Savage Worlds is renowned for being fast-paced, easy to run, and delivering thrilling, lightning-fast encounters. However, as my collection of modules and supplements for the game grew, I started noticing a trend: an abundance of “campaign tools” tailored for the system. I wanted to share some of these tools that I've been using for the past 4 years and highlight how perfectly suited Savage Worlds is for this approach.
Before diving into these tools, let’s establish what a “traditional” campaign mode typically looks like in most RPGs:
The GM prepares an adventure or uses a module with a defined beginning, middle, and end. Encounters are either pre-planned, generated from module tables, or created by the GM. The adventure’s story is premeditated, and NPCs are prepared to some degree.
With that baseline in mind, let’s explore the “alternatives” and tools found in Savage Worlds.
One-Page Adventures
One-Page Adventures are a hallmark of Savage Worlds. Designed for one-shots, they are concise enough to be run in a single evening. These adventures present a basic premise, leaving players free to tackle the scenario as they see fit. This brevity exemplifies the system’s strength, where simplicity enhances the experience and encourages improvisation.
Plot Point Campaigns
Zadmar provides an excellent breakdown of Plot Point Campaigns, detailing their structure and how to develop individual adventures here. What I can add is this: Savage Worlds makes it remarkably easy to craft an entire campaign with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The system’s inherent speed and flexibility are key to this.
Deadlands
The most iconic setting for Savage Worlds, Deadlands has evolved significantly over the years, culminating in the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. While a deep dive into its evolution is a topic for another day, let’s focus on the tools the Adventure Edition offers GMs.
Adventure Generator
Draw three poker cards: one for the Objective, one for the Obstacle, and one for the Complication. Cross-reference the cards’ suits and numbers on a table to generate evocative, open-ended prompts for the GM to develop into an adventure. This approach works beautifully with Savage Worlds due to its ease of creating encounters and challenges on the fly.
Encounter Generator
The Deadlands setting provides a specific, richly detailed encounter generator tied to its unique regions. Wherever the players roam, the GM can roll dice to instantly create fitting challenges. Given how engaging Savage Worlds combat is, you could run adventures indefinitely using the Adventure and Encounter Generators, never needing to plan a traditional campaign.
The Day After Ragnarok
This was the module that introduced me to Savage Worlds—a pulpy, magical, post-apocalyptic World War II setting. It epitomizes the tone and versatility of the system. Beyond one-shots, this setting showcases how diverse campaigns can be with Savage Worlds.
Wolves Beyond Borders
A traditional campaign format, this module offers extensive guidance on using its locations. It also includes nine interconnected Plot Point Campaigns right out of the gate, making it easy to dive into.
Adventure Generator
This generator inspired me to create my own—twice! Unlike Deadlands, it uses dice rolling which allows it dives even deeper, generating elements such as Hooks, Locations, Villains, Obstacles, and Twists. It’s a one-page adventure machine and a testament to Savage Worlds’ flexibility.
Necessary Evil
This legendary campaign flips the superhero genre on its head, with players taking on the roles of supervillains defending Earth from aliens after all the heroes are gone. Necessary Evil delivers a Plot Point Campaign, an Adventure Generator, and a treasure trove of missions tailored for its unique premise.
Adventure Generator
Given the nature of the setting and campaign, the generator here tries to create a ‘mission’ like situation for the super villains to strike back at the alien occupation forces. You roll for the Mission Type, the Locations (all based from actual locations explored in detail in the book), the Opposition (all using specific definitions for the alien opposition found in the book), and then based on what mission was first rolled, there are several tables to roll further to give specifics to said mission. This is a generator that adds and supports the Necessary Evil campaign mode, rather than something to be used outside of it.
Gold & Glory: Seven Deadly Dungeons
An OSR-inspired supplement, Gold & Glory bridges Savage Worlds’ cinematic style with the deadly, open-ended nature of old-school dungeon crawls. It’s a unique addition, proving that Savage Worlds can handle dungeons in its own fast and furious way.
Random Character Creation
One of my gripes with Savage Worlds is its character creation. For newcomers, it almost demands them to read and pay attention to edges and Hindrance, forcing them to read entire sections of the book and consider many things before anything. I often tell newcomers to first create a character in their mind, then we will translate it to Savage World mechanics, not everyone responds well to that suggestion.
Gold & Glory just gives you blazing fast random character creation that frankly? More modules should just do something similar.
First you draw 3 cards and… Yeah that’s about it! You already got a character ready to go. All you need is to read the results of those cards, write them down and go play some fantasy Savage World goodness.
First card suit determines your character sex, second card suit your character race, last card suit determines your character ‘class’ (the book was made before Class Edges were a think on Savage Worlds, so imagine this as an amalgamation of skills).
First card value determines your Major Hindrance, second card value determines your Minor Hindrance, and finally the third card value determines your Edge with several caveats and suggestions to what to do if you grab an Edge that clashes with a Hindrance.
You also draw cards to determine equipment and what Powers a character who got a Cleric or Wizard class get to know in a similar vein.
There is even an optional ‘connections’ you can generate through one card to connect the generated characters together both in concept and mechanically.
All in all, I was impressed by this system and inspired me to make my own. That’s for another post though.
Wild Draw Dungeon
So how does Gold & Glory make Dungeon Crawling work for Savage Worlds? The answer is simple: It is generated on the fly!
Why does this work? Simple. Dungeon design from Dungeons & Dragons faire and similar systems are attached to an idea of tempo, of rising challenge, of puzzles to be solved and braved by exploration. However, Savage Worlds is a game about speed and fury. A Dungeon encounter can be as deadly as an end boss encounter of your standard Dungeons & Dragons section. The Player Characters can set up an explosive ambush on a dragon and defeating in with amazing rolls and re-rolls provided by bennies and easily defeat a strong challenge, while at the same time they can be backstabbed by a goblin and die to exploding dice.
So the idea is to make Dungeon Exploration as fast and furious as the system demands it. Gold & Glory does that by again, asking the GM to draw cards from a ‘dungeon deck’ (a deck of playing cards without faces, jokers, or aces).
You draw 3 cards and the value and suit of said cards. The numbers determine the size of the room in inches/squares, with the last number determining the exits and their nature.
What is found in each dungeon is provided by random generators in biomes, the ‘seven deadly dungeons’ that are the subtitle for the book.
Ludus Hero Adventure Generators
We were so inspired by Savage Worlds campaign tools that we made two. One even gave us an award!
Heroic Fantasy Adventure Generator
Super Hero Adventure Generator
Super Skyline Sagas
We’re excited to announce that we’re hard at work on a new campaign tool designed to make superheroes in Savage Worlds even better than ever!
This upcoming module will provide GMs with rules to create and populate a city straight out of the pages of a comic book. Supervillains will scheme and execute Ploys that, if left unchecked, lead to Crises, steadily advancing them toward their Nefarious Goals. Meanwhile, player characters must patrol the ever-changing city, confronting its many villains in an entirely new way to experience superhero RPGs.
Inspired by Superhero 2044, this innovative system promises a dynamic and thrilling approach to the genre. Stay tuned for more details on this exciting module soon!
Closing thoughts
Savage Worlds is a game extremely easy to run and these campaign tools can help make it even easier. I personally wish random character generators were commonplace on the many modules we get, but the good thing about these tools is that with some elbow grease, you can make them work for just about anything.
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