If FanPro's licenses are being revoked, then someone needs to tell FanPro. I know they have a lot of Battletech products in the pipeline and product plans stretching years into the future.

Well, none of us knew, apparently, and Dumpshockers are about as net-savvy as they come. At any event, that's true for Classic BattleTech, but what about the old Mechwarrior stuff?

BTW, here's a better link to the same story. Coming off the Wizkids main page, we can confirm the story.

Licenses are exclusive for the properties they cover. FanPro has the license to produce RPG products (and only RPG no novels) for the Shadowrun and Battletech Classic properties.

You are also mistakenly assuming that FanPro was interested and would have the infrastructure to take on and develop these new properties. Maybe FanPro simply passed on the option to maintain focused on on the three properties it does support (SR, BTC and The Dark Eye).

No.

Yes. Though normally such contracts are auto-renewing unless one of the parts wants out and that rarely- if ever- comes out of the blue.

Not for the forseeable future.

I stand corrected. Shall we say that Savage Worlds is the new kid on the block, which also happens to be a hot property, with a ton of support and a huge fanbase? If you take a look at their site, most of their products seems to be centered around Savage Worlds in some way or another.

FanPro is also producing (or reprinting, at least) the old Mechwarrior RPG. That would put them into direct competition with PEG for Mechwarrior-based RPGs. Even if the license only extends to the Classic BT stuff, this seems entirely too close to one another. There's no logical reason for FanPro to pass on an existing product, unless it wasn't offered to them in the first place... and I cannot imagine Wizkids simply forgetting about an existing license.

Probably because Commando's were asking about it. Aqcuisition of new games directly effects them, because they're FanPro's demo team.

Bull

Savage Worlds is basically a new edition of the Deadlands classic rules. they're greatly simplified (Deadlands is awesome, but it's like running SR3 vehicle combat every fight), but it's the same basic mechanics.

Ah, i'm not the only one with that thought.

Running a fight with 5 chars vs. 6 faceless thugs, 3 mid-level npcs and some critters is a guaranteed headache. The severe one, with bleeding nose and ears...

That's why I wrote up a new initiative system for it when we played for a few months. The one from the system sucks ass.

Basically, I retained the "cool" factors (cards instead of dice for init) but cut out a lot of the tedium.

That's what people mean by "Classic" Deadlands. The upcoming Savage Worlds version will be called "Deadlands Reloaded."

I don't remember the Deadlands classic set much, I only played it one drunken night at a con. However, I've been toying with Savage Worlds a lot recently. I managed to run a battle with over thirty different characters, each performing different actions, in less than twenty-five minutes. Nobody got lost or forgotten, rules look-ups were kept to a minimum (mostly thanks to some very nice quick reference sheets) and the action kept flowing nicely. Just based on that, I'd say that Savage Worlds runs a *lot* smoother than Deadlands ever did.

After playing Savage Worlds for a bit, I've discovered that the 6=7 bug doesn't pop up as often as you might think it would. Really, it only applies when you've only got d6's to use, which doesn't happen often in trait tests. It does pop up on damage rolls, but that's not an inconvenience.

I also don't understand how the math for what you describe actually works. On a d4, the odds of getting a 4=5 is 1:4. But on a d6, the odds of getting a 5 or better is 1:3. On a d6, the odds of getting a 7 is 1:6; on a d8, it's 1:4. And so on. Could you clarify? My math skills aren't the strongest, so I could be missing something.

I can also promise you that Savage Worlds is every bit as fast, furious, and fun as advertised. Last night, we tried a supers game for the first time. There were the three of us against ten drones, two lieutenants, one commander, and three almost-equal supers. Nineteen people participated in the battle, each one taking different actions. No one was shoved to the side and forgotten, everyone got to act independently, and the whole battle was over in less than twenty minutes. And with that much opposition, we were sweating bullets the whole time!

Savage Worlds isn't for those who like heavy number-crunching in their games, and it's not for those who like a lot of fine detail. Unlike many other games, though, Savage World doesn't even attempt to do any of that; all it does is focus on being as fast and easy as possible. It's not "rules lite", though, so there are a lot of tactical options and considerations you get to make. I'm slowly being converted to a Savage Worlds fan, so I'd encourage anyone to try it out.

Blatant plug time: click here to buy the pdf on DriveThruRpg.com. It's currently on sale for under $20, well worth the money. And you'll be helping me out in the process. Must...feed...gaming...addiction....