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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 4197326" data-attributes="member: 40177">I played it.It's an alright system, and I like the general idea of the world.  Essentially ,it was a highly magical land dominated by a distant empire (the Therans) who enslaved much of the population.  Then came the horrors - supernatural terrors from the astral plane who consumed everything.  People knew about the horrors coming, and they built underground cities called Kaers to stay safe.A hundred or so years in the Kaers, and the horrors (mostly) were forced back to the astral plane.  But many kaers had been destroyed, or invaded by a horror or whatnot.  So, many kaers opened up (and a few haven't yet, and are forgotten) and the people are now busily resettling the world.  It was a good fantasy setting, that had a strong magical element with a tinge of horror.  Since dungeons were essentially built into the setting, that was a huge plus.  ONe thing I really liked about it was that humans were not the primary mover and shaker race in the setting - that role fell to the dwarves.  Humans were not the most numerous, or the ones in charge.  COnsidering that this game came out when 2e was in full sway - and 2e had a strong emphasis that humans ruled all - that was a nice touch that set it apart.Really, though, we didn't like it.  It was the only FASA game we had that we never really got behind.  The rules mechanics were a bit wonky, and I have always hated that ALL classes were inherently magical.  And you had to perform a magical "karma ritual" to essentially level up.  The class system in the main book was fairly limited, with each class offering a fairly narrow role in play - it's hard to create that exact character you have in mind, really.The real fault in the system, though, is the magic system.  It's needlessly complex, with "spell matrices" that need to be filled, and open matrices, and... half-filled matrixes... and... gah.  Really, it meant that PCs had to memorize some spells, and could cast some spells on the fly, and some were half cast, meaning it would take less time to cast them.  We never really got it, and it was the magic system's lameness that made sure we kept playing AD&D.On the plus side, the spells were pretty neat.  They weren't just "this is our version of fireball", for the most part.  And each class had talents, and many of these magical talents were equally cool.Magical items were equally weird.  You essentially had to learn the item's lore to be able to use it, and the more you knew about the item, the better it became.  Maybe that's cool, and I like the idea of magical items getting better as you get better (and the system sort of assumed there'd be fewer magical items in play compared to D&D), but I don't like how it worked out.  Besides, in a setting where the PCs are supposed to be the big heroes (sort of like Dawnforge, the d20 setting), I would've thought it'd be cooler to see PCs' own items becoming magical on their own.  That would make more sense, to me.There are a lot of cool things about the setting, though.  It's not medieval in flavour, instead having a highly magical bronze-age feel to it.  There are some really cool races, like the tiny fairy-like windlings, the stone-skinned Obsidimen, and the viking like trolls that raided the land in flying skyships.  Another thing I liked was that, at a time when every game was experimenting with crazy skill systems, Earthdawn more or less said "PCs are magical beings, and not really concerned with learning mundane skills" - you didn't have more than one or two skills at first level.  But ALL PCs learned artisan skills - singing, songwriting, whatever you wanted.The reasoning was, those who had been touched by a horror were suddenly unable to create anything new.  And horror-touched could do all sorts of nasty things - the horror could make the poor soul open the wards to a kaer, for example.  So, people would show off their creative side as a means of showing others that they were not touched by the horrors.  One thing I really like about all FASA rulebooks is the short story, and the one in the Earthdawn book is a great example.  It shows the three PCs escaping from an Ork tribe, and then exploring a "dungeon" - a kaer that nobody left alive.  And then, of course, the PCs confront a horror.  It really gives the reader a feel for what the setting is about.  No, the big problem with the game is the limited selection of character classes (though later books would expand on them) and the confusing magic system.  The inherent magic of the system is cool, but unavoidable, which I don't like.  And, really, the game was a bit too rules-heavy for our tastes, especially when compared to AD&D.  But it's definately a game worth taking a look at.</blockquote>

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