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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kronovan" data-source="post: 9124486" data-attributes="member: 6775134">As a fan of SW, I'm happy to read that average. I just want to point out though, that it wasn't always the case. The couple of years following SW Deluxe winning the gold ENnie for best game (Marvel Heroic Gameplay got silver) at Gen Con 2012, SWD got heavily panned on a number of TTRPG forums. At that time Pathfinder, MHR and Cthulhu TTRPGs (CoC 6, Cthulhu Britannia, etc) seemed to be the favorites of many. With other new, or newly revised TTRPGs like The One Ring and Runequest 6 having gained a good audience. I think for many TTRPG fans at that time, SWD seemed to come out of no where and not being aware of its existence, a number resented it winning. With the publicity it got from the ENnie, it seemed shortly after a number of new players were getting 1st time exposure to it via poorly GM'd one-sheet adventures. Which certainly didn't help with impressions of it.I didn't frequent this forum around that time, but I can say on some other popular TTRPG forums just about any favorable post about SWD eventually drew heavy criticisms. Rants of "shaken lock, SHAKEN LOCK!", dismissals of it because it relied on a meta-currency (bennies), a too-brutal Golden Hour rule for healing, or claims about a broken core dice mechanic that could be statistically proven (when I or anyone else requested they post their math and results, they never did), were common place. Now in fairness, the current Shaken play mechanic didn't get errated by PEG until late in the SWD life cycle. As well, SWD did IMO intro a weak chase mechanic heavily based on random card draws (some liked it though), but it also delivered Dramatic Tasks, Social Conflicts, Interludes and finally a set of decent race building rules; albeit the latter weren't nearly as good as those in the Sci-Fi Companion (similar to those now in SWADE) a few years later. Most importantly, it included a long list of setting rules/tweaks that were very helpful to GMs and a real boon to homebrewers.I owned or played all the other TTRPGs mentioned above and enjoyed them all - still do. Having 1st started with Savage Worlds EXplorers Edition (SWEX) though, I was more than impressed with the improvements and enhancements in SWD. I felt PEG deserved the best of game award for SWD as much as any other TTRPG Publisher at the time. I ran a number of campaigns right after SWD's release and rarely had PCs shaken locked for rounds and the core dice mechanic, while occasionally swingy by design via exploding dice and raises, never felt broken. For a TTRPG that I've been GMing and playing with for well over a decade, I'm happy to see it well liked. But boy oh boy, there was some rough years being a fan of it! I'm betting if you ran this survey back then on 1 of the websites I freqnented, more than half would have rated it as bad or hated.</blockquote>

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