New Campaign Setting Hint Is Eberron?

Eberron? Count me in!

 

[jgsugden]

I would prefer they do rule agnostic setting descriptions online - like a Wiki - and then just sell us crunch books with monsters, spells, items, feats, etc... that are campaign specific Mixing crunch and lore in a product rarely serves needs as well as isolating them. .. and we don't need to repeat the core of the lore over and over every edition.

 

[Ancalagon]

When you design an adventure, however, you don't need to care about how many miles away something is. You care about how many days it will take to get there and how many encounters you will have along the way. It doesn't matter if you're going to walk, or ride a horse, or take a ship or any of that. To the design of an adventure, the next location is always exactly as far away as it needs to be. Let's say you want the players to have approximately one week of travel between two destinations. If the players move at 20 miles a day, the destination needs to be 140 miles away. If they players move 60 miles a day, then the destination needs to be 420 miles away.
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I... don't like this. It removes player agency. What if they decide that the quest is urgent and buy fast horse?

 

[gyor]

If you equate Al-Qadim with the medieval Middle East, then Calimshan would be like Morocco / Moorish Spain (with its northern neighbor Amn being something of an analogue to colonial Spain).

I've heard some compare Calimshan to Turkey, maybe the Ottoman Empire, perhaps a mix of the two.

 

[gyor]

I... don't like this. It removes player agency. What if they decide that the quest is urgent and buy fast horse?

Or cast the Illusionary Steed Spell.

 

[Staffan]

I would prefer they do rule agnostic setting descriptions online - like a Wiki - and then just sell us crunch books with monsters, spells, items, feats, etc... that are campaign specific Mixing crunch and lore in a product rarely serves needs as well as isolating them. .. and we don't need to repeat the core of the lore over and over every edition.

I disagree. Settings and rules work in tandem. To use some non-D&D examples, a setting like GURPS Technomancer is heavily based on the way magic works under the GURPS rules, and would not work very well using the Chronicles of Darkness rules. Likewise, d20 is a poor fit for the Star Wars setting - the new FFG system works much better.

That said, I'm not opposed to tweaking the lore of a setting to match new rules, particularly not for a setting as strongly tied to the 3e ruleset as Eberron is. For example, I would say that "Dragonmarked houses use magical abilities granted by dragonmarks, often enhanced via specific magic items, to dominate many mercantile endeavors in Khorvaire." is a statement that's important to have a proper Eberron feel. But "The Least Mark of Handling lets the bearer cast one of these spells once per day: calm animal, charm animal, or speak with animals" is not. As long as the Mark of Handling gives the bearer some form of power over animals, I'm OK with it.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I... don't like this. It removes player agency. What if they decide that the quest is urgent and buy fast horse?

The exact same thing that happens when you design a 10 room dungeon and the PCs circumvent 8 of the rooms. Don't confuse designing the adventure with playing it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I... don't like this. It removes player agency. What if they decide that the quest is urgent and buy fast horse?

It makers no difference. Travel is always at The Speed of Plot, irrespective of if they are on a fast horse or the Millennium Falcon.

 

[SkidAce]

It makers no difference. Travel is always at The Speed of Plot, irrespective of if they are on a fast horse or the Millennium Falcon.

I kinda agree and disagree. Speed of Plot is a true thing, of course.


However, travel choices make a difference (imho).

Choose to travel 200 miles on Imperial Guard roads, less encounters in character, less time at table.

Choose to travel 200 miles through goblin infested territorial holy graveyards, I feel obligated to check for goblin encounters, thus more time at the table resolving them.

Re: mode of travel, faster travel though the goblin area (horse, griffon, pass via plants, what ever) would reduce the number of likely goblin encounters, thus again reducing table time, and character time engaging.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I kinda agree and disagree. Speed of Plot is a true thing, of course.


However, travel choices make a difference (imho).

Choose to travel 200 miles on Imperial Guard roads, less encounters in character, less time at table.

Choose to travel 200 miles through goblin infested territorial holy graveyards, I feel obligated to check for goblin encounters, thus more time at the table resolving them.

Re: mode of travel, faster travel though the goblin area (horse, griffon, pass via plants, what ever) would reduce the number of likely goblin encounters, thus again reducing table time, and character time engaging.

But Plot determines which route you choose. Urgent mission elsewhere - go fast route. Need to find a dead goblin king's sceptre? You take the slow route.