I have embraced Savage Worlds as an alternate system for my occasional TTRPG games.
It has an element of “make it up as you go” and “draw from any source” flexibility with a genuinely capable and genric system.
There is a lot more to it if you care to go there, but in Australia, I am finding getting hold of it more than frustrating. That frustration though, may have saved me.
The game has four level to my thinking.
Level 1 is the core book, plenty to do any genre with a little work. How much work? As much as you need to fulfill the vision you have. Want to just bounce off an idea*, then RAW is plenty. Want more, then put in the time to flesh out the core tools.
Level 2 is adding the Companions. These expand the rules, the options and the thinking of the core book to allow you to go deep into Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror or Supers, or thanks to the systems basic tennent, any mash-up of these. My original “itch to be scratched” came from selling the original Sci-Fi and Supers companions, much slimmer volumes, that gave me the best Guardians of the Galaxy vibe I had access to.
Level 3 is collateral. The game is theatre of the mind or table top tactical as yu wish to play it. The latter needs stuff, lots of stuff. As a miniatures and long time RPG gamer, I have lots of “stuff”, from DnD 4e tokens and maps to a crate of Malifaux 1-2e minis. Lots of stuff. It also uses cards as reference and game tools, which again I have.
The temptation is to go full “Savage Worlds” and get all this stuff, something I did with Savage Pathfinder, because I thought it might end there, but the reality is, any deck of cards, something shiny for “Benny” tokens and a reference sheet or two will do. This is dangerous turf. It starts small, just a pack of cards or two (or four or twenty), some figure “flats”, some “Bennys” and before you know it, you have spent more than you spent more on fluff than on the original books, fluff you do not need.
Level 4 is going heavily into the sub-settings SW offers. Deadlands, Rifts, Pinebox TX, Lankmar, Necessary Evil, Pathfinder, the list is near endless, especially if you go back into the 20 year history of the game.
I have just talked myself out of going fully level 4 in everything, partly because the cost in Au would be crippling ($200au just to get the hard to find accessory box from the U.S., mostly postage). It started with DTRPG offering Savage September, a 40% discount on all things SW, that led to a desire for the hard copies of some of these and looped back to pdf’s, then a split, then a different split, then a meltdown (not really, but I could see the seeds of obsession).
In Savage Pathfinder, I am Level 3-4 through and through. I committed early and thought at the time it would do.
Lots of stuff, new and old. I re-purposed a swathe of 4e tokens and battle panels and some PF map packs with this one, so a win all around.
In SW generic, I am happy at Level 2, the Core and the Companions, because that is the point of it, to be my pick up and run system, my trouble shooter, my alternate, not another bottomless money and time sink.
*Often all I need, run an adventure for another system, flesh out an idea or run an introductory game.