Savage Worlds: Explorer edition

Savage worlds uses a stripped down version of the system that was first seen in Deadlands.

It bills itself as Fast! Furious! Fun!

I've used it in the past to run a game set in the City of Villains world and found it worked reasonably well, though the granularity of the system and the limited resources you have to create characters with led to very specialised characters. They couldn't really be challenged in their speciality, but were fairly useless at everything else.

As Savage Worlds is a generic system, I'm going to create the same character as I did for Gurps 3rd edition. In future, Samiksha will be my default character for generic systems.

The first step in character creation is to decide on your attributes. You get 5 points to split between the attributes, they each start at d4 and each die step up costs 1 point to a maximum die size of d12.

After a bit of thought I give Samiksha the following attributes:

Agility: d6
Smarts: d8
Spirit: d6
Strength: d4
Vigour: d6

There are a few derived statistics to calculate, but since some of them are dependent on skills, we'll wait until we've picked those.

Like attributes skills are rated by their die size, but start at 0. Each die size costs 1 point up to the level of the linked attribute, then 2 per level up to d12.

The skill list in Savage worlds is pretty comprehensive, but paints in broad strokes - for example there is a single fighting skill rather than one split by weapon type.

You have 15 points to spend on skills

Fighting: d6
Healing: d4
Investigation: d6
Notice: d6
Persuasion: d6
Riding: d4
Streetwise: d4
Knowledge (History): d6 (d8 after Edges and Hindrances)
Knowledge (Languages): d6 (d8 after Edges and Hindrances)

The last part of character creation is to pick Edges and Hindrances. As a human, Sam gets one free Edge, and I pick Danger Sense which gives a Notice roll at -2 to not be surprised by ambushes.

For hindrances I pick Bad Eyes (minor - she has glasses), Curiosity (Major) and Vow of poverty (minor).

This gives me 4 points that can be spent on more edges or attributes (at 2 points per edge or attribute) or skills (at 1 point per skill point)

I spend two points upping Sam's Knowledge skills, then the remaining 2 points on buying the Scholar edge, which gives her a +2 to dice rolls involving those skills.

Edges
Scholar (Languages and History)
Danger sense

Hindrances
Poor eyesight (minor)
Vow of poverty (minor)
Curiosity (major)

Now that we have Sam's final attributes and skills we can calculate her derived attributes.

These are Pace, Parry, Charisma and Toughness.

Pace: 6 (default for humans unless adjusted by an Edge or Hindrance)
Parry: 5 (2 + half fighting)
Charisma: 0 (default unless an Edge or Hindrance adjusts it)
Toughness: 5 (2 plus half vigour plus torso armor)

Finally we have 500 moneys to spend on equipment. Savage Worlds Sam manages about the same loadout as her GURPS equivalent - a weapon, some armor and some supplies, but no mount.