Well personally, for me, I can’t stand d20 game mechanics anymore. I do, however, like the Pathfinder setting and Adventure Paths. So to be able to take those tropes and fluff, and have an offical way to import them into Savage Worlds has me itching to play a fantasy game in way I haven’t in a long time.
Have them get sucked through a portal to “hell” that turns out to be Golarion.
From my work with dragging the Majestic Wilderlands across multiple systems, there are some elements that system specific like how a creature suffers damage, how a stealth roll is made and some elements that not but are built from system specific elements. For example an orc in OD&D, AD&D, Fantasy Hero, GURPS, and D&D 5e is an orc but how it represented mechanically differs.
I know I am being critical of the hobby in general, but I strongly feel people put way too much stock in the printed rules. It understandable given how most are taught from a young age that if a game has rules we play by them or we are cheating. But I see RPGs as a special case in that there is single overriding rule that you described what it is you do as your character and the referee describes what happens often by using game mechanics. This gives RPGs an inherent flexibility not found in other games. But too often there is the idea if it not described in the rules it something that can't be done.
Granted from the people doing the selling, but as a potential buyer I haven't fully understood the draw of Pathfinder's setting on its own merits, only that the system was a popular mechanical alternative to 3.5. What stands out there?
You get to play D&D style fantasy as represented by Pathfinder with the Savage World system. There will be some tweaks here and there but for the most part that what it is about.
The simple answer is: "D&D" is it's own brand of fantasy. To date SW has largely done fantasy settings that were "not quite D&D". The big two I'd cite (and one is still not exactly on-target by intent) is Shaintar and Hellfrost.
I have zero intention of running Golarion. ZERO. As
Tommy Brownell mentioned upthread - it comes off as a knockoff Forgotten Realms, and I'm okay with that. But I also consider I'm old, and for some gamers younger than me, Golarion might be their "Realms" to them, and fair play. There are some interesting things in the setting, but eh, not enough for me to be too interested in it.
The big problem to me was that the fulfillment of the Kickstarter was a shitshow that turned me off any material that I received.
If the premise of doing Pathfinder as a setting was to support a game system that Wizards wasn't supporting anymore, Golarion is likewise an attempt to create the kind of setting Wizards does - D&D as its own Fantasy genre - without having to convert to D&D 4th (or 5th) Edition. Presenting warmed-over Forgotten Realms is actually a selling point in that regard.
Shadowrun: Another setting that everyone loves and nobody wants to play in its own system.
I hate the idea that Law is somehow 'evil', one of the reasons I was never a fan of Golarion.
Exactly.
I don't love Shadowrun. It's full of things that don't quite fit together and ends up just feeling forced.
Perfect example of Lawful Evil is legalized slavery.
What happened? Honestly I have never had a problem with any of their Kickstarters. But I'm in the U.S. so if this has to do with overseas shipping, I'm obviously not going to be subject to those kinds of problems.
www.rpgpub.com
Adventure Paths.
Never said Laws can't be used for evil, but the entire concept of Law being evil rubs me wrong.
Eh, I'm long on the record that I think Alignment in D&D is pointless outside of axiomatic needs like for Deities and classes that require them.
