Quote from: tenbones on July 13, 2022, 04:31:21 PM
1) They either didn't scale well. Yes you can do "realistic" stuff very well, but if you wanted to do super-heroic, or high-power/fantasy, they tended to become "something else" or simply not work well.

2) They required oodles of dice and extra mechanics to do what was previously basic and simple. d6 and the notorious dice pools (take it or leave it) were a big issue. At the deeper end of the pool they get unwieldy.

Have you looked at Storypath compared to Storyteller/Storytelling? I find the scale mechanic solved the oodles of dice and scale problem. Now things are rated at their scale, so dice pools are kept sensible and inter-scale interaction gets modifiers. Thus a human and an elephant could both have a strength of 2, but in a contest between the two, the elephant would get a +4 mod that would not apply in human on human or elephant on elephant strength contests.

Quote from: tenbones on July 14, 2022, 04:03:31 PM
The real choice is whether you wanna dogfight it out, or use the Chase rules. and yeah - I'm fond of the Deluxe Chase rules a little bit more.

How so? I prefer Adventure chases as the rules feel more cohesive with regular gameplay. Moreover, the 2D card grid seem like a good way to minigame a dogfight as a chase variant. Conversely, I prefer a more narrative driven resolution to chases anyways as enjoyment of a minigame hangs on how well both sides can play it as opposed to the core describe-declare-resolve RPG loop. I can see a fun GM being a poor minigame player and sucking the fun out if it, but never a great mini game play compensating for lackluster GMing elsewhere.

I've held, for several years, that Savage Worlds might be the best generic RPG system on the market at the moment. Glad to see that it works well with an a Forgotten Realms setting as well. It's a shame that, for some reason, it's harder to get player buy in for the system compared to D&D or the other d20 systems.

Quote from: Wisithir on July 15, 2022, 10:06:57 PM
Have you looked at Storypath compared to Storyteller/Storytelling? I find the scale mechanic solved the oodles of dice and scale problem. Now things are rated at their scale, so dice pools are kept sensible and inter-scale interaction gets modifiers. Thus a human and an elephant could both have a strength of 2, but in a contest between the two, the elephant would get a +4 mod that would not apply in human on human or elephant on elephant strength contests.

No I have not looked at Storypath. I own most of the NWoD (or whatever it's called) up to and including Demon, and I'm fine with that system. I will not give money to Onyx Path going forward. Honestly, today, if I were going to do any WoD gaming (and a couple of years ago I did a V20 campaign), I would just convert it to Savage Worlds. It would be easier.

Quote from: Wisithir on July 15, 2022, 10:06:57 PM
How so? I prefer Adventure chases as the rules feel more cohesive with regular gameplay. Moreover, the 2D card grid seem like a good way to minigame a dogfight as a chase variant. Conversely, I prefer a more narrative driven resolution to chases anyways as enjoyment of a minigame hangs on how well both sides can play it as opposed to the core describe-declare-resolve RPG loop. I can see a fun GM being a poor minigame player and sucking the fun out if it, but never a great mini game play compensating for lackluster GMing elsewhere.

It's purely a personal aesthetic. I can take or leave either. The "problem" (it's not really a problem) with the SWADE chase rules, is that it turns into its own mini-game of Car Wars, which at times has broken up the tempo of the game. But! I will add it quickly turns into its own fun which always dovetails right back into the real game very seamlessly. I can't help but feel I could do something more organic with it (which is why I'm making my own ruleset for vehicle combat). Chase rules on their own - I have these thoughts of keeping the card-stack behind a screen and playing it out while narratively describing the ebb/flow of the chase. Having it out front for everyone to see feels very meta. While it's still fun once you get it going, I'm thinking of new ways to thread that needle.

Quote from: Hzilong on July 16, 2022, 01:19:43 AM
I've held, for several years, that Savage Worlds might be the best generic RPG system on the market at the moment. Glad to see that it works well with an a Forgotten Realms setting as well.

I've become a firm believer in this too.

Quote from: Hzilong on July 16, 2022, 01:19:43 AMIt's a shame that, for some reason, it's harder to get player buy in for the system compared to D&D or the other d20 systems.

Among the many hats a responsible GM wears is that of a salesman. I've been running campaigns for many many years, some of my current players are going on nearly 25 years with me, and I still have to sell them on campaigns, settings, systems. You have to curate your players and earn trust. Pitching your game comes with the territory. Build it and they will come.

A discussion I had last night with a couple of other folks in the Savage Worlds Discord...

There is a growing sentiment (anecdotally among people who do third-party development and are SW GM's) that the introduction of Classes (Class Edges) in the SW Pathfinder game only further ratifies that "classes" feel outmoded.

They feel like an anachronism and get you further away from your character. I think that's the real thing I'm trying to put my finger on. We all know that Class Edges exist simply for DnD/Pathfinder players to come into the Savage Worlds ecosystem and feel comfortable with something to hold onto. But we all know that anyone that picks up the other Savage Worlds books will clearly see, they're just a package of Edges and abilities from other SW books, which means you could easily tweak the game to not need them and build your character from scratch as you please as you play.

There is something deeply satisfying about that, which other Skill Based systems do, but SW seems to be exceedingly good at because it's not trying to be too granular (though you can tweak it to be such) rather, it's letting you mechanically build the *exact* character you want to play as Tropes with very satisfying mechanical support.

Want to be that Gish you always wanted to play? Easily done. The fact that the system does Rifts should be the clarion call that it can do *any* idea, no matter how gonzo, without missing a beat. And you're never on a set path of development, as you can shift with your GM's campaign as needed and it's all organic.

That's a high bar of design.

Sure there are things about the system I personally wouldn't have used, (The deck of cards - but I've since warmed to them), Bennies - they're a little too gamey, but now I see they're do promote roleplaying which few 'metamechanics' actually do, and a couple of other things. But overall, it's impressive what you can pull off with it with fidelity. All genres, even simultaneously, with a relatively soft mid-tier crunch.

I pretty much agree with everything you have said about why you like Savage Worlds.  For me, I was coming off of playing more crunchier systems such as GURPS, classic Deadlands and DnD 3rd edition.  I have been playing games since the Erol Otus cover of DnD and the D20 system soured on me many years ago.  Savage Worlds is the ONLY system I have ever read where the designers had the game master in mind when they developed the rules. 

After running my own Savage Worlds DnD game, one that I came up with many years ago, one of the players at the table said to me, "I noticed during the whole evening that you never picked up a pencil to record anything, like hitpoints or such."  He was right.  It is just so damned easy to run and to tweak on the fly.  Plus I love the exploding dice and "swingy" moments that some people bitch about.  Every time those moments happen, whether in the players' favor or not, those are the moments everyone cheers or laughs about.  I agree it is the best and most fun generic rpg system out there, or at least that I have found, and I have played many.   

I'm glad to see that perhaps with this Savage Pathfinder that finally we get a good system to use with all of our old DnD material.

yeah - I love me some confirmation bias! 

While I knew from the moment that Savage Pathfinder was announced - this would be a sea-change for Savage Worlds, pulling in DnD folks that are curious and/or disenchanted, it delights me to see others coming to that same realization I had: I lose nothing. I gain everything.

Savage Pathfinder is an excellent rendition of "Pathfinder" in the Savage Worlds system. But the real power is in that Fantasy Companion. It both bookends Savage Pathfinder, and transcends it. Because with the Companion it allows you more control and granularity over your "DnD analog". There is a distinct difference between Pathfinder as a setting and say  Dragonlance, and while someone with experience can relatively rework those Savage Pathfinder setting difference to more closely work for Dragonlance - the Fantasy Compendium makes any and all such future conversions, and homebrews massively easier.

There is a tempo of play that I can't replicate with DnD past 3e. There is a flexibility and breadth of possibility that I can't do with 1e or 2e without having to fight the system vs. what should be obvious (which hurts me to say, as I dearly love AD&D and 2e). SW has had a huge impact on my table. And it's only growing.

Even now I have to resist wanting to convert *everything* on my shelf to SW. And I don't say that lightly. The Superhero Companion is out - and I'm a **DIE-HARD** MSH GM, and it has me second guessing. I have thousands of dollars worth of FFG Star Wars, which I can tell you right now, my next Star Wars campaign *will* be Savage Star Wars. And I'm not saying any of this as a shill (at least not yet), I'm saying it because I'll be damned if this system doesn't do what I want it to do - and my players genuinely like it. Which is saying a lot because they're some cynical sob's. 

  One day I will put SW through its GM paces. But as I've learned to temper my zeal of my latest thrill over the years, I know that if I ever got into SW I also must keep in my heart "this too shall pass."  Also I am not as hardcore as thou, so my love & gonzo is nary so high level & pure. 

Yet it is good to hear I can port over my FR campaigns without too much of a hitch. That'll save me prep time. I might run that "Three Kingdoms Korea with Siberian Ogres Mages Next Door" I've been spitballing ever since I've glanced at all that empty northern space in Kara-Tur. 

Quote from: Opaopajr on July 19, 2022, 02:20:59 AM
One day I will put SW through its GM paces. But as I've learned to temper my zeal of my latest thrill over the years, I know that if I ever got into SW I also must keep in my heart "this too shall pass."  Also I am not as hardcore as thou, so my love & gonzo is nary so high level & pure. 

Yet it is good to hear I can port over my FR campaigns without too much of a hitch. That'll save me prep time. I might run that "Three Kingdoms Korea with Siberian Ogres Mages Next Door" I've been spitballing ever since I've glanced at all that empty northern space in Kara-Tur. 

I sound head over heels only because it reads that way. I'm not a one-true-system guy. I never will be. I'll still run MSH, CP2020, FFG Star Wars, Talislanta, and I fully intend to dive into RQ and Mythras. Edit: and Symbaroum and Alien!

But you hit the nail on the head - SW gives me POWERFUL incentives to get up and GO. I don't need to spend weeks of translating shit-tons of mechanics, and test and test and test, if I want to run nearly any kind of game.

The important thing for me is not that it can run a genre - but it has to pass my sniff test of authenticity. It has to feel right. Like I'm not even convinced that SW Supers is a thing. And knocking MSH out of place is nearly impossible - for the exact same reasons, I could pick up MSH and run nearly anything with it, if I really wanted to. My only holdback is convincing my players. But SW has to go through all the sniff-tests like any other system I used. But I can't ignore its success track-record. It's too good to ignore.