[hank_woon]

Is anyone aware of any fan attempts to convert Earthdawn to SR5?

I've always been more of an Earthdawn gamer, but my group and I played a lot of SR back in the SR2 days. Been trying to keep up since, and have most of the books, but haven't actually *played* any of the editions since. Always wanted to run an ED/SR crossover campaign, and one of the hangups would be getting a group to have to learn 2 separate systems. I've always liked the SR rules more, so thought I'd give it a crack. Started converting Earthdawn books, got through a lot of the 1st Edition rules, but then realized that -- given I've never actually played SR5 -- I might be making some tremendous mistakes. So I'm hoping somewhere out there this work has already been done by someone more qualified than me.
 

[Spooky]

Not by me, but it is an interesting idea......

hmmmmm

[PiXeL01]

It’s an interesting idea indeed, but the amounts of work that would need to go into it would be staggering

[OneSidedDie]

Each game has it's own atmosphere it's trying to convey and I think they both do their jobs well using the rules they have.

Earthdawn is about grand heroics and spreading your legend while exploring a world that has been ravaged and untouched by people for 400 years.
It does this by giving you LP (legend points) not only by defeating monsters, but collecting trophies, treasure, and even telling other people about your adventures (seriously, you get LP for turning in a diary at the great library and get paid for it).
Healing is quick and easy which leads to toe to toe heroic combats.

Shadowrun is about subverting the system in a world where the rich and powerful have already won. You get karma for doing jobs and surviving with a little extra for doing it for a good cause. Combat is deadly and healing is slow or expensive. This leads to avoiding fights when possible or planning for them smartly.

Earthdawn dice all explode leading to larger than life heroics. Shadowrun dice are more of a calculated numbers game.

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't do this. I ALWAYS mix my 4th world peanut butter with my 6th world chocolate but it's the stories and interconnected history that I mix together.

Stretching the metaphor a bit, just changing the wrapper for that candy won't make it taste any better.

[hank_woon]

It’s an interesting idea indeed, but the amounts of work that would need to go into it would be staggering

In that case, would you -- or anyone else on this thread -- be willing to look over the work I've already put into it, and help steer it in the right direction?

So far I've "converted" the 1st Edition Core Rulebook, the Earthdawn Companion, the Barsaive Boxed Set, The Adept's Way, Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets, and about 75% of Arcane Mysteries of Barsaive.

My design goal was to find a way to retain the flavor of Earthdawn -- Circles, Karma Points, Spell Matrices, Threads, et al -- but try to remain as elegant as possible within the rules of SR5. I wanted to keep the idea that the adept of this era are slightly more powerful than in the 6th World. But I'm sure I've unnecessarily duplicated certain rules or made them more complicated than they should be, or underpowered/overpowered, and every other design sin. Admittedly, it's rushed and a little sloppy, but I kind of figured I would just get something working going, so when I finally could get a campaign going, I could adjust as play went along.

 

 

[iduno]

Circles would probably be the toughest to add to Shadowrun. Shadowrun's strength is that skills are all available to everyone, Earthdawn keeps most of the skills (talents) from you until you get to a higher circle. I guess you could re-add the "reactive trigger" from 1st edition Shadowrun as an ability. Maybe give (every other circle?) a bonus to either stun or physical damage tracks.

Alternatively, play with everyone as a mystic adept, treat initiations as circles, and hardcap force on spells?

Dropping classes in the conversion would help. Maybe assume you start as an ~5th circle adept in the conversion, if you're using Shadowrun rules?

[Aria]

There's a post on here somewhere titled 'Heretical Shadows' which is a fan conversion of SR to a fantasy setting, might be some pointers?

[mcv]

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I only came across this just now.

skills (talents)

Warning: talents and skills are different things. Earthdawn has skills. They're barely used, because talents are always better if you have access to them. But if you don't have access to them through your circle and want to do it anyway, you can still use skills.

Talents are quite explicitly magical abilities in Earthdawn. At least this was the case in 1st edition Earthdawn; I haven't been keeping up with later editions.

Of all the RPGs I've played, Earthdawn has by far the most tightly intertwined setting and system. Circles and disciplines are real things in Earthdawn, and not mere abstractions. Talents are magic (everybody is basically a highly specialised kind of Adept in Shadowrun terms). I personally think that converting Earthdawn to any other system would mean basically reinventing the entire Earthdawn system on top of that other system.