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Fuchs
Simple question: Does the Earthdawn Link define Shadowrun, or could it be replaced with some other "4th World" as a past for the setting, without losing what makes it Shadowrun?
Stahlseele
TECHNICALLY . . SR defines Earth-Dawn, as Earth-Dawn is what Episodes 1 to 3 are for Star-Wars . . a made after the fact prequel . .
Kyoto Kid
...may the plascrete brick tossing begin (wait, let me put up my physical barrier first). grinbig.gif

[edit]

gosh darnit, Stahlseele, you got in ahead of me... grinbig.gif
Stahlseele
yay! i beat THE kyoto kid! *glee* ^^
by the way, i would have voted for NO, just because i like the backstory, even if it means dealing with Immoral Elves <.< . .
WeaverMount
Earth Dawn was my first RPG love. Just have to put that out there.

That said, almost anything you include from the fourth world IS home brewed anyway. It is hard cannon that the mana cycle did crazy reality hackery some you can put in almost anything you want. IMG all Earth Dawn links are only easter eggs for the devoted.
psykotisk_overlegen
Well, if your "other" generic fantasy 4th world fit with all the SR references to the earlier ages, then it would still be SR. But that would make the homebrew fantasy a lot like earthdawn..

So that's a no
Ancient History
Earthdawn has the benefit that it fits nicely into the backstory of Shadowrun...but from an objective standpoint, it doesn't really, really matter.
CircuitBoyBlue
Honestly, how many people go around talking about the 4th world all the time anyway?

Mr. Johnson: "I'm in the market for some bloodthirsty mercenaries with grenades to quietly obtain my competition's prototype. Also, did you know that our only hope against the Horrors is an immortal elf? He comes from the 4th world."

Runners: "Well, how much would we get pai--Did you say immortal elf? Tell us, did this 4th world have any societies, and how does this affect Ehran/Lofwyr relations?"

It's asinine. The stuff can be true or not true in most games, and it really doesn't affect things either way, if you're playing a game about Shadowrunners, and not some ridiculous soap opera about rich people.
Rotbart van Dainig
Nice try, Starfox.

QUOTE (Ancient History)
Earthdawn has the benefit that it fits nicely into the backstory of Shadowrun...but from an objective standpoint, it doesn't really, really matter.

Well, there is a german RPG that was derived from Shadowrun, objectively and consequently removing every Earthdawn reference and implication, then cleaning up logical inconsisties.

Let's just say it was not Shadowrun, even though it included orks, elves, magic, corporations and shooting people in the face for money.
It's the common thing about goind back in history and changing things...
Ravor
Was Shadowrun still Shadowrun BEFORE Earthdawn was created?


But then again, I tend to really butcher the Earthdawn Canon, especially considering that the only topic I'm really interested in from that gameline is the Horrors, in my campaigns the Fourth World looks more like a post-apoc vision of Disney's Atlantis viewed through a looking glass darkly.


But then again, with the exception of when the Runners stumble onto a tainted Kaer or some other Fourth World artifact it really doesn't matter what the past was like, the 2070s are all about what is going down this very nano-second, not relics of the distant past, I mean who really fragging cares about what happened last year, much less several thousand years ago...
Ancient History
Rotbart: Was ist das?
Sir_Psycho
QUOTE (CircuitBoyBlue)
Honestly, how many people go around talking about the 4th world all the time anyway?

Mr. Johnson: "I'm in the market for some bloodthirsty mercenaries with grenades to quietly obtain my competition's prototype. Also, did you know that our only hope against the Horrors is an immortal elf? He comes from the 4th world."

Runners: "Well, how much would we get pai--Did you say immortal elf? Tell us, did this 4th world have any societies, and how does this affect Ehran/Lofwyr relations?"

It's asinine. The stuff can be true or not true in most games, and it really doesn't affect things either way, if you're playing a game about Shadowrunners, and not some ridiculous soap opera about rich people.

This should be included as a disclaimer to every thread about Immortal elves and Great Dragons.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Ancient History)
Rotbart: Was ist das?

If you meant 'What german RPG?' - it was called X-Punk. For a reason.
Basically, it was more like Cyberpunk - with magic and genetically engineered metahumans.

QUOTE (CircuitBoyBlue)
The stuff can be true or not true in most games, and it really doesn't affect things either way, if you're playing a game about Shadowrunners, and not some ridiculous soap opera about rich people.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Big D's Will, as well as other related SBs mostly a plothook to affect runners?
Ancient History
That's a new one on me.
Rotbart van Dainig
Grew from the SFD (Street Fighter's Digest) - a supplement to beat some sense into old SR weapon rules.
Fuchs
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig @ Dec 5 2007, 01:17 AM)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Big D's Will, as well as other related SBs mostly a plothook to affect runners?

Sure it was, but - you don't need to have Earthdawn as a background to use Dunkelzahn's will in game. It's not as if they stated "and this is that from ED, that is this from ED" - knowledge of Earthdawn was not required to run any SR adventure.

Which is my point - one can run SR without using ED, and without changing it significantly in a way that affects 99% of all campaigns.

To sum it up: ED does not really matter at all other than serving as possible fluff for some magical threats. Even all the moving and plotting of immortals and Dragons do not need ED specific motivations.
Irian
Surely "forgetting" Earthdawn will not affect most players. Some details perhaps, but imho the bugs (for example) had a bigger influence on the 6. World than the horrors - and even the immortal Elves could be erased without problems. But the big question is: Would this still be Shadowrun? That depends on how you define "Setting X equals Setting Y".
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Fuchs)
Sure it was, but - you don't need to have Earthdawn as a background to use Dunkelzahn's will in game.

Just SR happens to look the way today it does because of ED and vice versa.
If you exchange ED to a generic fantasy system or no fantasy at all, you get a generic cyberpunk system instead of SR.

Nothing wrong with that, it has been done.

QUOTE (Fuchs)
It's not as if they stated "and this is that from ED, that is this from ED" - knowledge of Earthdawn was not required to run any SR adventure.

You just need the knowledge from it to understand some of them.
The Will, Harlekin and even SotF mostly make no deeper sense without.

Of course, if playing 'no answers' anyway, it doesn't make much of a difference.

But that's not the question asked in the poll. That's just "Do you need to know everything about the background of a RPG to play it?" Which the answer to is obviously No.
Changing the history however will change the background.
Fuchs
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
Changing the history of a game however will change the background if done thoroughly.

Shadowrun is shaped by the history detailed in Shadowrun - the history of the 6th world. The "4th world" is not crucial. Delete it, and it's still Shadowrun. Replace it with generic fantasy with demons and it's the same outcome.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Ravor)
Was Shadowrun still Shadowrun BEFORE Earthdawn was created?

But then again, I tend to really butcher the Earthdawn Canon, especially considering that the only topic I'm really interested in from that gameline is the Horrors, in my campaigns the Fourth World looks more like a post-apoc vision of Disney's Atlantis viewed through a looking glass darkly.

...I just tend to ignore the whole bleedin' mess altogether.

Yes SR was still SR Before ED was around. I particularly enjoyed the Native American influence of those early "pre(post?)-ED" days.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Fuchs)
Shadowrun is shaped by the history detailed in Shadowrun - the history of the 6th world.

Actually, not even that... it builds on real-world history, too.

QUOTE (Fuchs)
The "4th world" is not crucial.

The mayan mana cycle is, as it's mentioned in the 6th world history.

And if you define that 4th world different to Earthdawn, Shadowrun would look differently.
That's what every time-travel scifi is about. wink.gif
Ravor
Meh, I seem to remember that Big D wasn't all that impressed by the Mayan Calandar, as for the rest, I just have to disagree, as long as your Fourth World has Mana Cycles, Dragons, Immortal Elves, and Demons from beyond that can only cross over at the peak of the Mana Cycle the actual details are just so far removed from the Sixth World to even be important.

Many of us played Shadowrun before those very details were even set in stone and it was still Shadowrun, and I'm fairly sure that many people play Shadowrun without having a clue about the details behind Earthdawn.
Mercer
I never really got into ED, and having played SR since before it was introduced my feeling is its not all that crucial. (I also always thought ED was the 2nd Cycle, rather than the 4th, because that's what my SR GM at the time told me when ED was coming out, and if I was misinformed, I've been misinformed for about 15 years even though I can't honestly say it would make any difference one way or the other.) Personally, I never really saw the point of ED as a history of this world since this world already has a history, and it has legends and myths and weirdness. In fact, most (if not all) of the fantastic elements in SR came out of the legends, myths and weirdness of the real world, so adding in a completely different backstory seemed a little strange.
Zhan Shi
Myself, I like the ED/SR link. But essential? No.
MYST1C
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
Grew from the SFD (Street Fighter's Digest) - a supplement to beat some sense into old SR weapon rules.

SFD was in incredibly bloated ebook - ambitious yet misguided (I was briefly involved as a proof-reader).

Basically it was a gun catalog but also contained a complete damage/combat rules replacement.

Some of that (mainly the guns) was really good stuff.

But there was also a lot of bad stuff:
Some sub-par fiction pieces (e.g. a both blatant and amateurish Black Hawk Down rip-off set in the barrens) and lengthy, totally uniteresting for the average player, discussions about ballistics and firearms mechanics.

The authors' premise was that, in order play a gun-using character right™, you had to know exactly how firearms worked in real life!

The whole thing was about 500 pages, IIRC...

The authors originally planned to have that book released as an official third-party SR book due to a misunderstanding that soon fell apart (for-free-fanstuff vs. commercial product).
In addition, some of them were very active and blunt in critisizing virtually all aspects of SR on FanPro D's official forums - their core "discussion" strategy being to accuse everyone not of their opinion of playing the game "wrong™" or simply being stupid.
They made some good points but those were usually buried under immediate flamewars caused by their arrogant and condescending posting style.

When the whole SR-supplement angle fell through the SFD authors declared their plan to expand it into a whole RPG called "X-Punk" that could actually be described as "as close a copy of SR as we can get away with - but with our superior™ rules".
MYST1C
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
QUOTE (Ancient History)
Rotbart: Was ist das?

If you meant 'What german RPG?' - it was called X-Punk. For a reason.
Basically, it was more like Cyberpunk - with magic and genetically engineered metahumans.

And it went belly up pretty soon - the homepage vanished, the forum is closed...

Last thing I heard was the rules now being used for a home-brew Star Wars campaign.

I would have liked to see it actually released just to see how it would've turned out. I know there were quite some bets going on after the announcement of that "superior™" game that would appeal to "every SR player" but just be "better™" than SR in "every aspect".
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Ravor @ Dec 5 2007, 04:18 AM)
as long as your Fourth World has Mana Cycles, Dragons, Immortal Elves, and Demons from beyond that can only cross over at the peak of the Mana Cycle the actual details are just so far removed from the Sixth World to even be important.

Well, like psykotisk_overlegen put it - that 'as long as' is growing quite large if you think about it.

QUOTE (Mercer)
Personally, I never really saw the point of ED as a history of this world since this world already has a history, and it has legends and myths and weirdness.  In fact, most (if not all) of the fantastic elements in SR came out of the legends, myths and weirdness of the real world, so adding in a completely different backstory seemed a little strange.

Actually, Shdowrun would be a completly different game if it was based just/heavily on RL legends extensively... and we would have more people complaining about historical accuracy. wink.gif
Critias
Why not just call this poll "do you like the ED links?" because that's all that's really being asked.

You can't really vote in a poll like this with any accuracy, or argue about what "Shadowrun" is or isn't -- because it's so many different things to so many different players, GMs, and (obviously) even game developers. To some people it's all about gritty crime on the rough streets of Seattle, to others it's slick operatives living the high life of a freelance superspy/assassin, to others it's nothing but a sort of futuretech-augmented fantasy setting chock full of the machinations of powerful Elves and ruthless Dragons, and to some it's nothing but a Michael Mann flick with magic for a bigger special effects budget.

It varies so very wildly from campaign to campaign, and sometimes even session to session, that pinning down what's "essential" to Shadowrun, what makes it whatever it is, is like trying to staple Jell-o to a wall. Good luck.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Critias)
Why not just call this poll "do you like the ED links?" because that's all that's really being asked.

Or rather: "Does the combined history with Earthdawn distinguishes Shadowrun from any other modern-fantasy system"?
Fuchs
The point of the poll is exactly that - to see for how many players and GMs the ED links are something that defines Shadowrun.

Having started in SR1, ED does not define SR for me.
Rotbart van Dainig
Well, the SR1 definition of the setting is pretty different than the current one.
Fuchs
Magic - check
Megacorps - check
Metahumans - check
Social issues - check
Dragons - check
Shadowrunners - check
Cyberware - check
Private Police - check
Paracritters - check
Matrix - check
Native american, elven and other new states - check

Doesn't look like there are that many differences between SR1 and SR4 to me. The toys changed a bit, some borders changed, a few logos of corps changed.
Fuchs
Another question is: If ED is essential for Shadowrun, if it defines Shadowrun, then where are the sourcebooks detailing it for Shadowrun? The "Secrets of the 4th World"? The "Neo-Anarchists' Guide to Barsaive"? The "This is what you need to know about Earthdawn if you want to play Shadowrun" Guide?

All we have are obscure and veiled hints, nothing concrete, nothing on the level of what we have on other threats like insect spirits, or on cities, or corps. Even LoneStar has a ton more info available for GMs and players than the ED link.

Either FASA and Catalyst have been messing up for years by neglecting to give us crucial information, or ED simply is not essential for Shadowrun.

hyzmarca
Earthdawn is essential,. to some degree, if you want to dig that deep into the historic metaplot. But you don't, really. You aren't supposed to. There are only small hints for things past, PCs are supposed to see them but they aren't supposed to know what they mean. The truth is more of an Easter Egg than anything else. It helps when dealing with GDs and IEs and Sprites (Windlings) and Obsidimen, things which are rarely dealt with but which do exist in the canon. It isn't meant to be out in the open.

It also provides a good and useful foundation for dealing with Metaphysics, since the people of Earthdawn have a much greater understanding of magic and metaphysics than those who live in the time of Shadowrun do. It is easier to keep them mostly separate, so SR will never have many specific details of ED.
psykotisk_overlegen

Earthdawn provides the "this is how it is" explanations that GMs need to present the magical leftovers from 4th correctly (unless they just want to make stuff up as they go along, which is also fine). Players in SR will never have a need of knowing how the magic of the 6th world really works, but will appreciate the relative consistency that a GM basing his magic on that of ED will present.
Fuchs
Back when we played both ED and SR, we were rather annoyed by the differences in magic. Stuff like "Hey, if ED is sooo much more advanced, why can't we astrally project as easy as every mage in SR?" and "Why are our spell selections so limited?" not to mention "Why on earth do my spells have less range in ED than in SR?" were much more common than "oh, nice, now we know why this artefact works like it does" - since it usually did not work like in ED.

The whole "crossover" felt rather forced, and not really logical based upon the system differences.
Ryu
There needs to be a 4th world. That world does not have to be ED, but any consistent world brings with it the things that annoy the cyberpunk players. So I voted No.

One could "purify" SR by removing the 4th world and all references to it. Dragons do not awaken but come into existence by the power of collective myth. Awakened creatures still awaken due to metagenes. Some shadowtalk has to die, Harlequin is a lunatic and The Darke a toxic mage. It would not affect most campaigns, but it would not be SR as written.

All that should not stop anyone from ignoring ED. I´m doing my very best to un-see all information on Battletech: The Dark Age.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Fuchs)
Back when we played both ED and SR, we were rather annoyed by the differences in magic. Stuff like "Hey, if ED is sooo much more advanced, why can't we astrally project as easy as every mage in SR?" and "Why are our spell selections so limited?" not to mention "Why on earth do my spells have less range in ED than in SR?" were much more common than "oh, nice, now we know why this artefact works like it does" - since it usually did not work like in ED.

The whole "crossover" felt rather forced, and not really logical based upon the system differences.

"Powerful" so much more "powerful." No one said anything about advanced.
Fuchs
Not even powerful, to be honest - compared to what we did with magic (and karma) in SR1 and SR2, even high-circle ED spellcasters felt weak. Aerea of effect, range, and the effect itself (easily boosted with Karma Pool/bought successes) made magic far more powerful in SR than in ED. Especially the elemental manipulation spells, like flame thrower, were much more powerful than just about every spell from ED since they were much harder to resist even with Shielding.
CircuitBoyBlue
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
QUOTE (Ravor @ Dec 5 2007, 04:18 AM)
as long as your Fourth World has Mana Cycles, Dragons, Immortal Elves, and Demons from beyond that can only cross over at the peak of the Mana Cycle the actual details are just so far removed from the Sixth World to even be important.

Well, like psykotisk_overlegen put it - that 'as long as' is growing quite large if you think about it.

Maybe, but I wouldn't even say you need all of that. I don't really see why you need magic to be "returning." Nobody really knows about the 4th world in game anyway, except for the IE's, and you can just ignore them, too. You need Dragons, but you don't need them to have come from some 4th world, and you don't need Horrors, either. And if you want them anyway, you can make them unique spirits like the Bugs.

But honestly, I don't even see most of that stuff as being "setting" at all. It's plot. Things like the IEs and Horrors haven't really been confirmed in setting books; it's all modules, if I'm not mistaken. And the thing about those is, modules don't happen until you run them. For instance, the events of, say, Harlequin don't happen in my campaigns until and unless the group plays the Harlequin module, if for no other reason than so that the group can play Harlequin later if they choose.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Fuchs)
Not even powerful, to be honest - compared to what we did with magic (and karma) in SR1 and SR2, even high-circle ED spellcasters felt weak. Aerea of effect, range, and the effect itself (easily boosted with Karma Pool/bought successes) made magic far more powerful in SR than in ED. Especially the elemental manipulation spells, like flame thrower, were much more powerful than just about every spell from ED since they were much harder to resist even with Shielding.

Take a look at the Fifteenth Circle spells sometime and think again.
Mercer
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
Actually, Shdowrun would be a completly different game if it was based just/heavily on RL legends extensively... and we would have more people complaining about historical accuracy. wink.gif

I don't really see how it would be all that different. SR came out of the real world, more-or-less, and the real world came out of the history of the world, and most if not all of the magic and creatures in SR were based on real-world legends. If ED had come first, I could see your point, but it was a retcon.

I never really saw the need for concrete backstory. Was there magic in past ages? Yes. What it looked like, no one really knows. There might be Immortal Elves from a previous age, or perhaps the Dragons remember something but 1) It doesn't really matter and 2) there are so many more people claiming to be from a past age that would be impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. (This is similar to the Vampire cliche of vampires claiming to be present at the Crucifixion, called about by Spike in 2nd Season of Buffy, "If every vampire who claimed to be at the Crucifixion were really there it would have looked like Woodstock. Now, I actually was at Woodstock...")

I have never minded a setting including something unknowable. There are so many unknowable things in the real world that I find putting them in the fiction increases the verisimilitude. I think if you define too much, ultimately you cheapen it. Magic is supposed to be the mysterious, fantastic and, well... magical thing, but most of the time in games its handled with all the mysticism of applying for a small-business loan.

Which is not meant to take anything away from ED, viewed as a stand-alone setting. I've never really associated ED and SR together, because I prefer to keep the lost ages lost. Not everything needs to be defined. Whether or not Achilles was a mythical invention or a grade 4 phys as is something for the in-game scholars to debate, its not a question that needs an answer (and even if you have one, what difference would it make?)

It just strikes me as a little hubristic to say (and for whatever reason, I picture Futurama's Bender saying this), "The history of the world? I guess that's a pretty good world history. But I think we can come up with something better." It has taken billions of humans thousands of years to cook up the bizarre shit we call history (what little we know of it, anyway), anything that can fit in an rpg text is going to be reductive. I mean, its the history of the world. Its the richest tapestry imaginable.
Prime Mover
The original question is a little confusing with a quick glance. Earthdawn is by no means needed for SR. But SR was "evolved" into Earthdawn with its release.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Mercer)
I don't really see how it would be all that different. SR came out of the real world, more-or-less, and the real world came out of the history of the world, and most if not all of the magic and creatures in SR were based on real-world legends.

Actually, SR has more in common with Tolkiens artifical legends than real ones.

Local legends & myth still are barely touched by SR - there so many of them and some so extensive that even some of them suffice to create a new RPG.
Neil Gaimans American Gods is a nice read.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)
Well, the SR1 definition of the setting is pretty different than the current one.

...in a way Rotbart is correct, Yes you have the same key elements, but the "legends" fluff back then tended to revolve more around Native American myths and appeared it would continue along those lines as the game grew.

Instead the NA influence has almost disappeared in 4th ed. There are no more Shamans in the sense that they were totally distinctive from Hermetics. Now you can choose if you want to follow a totem Back then, as a Shaman, you had to have a totem. A Mage can say she follows the "Shaman's Way", but now she too can bind a spirit (a number of sprits mind you) just as a Hermetic bound elementals. I miss the old Hearth, City, Street and other Nature sprits. It added a wonderful and "different" feel to the game. In homogenising magic with 4e, the developers blurred the old traditional lines to the point of non-existence.

Besides the Awakening, one of the large turning points in SR fictional history was the Great Ghost Dance. It brought about the balkanisation (for lack of a better term) of North America and pretty much spelled the end for the last remaining western Superpower, the old United States. That is pretty heavy stuff in my book.

Now all this appears to be overshadowed by the presence (and ties to the 4th world) of IEs and GDs. To tell the truth I would much rather the developers continued developing the Native American angle (and native traditions in other parts of the world).
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)
Yes you have the same key elements, but the "legends" fluff back then tended to revolve more around Native American myths and appeared it would continue along those lines as the game grew.

..and the setting revolved heavily around neoanarchism and music. There were even rules for playing a rock star that ran the shadows.
Those times are gone for good.
Kyoto Kid
...I know frown.gif. I still have my original copy of Shadowbeat and in previous polls on "Your Favourite SR Books" it always topped my list. I also have the NeoAnarchit's Guides as well and even wrote one of my own up called The (Unofficial) NeoAnarchist's Guide to Near Space for a campaign I was running back then.
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (MYST1C)
Last thing I heard was the rules now being used for a home-brew Star Wars campaign.

Ouch... one steak too much it seems:
The rabbit told me, too.
CircuitBoyBlue
You might want to look for spoilers about the Ghost Dance, Kyoto Kid. Or not. I can't remember which book it's in (Harlequin's Back, maybe), but it will break your heart.

And yes, I love the Neo-A's guides and Shadowbeat, too. Unfortunately, it was the guys in my old group that had them, and life turned out to be our Yoko. A guy in my new group got me Shadowbeat as a present the other week, though, and now I clog up the bureaucracy I work for by reading it all day instead of doing my job. Unfortunately, it doesn't make me want to play 4th, it makes me want to play 1st. Anyway, I'm fairly certain it has nothing to do with Earthdawn, yet for some people, it's the definitive "setting" book of SR.
Eryk the Red
I can't answer the question with yes or no. I like the elements of Earthdawn that I know about (not too much, I never played it), and they are increasingly integral to my game. But Earthdawn does not define my Shadowrun. I define it. And I define what parts of Earthdawn (and what parts of Shadowrun canon) are relevant to my game.

In truth, though, you never need to mention anything at all about Earthdawn stuff, mana cycles, horrors, immortal elves, etc. in a Shadowrun game. It's not necessary, least of all in a gritty street-level game.
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