Setting or system?
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Re: Setting or system?
50/50. The setting is great, but so is the system.
Re: Setting or system?
Here's my take on Earthdawn - A little history first.
I came into Role-playing with Shadowrun. NOT, I repeat NOT with D&D. When my group introduced me to D&D I was lost. There was no setting, and the rules were downright idiotic.
So when I found the Earthdawn flyer explaining the rules and the setting it was a ray of hope and sunshine from above.
With Unconsciousness Rating and Death rating and Wound threshold, I was interested. With the Step system I was almost there, but when I saw Physical Defense, Spell Defense, and Social Defense I was hooked. Then the ranks based upon attributes got me and there was no way I was ever going to let go of these mechanics.
Then the Fibonacci scale showed up all over (beautiful), and then E-A-R-N-I-N-G your magic items because you had to learn about them was a stroke of genius. The circle progression, the combat scenarios, all of it made sense, was well thought out, and flowed nicely. A beautiful mechanical engine with exploding dice, level of successes, armor-defeating hits, and mystic armor.
Then I got into the Scourge and the politics of Thera/Throal, and the Elven Nation, the super-cool Obsidimen, the Orcs being former slaves, the kaers that hadn't been opened; and the reason for being an adventurer was not to get rich (how pedantic) but to get Legendary. Not famous for doing nothing (our current culture has enough of that, thank you) but to get famous doing legendary deeds. That's what we like to talk about now is sports stars who do things we cannot fathom, adventurers who were the first to climb Everest, circumnavigate the globe, dig for pyramids that disappeared into legend, and all of those things that make a legendary person remembered beyond their lifetime.
That's why we play Earthdawn. Because the Setting could be played in forever, and never exhausted. And the mechanics are just too well thought out and extrapolated from. The steps from values, the rank+step leading to a level of mastery, the threads, the matrices, the magical items...
Earthdawn is: the best, and most complete, RPG ever designed from any angle.
Does it have some sore spots for players & GM's, sure. No one thing can please everyone in a game. But a few tweaks here and there might shape things up a bit - we have 20 years of using it to discern what does and doesn't work for the players we have introduced the game to.
I came into Role-playing with Shadowrun. NOT, I repeat NOT with D&D. When my group introduced me to D&D I was lost. There was no setting, and the rules were downright idiotic.
So when I found the Earthdawn flyer explaining the rules and the setting it was a ray of hope and sunshine from above.
With Unconsciousness Rating and Death rating and Wound threshold, I was interested. With the Step system I was almost there, but when I saw Physical Defense, Spell Defense, and Social Defense I was hooked. Then the ranks based upon attributes got me and there was no way I was ever going to let go of these mechanics.
Then the Fibonacci scale showed up all over (beautiful), and then E-A-R-N-I-N-G your magic items because you had to learn about them was a stroke of genius. The circle progression, the combat scenarios, all of it made sense, was well thought out, and flowed nicely. A beautiful mechanical engine with exploding dice, level of successes, armor-defeating hits, and mystic armor.
Then I got into the Scourge and the politics of Thera/Throal, and the Elven Nation, the super-cool Obsidimen, the Orcs being former slaves, the kaers that hadn't been opened; and the reason for being an adventurer was not to get rich (how pedantic) but to get Legendary. Not famous for doing nothing (our current culture has enough of that, thank you) but to get famous doing legendary deeds. That's what we like to talk about now is sports stars who do things we cannot fathom, adventurers who were the first to climb Everest, circumnavigate the globe, dig for pyramids that disappeared into legend, and all of those things that make a legendary person remembered beyond their lifetime.
That's why we play Earthdawn. Because the Setting could be played in forever, and never exhausted. And the mechanics are just too well thought out and extrapolated from. The steps from values, the rank+step leading to a level of mastery, the threads, the matrices, the magical items...
Earthdawn is: the best, and most complete, RPG ever designed from any angle.
Does it have some sore spots for players & GM's, sure. No one thing can please everyone in a game. But a few tweaks here and there might shape things up a bit - we have 20 years of using it to discern what does and doesn't work for the players we have introduced the game to.
Re: Setting or system?
Agreed. You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the the people all of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
That's why my group borrows from each of the editions so far and we hodgepodge the rules we do and do not like. But the rules remain alarmingly few that we omit.
That's why my group borrows from each of the editions so far and we hodgepodge the rules we do and do not like. But the rules remain alarmingly few that we omit.
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Re: Setting or system?
we do the same. Borrowing some from each of the editions that is.
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Re: Setting or system?
I think the Dice Step system is alright and it works, but I feel there is a potentially better dice system for Earthdawn than what we've had for the last 20 years. I'm really tempted to run a game of Earthdawn using the Fate system. It's focus on the more narrative side of roleplaying feels like it could be a really solid system to use for Earthdawn. That or Cortex+.
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Re: Setting or system?
IDK.
Fate and Cortex have a different philosophy than Earthdawn.
Trying to shoehorn Earthdawn into that style of game, would take a complete overhaul of Earthdawn. That doesn't even take into consideration that not everyone is all lollipops and sunshine when it comes to games that are more narrative in nature.
Fate and Cortex have a different philosophy than Earthdawn.
Trying to shoehorn Earthdawn into that style of game, would take a complete overhaul of Earthdawn. That doesn't even take into consideration that not everyone is all lollipops and sunshine when it comes to games that are more narrative in nature.
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Re: Setting or system?
I've played Fate a couple of times now. I can see it's merits, in fact I would go as far as saying It is an excellent piece of work, but I don't really like that style of gaming. A couple of my players really struggled with the concepts and we gave up in the end.
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