Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Sendaz on <08-04-13/1748:45>
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With Earthdawn being owned by other parties now and not much being directly said about it, is the 4th World going to get a retcon so we can have a relevant history for the sixth world, especially for new players coming into the game?
Seeing as a few other things have been retconned, it seems like the perfect time to go back and redo things a bit bringing the 4th age back into the game history, maybe even adjust a few things that the devs may have liked originally but in hindsight they wish they could have done differently.
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Nah.
No fun in retconning stuff whole-cloth, really. The Fourth Age isn't really all that central to Shadowrun, in my opinion (and I'm a historian by trade). There's been a recent trend to downplay the ED connections, and I, personally, can't imagine us reversing that decision so drastically that we also re-write that history instead of sticking with what's already there.
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But hasn't the decision to downplay the ED connection been partly due to the fact ED is now someone else's property so what you can do with it is sort of limited in any case?
There is nothing wrong with just going forward, but some cross-over bits and stories are always fun. I would have liked to have seen more tales like Aina's with one foot in the 4th Age and the other in the modern day or an adventure/missions showing glimpses of an artifact's origins from the earlier ages and its effects on being unearthed today.
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When I saw the title I thought we were going to talk about Jack Kirby's Fourth World.
Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be Earthdawn.
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Basically the only lasting tidbits from ED is:
Horrors
Ghostwalker
Dunkelzahn
Harlequin
and a few other minor things. And from what I understand, most of those plotlines (Harlequinn Aside) are tied up and done with. Dunkie watching the bridge, GW playing with his new spirit buddy, and Horrors going "Damn, nothinng to do..."
I saw look to the future and tittle around more with 6th world stories.
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Other than Horrors, Immortal Elves, Dragons, and Bugs, most of the plot points of Fourth World have gone away over time. I would dearly love for someone to uncover the Books of Harrow, though. However, I agree that there isn't really any need to go and rewrite the 4th world to deal with those four plots. There's plenty in the Sixth World already that you can use with them and just move forward.
One of the few things I would like to see revisited are some of the different types of magic you see in the 4th world. Name/Pattern magic, for instance. You already see elements of this when dealing with spirits (having to use the True Name to banish them), but in the 4th world Names had power. There's a reason why in his will Big D swears on his Name that his gift to Juan won't harm him or Aztechnology.
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I wish dragonkin humans and T'skrang had been carried over. Things would get even more interesting.
Instead Shadowrun has an immortal jester elf, Thornbush elf, daughter of thornbush elf, Backstreet Boys look-a-like elves, Someone's favorite haunt elf and Frosty.
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Well, the Windlings are coming back as Pixies, and T'skrang are really just changelings. *gets pelted with tomatoes*
I'm just hoping Deep Lacuna is something really cool like a kaer.
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T'skrang will likely be viewed as Changelings at first. Clearly Lofwyr believes his man in Seattle for the artifacts craze is the one of the first to 'wake up', and collected him for that purpose. The DIMR has discovered what they called a 'Life Rock', and since Ehran is in charge of the DIMR, you can bet it is probably the real thing. Also, there are reports of 'rock-like men' serving the Sea Dragon near one of her lairs. Likely, T'skrang and Obsidimen required a higher mana level than orks and trolls to manifest.
And the Deep Lacuna is almost certainly an old kaer that has been kept 'out of phase' with the rest of the world for a long time. And it just so happens that there is something down there that is disrupting some very powerful spirits ritual teams have sent down to check things out. There are other places that certainly appear to be kaers popping up elsewhere in the world, such as in Russia (or the spirit-controlled part of what used to be Russia).
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Yeah, I'm really not seeing anybody *really* back away from the ED/SR connections. (Though my tabletop group that I run calls me an SRED Shipper. They really don't get chronology...)
The world doesn't change, just the stories that are told. While I will, eventually, run the two games and have subtle ties between the stories, for the most part the stories that come from the 4th age (as far as current editions go) won't have much impact in the 6th.
Just like I remember reading many years back that someone was planning on putting out an 8th Age book. In SPAAAAAAACE. (I'm working on my 10th Age system already, after the space elves crash land on a distant planet lose all of their tech.)
I just don't see a need to shy away from the setting as it was before.
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IIRC, the "Atlantis" MMORPG in-game - a thinly-veiled Earthdawn - allowed people to play, alongside the races that did exist in RL at the time, 'lizard men' and 'earth elementals'....
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Wasn't a certain very old elf involved in the creation of the Atlantis MMO?
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Yeah, but that would require a stretch to get them into the game. Still, awesome that the way exists!
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There is still some plot to finish :
Are the Atlantean, Théra or not ?
How did the Dragons and IE settled their war at 4th ages end ?
Of all the Therans colonies, wich one are still to be discovered ?
Aztlan looks very 4th world in shape and behaviour, could they be a Thera reborn faction ?
What of the true Drakes ? Did they rebel as the IE did ?
Where is Verjigorm ?
And the most important of all... How much time before the humanity realise that the Great Dragons are nothing more than a kind of horror and doesn t belong to the Earth.
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The Atlantean Foundation was created by Alachia (under another name, obviously), the former queen of the Blood Elves (also former Queen of England, IIRC). The Black Lodge, however, could very well be of Theran descent, or descended from the Denairastas clan.
The dragons and IEs called a truce at the end of the 4th world, a truce that has (mostly) remained to this day, other than a bit of civil (if not friendly) gamesmanship, until Harlequin declared war on Ghostwalker.
Unknown what Theran colonies may have survived to be discovered these days. Some may have simply 'reverted' to normal ancient ruins, while some may be in astral space or other such things.
There's a reason Aztlan looks the way it does. That reason is the Smoking Mirror, which may very well be a Corrupted (or, worse, Horror-touched) Great Dragon.
The true drakes did not rebel. They are more closely bound to their makers than the IEs (and have a limited life span as well).
Verjigorm did not show in the 4th world, AFAIK. It is still FAR too early to talk about him in the 6th.
And as for your last question? Not going to happen.
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Yes, yes, 'dragons are a kind of horror'. So are humans, elves, etc. Of all the races, I'd put humanity as being the MOST horrifying ...
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Yes, yes, 'dragons are a kind of horror'. So are humans, elves, etc. Of all the races, I'd put humanity as being the MOST horrifying ...
Want proof? Supernatural.
One episode has Sam kidnapped and he is trying to figure out the monster, only to realize that they're a family of nutbars. He's SCARED at that point.
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And what if the true story was than in the first age one horror manage to cross the bridge, being the first metaplane traveller of his kind.
She discovered a planet full of life and thus sustenance, inhabited by proto-humans. She used her magic to enslave them and transform the Earth as his personnal feeding ground. The introduction of magic on Earth produce a change in Gaiasphere, especially as the horror start to spawn her descendant, it ´mutate' the proto-human into the meta-human race and light a beacon that the other horrors discovered and followed starting the first scourge.
The dragons aren't from Earth, there is proof enough that they are indeed a kind of horroi, or at very least mutation of an horroi that adapted to low magic by hibernating rather than being sent back to netherworld. They are conqueror, they saw Earth as their domain and humanity as cattle and servant. Spawning the IE was their worst error, because they are part humans and thus regards fellow meta-humans differently and want to free Earth from the GD because they feel they belong here.
Dragons doesn't help humanity survive the Scourge, Dragons bring the Scourge to humanity and are only interested in protecting their toys and play ground.
Dragons have interest in humanity surviving the Scourge, they didn't expected that the IE will provide such efficient way to humanity that now their numbers and technological development put their own future in Jeopardy. They have to cut down on number and power of Meta-Humanity if they want things to be back in business. VITAS, VITAS2 could have been dragon enginereed bio-weapons. Perhaps they have plan even darker.
Humanity on the other hand can't tolerate GD for long, simply because man is ultimate predator and the top of the food chain. The existence of a super-predator would entice a conditionned world wide answer that intent to put GD in the same spot than wolf (domesticated) or Tiger and Great White Shark (nearly extinct). And as history progress and humanity discover the Scourge and that Dragons are the cause, they will launch the biggest Whack a Lizard Worldwide Hunt in History.
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Yes, yes, 'dragons are a kind of horror'. So are humans, elves, etc. Of all the races, I'd put humanity as being the MOST horrifying ...
Want proof? Supernatural.
One episode has Sam kidnapped and he is trying to figure out the monster, only to realize that they're a family of nutbars. He's SCARED at that point.
Humanity are horrifying or horrible but they are still human and Earthborn. Dragons are Horroï, netherspace invaders and conquerors... That is entirely different.
'I wrote a book called 'How to serve Meta-Humanity' - Big D
'It's a cooking book.' - The Laughing Man.
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No, IKerensky, that's not quite true. At all. Dragons are no more Horoi than other Namegivers. All are native to this plane. Nightsky was a horoi, but Dayheart (the first Dragon) shares the same origin as the first elf, human, and other Namegivers, so of Dragons are horoi, then all Namegivers are. However, Nightsky did make Dragons in its image, after it had been changed by coming to the new world.
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That is how the dragon tell the story... Do you really believe them ?
How strange that all the metatypes share the same DNA material (more or less) but dragon have peculiarity not shared with any other earthborn living being : dragonspeech, ability to astral travel with their physical body, 3 pairs of members, some even have more than 2 eyes.
I think the truce is that the Dragon are descendant from the original horroï and wanted to make the other races think they share a common origin, while in fact Dragon are aliène invaders from out of astral space.
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Well, there's plenty of room for you over there in the Tin Foil Hat Brigade, but there is nothing in any of the text to support your conspiracy theories. This is the kind of thing that would make Plan 9 take a step back and say, "Yeah, that's a little too far out there for me."
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At least Plan 9's rants and conspiracies are IC ...
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Didn't Running Wild state that dragons are just some sort of awakened dinosaurs?
They were classified as such by biologists. And they sure used DNA for such a classification.
I don't remember this exactly. I'll look it up later.
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No. They're Class Reptilia, and then veer off into their own fictional subdivisions.
Anyway, I don't see why the Fourth World would ever need to be retconned, but that only applies to anything published by FASA Corporation (the real one). Nothing published by successive license-holder has ever been canon because neither FanPro nor CGL holds the copyright to those materials. Dragons is a grey area. I read some of it, but I was not bound to it when I was writing about Ghostwalker or anything else in Clutch. It was useful for getting a base idea of True Drakes, beyond older references, but again those drakes and what were introduced in SR are quite different because, among other things, there just isn't enough magic or time to make those drakes in SR.
So don't see why it would ever matter.
Aztlan hasn't really be covered in a long, long time. It's probably changed far more than what is minimally covered in 6WA and other references, but I doubt it's trying to replicate Thera.
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Earthdawn Dragons is not much more in a gray area than everything else in Earthdawn or Shadowrun lines. Because Shadowrun books anyway retcon things all the time, whatever the original source is. There are no rule, only generally acknowledged guidelines. But at the end of the day, what the line developper says is ok, is.
Besides, Dragons is in no way different from any other PDF release, even if it was for free ; it has copyright and all rights reserved by FASA. Actually, all the Earthdawn second edition products published by Living Room Games also have copyright and all rights reserved by either FASA or Wizkids (just like FanPro LLC and CGL never had copyright over SR product: only Wizkids and Topps do).
From Shadowrun point of view, Earthdawn is actually less subject to retcon. It is widely considered that the Earthdawn era is set at least several decades, if not centuries or millenias, before the end of the Fourth Age. This leaves more than enough time for events to happen and things to change, instead of retconing something in the Earthdawn era.
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Yes, yes, 'dragons are a kind of horror'. So are humans, elves, etc. Of all the races, I'd put humanity as being the MOST horrifying ...
Want proof? Supernatural.
One episode has Sam kidnapped and he is trying to figure out the monster, only to realize that they're a family of nutbars. He's SCARED at that point.
There was also a great episode of Torchwood with that very same idea. You keep waiting for the "alien of the week", until you realize the bad guys are for once not aliens, just sick human beings.
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It is widely considered that the Earthdawn era is set at least several decades, if not centuries or millenias, before the end of the Fourth Age.
Nerdy math just for the sake of it:
I assume that the Scourge is at the half time of a magical age.
The Sealing of Thera per Earthdawn: 1008 TH - 1399 TH
This sealing would be aprox at the height of the Scourge
That means the height of the 4th age would be at aprox 1203 TH (give or take a few years, the Therans didn't close and open their seal exactly at the beginning or end).
The end of the 4th Age is at 3113 BC.
The 5th age was 5124 years long. If we assume that the 4th was equally long, then the height of the 4th age would have been 2562 years before the end of that age. That would be 5676 BC.
So 5676 BC would more or less equal 1203 TH.
The Earthdawn setting is at 1510 TH (I've used the Red Brick Edition, dunno if that timeline advanced further).
So that means that Earthdawn is set in aprox 5369 BC, more than 2000 years before the end of the 4th age.
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Oh, I got nerdy too a while ago.
The 3113 BC date for the fall of Atlantis comes from a single source, the "Humans and the Cycle of Magic " address by Ehran (which exist in at least three different versions, 1989, 1990 (http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun/imports/cycleOfMagic.html) and est.2004 (http://old.shadowrun4.com/fiction/fiction1.shtml)).
Ehran says the following things:
- The average time between Threshold Levels is approximatively 5200 years
- August 21, 3113 BC marked the end of the Fourth World and the beginning of the Fifth
- Converting the Mayan dates to the current Christian calendar, [the Mayan calendar] correctly states that the Threshold would be passed on December 24, 2011.
- The Sixth World will end, according to the Mayan calendar, on April 4, 7137 AD.
The thing is, the Mayan calendar actually says the world would change after 13 baktuns, or 1 872 000 days, but there were only 1 871 270 days between -3112-08-21 (*) and 2011-12-24, and there will be 1 871 969 days between 2011-12-24 and 7137-04-04.
(* using astronomical year numbering, 1 BC is year 0, and 3113 BC is -3112)
So any calculation may be off by a year or two, if not more.
There is no known way to adjust the Mayan calendar to find these dates. Ehran's exposé actually got almost every fact wrong (at least IRL). If I was still freelancing, I would probably retcon it into a test he made to detect the most brilliant of the YET members who would have caught them on the fly.
Also, Regular Length and Middle Peak are assumptions that are not backed by any source. On the other hand, they make sense as working hypothesis. Your estimate is as close as one can get I think, but really, any SR author could give a wholly different date for the Earthdawn flight, and it wouldn't legally be a retcon.
But the more recent Dawn of the Artifact: Midnight does mention 9564 BC for the destruction of Atlantis, this time completely contradicting the aforementioned source.
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Funny bit in Clutch of Dragons: Plan 9 brings up "stone men" - shades of Earthdawn! - and Kane blows up at him "Okay. Not the stone men theory again. Stop posting this drek all over the place. There are no stone men!"
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Well there's also that T'Skrang (or close enough -- the "lizardman changeling") that serves Lofwyr and appears in Missions and in Artifacts Unbound :)
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I want to kill that guy.
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Heh.
Lizard, wood, stone, and bugmen; and Ganesh as changelings are all possible thanks to Runner's Companion. That's ... something.
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Good Luck to the bugmen, though!
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Well, there's plenty of room for you over there in the Tin Foil Hat Brigade, but there is nothing in any of the text to support your conspiracy theories. This is the kind of thing that would make Plan 9 take a step back and say, "Yeah, that's a little too far out there for me."
I fragging doubt it. It's Plan 9 after all.
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So why hasn't Catalyst bought Earthdawn?
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Catalyst just is a subdivision of Topps, so probably doesn't have the finance for that by itself.
Convincing the higher ups to buy up a property that doesn't have quite the same draw and you have been separating yourself from is gonna be a hard sell because end of the day they are still a business and will look at the bottom line.
Would getting ED back be awesome? Sure. Would it be profitable enough to warrant the outlay? Well, that is the question isn't it?
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Besides, iirc FASA has plans for ED. A FASA guy once posted at SRU I think.
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Yeah, I heard somewhere that nu-FASA had plans for Earthdawn, and were also going to do games set in the 2nd, 6th, and 8th worlds. So, pretty difficult to put Shadowrun alongside that now.
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Besides, would you want someone like me writing for those games?
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Besides, would you want someone like me writing for those games?
I will reserve judgement until after you pop out the NetCat/Toaster shipping fic. ;)
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Besides, would you want someone like me writing for those games?
I dunno. I expect you'd make an interesting go of the Outcast's relationship with his children, or how Icewing and Mountainshadow were able to turn true drakes into the kind that could breed.
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Seeing as how Earthdawn has changed hands several times since FASA (original) closed its doors, I don't think that franchise is very profitable... Or popular which makes it all the more unlikely that catalyst will/would pick it up...
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Perhaps it could be due to the glut of fantasy settings in tabletop RPGs, and that there are games which are much better in terms of mechanics and/or setting.
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Perhaps it could be due to the glut of fantasy settings in tabletop RPGs, and that there are games which are much better in terms of mechanics and/or setting.
Well, when you look at the fantasy games market, the big 2 right now seem to be pathfinder and D&D... And from there you have dozens of less well known titles (and Earthdawn). So yea, the fantasy market is pretty flooded....
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How much of a legal nightmare would it be for catalyst to create thier own 4th age game, useing modified SR rules?
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How much of a legal nightmare would it be for catalyst to create thier own 4th age game, useing modified SR rules?
Heh, which is sort of what I asked way back in the original post for this thread, though I referred to it as more of a retcon to be able to bring it back inline.
Though to be honest, is it needed? We have the players from then in the here and now with just enough vague references to maintain their respective premises.
The writers have been working away from tying too much to that separate entity and done pretty well with that plan.
Personally I would like to have the 4th Age back inhouse, but if I have to answer is it needed I would probably have to admit it's not gamebreaking if it isn't.
Nice to have yes, but not essential.
But what about all the secrets and stuff going all the way back to then?
Consider the lesson of the sheep. ;)
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I imagine it would be a huge legal battle... Earthdawn is back in the hands of FASA (new), and one of the original FASA company men (Babcock?) is at the helm...
But as said, was it a profitable venture to start? Is there enough sales to even make an overture of a liencing agreement worthwhile?
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Nice to have yes, but not essential.
Pretty much my thoughts, I liked the connection to the 4th age and the horror meta plot. It would just be intresting to see more of the stories of what happened to the major players that were around back then (including some of the ones that didn't survive to the 6th age. Maybe some sort of metaplanar adventure similar to Harlequins Back that dealt with the past, not time travel but some sort of symbolism within the advanced magic that occured around certain events that's needed to fix something in the now, and the metaplanar quest is the way to dig up the secrets again.
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Perhaps it could be due to the glut of fantasy settings in tabletop RPGs, and that there are games which are much better in terms of mechanics and/or setting.
Well, when you look at the fantasy games market, the big 2 right now seem to be pathfinder and D&D... And from there you have dozens of less well known titles (and Earthdawn). So yea, the fantasy market is pretty flooded....
It is when D&D accounts for over 50% of the entire market.
And 13th Age is by all accounts better than anything else and likely to make a dent.
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Perhaps it could be due to the glut of fantasy settings in tabletop RPGs, and that there are games which are much better in terms of mechanics and/or setting.
Well, when you look at the fantasy games market, the big 2 right now seem to be pathfinder and D&D... And from there you have dozens of less well known titles (and Earthdawn). So yea, the fantasy market is pretty flooded....
It is when D&D accounts for over 50% of the entire market.
And 13th Age is by all accounts better than anything else and likely to make a dent.
Never heard of it.
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13th Age is either out, or coming soon and I just happen to know a bunch of people who've played it.
designed by the two guys who were head designers for 3.X and 4th respectively
learns from both and adds to them
it's what D&D Next should have been
If CGL ever did a 4th World game, I'd want it not to be anywhere near Barsaive. And preferably before the Scourge.
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Still have and love my ED 1st edition books. I like many of the mechanical changes in later editions (Step Table changes for instance), but the writing was good.
But even as a ED fan, we don't need to wrap up every plot line from ED or have every thing in ED have a corresponding thing in SR. It's enough to have a few things here and there.
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When FASA pulled the plug on ED, the word from the line editor was that the profitability wasn't high enough - it wasn't losing money. The FASA execs decided that their development resources were better spent on new lines.
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Overall, Catalyst will just concentrate on 6th World+. Any retro will be left to home-ruling by the GMs willing to take the time & trouble to retcon back to 4th World. Heck, the other GM in the gaming group I'm in agrees that such an endeavor would probably work better with Pathfinder or steampunk D20.
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Overall, Catalyst will just concentrate on 6th World+. Any retro will be left to home-ruling by the GMs willing to take the time & trouble to retcon back to 4th World. Heck, the other GM in the gaming group I'm in agrees that such an endeavor would probably work better with Pathfinder or steampunk D20.
I'd rather they avoided d20 all together. I'd rather play 1st edition ED than any d20 system, wonky dice and all.