After having played in Shane Hensley’s Savage Worlds game at ChupacabraCon II in Austin recently, I wrote up my observations of his game in a series of four blog posts:

In summary, here are the specific things I plan to do differently in my games going forward after having observed Shane’s techniques:

  • Extensively use Fatigue in scenes — for example, dealing fatigue as a sort of ‘wound’ if the player fails an Agility check.
  • Use the Initiative Countdown technique for card initiative.
  • Use an Indecision Countdown when players have analysis paralysis.
  • Keep the Bennies flowing and award bennies very liberally, even for actions that aren’t based on a Hindrance.
  • Use Triggers, especially at Con games.
  • Use the Critical Failures setting rule (not allowing you to benny snake-eye rolls). I will attempt to create a Critical Failure table for my different settings with ideas on what happens narratively in those circumstances.
  • Manage Wild Cards and Extras differently in terms of up/down/off-the-table status (Extras are up/down/off-the-table, Wild Cards are up/up-with-status-markers/down.
Stan Shinn playing in a Shane Hensley game

Stan Shinn (far left) playing in a Shane Hensley game