Savage Worlds Ruleset Questions

[Wintermute]

Since I know nothing about this game, I have a couple of questions concerning Savage Worlds. There are rulesets available for both v4 and v5. Which version are you GMs running?

Second, Deadlands is a campaign setting for SW, right?

Thanks

[Valyar]

Deadlands are group of setting for Savage Worlds, correct. There are few "versions" of Deadlands but the main three are: Deadlands Reloaded, Hell on Earth and Noir. There are also the "Classic" versions of Deadlands and Hell on Earth (not in FG) that use d20 and GURPS.

For ruleset... I use the latest and greatest for Savage Worlds Deluxe and Savage Worlds Adventure edition.

[edem]

Since I know nothing about this game, I have a couple of questions concerning Savage Worlds. There are rulesets available for both v4 and v5. Which version are you GMs running?

Second, Deadlands is a campaign setting for SW, right?

Thanks

v4 is "Deluxe" (or SWD), v5 is "Adventure" (or SWADE). They are fairly compatible, although there has been a couple changes, especially around skills and powers (and some edges/hindrances got some rework too). SWADE is fairly new (the print is not in shops yet), and we're still waiting for the conversion guides. I'm fairly inexperienced with SW, but I really like those changes, and the whole format looks a bit more beginner-friendly (while not losing on high end fun).
Now DLR was originally released preDeluxe, and you had to do some minor conversion for SWD (namely, SWD dropped Guts being a core skill, while it's essential in DLR; and they added some powers), but that you can easily do and find (Pinnacle has a free pdf (https://www.peginc.com/store/deadlands-deluxe-ified-pdf/)).
If you want to run it with SWADE though, you will definitely have a bit more work ahead, as they have changed some core mechanics and renamed some skills and powers, and while they will release a DLR upgrade guide sometime this year, well, it's still just March. ;)

Oh and I plan to run DLR with SWADE; woe is me :)

[Wintermute]

Thanks so much for the info. Ya'll been a big help.

[rodney418]

If you are going to start running Savage Worlds I would strongly advise going straight to the new Adventure Edition (version 5?). It's much more streamlined, and will be the default ruleset going forward. And converting older modules to it is pretty easy, I haven't had any problems doing that.

[Solden]

If you are going to start running Savage Worlds I would strongly advise going straight to the new Adventure Edition (version 5?). It's much more streamlined, and will be the default ruleset going forward. And converting older modules to it is pretty easy, I haven't had any problems doing that.

Yeah, but there is also a lot of changes that not everyone likes. For example, I didn't like neither the removal of the experience points nor the core skills. I'd rather stay with SWD for the time being. It would be really nice if the developers and specially the mod creators continues supporting SWD.

[esmdev]

It's easy enough to add back the core skills and XP to SWADE. I'm running an ETU game which basically runs on 3 advances per year for 4 years. So I just pass out XP SWD style and nobody thinks twice about it, even though we've never played SWD. It just feels good to maintain the illusion of progression for me, and the players.

As for the skills, pretty easy to just type them in as needed.

[Doswelk]

I do not have a problem with the core skills, they are "free" anyway, if you want use the optional rule that gives each player 15 skill points to spend (yes the characters will end up with 20 skill points at start of game, but not too much difference)

In addition they actually have some skills my player never took, and I have found they are trying to be less murder hobo since we started SWADE because they have "new" skills

[mac40k]

I've updated both of my ongoing campaigns (Mercenary Breed & 50 Fathoms) to SWADE with no issues thus far. The PCs generally ended up a little better off after the conversion and I haven't bothered to update the NPCs. If a 50F NPC needs to swim or throw (for example), they'll just roll the Swimming or Throwing die already on their NPC sheet. I didn't think it was necessary to redo them just to have them roll Athletics instead during the game. Since I've run mostly Savage Worlds for the last 10 years, other changes for NPCs, such as to Edges/Hindrances, I just roll with it rather than put the effort into updating them either.

[esmdev]

I like the core skills but sometimes I feel the need to change things. For my ETU campaign, since the characters are supposed to be students, I changed the core skills to academics, common knowledge, notice, persuasion & science. I also switched exams to the academics skill to reflect general coursework rather than just the major coursework (especially since the old knowledge (major) seems outside the new norm. It actually works really well under SWADE.

[rodney418]

It would be really nice if the developers and specially the mod creators continues supporting SWD.

I would prefer it if they concentrated their limited resources on SWADE rather than supporting what's now basically an obsolete ruleset. The vast majority of Savage Worlds players are strongly in favour of the new rules.

[Sgain]

I agree with the above statement. Let PEG move forward with the new version of the game. As a guy who converts stuff for SW - I sure as heck don't have the time to do everything twice.

[Ikael]

I would prefer it if they concentrated their limited resources on SWADE rather than supporting what's now basically an obsolete ruleset. The vast majority of Savage Worlds players are strongly in favour of the new rules.

SWD ruleset is far from being obsolete. I have made deliberate design decision to support both SWADE and SWD rulesets on the long run. In matter of fact pre-SWADE ruleset architecture was changed to support this and whenever a new ruleset feature (or bug fix) is developed it will be available for both of the rulesets unless explicitly made just for either one. It would have been much easier to abandon the previous ruleset and start developing new one but I put the extra effort to do the architecture change to support them both. From this point on it won't split my resources to half to develop feature for both.

[Ikael]

Regarding community extension developers, because of the architecture update, 9/10 cases community extension does not need to have explicit support for one SavageWorlds ruleset version, if it works for one, it will work for another in 90% cases. The only thing developers need to know is to add following definition to extension.xml to support Deluxe ruleset:



<ruleset>
<name>SWD</name>
</ruleset>


This is because I needed to separate both rulesets by name and SavageWorlds ruleset name is reserved for the most recent edition (SWADE in this case).

[Ikael]

If you don't like Core Skills or want to get XP back to SWADE ruleset you can do it with simple extension coding. Both of the rulesets are very much customizable.

To prove the point here is all the extension.xml code that would return XP field to character sheet and remove Core Skills.



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<root version="3.0">
<properties>
<name>SWADE XP and No Core Skills</name>
<version>1.0</version>
<author>Ikael</author>
<description>Return XP and Remove Core Skills</description>
<ruleset>
<name>SavageWorlds</name>
</ruleset>
</properties>
<announcement text="XP and No Core Skills v1.0" font="emotefont" icon="wildcard" />
<base>
<string name="char_xp">XP</string>
<script name="SWADE_NoCoreSkills">
function onInit()
GameSystem.aCoreSkills = {}
GameSystem.getAdvanceCount = function(nXP)
if nXP &gt; 80 then
return math.floor((nXP-80)/10) + 16
else
return math.floor(nXP/5)
end
end
end
</script>
<windowclass name="charsheet_traits" merge="join">
<sheetdata>
<char_advance name="xp" source="main.xp" insertbefore="advances">
<anchored to="advances_frame" position="insidetopleft" offset="20,25" />
<script>
function onInit()
super.onInit()
update()
end
function onValueChanged()
update()
end
function update()
window.advances.setValue(GameSystem.getAdvanceCoun t(getValue()))
end
</script>
</char_advance>
<stringcontrol name="xp_label" insertbefore="advances">
<anchored to="xp" position="above" offset="0,3" />
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<center />
<static textres="char_xp" />
</stringcontrol>
<char_advance name="advances">
<anchored to="xp" position="righthigh" offset="10,0" />
<disabled />
</char_advance>
</sheetdata>
</windowclass>
</base>
</root>

[mac40k]

Once again bows in deference to the mighty Ikael. Don't know what we'd do without him.