Nope. Not an april fools joke.

http://www.earthdawn.com/

Honestly I can see a lot of Earthdawn influence in 4E. I think the new mechanics might suit it. They'd need to play around with the actual magic to account for the horrors and whatnot but I think it's definitely doable.

From what I understand, RedBrick isn't doing ED as 4e. They're doing some other line as 4e.

Without some serious tweaking, D&D v4 would not do ED very well...
...One is grittily heroic, the other is an online computer game done as a RPG [as some people have put it].

ED has lots of flavour, and deserves much better than ending up a D&D v4 supplement.


But, as Adam says, the announcement just says they're doing some D&D v4 work...
...NOT that ED is going D&D.

It's pure Marketing,

If you made ED with D&D4th rules, you can catch more new people.
But they aren't fools, the classical ED will stand.

And when people, attracted by D&D4th, began to know about ED they will try to knew more about this (awesome) product and they will be cacth.


To be honest, i began to play L5R after playing "Oriental Adventures"

Actually, since I first gathered some info on 4E I thought "hot damn, this is really similar to Earthdawn (in idea/essence)". I still do not think they will convert it.

i hope that they do not change Earthdawn and drag it into those kinds of depths. 4e is terrible and would only ruin earthdawn.

Don't scare me like that! I thought you meant they were changing it to the SR4 rules, nearly lost my will to live.

~J

They are only making compatible products under the licensing agreement with WoTC, not change the Earthdawn system. D&D 4E is the lowest grade of roleplaying at this point.

While you, as the pinnacle of roleplaying are able to make that judgement. Suuuure.

Yes, yes i can; being of sound mind and the lack of power gamer/muchkin spirit.

Lacking power-gamer spirit demonstrates your unfitness to judge systems

~J

I'll have to explain that, unless your saying i can't judge a game that was designed for power gamers and munchkins

After many years and many many different game systems (not to mention gamers who's only purpose in life is to break every game they are in) I can say that 4e is deffinatly in the gutter. Personally I rate it lower then F.A.T.A.L.

most people say that FATAL was the worse, so thats saying alot. Never seen it myself

The rules are the laws of "physics" (more than that, but you get the idea) of the world. A rational actor will use any corner cases in those laws for advantage if possible. A world with corner cases that destroy the enjoyability or sense of the world is a broken world. The lack of desire to search for corner cases that will allow you to identify a broken world seriously damages your ability to identify whether a world is broken or not.

~J

So what your saying is that because you like it and i don't, i have to be wrong. Except your trying to be philosophical about it.

<M-m-m-multipost!!!>

I find it very curious that you're inferring that I like it. I haven't played it—I gave up on D&D when it stopped being AD&D, so I don't expect I will play it, either. Another thing I found curious was your choosing to advertise a lack of interest in character optimization as a positive feature, particularly when it comes to judging systems.

~J

Oh, i see.

character optimization can be take in several different ways.
The way munchkins/powergamer's optimize their characters and the way the rest of us do it. these type of people tend to make min-max characters who sole purpose is to make the mega-character. Unstopable and unbeatable that suck all the fun out of the game for the rest of us. The rules are not there to have fun and make things fair for everyone, its there for them to miss use and abuse.
I never said that character optimization was bad, everyone does it one way or another. I just hate people who do it to the point that the game loses all the fun out of it and its all about them killing and/or dominating all the imaginative characters that do not exist for some personal satisfaction that will never help them over come the fact that their are a mama's boy or some such thing.

I also realize that some people cannot tell the difference between someone being serious and sarcastic (post #10).

Now i have not played the game and did not plan on playing to begin with, but i have read the core book. From everything i read in said books i have concluded that the game is one of the worse examples i have come across. Basically, a MMO in book form. I will not go into specifics here since this about something else, just wanted to settle this before it filled the whole thread. My judgment is built from my experience in playing many different systems and from my own readings.

Earthdawn Age of Legend Announced for D&D 4E
Posted by Anunnaki on July 8, 2008

(AUCKLAND, New Zealand) 8 July, 2008—RedBrick Limited confirmed today that the Age of Legend™ campaign setting for Wizards of the Coast's DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 4th Edition roleplaying game is currently in development. Age of Legend™ is based on FASA Corporation’s popular Earthdawn® fantasy roleplaying 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™ web site 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™ roleplaying games under license from FASA Corporation, Holistic Design Inc., and Biohazard Games, respectively. RedBrick's company web site is http://www.redbrick.co.nz. Age of Legend™ and Age of Legend 4e™ are trademarks of RedBrick Limited. Earthdawn® and Barsaive® are trademarks of FASA Corporation. Used under license. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast in the U.S.A. and other countries.


http://www.earthdawn.com

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Such a shame...
...But then maybe it's the only way they can make any money from the license [they're the people with the other Earthdawn license]

What's your problem with AoL for 4e? The classic Earthdawn line will be continued and remain in the main focus of RB.

My problem is it smacks of the d20 stupidity that gripped the industry. Fading Suns, Heavy Gear, Deadlands just to name a few games forced into D20 and sucking. And then there is the abomination that is dual stated books.

Hi,

(Finally salvaged my Dumpshock account details...)



Actually, we do very well from the Earthdawn license, thank you (as with our other licenses -- Fading Suns, Blue Planet, and soon, Equinox). And, to clarify/confirm, RedBrick holds the worldwide Earthdawn license (there is no "other" Earthdawn license, per se). Living Room Games' ED2 license expired some time ago, and has not been renewed. Games-In have the rights to produce German-language-only Earthdawn products, (ostensibly) based on ED2.

As for Age of Legend, we have had this on our radar since 2003, waiting patiently to see how Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition shaped up. As it turns out, the end result was much closer to Earthdawn than we expected, making the decision to develop a separate Earthdawn-alike product line for the 4e game audience, much easier.

As Grinder noted, RedBrick has *no plans* to drop the Earthdawn classic game line. Our core game licenses are precious and dear to us -- we would never have licensed them if they weren't. Our plans in the 4e arena are simply "just another product line" -- probably leveraging some synergy with Earthdawn, but primarily geared to accommodate the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition roleplaying game.

We have realistic expectations. Those gamers who hate D&D with a passion won't touch Age of Legend with a 3-meter-pole. Likewise, those gamers who solely play D&D might not find the Age of Legend setting to be to their taste. That's OK. Fundamentally, it comes down to providing choice to our gaming audience. If we can get more people playing in the Earthdawn game world -- regardless of system -- that is a "good thing" from where I sit. As with everything RedBrick produces, we simply do our best with the resources we have to hand and let our customers vote with their wallets. *shrug* Life's too short; game hard.

Kind regards,

JAMES FLOWERS
Managing Director

Hi,



(I won't solicit my opinions on the conversions for these games -- they were certainly not "forced" into being ported to d20, however.) Our decision to make Age of Legend is *not* in the "d20 stupidity" camp. If it was, you would have seen RedBrick publish a d20/OGL Earthdawn a long time ago...

Seriously, take a long hard look at Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Look at how the mechanics work. Then, if you have experience with Earthdawn, start making a checklist for comparison. In the same way as Earthdawn borrowed heavily from D&D and other RPGs back in those halcyon days of 1993, now those same games are borrowing back just as heavily.

As for dual-stat books. Just not going to happen... *grin* (I hate dual-stat books.)

Kind regards,

JAMES FLOWERS
Managing Director

JF,

Thank you for the clarification, and sorry if I appeared to be dissing RedBrick's ED.

It's been a while since I read up on the ED license situation, or how each was being supported.

Having seen how Digital Burn has died, I should have realised something similar had happened to their ED license.


From the sound of it then, Age Of Legend is a separate product line from ED, with some shared background using the new v4 rules.

That sounds OK...
...In fact it sounds a little like Eberron [which I loved, though only for it's background].


In short, carry on sir.

Hi,



No apology necessary. I didn't get the impression that you were dissing anything -- just posting based on what information you had.



It's been in a strange state (not for RedBrick) for a while. Nothing formal has been forthcoming which, while it really doesn't bother us, does mean there is a bunch of ongoing confusion about the state of the ED license.



We will have more information posted on the www.ageoflegend4e.com website in a Q&A format soon. But yes, that's a concise summary.



Will do sir. Although sleep beckons first (it's late here in New Zealand, and RL work begins early during these cold winter days).

Kind regards, James

Just remeber the demise of Guardians of order... they did the same thing and went out of business a year or 2 later.

Hi,



My apologies, but I have to ask: Do you know this because you have inside information on how GoO worked? They were a company that made some business decisions from which they couldn't or didn't recover. Their foray into d20 was just one of their business decisions. I don't see the association with GoO and RedBrick, sorry.

RedBrick, as a company was designed from the ground up to thrive in the current economic climate and to accommodate the evolving nature of the pen-and-paper roleplaying game publishing industry.

While I appreciate your concern, we don't make any business decisions lightly and without forethought (or legal advice).

Kind regards,

JAMES FLOWERS
Managing Director

Well, i hope that you are right. I was the word Hope in a very loose sense.

I didn't me that they were forced to port them into d20, I meant the way they forced the setting to fit d20 and its mechanics when they did port them and how it skewed the way the game played.

The largest part of GoO's demise - much like Dream Pod 9's near-demise - is the fact that their publishing strategy relied on a weak canadian dollar and a majority of sales in the United States. When the Canadian dollar jumped in value, it really hurt them.

Just tell me when I can pre-order. Like I said in the OP I think the 4E mechanics will mesh nicely with ED. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I'd be interested in seeing how the GSL is affecting the Earthdawn IP. The GSL seems pretty... interesting in that regard.

I'm actually very interested to see how this develops, so I'm in for at least the core book.

And thanks for posting and clearing some stuff up, James!

I worked at Guardians of Order from late 2002 [just after they published their first d20 game, Silver Age Sentinels d20] until the time they laid everyone off in late 2004, and then I did some freelance work for them until they ceased operations. While some of their d20 products were not successful, others were -- BESM d20 sold very well [and was pretty damned fun!] -- and I wouldn't put much blame for their overall demise on the shoulders of publishing lines in both their house system and d20.

Specifically this bit of the GSL:

My take on this is that if you publish something under the GSL it becomes part of Wizards IP. Does Redbrick have a special arrangement with them to keep the Earthdawn IP separate? Also I assume that the rules about not being able to publish a given product line under multiple systems is why you are calling it Age of Legends?

Within the GSL, "Licensed Materials" basically means "the stuff licensed from Wotc" not "the publisher's products that are using the GSL". That's in Section 4.

Hi,



*smile* We're also very interested to see how this develops. Just hope we don't disappoint.



My pleasure. Here to help; I just don't have much occasion to post here, sorry. (We have a lot of Shadowrunners on our dev teams, but I have to admit that I'm not as much into SR as I am ED. One picks one's poison, I guess. *grin*)

Adam, thanks for responding to those earlier posts in this thread. Spot on as always.

Kind regards, James

Yeah, I know the feeling. I always liked ED and Battletech when I was doing stuff for FASA, but SR was always my focus. But that's ok, diversity is the key. Be damned boring if we were all playing the same game all the time!

And I'm sure the book won't disappoint. By all accounts, you guys have been rocking it so far, so I expect we'll see more of the same!

Bull