I've had Savage Worlds on the mind lately, after watching a few YouTube videos about it, and I'm struggling to finish my latest micro-setting for Fast! Furious! Fun! February! So I thought I'd take the time to describe a couple of house rule ideas in a blog post as my #FFFFebruary2026 backup plan.
The theme of this year's Fast! Furious! Fun! February! creator jam is "Can you hear me now?" (give a voice to the disenfranchised), so these two new rules are designed to help players who feel they are suffering at the hands of fate (and bad dice rolls), giving them more control over their luck, both good and bad!
Those familiar with my other projects may recognize my source of inspiration, but I feel the same ideas would also work really well in Savage Worlds.
Lucky Break
Players can spend a Benny to add 1 to the final total of any Trait roll. They make this decision after rolling the dice and calculating the total (meaning the player doesn't need to spend the Benny unless they know it will make a difference). No more than 1 Benny can be spent this way for each Trait roll, and the bonus must be applied after any rerolls.
If the player doesn't have any Bennies, or isn't willing to spend them, they may instead ask the GM to introduce a complication to the scene. This is always at the GM's discretion, but player input and creative suggestions should be encouraged, and the complication should drive the story forward in an interesting way.
Goal
This rule lets players nudge the roll a little, so if they nearly succeeded, they can turn their failure into a "success at cost" or "success with a complication". It can also turn a normal success into a raise.
This also helps counter the probability glitch introduced by exploding dice without needing to change any of the core mechanics (which was a downside of the fudge dice solution I've proposed in the past). For example:
- Rolling d4-2: A 18.75% chance of success now increases to 25% when spending a Benny (or accepting a complication) for a +1 bonus.
- Rolling d6-2: A 16.67% chance of success now increases to 33.33% when spending a Benny (or accepting a complication) for a +1 bonus.
While the base roll still suffers from the glitch (i.e., d4-2 is more likely to succeed than d6-2), applying +1 to the total pushes d6-2 way ahead of d4-2 -- and even if the player has run out of Bennies, they can always ask for a complication.
Karmic Balance
If a player has 1 or fewer Bennies remaining, and one of their Minor Hindrances gives them a penalty to the Trait roll, they receive a Benny. Major Hindrance work the same, except they apply when the player has 2 or fewer Bennies. If multiple Hindrances apply to the same roll, the player still only receives 1 Benny.
If none of the player's Hindrances give a penalty to the Trait roll, but the player can narratively justify why one might hinder them in this situation, they may opt to apply either a -2 penalty (for a Minor Hindrance) or a -4 penalty (for a Major Hindrance) to their Trait roll. This allows them to gain a Benny as described in the previous paragraph.
Goal
This rule gives players a way to recover Bennies during play without relying on the GM, but only when they're running low (so it won't let them build a huge pile of Bennies). It also differentiates between Minor and Major Hindrances.
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