In a message dated 02/21/2001 10:04:32 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> From: "Scott Nimmo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > *When ED is stable and profitable they might like at making a line for
> > d20 Earthdawn but it will never be only d20
>
> When I first read Earthdawn (v1.0), I thought "FASA has proved to be a
> company run by geniuses again. Look, right there in the ability chart it
> says "here's this big honkin' chart with values from 1 to 50. And here's
> this note saying "characters start with ability scores between 3 and 18"
In
> other words, they put a D&D game right there on the shelf and pretended it
> wasn't the same game. It's got classes, races, spells, magic items, and
> monsters.
>
I can vouch for the fact that Earthdawn was deliberately designed to be
similar to D&D. In fact, I recall seeing early design documents that listed
Pros and Cons of D&D that they wanted to address with Earthdawn.
But this leads to a question for you Ryan. In your estimation, where did
Earthdawn go wrong? I think the timing of the release of the game had a part
in the game's destiny. By 1993, the RPG market was shrinking, and TCGs took
*some* money away from RPGs at the distributor and retailer levels.
Internally one of the problems is that the management expected ED to perform
as well as Shadowrun 2nd Edtion had the year before, which in a shrinking
market, was unlikely as hell. Even so, the game sold roughly 15k - 20k in the
first few months of its release, which (I think) placed it among the best
selling new RPGs of the year.
Take Care,
Lou Prosperi
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