Questions on choosing a Savage Worlds setting

I'm considering taking the plunge and starting a Savage Worlds campaign. I run a weekly 4E campaign in Fantasy Grounds which I love, but I'd like to try something a little more fast, furious and of course fun, in addition to my current game.

There are so many great settings prepared for Savage Worlds, but I want to make an informed decision. Looking at the Fantasy Grounds store I see that some settings books were made for Savage Worlds ruleset version 2 (Rippers, Necessary Evil), and others were made for Savage Worlds version 3 (Slipstream, Super Heroes Companion). Should I stay away from those that only support version 2?

Also, I see that there is a special extension that has been tacked to the top of this forum that fixes some bugs for the Savage Worlds rulesets. Will this extension interfere with the settings sold for Fantasy Grounds?

Lastly, I own a copy of Necropolis 2350, and I might like to try and run that. Is it a mistake to try and run something of my own (particularly in prep and setup) rather than buy one of the settings mentioned above?

Thanks for any help!

Robbo,

Let me speak for the core Savage Worlds setting. I have slowly moved from an unofficial to official support role for this ruleset, and I am the author of the current unofficial patches extension.

In short : (1) No, the unofficial patches should not clash with the Settings modules you can buy. (2) The unofficial patches will soon be part of the next official ruleset version.

There is a chance this extension COULD interfere with other extensions to the ruleset, which is hard to avoid when coding extensions. However, it should not interfere with Story / Adventure modules (as they just provide story, personality, item and other elements within the interface) or settings / library modules (as there just add a new book to read in your FGII library).

I believe everything on sale in the Fantasy Grounds store falls into one of these two categories, and therefore all purchased items should be fine with (or without) the patches extension. The only thing I am not 100% on are the Savage Worlds v2 modules - I can't imagine why they wouldn't work with v3, but without having a copy of them I cannot be sure; I was also not the developer who wrote the v2 to v3 upgrade, so am not sure if any database format changes occurred for that.

The extensions the unofficial patches might not play well with are those that alter the character sheets / database format - such as the Realms of Cthulhu and Powers extensions found in the forums. In recognition of this, I have just submitted a new version of the ruleset to Smiteworks which should contain the patches, as well as a few new features that had been requested. Hopefully we should see this version released quite soon, which will remove the need for the unofficial patches for good (as I will be developing OFFICIAL patches in the form of new ruleset versions from now on !)

As for settings, I highly recommend the Deadlands ruleset, due Early 2011 !!! Ok, I confess I'm the guy writing that one, but I'm writing it as I love GMing the setting, it's got lots of history and awesome character srchetypes I and really want my own Deadlands in FGII experience to be top notch. The Deadlands release should include both library modules AND some significant ruleset changes to allow for various deadlands specific rules (Fate Chips, enhanced card rules and arcane type specific stuff). Downside is it's still under development :)

Hopefully that clears some questions up; any further thoughts, reply here and I'll share what I know.

Kind Regards,
Ben

I might as well get my own plug. I'm one of the developers at White Haired Man. We have a number of adventures based in our small-scale Kith'takharos setting. You can peruse the setting for free at our web site.

https://www.whitehairedman.com/?page_id=105

I'm a co-GM of one FGII Savaged Kith'takharos campaign that's been running about 2 years and almost 50 game sessions, so I can say there's a lot of adventure potential.

I also think Savage Worlds is a good fit for Fantasy Grounds. I wish you well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robbo

I'm considering taking the plunge and starting a Savage Worlds campaign. I run a weekly 4E campaign in Fantasy Grounds which I love, but I'd like to try something a little more fast, furious and of course fun, in addition to my current game.

---

Hear Hear! :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robbo

There are so many great settings prepared for Savage Worlds, but I want to make an informed decision. Looking at the Fantasy Grounds store I see that some settings books were made for Savage Worlds ruleset version 2 (Rippers, Necessary Evil), and others were made for Savage Worlds version 3 (Slipstream, Super Heroes Companion). Should I stay away from those that only support version 2?

---

I have not found any problems running any of the Savage Worlds modules with any of the versions of the rule-set V2, V3 or even the hacked about version I have (it was to be 3.1 but development stopped mid-way and I have hand hacked in the unofficial patches).

The only real difference between a V2 and a V3 module is that the V3 rule-set added an extra Armor box to the NPCs (there were a lot of functional changes but these do not affect the modules), when I was creating the V2 modules I had to add the armor as a special ability with V3 I could use the box.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robbo

Also, I see that there is a special extension that has been tacked to the top of this forum that fixes some bugs for the Savage Worlds rulesets. Will this extension interfere with the settings sold for Fantasy Grounds?

---

Non of these clash with any of the modules to my knowledge.

[quote=Robbo]Lastly, I own a copy of Necropolis 2350, and I might like to try and run that. Is it a mistake to try and run something of my own (particularly in prep and setup) rather than buy one of the settings mentioned above?

Run what you want to run!

Obviously running a pre-prepared module takes work away from you.

If you have any queries or need any help with porting stuff feel free to ask.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robbo

Thanks for any help!

---

Not a problem always glad to help convert more Savages! ;)

With regard to the earlier entries about the White Haired Man modules having bought all of them so far I was very happy with them.

Deadlands nearly here! EEP! If I do not get Suzerain finished before that comes out I might never get it done! :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robbo

Lastly, I own a copy of Necropolis 2350, and I might like to try and run that. Is it a mistake to try and run something of my own (particularly in prep and setup) rather than buy one of the settings mentioned above?

---

It's not a problem to run your own adventures. I prefer doing so. It generally takes fifteen to twenty minutes to prep FG for a given encounter. This generally includes creating personalities, choosing a map, setting up the combat tracker, and creating a story page with an outline or intro text as well as links to the above. I'm not exactly the world's fastest typist though...it may take some people less time.

In short, run whichever setting you and your players like the most!

The Necropolis setting is really great, and I think it would play well on FG2 owing to the fact that it is a tactics-heavy game. You should probably start, however, by trying to find players, since it is one of the less-popular SW settings.

Thanks for the responses, they were very helpful. I love having as much work done for me as possible so I'll choose one or two of the settings in the store. And I'm probably a day one purchaser of Deadlands.

If you do think that you might one day be interested in running or playing Necropolis, let me know. I did a little bit of writing for that setting, and I really love it. I'd be happy to run or play in a game at some point.

Even though Deadlands is not officially out yet, I find that I can mock up some unique monsters by "borrowing" from the other settings' bestiaries. Rippers has a lot of monsters that work equally well and both Sundered Skies and Hellfrost actually have a few I've successfully used in my DL game.

Overall, the settings for SW are one of its greatest strengths IMO. If I had to rate them by my interest level, I'd probably go with something like this:

0. Deadlands
1. Sundered Skies
2. Necessary Evil
3. Rippers
4. Evernight

The others: Slipstream, Hellfrost, Tour of Darkness, 50 Fathoms and WHM's Kith'takharos are all probably excellent as well but I haven't read them in as much detail.

That reminds me... I think I have a Tour of Darkness setting that might be up for review.