4th Ed Canon

Discussion on the Earthdawn game line, errata, and feedback not related to playing or GMing.
LouProsperi
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby LouProsperi » Wed Jun 25, 2014 2:13 pm


Telarus_KSC
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Telarus_KSC » Wed Jun 25, 2014 3:25 pm

I would have to agree that it was the LRG implementation of the ideas that fell flat for me. Another example of the LRG version falling flat was the Grim Legion... If TwiceBorn had waited until the Grim Legionw as locked up in Scythia (trying to re-claim the ancient dwarf kingdoms from the horrors) I can see her marching an army across Barsaive, but if the Grim Legion wasn't tied up there they would be preparing rock-falls along every pass and ravine in the undead's path.

Some of the recently mentioned ideas from Lou & Xandarth are really intriguing, such as re-raising the Citadel shield, faction warfare over the Quarters, & the idea of exploring undead metaphysics further. For example, I love the idea of the Theran military advisors fleeing from House K'tenshin when they hear of Vivane/Sky-point falling, as that would seriously force Hosue K'tenshin to re-think it's local strategic situation.

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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Xandarth » Mon Jul 14, 2014 6:03 pm

Sorry about the late reply Lou.

I've been really busy with work lately and not had much chance to get my thoughts together on the reasons I disliked the series of modules so much (it's also been a long time since I last read them, so I had to give them a re-read to write this reply).

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First of all, over the course of the modules the Therans completely phone in their war effort, are completely stupid and act completely out of character for it all:
A quick point of order: LRG aren't the only ones responsible for this, FASA made the Therans start doing stupid OOC stuff in Prelude to War so the bar wasn't set high.

For what I mean by "Out of Character," lets take a look at the lore in the game about the Theran's and how they demonstrate power.

We are told in the Orichalcum Wars, Thera was largely unconcerned by the small scale wars between the countries supplying them orichalcum until the Sky Raiders staged raids on Theran caravans transporting orichalcum to Thera.
How does Thera respond to this?
They send a behemoth to fly up to the sky raiders homes and single handedly destroy every airship and trollmoot on the mountain.

Then they declare Barsaive to be one of their provinces and then spend 50 years building Sky Point even though they know the Scourge is coming and they know they will be abandoning it quite soon after that. The explosions from the magic used to drill the holes that the five legs of Skypoint in were so loud, everyone in Barsaive heard them.
The Therans don't do small. They do massive, overwhelming displays of power and magical prowess when they want to make a point.

So centuries later, the Kingdom of Throal declares itself to be independant of Thera and other factions in the region join them. There's a running skirmish of a war, with Theran special forces attempting to mind control Prince Neden and do some horrific stuff to him with tame(ish) Horrors and the Therans get a bit of a bloody nose but are able to secure Vivane and Skypoint.
The other regions of Barsaive continue to thumb their nose at the Therans and a cold war of sorts starts up.
Then they seem to do nothing for decades until they finally unleash their master plan for putting the Barsavians in their place...
So what is this awesome display of power they demonstrate?

They fly an aircraft carrier into the middle of Barsaive and park it on a rock. :clap:
It's not a completely wasted effort though, they manage to trap a total of 100 obsidimen inside it. Totally worth permanently grounding a flying aircraft carrier for. :roll:

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The whole operation is militarily stupid, which the Therans know. Why did they build Sky Point the way they did? Because airships are most vulnerable on the ground. As an added bonus, building an entire city on mile high stilts lets everyone within line of sight of it know exactly how much better at magic you are than them.

Flying mountains being used as aircraft carriers achieve three notable things:
1) They show everyone exactly how outclassed they are by your magical ability.
2) They can move which gives you a much larger array of tactical options.
3) They are flying, which makes infiltration of the fortress that much harder.

Hey, even if you assume that the Theran military command was unable to either think of the second two or convince their political leadership of the value of those two points, there isn't a Theran alive that doesn't understand the first point. What is the common feature of every major administration building, military facility or faction headquarters in Thera?
They all fly.

Do you really think there isn't a Theran alive that doesn't understand how much of a military and political statement their ability to make flying mountains is? Even if the Therans did want to secure the Adyoda Liferock because it gives a good line of sight allowing them to cover a section of the Serpent River with cannon fire, do you know what else provides good line of sight?
Flying.

They could have quite easily have flown over the liferock, dropped troops down and begun building a static fortress there on top of the liferock if they really felt the need for a static defense / customs station for passing ship traffic.

Or maybe they could have done something awesome magic-wise to remind people how powerful they are. If only there was a spell in the game that would allow them to construct a fortress in Theran territory, shrink the fortress to a size that allowed for easy transportation - lets say, for arguments sake, the size of a bottle - and then immediately make the fortress appear again on top of the liferock giving themselves the fortification they wanted and still leaving them with a friggen flying aircraft carrier.
Why did no-one think to include such a spell in the game?
(Ok at this point even I think I'm laying the sarcasm on a little too thick). :lol:

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And the dumb just keeps on coming in the LRG adventures. Surprise, surprise the Barsaivian's manage to capture the parked fortress. :roll:
They then proceed to murder 100% of the crew of the fortress.
So what is the Theran Admiralties response to this?
Nothing.

If you keep running the modules as written, a few months later the player characters run into a single Theran vedette on a slaving run operating as if it's all business as usual. It's like the US Navy sailed an entire Carrier Strike Group into an Iranian port, docked at a military port thinking this would somehow impress the Iranians as to their military might, then after the Iranian army finished securing the vessels and murdering their entire crews, the US Navy's media spokesperson said "Oops! That was silly of us. Well, it's not like we needed that carrier for anything anyway" and then a few weeks later have other US gunboats in the region trying to pull over Iranian ships to see if they are breaking their UN sanctions like nothing ever happened.

There is no consolidation of military forces by the Therans, no counter attacks, no special forces teams dropped in enemy territory to slow their advance, no reinforcements come from any other region of the Theran Empire. They just sit back and watch while the Barsaivians systematically destroy every single one of their holdings and murder 100% of their citizens in every one and never make a single attempt to act in their own defense. The only Theran who does in the entire adventure only does so against the Horror cloud and fails miserably. Even Governor Kypros's only action in the entire war is to flee before the oncoming Barsaivians. Basically the modules made the Therans into a comic enemy that never feels like a threat to the players or any of the nations in Barsaive at all.

It is really some of the worst adventure writing I've ever been subjected to, the premise was stupid, the plot nonsensical, the characters unbelievable and no amount of suspension of disbelief made it possible for either myself or my players to feel like the storyline gave them any sense of accomplishment for having defeated what is meant to be the biggest bad in a world of big bads.

-------------------------

This came across a little more ranty than I intended, so I'll try to sum my last points up quickly.

I also thought the Barsavians destroying all of the Therans facilities and murdering them all was terrible both from a strategic point of view as well as a storytelling point of view. Having the barbarian Barsavians sacking Vivane and then having to establish themselves as the new rulers of the city, fighting over the spoils of war, setting up a military base at Skypoint and then trying to integrate 80,000 or so freed slaves along with any surviving Therans and 20,000 or so Barsavian Theran-sympathisers into a new society without slavery but still threatened by the Theran empire at large would have been interesting from a storytelling point of view.
Instead we got a ruined city full of horrors and undead. Which the setting has literally dozens of already.
Lets not even mention the Barsaivians destroying Sky Point when it would have made the perfect staging point for their own defense against Thera as well as a staging point for any offense planned against the Therans.

---------------

Another serious problem with the modules is that the Player Characters basically win the war on their own. This is a common strategy by poor adventure writers to try and make the players feel their involvement in the war is critical to it's success. Unfortunately this typically has the opposite effect. If the war doesn't progress without the characters direct involvement then most players feel railroaded by the adventure and also lose any sense of accomplishment for their efforts due to never having to compare themselves to adepts that are greater than themselves.

By making the characters actions so critical to the story moving forward you actually are removing the possibility that the characters can fail to achieve their objectives and still have the adventure continue. Once your players realise this, they will then no longer fear failure or defeat and assume Deux Ex Machina will allow them to succeed even if they do poorly. Without a credible sense of danger, players lose investment in an adventure. If you only have munchkins as players you can probably get away with this trite form of storytelling. Most other players will find it dull and uninspiring.

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Oh, yeah how could I forget the letter delivery quest? If there's one thing players hate more than GM's delivering page long monologues, it's being handed a page long monologue and then being told to read it out aloud.... 4 times in the same session. :lol:
Seriously, monologues are bad and should never be included in any adventure. Ever. That goes double for monologues with florid or turgid prose. You are always better off giving the GM objectives for their NPC to reach in a conversation and letting the dialogue flow organically. Players will remember it better and they will also be less likely to heckle. Plus the whole reason we are doing this is to role-play. Giant sermons that you expect your players to shut up and listen to, interrupt role-play and force everyone out of character.

There's more, but those are the primary offenders as to why I think the modules are terrible.

Qui_Revient_de_Loin
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Qui_Revient_de_Loin » Tue Jul 15, 2014 4:51 am

Hello,
On the Theran implication on the war, what i have understood is:
They go on war because:
-To put away an annoying general (Nikar carinci)
-To satisfy the lobbying Heavenherds, who wants to figth the Great Dragon (Aardéléa, White tree?) and do magic research (liferock)
-To satisfay internal politics who are dissatisfied with the north-east front.

They don't use more forces because:
-The primary front is Marac, not Barsaive and by far
-Overgovernor Kypros is a rival of Carinci

So they "give" an old Behemot (which was mean to be decommisionned and so have limited flying habilities > landing) to Nikar and the Heavenheard "to play" in Barsaive while they focus their war effort against Marac and its Horror-ship.

And after that, the destruction of Vivane and the creation of the Horrors cloud/undead city block the principal route to barsaive, removing the therans of Barsaive politic (FASA intention), giving space to Iopos.
Another Earthdawn french fan :) and not fluent in english...
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby kosmit » Tue Jul 15, 2014 5:53 am

I have to agree with Xandarth and Qui_Revient_de_Loin. Two views on Theran War. My players have the same view as Xandarth but as a GM I know the true Theran motives so I share Qui's view.

But I have to say that to me destroying Vivane when it has whole boxed set published is a bit drastic.
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Flowswithdrek » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:57 am

I’m going to agree that destroying a part of Barsaive that had its own boxed set was likely to earn the ire of most of those that purchased it regardless of how well FASA explained it or despite having low sales figures. I have the boxed set but have never used it so I wasn’t so annoyed.

I going to disagree with a lot of what Xandarth said, mainly because he ignores almost of the reasoning and ideas that supported it, which Qui_Revient_de_Loin points out.

The aircraft carrier analogy is fine up to a point, but to continue with the analogy an aircraft carrier eventually needs refuelling, resupply and maintenance and a full Theran invasion was a long way off. Eventually an aircraft carrier will have to park up somewhere, why not park it right on an elemental power supply (Liferock), on a commanding defensive position (On a hill) where it can continue to project force over Barsaive’s trade network (The Serpent River and flight paths between Travar and Throal). It also reinforces and allows the expansion of Thera’s K’tenshin allies and allows for resupply. Adding to this the reasoning listed by Qui_Revient_de_Loin, to me this is a stroke of genius by the Therans, who at some point intended to reclaim their first province.


The Destruction of Skypoint. Destroying your enemy’s fortifications denies them a strategic objective of significant importance when they eventually arrive in superior numbers. A splintered Barsaive would have never been able to maintain or hold Skypoint, so from a tactical point of view destroying it makes sense and also sends a statement to Thera. Having said that, keeping it would have made for interesting adventures.

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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Lanah » Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:26 am

I really have to disagree with Xandarth on this one and feel like Qui_Revient_de_Loin has a deeper insight into theran politics and motivations on the Prelude to War (and later storyarcs) matter.
I feel certain elements in this discussion have not been mentioned. Let us start with this whole aircraft carrier analogy:
So, you are a superpower nation and need to remind some backwater country about whose in charge. So you have an ancient aircraft carrier which would be decommissioned anyway. So lets just plant it as a stationary fortress consuming minimal maintenance on a liferock aka elemental mine right in the heart of barsaive (Skypoint is kinda halfway Rugaria/Barsaive, imho not the best place for a military outpost controlling barsaive).
Military gains:
+central distributing point of troops
+perfect location for air raids with best flighttime ratio (better airspace control radius)
+perfect control of the area from a good defensive point
+reassuring old allys with military presence and shock&awe tactics on the natives
The forces behind the scene (aka Heavenherds and other non-shown players):
+landing a behemoth on the starting point of a milenia old pilgrimage route pisses off all the t'skrangs of barsaive
+destroying the liverock below pisses off all obsidiman in barsaive
+establishing a military base so close to throal pisses off the dwarves
+this leads to uprising in local resistance possibly resulting in the destruction of the fortress/Skypoint killing of a possibly too popular admiral, a not so popular overgovernour and weakening the theran first governour (who stands behind the ambitious nikar carinci as far as I know it) plus weakening house carinci
+this must lead to a even more aggressive military campaign against barsaive because the first governour cannot show weakness and that is how therans usually react to defeats: they send in even more military!
+this would lead to complete theran control of barsaive which as I see it is magically essential to a strong theran pattern (because of the history of barsaive-thera, barsaive just needs to be under theran control if the empires wants to maintain a strong pattern)
+time to study the exploitation of a liverock as a resource of elemental earth (which has never been done before), searching for the unique ardelea, possibly retrieving old tomes from this forgotten library in the mist swamps
- risky tactics because of the marac war going on

I think there are major forces working behind shadows even in thera, manipulating politics/military just to see their goals achieved. Earthdawn has always been a game where secret societies play their games in the shadows and if someones looks closer you can easily see it in the prelude of war campaign. The campaign might seem stupid from a straight military viewpoint, but if you look a bit further down the rabbit hole you will see plans within plans!

About that destroying Skypoint: well, what is a little city like this to therans? they will come back and rebuild BIG, cause that is what therans do! and personally I would have loved LouProsperis idea of introducing vampires in a blood magic rich world!

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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Qui_Revient_de_Loin » Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:53 am

I totally agree with Lanah for the second part of the scheming.

And for Vivane/Sky point, who could have thought the Great dragon would go so far ? Thera doesn't have a spy in FASA :mrgreen:
Another Earthdawn french fan :) and not fluent in english...
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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Roth » Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:59 am

Flying is all well and good but it doesn't keep conquered territory, for that you need boots on the ground.

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Re: 4th Ed Canon

Postby Sangeet » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:15 pm



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