GM's Guide -- Anything you would like to see?

[Mataxes]

You would be surprised.

The old process with barriers adds an extra (and largely unnecessary) layer of die rolling. Roll to hit, then roll damage. Two potential points of failure (if either roll comes up low), and adding extra layers of mechanics when -- as said above -- you just want to bust through the door in cool cinematic fashion.

[Qui_Revient_de_Loin]

Personnaly, i just ask PC strengh level. If is strong vs the door, i' just said, "ok, tell me how cool you are to torn this door, i will tell you what you see on the other side". No roll.
If it seems he isn't strong enaugh vs the big door, roll for damage with the "minimum damage" rule.

[Athaeis]

If it's not already been suggested and answered, I would like to see a return to the smaller books, please? Classic was a beast, and I hate how much there is, and how small the text is. The 1st Edition was something like 370 pages, I think, and I would like to see a return to that same number of pages, or smaller, split between the Player's and GM's Guides, please?

[etherial]

[Kasbak]

I much preferred the tomes. Approaching the game as an unknown, it made it immediately obvious how much of a value you were getting for all the information contained. In play, though the book was large and had a lot to sift through, it actually made referencing easier by ultimately reducing the number of books needed. You could buy just the EDC Player's Compendium and GM's Compendium and have enough material to run a campaign for years and never have to even look at another book. If you did get other books, just about every reference was one of the two core books, so it didn't become a perpetual cycle where you had to buy all the supplements to get a full understanding. At the time when I first got into Earthdawn, I was also mobile with my gaming, and while the two core books were large to bring with, it was MUCH easier than carting around a full library. I know that trend has changed with many people moving to ereaders and tablets to hold their books, and the digest size is largely to appease them.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, or maybe it's just the wizard in me, but I'll still take a massive, all inclusive dead tree edition any day.

[Athaeis]

I love Earthdawn, to be sure, but I think I may just stick to what I have, already, which is too much information as is. Y'know, I stopped playing Shadowrun after 2nd Edition because they introduced insect spirits and all kinds of other nutty stuff I didn't care about, and I'm the type of person who LOVES a GREAT background, good stories, obscure things I can throw into my games. But, if the Player's Guide is going to be 512 pages, that just throws me right off. It should be around 250 pages, at the highest number of pages, and then the rest of the information parsed out elsewhere. I just don't have that kind of time or interest. In fact, last night, I looked at the Shadowrun 5 book, and the damn thing was REALLY heavy. No interest in that.

[etherial]

[Athaeis]

The Classic GM Compendium is 44.3 megs, at 527 pages, the text is so small it's hard to read in places, and I can list things that should be in their own books rather than in this Compendium. Likewise, the Player Compendium is 33.1 megs, again at 500 pages, etc.

Don't get me wrong, these tomes are absolutely beautifully laid out, and they're useful with the Table of Contents being entirely linked, but I do not own the dead-tree copies. Most likely, what I would do for 4th Ed is get the PDF copies and, if these are designed strong enough to hold, I would pick up dead-tree copies, then.

Man, I wish I would have known about this, earlier; just, after FASA Games went up, I found an unfavorable atmosphere here, quickly, and just hadn't returned. I finally found my old account, forgot I had made one, but now I'm on this one. Wish I would have known, I would have made my comments much earlier.

[Flowswithdrek]

[Mataxes]