Eddings or Fiest D20

[Sandain]

Hello,

Has anyone ever discussed these authors works as a game system or a campaign setting? I understand Fiests world Midkemia was a D&D homebrew world he and his friends play in.

 

[Bronath]

Not a bad idea. I'd also like to see someone do some conversions of David Gemmel's work.

 

[Sandain]

yeah gemmell is great, but his magic system wouldn't work for D&D :/

I heard Conan RPG has good gritty magic rules. Maybe a generic D20 sourcebook would be the go?

I would love to see stats on Druss, Skilganon etc

 

[Piratecat]

Eddings's template of "one country equals one racial stereotype" provides a good template for a starting DM who is trying to make his world more unique. I like the idea of assigning each nation a few national characteristics, then creating regional feats to help reinforce them.

 

[Samuel Leming]

I'm not familiar with either Fiest or Gemmel, but I've read enough Eddings to be turned off by his work.

The shallow racial stereotypes mentioned by Piratecat didn't appeal to me. His handling of gender is almost as bad.

The concepts that bullying behavior is acceptable if you're on the right side is another issue. There's nothing wrong when one or more characters hold this philosophy, but when an author ingrains it in his world(s) it's a problem.

Shallow.
Simple.
Uninspired.
Repetitive.

I don't realy understand what people find appealing enough about Eddings work that they'd want to play in a game based on any of his settings. Why?

I'd love to play in a George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire game though.

Sam

 

[sirkillian]

Hello,

Has anyone ever discussed these authors works as a game system or a campaign setting? I understand Fiests world Midkemia was a D&D homebrew world he and his friends play in.

I would like to see a World of Midkemia book. I really liked these books and I think they would make a cool world to play in.

 

[Argus Decimus Mokira]

I don't realy understand what people find appealing enough about Eddings work that they'd want to play in a game based on any of his settings. Why?

Apparently Sandain finds something compelling in his work, so how about no more thread crapping?

[on topic] I don't know which works of Eddings you're refering to Sandain, but I understand there is a compendium of source material used for the Belgariad and the Mallorean. A lot of people wrote to Eddings asking for his notes, etc. and he published it in paperback. The name eludes me*. Certainly, if I were thinking of starting a campaign set in that world, I'd start with that work.

EDIT: *Google tells me the book is named the Rivan Codex.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Wolf72]

I would like to see a World of Midkemia book. I really liked these books and I think they would make a cool world to play in.

he also provides a way for various worlds and campaigns to interact vis a vis the Valheru and their world/plane hopping conquests.

I'd like to see how the handle lesser and greater magic (I liked Birthright's vision: Lesser Mages=Illusion and divination ... limited, but could be useful, Greater Mages=all schools)

 

[Baron Opal]

There were a couple of suppliments released under the "Midkemia Press" imprint in the mid-80's, I think. The city of Karse was one.

Baron Opal

 

[Piratecat]

The shallow racial stereotypes mentioned by Piratecat didn't appeal to me.

I'm not actually trying to comment on the author's work itself, but on how well this sort of repetitive stereotyping lends itself to a nation in D&D. I find that the characteristics in the Belgeriad were emphasized almost to the point of parody, but creating regional feats with such a system in mind is a fantastic tool for a DM.

Example: let's say that I want the inhabitants of one of the campaign cities, Eversink, to have aspects such as being political, gossipy, mercantile, knowledgeable about river gossip, and condescending to foreigners. I create a regional feat that adds a penalty (-2 penalty on diplomacy to foreigners) along with some nice benefits (+2 gather info, +2 knowledge (local), +2 bluff.) The resulting feat is somewhat stronger than normal without being able to cripple a campaign, and this will encourage local PCs from Eversink to take it... thus reinforcing the stereotype.

I kind of like this idea when you want to characterize a particular race or culture. Sure, it's easy to just say "Everyone is like this," but if you don't create that behavior with game mechanics then I think you lose some verisimillitude.