Learning Disability and the missing Setting Rules section

[Shadowchasers]

So, I appreciate the changes and work that's going into the Pathfinder for Savage Worlds core book, but as someone with ADHD and very little time to keep up with rules changes, I feel I need to explain some things that might not be considered as 'accessibility' features by some designers.

First off, I do appreciate the sidebar on page 13 that discusses *many* of the changes being made to Savage Worlds for this expression of the rules, but I was disappointed to see that you have removed the 'Setting Rules' section of the format of other Savage Worlds books that made it so easy to learn previous settings. I do wish you'd reconsider this, and do a whole chapter on the rules you've changed, and restore the setting rules you are using and define the ones you're changing. Or, at the very least, a separate pdf that could be used as a learning tool. I spent a couple of months learning how to run Savage Worlds Adventure Edition for this game, and then you changed a bunch of the rules and expect me to discover them by reading the whole book? This is very frustrating, and has led me to being more disappointed with each little rule change I find than I normally would be if I had one place I could look to for that information. My enthusiasm for this project hit a brick wall this week, largely because of how difficult it was to ferret out all the things that were different about the thing I'd worked so hard to learn.

Largely, when I saw the 'Savage Worlds Adventure Edition' logo on the cover of the book, I thought *that* was the system that the book was going to use, with any tweaks being clearly signposted so I could find and learn them up front. I didn't know I was going to have to re-learn everything from scratch.

I think this book will wind up being an excellent book, and I will probably get some use out of most of the books in this Kickstarter campaign, but I do urge you to consider accessibility when making rules changes. Embrace the Setting Rules section. You did it for Flash Gordon, I wish you would do it for Golarion.

[3DJutsu]

There are a huge number of changes to absorb, but all-in-all I think it's better they went for a full, 'new' book instead of having the SWPF book reference you to the SW book at every turn. Additionally this keeps cost low since you need one book instead of two.

It's not just setting rules either, look at the powers, Protection only ever provides +2 Armor now against Melee *or* Ranged, a Raise just gives +2 Armor vs both. There are so many changes that making a whole new book was the practical route imo. =]

[Shadowchasers]

There are a huge number of changes to absorb, but all-in-all I think it's better they went for a full, 'new' book instead of having the SWPF book reference you to the SW book at every turn. Additionally this keeps cost low since you need one book instead of two.

It's not just setting rules either, look at the powers, Protection only ever provides +2 Armor now against Melee *or* Ranged, a Raise just gives +2 Armor vs both. There are so many changes that making a whole new book was the practical route imo. =]

It does make sense from that perspective, but at the same time... it makes me wonder why they put 'Adventure Edition' on the cover. I feel like this is *not* the same system I bought and learned in preparation for this game. When I bought into the kickstarter, I was under the impression they were delivering a version of the Pathfinder setting that would work for the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition rules... instead, it feels like they've re-written Savage Worlds rules to simulate the Pathfinder rules. Which is kinda the opposite of what I wanted from the game.

[Tumola]

To be fair, the Kickstarter says:

And you don't need the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition for this one—the entire core Savage Worlds rules system, streamlined and tweaked for Savage Pathfinder, is included!

And I feel this is exactly what we got: The core rules, tweaked and streamlined for Pathfinder. There aren't any major changes, and if you are familiar with SWADE, I doubt that you will have any issues running Savage Pathfinder.

[Shadowchasers]

To be fair, the Kickstarter says:



And I feel this is exactly what we got: The core rules, tweaked and streamlined for Pathfinder. There aren't any major changes, and if you are familiar with SWADE, I doubt that you will have any issues running Savage Pathfinder.

I seem to be getting conflicting messages, here. Either the rules changes are substantial and required a standalone book, or they are not substantial and should be easy to run.

My own experience is that I am having trouble learning the changes because they aren't clearly signposted and are peppered throughout every inch of the book. I keep tripping over things I thought were the same but aren't. Considering I will have to run this game today without an adventure to use as a guideline, I'm going to have to wing it as best I can. I hope I don't accidentally slaughter my players.

[Tumola]

Everything that is not specifically mentioned in the summary on Page 13 is relatively minor and I'm convinced that you can run a fair and fun game even if you only know the SWADE rules.

[ellipses]

IMO the biggest changes were to Power Point regeneration, which has been reverted back to SWADE, and the Four Wounds Max setting rule which is baked into the system. Core combat is the same, Support and Tests are the same, casting a spell works the same. If you know the basics of SWADE, I don’t see why you’d have any issues.

Besides, we all get rules wrong from time to time, if you get confused about the minor variations between how a spell works in SWADE vs its SWPF counterpart, then use that as a learning experience and try to remember it next time.

And heck, the nature of the kickstarter rules is that, by this time next week there may already be a 2.0 version of the rules out with even more changes.

[Shadowchasers]

IMO the biggest changes were to Power Point regeneration, which has been reverted back to SWADE, and the Four Wounds Max setting rule which is baked into the system. Core combat is the same, Support and Tests are the same, casting a spell works the same. If you know the basics of SWADE, I don’t see why you’d have any issues.

Besides, we all get rules wrong from time to time, if you get confused about the minor variations between how a spell works in SWADE vs its SWPF counterpart, then use that as a learning experience and try to remember it next time.

And heck, the nature of the kickstarter rules is that, by this time next week there may already be a 2.0 version of the rules out with even more changes.

All fair, but I felt the lack of a Setting Rules section wasn't in line with the design I'd expected to see from the previous products I'd looked at, and felt like it left me unable to quickly compare what I knew with what needed to change. As someone with a learning disability, that is pretty frustrating.

Addendum: To be clear, even if this has no impact on the current book, I do hope the designers will keep it in mind for future books. I consider it an accessibility issue, and think it would be helpful for other readers, like myself, who have similar learning disabilities.

[Tumola]

A Setting Rules section does not make sense in a setting-specific book. Same goes for rules that let you create your own ancestries.

But they could have mentioned which setting rules they were using in the summary.

[Leatherneck556]

+1 While I don't really agree with the need for a whole chapter to address these changes or the need for race creation rules, I will agree that a pdf file that lists all the deviations from SWADE core would be useful if not necessary. I know you said the summary, but I could see this being a pdf. No real need to put it in the book if this is going to be a complete system and the only SWADE book that some people ever see. They won't know the difference.

[Shadowchasers]

A Setting Rules section does not make sense in a setting-specific book. Same goes for rules that let you create your own ancestries.

But they could have mentioned which setting rules they were using in the summary.

I can think of a number of ways in which a Setting Rules section makes sense.

1) If you care to adjust the setting when you sit down to play. It's a lot easier if the setting tropes are in one place and showcased in a way that explain how they interact and why those decisions are made.
2) A Setting Rules section also makes sense if you bought the book because it said "Savage Worlds Adventure Edition" on the cover and you wanted to expand your library of SWADE options, putting the new ideas all in one place makes it more functional.
3) You need help understanding why there are so many small differences from the core rulebook you're familiar with.

But, again, I have no illusions this will change for this version of the rules. I just felt my difficulties were significant enough that I should mention them so the designers could hopefully avoid this problem in the future.

[eXaminator]

The problem I see with such a chapter is, that it would incorporate a lot of (if not almost all) content from many other chapters that are arguably a better fit for the content.

Examples:
Would you have all the Class Edges in that chapter rather than the Edges list (or maybe a specific Class chapter should the change that as some people asked for)?
Would you rather have Traps and Haunts in a setting rules chapter instead of the Adventure Toolkit chapter?
Would you expect new power modifiers or mechanics (like cantrips) to be listed in a Setting Rules chapter instead of the Powers chapter?
Would you expect every new or changed power to be listed in the Settings Rule chapter?

I think the few things that come to mind that MIGHT be suited for such a chapter are downtime rules, the changed/new resting rule and the baked in wound limit rule.

In the end, this book is just as much - if not more - tailored to people who are new to Savage Worlds (thus, people from the Pathfinder community). And for those folks, this is probably the better approach.

But I also agree, that a "changelog" of sorts might be helpful once the book is actually done. Maybe it would be possible to have something like that as a free fan creation, as long as it does not contain specific rules? So it might at least write down a list of rules that changed or were added compared to SWADE.

[Donald Schepis]

We can't really do this for two reasons:

1. If we put everything that was different in this version of the rules in a Setting Rules section, half of the book would be there. You'd have to look for powers in the powers section as well as the setting rules section.
2. The Setting Rules section in SWADE and other products are optional, whereas the options in Savage Pathfinder are not. Groups are still free to change things to suit their tastes, but the out-of-the-box experience is Savage Pathfinder. We're not giving you a toolset to represent a wide variety of types of Pathfinder games, we're giving you the toolset to play our version of the median Pathfinder experience. If you want to play the gritty, low-magic campaign you ran in Pathfinder using Savage Worlds, that means you need to make changes to Savage Pathfinder to suit your tastes just like you made changes to Pathfinder to do the same.

That said, we'll probably do a live stream (maybe a Design Corner?) at some point going over the changes to existing rules in Savage Pathfinder.

[Shadowchasers]

We can't really do this for two reasons:

1. If we put everything that was different in this version of the rules in a Setting Rules section, half of the book would be there. You'd have to look for powers in the powers section as well as the setting rules section.
2. The Setting Rules section in SWADE and other products are optional, whereas the options in Savage Pathfinder are not. Groups are still free to change things to suit their tastes, but the out-of-the-box experience is Savage Pathfinder. We're not giving you a toolset to represent a wide variety of types of Pathfinder games, we're giving you the toolset to play our version of the median Pathfinder experience. If you want to play the gritty, low-magic campaign you ran in Pathfinder using Savage Worlds, that means you need to make changes to Savage Pathfinder to suit your tastes just like you made changes to Pathfinder to do the same.

That said, we'll probably do a live stream (maybe a Design Corner?) at some point going over the changes to existing rules in Savage Pathfinder.

It would really be more helpful to have a PDF style document summing everything up when the book is done. The Design Corners are interesting, but they're hard to share with other players who have limited time to invest in watching videos and don't work great for people who have Learning Disabilities and don't learn as well from spoken lectures (like myself).

[Mad Paladin]

I think some kind of cross-walk to allow outside material to be incorporated into SWPF and to have the straight fantasy stuff that is Pathfinder show up in other places (like SW RIfts) would be useful.