Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Kickstarter

[zarlor]

This is exactly what is going to happen anyway as Pinnacle are getting you to pay for the new version of the RPG rulebook - which is standard practice throughout the RPG industry, I'm not having a go at Pinnacle.

That is not true at all. Pinnacle has never worked that way. You do NOT in any way, shape or form HAVE to buy the new edition of Savage Worlds to play by the new rules. They will, and have always, provided exactly what the new changes are are in a FREE PDF you will be able to download off of the Pinnacle website so you can continue to use your current rulebook and still play by the new rules. There may be some minor wording changes to things that might not be listed in that conversion guide, but overall you should be able to fully play by the new rules while continuing to use the old rulebook without ever having to buy anything new at all from Pinnacle. This is NOT D&D and there's no real reason why this would split the SW community, just like previous rules updates have not split the community before this. Everyone moves to the new rules because everyone can whether they've bought the new books or not. Pinnacle simply has never used the D&D pricing model with new editions that are not backwards compatible and I doubt they ever will do that. It's one of the reasons I, personally, do buy the new books as a way to support a company whose business model I greatly prefer.

[Trenloe]

That is not true at all. Pinnacle has never worked that way. You do NOT in any way, shape or form HAVE to buy the new edition of Savage Worlds to play by the new rules. They will, and have always, provided exactly what the new changes are are in a FREE PDF you will be able to download off of the Pinnacle website so you can continue to use your current rulebook and still play by the new rules. There may be some minor wording changes to things that might not be listed in that conversion guide, but overall you should be able to fully play by the new rules while continuing to use the old rulebook without ever having to buy anything new at all from Pinnacle. This is NOT D&D and there's no real reason why this would split the SW community, just like previous rules updates have not split the community before this. Everyone moves to the new rules because everyone can whether they've bought the new books or not. Pinnacle simply has never used the D&D pricing model with new editions that are not backwards compatible and I doubt they ever will do that. It's one of the reasons I, personally, do buy the new books as a way to support a company whose business model I greatly prefer.

I stand corrected. Sorry for providing confusing information. Thanks for the detailed info about Pinnacle's practices.

[esmdev]

After I saw that the ruleset was only $10, I decided to go ahead and buy the current version. If the upgraded ruleset is only $10, you can be pretty sure I'll go ahead and buy that too.

It seems like most people's concern is having to pay to update all the other products like settings and adventures, etc., to work with the newer ruleset. I don't see how the new ruleset could work with the older modules without a whole lot of work in the ruleset designed solely to figure out if something is older and then revamp it (which seems like too much work and wasted memory to me).

Maybe an alternative would be a new standalone ruleset for $10 and an option to buy both for $15 for backwards compatibility? People who don't have Deluxe but want it can get it with the bundle, people who want the new alone or already have deluxe can get the new ruleset, etc.

When I look at the older settings and adventures and such, I'm just not really confident that they will all get updated to the newer edition, so I can see a need to retain the older.

[Trenloe]

I think, if it's possible, it would be nice to have the new ruleset (if it is a new ruleset) be able to convert library modules from the old to the new format (as is reasonably possible) or to a close approximation that is usable. The Call of Cthulhu 7e ruleset does this when a module made for the Call of Cthulhu 6e ruleset is opened, so the process is certainly viable. This would make it much easier for people to move to the new rules and still use their previous setting/adventure purchases and would also keep products made for the old ruleset a viable option for people to pick up and use.

[zarlor]

I think the big changes, from a coding perspective, would be consolidation of a few of the skills down to just being Athletics (already had to be done for the Flash Gordon setting), the new Chase Rules (which I would think could probably be just a separate option setting to choose which method you prefer to use), the allowance of the same action when doing multi-actions (but maxed at a total of 3 actions) which I don't think FG handles automatically right now anyway, and the removal of the Charisma derived trait. Modules won't touch core Edges, Hindrances or Powers so that shouldn't be much of a problem (except where a module references a core version of those things, say as a pre-requisite or something, although FG doesn't really do much character design checks like a character creation program does so that's probably not going to be an issue, either.) We know there are going to be some updates of older settings, one of them being Evernight which was created with the very first ruleset and yet is still in use now. Presumably the module authors for any updated settings will either have to update the old setting module or create a new one for the new version when released, so there could potentially be some cost for folks there if there are 2 versions of a particular setting like that (although you might still be able to run the old version with the new core rules anyway, I would think, but it just may not be supported if there are underlying changes to FG that might mess with them.)

Now, there may be a bunch of other changes that will fundamentally affect how something like FG handles the new SWAdE over current SWD but we won't really know about that for sure until we get the new edition. From what we do know, though, and from the point of view of someone who is not an FG coder (although I've done a ton of SW datasets for Hero Lab) I wouldn't think we'd be looking at too massive of a software overhaul for these, especially on the module side I wouldn't think. I could be completely wrong about that, of course, so take that for what little it might be worth.

EDIT: Oh, there's also that Tricks and Tests of Will are now combined into the much simpler Tests, and Cooperative roles are now Support rolls, both of which might require the addition of coding but also probably nothing major that would disrupt the way those are done now in FG, I wouldn't think. It's really a question of what the small "tweaks" will be to some of the other stuff that FG does track, like Encumbrance, but again I'm not sure those will make much difference to a settings module. In other words might not have to worry about seeing any kind of conversion built into FG for modules. Hopefully, anyway. Also the addition of Common Knowledge as a skill rather than a Smarts roll, but also not something I think that will affect modules.

[mac40k]

That is not true at all. Pinnacle has never worked that way. You do NOT in any way, shape or form HAVE to buy the new edition of Savage Worlds to play by the new rules. They will, and have always, provided exactly what the new changes are are in a FREE PDF you will be able to download off of the Pinnacle website so you can continue to use your current rulebook and still play by the new rules. There may be some minor wording changes to things that might not be listed in that conversion guide, but overall you should be able to fully play by the new rules while continuing to use the old rulebook without ever having to buy anything new at all from Pinnacle. This is NOT D&D and there's no real reason why this would split the SW community, just like previous rules updates have not split the community before this. Everyone moves to the new rules because everyone can whether they've bought the new books or not. Pinnacle simply has never used the D&D pricing model with new editions that are not backwards compatible and I doubt they ever will do that. It's one of the reasons I, personally, do buy the new books as a way to support a company whose business model I greatly prefer.

The difference here as it applies to FG is that the ruleset updates being downloadable for free still leaves the option of whether or not to use them in the hands of individual GMs. Unless FG can make all the changes available as options that can be turned on or off in the existing ruleset, what impact will the update to remove Charisma as a derived stat and all the associated core Edges that currently modify Charisma are replaced with new versions have on existing ongoing campaigns for example? Currently, FG doesn't allow you to opt out of updates individually, so anytime you want to take updates to core or any other ruleset, you get all that you are own. You can't for example, just download updates for D&D 5e and not download updates for SW.

[zarlor]

Looks like some thoughts from the FG folks at around the 37:00 mark in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJqkeKHL1CI

[mac40k]

Looks like some thoughts from the FG folks at around the 37:00 mark in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJqkeKHL1CI

Yes, this is what I've been referring to and going back and rewatching that segment I now see that Doug did qualify it with a "subject to change" statement. Bottom line for me is that Savage Worlds is my system of preference, I already own more settings than I can count, and FG is currently the only means I have to play, so I will gladly pay whatever FG wants to charge to be able to continue to do so. In fact, I was tempted to just try to get by with the free pdf conversion material PEG will make available and just purchase the new rules in FG, but I backed the KS anyway just to support PEG.

[Claybor]

Good folks at both pinnacle and here. I am pretty sure they will get it all worked out in a fair and equitable manner.

[Sgain]

in terms of the Chase rules and Fantasy Grounds - you can use the existing chase tracker for the new rules. Just put some tokens on the map to represent the tokens for the chase. Then do the various rolls and draws as per the old system (with the new rules of course). I did it the other day with FG and it worked fine!