About Character Variety in Savage Worlds

 One topic that now and then surfaces on forums and social media about Savage Worlds is how players end up picking the same Edges (Combat Edges, usually) and developing the same skills... aka "all characters look the same".

In time I've come to think of this as another problem: it's just that "all your adventures are the same"!

Players develop their character to adapt to the situations that emerge in play, session after session. If they only have ONE meaningful, relevant Social Conflict every six sessions, no player is going to go beyond Persuasion d8. If you always set up four combats per session, everyone will end up picking Quick, Block, Dodge, etc... and so you would, too!

This is not thoroughly bad, mind you. It simply makes sense that most the heroes of a Veteran posse in Deadlands pick the Brave Edge: they've been facing (and hopefully defeating) all kinds of horrors! Same in a Weird Wars campaign, with the Quick Edge: be quick or be dead, you know.

If you as a GM want to see variety in player characters "builds", you must offer variety in adventure situations! Investing in a "face" type of hero requires a return for the advances spent there. Let those count, make sure your adventures include meaningful social interactions.

Meaningful means those situations and rolls truly affect the story in a major way. A Social Conflict to win Allies can turn an impossible fight into an easy victory, for example.

The same is true for all non-combat skills and linked Edges. Leadership Edges are only good if characters get Allies. Survival, Repair, Occult, Academics, Piloting, and related Edges, are only good and will be picked after character creation only if they play a reasonably important and frequent part in your games!

Because it really boils down to effectiveness. As a player, I know that Combat Edges and skills may make a difference between life and death. If, after a few sessions, I feel that Charismatic, Scholar, Woodsman won't make a dramatic impact on my adventures, changing the course of events for the better, I'll keep stacking Combat Edge upon Combat Edge.

Some campaigns are heavily focused on combat, and that's ok. Maybe player characters are soldiers, or monster hunters, etc. If you want to preserve character variety, several approaches might be tried.

You may put limits. A maximum of one Combat Edge during character creation, and/or a maximum of two Combat Edges per Rank.

Or you may put incentives into developing different features. During Advances, players might be allowed to gain twice the benefits of each advance if they don't pick Combat Edges and/or attacking skills: gaining two Edges, or four skill points, or one Edge and two skill points.

Both courses of action are not great, frankly. Adding limits to players' choices is always bad. And having characters gaining the equivalent of two Advances at once might create some really bizarre situations.

In short, even in a military or combat-heavy campaign I would still suggest to put as many non combat situations as reasonably possible!

Many Savage Worlds setting books include adventure generators. Some outline the goal, villains, and complications of a scenario; others, like the one in Saga of the Goblin Horde, explicitly refer to game systems (Chases, Dramatic Tasks, Social Conflicts, etc) to be used for each scene or situation.