Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Maelflux 12-02-04, 07:04 AM	Finally I got to playtest Eberron, after having fiddled with it for months! One thing that really boggled me though, was that the 3 friends I tested it with all made characters of a more shadowy type, than your usual hero.. In fact all of them had pretty much something of an assassin stereotype in their character, and these were made independently of each other! Anyways, it is nothing my campaign can not handle, but still I am curious if anyone else here have experienced that the setting in some ways seems to either open up for, or appeal for more shady characters, than one would usually find in a D&D campaign? :confused: My own best guess atm is, that having been in a war, some archetypes stand out more than others for player characters. And even though a soldier type might be more common, it is no where near as exciting a background as a lone assassin, or something in that direction.. :)
Splendide 12-02-04, 07:35 AM	I've found the opposite - I'm usually drawn to dodgy characters, so this setting makes that work. :D
MrFilthyIke 12-02-04, 08:25 AM	I like "dodgy heros" myself...but the key thing is they are still heros. Anti-Heros, but heros none the less. :)
Lanthir 12-02-04, 09:30 AM	It seems like the setting gets people into making less black & white characters :) I myself play a fairly dodgy one instead of the usual goodie-goodie two shoes I normally run around with :D And the :censored: GM didn't bother to read the characters background to well so I better talk to the guy before the next time we play since he might get a tad upset that in reaction, to something he thought would be fun to do by picking one thing out of the background, I'll probably have to kill the group :banghead: (well as GM myself I know that this will result in a failed attempt but anyhow it's bad anyway you look at it).
Gurv 12-02-04, 10:15 AM	I would thing that Eberron would do that, yes. Black and white characters are not likely to be able to do what they have to do in the setting. Even paladins, who still represent the extreme good, have to deal with things like corrupt clerics within their own Church and whether purging an dangerous thing like lycanthropy is the right thing to do. Although you can play an idealist in Eberron, I think the most successful characters will be the ones who want to do good, but are willing to accept that sometimes you have to deal with the lesser evil. And I think that the best adventures to run in an Eberron campaign are those with goals more materialistic than "defeating evil". Do things "for king and country" rather than "in the name of god".
Maelflux 12-02-04, 10:16 AM	Yeah, I guess you're right Lanthir, that the setting is less black and white than the usual campaigns. In those you are most often a goodie two-shoes, but also have the options of running evil campaigns, - while Eberron seems to open up for a great spectrum of shady characters. My silly adventurers got really caught up in the heist of Xen'drik (much to my surprise actually!), and decided that they would plan on getting to Sharn and further south into Xen'drik given the chance.What I think will cause great problems is the fact that 2 of them are *really* accustomed to luxury, and though they really want to adevnture into the jungles, they were *****ing and moaning most of the night because they had to sleep on bedrolls near a common road in Aundair.. (and of course they forgot to bring food, tent and such things as well.. as they usually just order those things, hehe). So I am really awaiting these spoiled "bratty" adventurers arrival to Sharn and Xen'drik :plotting: On a sidenote, I fully agree that nothing good ever can come out of in-player fighting, and killing of other characters. It usually tends to leave a bad mood, whether successful or not... :coolcthul <-- omg some awesome smilies! This place just keeps outranking everything in this century!!
Kanne 12-04-04, 09:03 PM	Personally, i don't like having evil characters. mostly because its nearly impossable to come up with something for them to do! i DM'ed a game where one of the characters contracted lycanthropry(however you spell it) and decided to keep it. After that i couldent find anything that: A, chalenged them without putting the rest of the group in danger. because after being damaged a little he would change and thats the end of that fight. B, An adventure that would fit the whole group. we had a werewolf/fighter(chaotic evil) a lawful-neutral cleric a true neutral rouge and a neutral good wizard. i don't mind them being a little shady (swipes a coin here and there) but so long as their still the good guy. I like the fact the ebberon has made room for such characters but i still find it hard to find something for them to do besides small crimes.
grey muse 12-04-04, 09:13 PM	You think *you* have evil characters? Of my four, starting tomorrow, three are evil and one is ... antisocial :): - one kalashtar who supports the quori, and serves an agent of the Dreaming Dark - one warrior of house Deneith who wants to become a blackguard, and is willing to sacrifice the party to do it - one worshipper of Vol who supports the Emerald Claw and wants to ascend to undeath and the antisocial, - one bastard half-elf of Valenar blood who only fights to pick on weaker folk than him. The Inspired are supposed to be the big bad guys in this campaign, and half the party willingly serves them! Argh! ... alright, only a quarter, but the kalashtar will probably introduce the Deneith warrior to the Inspired so he can meet his "friendly encounter with evil outsider" requirement. *sigh* grey muse
Kanne 12-04-04, 09:27 PM	Ouch! thats harsh. How do you think your campaign will run then? I suppose each of the characters will continue to work with each-other. Like you said the warrior can continue with the psion to become a blackguard i dbout the Vol worshiper cares about much else but becoming an undeath and the antisocial sounds like a ppushover that'll do what hes told. But it totally screws over your plot. Lucky enough you can still work with it. You could do the reverse of the classic campaign and have the Pc's 'special agents' of some sort working for the Inspired...
grey muse 12-04-04, 09:55 PM	(ok, this has some spoilers for my campaign, so) IF YOU'RE IN THE SUNDAY GAME AT MIKE HOLT'S HOUSE IN DAYTON, OH, STOP READING NOW!!! I don't really think any of my players read this board, but just in case. :) This is actually the first campaign I've run in a long time, so I'm hoping it all works out. I've been wracking my brain trying to make things fit. The party is together from the start because they're all employed by Deneith. The idea was that they would work for them for a while, discover Big Bad House Secrets(TM), and leave the house to become major players in their own right in the power struggle at higher levels. That's not going to quite work now. I'm not sure what to do about the kalashtar. I'm hoping that she'll roleplay her character realizing, "Wow, these quori do really BAD things," but I'm not sure she will. It may come down to her choosing between the party and the Dreaming Dark at higher levels, and I don't know which way she'll go. The Deneith warrior is actually the samurai class (from Complete Warrior), so he's not going to betray his lord if he can avoid it because he doesn't want to lose his ki strike ability. I'm going to try to get him to serve the Lords of Dust, because I figure it'll make for amusing havoc among the players if they all serve different evil agencies. I don't know if he'll go for that, but I'm hoping he'll decide to serve the house rather than a particular individual in the house, in which case it would behoove him to try to battle the corruption he finds within the house. We'll see. The Vol-worshipper will probably be pretty benign. He's also a Cyran noble. He wants to be a spy-type, so I'm thinking of having the Emerald Claw use him to keep tabs on the Cyrans in Sharn, and having the Cyrans use him to monitor Deneith. :) I want to work it, if possible, so he's spying on all the groups he's working for, for another of the groups he's working for. The thought amuses me to no end. The half-elf is actually a lot of fun, definitely the most archetypical Eberron character of the bunch. He gave me a few story hooks -- a murdered mother, a hatred of house Vadalis trying to steal his clan's horses, and overall abuse by his clan for his half-blood nature. But he's sort of the wild card; I'll put him in whatever plots he fits. grey muse
Ramses III 12-05-04, 04:18 AM	Sounds like fun. I hope my players in my upcoming campaign are so creative. Frankly I won't mind if they are evil, as it's a political/intrigue campaign that will get really fun if they bust out a lot of espionage and assassination type stuff.
Lara Flynn 12-05-04, 08:47 AM	I don't have much of a problem with my group being somewhat evil, though it serves for some tension in the group. LG elven paladin, N half-orc druid, NE human warlock, CN halfling rogue. Circumstances keep them working together. Mr. NE has no choice for he despises those the group fights and he never kills without a reason (though a good reason might be fun or the like). It's kinda difficult but manageable. And I like it. Eberron grants the chance to create more realistic heroes. Some of them being ruthless and brutal other with a bunch of doubts or some who don't care at all but still do what they do being forced to do so. And it's not that detect evil grants for being slayn instantly. To my mind the adventures offer pretty much room for this concept too. From "The Forgotten Forge" to "Whsipers of a Vampire's Blade" the characters always have more than one reason to do what they are supposed to do. And it's even easier within homebrew adventures.
Gurv 12-05-04, 03:15 PM	Personally, i don't like having evil characters. mostly because its nearly impossable to come up with something for them to do! i DM'ed a game where one of the characters contracted lycanthropry(however you spell it) and decided to keep it. After that i couldent find anything that: A, chalenged them without putting the rest of the group in danger. because after being damaged a little he would change and thats the end of that fight. B, An adventure that would fit the whole group. we had a werewolf/fighter(chaotic evil) a lawful-neutral cleric a true neutral rouge and a neutral good wizard. i don't mind them being a little shady (swipes a coin here and there) but so long as their still the good guy. I like the fact the ebberon has made room for such characters but i still find it hard to find something for them to do besides small crimes. The problems you've had have nothing to do with the characters being evil. The first was a matter of a template that increased your LA so that you were basically higher level then they were. The second was that the party consisted of too many varying alignments; even removing one character wouldn't have solved all the problems. There is just as much for evil characters to do as there is for good ones. There is a difference, however. Good characters face the challenge of getting things done while doing it "right", while evil characters do not. Evil characters are challenged with getting away with things that most people views as "wrong". Completely different styles of game, but neither provides more or less to do than the other. In Eberron, I hope that most characters are heros, more than I care about their motives. But that doesn't mean that the heroes have to be good. Neutral heroes should be at least as prolific. And evil characters can be heroes once in a while too, dispite themselves. Look at a character like Riddick. I've heard arguements for him not being evil, but never one for his being good, and he made an excellent hero, even if he didn't want to be. Adventures don't have to be about righting some wrong. Sometimes they can be about money. Some could be about revenge (against or by a character, or towards someone they know). They could be about exploration (what is at the bottom of the Glowing Chasm?). But they don't all have to be good guys vs. bad guys to be fun adventures. Even those who oppose you on an adventure don't have to be evil. They can just be other guys trying to do their thing, or even others trying to be just like you and get there first. Saving princesses from dragons is a different kind of game.
trapspringer 12-05-04, 06:01 PM	IMC, the characters set off to teh east on their way to make a fortune. On the way, they saved an assimar chik from a xenphobic 'white knight' cult, trapped the entire cult in a big barn, and burned it down. They then proceeded to hijack a train and eventually recued a group of caravaners from piratical mountain raiders. This is when the evil starts. They reach a prominent eastern town (not asian, eastern) and find it to be very cold, despite the norm of temperate climants. It turns out an evil level 10 Half-elf expert buit around UMD has aquired an earth-shaking tomb of 'ICE-8.' The players rush to the top of this big tower (guided by a vision) and reach the top floor, where they find this elf to be quite insane and nearly finished. He hands them popcorn and invites them to sit on the couch and watch the destruction of sharn at his hands. They say "sounds fun." So, Sharn is covered in a thick layer of ice. Fortunately, I placed a floating isalnd over the city. On this island lived the goliath race from ROS. They provided aid to sharn. Still. Geeze. That is evil. A maniacle little elf sits back laughing over his cataclysm-inducing hobby and the players say, "Sounds fun."
wizard of oz 12-06-04, 01:54 AM	IMC, the characters set off to teh east on their way to make a fortune. On the way, they saved an assimar chik from a xenphobic 'white knight' cult, trapped the entire cult in a big barn, and burned it down. They then proceeded to hijack a train and eventually recued a group of caravaners from piratical mountain raiders. This is when the evil starts. They reach a prominent eastern town (not asian, eastern) and find it to be very cold, despite the norm of temperate climants. It turns out an evil level 10 Half-elf expert buit around UMD has aquired an earth-shaking tomb of 'ICE-8.' The players rush to the top of this big tower (guided by a vision) and reach the top floor, where they find this elf to be quite insane and nearly finished. He hands them popcorn and invites them to sit on the couch and watch the destruction of sharn at his hands. They say "sounds fun." So, Sharn is covered in a thick layer of ice. Fortunately, I placed a floating isalnd over the city. On this island lived the goliath race from ROS. They provided aid to sharn. Still. Geeze. That is evil. A maniacle little elf sits back laughing over his cataclysm-inducing hobby and the players say, "Sounds fun." That reaches from evil to needlessly cruel. In the campaign I was just in I was the only Evil person. We had a "neutral" warforged from the lord of blades, a spy from Phiarlan (but he dropped out) my character was an empty vessel. We figured we could be immoral but still work for a neutral 3rd party on Korvaire. I would spy for Riedra, and Phiarlan, but otherwise be normal. The DM failed to mension that the Riedrans were the main bad guys. he said the bad guys were the Emerald claw (It lies to us. It hurts us). Well the Elan Kineticist and I took out 5 other party members at the end of the campaign in 2 rounds. still it was fun to "win." our DM was laughing at the end too.
Lanthir 12-06-04, 12:31 PM	In my Eberron campaign I've got a changeling that is more of a dark knight then the white one. He'll lie, cheat, steal candy from a baby, rob a beggar from his daily income, murder, sleep your wife/husband (and you as well, being a changeling and all) and do some worse things based on the end justifies the means. And that is not like he's playing normal, where he takes the paladin, a cleric of Tyr, the rogue that rather starves then not hand you his last food, etc. Maybe he's grown up maybe it might be the setting.