the players vary their characters. The players won't like being forced into roles they don't want to play, and the game can be a lot of fun even with a homogeneous group. Draw your inspiration from westerns and other action movies where all of the characters are ...

Focus on the differences, not the similarities Think "Seven Samurai" - the important part was how the guys dealt the breakdown of the society and the fall of their way of life into unimportance, not which one could fight a bit better or worse. Design your campaign around the characters This should be obvious, really. That doesn't mean you should make ...

One of the things I have seen happening in Savage Worlds games, is a lot of the characters do tend to start off looking the same. You don't have a lot of points to spend on attributes and hence most players end up with average d6 in them all (may be upping one). Once you give your character a range on skills players tend to spend on similar sets so not to be ...

The rules for this are on page 21 of the Marshal's Handbook. In summary: the GM decides when an 'interesting' time would be. Generally this is when you can cause as much havoc as possible, bearing in mind that the manitou won't willfully endanger the body they are hosting. Anything that will increase chaos, fear etc could be on the cards. you then pay a ...

Teach 'em what the setting is about. Throw them into situations where they're completely unprepared. Let them die, if the dice roll that way. When the first one dies, point out the other roles he could choose that would let the party live longer. Rinse and repeat. (Note: don't do this if you know your party will get discouraged as a result, make sure ...

Being one-dimensional isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it will make the fights harder for them. Keep that in mind with your encounters so that you don't completely overwhelm them. Honestly i'd just throw stuff at them with different situations, ones that different character types could/would make easier, eventually one might cave and change their ...

Explore their backgrounds, morals and knacks. But that's the answer everybody will point out. :) I am very keen of developing the characters in game. Throw some random situations where the characters are separated. From their reactions shall emerge some differences, the roleplay following these scenes may change the whole party dynamics and character ...

Well, ultimately if the players want to do that, you can't force them not to. Or maybe you can, but they'll resent it and might not have fun. If they don't have fun, what's the point? You can do things to encourage the players to try to branch out, but if you simply punish them because they all want to play a certain thing, you'll wind up with a miserable ...

I am a very experienced SW GM by now and I transitioned my group from D&D, so I recognise this situation. A great deal of the subtlety and power of SW comes out in the dynamic of play. The attributes and skills and edges on a character sheet do not flesh out the character. The edges may give you a profession, but it is the hindrances that generate ...

I read the rules for a game called SHERPA, and one of the examples they used were the Three Musketeers. They are all musketeers, skilled in swordsmanship, riding, and muskets. However, on top of this, one was Noble, one was a priest, another a gigolo. Sort of like multi-classing, I guess. (Quoting Jakob's answer): Finally, encourage the players to ...

Deadlands Reloaded, p. 130: Manitous don’t generally interfere in a hero’s day to day life. It’s just not interested in whether he orders whiskey or beer, for example. That said, if a demon sees an opportunity to spread a little fear around, it’ll jump on it faster than you can say “Amen.” Just remember that a manitou won’t knowingly endanger its ...

To be quite honest, I think this is fairly unavoidable in a group with 6 or 7 people. Just about any RPG with any kind of mechanical depth is going to really slow down when you have that many people; I don't a copy of the Deadlands rulebook handy, but if it has any player number guidelines, that's probably more than the listed reccomendation for group size. ...

Had another brainstorm. This is a mix of what @Chad and @Jeff said. Instead of going headlong into a campaign first, try creating some pre-generated characters (maybe only partially filled so that they can tweak some themselves) that your players have to pick from and then run through a mini campaign (anywhere from 1-5 sessions), and throw in as many ...

Well you could try pregenerating some characters and letting the group choose from them. They havent played so the do not know what to do. Do not put a gunslinger in the pile. Let them play a few games then if one or more wants to create new characters now that the see how the game is played it might be different. The alternative is you can run a ...

The huge variety of hexes means choice is a function of what kind of huckster you want to play. The tweaks, and hunch mean that you want to generally be a helpful buffer to the party. Grab some tricks (there's a huge list), Draw, Hex Sense, Disrupt, Foil, and Achilles Heel to round out the "I'm generally helpful" list. Draw can give you actions, Hex Sense, ...

If you have the material and time, I would create encounters that favor the parties single mindedness. Give them situations where they can use their gunslinger abilities as a group. (think of a pack of pack animals) After they have done a few of these, throw in an NPC or two to get some variety and let them see how that plays out as well. Also be sure that ...

Make sure that all characters have a similar "on-camera" time. This allows you to have each of them contribute to the plot in equal measure. It avoids one character hogging the plot whole the rest do nothing. If you design your plot so that there is a lot of combat, make sure that some get wounded and have to be taken care by others. Then swap roles. ...

There is a simplified version of the Deadlands mechanics for use as a minis game. It's called Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars. It's often said to be the precursor to Savage Worlds, mechanically; it's even been called the stepping stone from Deadlands Classic to Savage Worlds. Another option to consider would be to apply the group action rules from the ...

Does your GM/Marshall take each player one at a time? IE could the game be speeded up if players not yet announcing thier action turn to one another and roll thier results in readiness? Combat goes much quicker for the ST/marshall if he just turns to each player and they can quickly say "I shoot X gun for X success and did X damage, Charlie saw me" than if ...