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View Full Version : Running a campaign set in Elder Scrolls' Tamriel?



kraftcheese
2017-07-17, 04:38 AM
I was wondering about people's experiences in running games set in the universe of The Elder Scrolls games. Specifically about some problems that I'd imagine it shares with running a Star Wars game; the amount of knowledge and player expectations about the world.

How does the system you use mesh with players expectations of what they should be able to do as informed by experience with Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, etc (say with regards to TES's schools of magic?) and with what they expect to encounter in the game world? How do you homebrew races and classes?

Eldan
2017-07-17, 05:15 AM
I'm running one right now.

Honestly, player knowledge hasn't been much of a problem. One player has only played Skyrim, two are quite a bit into the lore and a third one doesn't have the faintest idea. She plays an Imperial after being prompted that "They are the Roman Empire, pretty much, except, you know, in a Fantasy world."

Homebrew, well, really depends on which system you run. I run 3.5 with minimal homebrew. Created some minimalist races, nothing for classes or magic. Banned a handful of spells, but mostly those I ban in all my games.

We have a Breton Crusader, a Breton Warlock, an Imperial Druid and a Khajiit Beguiler and it mostly works.

Mastikator
2017-07-17, 05:37 AM
The TES schools of magic vary between the games, the lore varies a little but they mostly get away with it by each game being a different country. I haven't played TESO or Daggerfall so I can't say for sure about either of those. I've never played an elder scrolls table top, have bethesda made an actual table top RPG system for it or are you planning on running something homebrew?

Aneurin
2017-07-17, 05:47 AM
I've not run an Elder Scrolls game before, but I have run games in other established settings before. I've never really had much of an issue with player knowledge on the whole - it's easy enough to give a new player a basic primer of what 'everyone knows' about the setting, and if you're worried about the setting buffs metagaming it's easy enough to just announce you'll be making a few changes here and there to keep them on their toes (even if you don't do it, it'll keep 'em busy guessing). But again, meta-knowledge has never been much of an issue for me.

As for a system... there's the Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG (http://uesrpg.blogspot.co.uk/) that uses a d100 system. I've not played it myself, or really looked over it, but d100 tends to be a fairly solid mechanical base.

NichG
2017-07-17, 09:59 AM
Playing an UESRPG campaign right now. The system has some funny bugs and you have to calibrate expectations (characters basically don't succeed on things that aren't their big thing, characters will almost always fail to resist action denial stuff like paralyze or panic, hitpoints basically never go up, the wound system is brutal, the difference in power between groups that understand how to use stamina and those that don't is potentially huge, ...).

I'd say it's workable, though very awkward in places.

Setting-wise, everyone at the table knows the games, so there's a lot of lore comments that get raised. Including the really weird stuff like CHIM and khajiit aedric cosmology.

goto124
2017-07-17, 10:08 AM
Presumbly, whatever system is used won't allow PCs to pause and eat 5 wheels of cheese in the middle of battle :smalltongue:

KillianHawkeye
2017-07-17, 10:13 AM
Presumbly, whatever system is used won't allow PCs to pause and eat 5 wheels of cheese in the middle of battle :smalltongue:

Well now you're just being unfaithful to the setting! :smallamused:

Eldan
2017-07-17, 10:31 AM
Presumbly, whatever system is used won't allow PCs to pause and eat 5 wheels of cheese in the middle of battle :smalltongue:

I'd be willing to hand out CHIM as an epic template. :smalltongue:

LibraryOgre
2017-07-17, 10:37 AM
Presumbly, whatever system is used won't allow PCs to pause and eat 5 wheels of cheese in the middle of battle :smalltongue:

Dammit, I don't want to play, then. :smallbiggrin:

FWIW, I did a brief hack of TES into Savage Worlds (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/search/label/elder%20scrolls), if you're interested.

kraftcheese
2017-07-18, 08:34 AM
Oh I wasn't even thinking about running a TES game per se, I was mostly just wondering what OTHER people's experiences with running them were; it's a setting with so much lore which I'm into, and I feel like I'd probably be the tool player being like "Uhh actually Vivec both always was and at the same time never was divine and mortal at the same time."