Barsaive at War question

[zayven]

This might be a dumb question, but considering that the upcoming 4th edition might be looking at this topic again, I think it's worth asking why a substantial number of ED players hated Barsaive at War.

I mean, I know why I don't like it (the obliteration of Vivane, which was BY FAR the best city in the whole damned campaign setting; the laborious metaplot with the girl that the dragons were after; the almost complete removal of the Therans from Barsaive; the inexplicable appearance and heroic death of Vestrivion, the Despoiler of the Land), but I'm curious about why other people didn't like it.

If I had to choose one thing, it would have to be the transformation of Vivane into "Parlainth West". I've railed about this elsewhere to the point that I probably sound like a broken record, but I really thought that this was the single dumbest decision in the history of Earthdawn. The city of Vivane was really important from a setting perspective because it was the only glimpse of Theran society that most players were ever going to get. Vivane connected Barsaive to the rest of the Theran Empire and served as a constant reminder of the danger lurking beyond Barsaive's border.

I get that there's a whole subtext about the unintended consequences of war and magic (the use of the Horror Cloud, the callousness of the great dragons, etc), but this is an rpg setting, not a novel. Most players aren't looking for adventure modules that offer sweeping, moralistic lessons on the nature of war and power; they just want a world filled with interesting places to explore and unique characters to meet so they can create their own stories to explore those issues. Vivane was different from every city in Barsaive because it was culturally unique. Turning it into a blasted out ruin simply made it redundant. We already had a ruined, zombie and horror infested city in Parlainth. Vivane provided a thematic contrast to Parlainth, offering players a view of Theran power at its height, not the broken ruins of what it once was. (By the way, it's still not clear to me whether or not the writers were trying to make a heavy handed point about genocide or whether they just thought it would be cool to have a zombie city with Horror-influenced weather conditions)

Destroying Vivane essentially cast Barsaive even further into the periphery of the Theran Empire. Visiting Vivane was awesome because it was like venturing into the belly of the beast. It gave you a glimpse of what could happen to all of Barsaive should the Therans wind up reconquering it (both in bad ways and good). The presence of a Theran city on Barsaive's border made it reasonable for some Barsaivians to sympathize with the Therans and maintain trade/political relations with them. It created a tension in western Barsaive that was different from areas closer to Throal, the Blood Wood, and the tskrang trade houses. Vivane was a constant source of fear and uncertainty because everyone knew that any Theran assault on Barsaive would likely originate from there.

Would I feel differently if there had never been a Vivane box set? Maybe, but that's only because I wouldn't have had a fully realized vision of what Vivane was actually like. If I only had the few paragraphs in the Barsaive box set to go on, then maybe I wouldn't have understood the thematic significance of the city in the first place. I'm pretty sure I still would have been upset about it, just not as passionately upset.

And before anyone brings this up, yes, I understand that I can ignore the destruction of Vivane in "my" campaign. This isn't just about me, though. It's about a change that fundamentally altered something that I thought was great about Earthdawn that new players will never get to experience. In my opinion, Theran Vivane simply brought a lot more to the table than zombie Vivane.

Anyway, that was my biggest gripe about Barsaive at War. Anybody else have thoughts to share? Considering that 4th edition is treading upon the same ground, it might be good for us to get these thoughts out in the open now.

[etherial]

I rather liked the City of the Free Dead that I used in my ED2 campaign (and yes, they still considered themselves Therans). The sudden appearance (and imminent demise) of the Earthdawn was the event that bothered me the most. Metaplot's a tricky thing. It has to be earth-shattering enough that the entire world is shocked by it, remote enough that the players can ignore it if they want, mutable enough that the players can instigate/participate in it, and irrevocable enough that the developers can be sure it happens in nearly every game.

[LouProsperi]

Hello,

I'm posting under a new user name, since my old user name and email address have been locked out. Hopefully FASA Games will allow me to stay (and possibly let me use by older account).

Interesting thread - I look forward to reading people's opinions about BaW.

Regarding Vivane, one thing to bear in mind is that one of the primary goals of FASA's BaW was to (temporarily) remove the Theran Empire from the game. We were trying to shift the game's focus away from the political conflict between Barsaive and Thera and focus on a new big bad guy - the Denairsastas. As such, we had decided to effectively remove the Theran presence from the game for a while. No doubt we would have brought them back at some point, perhaps more aggressive and powerful than ever.

And I think if we had had the chance to fully develope "Vivane: City of the Dead", it would not have felt like just another version of Parlainth. Our intent was to use Vivane as a way to more fully explore the concept of undead in Earthdawn. For example, given the significance of blood magic in ED, I think vampires could have taken an interesting turn.

Regarding the comments about the return of the Earthdawn, I more or less agree. We (FASA Corp.) had decided to remove the return of the Earthdawn from the product, but I never had a chance (or real reason) to update the outline, and when LRG worked on their version of BaW, they chose to keep that in. I've since come to think that the return of the Earthdawn should warrant its own book that could provide a "sneak peek" of sorts at many other areas of the world. If the Earthdawn had circumnavigated the globe (and I always assumed it had), it could have crew members, treasures, weapons, etc. from nearly every other culture anywhere else on Earth. IMO, this would have been a great lead-in to the Cathay book, or to books about other lands beyond Barsaive.


Take Care,

Lou Prosperi

[zayven]

Lou,

Explained that way, the fate of Vivane makes a bit more sense. If the intention was to further develop the Denairsastas as a threat, then I can see why the removal of the Theran presence would be necessary. And if Vivane was going to be a playground for developing different types of undead beyond cadaver men, then I can see how it would be something unique in the setting.

Reading your comments makes me realize just how invested I was in the Theran-Barsaive political dynamics. It was one of the things that really attracted me to the setting in the beginning, so I guess that's why I had such a strong reaction to Thera's removal from Barsaive. That tension was one of the main aspects of Earthdawn for me and Barsaive at War didn't do a good job of showing why it was necessary to do away with that aspect. It would have been interesting to see whether or not the Denairsastas could have worked as well as an overt threat rather than a behind the scenes one. I have to imagine that you had some great plans lined up for them to justify getting rid of the Therans.

The idea of giving the Earthdawn its own book sounds like a fantastic idea. For some reason, it makes me think of the Year of the Comet book for Shadowrun in that it would be a major event that sparked a whole host of otherwise unrelated changes. It would have made for a good follow up to the information presented in the Theran Empire book (another favorite of mine).

[Stormcrow]

For me, it wasn't one thing in particular that I disliked though the return of the Earthdawn would have come out tops. It was more the tone and scope of the book. When I was reading it I couldn't help but imagine a group of young fans of Earthdawn sitting down at a brainstorming session and repeatedly saying "You know what would be awesome in Earthdawn? If this happened" if that makes sense. I'm sure in some games these events were awesome and I have put some of these things in motion for my own campaign. IMO the book itself however did not realise these ideas well enough. They just seemed to be throwing world changing events in to try and make it cool but didn't really spend enough time putting thought into why each of these event occurred, why the characters involved would act in the way they did and what the real consequences were. I felt it was shallow compared to Prelude at War basically.

[zayven]

That's a really good point. It does feel like the whole thing happened REALLY fast. The great thing about Prelude to War was that you had the battle near Lake Ban, but it was seen as only the first shoe to fall in a much grander conflict. The war over Barsaive could have been stretched on for much longer, maybe detailed over two or three additional campaign books detailing the ebb and flow of the struggle.

[LouProsperi]

Hello,

Yes, the events of BaW happen fairly fast, but there are reasons for that: in-game reasons, as well as publishing reasons.

In terms of publishing reasons, at the time FASA Corp. would have published BaW, we were publishing only 4 ED books per year. We'd set the wheels of war in motion in Prelude to War, sprinkled additional hints and tidbits in other books (Crystal Raiders, Cara Fahd, and Dragons) and it was time to get to the war itself. Given our publishing schedule, we didn't feel it prudent to devote more than one book to the events of the war. We wanted to remove the Theran Empire from Barsaive and move onto new story lines, including the growing threat of the Denairastas and the rebirth of the dwarven kingdom of Scytha.

As for in-game reasons, in planning their offensive strikes against the Therans, the allied forces of Barsaive, led primarily by King Neden and his advisors (among them the Great Dragons), realized that if they waited too long between the assault on the behemoth and attacking Sky Point and VIvane, the Therans would have time to send for and receive reinforcements. These three assaults had to take place quickly before the Therans could mount a proper counter-strike. This is also why the Great Dragons lead the assault on Vivane: so that the Barsaivian forces could focus their efforts on the behemoth and Sky Point.

To be honest, some of our planning/brainstorming involved us saying "You know what would be cool?", but only in the context of the overall objective of BaW: to bring a big bad war to Barsaive that would drive the Theran Empire out, and give us some new story lines to play with. Everything we'd planned was to serve that objective, and IMO, all of the events and actions made sense within the world and characters we'd established. That said, I'll admit that some of what we'd planned for BaW was a bit over the top (which is partly why we had decided to remove the part where the Earthdawn returns), but the intent was to shake things up, so we felt we had to "go big or go home".


Take Care,

Lou Prosperi

[zayven]

That makes a ton of sense from a big picture standpoint. Thanks for the insight, Lou; I feel like this has helped to answer more than a decade's worth of questions for me.

[Nahor]

I'm going with the appearance of the Earthdawn being so abrupt and the death of Vasdjenas (sp?). I fell in love with that dragon due to Creatures of Barsaive -- see cave crab. It's probably one of the best written source books as it's a "Monstrous Manual" but with character and heart and even some background tidbits, i.e. metaplot, if you read below the surface enough -- see hydras, which is then revealed some in Dragons of Barsaive (the original, not LRG's).

The ship's appearance was a headscratcher to be sure. It was just way to fast. If it got it's own book, that would have rocked b/c you could have made adventure hooks for places all over, particularly Central/South America for the Mezo-american peoples (Mayans, Incans, Toltecs, Olmecs, Aztecs, etc) and sneak in some feathered serpent dragons.

As for the bit Lou stated about the undead, I like this. I ran an adventure where I go the idea, and possibly from the creature description itself, that cadaver men could still retain their memories/personalities/etc. This only happened to a few and if traumatically injured that could all disappear in a cadavery man rage, but I feel ED treated the undead differently. Instead of aimless zombies they could have personality, be not evil, etc.

Overall, no I didn't like LRG's treatment of BaW or BaC altogether but it had some good. Also I do like moralistic, overarching, world-changing events in my RPGs that aren't solely created by the GM.

[etherial]