>Earthdawn... there's a lot of things I rather like about
>the setting, but the first edition is severely flawed.

Well, of course. It was the first edition of a FASA game. That meant two things were inevitable: the mechanics would be broken in interesting ways, and the binding would fall apart almost instantaneously.

>Exalted... I haven't yet read the book itself; I'm
>waiting for the unlimited edition. But the art is lush, what I've
>read of the setting is wildly imaginative

I've noticed over the last few years that "wildly imaginative" can often be read "unfathomably pretentious", especially where White Wolf's output is concerned. Although if Mark Rein-splat-Hagen wasn't involved, I suppose it might be palatable.

>and it's a prequel to
>the World of Darkness, not really set in it, either tone-wise or
>thematically.

Ah. Exalted is to the World of Insufficient Light as Earthdawn is to Shadowrun, eh? Interesting.

The thing that ticks me off about all the White Wolf material I've seen, aside from the consistently excruciating pretention level, is the fact that they're all based on the central theme, "Your character is inevitably doomed.[1] Try and do stuff for as long as you can, but sooner or later, no matter how careful you are, you're going to have to start all over."

--G.
[1] Except in Wraith, where your character is already dead.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/