FASA Games, Inc.

Hi folks,

I'm joining some friends' roleplaying group, and may have the opportunity in the future to start a new campaign for players completely unfamiliar with Earthdawn. (I'm quite familiar with ED1 and pretty familiar with ED3.) I have Ardanyan's Revenge, and the Kaer-dweller campaign is a natural intro for them.

I'm considering limiting the release of game information to the players, and the Kaer to only Humans, Orks, Dwarves, and Elves. This lets them start with traditional fantasy races, and allows many of the unique elements of Earthdawn to be a true surprise and discovery to the players. I would explain to the players up front what I'm doing, and that after the intro they could explore other character options. If I'm ambitious enough, we may even have a session or two of free-form roleplay with blank-slate characters (including race) inside the Kaer to provide setting background and let the players learn about disciplines from an in-game perspective.

Has anyone else considered doing something like this? Does anyone have thoughts or experiences to share?

Thanks!

Ted tried running Ardanyan's Revenge (Earthdawn didn't really agree with Bobbie, so we went to Savage Worlds for that game group) a couple of sessions. At its core, Ardayan's Revenge makes for a great setting for an adventure to begin. It also makes a great setting for a trapped in a kaer life, before the main adventure, even giving you plenty of details like mentors for specific Disciplines. You can use those mentors to guide the characters in the kaer, maybe even do something like an Initiation rite, where you have each of the characters learn all of their initial talents from their mentors, starting with the crucial Karma Ritual and moving on from there. Then you move on to some daily life in the kaer, and use some of the initial instances of trouble to shake up things.