Design Notes

This page contains the design notes for Rogue State. Unlike the rest of the wiki, which is written in the neutral tone set by Wikipedia, this page takes a casual approach in explaining the thoughts and reasoning behind design choices made with Rogue State.

Rogue State Economy
The basic economy of Savage Worlds has never set quite right with me, so I tend to avoid using it if at all possible. I would like to be able to use real-world pricing information for Rogue State, but a lot of the equipment available to Rogue State characters isn't commercially available, and is often illegal for civilian purchase. That meant that I couldn't just Google the going rate for an MP5 submachine gun.

Since I needed a really comprehensive game economy, and didn't want to have to come up with one entirely from scratch, the Rogue State economy is based on that of GURPS. When putting together the weapons list, I quickly discovered that GURPS included official stats for very nearly my entire weapons list, and those that weren't listed were easily found in fan-made supplements.

Unfortunately, as Savage Worlds isn't as granular as some systems, there are a few wrinkles in the game economy, since two weapons that are statistically identical in Savage Worlds can vary in price by several hundred dollars. Sometimes, the price difference can be chalked up to simple economics and manufacturer reputation - Walther and H&K weapons tend to be more expensive because they have a reputation for you-get-what-you-pay-for precision. Other times, however, a particular weapon should be statistically superior (such as the difference between a .45 ACP pistol and a .44 Magnum), but Savage Worlds doesn't allow for that level of variation in its weapon stats.

Update for SWAdE
I have updated the Rogue State rules to bring it up to date with Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. While most pages had their content updated directly, I elected to keep the old Skills page intact under a new name.