Saveged World vs Exalted

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Saint Ehlers, the savvy Savant. Someone make a note of that. I want it in my bio.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Yep, just leave out the idiot....

[Spriggan]

If i was going to review Savage Worlds I'd give it 5/6 clocks.  The book gives you everything it promises a fast and furious game that's fast to read (I got through the whole thing in like 1 1/2 hours at work).  The rules are simple and can adjust to just about any type of game (action, stroytelling, stratagy).  My big complaints are this:  1 the book is too expensive for it's size.  They should have made it soft coverd and lowered the proce by $10.  Also haveing some rules for race creation would be nice.  The final  complaint is that there should be some type of included price chart for adjusting the cost of things for different eras.  The fact it dosen't have any set setting is one of the real strenghts of the game, your not expecting any frills and you get none.  But again the price hurts this since you're paying $30 for a 120 page book.

As for exalted I'd give it 4/6.  The game has an great setting, once you get over the fact that it takes place on earth in some unmentioned age.  The first major problem is the layout and typography.  WW is so anal about haveing their right margins be completety even that they force Justify everything which leads to several lines of text with no spaceing and others with doubble.  A real headache to read.  Also the layout/orgnization of the book is poor.  True I like my character creation stuff at the beginning, but I'm not going to give something a lower score because it's about 100 pages in till you get any rules.  No the problem is that things are broken up and a pain to find.  The character creation section has no charts, classes descriptions and only vauge descriptions of others.  Every thing else is scattered in other sections and you're just told to go there in the character creation chapter.  The combat section is poorly labled as well.  And lastly you've got the problem that it runs off of WW's storyteller system, which I hate.  I might give it a better rateing after playing if I find to like the newer ST rules (I havein't tried to play since 1st edition WearWolf, wich was a mess of a game).

[Mr_Pleasington]

You and I agree wholeheartedly on Savage Worlds, Sprig.  Your review there and mine match up nicely.

And I think the best way to run Exalted would be to ditch the system.  ST is just too slow.  I've heard of conversions both to BESM and Wushu working out very well.  It's really not hard to emulate, though you do lose the flavor of the charms most of the time...for good or for ill.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I found myself not minding Savages price... The hard cover is decidedly more sturdy than weaker books and the game is more or less complete. Guidelines for building new races are givien in the back of the book on pgs 122-123 (see the sidebar and text) and everything is in its place.

I did mind Exalteds price, because while you get more bang for your buck the game was marred initially by to many starting choices and not enough detail.  The release of splatbooks has made the game fairly unworkable, but more open to munchkin play.

I am enough of a snob to get ticked off at 100 pgs of crud till you get to the meat. WW writes (in general) bad flavor text, and 100 pages of definitions and without getting to any meat was annoying...

The Abyssals were cool though.