Look what I found propped against my front door (and likely sitting there all night). I joined the Kickstarter for this and got the book and a few sets of cards. I am also in both Savage Pathfinder Kickstarters (and have yet to receive the second). Thoughts?
I like Savage Pathfinder, but I get overwhelmed every time I try to play the game. The characters have too many edges, and the class edges feel too much for me to pull apart. I know this is just Savage Worlds, really? Also, the Paizo iconic characters - I love the art and style - feel too overwhelming, and this is their game, not mine. It is a strange feeling, but it is like playing a superhero game, picking a vigilante character option, and seeing Batman on the page as iconic.
Now, I am forever going to compare my hero to Batman.
Most people probably did not have a problem with this. But somehow, I did. Strangely enough, I don't feel 5E has the iconic character problem, and there feels like room for my characters to "be" the iconic character in that class. The OSR certainly doesn't have this problem; the characters there are generic 3d6 dead meat and try to survive. Savage Worlds does not have an issue with iconic characters.
At times, the Paizo flavor of fantasy leans too heavily on their IP, and the game doesn't have room for my ideas. This is even more prominent in the remaster of Pathfinder 2, where the iconic spells, monsters, and creatures are being memory-holed for non-OGL replacement content. Yes, I am harsh, but seriously, replacing drow with reptile people and saying previous dark elf content was "fake news" is peak 2023. The drow monster entry is in the Creative Commons; nobody owns them now. I will check out the new replacements, but they are not in my history, and Golarion 2.1 feels alien to me now.
D&D and Pathfinder 2 are not in the same fantasy genre as most OSR games or even old D&D. While they can be used to play something like the OSR, they are either too planar or too specific to emulate the older generic fantasy game worlds.
Paizo IP feeling dominant is not a bad problem! This signifies solid branding, theming, and tight product management. The game has a definite identity, which is excellent - but it hurts using the system elsewhere.
Still, if you are playing Golarion and love the old-style art and flavor, play Savage Pathfinder 100%, or play the original 3.5E version. You can have your red dragons and magic missiles, and it feels like 2010 again. I love my copy of Savage Pathfinder, and it stays on my most-played shelves. Despite what Paizo does in the future, my version of Golarion is the original.
Some history: I ran a short Savage Fantasy (2012) game in the Pathfinder version of Primeval Thule, a sort of "Conan plus Cthulhu plus D&D fantasy" mish-mash of a setting, and it was a fun swords & sorcery romp. The thing I love about the original fantasy companion was it was a "stuff book" for the main Savage Worlds book, and things still worked essentially the same as the main book plus this.
I tried running it with Savage Pathfinder, and it fell apart. WTF?
It felt like Pathfinder. The characters in my game were not limited by class edges and had all the options open to them. I could have a bard with rage. Whatever - you are surviving in a messed-up world, let your characters progress naturally. If your bard has a reason to pick something "disallowed," then do so. I know you can do this in Savage Pathfinder, but the game felt wrong, and I had a lot of extra information in lists of "can't pick" X, Y, and Z that I would end up ignoring.
Great if this is Pathfinder, but this wasn't. If I can return to superheroes, it is like playing a Marvel RPG with rules meant for a DC Universe. It did not feel right; the goblins were the football-headed ones, I felt the presence of the iconics, and it was like biting into a hamburger where you knew you would only take one bite.
I wanted Conan plus D&D flavor.
I was getting Paizo flavor.
The game was better with the Savage Worlds book, plus the 2012 Fantasy Companion.
Now, I have a revised 2023 Savage Fantasy Companion. The game is a generic fantasy sandbox simulator. The races are a catch-all of everything. Nothing is assumed for me. The art is excellent, and the setting is agnostic. Characters can progress organically.
Most importantly, no world flavor or theme is forced on me. Thule can be Thule. If I played in any other setting, the flavor there would be dominant. Savage Worlds plus the 2023 Fantasy Companion would fade into the background - like they should.
A great generic game fades away and lets flavor take over. Cyhper System does this well. GURPS does it. Many OSR fantasy games do this. Pathfinder 1e does it better than 2e (even with the iconic characters). Savage Pathfinder does not feel generic enough to me to run anything other than Golarion. Likely, it is heavily themed towards "fulfilling the fantasy" - which is excellent for running Pathfinder.
It doesn't do it for other fantasy settings, not as well as a generic fantasy toolbox that keeps complexity down and strips out the flavor and setting limitations meant to emulate a genre.
Savage Pathfinder is great; it is one of the best Pathfinder experiences I could ever imagine.
The new Fantasy Companion has infinite potential outside of that area.
Maybe it's because I never played Pathfinder, but as a recent 5E refugee getting into SW, I like the SPF rules because class edges feel like a good stepping stone and a useful reference. I have a homebrew in search of a system, and SPF is looking really tasty. [I found you from Reddit, btw, and your blog's great, thanks!]
ReplyDeleteThanks! I am a 40-year traveler of the RPG scene. I try many things, 5E included, and try to find what brings me enjoyment. The short time I spent with 5E I had fun, but it felt like a lot of work with limited options that didn't always fit my idea of the character. Too often I felt like I was playing somebody else's idea of a warlock instead of the one I had in my head. SPF is a great system, one I am keeping and my way of playing Pathfinder.
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