A Trip Down Memory Lane: Earthdawn

Lately I've been digging through my old Earthdawn books.  My friend N. and I bought the game right when it came out (or perhaps it was the 2nd edition?  I'm a bit hazy on the details), made a few characters, and maybe played it once.  While we were in a huge FASA fanlove at the time, Earthdawn just didn't really "connect" with us.

I know exactly why, too.  It was a bit too close to D&D for us... and why play a game like D&D, when you could play D&D instead?  N.  didn't like the magic system, as he felt it to be a bit too complicated (and I'd agree with him... FASA sure likes fiddly rules, sometimes!).  As for me, I didn't like the fact that every character in the game was magical, and that many powers were very magical in orientation.  You cannot make a non-magical character in Earthdawn, and that really bugged me back then.

Actually, it still does, for the most part.

And yet, when I saw it on the shelves of the "used games" section in my Gaming Store, I had to pick it up.  I'm sure the original reason had more to do with nostalgia for the "good ol' days" than out of any real desire to play the game, but once I started leafing through it, I realized how tight the mechanics are in many places.  For those that don't know, Earthdawn has a mechanic of "exploding dice" that expands upon the system presented in older editions of Shadowrun.  When I look at 2nd Edition Earthdawn, I see an early precursor to games like Savage Worlds, and the Cortex System.  And many fans have compared the magical "talents" of each character class to be the idealogical predecessor to 4th Edition D&D's "powers".

Another really neat thing about Earthdawn (as opposed to D&D, particularly 2nd Edition D&D, which was the competitor at the time) is how it approaches character roles.  One of the chief complaints against D&D is the reliance upon "balanced parties" - and this was especially true in 2nd and 3rd edition.  In those games, every party "needed" a cleric.  A party of three fighters was going to underpeform compared to a party of a fighter, a rogue, and a cleric.  D&D players were encouraged to create PCs as a group, which often meant that one (or more) players were "stuck" playing a role they were not interested in to fulfill the needs of the group.

Earthdawn, instead, says "make what you want, it's okay".  And really, it is.  There are no healing classes in the core of the game, so no one is stuck playing a cleric (instead, each character automatically heals a certain amount of hit points each day, and you can buy healing draughts from any store).  The three main "roles" in the game are Combat (Archer, Cavalryman, Sky Raider, Swordmaster, Warrior), Magic (Elementalist, Illusionist, Nethermancer, Wizard), and Utility (Beastmaster, Thief, Troubadour, Weaponsmith).  And most of the "utility" classes can double as combat classes in a pinch.  The great fun here is, if you had a group of three PCs that all played, for example, Troll Thieves, the group wouldn't necessarily fall apart (the game might lose some scope, but it wouldn't implode).  I dimly recall playing something like a human archer, with a friend playing a dwarven thief, and the game went perfectly fine (also, it was for two PCs.... and it worked!). 

Finally, the game did something that for some reason, pre-3e versions of D&D didn't do - it made humans a viable option.  In early editions of D&D, the only reasons to play a human were "unlimited levels" (which often didn't mean much - not every game would go to 20th level) and the option to "dual-class" (which was still less powerful than multi-classing).  Earthdawn, however, made humans pretty normal races, with a great store of Karma (basically, a combination of experience points and "luck" that could be spent in play) and a "Versatility" talent that let them learn powers from every other class.  It made humans the great dabblers, people who could pick up a little bit of everything.  My human archer, for example, could use a sword with the best of them (he picked up the Melee Weapons talent) and also knew a thing or two about animals (Dominate Animal talent). 

Compare that to recent versions of D&D, where humans have become the "super class specialist" race - both in 3e and 4e, their racial abilities allow them to specialize in their class's powers and focus their expertise.  A complete 180 turn from Earthdawn's philosophy.  I have to admit, I prefer the Earthdawn approach more.

Now, this isn't to say that Earthdawn is the best game EVAR or anything like that.  It suffers from the usual FASA faults - a world with a major metaplot (where novel characters dominate the campaign events), overly complex rules (but not to the same degree as, say, Shadowrun), and a heavy dose of Orkphilia and Troll Envy.  Plus, many of the talents kind of, um, suck.  My archer, for example, had Mystic Aim... a power which let you waste an action, to grant a bonus on your next attack.  If the target didn't move out of sight in that time.  And no starting level Beastmaster could start with any, you know, beasts as companions, making them practically useless. 

But still, it's a game worth checking out.  One of these days, I'll have to pick up the new edition.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll play it.