Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Radazim 02-13-06, 05:32 PM	I'm in the initial planning stages of an Eberron campaign. Given the time scale of events in the game world, on the order of tens of thousands of years, I am curious how big of an impact you would allow a single campaign to make. What I'm resisting is a strange, idealistic urge to have the party singlehandedly sweep through Eberron and "make everything right." You know, destroy Vol, slay the Daughters of Sora Kell, purify the taint and corruption in the Silver Flame, permanently destroy or banish the Lords of Dust, etc., etc.....and everyone lives happily ever after. Obviously, even in a long-running campaign in which the characters achieved epic status (and I don't "do" epic campaigns anyway), this is not really possible and certainly not desirable. In fact, one of the things that I like so much about Eberron is the gritty, low-level feel of it. It also seems to me that there is a balance of power between good and evil in Eberron that may be easy to perturb but very difficult to really tilt. So, to really get to the point of the question, how much of an impact in the game world do you really allow a party to make over the life of a campaign? Too little, and the players may feel like the campaign is meaningless and their characters' deeds inconsequential. Too much, and it strains continuity to allow a handful of characters to reshape the world. What do you think? Defeat Vol? Slay the Daughters of Sora Kell? Reunite Galifar? Or a "Men in Black" campaign where the party is forever saving the world from sure destruction while the people, oblivious, go about their petty, scheming lives?
Kreistor1 02-13-06, 06:07 PM	Since Eberron will not officially advance its timeline, there is no danger in advancing the world any amount. You'll never see the Blood of Vol officially get eliminated, the lost moon return, the Mournlands recovered, and so on. So, go nuts, everything you do will not be affected by canon. Me? The player impact will be enormous in scope, with enormous consequences to the world.
johnkretzer 02-13-06, 06:27 PM	Now if you don't believe a small handful of people can change the world then well you proably shouldn't run that campaign anyway. Me personaly believe that a single being can change events but that is just my belief. Though it is also do you normaly one camnpaign in a world or start fresh with everything the same. For instance when I run a game I always like to have the characters continue on in the new campaign. i.e. they are there and can still effects things but the focus is on the mew characters. So yes I will players to have a profound effect on the world but only if they choose to. Also I never run NPCs with the thought of well after the PCs kill him I'll do this.
Korhal_IV 02-13-06, 07:39 PM	I can't really see one campaign taking down every great evil menace in Eberron, but I can see a dedicated and heroic group putting a huge dent in at least one. For example, I might have a Blood of Vol campaign that features the PCs taking the fight all the way to Vol herself, and possibly winning, or one that features them slaying a daelkyr in the depths of Khyber. After that, though, you're a 20th level party (possibly higher). Everyone is keeping careful track of your movements, and you're internationally notorious. When the PCs make a move against any evil organization after that, the power group will respond with overwhelming force - I can't see even a 20th level group of PCs standing firm against an elite Riedran assault force, or surviving the depths of Ashtalaka when the residents are roused with a common goal. They're not going to allow you to work your way up their infrastructure any more. I could see myself running multiple campaigns, subsequent to one another, where different groups of elite heroes take on different foes. Overall, though, Eberron is so new and dangerous it'll take the PCs a very long time to find a nemesis and square their accounts. :D
Gurv 02-13-06, 08:11 PM	So, to really get to the point of the question, how much of an impact in the game world do you really allow a party to make over the life of a campaign? Too little, and the players may feel like the campaign is meaningless and their characters' deeds inconsequential. Too much, and it strains continuity to allow a handful of characters to reshape the world. I think you've answered your own question. Let them save the world, make it a little better on some local scale. But keep it under control. Personally, I think of Eberron PCs as damage control. They react to problems and save the day. They don't go on crusades against every bad guy they hear a nasty rumor about.
The Necromancer King 02-13-06, 08:30 PM	I'm sort of on the middling path on this one. The characters should be well known, but I don't think that making the whole world right is really the way to go. If you slay the Daughters of Sora Kell, what will take their place? You can bet it'll be worse than the Daughters were. If you kill Vol, what are the consequences? She's one of two characters in the world with a Mark of Death; would Espre take her place? What if Espre were to die before she had children of her own? See, the thing with Eberron, or any game world where Noir is an element, is that actions have consequences, and the greater the action, the greater the likely consequences. No good deed can go unpunished. One of the best things about the Pulp aspect of the setting, though, is that heroes can be incredibly famous from the very start. If a bard travels with the group, you can almost guarantee huge publicity. Chronicles are published all - over - the world. Your characters' faces are known everywhere, and some of their deeds have likely been... Embelished a bit. And because heroics are in vogue, there's nothing to say they can't just float back off into oblivion when they hang up their swords. There'll still be a few fans, sure, but they'll be out of the public spotlight right away. Make your characters famous. Change the world a bit, but make sure actions have consequences. And most importantly, have fun. Big, world-changing events are fun to play through for some people. I personally prefer the smaller, closer to home adventures, but that's just the way I game.
Rechan 02-13-06, 08:49 PM	I would think "curing all of Eberron's ills" wouldn't make it Eberron anymore.
taski 02-13-06, 10:15 PM	I asked my player what he wanted to go after. He said cults of the Dragon Below, and eventually the masterminds behind 'em, the Daelkyr and the Lords of Dust. He wants a Lovecraftian theme. So this PC won't be saving the world from the Dreaming Dark, or the Tyrants, or Vol. He'll be thwarting rakshasa plots, keeping various gates closed, and learning things which no man is meant to know. But will he kill a Rhaja? No. That wouldn't gel with the Lovecraftian Ancient Unkillable Evil theme, and he's made it clear that's what he wants the Rhajas to be -- Unkillable. Anyway, I say it's for the player(s) and DM to decide on together. However, I can see how that could be difficult to manage with players who want to go in totally different directions.
Psifon 02-14-06, 12:51 AM	I'm really big on letting the PC's make real and lasting changes to the world all through the campaign. This may look like changing the status quo or it may look like preserving it. For instance, right now I have a 4th level party who is about to enter a border engagement between a Brelish noble and a group of (Droaamish) Humanoids and abberations who are under the sway of a Daelkyr (Dragon Below) power group. The goal of the Daelkyr is to destabalize the region so that it can gain access to a gate in the Sylbaran region of the Eldeen Reaches (next door). If they can draw Droaam, Breland and The Eldeen Reaches into a three way conflict they hope to be able to move freely enough around the gate to unseal it (with lots of bad consequences). Of course they plan to sow madness and chaos into the region as well. If the PC's figure all of this out they may be able to stop the conflict, and negotiate a peace between the parties. If they don't, then the conflict will escalate, and may even lead to a major violation of the Thronehold treaty, plunging the whole contintent back into war. So here is a "maintain the status quo" plotline. I expect the party to be 7th - 9th level by the time this is all played out (maybe more). I don't really care which way it goes. In fact, I already have some 10th level adventures simmering in the back of my head. Of course if the peace is lost, and the contintent goes back to war, then that will create a very different socioeconomic climate from the status quo, but thats all the better for me: On the one hand, if the party stops the war, they gain important patronage and trust from not only Breland, but other members of the international community as well. This makes it easy to throw high level plot hooks at them. If the continent plunges into war, then the story pretty much writes itself, you see, The dreaming dark have been planning a major incursion into Korvaire (from Sarlona), and with the continent at war again, the 5 nations are ripe for the picking.... And so you have a high level campaing based on what a bunch of 4th level heroes did to become 8th level heroes. They changed the world, and had to live with what that meant.
Kalanth 02-14-06, 01:24 AM	Psifon, that is a very cool campaign you got there. I would love to be in that one. With the group I am running, I am not going with an epic, end of the world quest. It is political, story driven, and deceptive, but if the PC's fail then all that has truly changed is one little girl's life. Could this game potentially be epic and world changing? Oh yes, easily, but I don't want to take it in that direction. Will the PC's rip the fabric of the universe by eliminating corruption in the church, or the evil power groups? Nope. Most likely they won't ever even see them. The only groups involved here are a rogue Daelkyr who is in no way connected to the Dragon Below or Lords of Dust, the former head of House Medani in Sharn, and the Lord of Blades. The Daelkyr works of his own ambition and has made his connections through the connections of others. The twists have not even been uncovered by the players yet. And when this game is all over we will play another campaign. If it is the same exact group of players (not characters) then I will see if they want to advance the timeline. If they are new players, or a mix of new and old, then we reset the timeline back to where the ECS says you start, and go from there. And most of the world changing events that have happened in the game the PC's found out about through the newspapers like the Khoranberg Chronicle and Sharn Inquisitive. The most recent article being that the King of Breeland had a heart attack and Sharn is rioting as they try to establish a new government or king. And the players had nothing to do with any of that.
Radazim 02-14-06, 09:24 AM	I think the basic problem I have is that, as a DM, I lean strongly towards Neutral Good. It would be a struggle for me to let Khorvaire descend back into chaos and war, or to allow the party to fail to stop the Eldritch Machine that suppresses Sharn's manifest zone and causes the city to collapse in a heap of rubble and a hundred thousand mangled corpses. EDIT: Hit submit by accident. Will continue shortly in another reply.
Radazim 02-14-06, 09:36 AM	While it would be a "character building opportunity" for me as a DM to give the PC's the genuine opportunity to utterly fail and allow something horrible to happen (such as the release of a daelkyr or rajah, or the rise of Vol, or whatever), I have a hard time imagining how any of us would really enjoy that. The party suffers a TPK at the hands of the BBEG, and the next session I read an "epilogue" of the dire ramifications of their failure on the game world. I think that would leave me with a really bad taste in my mouth. Of course, it could also make a great start to the next campaign. Or I could have a little deus ex machina get the party raised by their patron to continue the fight. You know, the more I think about it, the more I actually like the idea of a campaign where I don't have to worry about the party doing everything right, where failure (or a TPK) is an option, but where a patron could always come to the rescue or hire a second band of adventurers to pick up where the doomed party left off. But the more I think about it, the more I think that I won't have the party doing utterly world-altering things. Considering that I don't "do" psionics or epic adventures, there's no way I could have the party really "make everything right" anyway. Thanks again for the input. Feel free to keep it coming, too. This really has my gears spinning. :)
Rechan 02-14-06, 09:54 AM	I think the basic problem I have is that, as a DM, I lean strongly towards Neutral Good. It would be a struggle for me to let Khorvaire descend back into chaos and war, or to allow the party to fail to stop the Eldritch Machine that suppresses Sharn's manifest zone and causes the city to collapse in a heap of rubble and a hundred thousand mangled corpses. EDIT: Hit submit by accident. Will continue shortly in another reply. I don't think everyone is really suggesting that they not succeed at saving Sharn. Or that they get TPKed, or the like. However, I don't think that Eberron is the place where "the world is made perfect, all of the badguys put down", just like it's not the place where "Hurrah, you killed some rats and skeletons, you're HEROS!" is very satisfying for the setting's high pulp atmosphere.
Sereno 02-14-06, 10:25 AM	The biggest problem I would have with such a "Cleansing of Eberron" campaign would be the response from the OTHER power groups as the Heros went to work on just one of them. What would the DD do if Vol was killed and the OotEC rooted out and eliminated? What would the LoD do at the same time? And, the Daelkyr? And, the Dragons? etc.... It seems to me that the evil organizations working at cross-purposes on long-ranging plots are what keeps Eberron livable for everyone else. If the heros destabilize it too much it could tip the balance into irrevocable chaos. Eberron isn't a place where "Evil, Inc." is in charge. The DD, LoD, OotEC, and Daelkyr all have their own agendas and aren't working as a team. If they were, goodbye Eberron! My PCs are 5th level, now, and they aren't even to the "MiB" level, yet. No saving the world for them, yet, they've got more than enough on their plate rescuing kidnapped children from a rival thieves guild and finding out who's executing warforged in Sharn. :)
Tait Ransom 02-14-06, 10:35 AM	So, to really get to the point of the question, how much of an impact in the game world do you really allow a party to make over the life of a campaign? Too little, and the players may feel like the campaign is meaningless and their characters' deeds inconsequential. Too much, and it strains continuity to allow a handful of characters to reshape the world. What do you think? Here is my take on it. I see no problem with PCs being Big Heroes. I like the idea that there are some big foes for them to clash with. I would hesitate to run a campaign where the PCs solve every problem Eberron has, though. In my current campaign, one of the main goals the PCs will have is to re-unify the Galifar kingdom and work toward building alliances with the rest of Khorvaire. I envision the PCs crossing swords with several of the villainous organizations of Eberron, but I don't see them wiping them all out. They might take out one of the Cults of the Dragon below, but not all of them, for example. It really depends on your group ... what they want/like, what you want/like, the timeframe you have to work with, etc. I know I've got at least the rest of this semester, and hopefully another school year with my current group. I don't mind solving a major problem (unifying the Galifar kingdom), as 1) it lets the PCs be big heroes and 2) that will create some new problems. Once this campaign is over, I don't know that I'll be able to keep gaming with this group. 3 of the 4 are students at the university where I work, and may not be able to continue after they graduate. I like the idea of ending our campaign with them as high level, older heroes leading the forces of a united kingdom in one last, desperate battle against the forces of [spoiler deleted]. Letting the PCs make some big changes in the setting works for my campaign. This might not work for everyone's campaign, though.
DwarfPcfan 02-14-06, 11:04 AM	Tait ransom, you have my point. In the game I'm currently Dming, the Pcs will change the world but nobody except those concerned know about it. There's nothin wrong with going into epic wolrd changing adventure in eberron, it's rife with opportunities for that kind of thing. As long as evrybody has fun, then you're on the right track. I like alternate between styles of gaming to practice my skills as a Dm and have fun with new concepts. The one thing I always do is when a campaign ends, I always create a plausible explanation for why the world is still spinning If we are switching to another story or if whe move to another story with the same characters then the events simply continue where they left of. r if new pcs get involved in the events previous pcs shaped, then it makes for a good Adventure. My rule, have fun even if the world gets blown up, eaten by Khyber or whatever. Nothing ever stops you from creating endless adventures simply by going back the starting point of Eberron and going in whole new directions. When a campaign starts in a CS and none of the events happened that does not mean you erased then so the world could survive, it means the PCs are in a NEW world. Then if it has to do with an idea for an adventure, you can always let the events stay in a new campaign as a buildin poin for another. " My name is the Count of Monte Cristo, but my friends call me Edmon Dantes"
Psifon 02-14-06, 11:36 AM	I don't see it as a TPK thing either. What I like to do is work out a flow chart in my head that includes some large-scale consequences if the PC's do this or don't do that. The scenario of mine where the Tronehold treaty is ended is only one possible outcome, and for that matter, I might write in an adventure that allows the PC's to pull the world back from the brink even if they don't stop my Daelkyr plot. It goes something like: PC's fight in war Leads to: Either, they stall enemy army long enough for re-enforcments. The Droaamish Army then allows itself to be forced into Eldeen reaches area. OR The town gets overrun. An even larger Brelish force follows, and the Droaamish Army then allows itself to be forced into Eldeen reaches area. This causes an international incident which the party is caught up in (sent into eldeen territory for a secret or diplomatic mission for example) The PC's learn on this mission of the existance of the gate, and the plan to disrupt local politics to gain access to it. From here: 1) They patch things up and stop the bad guys OR 2) They fail to stop the bad guys and the gate is opened. And/Or, 3) They fail to patch things up between the political parties Now we get into some if/thens: If # 1 happens, the adventure ends, the PC's are rewarded with a land grant, and they get a break to make magic items before the next adventure starts a few months later If #2 Happens there is yet another adventure as psychic shockwaves rock the contryside and the PC's need to put down the psychic chaos and extraplanar incursion that this causes If #3 happens there is an increase in military upheaval in the region, which results is a diplomatic adventure that gives the PC's an opportunity to avert a global war If #2 & #3 happen, then all hell breaks lose: Psychic shockwaves not only rock the countryside, but all 3 armies as well. This results in a huge chaotic free for all. Nothing the PC's can do can stop the degeneration of the thronehold treaty now, and from here on out it's all about global politics. See, there are lots of ways to go here. But its all about creating a flow chart. All this said, I cannot honestly predict that the campaign will play out in a way remotely resembling this. The PC's might do something I did not predict. After all, they are 5 smart people, and I am only one. That's what I love about D&D.
TwoSix26 02-14-06, 09:28 PM	In the campaign I'm running, the PCs have mostly been adventuring in Q'Barra, driving back lizardmen incursions. Only recently have they found the secret that caused the Mourning...and now they're going into Cyre to fix it. While I think it might be a bad idea to have your PC party turn into some proto-Harper organization fighting against all the world's ills, I see little point in having all these cool setting-defining villains and organizations and plot hooks if you don't, well, PLOT with them. :smirk:
Radazim 02-14-06, 09:45 PM	Of course I wouldn't want to let all the rich villains and plots go unused, but clearly you cannot do "everything" in one campaign over the lifespan of one party. Ending the campaign with all villains vanquished and the fully-decoded prophecy concluding with "...and they all lived happily ever after. THE END." would be ridiculous. But so would a party of level 20's retiring with the game world essentially indistinguishable from 998YK. The point of the question is to find a "sweet spot" in terms of getting the most out of the richness of the setting without overdoing it from a continuity standpoint. All of the responses are great and spark new ideas. Thanks for contributing. From your example, "cleansing" the Mournlands might be a great campaign, especially if the campaign concluded with the high-level party finally accomplishing that goal after many twists and turns. (Accomplishing this by level 7 and then going on to achieve other things feels, to me, to be pushing it.)
Rechan 02-14-06, 10:03 PM	Of course I wouldn't want to let all the rich villains and plots go unused, but clearly you cannot do "everything" in one campaign over the lifespan of one party. Ending the campaign with all villains vanquished and the fully-decoded prophecy concluding with "...and they all lived happily ever after. THE END." would be ridiculous. But so would a party of level 20's retiring with the game world essentially indistinguishable from 998YK. The point of the question is to find a "sweet spot" in terms of getting the most out of the richness of the setting without overdoing it from a continuity standpoint. In that case, you could always have a series of campaigns, each one focusing on one particular facet. The Daelkyr, the LoD, the Dreaming Dark, Vol, the Mournland and the Lord of Blades, etc etc. Each campaign sets out its particular goals, and goes from there. Heck, each campaign could be related to the last - the PCs from one game could have had dealings or their actions could cause the future PCs of the next game, like saving an orphanage and a kid from that orphanage becomes a future PC. Or the offspring of characters, an elf PC could have become a deathless, but inspire others to follow in their footsteps, etc.
Charles Phipps 02-14-06, 10:10 PM	I would think "curing all of Eberron's ills" wouldn't make it Eberron anymore. Yes, after its cured, the characters retire.
Adhevan 02-14-06, 11:53 PM	In my vision of Eberron, it would be impossible for the party to cure all the world's ills. No matter how powerful they get, they are still just a few individuals and can only focus on so much at one time. There's just too much going on to deal with all of it at once. And if you do wipe one one evil, there are likely several others waiting to fill the vacuum. In some cases, the evil may even be necessary. Killing Erandis d'Vol could be a Bad Thing(tm). Although her mark is inactive, it still serves the purpose of being a sort of placeholder. If she were killed, it would clear the path for another mark to manifest or for the Mark of Death to manifest in another line. But that wouldn't necessarily be the worst part. During the War of the Mark, aberrant marks seemed to be more powerful and more common than they are now. This seemed to have been true up until the time that the proper number of true marks were fully established. If the last vestiges of the Mark of Death were removed, this could throw whatever governs the true-breeding marks off-kilter and lead to a period of more common and more powerful aberrant marks again. I could even see a very slightly possibility of it causing all the true marks to unravel until such a time as the moons/planes are in the proper alignment to manifest them again. The best you can hope for sometimes is to just keep the various power groups in check. Or at least that is my vision. This type of theme probably doesn't work for everyone.
Rechan 02-15-06, 12:08 AM	Yes, after its cured, the characters retire. But if you just spent a campaign cleaning all the problems in Eberron... what do you do after the game's over? Do you hit the 'reset button' and go after them all over again?
bookwurmneo 02-15-06, 01:01 AM	You could and I would restart the campaign, with a new story line. Perhaps if I did the wandering scourge of evil campaign I might do a second Last War scenario or a campaign with superheroes as my next campaign. On the other hand you could continue the world, as evil never sleeps. Say if you defeat the Dreaming Dark, what would happen to the Kalashtar, a race who since it's inception has been defined by it's war with the Dreaming Dark. Would this new turn inspire the race to broaden it's horizons or would it cause a few powerful psionics to gain power and start a conquest of the world. If the mournlands are healed what happens to Cyre, if it reclaims it old land it would need help dealing with the other nations. I don't see the end of one of the big ends as an ending but rather the beginning for several other plots.
Radazim 02-15-06, 08:09 AM	There's just too much going on to deal with all of it at once. And if you do wipe one one evil, there are likely several others waiting to fill the vacuum. ... The best you can hope for sometimes is to just keep the various power groups in check. Or at least that is my vision. This type of theme probably doesn't work for everyone. I think that this is one perfectly valid philosophy to take that is consistent with the hundred-thousand-year history of Eberron. The challenge is to let the players feel like their characters are doing things that are "important" even if they are not "making everything right" in their lifetime. This feels more in line with the pulp/noir character of the world. Another perfectly valid philosophy to take is that Eberron is rapidly approaching a climax of sorts, an unstable "singularity" where another cataclysm is about to take place, and where either Good or Evil will prevail over the next Age. (Think "Revelations" from the Bible.) Again, this would be a doozy to pull off, especially if you don't go into Epic levels. Interesting to think about. The more we discuss this, the more I'm leaning towards the first option, but with the possibility of dealing a "major blow" to one or more power groups in the process.
Just another user 02-15-06, 10:06 AM	I think the basic problem I have is that, as a DM, I lean strongly towards Neutral Good. It would be a struggle for me to let Khorvaire descend back into chaos and war, or to allow the party to fail to stop the Eldritch Machine that suppresses Sharn's manifest zone and causes the city to collapse in a heap of rubble and a hundred thousand mangled corpses. EDIT: Hit submit by accident. Will continue shortly in another reply. You don't have to necessarily destroy the world if the PCs fail, Even if the PC are the main characters the other forces on Eberron are not exactly resourceless, just make the disaster big enough to make it count but not big enough to destroy civilization on Korvhaine, for example in Sharn I figure that there will be be some powerful contingencies ready for a situation like you describe, industrial strength Feather fall to slow the falling of skyway, ring of wishes used to keep the towers from falling just enough to evacute them, etc) the city would be heavy damaged, but not totally destroyed, most people leave it in fear but some will stay there and you could start a new campaign in a partially ruined Sharn 25 years later where the new PCs hadto help to return it to its former glory.
Purple Yin 02-15-06, 10:17 AM	I see the danger of letting 'all the ills' be cured, but there's great potential here too. you can play it like the book series 'Dune', where you let your PCs do everything they want, but the players will get bored after a while, and ask to start a new campaign. set the campaign several hundred years in the future, where the original chars have been deified, and their deeds warped. brand new evils will be everywhere, and maybe some ****** off dragons that think the original PCs damaged the prophesy too much.
Psifon 02-15-06, 02:33 PM	I agree that it's not possable or desirable to "fix" everything. What I do think is that if you work the PC's up to 20th level, they are going to be major heavy hitters in this world. Even 1000 y.o lich with the mark of death is only 16th level. This means that they BECOME the politics of the campaign world. The political powers begin to work to either enlist them or controll them, or at least keep them busy enough to stay out of the way of their own plots. But what does a king do when one of the wizards of his kingdome can cast wish, or one of his knights can kill a dragon if less than a minute? Now you have a whole new level of campaign play. Still in the backdrop of the power groups, the prophesy etc. Epic level play means that MOST of the bad guys don't stack up to your abilities. As such they might want to lay low for a while, and work behind the scenes. On the one hand, "there's a new sherrif in town" will be a reasonable expectation of the PC's, on the other hand, the existing power groups will never give up power voluntarilly. So what do you do from there?
Ozymandias V. 02-15-06, 03:26 PM	I would let them do whatever the heck they want. If they managed to survive the chaos their actions will most likely bring, their names would be famous across the entire continent for centuries. Legendary status is NOT solely reserved for NPCs. Especially in Eberron.