Savage Worlds is a universal, award-winning role-playing game and miniatures wargame, written by Shane Lacy Hensley, and published by Great White Games doing business as Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The game emphasizes speed of play and reduced preparation over realism or detail.
Although Savage Worlds is a generic rules system, Pinnacle has released "Savage Settings" - campaign settings or modules designed specifically for the Savage Worlds rules. These have included Evernight, 50 Fathoms, Necessary Evil, Rippers, and Low Life. Pinnacle has also published setting books based on the company's earlier lines, including Deadlands: Reloaded as well as the Tour of Darkness and Necropolis settings based on the Weird Wars line.
Beginning with 50 Fathoms, the majority of settings released by Pinnacle feature a concept known as a "Plot Point Campaign". In such campaigns, a series of loosely defined adventure scenarios are presented. A main storyline is presented as a series of "Plot Points" and additional side-quests (or "Savage Tales") expand the scope of the campaign. This format allow a group of characters to explore the game universe while playing through (or disregarding) the main storyline in a manner similar to that of computer RPGs (such as Morrowind).
A licensing system is in place for electronic and book publishers to release material for the Savage Worlds game. Such "Savaged!" licensees are allowed to use the Savage Worlds mascot "Smiling Jack" as a logo on their products. Multiple PDF adventure scenarios are available using this licensing system, as well as setting related supplements like the Vampire Earth RPG Sourcebook, the Shaintar Player's Guide, and Winterweir.
Official Savage Worlds settings include:
- Fifty Fathoms - Swashbuckling Fantasy Pirates
- Evernight - Fantasy with a twist.
- Low Life - Very weird
- Rippers - Victorian Horror with a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibe
- Slipstream - Zeerust Sci-Fi Fantasy
- Sundered Skies - Post Apocalyptic Fantasy
- Deadlands - Horror Western
- The Savage World of Solomon Kane - Pulp-Action Purtians
- Pirates Of The Spanish Main - Exactly What It Says on the Tin
- Space 1889 - Steampunk
- Necessary Evil - Supervillains in charge of saving the Earth from aliens.
Licensed Savage Worlds settings include:
- Dawn Of Legends
- Interface Zero
- Iron Dynasty
- Runepunk
- Shaintar
- Totems of the Dead
- Winterweir
The stories contain the following tropes:
- Badass: All player characters are this by comparison to other types of characters.
- Badass Normal: The default state for characters without Powers.
- Character Level: Known as 'ranks' here, mainly limiting attribute increases and available Edges.
- Hermetic Magic
- Magitek
- Mook: Extra rules facilitate this.
- Pulp Magazine / Two-Fisted Tales: A major influence on the style of play.
- Point Build System
- Psychic Powers
- Sourcebook
- Splat
- Stock Super Powers