Introducing Eberron? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Introducing Eberron? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Ringmereth
12-30-07, 02:39 AM My gaming group, which generally plays Mutants & Masterminds, has developed the urge to give D&D a spin--most of our players have some familiarity with it, but haven't played in a while. I'm the exception, and have offered to run the game... and as a big Eberron fan, I'd love to bring the magic of this setting to our table.

The catch is, none of them have more than a passing familiarity with Eberron, and I don't want to to compel everyone to buy the ECS and read it in their spare time--but nor do I want to reduce the unique elements of Eberron to their bare minimum or confuse the group. I'll probably write up a primer on the setting--the major nations, Dragonmarks and their houses, new races, the Last War, etc, but I fear that if it gets too lengthy, people won't retain it too well.

In short, I need some advice: what areas and elements of the setting have, in your experience, worked well for bringing new gamers into our ranks; getting them hooked on the unique aspects of the setting without overwhelming them, or worse, making the magic trains and dinosaur-riding halflings seem silly?
Nerdicus
12-30-07, 12:53 PM I recently had to introduce my group to Eberron and had the same issues that you do and here is what I came up with:

1) First off I went over a rough outline of the setting. In this I touched on the new races being introduced to the game, but also explained briefly how the core races are viewed in the setting. Halflings are no longer the fun loving pranksters but are now savage dinosaur riding barbarians who have carved out a chunk of Khorvaire for them selves. Elves worship the deathless and are far more violent, the orcs are saviors of the land from days long gone, and have a history older and more rich then most of the human nations. I gave a fairly good explination of the new races in the hopes of getting the players into them also.

2)Organizations! After going over a brief overview of the races I got into the dragon marked houses, here i just explained that each of the core races had the option to be from one of the dragonmarked houses and that offered RP stuff and some spell like abilities.

3)History. This was very brief and served the purpose of explaining about the last war and the fact that it just ended.

4)then we went over the map of khorvaire and I pointed out the various nations and areas and who lives there.

My thinking was that I would go over the races and classes first off, so that as I went over the rest of the information the guys could be thinking about their characters.

I would say the biggest thing to go over is the differences between Eberron and other settings. the things that set it aside from the rest.
Jedi_Master_Trobon
12-30-07, 02:10 PM I agree with everything the person above me said. Also in your first adventure make sure to use very pulp and/or noir elements. If you want pulp then describe the action details and have the enviroment be interesting for combat. Fighting on a narrow bridge over a pit or in a trap filled room can be exciting. If you want to focus on the noir aspects then come up with a good plot twist to throw at your characters and focus on the idea of the BBEG being a puppet of one of the organizations.
ChutneyDan
01-03-08, 10:43 PM There is an excellent powerpoint presentation that I found when I was introducing Eberron, with good snippets of info about the important things new characters would know and pictures and whatnot.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ringmereth 12-30-07, 02:39 AM	My gaming group, which generally plays Mutants & Masterminds, has developed the urge to give D&D a spin--most of our players have some familiarity with it, but haven't played in a while. I'm the exception, and have offered to run the game... and as a big Eberron fan, I'd love to bring the magic of this setting to our table. The catch is, none of them have more than a passing familiarity with Eberron, and I don't want to to compel everyone to buy the ECS and read it in their spare time--but nor do I want to reduce the unique elements of Eberron to their bare minimum or confuse the group. I'll probably write up a primer on the setting--the major nations, Dragonmarks and their houses, new races, the Last War, etc, but I fear that if it gets too lengthy, people won't retain it too well. In short, I need some advice: what areas and elements of the setting have, in your experience, worked well for bringing new gamers into our ranks; getting them hooked on the unique aspects of the setting without overwhelming them, or worse, making the magic trains and dinosaur-riding halflings seem silly?
Nerdicus 12-30-07, 12:53 PM	I recently had to introduce my group to Eberron and had the same issues that you do and here is what I came up with: 1) First off I went over a rough outline of the setting. In this I touched on the new races being introduced to the game, but also explained briefly how the core races are viewed in the setting. Halflings are no longer the fun loving pranksters but are now savage dinosaur riding barbarians who have carved out a chunk of Khorvaire for them selves. Elves worship the deathless and are far more violent, the orcs are saviors of the land from days long gone, and have a history older and more rich then most of the human nations. I gave a fairly good explination of the new races in the hopes of getting the players into them also. 2)Organizations! After going over a brief overview of the races I got into the dragon marked houses, here i just explained that each of the core races had the option to be from one of the dragonmarked houses and that offered RP stuff and some spell like abilities. 3)History. This was very brief and served the purpose of explaining about the last war and the fact that it just ended. 4)then we went over the map of khorvaire and I pointed out the various nations and areas and who lives there. My thinking was that I would go over the races and classes first off, so that as I went over the rest of the information the guys could be thinking about their characters. I would say the biggest thing to go over is the differences between Eberron and other settings. the things that set it aside from the rest.
Jedi_Master_Trobon 12-30-07, 02:10 PM	I agree with everything the person above me said. Also in your first adventure make sure to use very pulp and/or noir elements. If you want pulp then describe the action details and have the enviroment be interesting for combat. Fighting on a narrow bridge over a pit or in a trap filled room can be exciting. If you want to focus on the noir aspects then come up with a good plot twist to throw at your characters and focus on the idea of the BBEG being a puppet of one of the organizations.
ChutneyDan 01-03-08, 10:43 PM	There is an excellent powerpoint presentation that I found when I was introducing Eberron, with good snippets of info about the important things new characters would know and pictures and whatnot.