Are there any plans for a Living Eberron, similar to the Living Forgotten Realms?
Hey all sorry if this has already been asked but a search revealed nothing.
Are there any plans for a Living Eberron, similar to the Living Forgotten Realms?
No. Thankfully
There will, however, be Eberron content: GenCon Indy's D&D Championship "Shards of Galifar" features Eberron content, as do the new Upgraded Delve Nights launching in July with "Attack of the Claw".
-karma
I know this may be the wrong place for this question but does anyone know how someone could get there hands on the Xen'drik Exposition adventures? I would like to re-read through some of them to begin to work on ideas for a new Eberron game I want to run once the setting comes out.
As Xen'Drik Expeditions is a retired campaign and the rights to those modules have reverted back (as I understand it) to the original authors - sans the WotC IP (like Eberron, Xen'Drik Expeditions, named NPCs) there isn't any channel available to obtain them legally.
Sorry.
As Wolfstar says, the adventures aren't available electronically any more.
The response at DDXP was that LFR is thei premiere Living Campaign right now and that they don't have plans to segment the market the way they did with several campaigns running at once in 3e.
This doesn't make sense to me. At one point there were JUST two campaigns. The D&D Eberron campaign and Living Greyhawk. The play base for each was far apart. How that segments the groups is beyond me.
At one point circa 2000 there was Virtual Seattle, Living Death, Living Greyhawk and Living Kalamar. And Living City run by WOTC or the other company. I think...so those 'segment' the markets not TWO campaigns.
Mike
This doesn't make sense to me. At one point there were JUST two campaigns. The D&D Eberron campaign and Living Greyhawk. The play base for each was far apart. How that segments the groups is beyond me.
I'm not sure how much it segments the market, versus segments RPGA's limited budget and resources (I personally suspect that that's the bigger issue).
At one point circa 2000 there was Virtual Seattle, Living Death, Living Greyhawk and Living Kalamar. And Living City run by WOTC or the other company. I think...so those 'segment' the markets not TWO campaigns.
When I first got involved in the RPGA, around 2002, there were three campaigns that I know were actively managed by the RPGA:
- Living Greyhawk
- Living Force
- Living City (though, that got spun off to Ryan Dancey's Organized Play group soon thereafter)
In addition, there were a large number of what I believe they used to call "member-activated" campaigns, which weren't directly managed by the RPGA, including:
- Virtual Seattle (Shadowrun)
- Living Rokugan (L5R)
- Living Jungle
- Living Kalamar
- Living Death
- Living Arcanis
- Living Spycraft
- Living Dragonstar
While the member-activated campaigns didn't require the same resources from RPGA management as did the RPGA-run campaigns, they still did take up space on the RPGA server. IIRC, about 2 or 3 years ago, WotC decided that they were essentially spending their own money (server space, etc.) in supporting other companies' products, and so, they parted ways with the few non-WotC campaigns which were still under the RPGA banner at that point.
- Living Greyhawk
- Living Force
- Virtual Seattle (Shadowrun)
- Living Jungle
- Living Kalamar
- Living Death
- Living Arcanis
- Living Spycraft
- Living Dragonstar
I've played those campaigns and understand your points about the RPGA budget and server etc. Dave C. has said over and over that the RPGA is part of the marketing department now. I think if there are two campaigns LFR and Eberron they both 'market' 4e so offering two "flavors" shouldn't segment the player base THAT much IMHO.
Mike
If Eberron shows up, it will most likely not be a Living style campaign. It's likely to be a D&D Campaigns style game like the previous ones were. (Mark of Heroes and Xen'drik Expeditions) Those campaigns have less administrative overhead associated with them than a Living campaign does.
People keep saying that; I'm not at all sure what that means.
Sure, a D&D Campaigns-style campaign wouldn't need a detailed metacampaign infrastructure, wouldn't offer convention-specific events or interactives, wouldn't have detailed local regional flavor and wouldn't have campaign-specific rules changes... but then, apparently, neither does LFR.
I can understand that a Living campaign and non-Living campaign cater to different player-types, but I'm not sure I'm seeing an overwhelming amount of administrative effort distinguishing them.
What am I missing?
I can understand that a Living campaign and non-Living campaign cater to different player-types, but I'm not sure I'm seeing an overwhelming amount of administrative effort distinguishing them.
From the simplest standpoint: A Living-style campaign is constantly evolving in both campaign rules, plots, etc. D&D Campaigns are sort of set-it and forget it. D&D Campaigns have a finite duration and the plot is hashed out ahead of time. After that it's just getting authors to write the mods (and they're usually set ahead of time), reviewing them and it's done. More is done on the front end before the campaign begins.
In a Living campaign, only the framework is done prior to campaign start. After that it's a constant workload of managing/approving plots, reviewing a much larger pool of modules, reviewing campaign rules, adding rules dealing with new material released by WotC, etc.
A D&D Campaign would have 24-36 mods a year. A Living Campaign has easily 2-3 times that many if not more, which makes sense because it's typically a larger campaign.
EDIT: Before i forget, some may wish to point out Xen'drik. Yes, Xendrik did a sort of meld between Living campaigns and D&D Campaigns. There was the main Xen'drik campaign and then they appointed "regional" directors to oversee faction specific plots/mods. So that campaign likely saw a bit more work put into it than other D&DCs.
From the simplest standpoint: A Living-style campaign is constantly evolving in both campaign rules, plots, etc. D&D Campaigns are sort of set-it and forget it.
The things you describe aren't what I'd consider intrinsic to a Living vs. non-Living campaign. If you start at 1st level and retain rewards from adventure to adventure, I'd call it a Living-style campaign, even if the campaign plot line is etched in stone from the beginning. Indeed, as you note, Xen'drik had the qualities you ascribe to a Living campaign, so this does not appear a useful distinction.
All campaigns have a finite duration (it's just that sometimes the players aren't told this ahead of time). Some Living campaigns have player influence on the plot, but I can't say I've seen any in LFR and I'd still call it a Living campaign; I'd still call it such even if you told me that every module had already been written before the campaign launched.
In any event, if the defining characteristic is to have fire-and-forget modules, then congratulations, you're already getting this: The relaunch of the Dungeon Delve system in July is certainly that, and the preview of the Delve PC character sheet suggests that they'll be set in Eberron.
The things you describe aren't what I'd consider intrinsic to a Living vs. non-Living campaign. If you start at 1st level and retain rewards from adventure to adventure, I'd call it a Living-style campaign, even if the campaign plot line is etched in stone from the beginning. Indeed, as you note, Xen'drik had the qualities you ascribe to a Living campaign, so this does not appear a useful distinction.
We were talking admin side though. You're talking player side. Player side there's an even bigger difference. D&D Campiagns are not a living style campaign. To use your point, in a D&D Campaign you don't have to start at 1st level. If you come in 1/2 way through the campaign, you start at whatever the current minimum level is. You don't really have to track anything. Gear and magic items can be swapped from mod to mod, consumables are reset every mod, etc. Heck, i think you could swap out feats and spells, etc every mod too (3.X of course). I think the only restriction was you couldn't change your race or stats, which woudl mean you could change classes if you wanted to. i never played them but thought it was all kind of ridiculous. There are level bumps to keep people current with the pace of the campaign. IOW, you're less invested in your character.
Also, plot wise... in a Living campaign the plot can alter based on what player's do. In D&D Campaigns it's all written ahead of time, you're just along for the ride.
Huge, huge difference. I don't know if you played the D&D Campaigns, but they most definitely were not living-style no matter how you try to look at them.
This doesn't make sense to me. At one point there were JUST two campaigns. The D&D Eberron campaign and Living Greyhawk. The play base for each was far apart. How that segments the groups is beyond me.
I agree. I can't be the only person who doesn't like the current living campaign model used in LFR. That everything is legal and open for use, the ability to play any adventure multiple times, and the way the limited number of level-appropriate adventures are scattered all around the game world make for a campaign that I don't want to play in.
If they did start a Living Eberron campaign, it'd be just as likely that they'd use that same format which wouldn't interest me and I wouldn't be playing in that anyways, but if they amped down on it a bit I'd be all over a more restrictive living campaign. Since I'm not going to play LFR anways, I'm not segmenting the playerbase. In fact, it's expanding the playerbase by gaining at least one player who wouldn't be buying into the other product to start with.
I agree. I can't be the only person who doesn't like the current living campaign model used in LFR. That everything is legal and open for use, the ability to play any adventure multiple times, and the way the limited number of level-appropriate adventures are scattered all around the game world make for a campaign that I don't want to play in.
Did you play LG? all the things you're saying make you not want to play LFR were done in answer to many of the complaints of LG. The biggest complaints were usually: 1) You couldn't play a regional mod unless you were in that region physically, 2) Too many restricted, banned lists of items, classes, feats, etc., 3) Author/player arms race.
So now you have people complaining there's no continuity because of all the regional mods with no restriction on playing which has changed how mods are released (and how many), complaints that everything is open (but... can I play a warforged in LFR?), and complaints that it's too easy.
You just can't please everyone. On the whole, I see a lot fewer complaints so far about LFR than I did with LG.
If they did start a Living Eberron campaign,
As previously stated, isn't going to happen. It'll be a D&D Campaign. So there's no reason to speculate anythign on it. move along, nothing to see.
