Nature of Eberron and big name NPC [Archive] - Wizards Community

Nature of Eberron and big name NPC [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DrunkMonk
08-30-06, 06:10 PM I have been reading some of the more recent posts concerning some of Eberron’s NPC’s and my DM and I discussed how to use them. It just so happens that Jason and I agree that the “intent of the framers” (Mr. Baker & Co.) is that NPC’s are all plot devices. Especially the villains, and high-level good guys like the keeper of the flame. You don’t try and kill them, they represent what Elminster and his peers should have been in the Realms. They are supposed to be landmarks. Head towards the Lords of Blades, take a left at the Daughters of SK, then a right at Mrs. Vol, then go on to kill the bad guy that you DM created for you to kill. If you do manage to triple acid orb the LoB and kill him, the DM is just supposed to say “oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.”

The villains that would rise up in the power vacuum left behind would be just as bad, and tough but they would have no depth if the players had to fight them next. The whole game would be anticlimactic if they killed one of the icons of Eberron. That being said, we also talked about how DM should manage NPC interaction with PC’s (even stupid ones). The relationship should go both ways. If a big name NPC kills a player, they should be fair game to be killed in turn. No doubles, no secret escape hatch, no exceptions. Players should want to interact with the big name characters, and the knowledge that those interactions were not combat encounters, might encourage low level players to go places and do things that they might not otherwise experience.

When we play, the Dragons stay on their island, the Lords of blades works through his agents, the kings stay on their thrones, and the rest of Khorvaire is ours.

DM
Shady314
08-30-06, 06:16 PM You're completely free to kill any NPC you want. You can blow up Khorvaire if you want. Don't feel limited in any way.

If you want your PCs to be the ones to undo the Mournland and strike down the LOB that could be damn good fun. I don't like to make any NPC untouchable/invincible through DM caveat alone. Except for the gods (if they exist) but that's why they don't have stats.

If the players want to be the heroes that finally defeat the daughters of SK thats fine with me provided they are high enough level to actually be a threat to them. Go ahead and unmask Kaius and really change the face of the world. That's the point of PCs.

Eberron needs heroes not pawns.
DrunkMonk
08-30-06, 06:43 PM Good points shady. I know that each DM and players have unlimited freedom to play how they want. My question is not what you think the NPC's should be doing in your game, but what do you their intended role was? Can Eberron remain deep and fun if the landmarks are removed?

I am certainly not suggesting that a DM can use big NPC's dirrectly against PC and not expect the players to fight back. They are the heros afterall. I just think that the decision to have a fundamental change in the eberron landscape should be in the DM's hands. It should be part of a complete story not a side quest.

Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else. Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed.

DM
Edymnion
08-30-06, 07:06 PM “oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.”Honestly, if a DM ever flat out told me that, I would quit playing with them. Its one thing to have plans within plans and doubles (actually, I use that one for the LoB'ster a lot, he's an artificer and can use Simalcrum), but if a DM ever flat out told me "You can't kill this guy. He's got God Mode on because I don't want him to die", that would be the last sign I need that the DM doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, even just saying beforehand "Please try not to outright kill this guy, alright? He's important later on" would be fine for most people I know, but having the DM outright forbid the players from doing something reasonable like fighting back and killing them.

The issue of players that go around killing anything that moves is a problem with bad players, but that doesn't mean the DM has to stoop to their level to put a stop to it. Its a dynamic game, and usually the best stuff comes after the players have totally thrown the DM's plans right out the freaking window and he's having to wing it.
Shady314
08-31-06, 08:17 AM Good points shady. I know that each DM and players have unlimited freedom to play how they want. My question is not what you think the NPC's should be doing in your game, but what do you their intended role was? Can Eberron remain deep and fun if the landmarks are removed?

I am certainly not suggesting that a DM can use big NPC's dirrectly against PC and not expect the players to fight back. They are the heros afterall. I just think that the decision to have a fundamental change in the eberron landscape should be in the DM's hands. It should be part of a complete story not a side quest.

Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else. Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed.

DM

Oh well see I personally DO like that. If I ever had a chance to consistently play in Eberron and I DMed I'd keep an internal timeline as well. When I spend a year of my life once a week playing a game I'd like to feel I had a major impact on that game. I don't think there is anything wrong with curing the mournland and stopping the LOB. There are plenty of other threats out there and all kinds of new opportunities pop up anytime something huge happens. Though those particular PCs should be retired.
Cyre can now be repopulated..... And GO!

If you must have the Mournland throw in a second one in Xendrik. LOB may die but his movement may remain but with a new leader. Don't let yourself feel limited. I get your reluctance I honestly do. I find Erandis awesome. I find the fiends awesome. The Prophecy awesome. And so on. It can make you reluctant to change anything when you see it all as being so well done. It's like not wanting to take a toy out of it's package. But I say go for it. It's scary but fun.

Oh and I do think Eberron is much more than it's iconic villains. It's the intrigue. It's the PCs being unique and special. It's the way magic is viewed and used. It's the dragonmarks and the houses. It's the planes/cosmology. It's the dragonshards. It's THE WORLD. The NPCs that populate it come second. I hate FR with it's untouchably powerful NPCs.
DarkWarriorKarg
08-31-06, 10:25 AM Those iconic npcs are there to be the BBEG.

If anyone kills them, it's the PCs.

the games is Dungeons & dragons... of course they'll meet dragons. They don't just stay on Argonessan.

Vol is starting to hear of the PCs in my game... and how they seem to be picking on the Emerald Claw (the 3 modules + queen of the burning eyes, plus accidental encounters where Garrow wasn't expecting them to be there and vice-versa...)

Eventually, she might want to Do Something about them... maybe manipulate them against her enemies. (I'm toying with a much older cult of undeath dedicated to the rajahs... they consider the BoV to be upstarts... and are infiltrating the EC. Undead powered airships, of ancient design, to boot!).

Right now they are racing to prevent New Cyre from being replaced by Carcosa (And Madness Followed, from Dungeon). If they fail, there's a Xoriat manifest zone and portal next to the Mournlands. That would change the landscape completely in short order.

And yes, they can fail. And no, there's no one else who even knows what's going on, except maybe Sora Tereza (who knows everything and has NOTHING to do with the group).
Kreistor1
08-31-06, 10:52 AM DrunkMonk, I think you've taken our little Daughters of Sora Kell thread the wrong way. They can be killed, if the DM wants that to be part of the plot.

Killing anyone of power always has repercussions, and not just for the PC's. But that's not a reason to avoid killing them. Removal of certain personages could do things like kick off the Next War, but that's the DM's decision.

The Powerful NPC's are intended to be both antagonists and patrons for the PC's, depending on the side you choose. Whether that makes them acceptable targets for the party's justice depends on the specifics, and the party's make-up. If the Silver Flame starts killing Shifters, I find a reasonable solution is to go after the Keeper of the Flame, even if she is an 11 year old girl.

Don't confuse the specifics of Sora Teraza with a general rule for Eberron. For the most part, powerful Eberron NPC's are more vulnerable than their equivalents from FR and Greyhawk. They can be killed and can be more easily killed. Teraza, though, is a pain to hunt, because she knows you are coming.
(Psi)SeveredHead
08-31-06, 01:39 PM I have been reading some of the more recent posts concerning some of Eberron’s NPC’s and my DM and I discussed how to use them. It just so happens that Jason and I agree that the “intent of the framers” (Mr. Baker & Co.) is that NPC’s are all plot devices. Especially the villains, and high-level good guys like the keeper of the flame. You don’t try and kill them

This is where I disagree. The PCs can kill the major NPCs if the opportunity arises. You're not likely to kill the Lord of Blades unless the DM is ready for you to kill him, unless you do something clever and surprising.

The difference, IMO, is that the Lord of Blades won't be killed in any novels or WotC-published adventures. As a result, WotC will never say "the Lord of Blades is dead" or even "the Lord of Blades is alive". (This is quite a different situation where, in a low-epic campaign in Dungeon Magazine, the PCs can kill the Queen of the Githyanki. I mean, that's huge for anyone who knows a lot about the Githyanki.) Only the DM running a campaign has the right to say whether the LoB is alive or dead (with possible PC input eg killing the LoB), and IMO, that's how things should be.

If you do manage to triple acid orb the LoB and kill him, the DM is just supposed to say “oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.”

The DM shouldn't let you face the LoBster if he wasn't ready for the LoBster to die. That's a DMing problem.

The villains that would rise up in the power vacuum left behind would be just as bad, and tough but they would have no depth if the players had to fight them next.

I disagree with this one, too. The Lord of Blades does not operate by himself. Even Mordain the Fleshweaver doesn't operate by himself (he has loyal and possibly even intelligent horrible creations). You shouldn't just walk into the LoB's citadel and kill him. You had to track his operatives, some of which are named NPCs and maybe even members of his cabinet. By the time you get around to killing the Lord of Blades, any surviving members of his cabinet will be known to you.

Just because the ECS doesn't detail the LoB's servants doesn't mean the DM can't give him servants. There are 6000 warforged in the Mournland. If only a fifth are loyal to the LoB, that's still about 1200 warforged to play with.

That annoying warforged with the illusory disguises who convinced Orgaev that you were anti-Cyran activists that time you visited New Cyre? He's still alive, and the PCs have a personal and strong reason to hate that warforged too.

Have you read the Lost Mark? I didn't like parts of the book, but in it the heroes encounter "Bastard", named after the bastard sword, a high-ranking minion of the Lord of Blades. Bastard, in turn, has his own servants. The heroes win, killing some of the servants and Bastard. By the time Bastard died, he had an established personality. Among other things, he was clever and excessively proud.

PCs can oppose high-ranking NPCs without directly facing them.

When we play, the Dragons stay on their island, the Lords of blades works through his agents, the kings stay on their thrones, and the rest of Khorvaire is ours.

DM

That's pretty good. Leaders rarely "lead from the front", as it were, because they're too important to get killed.
mhacdebhandia
08-31-06, 01:53 PM Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else.
There's nothing wrong with this style of play. However, what I would suggest is that it's far from universal - and therefore, I doubt that the intent of Keith Baker and the other designers of Eberron was to cater to it explicitly by making iconic figures and features of the setting somehow "untouchable".

In comics, no-one ever kills Doctor Doom (at least, not permanently) because the ongoing publishing model severely discourages the loss of popular characters.

In a game, you can do the same thing if you want to, but it's also true that campaigns end - even series of campaigns set in the same timeline end. Over on EN World, I created a poll on the subject of continuing changes - the last time I looked, most people who did carry over the consequences of PC actions (or inaction) to their next game did it in homebrewed settings, not published settings.

Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed.
There's no point in my suggesting that you don't keep to a sense of continuity - you have your playstyle preferences, and they're valid. My solution would be to run campaigns for you which weren't about defeating singular major antagonists like Vol or the Lord of Blades - I'd put you up against the machinations of the Chamber or agents of the Dreaming Dark or cults of the Dragon Below.

However, I must disagree that the iconic villains of Eberron are meant to be untouchable. It's just not that common to carry over events from one campaign into the next, and I don't think Wizards of the Coast intended to cater for a minority playstyle.

In fact, I think it's a triple minority. It's not common for PC action in one campaign to influence another; it's not even common for GMs to run consecutive games in the same setting; it's not even common for the same group of players to play in every game run by a particular GM (or within a group). When there's any reasonable pool of players available, in my experience GMs prefer to pick and choose the best players for the game they want to run. You wouldn't pick me to play a heavily anime-influenced game of magical schoolgirls and mecha!
DrunkMonk
09-01-06, 05:00 AM Holy cow. I never expected all of the posts. Just for the record - my DM does not read this board (no matter how many times I tell him to) so I try and get good ideas to bring to him. Thanks to everyone who posted. It really helped me.

I don't get to play that much, and mostly just help set up the games and play NPC's that my dm wants to act "naturally" and not have insider information. I play with the same guys everytime and I had no idea that people in other games restarted everytime. That is something to think about.

I guess I was off base with my read of what Eberron NPC's ment to the whole feel of the game. We try and keep it fair. The idea that there are no invisible walls is important in our games. NPC's have to play by the same rules as everyone else. If a bad guys burns down your house, he is fair game no matter who he is. We use bad guys like the one mentioned above. In fact, when I read that book I laughed out loud when that character was introduced. It read so much like one of our "fair game" bad guys that I knew his future 10 seconds after he was introduced.

Thanks for all the posts and sorry for bringing our minority game issues up.

DM

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DrunkMonk 08-30-06, 06:10 PM	I have been reading some of the more recent posts concerning some of Eberron’s NPC’s and my DM and I discussed how to use them. It just so happens that Jason and I agree that the “intent of the framers” (Mr. Baker & Co.) is that NPC’s are all plot devices. Especially the villains, and high-level good guys like the keeper of the flame. You don’t try and kill them, they represent what Elminster and his peers should have been in the Realms. They are supposed to be landmarks. Head towards the Lords of Blades, take a left at the Daughters of SK, then a right at Mrs. Vol, then go on to kill the bad guy that you DM created for you to kill. If you do manage to triple acid orb the LoB and kill him, the DM is just supposed to say “oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.” The villains that would rise up in the power vacuum left behind would be just as bad, and tough but they would have no depth if the players had to fight them next. The whole game would be anticlimactic if they killed one of the icons of Eberron. That being said, we also talked about how DM should manage NPC interaction with PC’s (even stupid ones). The relationship should go both ways. If a big name NPC kills a player, they should be fair game to be killed in turn. No doubles, no secret escape hatch, no exceptions. Players should want to interact with the big name characters, and the knowledge that those interactions were not combat encounters, might encourage low level players to go places and do things that they might not otherwise experience. When we play, the Dragons stay on their island, the Lords of blades works through his agents, the kings stay on their thrones, and the rest of Khorvaire is ours. DM
Shady314 08-30-06, 06:16 PM	You're completely free to kill any NPC you want. You can blow up Khorvaire if you want. Don't feel limited in any way. If you want your PCs to be the ones to undo the Mournland and strike down the LOB that could be damn good fun. I don't like to make any NPC untouchable/invincible through DM caveat alone. Except for the gods (if they exist) but that's why they don't have stats. If the players want to be the heroes that finally defeat the daughters of SK thats fine with me provided they are high enough level to actually be a threat to them. Go ahead and unmask Kaius and really change the face of the world. That's the point of PCs. Eberron needs heroes not pawns.
DrunkMonk 08-30-06, 06:43 PM	Good points shady. I know that each DM and players have unlimited freedom to play how they want. My question is not what you think the NPC's should be doing in your game, but what do you their intended role was? Can Eberron remain deep and fun if the landmarks are removed? I am certainly not suggesting that a DM can use big NPC's dirrectly against PC and not expect the players to fight back. They are the heros afterall. I just think that the decision to have a fundamental change in the eberron landscape should be in the DM's hands. It should be part of a complete story not a side quest. Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else. Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed. DM
Edymnion 08-30-06, 07:06 PM	“oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.”Honestly, if a DM ever flat out told me that, I would quit playing with them. Its one thing to have plans within plans and doubles (actually, I use that one for the LoB'ster a lot, he's an artificer and can use Simalcrum), but if a DM ever flat out told me "You can't kill this guy. He's got God Mode on because I don't want him to die", that would be the last sign I need that the DM doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, even just saying beforehand "Please try not to outright kill this guy, alright? He's important later on" would be fine for most people I know, but having the DM outright forbid the players from doing something reasonable like fighting back and killing them. The issue of players that go around killing anything that moves is a problem with bad players, but that doesn't mean the DM has to stoop to their level to put a stop to it. Its a dynamic game, and usually the best stuff comes after the players have totally thrown the DM's plans right out the freaking window and he's having to wing it.
Shady314 08-31-06, 08:17 AM	Good points shady. I know that each DM and players have unlimited freedom to play how they want. My question is not what you think the NPC's should be doing in your game, but what do you their intended role was? Can Eberron remain deep and fun if the landmarks are removed? I am certainly not suggesting that a DM can use big NPC's dirrectly against PC and not expect the players to fight back. They are the heros afterall. I just think that the decision to have a fundamental change in the eberron landscape should be in the DM's hands. It should be part of a complete story not a side quest. Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else. Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed. DM Oh well see I personally DO like that. If I ever had a chance to consistently play in Eberron and I DMed I'd keep an internal timeline as well. When I spend a year of my life once a week playing a game I'd like to feel I had a major impact on that game. I don't think there is anything wrong with curing the mournland and stopping the LOB. There are plenty of other threats out there and all kinds of new opportunities pop up anytime something huge happens. Though those particular PCs should be retired. Cyre can now be repopulated..... And GO! If you must have the Mournland throw in a second one in Xendrik. LOB may die but his movement may remain but with a new leader. Don't let yourself feel limited. I get your reluctance I honestly do. I find Erandis awesome. I find the fiends awesome. The Prophecy awesome. And so on. It can make you reluctant to change anything when you see it all as being so well done. It's like not wanting to take a toy out of it's package. But I say go for it. It's scary but fun. Oh and I do think Eberron is much more than it's iconic villains. It's the intrigue. It's the PCs being unique and special. It's the way magic is viewed and used. It's the dragonmarks and the houses. It's the planes/cosmology. It's the dragonshards. It's THE WORLD. The NPCs that populate it come second. I hate FR with it's untouchably powerful NPCs.
DarkWarriorKarg 08-31-06, 10:25 AM	Those iconic npcs are there to be the BBEG. If anyone kills them, it's the PCs. the games is Dungeons & dragons... of course they'll meet dragons. They don't just stay on Argonessan. Vol is starting to hear of the PCs in my game... and how they seem to be picking on the Emerald Claw (the 3 modules + queen of the burning eyes, plus accidental encounters where Garrow wasn't expecting them to be there and vice-versa...) Eventually, she might want to Do Something about them... maybe manipulate them against her enemies. (I'm toying with a much older cult of undeath dedicated to the rajahs... they consider the BoV to be upstarts... and are infiltrating the EC. Undead powered airships, of ancient design, to boot!). Right now they are racing to prevent New Cyre from being replaced by Carcosa (And Madness Followed, from Dungeon). If they fail, there's a Xoriat manifest zone and portal next to the Mournlands. That would change the landscape completely in short order. And yes, they can fail. And no, there's no one else who even knows what's going on, except maybe Sora Tereza (who knows everything and has NOTHING to do with the group).
Kreistor1 08-31-06, 10:52 AM	DrunkMonk, I think you've taken our little Daughters of Sora Kell thread the wrong way. They can be killed, if the DM wants that to be part of the plot. Killing anyone of power always has repercussions, and not just for the PC's. But that's not a reason to avoid killing them. Removal of certain personages could do things like kick off the Next War, but that's the DM's decision. The Powerful NPC's are intended to be both antagonists and patrons for the PC's, depending on the side you choose. Whether that makes them acceptable targets for the party's justice depends on the specifics, and the party's make-up. If the Silver Flame starts killing Shifters, I find a reasonable solution is to go after the Keeper of the Flame, even if she is an 11 year old girl. Don't confuse the specifics of Sora Teraza with a general rule for Eberron. For the most part, powerful Eberron NPC's are more vulnerable than their equivalents from FR and Greyhawk. They can be killed and can be more easily killed. Teraza, though, is a pain to hunt, because she knows you are coming.
(Psi)SeveredHead 08-31-06, 01:39 PM	I have been reading some of the more recent posts concerning some of Eberron’s NPC’s and my DM and I discussed how to use them. It just so happens that Jason and I agree that the “intent of the framers” (Mr. Baker & Co.) is that NPC’s are all plot devices. Especially the villains, and high-level good guys like the keeper of the flame. You don’t try and kill them This is where I disagree. The PCs can kill the major NPCs if the opportunity arises. You're not likely to kill the Lord of Blades unless the DM is ready for you to kill him, unless you do something clever and surprising. The difference, IMO, is that the Lord of Blades won't be killed in any novels or WotC-published adventures. As a result, WotC will never say "the Lord of Blades is dead" or even "the Lord of Blades is alive". (This is quite a different situation where, in a low-epic campaign in Dungeon Magazine, the PCs can kill the Queen of the Githyanki. I mean, that's huge for anyone who knows a lot about the Githyanki.) Only the DM running a campaign has the right to say whether the LoB is alive or dead (with possible PC input eg killing the LoB), and IMO, that's how things should be. If you do manage to triple acid orb the LoB and kill him, the DM is just supposed to say “oh – that was just a double – sorry - but you really can’t kill that NPC.” The DM shouldn't let you face the LoBster if he wasn't ready for the LoBster to die. That's a DMing problem. The villains that would rise up in the power vacuum left behind would be just as bad, and tough but they would have no depth if the players had to fight them next. I disagree with this one, too. The Lord of Blades does not operate by himself. Even Mordain the Fleshweaver doesn't operate by himself (he has loyal and possibly even intelligent horrible creations). You shouldn't just walk into the LoB's citadel and kill him. You had to track his operatives, some of which are named NPCs and maybe even members of his cabinet. By the time you get around to killing the Lord of Blades, any surviving members of his cabinet will be known to you. Just because the ECS doesn't detail the LoB's servants doesn't mean the DM can't give him servants. There are 6000 warforged in the Mournland. If only a fifth are loyal to the LoB, that's still about 1200 warforged to play with. That annoying warforged with the illusory disguises who convinced Orgaev that you were anti-Cyran activists that time you visited New Cyre? He's still alive, and the PCs have a personal and strong reason to hate that warforged too. Have you read the Lost Mark? I didn't like parts of the book, but in it the heroes encounter "Bastard", named after the bastard sword, a high-ranking minion of the Lord of Blades. Bastard, in turn, has his own servants. The heroes win, killing some of the servants and Bastard. By the time Bastard died, he had an established personality. Among other things, he was clever and excessively proud. PCs can oppose high-ranking NPCs without directly facing them. When we play, the Dragons stay on their island, the Lords of blades works through his agents, the kings stay on their thrones, and the rest of Khorvaire is ours. DM That's pretty good. Leaders rarely "lead from the front", as it were, because they're too important to get killed.
mhacdebhandia 08-31-06, 01:53 PM	Maybe this is wrong, but when we play it generally follows a timeline. If we have a TPK and fail at stopping a war, then when we start up agian that war is raging somewhere else. There's nothing wrong with this style of play. However, what I would suggest is that it's far from universal - and therefore, I doubt that the intent of Keith Baker and the other designers of Eberron was to cater to it explicitly by making iconic figures and features of the setting somehow "untouchable". In comics, no-one ever kills Doctor Doom (at least, not permanently) because the ongoing publishing model severely discourages the loss of popular characters. In a game, you can do the same thing if you want to, but it's also true that campaigns end - even series of campaigns set in the same timeline end. Over on EN World, I created a poll on the subject of continuing changes - the last time I looked, most people who did carry over the consequences of PC actions (or inaction) to their next game did it in homebrewed settings, not published settings. Maybe it would be a great game to "fix" the mournland and kill the LoB. But that means that in our timeline - No more mournland. No more LoB. Eberron would be less fun (I think) if those elements were removed. There's no point in my suggesting that you don't keep to a sense of continuity - you have your playstyle preferences, and they're valid. My solution would be to run campaigns for you which weren't about defeating singular major antagonists like Vol or the Lord of Blades - I'd put you up against the machinations of the Chamber or agents of the Dreaming Dark or cults of the Dragon Below. However, I must disagree that the iconic villains of Eberron are meant to be untouchable. It's just not that common to carry over events from one campaign into the next, and I don't think Wizards of the Coast intended to cater for a minority playstyle. In fact, I think it's a triple minority. It's not common for PC action in one campaign to influence another; it's not even common for GMs to run consecutive games in the same setting; it's not even common for the same group of players to play in every game run by a particular GM (or within a group). When there's any reasonable pool of players available, in my experience GMs prefer to pick and choose the best players for the game they want to run. You wouldn't pick me to play a heavily anime-influenced game of magical schoolgirls and mecha!
DrunkMonk 09-01-06, 05:00 AM	Holy cow. I never expected all of the posts. Just for the record - my DM does not read this board (no matter how many times I tell him to) so I try and get good ideas to bring to him. Thanks to everyone who posted. It really helped me. I don't get to play that much, and mostly just help set up the games and play NPC's that my dm wants to act "naturally" and not have insider information. I play with the same guys everytime and I had no idea that people in other games restarted everytime. That is something to think about. I guess I was off base with my read of what Eberron NPC's ment to the whole feel of the game. We try and keep it fair. The idea that there are no invisible walls is important in our games. NPC's have to play by the same rules as everyone else. If a bad guys burns down your house, he is fair game no matter who he is. We use bad guys like the one mentioned above. In fact, when I read that book I laughed out loud when that character was introduced. It read so much like one of our "fair game" bad guys that I knew his future 10 seconds after he was introduced. Thanks for all the posts and sorry for bringing our minority game issues up. DM