Savage Achtung! Cthulhu

The Friday Night Gamers met yesterday and we played a game of Achtung! Cthulhu using the Savage Worlds game system. In short, it was a blast!

I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with Savage Worlds over the years. I have always been drawn to the game and appreciated the lighter framework. That said, I’ve never found myself diving all in to play it for a full series of games. Last night, something “clicked” with me in a way that it never quite has before.

Into Czechoslovakia…

The guys chose one of the pre-generated characters each and off we went! There were four battles, three key sequences of investigation, a montage preparation scene, two interludes, and a chase. It was a fun game and, amazingly to me, we completed the whole core adventure module in an evening. 

I had two players and the downloaded adventure, “The Three Kings”. This is set in German-occupied Czechoslovakia in summer 1939, just prior to the beginning of World War II. Agents from MI6’s “Section D” parachute in to investigate the strange rumours from Castle Karlstein.

What Clicked?

Three things about Savage Worlds stand out to me after that session:

1. It was very fast to play but also entertaining.
2. The game was very simple to improvise combat scenes with.
3. There are some cool subsystems that encouraged better characterisation.

What “clicked” was what thousands of other Game Masters seem to have realised about Savage Worlds: it’s much easier to run than other games.

Maybe it’s my recent forays into older editions of Dungeons & Dragons that has made me more aware of how quickly a game can play, but what I liked about Savage Worlds was the way that this all comes together for a generic system.

Fast Play

We played through a chase scene on about 5 minutes. It was tense and exciting, if a little abstract, but it worked.

Then we played through a battle between 6 Heer soldiers (1 officer, 5 riflemen), two heroes, and three prisoners who needed help escaping. The fight included automatic weapons, close combat, grappling for guns, running firefights, and all manner of high-jinks. It took about 10 minutes, tops.

Both of these are examples of fun game moments that ran very quickly when compared to other games. Even in 5th Edition D&D, which is pretty quick for modern games but has rules for tabletop miniatures, this would have been a 30 minute battle and a 20 minute chase. Had I been running Call of Cthulhu it would have been slower still.

More than that, however, I ran those scenes with limited prior experience and having not run Savage Worlds in two years. That’s a clear signal to me as a Game Master: something important happened last night.

Interludes

I have never used the Interlude rules before. In short, they are quick rules to fill those moments when characters are moving between two scenes and time passes. In most games you’d just hand-wave the time and move on; in Savage Worlds you choose a player, draw a card, and they have to tell a brief story on a topic decided by the card drawn. 

I did this twice, each time offering either a Benny or an Adventure Card, and put my players on the spot to develop their character’s back story right there at the table. Honestly, it was funny and not too much of a hassle. Maybe 5 minutes of game time to deepen characterisation. That’s a system you should steal from Savage Worlds for any game.

Putting It Together

Honestly, the adventure was too loosely written for my taste but Savage Worlds helped me to improvise the things I needed. Going forward, I want to write adventures that are more tightly prepared… but I know that I don’t have to worry about the game system eating up my prep time.

For me, the game was pulp-like and entertaining. It was action-packed and interesting. All in all, it was no trouble to run. Talking to the players, they seemed to like it once they got playing.

There’s a lot to get used to if you’ve been playing other, more detailed and complex games. Yet Savage Worlds offers an approach that is much easier to prepare for and play. It’s generic and needs you to add the flavour… but it’s very straight-forward. 

What I am trying to say? I love the many hundreds of roleplaying games and settings I have collected over 38 years. As of this morning, despite having played other generic games such as GURPS or HERO, I am more tempted than ever to shift to one game system – Savage Worlds.

That thought freaks me out. Savage Worlds does not have the detailed rules or realism I have come to believe is important in my gaming. It doesn’t even have much in the way of optional rules with which to fiddle and tweak – yes, there are setting rules and a few options, but they are minimal in comparison to other systems.

It’s as if I am being invited to shed an accumulation of unnecessary baggage that I have come to believe is important for a good gaming experience. Savage Worlds makes me question all of that because, other than reading the adventure through for 30 minutes, I didn’t really prep anything else at all.

Game on!

P.S.: There’s a Kickstarter going on for the new edition of Savage Worlds. It ends on 15th November 2018.