My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

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etherial
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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by etherial » Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:39 am

The Undying wrote:
Mon Feb 27, 2017 4:32 am
Where are you at Circle?
If we'd had the Companion, the PCs would probably have been just reaching Circle 10.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by etherial » Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:46 pm

Part 3: Setting

I try to start my games in a big city to give the PCs a chance to get to know each other before they're entirely dependent on each other. I also switch which city from game to game so I always have a fresh world-building experience. I've started campaigns in V'Strimon, Bartertown, Jerris, and Kratas. This time, I wanted to actually build a home base for the PCs, so I set the game in Travar right before The Founding so they would take the Oath to serve as Champions for a Year and a Day and be obligated to come back to town from time to time.

Travar
In My Barsaive, Travar is a vaguely kidney-bean shaped walled city under siege from the Badlands. In order to construct the Citadel, a massive circle of white stone was laid into the ground well outside the city walls, constructing a Killing Field between the first and second lines of defense. 12 towers were constructed in a rough circle to help hold the weight of the Dome. Each tower was dedicated to a Passion and their cults were each encouraged to embellish them to try and out-do each other. During the Scourge, each tower was topped with orichalcum that magically held onto and help up the dome. After the Scourge, some of the towers were expanded above their original height, while others have grown into disrepair due to the forbidden nature of their Patrons.

The city walls have 12 gates in them, again, one for each Passion. Most of the year, only the gates for Garlen, Lochost, and Chorollis are open, but as harvest season closes and the Founding draws nigh, the six other reputable gates are opened as well. Nothing grows just outside the fifty feet of scorched, blackened stone that marks the area where the Horrors tested the dome. In fact, it is only because Travar built underground caverns for growing food during the Scourge that the city is even able to continue to sustain itself today. The food coming in from the neighboring regions cannot possibly meet the city's needs and a threat to the city's underground growing caverns could drown the city in blood.

The other thing about Travar that really gets a GM's juices going is The Founding, and for me, it was more about how the governing of the city actually works than the Tournament Itself. I wondered what would happen if a truly evil bastard became Magistrate. And so I created Torvik Rising Star. Once upon a time, he was a simple slave working for the upper class of Vivane. He escaped, heading into the territory now claimed by Cara Fahd, but before establishing himself, his village was attacked by Crystal Raiders and he was taken captive. Enraged that they would dare enslave an escaped slave such as himself, he devoted his life to the service of Raggok, worming his way into the kitchen staff of the Raiders' hall so he could poison them all at dinner. Now an accomplished Crownbreaker in possession of a fleet of airships, he made his way to Travar to disguise himself as a Merchant and undo the city for its arrogance in keeping slaves. Guess who hired the PCs to represent him in The Founding?

The Founding

Now the PCs were not supposed to win their first year. I expected them to make it to the Second Round and get trounced in the Cart Race. But they were in the cart race with two groups of Fourth Circlers and a group of Eighth Circlers. At first, the Eighth Circle Nethermancer would cast Etherial Darkness onto an arrow and then the Eight Circle Archer would shoot it onto an enemy cart. Meanwhile the Fourth Circlers would try and bash each others' carts to pieces and the Party just tried to stay out of everyone's way. Once the first cart was destroyed, the remaining teams decided to gang up on the Party in order to try and make sure they weren't shown up by a group of First Circle Newbies. But a well-timed attack to Knockdown left the Eighth Circle Sky Raider unable to catch up to the combat and his team, without their heavy, was unable to do enough damage to the Party to stop them from making it to the Final Straightaway. Then, in one last fit of pique, the Party won Initiative, got into the front, destroyed the remaining Fourth Circlers' Cart and then the Eighth Circlers crashed into an obstacle.

The Final Round was a game of Rock'em Sock'em Falsemen. The two groups were each in a field of terrain with rocks, stones, pillars, and a large platform. The platform had two Falsemen fighting on behalf of the two teams. Every time your team made it to a pillar, you could empower your Falseman by answering a trivia question correctly. And of course, you could always blast the opposing Falseman to pieces or render your opponents unconscious. The Party managed to just outpace their opponents with the trivia questions, gaining a significant lead in Falseman damage. Their opponents chose the honorable route of *not* directly murdering their opponents and instead went for direct damage to the Falsemen, but it was too little too late and the Party won.

K'Tenshin
The T'Skrang Aropagoi all held animosity toward Travar. V'Strimon wanted to formally challenge Travar's honor for failing to help oust the Therans and K'Tenshin wanted to obliterate Travar for failing to support their Rightful Imperial Overlords. The other Magistrates of Travar were Xoros Honeyed-Tongue and Alaric Windspear, both of whom were relatively easily whipped up into a War Frenzy by Torvik's Questor Powers and by K'Tenshin's continued animosity. The Party was repeatedly needed to lower tensions, smooth over ruffled feathers, etc. Conveniently complicating matters was the Party's own negative sentiments toward K'Tenshin and Thera. Brock wanted to wipe the T'Skrang city from the face of the Earth.

Throal
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in ED4 so far is King Kovar's family. No matter how desperate for a compromise candidate, the Throalic Noble Houses would not want to invite Civil War by selecting a new King who could die without an heir. IMB, Kovar has an unmarried teenaged daughter who was best friends with another unmarried teenaged dwarf girl from one of the Houses that was dishonored in the Kingdom's past troubles. Their friendship was officially disavowed when she became royalty, but her love for her friend and her friend's allies (The Skull Whargs), caused the two to Run Away and join the Skorchers just as the Party arrived in Throal as a secret envoy from Travar to try and form an alliance against K'Tenshin. Guess who hired the PCs to rescue the Purloined Princess?

The House of the Rising Sun
One of my favorite ideas to play with in Earthdawn is how the Gahad was treated during the Scourge, and this game featured a Kaer deep within the Badlands that was taken over by a Clan of Orks that had channeled their Gahads into a love of dueling, politeness, and propriety. Their Emperors rarely lasted five years as they were challenged over matters of honor by their Heirs and then defeated in single combat. Despite this, they managed to built a top-heavy society with a rigid caste system. The Orks became simply known as Nobles and were in charge of ruling over the lesser castes. The Dwarves were known as Scholars and kept the Nobles' affairs in order. The Elves were known as Artisans and crafted beautiful things for their Noble Patrons. The Trolls were known as Laborers and toiled in the fields to keep everyone fed. The Humans, whose non-Adept members had no special abilities worth noting, were known as Diggers and their lives were cast into the darkness to dig new growing tunnels, sometimes with their bare hands.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by Lys » Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:12 am

etherial wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2017 8:46 pm
The Humans, whose non-Adept members had no special abilities worth noting, were known as Diggers and their lives were cast into the darkness to dig new growing tunnels, sometimes with their bare hands.
Just a little nitpick here: Non-Adept humans do have a special ability, they're more versatile than non-Adept everyone else. Humans are less rigid and more flexible than other Namegivers, and so have an easier time picking up skills and knowledge from a variety of different fields, as well as adapting to new situations and circumstances. It's just not represented in the mechanics because the game is centred around Adepts, but the writing makes clear that versatility is a thing that all humans have. Also, not giving your diggers tools strikes me as waste of resources. The increased productivity from having picks and shovels vastly outweighs the cost of the tools themselves.

You should have probably put in terms that since humans are the most adaptable, they are best suited for the treacherous task of digging new tunnels. Since at any time you could run into unexpected rock formations, weak soils, cave-ins, noxious gasses, water leaks, and all manner of underground creepy crawlies.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by etherial » Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:36 am

Lys wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:12 am
You should have probably put in terms that since humans are the most adaptable, they are best suited for the treacherous task of digging new tunnels. Since at any time you could run into unexpected rock formations, weak soils, cave-ins, noxious gasses, water leaks, and all manner of underground creepy crawlies.
That would involve having respect for members of the lowest caste, which those who put themselves on a pedestal rarely do.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by Lys » Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:51 am

etherial wrote:
Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:36 am
That would involve having respect for members of the lowest caste, which those who put themselves on a pedestal rarely do.
Oh you don't need to respect the lower castes in order to acknowledge that they are good for something. In fact, it can and has been used as justification for their oppression. Back in the days of African slavery, it was common for people to justify it by saying that the "Negro" was strong and well suited for manual labour, so therefore that was his natural place in the order of things. It's an abhorrent way of thinking, but it is how some people thought. So in this society, the fact that humans are so adaptable makes it "obvious" and "natural" that they should be the ones who engage in the dangerous task of digging. For extra asshole points, the Nobles could even say that it's for the Digger's own good, that they would grow despondent and restless if not constantly tested against the treacherous earth.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by etherial » Fri Mar 24, 2017 9:44 pm

etherial wrote:
Sat Dec 31, 2016 2:18 am
Inspire Others Provides a +1 bonus per Success (instead of 2).
While in the thought amplification chamber today, I came up with an entirely different way of changing this Talent that I like better because it makes it different instead of just "less broken".
etherial wrote:The adept inspires his companions, raising spirits and boosting morale. He speaks inspirational words, then makes an Inspire Others test against the highest Social Defense among the target group, +1 for each additional character, targeting friendly characters only. If successful, all affected characters add +1 to Social Defense and gain one Karma for each success. These Karma may be used on any Tests while the effect lasts. The talent effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to the adept’s Inspire Others rank.
So instead of +2S Steps for all tests for R rounds, it's +~4 Steps to S tests, all of which must be within R rounds.

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by The Undying » Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:29 pm

"Thought amplification chamber" ... pretty sure that's the classiest way I've ever heard of someone refer to the shower. You are brilliant :D

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by Mataxes » Sat Mar 25, 2017 12:52 am

That is an interesting idea. There's not a lot of stuff that messes with Karma (balance issues), but this doesn't seem too out there.

It might make for an interesting knack.
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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by Kosmit » Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:02 pm

The Undying wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:29 pm
"Thought amplification chamber" ... pretty sure that's the classiest way I've ever heard of someone refer to the shower. You are brilliant :D
I don't think he meant shower though... :D

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Re: My ED4 Campaign Post-Mortem

Post by etherial » Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:26 pm

Kosmit wrote:
Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:02 pm
The Undying wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:29 pm
"Thought amplification chamber" ... pretty sure that's the classiest way I've ever heard of someone refer to the shower. You are brilliant :D
I don't think he meant shower though... :D
No, shower is exactly what I meant.

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