Release Sabre RPG 2nd Edition

[Thomas Shey]

Savant, wanted to make a comment that perhaps you're cycling editions a little overly fast. I appreciate all the work you do on this (it seems a sound game in both its fantasy and SF incarnations) But three editions in two years seems perhaps a bit excessive, even if your prices are more than reasonable.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Savant, wanted to make a comment that perhaps you're cycling editions a little overly fast. I appreciate all the work you do on this (it seems a sound game in both its fantasy and SF incarnations) But three editions in two years seems perhaps a bit excessive, even if your prices are more than reasonable.

Actually came to point that out myself. It's been more than a little overwhelming all the changes to the system in the past two years. The systems have a lot of promise, want to make sure that Savant understands that. It's just been a bit much. I know I personally stepped back deciding that I'd wait until things became more steady and constant. Hopefully 3rd edition will be that.

 

[Savant]

Yes I was thinking the same thing, it's only been a couple of years since 2e was done. I certainly wasn't keen to take on this workload right now either, but I was motivated by the desire to get print-on-demand editions available, and the 2e documentation and art wasn't up to the minimum standards required. By itself, it wouldn't have been worth completely redoing the manuals just for print versions, but I'd also identified ways to greatly improve the system, refining and streamlining it. It plays in a very similar way to 2e so if you already have the 2e pdf's you wouldn't need to buy 3e again unless you wanted to, but you'd have the option of quality print editions finally I won't be removing the 2e manuals from DTRPG, though they aren't being updated any more. Like, the scifi starships manual was recently overhauled for 2e, and the 3e version will be basically identical, just prettier, and with a print option. Oh, and the new 3e manuals come in at nearly half the size of the 2e version so that's the sort of efficiency we're talking about.

I plan on 3e being the final (ultimate?) edition of the system, with all the kinks worked out, finally ready to be immortalised in paper form And that means I won't be doing updates every damn month either. I'll let any improvements build up over a year and probably make it an annual thing I hope this clears things up for everyone, I know the pace of updates has been a bit fast, but I'm adamant this will settle the system down to the point I can step back and get some sleep

 

[GMMichael]

What's the game's relationship to the WotC OGL?

Also, is there an adventure, based solely on the cover art of the fantasy bestiary, available?

 

[Savant]

What's the game's relationship to the WotC OGL?

Also, is there an adventure, based solely on the cover art of the fantasy bestiary, available?

Well I based the combat system off of 5e's so that's a strong connection right there Some of the spells were based on 5e as well, though it's all evolved a bit since then. There are a couple of free demo adventures for the system, one fantasy, one scifi

 

[Thomas Shey]

Really? Honestly it gives me a bigger BRP vibe, but perhaps that just because its percentile based and doesn't do anything with levels or really character classes. I did notice some vague D&D vibes in the spells, but, well, even among very non-D&D games you often see some vague echoes there.

But your reasoning seems legitimate.

I'll admit that the rate you've been updating these has had me split between "Damn, the man is serious about this," and "I feel like I'm dealing with Phoenix Point."

 

[Savant]

It's definitely more BRP than 5e, but I felt it leaned on 5e enough to warrant putting it under the OGL.
Yes, I'm definitely serious about sanding the rough edges off the system! I thought I was nearly there with 2e, until discovering the armour system breaks at the high end of the scale. The only way to fix it was to completely recalibrate damage vs armour and just bring those numbers down, and that meant adjusting not just weapons and armour, but talents and abilities related to them. Basically, a big chunk of the system. So, why not make it all nice and polished I'm aiming for a March release, but I'd also like to make a Game Master's Guide (finally) to help GM's get into running it, and that might take a few extra months, so it could be mid-2022 before I actually start releasing them. At that point it'll nearly be 3 years since 2e, so that's not quite so bad

 

[Thomas Shey]

Don't feel too bad, Savant. People with a lot more resources than you have fail on accounting for how things will play at higher levels because they rarely or never see it at that level (the Dragon Age RPG absolutely suffered from that, and it only was modestly fixed in Fantasy Age; I can't speak for Modern Age). I can't imagine you had exactly massive opportunities to playtest across the range (if you did, you're better than designers with sometimes pretty well known companies get to do).

For what its worth, now that you've explained it I think your decision is pretty reasonable; if you had to rework the books to get proper POD anyway, there's no reason not to do some fixes while you're at it. Its just that the optics aren't, well, great; people bitch like hell about edition churn (though some of that is people not getting the practical realities of stagnant sales in this industry), and from a distance, this looks like it.

 

[Savant]

Yes I'm sure it's not a good look, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to explain the decision here. I'm pretty nonplussed by low sales as for me, this is more of a hobby than a career anyway, and it's really a streak of perfectionism driving me to iron out these issues. Plus I really want to get back to novel writing, as I love telling stories more than grinding out rules and such. Anyway, 3e is still a long way from finished, this update was just to let you all know it's in the pipeline

 

[Thomas Shey]

I suspect the problem is you kind of look from a distance like just another random homebrew with access to DTRPG. If I hadn't been hunting around for a decent SF game when I hit Sabre, I'd have probably given it a pass myself. I'm glad I didn't, but that's only because I decided to take a chance.