my first Eberron game, help?

[chainer1216]

the title says it all, my group has been playing in ravenloft or faerun for years and we've decided to try somthing new, so i'm running an eberron game. I've read the first book by Mr. Baker, and thats pretty much all i know about the world, i just bought the core book and sharn, city of towers, so i'll be skimming those over the next week or so.

anyway, the group!
changeling, cleric of the traveler 3
warforged warblade 3
strongheart halfing gunslinger 3 w/ mark of hospitality
silverbrow human phychic warrior 3 w/ mark of the sentinal

the game will start off about a year after the mourning and will mostly take place in sharn at first.

so got any advice for me?

[OracleofSilence]

Eberron has some really interesting fluff going on there, but my first word of advice is simple. Get your story totally (and i do mean totally) straight. Decide before anything else who your BBEG will be (Vampire Karnnathi guy, Lords of Dust, Lord of Blades, Dreaming Dark, etc, etc, etc). This will make it much, much easier to effectively use the world, cause it will let you kinda ignore the vast amounts of information about stuff you will likely not use.

Secondly: decide on allies and patrons (pretty much the same question as above.

Also, get used to psionics. They are really, really important in Eberron (although still optional).

Finally, look into all of the continents, and design adventures for all of them, cause i can almost guarantee that most parties will want to go to at least to aside from Khorvaire (mainly Xen'drick in my experience).

[sonofzeal]

Eberron has some really interesting fluff going on there, but my first word of advice is simple. Get your story totally (and i do mean totally) straight. Decide before anything else who your BBEG will be (Vampire Karnnathi guy, Lords of Dust, Lord of Blades, Dreaming Dark, etc, etc, etc). This will make it much, much easier to effectively use the world, cause it will let you kinda ignore the vast amounts of information about stuff you will likely not use.

Secondly: decide on allies and patrons (pretty much the same question as above.

Also, get used to psionics. They are really, really important in Eberron (although still optional).

Finally, look into all of the continents, and design adventures for all of them, cause i can almost guarantee that most parties will want to go to at least to aside from Khorvaire (mainly Xen'drick in my experience).
Adventure for Argonnessen: "Dragons fall. Everyone dies (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RocksFallEveryoneDies)." That's pretty much all you need there.

Remember that the whole devestation of Xen'drix and the Giantish Empire was not because the Giants pissed off the Dragons - it happened because the Giants asked the Dragons for "help". That was 40,000 years ago. The continent still hasn't recovered.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for they bring new meaning to "there is no 'Overkill' (http://store.schlockmercenary.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=P-R37)".

[Madcrafter]

I got my players a Xen'drik. Players love Xen'drik.

tl;dr Don't worry about sarlona and argonessen, or any power groups you aren't putting in direct opposition to your players. Try and get them to see the unique take the setting has on their usual ideas about a d&d world.

Psionics are still totally optional, and don't really come into account unless your players decide to go to Sarlona (and why they ever would unless its plot relevant I don't know). You can probably safely ignore adventures for there and Argonessen, since they are unlikely to feature anything the players might want.

I've never read any D&D books, but as the one you read was by Mr. Baker himself, it probably gave a good idea of what the tone of the world is like. One of the nice things about the setting, (and any setting to a degree I suppose) is that as Oracleofsilence said, you can pick up however many plot relevant power groups you want and run with them, making their politics as simple or complicated as you desire in a game. Which also means if a plot point gets finished early, and the BBEG gets knocked off accidentally, there is always another group to step in and fill the gap, since everyone has a vested interest in every other group's actions (if you want to play it that way).

Also, maybe try and play up the eberron flavour a bit. Your group is used to faerun and ravenloft, so the magitech world of eberron might feel a little weird for them. Doing things like always describing the fact the magic items they find have dragonshards in them, or the skyways and towers in Sharn, or the monopolistic power of a dragonmarked house, will help pull them into the setting and see what makes it unique (or make them hate it, but then that is their personal taste). Or more usual racial trope subversion like the (relative) power of the goblinoid empire, the fact the oldest druids are orcs, the talenta halflings, karrnathi blood of vol cults or thranish theocracy.

[sonofzeal]

I recommend starting the players on an Airship. Why? Because Airships are awesome, and it'll jump them into the spirit of the setting immediately. Better to drop them into the magepunk right away than give them any illusions that this is another FR/Greyhawk/whatever.

[OracleofSilence]

It is true about dragons. But hell, that's why people love Eberron in a sense. Its that knowledge that no matter how bad it gets, there is always a very real chance that something worse will kill everyone...

[Alienist]

Well, I disagree about the decide who the big bad guy is up front thing. For some DMs I'm sure it is good advice, but for others I think it smacks too much of railroading.

For Eberron and especially for Sharn I think it is a setting where you can have a whole lot of different stuff going on all at the same time. What you can do is to have a main 'mission' if you like that takes you through the first session or two, but along the way you keep throwing tidbits in front of them, like daily news. Essentially these are randomly generated story hooks (e.g. Monsters from Droam have been attacking the border. Or goblinoids from Darguun have been raiding. Or Darguun and Droam have both been stirring up trouble on the borders at the same time and this is suspicious. Or Lord FrooFroo d'Cannith is putting together an expedition to go to the mourn land. Or there are rumours of a Rhakshasa stirring up trouble in one of the Dragonmarked houses but nobody will say what. If the players choose to follow one of the hooks then great, let them drive for a while.

The trick is to decide what is connected to what. In the above examples all, some or none of them could actually be connected. The monsters attacking from Droam might be after the Rhakshasa in order to get revenge upon it. The goblins might be pre-emptively striking because they have intelligence that Lord FrooFroo is actually going to go looking for Dhakani artifacts. But who told them that? Maybe it was a hag (some hags in Eberron can see the future) who is an agent from Droam.

There are layers upon layers upon layers. Maybe they never peel them all back, that's okay. The trick is to have a lot of different things going on. Don't just harp on about the monsters from Droam day after day after day. Let the players ignore it. Let there be consequences. The players ignore X? Village Y is wiped out. Let there be escalations. Country Z sends N troops to retaliate. Eventually if the players do nothing the country will send a large enough force to deal with the problem (effectively hitting the sitcom end of episode reset button) but the players won't see it like that. Maybe they have to dodge recruiters. Maybe their liege lord or patron asks some pointed questions.

The trick is not to railroad them. If the recruiters can overpower them and force them to join the army, then by definition the recruiters are more powerful than the party. Press-ganging them is going to make them feel impotent, but also raise the question that the PCs are obviously not the right people for the job.

The setting that Eberron most resembles is Shadowrun. You have countries, but you also have megacorporations (dragonmark houses), religion and race are additional dimensions. But in the end the trick (like Shadowrun) is to play to your strengths as a DM.

[Kol Korran]

hhhmmm... a few things that i can think of:

1) read the first book. Sharn might be a really complicated place to run, and a bloody hassle. like running a campaign in mini new york where the players can go anywhere and do anything. if you're not REALLY good with urban campaigns, i'd stay away from it, Eberron has a lot to offer.

2) on that point- just see what is interesting. sure, there are lots of supplementery books, but the core book is sufficient to run adventures in.

3) i'd suggest staying mostly in Khorvaire, with a possible foray to Xen'dric if the need strikes. for a first campaign Khorvaire has PLENTY to offer.

4) a major thing in Eberron is power levels. PCs of level 6 are already powers, the monarchs of nations are about level 10. above level 12 there are but a handful of characters in Khorvaire, all fairly legendery. the way i run it (and as i think was the intention in Eberron) PCs should feel they are IMPORTANT from the get go! not merely doing errands, but off against serious threats, one way or the other. if they get to level 9-10 they are allready major movers and shakers.

5) action points: these complicate DMing quite a bit. they mean you can seriously challenge players more than a normal campaign, but they are a hassle to balance as a DM. and sometimes the players hoard these, sometime they spam it. it makes serious "big bad" battles much harder to adjuciate.

but, they do enable spectacular moments!

6) ambiguity... this is also a major selling point for Eberron. while there are a few things that are "evil" or "good", most have sides of both, and most are murky in alignment, intention and goals (the well known "shades of grey") of Eberron. is the silver flame zealots or also an actual power of good? are the Karrnathi undead service an abomination, or a credit to the nation. Is Darguun a threat or a possible ally? and what about those dragons of he chamber- what are they up to? play to it.

7) magic availability. is a bit strange... low level magic (i say spell effects up to 3rd level in my campaign) and dragonmarked powers and inventions (mostly CIVILIZED inventions, warforged not withstanding) are quite common. but higher magic? level 4-6 is quite hard to find, and above that- it's the stuff of legends! (other than flesh weaver and VOl, the highest level wizard i think is level 11) you decide how it is in your world.

8) travel: travel in Eberron is reaaly easy ("follow the red line") and thus you don't spend time on the travel and random monsters there, (unless you really really want to) but rahter on the destinations. also, it means you can cover widely different locations in a fairly short time and with ease.

9) last advice: there are different sources for some things, like the exact effects of the Mournland, Xen'rdric and so on. either read one and choose, or mix and match. it's your game after all...

enjoy! :smallbiggrin: it's a bloody good setting!