Savage Pathfinder seems like something from a joke like GURPS Runequest or Tunnels & Trolls Paranoia.


You got your chocolate yoghurt in my peanut butter flavored soda.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 01:16:11 AM
Savage Pathfinder seems like something from a joke like GURPS Runequest or Tunnels & Trolls Paranoia.


You got your chocolate yoghurt in my peanut butter flavored soda.

Then you clearly missed the near two-decades of non-stop debating/arguing/nerdzerking over d20-system issues that Savage Worlds eliminates completely.

But some people like peanut-butter flavored soda.

D&D *isn't* a system - if that were the case the OSR wouldn't exist, nor any other D&D-fantasy pastiche (WHFRP, Mythras, etc). It's a genre of fantasy that can be done with other systems to better fidelity. Speaking of which - this is the first real entry of that brand of fantasy as a direct design from a D&D brand. That's why it's important.

Because Savage Worlds is now open to the literal entirety of D&D Fantasy using this as a roadmap.

"Then you clearly missed the near two-decades of non-stop debating/arguing/nerdzerking over d20-system issues that Savage Worlds eliminates completely."

No, I mostly just dismissed it as decades of wanky EN World piffle along the same lines as " ur waifu is a shit".

And don't get me wrong, I like Deadlands but SW isn't anymore of a miracle than GURPS or FUDGE. Or Silhouette, or Interloc/Fuzion, D6, BASIC RP, etc. I kind of wonder why they are so into the card thing, or why they seem to produce more and more expensive editions of their main rule book. I do like their old fashioned stuff like Solomon Kane as well and their tasteful genre parody stuff like Nemezis is kind of neat.

The pathfinder case is different to me because people like Necromancer games/Frog God were porting some their stuff to Pathfinder as a flavor of D20.

Before that a hole lot of properties were doing some flavor of D20 seeing it as the big kahuna place to be, and that includes Dream Pod Nine who were doing D20 conversions, and the Starwars license when WotC got it from WEG. Hell FFG is trying to push Genesys as their generic system that power Starwars and they alsoput Android and Terrinoth backgrounds out for it. Monte Cooke did his Cypher thing starting out with Numenara and expanding it with some minibackgrounds, and a sliders/Amber clone. Free League has their system that they used for Forbiffen Lands, and their weird Stranger Things like Loop stuff and their take on the old Mutant  game Year one, and a Firefly type thing called Coriolis. You have Fate doing their "deluxe monetized F.U.D.G.E." thing for vapid "let's beat up cthulhu because grrls are awesome and we'll whine about how racist HP Lovecraft was while we raid his public domain grave for clout and free money" nonsense and now their "edgy" Tumblr web comic Utenna grotesque.

But there were D&D compatible companies doing stuff for SW before this. Savage Mojo put out Dungeonlands for both pathfinder and savage worlds. Deadland had a D20 version. I think there were other crossovers too though I can't remember any. I know there was a savage setting with a fantasy world that broke into floating islands and I some people at the FLGS were doing a version of it in True 20 that they cobbled together.

So again it seems strange and brand cannibalistic to me though not unprecedented.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMNo, I mostly just dismissed it as decades of wanky EN World piffle along the same lines as " ur waifu is a shit".

So does that mean you dismissed any criticism of your waifu, or that any criticism of the d20 system is akin to waifu hate?

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AM
"Then you clearly missed the near two-decades of non-stop debating/arguing/nerdzerking over d20-system issues that Savage Worlds eliminates completely."

No, I mostly just dismissed it as decades of wanky EN World piffle along the same lines as " ur waifu is a shit".

Are you implying all editions of D&D are the same? Or they're free of the issues that are incessantly talked about? Because that would put you in the extreme minority. And if you didn't understand that it may not be an issue for you - it clearly is for many other people. As I'm actually older than Anime writ-large, I certainly have problems with certain stripes of D&D editions - some of which I did design-work for in-depth. But it took those experiences to realize what was wrong with the mechanics. To each their own etc. Clearly it's an issue to a lot of people. Otherwise all these other systems wouldn't even exist.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMAnd don't get me wrong, I like Deadlands but SW isn't anymore of a miracle than GURPS or FUDGE. Or Silhouette, or Interloc/Fuzion, D6, BASIC RP, etc.

Precisely no one has made any claim any of these systems are a miracle. The only claim I'm making is Savage Worlds has none of the issues that D&D has, generally, across their editions. And mostly they're issues that crop up from 3.x onward. (But mostly 3.x).

Savage Worlds in particular, has its own issues, but they are ridiculously less impactful than D&D's are by direct comparison.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMI kind of wonder why they are so into the card thing, or why they seem to produce more and more expensive editions of their main rule book. I do like their old fashioned stuff like Solomon Kane as well and their tasteful genre parody stuff like Nemezis is kind of neat.

I'm not a fan of the card-thing either. But it's something I've learned to accept. It is an interesting mechanic in the sense that it offers randomization (for their tables) that adds an extra dimension based on the suit. The best aspect of it is: it's just a deck of cards. They're not some special kind of deck made specifically for the game - like custom dice. I can take it or leave it.

As for their more expensive editions - they could no longer print at the cost of their Explorer Editions with their printer. Prices have gone up. It's become more cost-effective to raise their price with their current edition but provide better production. They earned it off the back of their very successful cheap Explorer Edition which cause their ruleset to proliferate. It was good marketing then, it's better now. Would I like a soft-cover version of SWADE? Fuck yeah. But it's a cost issue. Today's market ain't the same as 18-years ago (yeah let that sink in - it's been almost 20-years since their last edition).

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMThe pathfinder case is different to me because people like Necromancer games/Frog God were porting some their stuff to Pathfinder as a flavor of D20.

Before that a hole lot of properties were doing some flavor of D20 seeing it as the big kahuna place to be, and that includes Dream Pod Nine who were doing D20 conversions, and the Starwars license when WotC got it from WEG. Hell FFG is trying to push Genesys as their generic system that power Starwars and they alsoput Android and Terrinoth backgrounds out for it. Monte Cooke did his Cypher thing starting out with Numenara and expanding it with some minibackgrounds, and a sliders/Amber clone. Free League has their system that they used for Forbiffen Lands, and their weird Stranger Things like Loop stuff and their take on the old Mutant  game Year one, and a Firefly type thing called Coriolis. You have Fate doing their "deluxe monetized F.U.D.G.E." thing for vapid "let's beat up cthulhu because grrls are awesome and we'll whine about how racist HP Lovecraft was while we raid his public domain grave for clout and free money" nonsense and now their "edgy" Tumblr web comic Utenna grotesque.

Yeah? And? The big difference here is 1) Quality of scale 2) curation of content.

While individually we could discuss the pro's and con's of each system - broadly speaking very few of those systems possess the scaling fidelity coupled with the ease of mechanical performance that Savage Worlds does. It hits the right level of moderate crunch, with *very* little fiddling to model normal activities as well as cataclysmic Kaiju-level combat with less than a simple modifier. The numbers are small, makes for extremely easy task-resolution. It gives enough narrative room for GM's and Players to get creative while underpinned by mechanical rules that support the narrative rather than simply run separately on a parallel track. It is a testament to the fidelity of the system that what started out as a supernatural Wild-west game, also handles hard-core sci-fi, horror, fantasy, supers, cyberpunk, noir *all at the same time* without missing a stride.

Can other systems do it? Sure. The question becomes how difficult is it to manage within the constraints of those systems. I prefer "less doing more". Others may want GURPS - which certainly qualifies as being able to "do all things". I would submit the barrier for entry on some of those systems are a LOT higher for the GM than Savage Worlds. The curation of content in Savage Worlds seems to be better among its users recommendations too. Sure there is crap out there - but not like in 3rd Party D&D. But that's to be expected based on the scale of playerbase.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMBut there were D&D compatible companies doing stuff for SW before this. Savage Mojo put out Dungeonlands for both pathfinder and savage worlds. Deadland had a D20 version. I think there were other crossovers too though I can't remember any. I know there was a savage setting with a fantasy world that broke into floating islands and I some people at the FLGS were doing a version of it in True 20 that they cobbled together.

So again it seems strange and brand cannibalistic to me though not unprecedented.

But the difference, again, is one of scale. Traditionally Savage Worlds rarely did settings that were "genre-center". They are all quirky. Deadlands is not just a Wild West game (but it could be.) Hellfrost is not just a D&D pastiche setting (but it could be). Weird Wars II is not just a historical rpg (but it could be). The point being with a couple of rare exceptions, SW was not trying to emulate traditional genres that already existed, but rather they put out pulpy weird settings that you could emulate traditional settings with a few dials turned down. They DO have some traditional settings: Shaintar would be a good example of a D&D kitchen-sink game, but their rules ultimately veered away from the standardization they were percolating that would become SWADE.

The problem is of course all those 3rd party books that did crossover with d20 - were doing so to get a piece of the d20 pie within the d20 realm. Savage Pathfinder is not that. Savage Pathfinder as with Savage Rifts is the attempt to tap into those established fanbases to bring them over to Savage Worlds. So fans can actually see their favorite settings running on a different chassis, expressed in different ways *with fidelity* to the concepts established within those native systems.

And it's working. You'll never find a more die-hard fanbase than Palladium fans (possibly only eclipsed by Warhammer fans - but that edifice is cracking under the Woke assault). Yet Palladium fans are driving new blood into the Savage Worlds gamingsphere. And it will have the same effect with Pathfinder fans - especially those that soured on PF2e.

For Savage Worlds fans - many of whom already DIY do D&D-based fantasy games simply by curating rules from various products+core, this is a windfall as it gives a solid foundation on the SWADE platform to do D&D fantasy while keeping on with the DIY ethic of SW GM's, to now grab all their decades of D&D material and convert it over - because for us *it plays better*.

I don't have to have 4-page stat blocs for my 20th level characters, with excel spreadsheet driven combat matrices to keep track of how many attacks I have with what bonuses I'm getting based on which weapons are in my hand, and what Feats modify what weapon in what hand, and what bonuses change based on multiple classes I might have. BLEARGH.

Here's the rub - in Savage Worlds you can play ultra-high level gaming with ridiculous god-mode level power WITH EASE. No one really does that in D&D because it's a fucking headache to manage. Not so in Savage Worlds. In fact it's trivial.

Many people playing Savage Worlds that have never played Savage Rifts aren't even aware of this. The starting Savage Rifts character is *RADICALLY* more powerful than normal Savage Pathfinder character. By D&D standards it would be like starting at 15th level or higher, and you're *barely* scratching the surface of the game. With the pieces in your hands you can now run with greater fidelity those epic campaigns that D&D promises, but systemically fails to support without tremendous effort on the GM's, and do it with ease.

That's something that Savage Worlds offers to both native SW fans, and new D&D fans alike that few other systems can do without far more effort.

I'm implying that decades of variations of "my dad can beat up your dad" system wars is worth dismissing. There is no objective result just sides thinking what they think real hard. And yeah I dismissed the waifu stuff too because Misa Hayase is best waifu.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 18, 2021, 08:11:25 AM

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 03:41:01 AMNo, I mostly just dismissed it as decades of wanky EN World piffle along the same lines as " ur waifu is a shit".

So does that mean you dismissed any criticism of your waifu, or that any criticism of the d20 system is akin to waifu hate?

Both, though I don't think the D20 rules family is special (well it occupies a special position in the market and 'history' as a brand but not special unto itself), just that when people go after a system on a forum and expect that to decide an issue for other people it is the neurologic equivalent to people going after a waifu. People tend to play what they like or what they know as far as crunch goes.

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 08:54:18 PM
Both

Im not sure I agree with the mindset that discussion of system merits, lacks any merit. I have discovered and evolved taste through debate.

Also all waifus are shit. Its a really shit overplayed joke akin to referencing the cake is a lie in 2020.

Sus

Quote from: palaeomerus on July 18, 2021, 08:45:42 PM
I'm implying that decades of variations of "my dad can beat up your dad" system wars is worth dismissing. There is no objective result just sides thinking what they think real hard. And yeah I dismissed the waifu stuff too because Misa Hayase is best waifu.

Additional data needed for scientific analysis

Jokes aside, yeah, the only thing more annoying than edition warring is caliber arguments.

My katana can beat up your sword! Katanas are BEST swords.   

Anyway as for myself: Largely what tenbones said.

I have been trying to get D&D trappings to work with other systems for a while now. They where either too complex, or too simple, or too ridgid or too flexible, or unfinished for my purposes and would require a TON of work on my end.

Savage Worlds was the close but fell into the 'would need me to put a ton of work' problem. With SP it hits enough of all my sweetspots.

Its Point buy/level hybrid that emulates classes but still lets it be flexible. Its point buy, but also has space for money. Its also simple but not ULTRA simple. Its generally reliable but with space for swingyness. It covers from low->high levels.

Quote from: Batjon on July 19, 2021, 11:45:29 PM
My katana can beat up your sword! Katanas are BEST swords.   

Ironically - I was just having this discussion with one of my players last night. Katanas in SP is not good to me.

It's 1d6+1 damage and two-handed. UGH.

Everyone knows it should be 1d20 and AP20.

Seriously I think it should be 1d8 and +1 if used two-handed (not unlike their Bastard Sword). If I were being really picky - I'd give it 1d8 AP1 vs. Light armor. 1d6 vs Heavy armor.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 20, 2021, 12:00:50 AM
Its Point buy/level hybrid that emulates classes but still lets it be flexible. Its point buy, but also has space for money. Its also simple but not ULTRA simple. Its generally reliable but with space for swingyness. It covers from low->high levels.

AND... class-edges are optional. If you wanna be a SW purist, you can, and ignore the Class Edges altogether.

I'm still very IFFY about their porting over the Armor limitations in the Class Edges simply to balance them vs. Pathfinder. I'm considering other options. I get why they did it (to make PF players feel "at home" and to keep "balance" vs. other Edges) but I think they could have done it differently... like dropping those things altogether and make Class Edges Seasoned to start. It would require shifting things in terms of later Class Edge bonuses... might be too much hassle.

Quote from: tenbones on July 20, 2021, 12:23:49 PM
I'm still very IFFY about their porting over the Armor limitations in the Class Edges simply to balance them vs. Pathfinder. I'm considering other options.

Same agreement. First off Im saying the penalties only effect the class features, not everything ever. You don't go from being a fighter to a rogue and suddenly suck at being stealthy in armor after being stealthy.

Alternatively Im willing to replace armor penalties with drawbacks.