Oathbound - my players love it

[roguerouge]

Uh, for those of us without the setting, what's the deal? What's the appeal? What's good about it?

 

[kenmarable]

Uh, for those of us without the setting, what's the deal? What's the appeal? What's good about it?

I'm sure others can elaborate much further or add in their opinions about what's good, but for an executive summary, I forget what's common PC knowledge, so I'll try to spoiler tag it. Also, this is all from memory years back, so forgive and vagueness or errors.

Spoiler

Oathbound takes place on the world of the Forge. Eons ago the gods got together and locked away some persnickity deity and made 7 of his followers be in charge of the locks. The deity's prison is a world and the locks are each a realm under absolute control of one of the "feathered flock". (The followers had a bird-like theme, think the Raven Queen from 4e.)

Well, putting the deity's most loyal servants in charge of his imprisonment isn't the wisest thing, even if they are forced to maintain the locks (they are oath bound, you could say). Eventually they realized that they could pull beings from other worlds to this planet. So they all start pulling in powerful heroes in hopes that they can eventually break the locks and release the imprisoned deity.

So, this is a world that has had adventurers and powerful creatures pulled into it for ages and ages. So there are cities and commoners, but since everyone is either an adventurer or descendant of one, the place is pretty jacked up. For one thing, everything is powered up - your senses seem richer, crop seasons are less than a month, everyone who is pulled get a boon or some sort. Etc.

What I personally like about it is that it's an anything goes sort of setting. You can have any race (and even any technology level, but they didn't push that aspect too much), and the craziest adventurers, and it all makes sense in the setting. The world is designed around testing adventurers and making them stronger.

And each of the realms is very distinct. The primary "city" of the world is Penance, which is constantly built on top of past layers, so it's a massively high plateau now with layers and layers of ruins that get older and stranger the deeper you go. But there's also rules for controlling sections of the city, so if you want to play a political game, you can, etc.

It's a very flexible and over-the-top (in a good way) setting.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm a big fan of the setting, and have been running an Oathbound campaign off and on for a few years now. I love how it explains away certain "D&D-isms", such as treasure stuck in odd places as people intentionally hiding them to form a connection with future adventurers, and the appearance of random monsters, as the fowl are basically dungeon masters who want to test the PC's. Random encounters arent so random anymore.

My only complaint is the frequently terrible mechanics. Bastion Press had a great eye towards fun and fluff, but some of the worst playtesters I've seen. Nearly every prestige class seemed grossly underpowered compared to your basic core class options (particularly the poor rafter, which is essentially a crappy bard)), with the exception of the initial way foci paths were gained determined. Once wildwood hit, and you had to trade class levels for them however, they were back to being poor choices.

Like I said, good fluff, Bastion just didnt seem to know that trading an entire character level for the all powerful ability to shore up a mine tunnel (which is already covered under a skill to begin with) was a good choice. But hey, its got telekinetic jellyfish as PC's, so it gets a by on a lot in my book. It had the unusual feel of sigil without all the plane hopping "Sliders" feel of going to a new world each week.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Your assessment sums it up for me too, ehren. And likewise, I've found that no quibbles (like, with some of the mechanics) have been enough to put me off the setting completely.

I was thinking about using one or two of the supplements, not so long back. Might still do.

 

[catsclaw227]

I've always been a fan of Oathbound. I ran a couple of adventures in Penance and also Wildwood. Excellent feel to the campaign world. I also liked the one book in Oathbound, called Forged by Thomas Reid.