Earthdawn Age of legend announced for D&D 4E Options

[the_dunner]

Press release echoed without comment

RedBrick Limited confirmed today that the Age of Legend campaign setting for Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition role-playing game is currently in development. Age of Legend is based on FASA Corporation’s Earthdawn fantasy role-playing game.

James Flowers, RedBrick’s Managing Director, said "FASA Corporation brought us fantasy roleplaying in the Age of Legend with their Earthdawn game in 1993.

Now, fifteen years later, RedBrick Limited is excited to be bringing the Age of Legend to Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition players."

RedBrick Limited look forward to announcing their first Age of Legend products in the near future. In the meantime, your Age of Legend adventure begins now by visiting the Age of Legend 4e website at http://www.ageoflegend4e.com.

Register on our Forums for discussion about gaming with Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition in the Earthdawn milieu, chat with other Forum and RedBrick's 4e development team members, learn about the Age of Legend campaign setting—Barsaive province—and much more!

RedBrick Limited is headquartered in New Zealand, and also publish the Earthdawn, Fading Suns, and Blue Planet role-playing games under license from FASA Corporation, Holistic Design Inc., and Biohazard Games, respectively. RedBrick's company web site is http://www.redbrick.co.nz.

[Bull]

Oh my word, is this gonna send some fanboys into a tizzy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Me, I applaud the move. It may be a disaster, but it's a bold choice regardless!

I may have to actually purchase some ED products now, just to support this!

[shadowfire]

hopefull its only based on Earthdawn and is not the whole cloth.. I remember what happened to Guardians of order when they took BESM and converted it to D20.. i think it was like 1 year later and they were out of business.

[Aaron]

Anybody have any idea what happens when the Earthdawn license bumps into the "Nice Idea, It's Mine Now" part of WotC's GSL? Not to mention all the stuff they're not allowed to print, but may only reference.

[Adarael]

Earthdawn: Age of Cancer, what?

No, for real, though, I think this is cool. More people familiar with Earthdawn is a good thing.

[the_dunner]

Anybody have any idea what happens when the Earthdawn license bumps into the "Nice Idea, It's Mine Now" part of WotC's GSL? Not to mention all the stuff they're not allowed to print, but may only reference.

IANAL, but I believe that falls under point 10.2 - Third Party IP on the GSL. However, the text in that point is sufficiently obfuscating that I'm quite unclear on its meaning. I believe all that does is divorce WotC from any obligation to the Third Party IP-holder (in this case, FASA), however, I'm not confident in that judgment. Point 12a Also addresses this, but only tangentially.

[Bull]

One of the Red Brick guys posted over on RPGnet that Age of Legend is going to be a seperate line from Classic ED, and that Classic ED will continue on as normal.

ED: AoL is gonna be based in Barsaive and on the ED property, but will be it own D&D 4e setting rather than a straight conversion/port of ED. Smart move, I think. We'll see how it actually looks when it's done.

[Halabis]

IANAL, but I believe that falls under point 10.2 - Third Party IP on the GSL. However, the text in that point is sufficiently obfuscating that I'm quite unclear on its meaning. I believe all that does is divorce WotC from any obligation to the Third Party IP-holder (in this case, FASA), however, I'm not confident in that judgment. Point 12a Also addresses this, but only tangentially.

The way I read it, it seemed to me that the third party clause simply states that the licensee has permision to sign the agreement with WotC, and if they dont they are responsible for any fee's Wizards has to pay.

From my reading (which is probably shaky at best) Wizards would be able to claim the ED IP if Redbrick publishes this. However, if they did that, since im assuming Redbrick doesnt actualy have permission to sign away the ED IP if Wizards wanted to they could sue Redbrick for any damages ED's actual owner would have assesed onto WotC for trying to claim ownership of thier IP.

[ludomastro]

I'm not a lawyer but I always read those clauses to mean that Wizards can absorb any mechanics it wants to gank but the IP remains the property of the originator.

Please note that I am a realist. If Wizards (and by extension Hasbro) wants something there is a good chance they can take it. Modern courts are pwned by those with money and Hasbro's pockets run deep.

They won't, in my opinion, because it would be equivalent of killing the goose to get the golden eggs.

[JongWK]

hopefull its only based on Earthdawn and is not the whole cloth.. I remember what happened to Guardians of order when they took BESM and converted it to D20.. i think it was like 1 year later and they were out of business.

IIRC, GoO's collapse had little to do with a d20 conversion and a lot with currency fluctuations. They were printing in Canada, but selling in the US, right when the Canadian Dollar was gaining in value.

[Bull]

That was the major part of that. Check the other ED thread, where Adam checks in and responds. He was working for GoO a the time, so I think he has a little more insight into things than the rest of us (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Grinder]

Btw, why do we have two threads about ED going 4E, with the second one being opened by a mod? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Bull]

One was an older post that was from when Red Brick first announced they were gonna do GSL stuff, and folks were speculating about ED&D4e. The second thread was the official announcement of ED&D4e. But folks didn't see that and opened this one back up instead.

<shrug>

[Synner667]

One was an older post that was from when Red Brick first announced they were gonna do GSL stuff, and folks were speculating about ED&D4e. The second thread was the official announcement of ED&D4e. But folks didn't see that and opened this one back up instead.

<shrug>

So, if they're both known about and related, why not merge them ??

[Adam]

admin post: we're not particularly "merge-happy" here. We may merge threads if we catch the second thread really early, but once both threads have posts and discussion going on, we generally don't merge them.

[Not of this Worl...]

I predict this line will either be a very good thing, or a very bad one.

Thanks for pointing this out, I intend to keep me eye on it.