Earthdawn 3e : Is there still an active forum left ?

[Tubben]

Hello.

Anyone know, if there is still an active ED3 froum? An link to old developer answers would be nice also.

[LibraryOgre]

None I know of, but I love the Earthdawn world, and would love to talk about it.

[Tubben]

Thats to bad.

The last time my group did play ED was while ED3 under Redbrick was current.

We switch our system from time to time (My group plays together since 26 years), and we play D&D5e currently for 162 sessions and counting. But i think after 3+ years we will switch again in a while, restarting with ED (I hope atleast, some of us would like to play SR also - and i dont like SR after 2.0).

I was hoping to find a community to talk about ED rules and more. Its such a great system with detailed sourcebooks and wonderful lore.

[JellyPooga]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Earthdawn; the setting, the history, the cultures, the notion that not everything needs to be balanced or fair, the magic systems...it's great. But...I can't get on board with anyone that thinks the rules are up to scratch. It's a truly arcane ruleset that takes a lot of mind-bending and brain-crowbarring to wrap your head around those sucka's and while I like them on the whole, I think I'd struggle to find a group willing to delve deep enough into a game that takes as much player investment to learn both the rules and the setting sufficiently to really appreciate it.

[Tubben]

I think I'd struggle to find a group willing to delve deep enough into a game that takes as much player investment to learn both the rules and the setting sufficiently to really appreciate it.

Yeah, you are right.

The rules arent that easy to memorize. To many (different) dices, to many skills. Its not easy. Compared to dnd5e it's a rule monster (and compared to rulemaster it's like DnD5e compared to ED :-)..)

The problem arent the skills, it's more that today everythings needs to be fast to learn and easy to memorize. If i see that most DnD5e groups seems to be done after one campaign at lv 10-13 and the restart with an different char in an different group, then ED is not for them.

My group stays on one char for a good while. Last ED round we managed to reach circle 9-12 with our chars. We could continue with them, but the break was to long and we will (IF wie do ED next), start new chars.

What i like is, that you have so many options in ED to create and level your char, since you can level your skills indepedent (I know you have to level your discipline skills with your circle) of your circle and you can also learn skills that arent for your discipline (class).

I like the concept of blood magic (It's some kind of attunement (in regard of dnd5e terms), you just pay with your maximal hp.

I like that everyone is proud of his discipline (class) and that everyone is proud of his discipline. I like that you have to follow your discipline, that the passions (gods) are real (they are in dnd5e also, but how often do you meet them? - in ED the chances arent that slim).

I like that EVERY discipline is an magic user, even the Warriors. And how it's explained why. I like the Kaers, the demons.

It's my favourite System, right before dnd5e (My third would be Dark Heresy, but DH is so ****ing unbalanced...).

But you are absolute correct, if you want to play ED, you need to work a bit for it. It's not an "Create an Char in 10 Minutes, read the first 2 pages of rules and then go".

But even after 500+ hours of PLAYING (and countless more of reading) DnD5e as an Druid, i am still learning rules, and sometimes also still Druid stuff :-) (Ok, maybe i am just and slow learner :-)..)

God, i hope we switch to ED next.

[LibraryOgre]

Anyone familiar with the Savage Worlds version of the game? I've glanced through it, but haven't played.

[Mordar]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Earthdawn; the setting, the history, the cultures, the notion that not everything needs to be balanced or fair, the magic systems...it's great. But...I can't get on board with anyone that thinks the rules are up to scratch. It's a truly arcane ruleset that takes a lot of mind-bending and brain-crowbarring to wrap your head around those sucka's and while I like them on the whole, I think I'd struggle to find a group willing to delve deep enough into a game that takes as much player investment to learn both the rules and the setting sufficiently to really appreciate it.

I'm a little surprised by this - I played 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition ED and don't recall ever having much trouble with it. Yes, I grant that it may be that I didn't have trouble later down the line because I learned the system in 1st edition. DnD 3.x is a much more complicated and varied ruleset. Champions/HERO, World of Darkness (new and old), L5R, ShadowRun...all seemed much more difficult to me.

I'm not saying that the rules are end-all-be-all wonderful or anything like that...just that I never felt them overly complex/arcane. What are the major issues you are having? What are the other systems you know? I love discussions like this because I think it very interesting to see the game history of folks and how that impacts what they feel about other games.

- M

[LibraryOgre]

What really struck us with the 1st edition Earthdawn hardbacks was the complexity in keeping track of dice pools by step... I have Step 3 Strength and a step 2 weapon but I get a 3 step bonus because of this thingy... what dice does a step 8 roll again?

But I also saw a lot of Earthdawn in 4th edition D&D... healing surges as recovery tests, the relative rigidity of the classes, etc. Since Earthdawn was very much "D&D world's tropes given definitive reasons", it made a lot of sense to me.

[JellyPooga]

I'm a little surprised by this - I played 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition ED and don't recall ever having much trouble with it. Yes, I grant that it may be that I didn't have trouble later down the line because I learned the system in 1st edition. DnD 3.x is a much more complicated and varied ruleset. Champions/HERO, World of Darkness (new and old), L5R, ShadowRun...all seemed much more difficult to me.

I'm not saying that the rules are end-all-be-all wonderful or anything like that...just that I never felt them overly complex/arcane. What are the major issues you are having? What are the other systems you know? I love discussions like this because I think it very interesting to see the game history of folks and how that impacts what they feel about other games.

- M

As I said before, I don't want to come down too hard on the game; on the whole I like it, but here's a quick run-down of the problem rules (I've only played 3rd edition, for reference);

1) Dice Step:

Most games use a single dice rolling mechanic; d20, 3d6, dice-pool d10's, etc. This is an easy go-to for the majority of actions or rolls you might make in a game. Earthdawn uses Dice Steps; a mechanic by which you either have to memorize the table of which step is what dice, or you have to look up which of a myriad of combinations of die-types you're rolling for a given check. Not only that, but you can't even just remember which dice you're rolling for your own character, because modifiers don't add/subtract a static modifier or add a certain die type, but it modifies the Step. Further, your character will have several different abilities, each of which uses a different Step; remembering that you're rolling a d6 for one ability, a d10 for another, d8+d6 for a third and so forth, isn't exactly intuitive, especially when modifiying each of those up by two steps results in d10, 2d6 and d10+d8 respectively. Once you're used to the table and how the Steps function, it's not so hard, but gating into the system from a more basic "Dx+y" or "yDX" system, this is an unnecessary barrier to learning even the most basic aspect of the game.

2) Result Levels:

Not only is the whole Dice Step debacle a bit of a problem, then you have to add the Result Level table to determine how successful you are at a check, based on the difficulty of the task. Another look-up table. Before we've even explored the intricacies of the system, just to make a simple test we've looked up two tables. It's not even like there's an immediately obvious equation or "eyeballed" result we can fall back on to avoid looking up this table; Sure, if you hit the Difficulty on the nose, it's an average success, but outside of that one obvious result, it's look up the table. If it was a simple case of "Less than half Diff = Pathetic, half Diff to Diff = Poor, Diff to 1.5xDiff = Average, 2xDiff to 3xDiff = Excellent, >3xDiff = Extraordinary", that would be fine, you can eyeball that pretty easily, but it isn't; it's all over the place and it's a big ol' table.

3) Characters:

This is a mess. First you determine your basic attributes, then derive your step numbers, then derive Defence for some, Thresholds for others, Ratings for more things and so on and so forth. And that's before you even get into your Discipline, Talents and Skills. Compared to D&D 3.5 in which you determine your Ability Scores and everything is just derived from the simple +X of those, ED is a bit of a nightmare of different look-up tables and what those numbers mean in game-play. An Attribute value of, for example, 10 means a Step of 5. Great, that's nice and easy. For Dex/Per/Cha that's a Defence of 6, for Tou you have a Death Rating 31, Uncon Rating 22, Wound Threshold 8 and 2 Recovery Tests per day, but for Wil you have no Mystic Armour. That's a bunch of different numbers that all mean different things and none of them have any particularly obvious relation to the number 10, which is what your basic attribute is in the first place. Add one to that basic attribute, taking it up to 11 and your Step doesn't change, but all of a sudden you have Mystic Armour, or your Social Defence is better, but your Wound Threshold stays the same. It's yet another table to look up.

4) Talents:

Talents are magic, but they're not casting spells...Ok, I can dig that.
Each one uses a different type of action...Ok, fine.
They all trigger off different abilities...Got it.
Some cost Strain, others don't...Riiight.
Some cost Karma, others don't...Wait, you're losing me.
They all do different things...Alright, do I just have to remember all this?
Except the ones that do very similar things...Wait, what?
Some have the same name or do the same thing as Skills, but they're better...Really? How so? I just have to look it up?
There's no less than 27 pages worth of these things...How many!?!
About 150, give or take...Are you serious?
Your character will start with half a dozen or so...

...Can I get some look-up cards for these please?

5) Skills:

See Talents.

6) Magic:

There's Thread Magic, Blood Magic AND Spell Magic. Enough magic systems to learn? Technically, Talents are another Magic system, but they're close enough to Skills that we can consider them "easy mode" Magic and not count them here.

To illustrate just how much head-work it is to use any of these, I'll quote the first sentence of "Using Thread Magic":

To use Thread Magic, a character requires a Pattern Item for the True Pattern he wants to weave a thread to and has to learn Key Knowledges pertaining to the True Pattern.

Er...what? Just to understand the first sentence of the introduction to one type of magic system this game uses, I need to look up what the hell a Pattern Item is, what a True Pattern is, what a thread is AND what Key Knowledge is, let alone how my character might go about obtaining any of these things in the first place. Reading on, the book goes on to break it down into three easy steps;
1) Obtain Key Knowledge...ok, sounds easy enough; a bit of research never hurt a Wizard.
2) Spend Legend Points...wait, stop, Legend Points are getting involved here too?
3) Make a Thread Weaving test...now I've got to make a test as well? What's Thread Weaving? Ah, there it is in Talents aaand...it's telling me to look up Chapter 11 to find out how Thread Weaving works before I come back to Chapter 9 to finish learning the basics of Thread Magic...

...So let's have a look at Chapter 11; Spell Magic...Matrices, Thread Weaving, Spellcasting, Grimoires, Learning Spells, Raw Casting, Attuning, Matrix Objects, Dispelling, a whole section about Illusions...all before we get into Chapter 12 and its 64 (64!!!) pages of spells themselves. At roughly 6 spells to a page, that's approaching 400 individual spells. And I thought the number of Talents was ridiculous.

I'm not saying the likes of D&D or GURPS are any better as far as sheer content goes, but at least they have a unified system for the most part; Earthdawn is just all over the place with jargon and different systems, most of which have some kind of crossover, so that you can't just learn the basic stuff your character can do and roll with it; you've got to learn the entire game in order to do pretty much anything. You can't just be a Fighter swinging his sword, or a Rogue sneaking around because at the very least, if you want a "magic item" for example, you'll have to learn all about weaving threads or Blood Magic and how that's going to impact you're character. I haven't even gone into any of the nitty-gritty of Disciplines, learning Talents or Spells, or character advancement and the hoops you have to send your head through (let alone your character) to do any of this in play.

As I've said, I like the game. In part because it's arcane; I like systems that make you really think and as a result care about your character. Anyone that deludes themselves that it's an easy game though? Try grabbing your average FLGS-goer and run them through an introductory adventure and watch their brow furrow in concentration and confusion. For a player willing to delve deep into the system and setting, Earthdawn is a wonder, a piece of art almost, in the way it meshes it all together. For someone that's got years of experience playing it, the various subdivisions of system, the look-up tables and myriad options are just second nature. For the more casual gamer, or newbie roleplayer, though? It's over-complex, too in depth and too much of a headache just to learn the basics, let alone achieve any kind of system mastery.

[Mordar]

What really struck us with the 1st edition Earthdawn hardbacks was the complexity in keeping track of dice pools by step... I have Step 3 Strength and a step 2 weapon but I get a 3 step bonus because of this thingy... what dice does a step 8 roll again?

But I also saw a lot of Earthdawn in 4th edition D&D... healing surges as recovery tests, the relative rigidity of the classes, etc. Since Earthdawn was very much "D&D world's tropes given definitive reasons", it made a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, I can understand that. All of the character sheets I used (or built) had a step chart built along the side of the front page, though, so it totally short-circuited any issues with remembering the dice for Step 12 or (better yet) Step 23.

ASIDE: Oh so glad when they changed Step 14 from d20+d4 to 2d12.

ASIDE 2: Don't play Savage EarthDawn. If I find out you did...I'll come to wherever you are and weep openly and make everyone uncomfortable.

- M

[Mordar]

To Jelly especially: As I worked through this reply, I thought of something very important. I know I shouldn't "bury the lead" but I am going to save the revelation for the end. But please, if you read nothing else, read the end.

As I said before, I don't want to come down too hard on the game; on the whole I like it, but here's a quick run-down of the problem rules (I've only played 3rd edition, for reference);

I totally get that...there are some games (board games, especially) for me that I think I would love, but just can't "get" for whatever reason. Here's some comments on your comments (sniped for brevity):

1) Dice Step:

Earthdawn uses Dice Steps; a mechanic by which you either have to memorize the table of which step is what dice, or you have to look up which of a myriad of combinations of die-types you're rolling for a given check...modifiers don't add/subtract a static modifier or add a certain die type, but it modifies the Step. Further, your character will have several different abilities, each of which uses a different Step; remembering [what] you're rolling isn't exactly intuitive, especially when modifiying each of those... Once you're used to the table and how the Steps function, it's not so hard, but gating into the system from a more basic "Dx+y" or "yDX" system, this is an unnecessary barrier to learning even the most basic aspect of the game.

I agree that ED is pretty unique in this arena...but the trick to handling it is super-simple. Character sheets with step tables down the side. We're all used to referencing our character sheets to see what we roll (or more to the point, apply as a modifier to a roll). In DnD we look at the character sheet to check our modifier to Sense Motive, or our Poison save, or the damage bonus for our Waraxe. Some of these we remember pretty quickly and no longer have to look at the sheet. Same applies in ED. I quickly know my Warrior gets 2d10 when making a melee attack...but I might still need to look to see what I roll for Unarmed Combat because I never use that talent. The modifier system from ED has the same net effect...GM says -2 step penalty for that action, I just look at the character sheet step chart and roll the dice.

That doesn't change the truth of your last point at all, though...it is a gate. When I started playing ED long ago there were a ton of game systems using a ton of resolution mechanics, so we were...for lack of a better term...more used to having to learn new systems. DnD 3.x/D20 really kind of changed the landscape, and Savage Worlds helped push the change, limiting mainstream games to just a couple of resolution mechanics.

2) Result Levels:

The only thing I'll say here is that result levels in the games I played were virtually unnecessary outside of armor-defeating hits. I think there was a formula (double target minus something) that got you close to what you needed, but maybe our games just kind of ignored success levels other than Fail/Succeed/REALLY REALLY Succeed.

3) Characters:

This is a mess. First you determine your basic attributes, then derive your step numbers, then derive Defence for some, Thresholds for others, Ratings for more things and so on and so forth. And that's before you even get into your Discipline, Talents and Skills. Compared to D&D 3.5 in which you determine your Ability Scores and everything is just derived from the simple +X of those, ED is a bit of a nightmare of different look-up tables and what those numbers mean in game-play.

Certainly more up-front bookkeeping. No way around that. However, a lot less "I have to plan my entire character progression from Level 1 or I'll be gimped by level 10" than many 3.x games. Not to be too grognardy, but it is a lot less bookkeeping than a number of other games from "back in the day" that were fairly popular as well.

4) Talents:

Talents are magic, but they're not casting spells...Ok, I can dig that.
Each one uses a different type of action...Ok, fine.
They all trigger off different abilities...Got it.
Some cost Strain, others don't...Riiight.
Some cost Karma, others don't...Wait, you're losing me.
They all do different things...Alright, do I just have to remember all this?
Except the ones that do very similar things...Wait, what?
Some have the same name or do the same thing as Skills, but they're better...Really? How so? I just have to look it up?
There's no less than 27 pages worth of these things...How many!?!
About 150, give or take...Are you serious?
Your character will start with half a dozen or so...

...Can I get some look-up cards for these please?

Jokingly I say "You never play spell casters in DnD, do you?" They have it a bijillion times worse!

There are what, 20 talents you might *ever* need to know for your character. And that's if you get high enough level ("Circle"). I'm not saying "there are only 20 good talents"...they are limited by the class ("Discipline") you follow, so you only have a pool of 20 from which to choose. And those 20 come incrementally, and a lot of them are as simple as "Melee Weapons", "Avoid Blow", "Climbing" and the like.

On the "same as skills" thing...yeah, that's true...but the "betterness" of talents is generally handled in a two fashions: it is way easier to improve any Talent you have than a Skill you have (so they rise more quickly), and you can use Karma on Talents. Climb skill and Climb talent both do the same thing...but someone with the talent is probably going to be better at it than someone with just the skill. And even if they are the same "level" of skill and talent...the talent holder can push themselves to excel a little better.

6) Magic:

There's Thread Magic, Blood Magic AND Spell Magic. Enough magic systems to learn? Technically, Talents are another Magic system, but they're close enough to Skills that we can consider them "easy mode" Magic and not count them here.

To illustrate just how much head-work it is to use any of these, I'll quote the first sentence of "Using Thread Magic"...

...So let's have a look at Chapter 11; Spell Magic...Matrices, Thread Weaving, Spellcasting, Grimoires, Learning Spells, Raw Casting, Attuning, Matrix Objects, Dispelling, a whole section about Illusions...all before we get into Chapter 12 and its 64 (64!!!) pages of spells themselves. At roughly 6 spells to a page, that's approaching 400 individual spells. And I thought the number of Talents was ridiculous.

I think in working through these comments I've come to an understanding. I'll get to that in a second.

Magic in ED is new and kind of different, and a lot of it takes some doing to understand. One very cool thing about it...the complexity of the mechanic is driven by an in-game-universe condition, so that was a nice touch. On Spell magic...yup, there are a number of spells. Far fewer than PHB 3.x, though. And just like 3.x, the spells are categorized by class and level. So you're first circle elementalist has a list of what, maybe 10?

Thread magic is also new and different. Instead of disposing of your grandfather's weapons, armor or gadgets when you find the new +2 sword/shield/gadget in the troll's lair, you build your item in power. It becomes a reflection of you and your magic. Cool, right? And yes, it brings more complications. But those don't roll around for quite a while (until 4th circle for most characters, much bigger deal than 4th level in DnD). So you've had some time to develop system mastery. You have learned over months what many of those terms mean, and what impact things will have. Like most everything we've seen in this discussion, it is incremental learning.

I'm not saying the likes of D&D or GURPS are any better as far as sheer content goes, but at least they have a unified system for the most part; Earthdawn is just all over the place with jargon and different systems, most of which have some kind of crossover, so that you can't just learn the basic stuff your character can do and roll with it; you've got to learn the entire game in order to do pretty much anything. You can't just be a Fighter swinging his sword, or a Rogue sneaking around because at the very least, if you want a "magic item" for example, you'll have to learn all about weaving threads or Blood Magic and how that's going to impact you're character. I haven't even gone into any of the nitty-gritty of Disciplines, learning Talents or Spells, or character advancement and the hoops you have to send your head through (let alone your character) to do any of this in play.

Yes, there is certainly new jargon/nomeclature to learn...but you absolutely can be a fighter who mostly just swings his sword, or archer than mostly just shoots people in the head. In fact, it is a lot like 4th edition DnD in that regard. You get some special little tricks to do, and some have better effects than others. But mostly you just hit things and try to avoid being hit.

There are tons of special items you can buy/find without having to learn thread magic. And as far as blood magic is concerned, it is a very rare thing to use as a PC. Heck, in the literally *years* I played ED I never threaded items or used blood magic (oaths, in particular) until the most recent campaign I played in 3rd edition. I didn't really know how to do either one, and it had zero impact on the half-dozen characters and campaigns I'd played before.

Advancement is more complicated than DnD, for instance, but also much more customizable. And really, is it any more difficult than Shadowrun, World of Darkness or any other "points for improvement" system?

As I've said, I like the game. In part because it's arcane; I like systems that make you really think and as a result care about your character. Anyone that deludes themselves that it's an easy game though? Try grabbing your average FLGS-goer and run them through an introductory adventure and watch their brow furrow in concentration and confusion. For a player willing to delve deep into the system and setting, Earthdawn is a wonder, a piece of art almost, in the way it meshes it all together. For someone that's got years of experience playing it, the various subdivisions of system, the look-up tables and myriad options are just second nature. For the more casual gamer, or newbie roleplayer, though? It's over-complex, too in depth and too much of a headache just to learn the basics, let alone achieve any kind of system mastery.

I'm confident I could grab 6 regular patrons and run a game of ED with a 15-minute intro/tutorial and they would get the basics. And you're right, they would have concentration and confusion, just like a new player coming to DnD. Interestingly, I think that introducing DnD or ED to a player that had never played a pnp RPG would be pretty close to the same...with ED being maybe 10-20% more difficult. I think the limited-exposure RPG player might be harder to introduce to ED because of their existing understanding. So up until the last two sentences above, I agree with what you say.

So here's that revelation I had along the way.

None of what I have written, no matter how true (I believe it all to be true) really matters. The truth of the complexity/simplicity doesn't matter. The appearance of the complexity is all that is important. I believe that an experienced GM can take 4-6 new players and quickly get them up to speed and enjoying the game and mechanics inside of one session. But that doesn't matter either. Most 4-6 player groups don't have an experienced GM to take them on the adventure. Whether the system is actually complex and difficult to master, or simply appears that way from the outside, the effect is the same. The barrier to entry looks stout. It doesn't matter if the path on the other side is smoothly paved and lined with free ice cream, or a bramble-choked trail with poison darts, poison frogs and poison water at each step.

All of my favorite games (Rolemaster, Call of C'thulhu, Earthdawn) have a perceived barrier to entry (at least for long-term play) or otherwise bad reputations among the "in-the-know" and that's too bad. In at least 2 cases that may have been the prime factor in the demise of the games. Today, with much different demands on my time and a much different milieu of games, if they were even on offer would I have picked up Rolemaster or ED?

Is there an opportunity for a game with "good" complexity to exist/succeed that, as Jelly says, "make you really care about your character" while giving you the freedom to develop them in a fashion distinct from every other BatMage out there...and that is mechanically rewarded/reflected? Sure, the personality and mien of a character is system independent, but the mechanics are an equally important part in driving/telling that character's story. Or a game with mechanics that reflect the world in which the game is set? Or do we just make concessions and compromises that allow us to spend a shrinking pool of playtime on games that are quick to learn, easy to play and have market penetration that means we can always find someone who knows the game?

Bah, now I'm all melancholy.

Anyway, ED looks hard...but compared to many games it isn't, and the complexity has good reason or good outcomes. So find one of the 12 people left alive who like to run it and play with them for a while...and then teach more people!

- M

[JellyPooga]

So here's that revelation I had along the way.

None of what I have written, no matter how true (I believe it all to be true) really matters. The truth of the complexity/simplicity doesn't matter. The appearance of the complexity is all that is important. I believe that an experienced GM can take 4-6 new players and quickly get them up to speed and enjoying the game and mechanics inside of one session. But that doesn't matter either. Most 4-6 player groups don't have an experienced GM to take them on the adventure. Whether the system is actually complex and difficult to master, or simply appears that way from the outside, the effect is the same. The barrier to entry looks stout. It doesn't matter if the path on the other side is smoothly paved and lined with free ice cream, or a bramble-choked trail with poison darts, poison frogs and poison water at each step.

Rather than address each point you've made and create an argument about whether or not things are as complex as they might be perceived, I'll cut to the quick; the sentence highlighted is the core of why I believe ED to be an arcane ruleset.

When I first came to it, it was because one of my players had heard of the game, but only played it once a million years ago. So I looked it up and liked the setting and what people were saying about it. I spent my money and sat down to read it; Player Guide and GM Guide. Loved it. Loved the complexity, the setting, the whole shebang. I didn't think it looked all that complex myself; I'd come from a history of 1ed and onwards D&D, GURPS and WoD and compared to them it was no great shakes...or so I thought. I took my books to game night and announced I was prepared to run a short game within a fortnight and encouraged the guys to read the rules. In the mean-time, convinced I was onto something grand, I spent some more money and a few days later I was boning up on the GM and Player Companions as well as the Namegivers of Barsaive; I was hooked! A week later, my players turned up with a look of despair written clear across their faces; they didn't understand a word of it. I tried to explain, I ran some intro scenarios with premade characters, I used every teaching trick I knew; I'd introduced them to two editions of D&D, GURPS and other games, surely it couldn't be that difficult? But it just didn't take. One guy even left the room because his head hurt from trying to fathom the rules; it was the guy that told me about the game in the first place.

Given time, I'm sure we could have worked through the jargon and bizarre back and forth between rules, grokked the gist of things and become experienced Earthdawn players, but we didn't get that chance; I was too new to the system to teach it compellingly and they were too green and too confused by it to learn it themselves. The appearance of its complexity was a wall we couldn't scale. So here I sit, with over £100 worth of books filled with a beautiful arcane system, just sitting on my shelf, complaining about a system I never really got to play, all the while ideas for characters and campaigns go whirling through my head.

Perhaps that's just my experience, but after reading and re-reading the rules I can't imagine many groups having an easy time of it. Maybe not a hard ruleset for some groups, but I doubt any group would find it easy.

[LibraryOgre]

ASIDE 2: Don't play Savage EarthDawn. If I find out you did...I'll come to wherever you are and weep openly and make everyone uncomfortable.

Any particular reason why?

[Mordar]

Any particular reason why?

Mostly because I think games should be played in their home system, in general...but in this specific instance because the ED rules really do tie to the in-game environment/universe, and they kind of feed off one another and reinforce one another.

- M

[LibraryOgre]

Mostly because I think games should be played in their home system, in general...but in this specific instance because the ED rules really do tie to the in-game environment/universe, and they kind of feed off one another and reinforce one another.

- M

So, you're not specifically familiar with the SW conversion?

[Mordar]

So, you're not specifically familiar with the SW conversion?

I have not played it, but have looked at the PDF and read reviews. It seems some parts were pretty haphazardly crammed into SW format, and the magic system fails miserably.

I freely admit my conversion bias, but it really stems from issues like this. Yes, conversion puts the setting into more peoples hands...but in this case it strips the depth of connection away and replaces it with nods and name swaps.

- M

[Andor13]

I have fond memories of ED 1st edition.

The step chart stopped confusing me the second I realized it was designed so that the average result of the dice at each step was the level of the step.

As far as thread magic, talents vs skills, and the rest of it. The trick (to me) was realizing that in ED you're not so much managing your character, as managing your characters legend. Stories have power in ED and when your character weaves a thread, what he's doing is taking a part of someone else's story and making it his own.