Needed: Eberron Selling Points [Archive] - Wizards Community

Needed: Eberron Selling Points [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Salla
02-11-05, 01:41 AM I know these kinds of threads are usually for new releases, but ...

I've wanted to get the Eberron book for a while, but my wife (I know, I know ... she works at a bookstore and gets a discount, so she has a say in all the gaming stuff I buy. Besides, she games too) is biased against it.

The reasons he's biased against it is because someone ran a game of it very poorly, and as they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. He just did 'Forgotten Realms With Warforged', basically, along with some of his other GMming foibles like bone stupid NPCs ("Okay, now that we've found a suitably seedy grungy bar, we can try to find some information about these death threats against our employer ... who followed us down here." Pause. "And just got killed.")

Anyway, I'm trying to convince her that the one game just shouldn't count, that it was a case of bad DMming, etc etc.

Someone care to help an Ebbie-wannabe out with some good selling points and examples of GOOD Eberron gaming?
law
02-11-05, 01:54 AM For one the setting is way more open to a good DM (the DM has an easer time adding newwer stuff since it do have 10+ years of info for it already).

PCs have are just minerly different and with a new feal (action points, plus new races, feats, magic items that work for a small sets of people).

Has Psionics in mine from the start, plus you can add other chunks that are not built in easy.

My list could go on.
Salla
02-11-05, 02:23 AM My list could go on.

Could it, pretty pretty please? :bow:
law
02-11-05, 02:36 AM Well heres a few more.

Drow are not spider loving, goddes worshiping evil things anymore.

The planes are built into the world and effect it on a daly bases.

Not all magic items need a price, since some are story plots devises, and it does not matter what they cost (plus it is all up to the DM).

Old evils, new evils are showing up all the time and effect the game a little or a lot.

It has an in game newspaper that a good DM can use to drive story plots plus keep the game fresh. Plus it could be used as a spring bord for differing story plots.

New spells and domains that can be used anyplace.

Not all of the standard elves are none warlike over all.

Thats some more I would need to think of more after that. Yes im not the best speller so there is most likely some problems with what I said (so fix it so it souns right to you).
Just another user
02-11-05, 06:19 AM Give her the dragonshards Articles to read.
If they don't sell Eberron to her, nothing will do.
Gurv
02-11-05, 08:47 AM I really wish they would sticky it, but without aid of the Search function, I have once again found:

Edymnion's "Why You Should Buy Eberron (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=345851)" thread.
JabBond
02-11-05, 08:55 AM If she really games, tell her to remember what a world is like under a good DM. Then tell her to give a DM like THAT a chance to run Eberron with her. Take her to where a good Eberron game is being run, if nothing else. I bet within an hour she'll be reaching for dice and a character sheet.

And yeah, the story-like beginnings of the Dragonshards would work great.
Von Ether
02-11-05, 10:00 AM Some GM can't handle Eberron becuause it's designed to be one big playground for PCs and the GM.

High intriuge? Do a House vs. Nobles game in Sharn.
Call of Cthulu? Head to Sharn's basement.
Indiana Jones? Go to Q'barr.
Good Guy Necromancers? To Karrnath.
Noble Orcs and warlord elves can be found in Eberron.
Pseudo science fantasy and fantasy can be done in Eberron.

Usually we get a reoccuring thread every month that has the same line every time, "The [good guy] NPCs are too low level! My players could outshine them before 10 level, making Eberron their personal sand box!" ... as if that was a bad thing. LOL! It's the bad guys who still hit high levels in Eberron and that's what counts.

I feel your pain though, I was in a pirate game once. Mission-based XP, fate points, gritty combat, etc. All the game mechanics and genre that said "do not dungeon crawl here." The GM kept tossing zombies at us and down played every chandelier-swinging stunt we tried to pull off.

We were thinking Pirates of the Caribbean action, he was thinking "dunegons with a pirates theme window dressing," not neccessarly the same thing. In fact, explain the negative experience to your Mrs. that way.
LordofIllusions
02-11-05, 10:06 AM My wife dislikes certain aspects of Eberron as well, such as the Warforged. I remedied that though, by reading a few pages from City of Towers(the novel) to her. ;)

~~~
Von Ether
02-11-05, 11:30 AM Ah, ask and you shall recieve! Unsolicited, a thread for your Mrs.
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=378476

If people will permit me, I've got to share a brief combat exchange our party had in the most recent session. It just summed up the pulp style of combat so perfectly.

Traveling on the lightning rail, two of the party are drinking at the bar at the lounge. One's a shifter ranger and the other is a kalashtar rogue/psion, and both are trying to drown their sorrows for various reasons. Out of the corner of his eye, the shifter notices that halflings on glidewings are attacking the ship.

"I'll be right back." he says to his drinking pal, stepping to the balcony doorway and readying his bow. The Kalashtar pours them both another shot.

Loosing a few arrows, the leader of the raiding group pulls even to the balcony. With a battlecry and foaming mouth, he leaps off of his mount and grabs onto the shifter. Unprepared for the assault, the lithe ranger tries to shake the little bundle of rage, but can't get him to budge, and they roll around the cabin floor.

With an incenvenienced sigh, the kalashtar picks up the bottle and breaks it over the halfling's head, knocking him out cold. On the way back to the bar, he kicks the runt out the balcony door.

"Thanks." the ranger says, as they both take their shots and turn to face the rest of the raiding party.
WizO_Sith
02-11-05, 02:00 PM One of the biggest appeals of the setting for me (over and above the fact that it's inspired by a lot of source material that I *REALLY* like - i mean, how is a rabid movie geek like me *not* going to love a setting that draws it's inspiration from "The Maltese Falcon" & "A Touch of Evil"?), is that it's coherent. Eberron has an internal logic that (so far) has been completely consistent, and that goes a looooong way with me.

Unlike the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, etc... everything in the setting was designed to fit together seamlessly - Eberron didn't start as somebody's House Game and grow into a published setting - Mr. Baker & Co. designed it to be exactly what it is - a setting where you can use *ANYTHING* from any D&D Book with only cosmetic modification.

The Setting, while not COMPLETELY the work of a single individual (Mr. Baker is the first to laud the contributions of the other writers), but it *DOES* benefit from having been designed with a single vision in mind. A lot of RPG settings suffer, IMO, from having too many authors with disparate visions and eventually have something of a "patched together" quality.
PoeticJustice
02-11-05, 02:10 PM I'll tell you what I've told others: Borrow a copy and run the Forgotten Forge. From the back of the book. Do it well. It's a darn good sell for D&D in general, and Eberron especially.
Or you could go on and on about how friggen cool a halfling riding a dinosaur is. Seriously. Why didn't anyone think of it before?
Brastan
02-13-05, 08:14 PM A Dinosaur riding Ninja Pirate Halfling to me more accurate, you have to all three or nun at all. ;)

I agree PoeticJustice, Forgotten Forge is a very good introductory adventure. There is very little that a DM or Player can do to mess up that adventure unless they're really trying to goof off. Although you'll want to drop by the Errata section for one or two clarifications. To me the most important part about D&D is the Players and then the DM. I don't really care about what so and so novel writes characters did/doing/will do. This is the first setting I've played in that stresses players and player characters. Also the interactions of the players with a new world is always the best.
Sarlax
02-13-05, 08:53 PM My wife dislikes certain aspects of Eberron as well, such as the Warforged. I remedied that though, by reading a few pages from City of Towers(the novel) to her. ;)
This is the best thing to do. Get a copy of The City of Towers for her to read. It's an excellent introduction to the setting.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Salla 02-11-05, 01:41 AM	I know these kinds of threads are usually for new releases, but ... I've wanted to get the Eberron book for a while, but my wife (I know, I know ... she works at a bookstore and gets a discount, so she has a say in all the gaming stuff I buy. Besides, she games too) is biased against it. The reasons he's biased against it is because someone ran a game of it very poorly, and as they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. He just did 'Forgotten Realms With Warforged', basically, along with some of his other GMming foibles like bone stupid NPCs ("Okay, now that we've found a suitably seedy grungy bar, we can try to find some information about these death threats against our employer ... who followed us down here." Pause. "And just got killed.") Anyway, I'm trying to convince her that the one game just shouldn't count, that it was a case of bad DMming, etc etc. Someone care to help an Ebbie-wannabe out with some good selling points and examples of GOOD Eberron gaming?
law 02-11-05, 01:54 AM	For one the setting is way more open to a good DM (the DM has an easer time adding newwer stuff since it do have 10+ years of info for it already). PCs have are just minerly different and with a new feal (action points, plus new races, feats, magic items that work for a small sets of people). Has Psionics in mine from the start, plus you can add other chunks that are not built in easy. My list could go on.
Salla 02-11-05, 02:23 AM	My list could go on. Could it, pretty pretty please? :bow:
law 02-11-05, 02:36 AM	Well heres a few more. Drow are not spider loving, goddes worshiping evil things anymore. The planes are built into the world and effect it on a daly bases. Not all magic items need a price, since some are story plots devises, and it does not matter what they cost (plus it is all up to the DM). Old evils, new evils are showing up all the time and effect the game a little or a lot. It has an in game newspaper that a good DM can use to drive story plots plus keep the game fresh. Plus it could be used as a spring bord for differing story plots. New spells and domains that can be used anyplace. Not all of the standard elves are none warlike over all. Thats some more I would need to think of more after that. Yes im not the best speller so there is most likely some problems with what I said (so fix it so it souns right to you).
Just another user 02-11-05, 06:19 AM	Give her the dragonshards Articles to read. If they don't sell Eberron to her, nothing will do.
Gurv 02-11-05, 08:47 AM	I really wish they would sticky it, but without aid of the Search function, I have once again found: Edymnion's "Why You Should Buy Eberron (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=345851)" thread.
JabBond 02-11-05, 08:55 AM	If she really games, tell her to remember what a world is like under a good DM. Then tell her to give a DM like THAT a chance to run Eberron with her. Take her to where a good Eberron game is being run, if nothing else. I bet within an hour she'll be reaching for dice and a character sheet. And yeah, the story-like beginnings of the Dragonshards would work great.
Von Ether 02-11-05, 10:00 AM	Some GM can't handle Eberron becuause it's designed to be one big playground for PCs and the GM. High intriuge? Do a House vs. Nobles game in Sharn. Call of Cthulu? Head to Sharn's basement. Indiana Jones? Go to Q'barr. Good Guy Necromancers? To Karrnath. Noble Orcs and warlord elves can be found in Eberron. Pseudo science fantasy and fantasy can be done in Eberron. Usually we get a reoccuring thread every month that has the same line every time, "The [good guy] NPCs are too low level! My players could outshine them before 10 level, making Eberron their personal sand box!" ... as if that was a bad thing. LOL! It's the bad guys who still hit high levels in Eberron and that's what counts. I feel your pain though, I was in a pirate game once. Mission-based XP, fate points, gritty combat, etc. All the game mechanics and genre that said "do not dungeon crawl here." The GM kept tossing zombies at us and down played every chandelier-swinging stunt we tried to pull off. We were thinking Pirates of the Caribbean action, he was thinking "dunegons with a pirates theme window dressing," not neccessarly the same thing. In fact, explain the negative experience to your Mrs. that way.
LordofIllusions 02-11-05, 10:06 AM	My wife dislikes certain aspects of Eberron as well, such as the Warforged. I remedied that though, by reading a few pages from City of Towers(the novel) to her. ;) ~~~
Von Ether 02-11-05, 11:30 AM	Ah, ask and you shall recieve! Unsolicited, a thread for your Mrs. http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=378476 If people will permit me, I've got to share a brief combat exchange our party had in the most recent session. It just summed up the pulp style of combat so perfectly. Traveling on the lightning rail, two of the party are drinking at the bar at the lounge. One's a shifter ranger and the other is a kalashtar rogue/psion, and both are trying to drown their sorrows for various reasons. Out of the corner of his eye, the shifter notices that halflings on glidewings are attacking the ship. "I'll be right back." he says to his drinking pal, stepping to the balcony doorway and readying his bow. The Kalashtar pours them both another shot. Loosing a few arrows, the leader of the raiding group pulls even to the balcony. With a battlecry and foaming mouth, he leaps off of his mount and grabs onto the shifter. Unprepared for the assault, the lithe ranger tries to shake the little bundle of rage, but can't get him to budge, and they roll around the cabin floor. With an incenvenienced sigh, the kalashtar picks up the bottle and breaks it over the halfling's head, knocking him out cold. On the way back to the bar, he kicks the runt out the balcony door. "Thanks." the ranger says, as they both take their shots and turn to face the rest of the raiding party.
WizO_Sith 02-11-05, 02:00 PM	One of the biggest appeals of the setting for me (over and above the fact that it's inspired by a lot of source material that I REALLY like - i mean, how is a rabid movie geek like me not going to love a setting that draws it's inspiration from "The Maltese Falcon" & "A Touch of Evil"?), is that it's coherent. Eberron has an internal logic that (so far) has been completely consistent, and that goes a looooong way with me. Unlike the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, etc... everything in the setting was designed to fit together seamlessly - Eberron didn't start as somebody's House Game and grow into a published setting - Mr. Baker & Co. designed it to be exactly what it is - a setting where you can use ANYTHING from any D&D Book with only cosmetic modification. The Setting, while not COMPLETELY the work of a single individual (Mr. Baker is the first to laud the contributions of the other writers), but it DOES benefit from having been designed with a single vision in mind. A lot of RPG settings suffer, IMO, from having too many authors with disparate visions and eventually have something of a "patched together" quality.
PoeticJustice 02-11-05, 02:10 PM	I'll tell you what I've told others: Borrow a copy and run the Forgotten Forge. From the back of the book. Do it well. It's a darn good sell for D&D in general, and Eberron especially. Or you could go on and on about how friggen cool a halfling riding a dinosaur is. Seriously. Why didn't anyone think of it before?
Brastan 02-13-05, 08:14 PM	A Dinosaur riding Ninja Pirate Halfling to me more accurate, you have to all three or nun at all. ;) I agree PoeticJustice, Forgotten Forge is a very good introductory adventure. There is very little that a DM or Player can do to mess up that adventure unless they're really trying to goof off. Although you'll want to drop by the Errata section for one or two clarifications. To me the most important part about D&D is the Players and then the DM. I don't really care about what so and so novel writes characters did/doing/will do. This is the first setting I've played in that stresses players and player characters. Also the interactions of the players with a new world is always the best.
Sarlax 02-13-05, 08:53 PM	My wife dislikes certain aspects of Eberron as well, such as the Warforged. I remedied that though, by reading a few pages from City of Towers(the novel) to her. ;) This is the best thing to do. Get a copy of The City of Towers for her to read. It's an excellent introduction to the setting.