Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Charles Phipps 03-26-08, 03:31 AM	With 4E being all about "Points of Light", I thought we'd discuss how much Eberron needs them For example, while talking to a friend from a previous Eberron campaign (The_Mess) about joining a Play By Post Wrath of the Lich Queen (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1006944), I was trying trying to explain just how dark the campaign setting was by comparison to our previous one. Michael: Just so we're clear, it's Darker than our Game? Me: Yes. Michael: Our game where you had the Mourning explicitly treated as a Nuclear Aftermath with Radiation Burns and one our characters having the background as a feral shifter turned prostitute? Me: :shifty: Uhhh...yeah. Michael: The Game where we worked for the AURRUM, yes the AURRUM, for more than half the campaign and never suspected we were helping them in taking over Khorvaire? Me: :twitch: Yeah? Michael: That's pretty damn Dark. I then realized that my Eberron was a direct contrast to our Forgotten Realms game Forgotten Realms-616 (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=983248) where heroism is pretty much treated as a de-facto answer to the rising powers of evil in the world. Things may get bad in the world of Forgotten Realms but that doesn't mean our swashbuckling heroes can't solve it! I realized, I'd turned Eberron into essentially a Noir setting at worst and Shades of Gray at the best. It occurred to me that I found it the perfect setting to play with moral uncertainty. The player character I use in my PBP was actually created as an Eberron character for my tabletop and one of the amusing aspects was always that he was a authoritarian Karrnath soldier/fascist with a sense of nobless obligation.....but still a horrible example of humanity politics wise. Some people have mentioned how Call of Cthulhu influences their games and there's some trace of that in our games. However, Call of Cthulhu is fundamentally apocalyptical. The Darkness comes from the fact that the world is doomed and essentially a meaningless place with no point to it. Oddly, I think my Eberron is more influenced by stories of World War One and Silent Hill. In other words, human beings have assigned meaning to the world and really :censored: screwed it up. I actually loved the comic Eberron: Eye of the Wolf but Keith Baker, no offense, that comic is actually used to illustrate the DARKNESS of the setting rather than it as a heroic adventure. The player characters met Mistress Greykell once and the whole joke was how the woman was a lunatic. Her passionate love for Cyre and it's cause was contrasted to the players who realized she was a believer in a MEANINGLESS cause that would only destroy the few remaining survivors of the Mourning. Thus, her heroism and grit and spirit became ironic qualities. I make it a point to generally follow these rules in my Eberron and they've so far managed to do pretty alright by me. 1. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Altruism in Eberron is not so much an absent quality as something that never quite has perfect results. While I'd never do this in Forgotten Realms, I try and always mar the victories of the heroes in some way. If they manage to slaughter a group of Children of Winter Werewolves, I make sure that the forrest is then chopped down by the Dragonmarked Houses and the people displaced for strip meaning. Also, I make it a point to realize that stuff CAN change in Eberron but its a serious question about whether or not you want to accept the consequences for doing so. You want to punish the evil Duke? Go ahead, just realize he's also the guy whose negotiating a peace treaty with the Hobgoblins. Best moment of Shadows over Cyre was slaying the Quori 'Emperor' forever and destroying his soul....and the fact the Quori were otherwise unharmed and just elected a new one. 2. Let he who is without sin, fire the first machine gun I've encouraged the player characters to essentially play a bunch of War Criminals. The Last War coats everything and almost everyone in the game is one style of Anti-Hero or another. The children growing up in the past 3 1/2 years of peace are DIFFERENT from the previous generations and its starting to creep the adults out to some extent. They don't GET the hatred and fear that's in almost everyone. Pretty much everyone is encouraged to have some dark and dismal secret from their past. 3. Demons represent more than just Monsters I like to imply that the reason that Eberron is so demon ridden and filled with monsters is partially the fact that they help represent a lot of the moral extremes that plague Eberron. Radiant Idols were uninteresting to me in Eberron until I realized I could use them to represent moral certainty and the consequences thereof. Plus, I realize that I gained a lot of ground by portraying Eberron's Demons as hopelessly more powerful than humans. So, do you go alone against the Quori or do you ally with the Lords of Dust to destroy him? 4. Real World Analogues are Modern Not Fantasy In Faerun, you have Mulhorandi the Egyptian Empire and Cormyr for Arthurian britain. In my Eberron I tend to use WW1 Germany (Karrnath), 1920s America meets Britain (Breland), and so on to represent the existing nations. Oddly, it seems to add to the grit to set them against fantasy themed versions. Here's an example of a Player-Hand out I've made. http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Campaign_Themes_and_Recommended_Reading Just how Dark is your Eberron and how Dark SHOULD Eberron be?
Amaril 03-26-08, 12:00 PM	Regarding the "points of light" concept, Eberron already uses that. If you look at a map of Khorvaire or any other continent, there are huge areas that are unsettled, and most commoners know very little about the threats between one settled area and another. Mass transportation is relatively expensive, too, making it dangerous to travel overland unless you can afford the comforts and protection from services such as Orien caravans or lightning rails. Regarding how dark Eberron should be, I don't think it's a definite thing. Eberron is dark by nature, but only if you're playing that style of campaign. It doesn't have to be dark at all. Indiana Jones was faced with a government hiding away the Ark of the Covenant, but it doesn't make the story or the world in which it occurs a dark one. That's not to say that the world couldn't be dark if you wanted it to be. There are those few who do know about the threats of the world, including the daelkyr, the Aurum, the Lords of Dust, and the Lord of Blades, and those who know of these threats see the world as the dark foreboding realm it is. Ultimately, it's all about scope, scale, and perspective. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the time available to really bring all the possible threats of the world into a campaign. Struggling with adult ADD makes basic DMing enough of a chore for me to the point where sometimes I want to stop DMing or even playing altogether. What keeps me going is the potential for these great stories. I love knowing that these bigger things exist in Eberron, I love reading about them, and I love imagining an encounter or adventure involving them. Trying to involve one or more of them is too much sometimes, and I find myself scaling back to the basics again. When you really thing about it, there's almost too much going on in the world with plotting and sheming among Dragonmarked houses, the nations of Khorvaire, the Dragons of the Chamber, the Lords of Dust, and the Daelkyr lords, and that's not even taking into account the Dreaming Dark's machinations. Now, I understand that one isn't really expected to use all of these dark elements of the setting; rather, they are to be used as a tool for creating your own stories. Still, the speculation can run wild once you start thinking about how one group might react or influence the events surrounding another. The real threat is that while one might have or use any number of these behind the scenes organizations or plots, player might not ever even know what's going on, or if they do, they probably have a limited scope or a misconception. Anyway, I've begun to digress with all of this and went off on a brainstorming thought. The bottom line is, Eberron shouldn't be any specific level of darkness. It's entirely up to what the DM and the players are looking for in their campaign.
JohnBiles 03-26-08, 02:56 PM	1. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Altruism in Eberron is not so much an absent quality as something that never quite has perfect results. While I'd never do this in Forgotten Realms, I try and always mar the victories of the heroes in some way. If they manage to slaughter a group of Children of Winter Werewolves, I make sure that the forrest is then chopped down by the Dragonmarked Houses and the people displaced for strip meaning. Also, I make it a point to realize that stuff CAN change in Eberron but its a serious question about whether or not you want to accept the consequences for doing so. You want to punish the evil Duke? Go ahead, just realize he's also the guy whose negotiating a peace treaty with the Hobgoblins. Best moment of Shadows over Cyre was slaying the Quori 'Emperor' forever and destroying his soul....and the fact the Quori were otherwise unharmed and just elected a new one. Then why bother? If everything you do is just going to result in bad results, there is no point in striving, except to just survive and make a personal profit. It seems to me that this approach of yours basically encourages people to just be self-centered bastards, since all good deeds will be punished and turned to ashes. Which if self-centered bastard PCs is what you're looking for, I suppose that's fine, but I'd hate it. (Though judging by 2, that's what you want. To me, if the world is full of demented hate-mongers and whackjobs, the PCs ought to be something else in order to contrast.) Just how Dark is your Eberron and how Dark SHOULD Eberron be? Certainly not as dark as yours. But as they say, to each their own. I see Eberron as a place where Altruists can do good, but they're largely going to have to do it by their own strength, unless they can convince other power groups it is in their self-interest to help. Eberron has lots of societies which aren't actively malevolent, but aren't overwhelmingly benevolent either. There are no Elministers, Knights of Solamnia, or Eagles of the North to help you if you get in over your head. The gods are absent and possibly imaginary. Even the nicer nations, like Breland, aren't going to go very far out on a limb to help with something that isn't their problem. Indeed, even Breland has a spy agency which is happy to brainwash and murder people if it feels it useful for national security. Nevertheless, the PCs can make a difference, in part simply because they can become powerful enough to take on entire power blocs on their own. And while there are some dark and powerful malevolent groups, those groups are as hostile to each other as to you, thus tending to keep them in check. The world is not going to save itself; it can't. But you can be the candle in the darkness which rises against the exhausted nations of Khorvaire.
Charles Phipps 03-26-08, 07:51 PM	Then why bother? If everything you do is just going to result in bad results, there is no point in striving, except to just survive and make a personal profit. It seems to me that this approach of yours basically encourages people to just be self-centered bastards, since all good deeds will be punished and turned to ashes. Actually, that's the ongoing theme. It's frequently stated by...yes, self-serving bastards, that heroes are suckers. Uniformly, our player characters usually look at them with blinding contempt and treat these people as the scum they are. Which makes me proud as a DM. Which if self-centered bastard PCs is what you're looking for, I suppose that's fine, but I'd hate it. (Though judging by 2, that's what you want. To me, if the world is full of demented hate-mongers and whackjobs, the PCs ought to be something else in order to contrast.) The PCs are. However, frankly, I don't think that anyone who wasn't in the Last War can be taken seriously by most of the populous of Khorvaire. Also, anyone who was "moral" during the Last War just effectively didn't actually DO anything in it because it was a horrible and pointless war. Thus, the PCs are people that have to cope with it's devastating after-shocks and rediscover their humanity. Eberron is a setting that makes you *WORK* for being a good guy. It's very easy to lose hope in a world that's so profoundly damaged. However, IF you can spit in the face of those broken by the experience and acknowledge "Yes, everything is going to be bad for this generation. BUT THE NEXT WILL NOT HAVE TO ENDURE THIS" then its actually one of the most hopeful. Bluntly, a hero from FR or Dragonlance will never be able to equal one from Eberron either because it's a setting really in need of Redemption rather than a person.
The_Mess 03-27-08, 12:29 AM	Then why bother? If everything you do is just going to result in bad results, there is no point in striving, except to just survive and make a personal profit. It seems to me that this approach of yours basically encourages people to just be self-centered bastards, since all good deeds will be punished and turned to ashes. In a Star Wars game Charlie ran, I played a character named Merlinda, who ended up going through the darkest run I have ever walked a character through. Set just before the first movie (the first first movie, not the second first movie), Merlinda was an Imperial engineer trying to believe the government that was was better than the alternatives. She ended up developing force powers, coming to the attention of the Sith, and being forced to her knees before the Emperor and offered the simple choice between instant eradication and swearing to serve the Sith. A scene like this only works because I trusted Charlie as a DM. I knew that, should I have chosen to do so, there was an out and Merlinda could have told the Emperor where he could stuff himself and have managed to escape. My metagame vision even let me see what rabbit he'd pull out of the hat to do it. (It occured in a force-powered area where her Jedi mother had died years earlier, a perfect location for a force ghost to show up and save her, for example, hints had already been dropped about the possibility.) I knew the choice was real and meaningful. But Merlinda fell because it didn't make any sense for her, as a character, to make any other decision. She had no metagame glasses. From that point on, she walked through hell, trying to balance her ever-slipping sense of morality against the increasingly ambiguous tasks she was asked to perform, right until the moment another character slapped her in the face with her hypocracy. When she finally put her back to the darkness and fought her way free(-ish) of the chords they had tangled her in, it was one of the high-points of my entire gaming history. And it wouldn't have worked if the world's darkness hadn't been so solid. Merlinda never defeated the Empire. She didn't get to blow up the Death Star. They'd have just built a new one anyway. All she did was reclaim her soul. And that's why you bother.
Kaizer_Ryu 03-27-08, 12:39 AM	Then why bother? If everything you do is just going to result in bad results, there is no point in striving, except to just survive and make a personal profit. It seems to me that this approach of yours basically encourages people to just be self-centered bastards, since all good deeds will be punished and turned to ashes. Encourages, yes. Forces, no. Eberron in our campaign (I'm in Shadows over Cyre as well) is dark to the point that it feels like the PCs are fighting against a seemingly invincible tide of Evil, but there are little victories here and there that keep most of them going, even as the world seems to want to crush them. As far as the Quori example is concerned, it wasn't a TOTAL loss. The Quori were not destroyed. They weren't even really hurt in the long run. But that doesn't mean the PCs didn't accomplish any good. We had two types of Quori mindsets, the canon versions that are scheming :censored:s that can out think entire Khorvarian nations, and the Mad Quori, Quori "corrupted" by their time on Eberron and beholden to the joys of the flesh (not just THAT way, you pervs! ;) ). The PCs killed off a vast majority of these Mad Quori, the Emperor included, resulting in the loss/rebirth of a great many of the Quori's more powerful members. Also, while they weren't able to close off the planar tearing that would have allowed the Quori to invade Khorvaire with barely more than a Plane hop to get there, the destruction of the Mad Quori opened up a power vacuum. Instead of threatening Khorvaire, they're now focused on repairing the damage their insane brethren caused and reasserting their dominance over the populace. So we earned a pretty significant reprieve, even if we'll have to deal with them again, probably far stronger, in the future. And characters take this constant, and probably futile, struggle in different ways. I've got one that I'm in the process of completely crushing her soul under an endless stream of personal tragedies thanks to her importance to the Prophecy. But she's still convinced that there's a light at the end of the dark tunnel that is her life. I've got another that was unknowingly (until the last minute) corrupted to Evil to pretty much the point of no return by one of our Big Bads during her efforts to rid the world of a different Big Bad. Even if her motives were revenge, her fall is still lamented by the others. Her clone (who went Good in another twist) has taken up her place, and is actually more of a true Hero archetype than her original was. A third tries desperately to hold on to the belief that things will get better EVENTUALLY, but he and those around him are gonna have to go through hell and back several times in order to keep the younger generation safe. And it eats at him that there just isn't a better way than the constant sacrifice of good people. Which if self-centered bastard PCs is what you're looking for, I suppose that's fine, but I'd hate it. (Though judging by 2, that's what you want. To me, if the world is full of demented hate-mongers and whackjobs, the PCs ought to be something else in order to contrast.)Surprisingly, the PCs ARE contrasted to the "hate-mongers and whackjobs" in different but very strong ways. Even if they're Anti-Heroes, they're still fighting the good fight (technically). Sure, we've got a few self centered PCs, but that's any campaign. You'd be surprised at how many of them are genuinely good people, but are bitter and cynical because they had to sacrifice and ignore this better side to them just to survive. Many of them have, now that their roles have changed, started to recover this side of themselves. The Points of Light are there, but they're very, very small. Siberys is dead. The only forces left intact are Evil and Neutrality, and the balance is forced horribly out of wack. Evil has been pretty much dealt a God Mode Cheat by fate. But they haven't won yet. Every horror the PCs send back to the pit that spawned it is one more day Khyber doesn't win. One more day the children can live free of the horror that infects the lives of so many. If that's not altruism in its basest form, I don't know what is.
Charles Phipps 03-27-08, 02:02 AM	My special thanks to both my above players for adding their particular views on the subject to the game. Some of it may seem to be pretty overthetop for Eberron but everyone's game is a bit different and this is just show and tell. Don't fear the Reaper guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMYSWiPm7E0 I think one of the interesting themes is that in Sin City. You've got a number of different reactions to the conditions of Noir. Now, Sin City is worse than Eberron as I'd play it because it's a hyper-exaggeratted Noir setting. Everything is on overdrive in terms of sex, violence, and grit but the basics are still pretty much the same. * Take Marv, who'd be a Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc in Eberron, for example. Marv is a pure killing machine. He's an animal of grunting rage, lust, and murder. However, Marv is an overall gentle soul. It's only that the violence that he's CAPABLE of is harnassed by his desire to avenge Goldie and in the book A Dame to Kill For, effectively he's just put into a situation of slaughtering bad guys because a friend asks him too. Certainly, you could run Marv's storyline in Eberron by replacing the man he murders with an Archbishop of Flame or perhaps a Sovereign Host High Priest (which makes sense because Keith keeps reminding us it's the Hosters who are the militant "convert by the sword" types). The Last War effectively did this to a lot of people and it's interesting to speculate how many Marvs are leftover who have been made into killers but now have no socially acceptible avenue for that. They become PCs obviously. Oddly, a more direct example of the war would be John Rambo in the first movie. * Next we've got Hartigan who bears the unfortunate stigma of being Lawful Good in a horrible world gone mad. The simple fact is that Sharn and other cities in Eberron do not run on the principles of justice, they run on money. All too much like the real world, Eberron is economically developed enough that the rich can do anything they want without consequence but socially developed enough that unfortunatelty the peasantry realize this just isn't right. Hartigan's story is, without spoilers, a pretty nasty one throughout. He has to suffer tremendously to protect a little girl and all because he did the right thing. Nevertheless, this sacrifice cripples the O'Roarke Family. * Finally, we've got Dwight whom honestly may or may not be evil himself but it doesn't matter. Dwight is a hero because in Eberron, Dwight protects people that he likes (prostitutes in the movie---we'll leave out A Dame to Kill For) and kills a :censored: load of people that are pestilances on society. Dwight is a product of the foul urban environment but like Neuromancer and Cyberpunk heroes that dwell in games like Shadowrun, we can appreciate his adventures because he arguably makes the place better by simply eliminating a lot of people like him. Eberron is, unless you play the most overpowered and lengthy Epic game ever, a game without a Destruction of the Ring. You can't destroy all the evil in Eberron and there won't be a final battle with it. You can, however, contribute to making it a slightly less dark world. Sort of like Batman in Gotham City. When played straight, Gotham City is a dangerously corrupt and crime ridden town that is probably the worst city in America for violence. Except, the irony is that this is WITH Batman. It's best not to imagine what the city would be like WITHOUT Batman.
Lord_Tirian 03-27-08, 07:11 AM	Every horror the PCs send back to the pit that spawned it is one more day Khyber doesn't win. One more day the children can live free of the horror that infects the lives of so many. You mean, it's basically like Call of Cthulhu? Because it's the same. Unspeakable horrors exist, only waiting to destroy the world as we know it. And in that atheist universe, there is no final reward, no afterlive, yet a quiet death is one of the best fates, as you don't go insane, at least. And as an investigator, you are destined to die a horrible death - if you're lucky, if you're unlucky, you will end up in eternal torment, as in a Mi-Go brain canister. And whatever you do, the Old Ones WILL wake, mankind IS doomed, everything will be lost forever, and mankind will disappear without anything noticing - the only thing you can accomplish is eking out some extra days of blissful ignorance for humanity, before everything is lost forever. But saving it? Impossible. Wait, unspeakable horrors? No afterlive? I think this starts to sound like a certain campaign setting... Not that there's anything wrong with it! ;) Cheers, LT.
Charles Phipps 03-27-08, 07:30 AM	Wait, unspeakable horrors? No afterlive? I think this starts to sound like a certain campaign setting... There might be an Afterlife for the faithful in Eberron (The Silver Flame is an automatic success for those who want "transcendental bliss") also. It's just not for the Sovereign Host worshipers or atheists. Bizarrely, I tend to think that Eberron is more like Red Dawn than Call of Cthulhu (Old Ones aside). But really, it's the fact that Eberron MIGHT someday become a good place. It's just not going to happen for the generation of 998 A.G.'s populace. They're hopelessly shell-shocked and living with a century of hatred on their backs plus monsters on every side of them. Basically, you're not fighting for yourself (though you certainly CAN live a good and happy life in Eberron), you're fighting for the next three or four generations down. THEY might someday be free of the Rajahs, Quori, Daelkyr, and Emerald Claw.
Kaizer_Ryu 03-27-08, 09:05 AM	Basically, you're not fighting for yourself (though you certainly CAN live a good and happy life in Eberron), you're fighting for the next three or four generations down. THEY might someday be free of the Rajahs, Quori, Daelkyr, and Emerald Claw.Yeah, this is more the impression I was going for. Most of the characters have pretty much given up the idea that they'd be able to live free of the Last War's terrible legacy, or the sleeping Evils that have existed in Eberron since the Daelkyr War, or even the Demon Age, but they might just be able to make it so future generations can. It's just really unlikely and very much a thankless task.
ratslinky 03-27-08, 09:03 PM	Basically, you're not fighting for yourself (though you certainly CAN live a good and happy life in Eberron), you're fighting for the next three or four generations down. THEY might someday be free of the Rajahs, Quori, Daelkyr, and Emerald Claw. I think what the current generation really needs to be fighting for is a world free of Kaizer_Ryu ;). EDIT: Sorry Kaizer that was a bit mean.
Charles Phipps 03-27-08, 09:05 PM	Very droll and not very polite to a fellow player, Ratslinky.