Getting Ready for Savage Worlds Campaign

One of the fun things I enjoy doing as a GM is to prepare the hardware for the system which make GMing and playing a smoother experience.

I am expecting to receive my Savage Worlds Adventure Edition boxed set in a couple of weeks, but I have already started my preparations.

The first of these things I prepare was the GM screen. The boxed set will come with a 4-panel GM screen, but I am used to the 2-panel, A4 landscape format. These are easy to DIY: just two clipboards taped together with gaffer's tape, printed reference charts and tables clipped to the inside, and some themed artwork on the outside. I've put one of my MCDM stickers on the screen because I don't really know what else to do with them.

I've also made a few cards with 'Parry/Toughness' on them to put inside some plastic card holders. I plan to write the Parry and Toughness of the PCs' opponents on these with dry erase markers and plonk them down so the players can see them, which should make combat go faster.

Similarly, I have decided to use the 'tent' format character sheet for this campaign. I printed the character sheets on two sides, and placed them in these plastic folders which have a clear pocket as the front flap of the folder.

The thing about Savage Worlds is that 'hit points'/wounds and fatigue levels and such can be easily tracked with counters, so there is no real need for players to make any change to their character sheets during the game. The tent format of the character sheet means that, when placed in front of them, the players can see all their stats, and at the same time the GM can see those stats which are used in combat too, again making combat go faster. When the folder is flipped open, the players can see the other information like gear and details of their edges. There is also a half-pocket in which I have placed a copy of the players' reference, and which they can use to keep notes and handouts.

I own the Litko tokens for the previous edition of Savage Worlds. The new version of Savage Worlds introduced several more states, which the boxed set have tokens for. However, I wanted the new Litko ones to match my existing set. Having more than a dozen different types of tokens meant I needed an efficient way of organising them. I got a multi-compartment plastic box from the two-dollar store which was just the right size and had the right number of compartments for the tokens. To make it easier to find the right token, I had to label each compartment. To make the labels easily visible when the box is placed on the table, I decided to affix them at the 'wall' of the compartment. I used translucent tape, which makes the words visible, yet does not make the box look cluttered.