Earthdawns system was drastically different between their systems (It uses Steps vs dice pools) but did share a world. Which has now as you said been pulled apart (Which is wild because that means you literally cant run or mention some aspects of older published adventures in modern events. So for instance Harlequin)
Interesting. Like I said I only played it once but I thought I remembered character creation being sort of simliar. Either way I think I'll still have to track down some old Earthdawn stuff and do a deeper look into it.
@@TheSixthWorld there actually is a new edition (4th) which beautifully corrected some problems in the originals without changing anything. I'd compare it to 2nd to 3rd edition shadowrun. We played it and loved it. I'd recommend tracking it down if you can!
I typically keep Earthdawn as part of canon in my campaigns due to the fact that I am so fond of Dunkelzahn's Will when I want to let my players play in the sandbox for a little while.
Our gaming group ran an Earthdawn game and a Shadowrun game at the same time back in the 1990s. I ran Shadowrun 2nd edition while my buddy ran Earthdawn. Running both at the same time, it definitely influenced me to continue the horror aspects of the Earthdawn game over into our Shadowrun game. I think it also added a sense of depth, continuity, and epic scope that Mike (the Earthdawn GM) and I had a list of people, places, and things that we shared. Any person/NPC, places, or things that survived from the Third Age into the Fifth Age were put on the list and we would check with each other before including them in either plot. I will add that the way we ran and played the games definitely seemed to complicate the "Magic Wins" aspect of SR2ed. Over the first year of playing, our SR game devolved into "D&D in the future with flying cars, body armor, and machine guns."
I always saw the rules for character creation of blood mage and insect shaman as tools for the gm, not for players (I don't allow it for my players). That being said, in 6th edition, there are meanest bugs, a whole UCAS army corp went to the equivalent hell and came back twisted and the like, so yes, horror is still there, but I think there are so much content that it's been diluted.
Blood Mages are better utilized as antagonists associated with Aztechnology, especially if the GM can get the runners to make an attempt at the bounty offered in Dunkelzahn's Will.
Not entirely. The Bug story gets lately a bit overplayed and it would be cool to have more horrors in a world that is combined with Cyberpunk and fantasy. I mean , even i would come up with many cool ideas except Bugcity 2 : Cybernetic boogaloo . Homebrewing more horror-centered runs/ campaigns or more mysterious and impactful events is rather the better option than the written material that is mildly a hit or an extreme miss .
I never really noticed it until the end of 5th where players were given rules for playing bug spirits and blood mages. Yes, you can argue it’s meant for GMs but if you give an opinion for character creation the players will try to use it. It’s a bit like how in D&D adventurers went from being rare bold individuals pushing back dangers to just an average job.
@zellosoli I likely would as well. That kind of power doesn't belong in a player's hands. Plus insect shamans have always been described as pretty fraggin crazy. Doesn't make sense to have one as a player.
@@TheSixthWorld another horror aspect I just remembered being phased out was the extreme end of cyberware addiction. 4th had rules for full body cyborgs but not the classic cyber zombie and 5th removed it completely.
I’d love to see you do an Insect Spirit, Threats….and definitely Horrors…deep dive. Okay, three deep dives😂 It’s news to me that the current SR is now divided from EarthDawn, and I think that’s a shame. I have Harlequin’s Back, the novels House of the Rising Sun and just recently got Worlds Without End. To me the two worlds will always be linked. The Horrors are the great threat (I remember Harlequin scoffing at the Insect spirits as a great threat in one book).
The horror has left center stage, but there is more than enough if you look for it. Fourth edition had ghost cartells. The tempo drug wars had some really dark and nasty topics. The big 10 all have more than enough blacksites where they love to do their experiments. The whole nanites thing was a bad zombie plot, in my eyes, but the persecution of technomancers was a dark thing too.
The Universal Brotherhood can easily be utilized as a horror villain, especially if they can be utilized sticking their insect infested fingers into other religions. I have also been fond of using HMHVV for more of a classic horror adventure.
@@rf-cattleprod6207 it helps to grow up in a generation that were raised as feral latch key kids that had to find ways to entertain ourselves like watching science fiction and horror movies lol
I believe what would greatly benefit - what would have greatly benefited this game now - is a book that would compile the threats and/or the horror aspects of the game, explaining to the game master the role this threat plays in the game universe, outlining its key elements, and how to portray it. Personally, that's what I expect from professional game designers. Too bad !
Magic being more of an existential dread really makes or breaks SR horror... And it's hard to write, so we can't really expect CGL to do it justice, can we?
They did attempt something like it with the body snatcher virus . But that was more of a vessel for the online game and frankly most people were sick of the idea really quick.
Wish actually to see more videogames used this world. Especially kind of horror-shooters or survival horrors. I think it be relatively easy to write scenario for it. It be really hard to suck with it if use closely enough lore info. No, really. Those RPG's which was released... Jish, almost ten years ago, feel old. So they was good, but clearly not enough.
All this stuff is still there in 4th and 5th edition. Don't know what people are saying that the horror isn't there, it's not presented as a bright transhuman future at all. There's a 5e source book called Dark Terrors that goes over all the magical horrors that are creeping around
Here is the deal-breaker for me about scotophobia : Those are tyranids from Warhammer 40k setting with some slight lore changes. The designs are entirely copy-pasted . Even the Weapons in the book you get is just stolen from WH40K .
@@Snyperwolf91 I'm okay with that. They do look like the next evolution of big and toxic spirits twisted by higher magic levels. They would fit in with the Horrors from Earthdawn. But I get what you mean and I can see why some people wouldn't like this.
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon Thats understandable and its all about the fun overall . Objectivily it is somehow creatively bankrupt from CGL to steal the designs and in many aspects, the concept of tyranids but the material aint useless and even i can work with that . I would change the creatures more into a more invasive and mysterious monstrosities that is impacted through technological and magical experiments from an attempt of few different companies with different results that underlines this clash of cyberpunk , fantasy and corpo-disaster into an event that could find itsself back in its more Shadowrun-y roots and its identity . But i keep the weapons. Chainsaw swords are a WH40k thing but not so unfitting for Shadowrun or cyberpunk in general too . Looks like it aint a real dealbreaker for me at the end .
Shadowrun lost when current time caught up and passed it's lore. Shadowrun's timeline needs to be reset back to the future. Great Dance and Goblinization in the 2050's.
3rd edition was fine, WhizKids had it and they kept the game moving. Shadow of North America is awesome. I didn't hate Catalyst at first but the game is bland with them writing. 6th edition is really bad. I have 2 books from that and I can't even bring myself to re-read them.
I agree. But i play 6e and rather take the older adventures books or homebrew my runs/campaigns on it because it has its own good merits . But its design and look is just way too .... harmless and devoid of any coolness whatsoever . I like to play it but not the out-of-touch artworks , the bad adventures , the horribly bad novels in between chapters in every source-book and awful DM-guides . The system is a mess that can be saved by good homebrewing and DMing . But the rest is just utter boring slop of the harmful mediocre kind.
I stopped buying the newer books after trying 4th edition and not caring for the system that much. I felt it lost some of its uniqueness game mechanically. I've stuck with 3rd edition rules and they've worked for my players all these years with only a few added touches/house rules I've taken from other people's suggestions. I think when the system shifted to 4th edition they started diluting the background flavor which lost something that made Shadowrun what it had been up until then. I also wonder how much of the old guard system writers stayed with the company or weren't allowed to write like they had previously. The continuity of 1st thru 3rd editions was very good as far as I could tell from everything I owned. It also felt more creative and original compared to the later stuff the couple times I tried playing later editions that other people ran (could also have been poorly run games).
I'm not that familiar with Shadowrun, but I do know that Eclipse Phase is definitely both a transhuman game and a horror game, right up to a selectable player "race" being the creepy little child.
Absolutely. The only reason to Yo-ho-ho books after 3E is to run your 3E game past the date in the last book. And there's really no reason to actually buy them.
Earthdawns system was drastically different between their systems (It uses Steps vs dice pools) but did share a world. Which has now as you said been pulled apart (Which is wild because that means you literally cant run or mention some aspects of older published adventures in modern events. So for instance Harlequin)
Interesting. Like I said I only played it once but I thought I remembered character creation being sort of simliar. Either way I think I'll still have to track down some old Earthdawn stuff and do a deeper look into it.
@@TheSixthWorld there actually is a new edition (4th) which beautifully corrected some problems in the originals without changing anything. I'd compare it to 2nd to 3rd edition shadowrun. We played it and loved it. I'd recommend tracking it down if you can!
I typically keep Earthdawn as part of canon in my campaigns due to the fact that I am so fond of Dunkelzahn's Will when I want to let my players play in the sandbox for a little while.
I wouldn’t say, the horror was only in Magic.
Dues and the Renraku Arcology and even System Failure hat Horror in its own right.
The bugs invasion in 2055/56 in Chicago was the initial incursion of the eventual invasion of the Horrors if the magic levels keep rising.
Our gaming group ran an Earthdawn game and a Shadowrun game at the same time back in the 1990s. I ran Shadowrun 2nd edition while my buddy ran Earthdawn. Running both at the same time, it definitely influenced me to continue the horror aspects of the Earthdawn game over into our Shadowrun game. I think it also added a sense of depth, continuity, and epic scope that Mike (the Earthdawn GM) and I had a list of people, places, and things that we shared. Any person/NPC, places, or things that survived from the Third Age into the Fifth Age were put on the list and we would check with each other before including them in either plot.
I will add that the way we ran and played the games definitely seemed to complicate the "Magic Wins" aspect of SR2ed. Over the first year of playing, our SR game devolved into "D&D in the future with flying cars, body armor, and machine guns."
I always saw the rules for character creation of blood mage and insect shaman as tools for the gm, not for players (I don't allow it for my players).
That being said, in 6th edition, there are meanest bugs, a whole UCAS army corp went to the equivalent hell and came back twisted and the like, so yes, horror is still there, but I think there are so much content that it's been diluted.
Blood Mages are better utilized as antagonists associated with Aztechnology, especially if the GM can get the runners to make an attempt at the bounty offered in Dunkelzahn's Will.
Not entirely. The Bug story gets lately a bit overplayed and it would be cool to have more horrors in a world that is combined with Cyberpunk and fantasy. I mean , even i would come up with many cool ideas except Bugcity 2 : Cybernetic boogaloo .
Homebrewing more horror-centered runs/ campaigns or more mysterious and impactful events is rather the better option than the written material that is mildly a hit or an extreme miss .
I miss the editions were the Threats books were something you had to find in game and not just throw away footnote in later editions.
I never really noticed it until the end of 5th where players were given rules for playing bug spirits and blood mages. Yes, you can argue it’s meant for GMs but if you give an opinion for character creation the players will try to use it. It’s a bit like how in D&D adventurers went from being rare bold individuals pushing back dangers to just an average job.
Player character insect shamans and blood mages?
Brother ewww...
@@TheSixthWorld I actively banned them from my games.
@zellosoli I likely would as well. That kind of power doesn't belong in a player's hands.
Plus insect shamans have always been described as pretty fraggin crazy. Doesn't make sense to have one as a player.
@@TheSixthWorld on not shamans but actual insect spirits in meta human meat bag bodies.
@@TheSixthWorld another horror aspect I just remembered being phased out was the extreme end of cyberware addiction. 4th had rules for full body cyborgs but not the classic cyber zombie and 5th removed it completely.
I’d love to see you do an Insect Spirit, Threats….and definitely Horrors…deep dive. Okay, three deep dives😂
It’s news to me that the current SR is now divided from EarthDawn, and I think that’s a shame. I have Harlequin’s Back, the novels House of the Rising Sun and just recently got Worlds Without End. To me the two worlds will always be linked. The Horrors are the great threat (I remember Harlequin scoffing at the Insect spirits as a great threat in one book).
The horror has left center stage, but there is more than enough if you look for it. Fourth edition had ghost cartells. The tempo drug wars had some really dark and nasty topics. The big 10 all have more than enough blacksites where they love to do their experiments. The whole nanites thing was a bad zombie plot, in my eyes, but the persecution of technomancers was a dark thing too.
I think shadowrun lost a lot of things
Challenge accepted. Oh, and to be fair, check out the current Disian Shadow War plotline.
The Universal Brotherhood can easily be utilized as a horror villain, especially if they can be utilized sticking their insect infested fingers into other religions. I have also been fond of using HMHVV for more of a classic horror adventure.
Damn this dude runs games like I do.
@@rf-cattleprod6207 it helps to grow up in a generation that were raised as feral latch key kids that had to find ways to entertain ourselves like watching science fiction and horror movies lol
@@johnshaffer3405 OMG, we are... brothers.
I believe what would greatly benefit - what would have greatly benefited this game now - is a book that would compile the threats and/or the horror aspects of the game, explaining to the game master the role this threat plays in the game universe, outlining its key elements, and how to portray it. Personally, that's what I expect from professional game designers. Too bad !
Magic being more of an existential dread really makes or breaks SR horror... And it's hard to write, so we can't really expect CGL to do it justice, can we?
Fair point, lol
They did attempt something like it with the body snatcher virus . But that was more of a vessel for the online game and frankly most people were sick of the idea really quick.
Wish actually to see more videogames used this world. Especially kind of horror-shooters or survival horrors. I think it be relatively easy to write scenario for it. It be really hard to suck with it if use closely enough lore info. No, really. Those RPG's which was released... Jish, almost ten years ago, feel old. So they was good, but clearly not enough.
All this stuff is still there in 4th and 5th edition. Don't know what people are saying that the horror isn't there, it's not presented as a bright transhuman future at all. There's a 5e source book called Dark Terrors that goes over all the magical horrors that are creeping around
Where you been chummer?
Literally everyone in my house has been sick for like 2 months, lol.
@@TheSixthWorld glad you survived Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome. Now time to start decking and get the trid content going.
@codychavez9839 oh yeah, it's been fun, lol. Managed to pick up an ear infection as well. I don't think I've had one of those since I was a kid. 🤣
I think the new book Scotophobia is the first book in a while that is trying to bring back the underlying horror into the game.
Here is the deal-breaker for me about scotophobia :
Those are tyranids from Warhammer 40k setting with some slight lore changes.
The designs are entirely copy-pasted .
Even the Weapons in the book you get is just stolen from WH40K .
@@Snyperwolf91 I'm okay with that. They do look like the next evolution of big and toxic spirits twisted by higher magic levels. They would fit in with the Horrors from Earthdawn.
But I get what you mean and I can see why some people wouldn't like this.
@@FMD-FullMetalDragon
Thats understandable and its all about the fun overall .
Objectivily it is somehow creatively bankrupt from CGL to steal the designs and in many aspects, the concept of tyranids but the material aint useless and even i can work with that .
I would change the creatures more into a more invasive and mysterious monstrosities that is impacted through technological and magical experiments from an attempt of few different companies with different results that underlines this clash of cyberpunk , fantasy and corpo-disaster into an event that could find itsself back in its more Shadowrun-y roots and its identity .
But i keep the weapons. Chainsaw swords are a WH40k thing but not so unfitting for Shadowrun or cyberpunk in general too .
Looks like it aint a real dealbreaker for me at the end .
If it wasn't put out by FASA, it doesn't exist to me.
The Eclipse Phase lore is great, the Eclipse Phase rules are horrible. I'd take the Shadowrun rules and play in the Eclipse Phase setting.
Hey, I made the press!
Shadowrun lost when current time caught up and passed it's lore. Shadowrun's timeline needs to be reset back to the future. Great Dance and Goblinization in the 2050's.
That's not a problem with Shadowrun. It's just an alternate universe now.
I have been having the same thoughts as both you. Yeah, it should be reset/rebooted, but I also like it as an alternative timeline.
3rd edition was fine, WhizKids had it and they kept the game moving. Shadow of North America is awesome. I didn't hate Catalyst at first but the game is bland with them writing. 6th edition is really bad. I have 2 books from that and I can't even bring myself to re-read them.
I agree. But i play 6e and rather take the older adventures books or homebrew my runs/campaigns on it because it has its own good merits . But its design and look is just way too .... harmless and devoid of any coolness whatsoever . I like to play it but not the out-of-touch artworks , the bad adventures , the horribly bad novels in between chapters in every source-book and awful DM-guides .
The system is a mess that can be saved by good homebrewing and DMing .
But the rest is just utter boring slop of the harmful mediocre kind.
@@Snyperwolf91 Homebrew all the way!!! I got home brew AD&D, I got home brew Vampire/Werewolf, I got home brew Shadowrun.
I stopped buying the newer books after trying 4th edition and not caring for the system that much. I felt it lost some of its uniqueness game mechanically.
I've stuck with 3rd edition rules and they've worked for my players all these years with only a few added touches/house rules I've taken from other people's suggestions.
I think when the system shifted to 4th edition they started diluting the background flavor which lost something that made Shadowrun what it had been up until then.
I also wonder how much of the old guard system writers stayed with the company or weren't allowed to write like they had previously. The continuity of 1st thru 3rd editions was very good as far as I could tell from everything I owned. It also felt more creative and original compared to the later stuff the couple times I tried playing later editions that other people ran (could also have been poorly run games).
I'm not that familiar with Shadowrun, but I do know that Eclipse Phase is definitely both a transhuman game and a horror game, right up to a selectable player "race" being the creepy little child.
The designers of EP also designed Shadowrun 4th edition.
Shadowrun died after 3rd
Absolutely. The only reason to Yo-ho-ho books after 3E is to run your 3E game past the date in the last book. And there's really no reason to actually buy them.