| From: | John Wicker <saxon@***.NET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The SR/ED Connection |
| Date: | Wed, 12 Nov 1997 16:06:09 -0600 |
I've been lurking on the list for what seems like forever, and one of the
most common threads that I see popping up is a comparison between Earth
Dawn and Shadowrun mechanics.
Inevitably, it comes up when discussing immortal elves, anchoring, auras or
the like-- always some magical aspect of the sixth world, and always a
question about what we can infer from Earthdawn as it might apply to
Shadowrun.
In a lot of respects, this reminds me of one of the trends in the study of
literature. Without getting too longwinded, many critics have stopped
looking at an author's environment, biography and all the other drek that
we might attach to a one of their works, and are looking exclusively at the
work itself. For example, just because Charles Dickens struggled with
poverty as a child, bounced from home to home and relative to relative, and
happens to have the same initials as David Copperfield (except in reverse),
many critics are now looking exclusively at _David Copperfield_ and
ignoring the fact that these same things basically happen in the novel. In
other words, the assumption that _David Copperfield_ is auto-biographical
in nature is merely an assumption on our parts since it was introduced as a
work of fiction, a fact which remained unchanged by the author.
One of the catch-phrases for this style of criticism might be "It's very
intersting that [insert author] once had such an experience, but where does
this happen in the text?". In other words, these critics are looking solely
at what is involved in and directly related to the work in question.
There have been discussions about this sort of thing on the list, albeit in
a slightly different form, usually concerning the actions of some character
in a novel, or the opinions expressed by a line developer or author.
Generally, these things are discussed in terms of "cannon" and
"non-cannon".
The crux of all of this, however, is how much we can information from
Earthdawn we can relate to Shadowrun. I would say that the amount is pretty
much none.
Let me just say that I don't play Earthdawn. I'm not very familiar with it,
and I don't want to get into a huge debate over the simularities between
the two games. But it would seem to me that there's a reason that the two
gaming systems aren't related-- the stats are completely different and are
not interchangable without major conversion. This seperates the two, in my
mind. Even if a character transfers from one "universe" to the other,
that's no different than a character popping up from one novel to the next.
If we concentrate only on what is found in the existing universe, those
actions directly before us and available for review, then what difference
does it make if something happened one way here, and another way somewhere
else?
I've sat in front of Tom Dowd as he told me that Earthdawn is made up from
the "Shadowrun back story" that was developed to differentiate SR from
Cyberpunk 2020. I know that Harlequin and company were running around on
Barsaive, if you accept the novels as cannon. I know that Horrors are
running around here and there in both universes. What I want to know is
this: Aside from the obvious "don't use it in your game if you don't like
it", why should we truly look at anything in Earthdawn as being relational
to SR? I don't think its cannon, even if its neat to think about.
Just my two nuyen (and longwinded despite myself),
John Wicker,
saxon@***.net
