Fourth World 1.5

#1

The latest (and probably last) version of Fourth World, my “drift” of Dungeon World to support the setting of Earthdawn, is now available. It is targeted at supporting longer-term campaign play.

For those that don’t know, Earthdawn is a high-fantasy game created by FASA in 1993. Like most games from this era, it has an extremely detailed body of setting information, and terrible mechanics. It was, however, a cut above a typical fantasy heartbreaker, particularly setting wise. The world is actually the distant past of the setting in Shadowrun, with some characters existing in both. (If you squint a bit, the setting also has some similarities to the Fallout series of video games.)

If you tinker with Dungeon World, but aren’t so interested in the Earthdawn setting, you might still want to take a look. Some design tech in there might be useful to you. If you have questions about the choices I made, here is the place to ask.

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#2

Earthdawn is now back in the hands of a resurrected FASA, who held a Kickstarter for the fourth edition not long ago. They introduce the setting like this. They categorize it as “hopeful, post-apocalyptic fantasy”, which sounds about right to me.

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#3

I always LOVED the world of Earthdawn, and hated how cumbersome the system was (I remember, back in high school we met for a session and managed to only finish a single combat of 4 PCs and around 10 enemies). I mean, the system was fine (and even interesting) by the 90s standard, but I wanted something less crunchy. However, the setting is where the world has really shined. I feel like it struck a right balance between being derivative of Tolkien and doing its own thing.

Earthdawn is the only major fantasy game that has a good explanation of why there are so many “dungeons” in the world. I will take a Kaer over any other fantasy dungeon any time! It was the only “high fantasy” that ever made sense to me.

With all that - I am really glad you are making a PbtA version of it. I will dig into the rules in the near future. Just know, that even if I might not be playing it right now, I am very thankful for your hard work.

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#5

Apropos of nothing, but every time I see that header I get excited about a Jack Kirby New Gods hack someone did, and every time I am disappointed. I won’t stop looking, though.

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#7

One day, I’ll read the 1500 page omnibus that I have on my bookshelf at work, and I’ll be motivated to build a New Gods game. Probably won’t be PbtA, though.

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