What was Earthdawn like?

[abou]

I came across some Earthdawn books on eBay and it reminded me of flipping through the old FASA catalogs. What was the game like? It seemed interesting, but I never played any of it.

Just curious. This seemed to be the best forum for it.

[wolfgar]

Think post apocalypse D&D and you'll be close. Its fun but I hate the damn brain slugs.

[YingJanshi]

Never played it myself. But it's still in print actually, so you can still check it out if you want: http://earthdawn.fasagames.com/.
(Yes, that does say FASA. But not the same company. Not sure any of the old FASA crew has anything to do with it.)

[cray]

"Apocalypse DnD" - I like that. There were some interesting tie-ins to Shadowrun, too, since Earthdawn was allegedly the 4th World to Shadowrun's 6th world. (The non-magical boring era between c4000BC and c2000AD was the 5th.) For some reason, I always thought of Earthdawn when I played Eberron. I guess it's because both had fairly high levels of magical use.

The original dice system was...weird. It worked fast enough, but it was different.

If you can pick up the core book cheap (< $10), it'd be worth it for the read even if you never play the game.

[wolfgar]

And if they are the D20 adaptations you're golden. They play well in Pathfinder D&D and D20 games

[Nerroth]

I can't remember exactly where I saw it bring discussed (possibly in one of the Q&A threads over on CGL's Shadowrun boards), but I recall a mention somewhere about which older Earthdawn books and editions were considered to be "canon" from an ancient-history-of-SR perspective, and which more recent ones were/are not.

I think there was a certain change of ownership of one property or another which marked the cut-off point, if one indeed exists.

[wolfgar]

It was when FASA finally went under. Anything before that is good,  after that its questionable. I happen to be a SR gmin my area.

[Gardensnake]

I came across some Earthdawn books on eBay and it reminded me of flipping through the old FASA catalogs. What was the game like? It seemed interesting, but I never played any of it.

Just curious. This seemed to be the best forum for it.

I loved Earthdawn. The magic system was cool. It was a bit like a cross between D&D's system and Shadowrun's. You had to have a spell in what was called a matrix to cast or else you risked attracting the horrors. You loaded your spells in the matrixes ahead of time and you only had so many matrixes per your level. The world was cool. I guess what I really liked about it, was that it wasn't D&D. While there was nothing wrong with D&D, every other fantasy game just seemed like a D&D clone and Earthdawn was different. It had some different races and not just the same monsters rehashed. There is a 4th edition coming out but there are plenty of 1st edition books out there that if you want, you could get those and have a great time.

William

[abou]

Thanks for the info, guys. I'll check it out. Interesting how FASA linked Earthdawn and Shadowrun together.

Would have posted sooner, but I was on vacation.

[gooseman]

The original dice system was...weird. It worked fast enough, but it was different.

I liked the open ended mechanic. Ported it into a Mechwarrior campaign for a cinematic flair.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Think post apocalypse D&D and you'll be close. Its fun but I hate the damn brain slugs.

So Dark Sun?

[wolfgar]

Not quite.  Magic doesn't eat the land in Earthdawn but it does introduce particulars of blood magic that shows up later in SR.