Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Avarius 01-21-06, 07:22 AM	First, let me say how much I love the Eberron world. :D Now my problem. I've been a DM for years now, but have just begun my first Eberron campaign. I only have two players currently (I know, but my group has shrunk over the years). Both are from Aundair and have travelled down to Sharn. One of them is a young woman from House Vadalis who is being trained to become a diplomat for the House (Human Bard), and the other is another marked human from House Deneith, who is protecting her on the way. House Deneith is trying to cultivate a more...."refined" image to the young woman who will one day be more influencial to Vadalis. They want to forge an agreement to allow a small unit of mercenary dragonhawks. At least in my campaign. Anyway, they have travelled to Sharn where the young woman has begun training with the diplomat of House Vadalis, but after a month they realise that the bodyguard is not really necessary anymore, and he has become a Blademark in Upper Tavicks Landing. Now here is my problem. I love the world, and I'm very inspired, but I'm stuck. I have spent over a week trying to think of what to do next. I want to get them involved in some intruige, but I'm concerned that there will be less opportunities for them to fight and gain experience. I would have them leave Sharn to start their adventuring, but I can't think of a way to remove the diplomat-in-training from her position while still building on her feel, and get her back together with the male character who is patrolling in Upper Tavick. I can't think of a way to get them together again, and set them on some adventure. Sadly, this is killing my campaign. We are all eager to keep playing, but I am dumbfounded. I need a good story idea, or some advice. Please...I need your help. :confused:
Werwoelfin 01-21-06, 08:24 AM	Maybe this young diplomat is sent to a little test mission outside Sharn as her teachers think she needs some practice with "normal" people or whatever (maybe the real reason is to get her away as she is close to finding sth out). On her mission, she realizes there seems to be something going wrong, in a very big way and that her house is involved, so she would not know who to trust and must begin with some investigations with the help of her bodyguard, of course.
Lord Psynister 01-21-06, 09:12 AM	Send the girl to another House's location to have a minor discussion with them. She just happens to cross the area that the bodyguard is patrolling just as she's being attacked by a rebel band of the Lord of Blades's followers. He jumps in and helps save the day, she realizes once again that she is in need of a bodyguard whenever she's not in her safe, little building, and they get together for the time that she's speaking to the other house, and on the way back. But, when she gets back, she finds that she's being sent to another city, a bit suddenly, and without any explanation, on a mission she knows she know's she's not really ready for, or that she thinks doesn't really need to be done to begin with. Something fishy going on here, and nobody willing to give any information on it. Why is she being sent out? Well, because the member of her house that's in charge of her training right now happens to have a deal with some of the LoB's warforged and their stupid little messenger-pieces flew off after the bodyguard killed them, and now this guy's either going to get in trouble, or he's going to have to do away with the girl. He doesn't have the testicular-fortitude required to do it himself, of course, so he's arranged for the warforged to set up an ambush out along the player's path to the other city (pick one). They'll get started on their adventuring, there's several encounters you can use with the LoB in the mix, and you can start feeding them clues from the other 'forged bands that leads them to other places.
johnkretzer 01-21-06, 01:28 PM	I don't have any specific ideas but you can run intriuge that doesn't involve combat and still give them exp. I personaly don't like the cr experience system and give out exp based on the adventure and generally ignore crs. Even if you use the cr system though it states you get the exp. for defeating the encounter. This doesn't mean you have to kill or fight the encounter.
perrywrogers 01-22-06, 11:27 AM	When I'm stuck for ideas, I look to the weekly update of the Sharn Inquisitive for ideas. With all of the recent activity about the post-war rebuilding activities in eastern Breland, her house may be looking for a piece of that action. Maybe she should go on a field trip- alone or with a mentor- to put her new skills and status to work for the house. Either way, she needs protection in that rather wild region.
nfras 01-22-06, 08:55 PM	Here's an idea that was kicking around in my head for a while before I gave up 'cos it didn't fit my campaign. The Vadalis PC has been asked to intervene in a dispute between Vadalis and Deneith. A Deneith heir was killed by some sort of animal in Sharn (or wherever, I really wanted to set it in Eldeen Reaches). deneith say that the animal was a new Vadalis mage bred animal that he had "on trial" while Vadalis claim no knowledge of the incident. In reality a rogue Vadalis heir has been creating mage bred Shifters and a Deneith heir was trailling it. The shifter sensed an opportunity to gain freedom and killed the Deneith and fled. Can the PCs track down those responsible and prevent the Vadalis/Deneith relationship from suffering?
Cloud Divider 01-22-06, 09:02 PM	Now here is my problem. I love the world, and I'm very inspired, but I'm stuck. I have spent over a week trying to think of what to do next. A good place to start is to ask yourself "What kinds of campaign styles interest me?", and then following up with "What kinds of campaign styles interest my players?" By style, I'm meaning something more along the lines of movie genres - Action/Adventure, Horror, Conspiracy, Espionage, Exploration, and so on. One of the things I've discovered is that once I get a good feel for what kinds of games I'm in the mood to run, it's much easier for me to keep going and come up with stuff that I can get enthused about. What your players like is also useful - though in my experience, few players will be outspoken enough to tell you anything more detailed than "whatever you want to run..." However, if you can find something that gets you REALLY fired up, usually the enthusiasm is contagious and you can keep the players' attention as well as your own. Sharn's a FANTASTIC place for an Eberron campaign - it's all too easy to play towards any of the mentioned genres. Action/Adventure? That's easy enough - you've got a Gang War in the making between Daask and the Boromar, among numerous other options. Even if the politics are in the background, you could have quite the high-octane campaign focused around the hired bodyguards of a Person of Interest. Horror? You've got goblinoids in Undersharn, spooky artifacts of Dhakaani or Xen'drik who-knows-what dragged back by well-meaning archaologist/graverobbers out of Morgrave. There's liches in the graveyard, and vampires down below. Rakshasa demons masquerading about town and up to no good. The ever-popular Cults of the Dragon Below. Conspiracy? The Inspired is my personal favorite conspiracy. Just flipping through Sharn, we discover that the Inspired have their fingers in an awful lot of pies. You've got antimonarchists, trying to depose Boranel. You've got powerful Dragonmarked Houses who may think of themselves as being above the law (or that they ARE the law). Sharn is just full of movers-and-shakers, and the conspiracies can run the full range from local (power struggles within Sharn's upper crust) to national (antimonarchists), to international (the Aurum, the Dragonmarked Houses, etc), to global (Dreaming Dark, Lords of Dust, the Chamber, etc). Espionage? Many nations and political entities have official presences in the city (Embassies and the like), plus the Dragonmarked Houses. It'd be all too easy to put something together... Exploration? That's a bit harder... But between actually exploring the layers and layers of abandoned Undersharn and the various expeditions to Xen'drik that use Sharn as the staging area, you're pretty well covered. I want to get them involved in some intruige, but I'm concerned that there will be less opportunities for them to fight and gain experience. That's easy enough to solve - go for ad hoc experience awards. Then your players aren't artificially forced to look at every conflict in terms of a fight. Something I'd always wanted to do, but never had the chance, is to have a non-Sharn Deneith in Sharn. I'm going to avoid the spoilers, but there's just WAY too much juicy potential with how "wierd" the local Deneith are, and what evil fun I could have with a Deneith PC who stumbles across the "truth." If you've got the Sharn sourcebook, I seriously recommend looking into what's Really Going On in House Deneith in Sharn. If you can read that, and still come up short on ideas, I don't know if there's much I can do for you... ;) As you mentioned, your Deneith PC has been patrolling Upper Tavick, it's quite likely he's already run into some of the "unusual" practices - especially if he started running across an unusual number of Sharn Deneith in the vicinity of Copper Arch who don't otherwise have business in the area. All it'd take to kickstart that arc is to have the PC come across some irrefutable evidence of unusual practices among the Deneith (either from a "deep throat" source that can then get mysteriously killed off, or observed on his own). I would have them leave Sharn to start their adventuring, but I can't think of a way to remove the diplomat-in-training from her position while still building on her feel, and get her back together with the male character who is patrolling in Upper Tavick. I can't think of a way to get them together again, and set them on some adventure. Well, is it safe to assume that the two PC's have "history" together, with them both being from Aundair? If that's so, I'd just rely on that as a way to bring the two of them back together. Even if they only got to know each other on the trip to Sharn, that may be enough. Let's say that your Deneith finally ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time and has now Seen Too Much. His Vadalis friend may be the one person he feels he can actually trust in Sharn. So bring them together out of necessity... Where the arc goes from there is the Deneith PC trying to survive the schemes against him (as they become progressively less subtle), to gathering more information and evidence, and finally to get his "evidence" out to the rest of the House (do note that Deneith's patriarch isn't in Sharn), and try to convince them to do something about it. Note: All of the above stuff with the Sharn Deneith will touch HEAVILY on the Espionage, Intrigue, Politics and even Horror genres. Depending on how you play it, Action/Adventure and Exploration may come up as well. I'm also intentionally trying to avoid all the spoiler information regarding the Deneith. If you want me to spell things out explicitly, send me a PM. So I suppose the next question is how to tie things in for the Vadalis. Now, she's nominally training to be a diplomat. What that's likely to entail for her at this point is brokering trade agreements. Largely, that's going to entail pretty boring stuff (some magebred grain for such-and-such farming community; magebred livestock for Lord so-and-so, and so on). Where things get interesting is when she's tapped to head up some high-value but intentionally low-profile deals (so she's impressed people, but she's needing to prove herself on some Big Deals, and she's also sufficiently expendable that if she screws up, it's no major loss). In this case, she's fielding a left-field request to mage-breed some very exotic foreign plants. They're told what traits they want (we want the ones with the violet flowers that glow in the dark - not the blue ones, or the violet ones, or the red ones. And we want to cultivate the ones with the largest roots and hardiest seed-stock). Sure, it sounds simple. But those plants in question happen to be 1) Native of Xen'drik or 1b) Native of Riedra; 2) have unique properties that are only really meaningful to Psionicists (Psions/etc). Or maybe not - maybe what they're being asked to Magebreed is the prime ingredient in Dreamlily (or Absentia), and they want to make it super-high potency. Or maybe it's something more evil - maybe they want it to be hardy because they want it to be like kudzu for some reason - relatively innocuous at first, until it takes over and grows far too fast to deal with on a large scale. Basically, now we've got a tie for between the Vadalis PC and the movers behind the Sharn Deneith...which is where the other PC comes in. How's that for a start?
Avarius 01-23-06, 02:41 AM	Thanks guys. I've gotten some great ideas from you all and have a booklet full of plans now. Werewoelfin: I really loved your idea of having some conspiracy going on inside House Vadalis and my PC being sent away. I'm not sure yet whether to have it be someone who is trying to help her, or someone who doesn't want her to learn any secrets. Lord Psynister: Your advice was the most useful actually, because it gave me some excellent ideas on how to keep my party together, and hook them into a single plot. I may not go with the idea of minions of the Lord of Blades just yet, as my PC's are a low level Monk and Bard, and may not do so well against forged enemies. However, I will definitely steal that hook for later. Johnkretzer: Thanks John. I have been toying with that idea, but because this is a level based game, my players won't feel very capable at low levels, and they may get bored without some occassional combat. Even if I was awarding experience for non-combat encounters. I'm going to have to work with this idea though in the beginning, and hope they take to it. Perrywrogers: I've actually downloaded every Sharn Inquisitive and compiled them into my notes. The guy that writes them is a genius, and if I could get my players more involved in some of the plots, it would be the best campaign. I intend to use alot of those hooks, but I need to first unattach my players from their duties, and get them adventuring. Nfras: Excellent idea. I've been wanting to take my party to the Reaches actually. One of the few ideas that was bouncing around my head was incorporating some plot connected to the Reaches in my campaign, and you have given me a great idea how to do so. Can they actually create a Magebred race? Like...could you have a Magebred human? Cloud Divider: You went above and beyond with your answer, and I really appreciate it. Unfortunately my problem as a DM is that with the d20 system (And no offense to anyone) it is alot harder for me to think up deep plots. I have ideas, but it always comes down to "how can I work this into some good grid-based combat challenges". I know there is alot of potential for different genres, and thats why I brought my group to Sharn, but now my problem is trying to get them involved in these plots. You seem to be very capable at that, and if you don't mind, I would like to send you a PM to bounce a few ideas off you. Thanks again guys, I really appreciate it. You pulled my ass out of the fire. If anyone else wants to throw down a few more ideas, you are welcome. I'm always looking for new ideas. Thanks again
Cloud Divider 01-23-06, 02:00 PM	Cloud Divider: You went above and beyond with your answer, and I really appreciate it. Hey, no problem. These are the kinds of threads I just love posting on. I get a kick out of coming up with campaign ideas. Plus, unknown to you, this thread's gotten my interest piqued again for my Eberron campaign (Conspiracy/Action with Horror and Espionage elements), which had been on the wane (it had been on hiatus now for about 6mos due to various factors). It's kinda sorta like the X-files crossed with Delta Green and some Mission Impossible-style action sequences stirred in. My players will surely thank you for it. Unfortunately my problem as a DM is that with the d20 system (And no offense to anyone) it is alot harder for me to think up deep plots. Heh. I'm with you on the "meh" feelings on d20. I'm honestly thinking seriously about converting my campaign over to Savage Worlds, or something that's less GM-loaded as far as prep work goes. Though that said, in the low-level regime (about 2nd-6th), I find 3.5 to work reasonably well (and still tolerable on GM workload). I have ideas, but it always comes down to "how can I work this into some good grid-based combat challenges". :confused: Is there a reason you really have to have grid-based combat challenges for things to be "good"? I never honestly bothered - I tend towards using a mostly narrative focus when I run combats. Sure, I'll resort to rough sketches and the like so everyone's got the same understanding of relative positions, but I just don't bother with the grids anymore... Generally, my previous experience has been that bringing out the gridboard and counting out the 5' steps REALLY hurts the roleplaying aspect - people start looking at it more like a chess game (and planning out a couple moves in advance and/or "other options") and less like a story. The gridboard just killed any sense of dramatic tension, really. Plus, there are some forms of conflict that just aren't amenable to resolution via the gridboard. For instance, the big "season opener" conflict in my campaign involved an office-room brawl in a Sharn office-tower turning into a frenetic Skycoach-chase. But hey, if you dig the grids, more power to you. I know there is alot of potential for different genres, and thats why I brought my group to Sharn, but now my problem is trying to get them involved in these plots. What do you mean? Are your players just not biting the plot hooks you lay out for them? Are they making those choices out of player interest (ie intentionally choosing to avoid the Plot Device)? Or is it that the plot hooks you're laying for them just aren't appealing? If the latter is the case, it might be a matter of figuring out what it is the players WANT to have happen (in general). It might be they just don't have any real interest in a wheelin' and dealin' political intrigue game. You seem to be very capable at that, and if you don't mind, I would like to send you a PM to bounce a few ideas off you. Thanks :) I enjoy the brainstorming, honestly, and relish every opportunity for it. Feel free to PM me anytime. I've usually got waaaay more campaign ideas than I could possibly ever use.