Rippers - Question on Content before Purchase

[caballan]

I am new to FGU and have never run Rippers before. I have run into several questions related to rippers that I am hoping someone can answer. So far, I have purchased SWADE and 50 fathoms for running our 50 fathoms campaign that should be wrapping up sometime in the next year. Rippers is our next campaign, so starting to pull the pieces of it together.

First is the question I see like once a week on the forum for different settings: Have the rippers modules in the store been updated to SWADE? I know I can load them into FGU with no issues. My question specifically is if the double conversion (base set rules to deluxe and then deluxe to SWADE) has already been done to everything. For example, have the NPC stats been updated for the conversion and charisma removed?

The plan is to run all the ripper plot point campaigns as a 2 part campaign setup. Is this the correct order so that the plot campaigns line up?

Part One:
- Savage Worlds Setting: Rippers for Fantasy Grounds
- Rippers Companion

Part Two:
- Rippers Resurrected: Game Master Book and Rippers Resurrected: Players Handbook
- Rippers Resurrected: Frightful Expeditions

I will probable also pick up the Savage Worlds Rippers Online Gaming Tokens as I don't have that many token options yet. Does anyone know if that contains tokens for both the original rippers and rippers resurrected?

SWADE removed a lot of the specific skills like language and knowledge, though there is a note that you can add them back in if you think you need them for your setting. For those who have played Rippers before, is there any specific skills you feel like need to be there own thing? Or should I just leave all the skills converted to SWADE?

Thanks

[Doswelk]

Rippers is a SWEX product, it has not been updated to SWADE, there is no intention to do so.

Rippers Resurrected has a SWADE conversion guide, this been used to make a SWADE Rippers Resurrected Module for the Player and GM modules.

Amazon Expedition is a SWADE product, any future Rippers Resurrected modules will be SWADE, no existing RR modules will be converted to SWADE.

[caballan]

Thanks Doswelk! That is a very clear and helpful answer.

I have a copy of the base Rippers from before we switched to FGU. I will probable review it and see if it would be just better to re-build the plot point parts into Rippers Resurrected so that we can use all the updated rules.

Do you think it would be worth the time/effort to sticky a thread on what campaign settings have been updated to what? I could start one and let people add to it, just not sure if that is a helpful to everyone or just a waste of effort

[fubeca150]

I have been running the original Rippers plot point campaign in SWADE, using Rippers Resurrected rules.

Here is what I have found:

I would definitely suggest getting and putting in Rippers Resurrected as your setting and theme even though you're running the original Rippers. That gives you the "Lodge" and sets you up to have relatively current stuff for your basic game.


As for the original Rippers FG module, I'd say it's not a time saver by having it loaded, but there's a minor convenience there for tracking stuff --

* The original Rippers FG module appears to be a direct copy-paste from the PDF to the module. I don't know if this is okay in Classic, but I only started using FG with FGU in March, and it is NOT working well.
Issue 1) The dialogue text that you hit the Balloon button to send to the chat cuts off the dialogue at the first copy-paste line break
Issue 2) As a GM you need to fix the dialogue text, removing the line breaks. That means putting it into edit mode and deleting the line breaks and extra hyphenation. That introduces to you a bad bug in FGU (I think recently introduced because I don't recall hitting it a couple weeks ago) where the visible text cursor you're using to edit isn't in the same position as the behind-the-scenes edit cursor. The actual edit cursor is several characters in front of the visible text cursor when you're editing a dialogue box. So you need to back up the visible cursor to a spot that you're editing in the correct position. Deleting doesn't work properly, so you need to add a character to start a word and then delete.
*** Workaround: Paste from original PDF to Notepad++, use Ctrl J to join lines, copy from there into the story element, and add formatting. e.g. you might as well have just done the module conversion yourself.

* The NPCs stats from the original rippers are completely wrong, spells don't have working effects, you lose a lot of the benefit of using Fantasy Grounds
This is relatively easy to work around. I spend time prepping for each plot point or adventure where I completely overhaul the NPCs and update to SWADE. I drag the current version of the powers, current version of the weapons, etc., and then things are ready for play and that goes really smoothly.

Issue 1) Creating a standalone GM module for fixing stuff has mixed results. I'm not going to do that again. Last night I had a situation where I was running Broken Masonry and had built my own named version of Baphomet off of the Horned God. I made some extra NPCs basing them off Evil Cultist, made a Wild Card High Priest of Baphomet and a couple extra Wild Card Acolytes of Baphomet. I made all of these in a standalone Module because I also created my own map for Rosslyn Chapel (I'll post that in another thread when I get the LOS stuff put into its own paired file). When I exported them, Baphomet lost all the work I'd put into him and reverted to a mostly default Horned God. I had replaced all of his attacks and abilities with updated SWADE versions. The export somehow kept the new token I assigned but reverted ALL his abilities and attacks back to Horned God default. The high priest and acolyte exports worked flawlessly even though they were based off of Evil Cultist and I added a few powers to them.
** Edit: I just figured out the Horned God issue. I didn't make a new NPC entry for Baphomet, but I had for the Acolyte and High Priest. So my only modified Baphomet was in the encounter record. For some reason the encounter record's version reset to Horned God when loaded into my main campaign instead of using the one in the encounter.

* The organization of the plot point with nested links is ridiculously annoying and not very friendly OR usable to me.
1) The arrangement of the plot points in Rippers is that every break goes to a new entry. While this wouldn't be THAT big a deal if it were organized with a primary entry that linked to the individual entries, instead you have to start at the root entry and then follow the link to the next one. One window per section adds up to quickly become an unmanageable mess... at least for me.

* Strategic missions for running a lodge ... not sure how to do this
I'm still trying to find a solution for this. I only ran into it last night as the players just barely started their own lodge. But it appears to be an integral part of the experience of running a Lodge.

[Mgrancey]

FG Unity is still under heavy construction for Savage Worlds.

Depending on how old Rippers Module and whether it has been updated for changes made to SW rulesset changes may break stuff/non-functional.

As far as NPCs go, got get NPC Maker https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...7-SW-NPC-Maker. If you have a source file that you can copy and paste from NPC Maker will make updating NPCs much easier. You might need to take into a text editor and remove "new lines", "line breaks", symbols, and "typographical spacing", but so long as you have correct source modules open "SWADE Guide" and any Rippers modules with edges, hindrances, abilities, items, powers. It will largely make the NPCs correct, might need to do some minor editing but would say 80-90 accuracy, probably more as I was using it for Super Powers stuff which works a bit differently and had conflicts.