ED4 Preview #3

[Henghyoke]

@Kasbak, Etherial: Right on the target. Thank you.

One of the (many) great things about Earthdawn is that the setting lends itself well to all manner of campaign play styles. Wanna play eldritch beings from the dark cosmos vs investigative adventurers? Check. Wanna play heroic stand against the oppressive Empire? Check. Wanna play humorous social mishaps in a foreign bazaar? Check. Wanna play serious? Check. Wanna play more tongue-in-check? Check. Wanna mix all this up? Check.

My beef with labeling Earthdawn as a "dark fantasy" RPG is that does a dis-service to the game. Dark fantasy is a style of game play in Earthdawn, but definitely not the only one.

[zayven]

I can't believe that this has devolved into an argument over whether or not Earthdawn qualifies as "dark fantasy." Attaching that label to the game creates more problems than it solves. Earthdawn is a fantasy rpg. It has some elements of dark fantasy (Horrors, blood magic, death cults, etc), but it also has a lot of elements of more traditional, epic fantasy (characters with "superhero" power levels, castle airships, a belief in the idea of heroism, etc).

Compared to other fantasy rpgs, it may be "darker" than Forgotten Realms, World of Warcraft, or Dragonlance, but it isn't as "dark" as games like Warhammer, Dark Sun, or Cthulhu Dark Ages. Part of what makes that latter group "dark," at least to me, is the cheapness of life. Characters die often and die horribly in those settings. There's nothing really worth striving for beyond the inevitability of your own death. Also, the game mechanics of those worlds generally conspire to ruthlessly destroy you at any moment.

Earthdawn is a setting with a lot of dark aspects, but the overall tone isn't as grim as some of the games I mentioned above. It's also a more nuanced setting. The Theran Empire may condone slavery and blood magic, but Thera isn't just a faceless "evil empire" that wants to rule the world as part of some diabolical plan. Its political motivations generally resemble those of any expansionist empire in our own history, which is part of what makes the Therans such great antagonists.

You can absolutely run an Earthdawn game where the characters are fighting for some noble goal that they have a realistic chance of obtaining. Remember, the tone of the game is that things are slowly getting better. The horrors have weakened after the Scourge and there's a belief that they could eventually be exterminated. Barsaive is becoming increasingly independent of Thera. More and more of the world is being explored, mapped, and settled. The important idea here is that Name-givers are slowly reclaiming Barsaive after it was ravaged by the Scourge. There is hope in this world, not resignation (hell, even the Hand of Corruption wants the world to be a better place in their own twisted way).

Contrast this with a setting like Dark Sun, where a dying world is ruthlessly enslaved by immortal Dragon Kings. Characters are forced to live either in city states ruled by evil tyrants of unfathomable power or in the vast desert that never stops trying to kill them. Survival is everything and morality is a fool's dream that gets you killed. There is no hope for the people in this world, only a slow, bleeding death. You can strive for individual goals that might be noble, but there is no real sense that the world can be changed for the better (and yes, I know that the second edition of the game tried to change this, but injecting "hope" into the game kind of destroyed what made the setting so interesting, which is why they reset the setting when they updated it for D&D 4e).

That's why I don't think that you can categorically designate Earthdawn as "Dark Fantasy." Sure, it's darker than traditional fantasy settings in some ways, but it's not really a game that's defined by that darkness. The whole point of the game is to become a legendary hero, which is a type of character that doesn't really exist in a strict "Dark Fantasy" context. Labeling the game as "Dark Fantasy" minimizes a lot of aspects of the game that don't fit into this context.

[zayven]

Also, I don't think it's very productive for us to argue over whether or not the proposed changes for fourth edition are the developer's "house rules" or not. Doing so veers a bit too closely to the realm of personal attacks.

It's clear that FASA Games wants to take a new approach to the game in an effort to reach new players, otherwise they would have just continued publishing the Revised edition. Josh was obviously brought on with a mandate to identify and modify parts of the game that players (both new and old) have found problematic for one reason or another in the past. Will this alienate players that have a lot of "sweat equity" in the game? Of course, but Earthdawn is hardly the first game to undergo such a revision and not all players make those transitions. There are still people out there playing 3rd edition Shadowrun and 2nd edition D&D. Hell, some people on this forum never even upgraded to 3rd edition Earthdawn.

This is how the rpg industry works. The best way of promoting a product is to release a new edition that promises to appeal to people that have not played the game in the past for one reason or another. This is doubly important for Earthdawn, which has released several editions that are not clearly distinguishable to the average consumer. In a best case scenario, the new edition appeals to a much wider audience that either didn't play the game previously or abandoned it because they didn't like something about it. There is always the risk that 4th edition will fail to attract new players while simultaneously alienating the existing fan base, but I would prefer to see FASA swing for the fences and miss rather than continue selling the same game to the same small group of players for another five to ten years.

[LouProsperi]

Hello,

The following is based on some comments I posted on Facebook. I expressed my view that I think most of the proposed changes should be discarded and was asked to elaborate. I just posted some comments about preview #1 in that thread, and wanted to share my thoughts about this preview as well.

One of the fundamental ideas behind the ED rules is that of choice. Characters earn experience (via Legend Points) as they complete challenges and defeat opponents. It is up to the character do decide how they wish to apply their experience and grow in their abilities. Do they increase their current talent ranks or purchase ranks a new talent? Do they opt to broaden their use of a talent by learning a talent knack? Do they weave threads to items or group patterns? Do they replenish their Karma pool?

This is one of things that made ED distinct from many other level-based games. Instead of gaining a new level/circle when they accumulate a certain number of Legend Points, the player/character chooses the manner in which they advance their abilities. Each choice has a cost associated with it that forces the player/character to prioritize how they advance their abilities.

Making Karma Ritual and Durability discipline abilities that grow automatically when a character attains a new circle removes these abilities from the options the character has for development.

In addition, I've never seen what I consider a valid argument for removing the LP costs and racial distinctions related to karma.


Take Care,

Lou Prosperi

[Flowswithdrek]

[Flowswithdrek]

[Flowswithdrek]

[Roth]

[Flowswithdrek]

[kosmit]

Couldn't agree more with what Lou said.

Earthdawn is way better than other systems because it allows a choice in almost everything. You can choose wheter to lvlup talents, skills, knacks, attributes and you are no restrained by anything. And it's great!