Earthdawn

I’ve spent a lot of time sitting around a table rolling dice and pretending to be someone I’m not.  Like most role playing groups I started with Dungeons and Dragons.  It didn’t take long after that though and I was buying rule books from any game I could get my hands on.  I can still vividly remember the first time I saw the Shadowrun book sitting on a store shelf.  It was at a store called Comic’s Etc which is long gone.  The movie theater it was next to is now a hair salon and cosmetology school.  The Fun Machine arcade it was across from, I don’t even know what is in that space now, I just know it isn’t Street Fighter cabinets. 

Shadowrun is one of my gaming group’s favorite games.  It’s something we always come back to after trying something different.  So when the publishers of Shadowrun created a fantasy game called Earthdawn we were already interested.  Slowly in the game’s fiction we were teased that Earthdawn and Shadowrun were set in the same world.  We were hooked.  Suddenly we had dropped our machine guns for crystal swords.  We went from Street Samurai to Sword Masters, our Deckers became Beast Masters, and our Mages became…well they stayed Mages actually. 

The first edition of Earthdawn was released in 1993.  It went out of print in 1999.  After that there have been fan re-launches giving us the second edition, the classic edition, and the third edition.  Now a new Fasa is on Kickstarter raising funds for a new edition.  The Kickstarter is for a new Player’s Guide and a new Gamemaster’s Guide.  Right now the reward choices involve PDF copies, softcover, and hardcover books.  If you want to get really ambitions you can pay to have the game developer run you through an online game.

This kickstarter started on the 13^th and has already raised the 10,000 they were looking for.  That doesn’t mean you don’t want to go check it out yourself though, especially if you’re a fan of the role playing game.  Additional funds are just going to help the other books they have planned get published, so it’ll help things a new Companion or a book on the Questors.  They haven’t added these stretchgoals to the Kickstarter yet, but I don’t think they were expecting to clear their goal so quickly.  There are still 29 days to go in this, so it is probably worth keeping an eye on.  Check it out for yourself by clicking HERE

Shadowrun Returns First Look

Last year I shared with you the Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns.  Shadownrun is one of my favorite pen and paper RPGs but also has a history in video games.  The Shadowrun Returns Kickstater was set up to fund a brand new Shadowrun video game.  This is a roleplaying game, so it will be nothing like the last game that came out for the X-Box 360.  The fundraiser was extremely successful and the team has been hard at work on the game.  Now we can see exactly what they’ve been working on.

The video above is almost 20 minutes worth of game play footage.  If you’re a fan of the Shadowrun setting I think you’ll be very happy with what they are showing off.  This is a game I’m very excited for so expect to see more on it as it gets closer to release.

One last note, I’m going to be taking some time off for Megacon and other things this week.  So That F’ing Monkey is going to take a break until next Tuesday.

Shadowrun Returns

I still remember the first time I saw the Shadowrun RPG. It was way back in its first edition and I was at a comic store that has been closed for many, many years. I had already played the Cyberpunk roleplaying game, but this was something that had everything Cyberpunk had and it included magic. Suddenly there were visions of Troll Street Samurai running through my thoughts. It was a game setting I fell in love with and have followed for many, many years.

When the Sega Genesis came out with a Shadowrun game I was blown away. I think I played through as all three of the choices. I’m pretty sure I went Samurai first, then Gator Shaman, and finally as a Decker. I loved it. Years past and we got an Xbox 360 Shadowrun game, that might have been okay on its own, but it didn’t feel like Shadowrun.

Wednesday Shadowrun creator Jordan Weisman put up a Kickstarter to fund a brand new Shadowrun game. Not a sequel to the 360 version, but a single player turn based RPG for the PC. This is the game people have been waiting for. How do I know that? It only took 28 hours to reach the goal of 400,000. 28 hours. There is still plenty of time to get in on this though. Pledging just 15 dollars will get you a copy of the game. Some of the higher level rewards are amazing. The more money they make, the more they can do things like add Mac support.

As of right now the game is expected to launch on January of 2013. From everything on the Kickstarter it looks worth the wait.