I love “Earthdawn”. I also hate “Earthdawn”. It is just one of those games, any roleplayer who has been a part of the hobby for a couple of decades knows what I mean.
Look, “Earthdawn” is a pretty awesome game, it really is. The basic premise is this: It is a fantasy game, in a deeply post-apocalypse world, where magic is returning, and bringing with it horrors from beyond imagining. The world is scarred by these monstrosities, and you have to fight to survive while also seeking out treasures of the lost, ancient world.
On paper, that sounds like a pretty amazing game. Pretty much like “Fallout” crossed with “Call of Cthulhu”, both steeped deeply in a hardcore fantasy game like “Warhammer”. I absolutely love the concept of this game, and ran it for years for my old in-person gaming group. But that’s where the problems crept in…
You see, “Earthdawn”, like “Shadowrun” before it, is a TTRPG from FASA. Which means they have wonderful settings and gameplay concepts, but multiple systems that just kill the game. For example, magic in “Earthdawn” isn’t unplayable, but it mostly is, and only really works when it has been heavily homebrewed. The rules work for magic, they make sense in the way the world and setting are described, but they also slow gameplay to a crawl.
Let’s put it this way: When I’m trying to run a tense, horror/fantasy game, I really don’t need to spend half an hour helping a player figure out how spellcasting works, then resolve the action, before moving on to the next character. No matter how cool your setting is, this will kill your game.
Regardless, I love “Earthdawn”, just like I love “Shadowrun”, warts and all. FASA games were simply on another level, concepts-wise. I just wish their systems were more play-friendly at the table. I understand what they were going for, trying to balance the game between magic-users and melee/ranged characters, but there are ways to balance the game without slowing it down to a boring slog. Maybe that’s why FASA got out of the TTRPG market, and licensed their games off to other companies? I can’t really say, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Other than all that, “Earthdawn” is a beautiful game, with evocative artwork and writing. I keep meaning to run a game like “Maze World” in a setting like “Earthdawn”, something that mixes the style with a working system. That’s all I want.
