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C2 Ep. 6 Eberron Reviewed 1
304 Plays4 years ago
Join us this week as we take a look at the first arc of the campaign. Side Note: We had some audio issues that we had to edit around this week. Apologies and we hope you enjoy the episode.
This episode is brought to you by the generous donations of our amazing Show Sponsors: Laura Pickrahn, Darrin Katzska, Irene Viorritto, Ryan Royce, Darrell DeLaney, Jessica Smith, Charles Compton, Richard Cree, Nastasia Raulerson, The Kamm Family, David Scrams, Elizabeth Clark, Rebekah Miller, deviouspoptart, Eðvarð Arnór Sigurðsson, Michael Clark, Eric Witman, and Dustin Troupe.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patron Shoutout
00:00:00
Speaker
The following episode is brought to you by Darryl Delaney, Ryan Royce, Darren Katska, Jessica Smith, Irene Villarito, Laura Pickron, Eric Whitman, Deavius Poptart, Elizabeth Clark, Natasha Rowlerson, Richard Cree, The Cam Family, Charles Compton, Edvard Tharnoff, Dustin Troop, Rebecca Miller, Michael Clark, and David Scrams, along with all of our generous patrons.
00:00:35
Speaker
D20 Radio, your game is roll.
Audio Quality Issues Explained
00:01:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eberron Renewed, an actual play podcast set in the Eberron campaign setting. I'm your game master, Eric, and I'm recording a special intro for this episode because as many of you probably noticed or saw us announce on our Facebook page or in our Discord,
00:01:29
Speaker
There was not an episode last week because we ran into a technical snafu where about 50 seconds into recording this episode, Jeff's mic came unplugged. He plugged it back in, but the fact that it came unplugged messed with our recording software. And so we have like 50 seconds of audio from Jeff.
00:01:48
Speaker
So we are going to do our best to put together an episode for you moving forward. We are going to get hopefully Jeff to record some of his answers, but if the episode seems a little disjointed and me from the future hopping in to read your questions,
00:02:05
Speaker
That is why we don't want to lose the off-the-cuff nature of the discussion that we had, at least with the four of us. Jeff was a vital part of that discussion, but we just, from a scheduling standpoint, cannot meet before this Friday when you are listening to this to rerecord. So we're going to do the best that we can do. We apologize and we hope that you enjoy the episode.
Mission Recap: Warehouse Encounter
00:02:31
Speaker
So to just do a quick overview of what this latest arc covered, obviously the party got a job to go get a manifest from a House Kaneth warehouse and ran into a bit more complications than they had bargained for in the form of some very highly skilled warforged guards, along with a smattering of human guards that House Kaneth had under their employ.
00:02:56
Speaker
They were accompanied by Kath and Sana and Sigil, their fellow companions in the gang. And yeah, they had a fun car chase through the city after encountering a woman that they gained literally no information from.
Character Introduction and Inspirations
00:03:16
Speaker
So maybe she'll show back up, you'll be able to tell by her distinctive voice. And then we also tried something a little bit different with this campaign kicking things off after the first episode. We included little opening scenes to let you all get to know these characters a little bit more.
00:03:35
Speaker
So obviously the first one was with Hobb on babysitting detail, for lack of a better term, to take care of a high-ranking member of the clan's nephew, Viggo, and keep him out of trouble just as well as he could. And then also, in the episode after that, Trevor, do you want to tell them about your little scene that you had?
00:04:06
Speaker
Oh, I had been, or Raynard had been arrested, or taken into custody, I guess. And it was a scene between an officer and Raynard. An officer and a gentleman, as it was. Lots of sass.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yes, there was so much stuff. And just a quick disclaimer up front regarding the rules and powers in this campaign moving forward from a rule standpoint, 90 percent of this campaign is homebrew. So that like we might hit a arc where you all are like, hey, I thought Hobb could do this thing, but now all of a sudden Jeff's not doing it. It's because Eric realized he messed up making it and said, Jeff, you can't do that anymore. Here's a different thing to do.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, we've already entirely changed the way Artifice works. Yeah. There was one last part to this arc, though, Jeff. Hobbs Fight Night.
Hobbs Fight Night Recap
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah. So the final part of this arc was Hobbs Fight Night, where the rest of the gang went with him as he competed in the Burning Ring. And they got lots of money from betting off of him. And it was kind of a cool hybrid skill challenge and combat combined into one.
00:05:20
Speaker
where everybody had the opportunity to contribute. I just want to say that, I just want to say that Hob is lucky he had that barrier that Milo put on. All right, so next up we are going to have everybody answer our first listener question of the episode from Laura. Laura asks, where did you get your character ideas from and what else were you considered playing? So whoever wants to go first can go first.
00:05:48
Speaker
Well, I'll speak about Reynard. It will be ever developing, so I haven't quite 100% locked down exactly where it's gonna go, but that's the fun of this game, right? Mm-hmm. But I knew initially, character-wise, I wanted it to still be kind of light-hearted and a little comedic, but also kind of, like,
00:06:17
Speaker
cool. So my initial thought was like Legolas meets Jack Sparrow. That is a really good description of what you've been doing. That's kind of like the alley I'm trying to stay in right now. But I didn't want it to be just like a traditional elf either so that's why I wanted to have like short hair and
00:06:44
Speaker
kind of lose, I don't know, any kind of... Pretension? Yeah, I was thinking like, pretentious is a better word, I was thinking like poised, but I guess he's still kind of poised. I'll go ahead and talk about Milo Kegbottom.
00:07:04
Speaker
Um, a lot of times what I will do is just start coming up with character names. What if I play the elf? What name would I have? And I'll come up with some names. If I'm going to play, you know, a halfling, what would I, so I just start coming up with names. And then when I hit a name that I really like, it's like, Oh, I really like Milo keg bottom. I guess I'm going to play a
Transitioning to Genesis from D&D
00:07:29
Speaker
halfling. Another small guy. Um,
00:07:34
Speaker
He's middle-aged for Halfling, maybe a little older than that. I debated about going along the lines of a Warlock type character, but then I settled on Sorcerer style. And I hope he's gonna be fun to play. I think he will be. He's, you know, the characters know him.
00:08:01
Speaker
before his bar burnt down his family's bar. And they know him after that. He seems to be somewhat more intelligent at times than he used to be. And he sometimes hears his wife in his head and he's to the point now where he thinks it's real.
00:08:30
Speaker
where that's her sometimes talking to him. I don't know how much I should tell you guys about Milo. I don't know. I just, when I came up with the concept and the backstory, I just thought it would be fun to play this guy. So he, anyway, he may seem a little off at times, but that kind of goes with me too. So there you go.
00:08:57
Speaker
I knew that I wanted there to be in the party something distinctly Eberron. Because Jeff played a changeling last time. This is the Eberron thing.
00:09:17
Speaker
I don't know why you're shaking your hand like that. You played a changeling. So that was sort of our nod to the host of distinctive things to Eberron. And so I kind of bounced around about playing a dragon marked air or a warforged, but landed on an artificer because I think artificers are neat. I like
00:09:39
Speaker
I like games where you get to really carefully like, I like games where your weapons have hard points and things like that. I really enjoyed that aspect of the Star Wars RPG, the Genesis is based on where you can really customize an item. And that's what artificers do. It's literally their thing. So it
Character Development: Artificer Choice
00:09:59
Speaker
made sense. As to what I thought about playing besides this, he was gonna be a, it was gonna be a hobgoblin initially.
00:10:09
Speaker
And I was going to do a very, um, very taciturn, uh, gruff kind of, um, kind of hobgoblin, uh, artificer. And when Jeff started talking about hob, I immediately kind of knew that that was, they were just going to be too alike. Um, and the two quiet guys wasn't going to be
00:10:36
Speaker
wasn't gonna be good. And so I started thinking about other things and landed on just essentially swapping to the opposite end of the spectrum. As far as ideas for Eris, I think I've said this, most of Eris' appearance was created by my daughter.
00:10:55
Speaker
if my daughter could, well, she does have a side cut, but if she could have a side cut with bright blue hair, she absolutely would. And almost everything that Eris wears can be found in my daughter's closet with slight modifications based on the character. So her appearance was inspired mostly by my daughter.
00:11:18
Speaker
Um, as I mentioned, I like customizable weapons and so picking signature weapon just made a lot of sense. Uh, and I had the idea. I don't remember when I got the idea for the, um, the mass driver, uh, crossbow thing. Um, but.
00:11:34
Speaker
When I once I had it, I wanted there to be something kind of cool that you could build only that you could only have an ever on. And so designing it around a bound elemental just made a lot of sense. But that's really the only other thing I considered was being a hobgoblin. I didn't really think of playing anything other than an artificer that was just kind of where I landed pretty early. I thought of a monk Goliath.
00:11:55
Speaker
months and months and months and months ago. I mentioned it to Phillip and Eric as an idea for a cool character and they agreed. And from that point, that's what I'm going to have been. So I didn't go through a bunch of different ideas like some of the other guys did. I was just like, I'm going to be this kind of zined out Goliath. That's all. Okay. And our next question comes from Darren. Darren asks, did you consider a dragon mark for your character? It's never too late to manifest one.
00:12:23
Speaker
I think I messed up pulling Darren's question. He was specifically asking that of Trevor, but any of us can feel free to answer. We had a conversation about that. When I initially talked with Eric about the character, I think he did suggest it. I can't remember why I decided just to not do that.
00:12:48
Speaker
It was the proposition of if you are a marked member of this house that is left, then it's going to be more interesting, but also increasingly more complicated because they're going to be more upset that you're not with them. I think you just decided that you didn't want to detract from the story too much by having this persistent thing.
00:13:11
Speaker
That doesn't sound like you. Yeah, so I guess I was given the opportunity and passed it up, so I'm sorry. I left it less spicy than I should have. Did anybody else consider a dragon mark, though?
Dragon Marks: Considerations and Implications
00:13:28
Speaker
I thought about giving Eris one. I thought about making her a marked can of air, since that's
00:13:35
Speaker
since human artificer with the mark of making is about as classically ever on as you can get. But ultimately, I didn't want it to be I didn't want her being somebody to be a derivation of of her birth the way Berwick was like barracks. Everything the importance of Berwick was a birthright. And I didn't want to do that with theirs. And no from me, too.
00:14:02
Speaker
Did not. I'm kind of like Trevor. I didn't want to potentially upset anybody. Okay, next question comes from Richard. Richard asks, Genesis has a lot of session specific powers. For show purposes, do you consider a session a full four hour recording period or each individual episode?
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, I made it clear to everybody that basically each arc is a session for the purposes of these powers. So like Jeff and Phillip used their heroic abilities during the actual proper three episode arc. And then Randy and Trevor used theirs in the little fight night extra episode. But that those those four episodes constitute a single session. So that's how we're handling it.
00:14:53
Speaker
As long as we continue to have only four episode arcs. Yeah, I was going to say, and we have an arc that lasts four or five sessions. Yes. Basically, the initial intent was a recording session, but then we had that additional episode. So as it stands right now, as long as the arcs continue to only be four episodes, then that's where we'll land. But yeah.
Game Mechanics and Story Point Dynamics
00:15:18
Speaker
Next up, Darren has kind of a two-parter question. Was the cruise relationship with the Boromar clan informed in any way by the group patrons concept from the Eberron D&D source book? Is the function of the story points just to escalate tension? It seems to me that even on the same role, if the player wants to increase their chance of success, the GM can just increase the difficulty or vice versa. How are you collectively feeling about the dynamic so far?
00:15:45
Speaker
So that's kind of a two-part question and we will take them one part at a time.
00:15:49
Speaker
So to start off with Darren's first question, the idea of the Boromar playing a big role in this campaign wasn't entirely informed from the group patron section. The group patron section of that of the Eberron fifth edition book has certainly been helpful and has been a resource, but it wasn't pulled carbon copy from from that section of the book.
00:16:17
Speaker
And then just speaking as the GM for the campaign, the story points function as a means to raise the tension on a particular role and allow for the introduction of interesting things because
00:16:35
Speaker
A triumphant despair can't happen unless there's a yellow or red dye in play. And so story points allow that to happen. Now, you kind of point out, can't the GM just increase the difficulty? And they can. But in Genesis is a system that's kind of frowned upon because you have the resource of story points to do that. And it's supposed to be a
00:17:02
Speaker
a dynamic economy. Whereas the players are spinning story points, they become GM story points. So as the GM, you need to spend those story points so the players have the resource to use. If one side begins hoarding them, then you kind of lose that part of the game.
00:17:18
Speaker
So there are instances like I think when Sigil, Eris and Milo were unlocking the door with the big arcane lock, I think that difficulty was upgraded, had a red dye involved because of the nature of that check and the nature of the lock that a house can lock would have on it. Like there would be an escalated consequence just by the very nature of unlocking that type of door.
00:17:45
Speaker
But normally you would use story points for that purpose. So, yeah, it's also true. One thing we didn't I think we might have done once, but my what I think is the most fun and interesting use of story points is players can spin story points to add narrative reality. Yeah, I don't remember if I spent what did I spend one to add the like the the security door that we dropped on the warforged. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So things like that, I think, are
00:18:15
Speaker
When we start to get more comfortable improvising and get into that, I think that's where you'll see the story points really shine a little more. How are you all collectively feeling about the dynamic? I'm fairly comfortable with the story points. I like the presence of something like that in a game. I have tried very unsuccessfully to add things like that to fifth edition several times. But I like the presence of that kind of thing where the players can
00:18:45
Speaker
can bend the story a little bit. Yeah. But isn't it frustrating when you do it and then the GM says, well, I'm going to use the story point to. Yeah. Well, and honestly, the the coolest things that happen in Genesis are when you get the triumphs and the despairs and you get some cool narrative effect instead of just the
00:19:10
Speaker
So I have a question then is, is that the only time the triumphs and despairs come into play is when story points are flipped. It's not, is it? No, only, but, but it's, it's only when the reds and yellows are being rolled. And a lot of times the only way that a red ends up being rolled is if the GM is spending those story points. Okay. Yeah. And the best roles and the despair. Yeah. I kind of, I kind of like them. I,
00:19:38
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe I'm not a hundred percent decided because it's like I'm flipping one. Well, then I'm going to flip one. And then Eric's like, I'm flipping the story point. Well, I'm going to flip and I'm going to flip one right back. But I mean, it's like I say, it's kind of a two way street the way it works. And it does add that interesting narrative. So well, I know that one time Eric, uh,
00:20:01
Speaker
Eric flipped a story, I don't remember what Milo was doing, but Eric flipped a story point and I was like, oh man. But then Eric was the one that said, do you want to flip one back? I was like, I guess I could, couldn't I? Yeah, let's do that. Well, and something to keep in mind with the story points and just upgrading checks in general.
00:20:22
Speaker
is they like flipping the story point. It might by a small percentage make things slightly more difficult, but not nearly as much as adding another purple. Like the the the augment ability is far more potent than me flipping a story point to add a red dye. It just opens up the possibility for more exciting things to happen and not really ramping up the likelihood that you all fail. Mm hmm.
00:20:51
Speaker
So, I mean, to Darren's base question, I suppose, yes, the primary function is to increase narrative tension. Yeah. Because if you all haven't listened to our adventure on the Order 66 podcast, I think one of us rolled a despair and it caused another ship to come crashing down to the barge that we were on or something, if I remember correctly. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So crazy stuff can happen when a despair gets rolled.
00:21:20
Speaker
So next question comes from devious pop tart about the exact spelling of the hangout for the crew. Is it for sales, for sales, for sales or for sales? I think there's one, two, three, four sales on a ship. Yes.
00:21:40
Speaker
is the forest sales. I don't know if there's a description of this, because we haven't gotten to like, I mean, we were in it, but we didn't spend a lot of time describing it. But in my head, it's actually Ulfin's ship just like glommed on to the side of the Memphis plateau and refitted into a restaurant. Please tell me that's what it is.
00:22:00
Speaker
No, because that's too derivative of the last campaign where Berwick was hanging out in another bar that was a old ship that was sitting at the docks of storm reach. Yeah, but that was like two sessions. I'd envision it being decorated like the interior of a ship, but not actually being a ship. So it's Long John for sales. That's the title. It's kind of like Bubba Gump.
00:22:26
Speaker
But you can create the sentence that the four sales has four sales for sale for sailboats. The next question comes from Arnor. What are your knowledge skills for Eberron? Did you use the default from the Terenoth book or did you change them?
Custom Careers and Skill Development
00:22:42
Speaker
I found the career list in the Terenoth book sparse and wanting, especially for a more noir and gritty game. Did you make any custom careers for the guys?
00:22:51
Speaker
When I say the guys, I, of course, mean Philip, the player that knows the system. The skill challenges that you have run. You mentioned that you were drawing from some supplement on the foundry, but did not mention the name. Name, please. A suggestion about the skill challenge. Ask the players to not use the same skill twice in a row. This one for Jeff. Why a Goliath instead of a Warforged? The tank brick archetype seems like it would have been served as well by a more quintessential Eberron race. Randy, I love your character and the voice you are finding for him.
00:23:21
Speaker
How are you, Randy, finding the Genesis system working for you?" So, answer all of those questions. Thanks, Arnor. To answer the very first question, the knowledge skills are adventuring, nature, lore, society, and underworld, and no, that's not the default from Terranoth. I think Terranoth has
00:23:44
Speaker
lore, I believe, has lore, forbidden, adventuring and geography and forbidden. Yeah, which forbidden doesn't really make sense for our campaign setting. So so, yeah, I just I went with because the recommendation is four to five knowledge skills. Once you get more than that, it becomes a bit too
00:24:07
Speaker
Cost prohibitive from XP standpoint for the players. So a sec with five. And those are the five that seem to cover all of Eberron as well as possible. So yeah. Um.
00:24:21
Speaker
Eric and I together made a Artificer career a while ago, as far as custom careers, and then Eric revised it when we got close to actually doing this. And then I negotiated one change, I think, to the career skill list. Because I thought the Artificer should have skill degree, since Artificers are always proficient in these tools. But that was
00:24:43
Speaker
I mean, I think Eric created more custom skills, more custom careers than that, but that was the only one that a player had a hand in as far as I know. The only one of the players that took a career from Taranoth was Trevor. Trevor took the scoundrel career from Taranoth just because basically the process was I went to each of the players and asked, hey, describe your character.
00:25:07
Speaker
And then I made a career for them because I think the folly that a lot of people have when trying, especially transitioning their game from D&D to Genesis is trying to convert a D&D class.
00:25:23
Speaker
to a Genesis career, which that path only leads to heartbreak and migraines. So D&D backgrounds would be much more. And that's much more the the path that I took is so Jeff, for example, Hobb, like if you were to describe Hobb in D&D terms, he is a Goliath monk. In Genesis terms, he is a Goliath enforcer because his role in the story and the world is an enforcer for the Boromark land.
00:25:53
Speaker
Now it is up to Jeff to take talents that make Hab a monk as opposed to it being a career thing. And same with Randy. Randy's, I think his career name, I think Phillip helped me out with that was hedge mage because he's not he's not a part of a house or an arcane school or anything. He's just a magic user that
00:26:18
Speaker
belongs to no organization. And so created that, made a skill list that makes sense for a magic user that is not necessarily, has not put down roots somewhere. So things like survival and yeah.
00:26:35
Speaker
That was the process. Harris's career skill we called a mage right because we were trying to avoid naming any of the careers after classes. And then regarding the supplement that Arnor asked about with the additional skill challenge rules that I utilized.
00:26:53
Speaker
No, I got it prepped. So it's called the Game Master's eclectic toolbox by SF Ratton, I believe is the last name. It is a wonderful document. It's five dollars on the Genesis Foundry, which is their drive through RPG store.
00:27:13
Speaker
But it's 35 pages on adversary creation, tips on running combat and skill checks and interpreting results and then also skill challenges and had a really cool success track.
00:27:31
Speaker
that I utilized where the more failures made things more difficult to kind of ramp up that tension. So definitely go check that out and pick it up because it's a document, if you're going to be running in Genesis, that is well worth $5.
00:27:47
Speaker
Then regarding the idea of imposing a rule for skill challenges to not allow players to use the same skill twice. To impose that rule as a hard and fast rule would be largely unfair to Trevor since Trevor's heroic ability is based on a single skill and so if during a skill challenge Trevor wants to use that then he's guaranteed to only get half of
00:28:12
Speaker
the usability out of it because he can't do the same skill twice. We all know that we have to make this as fair for me as possible. He will throw a tantrum. Already at a disadvantage. Then to continue Arnor's question, Jeff, why did you decide to go with a Goliath as opposed to going with a Warforged being a more iconic Eberron race?
00:28:37
Speaker
And while part of the reason is I just decided I wanted to be a Goliath a long time ago, and that was that, the other part is I wanted for my character to have an adolescence in his backstory and Warforged don't age. So I went with another kind of race that does. And lastly, Randy, how are you finding the Genesis system working for you?
00:29:05
Speaker
And I hate it. Go back to five E please. Now it's, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna grow on me. I admit, you know, I've been playing D&D for a long, long time. Maybe since before some of you guys were born, I don't know, but I just, I like it.
00:29:35
Speaker
It's just way different than what I'm used to. I enjoyed it when we did the Star Wars. But I think I'm gonna like it the more we play, the more I'm going to like it. I don't dislike it. It's one of those old dog's new tricks kind of things, I'm sure.
00:30:12
Speaker
OK, the next question comes from Richard. Richard, it turned into kind of a discussion, but we wanted to address what initiated the discussion in that Richard had some questions surrounding Sigil's pronouns being
Non-binary Pronouns in Campaign
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah, we're playing D&D fifth edition for the past 20 years. Yeah.
00:30:26
Speaker
they them and that being how I was referring to Sigil as a character. Yeah, so Sigil uses they them pronouns. And if somebody
00:30:40
Speaker
refers to Sigil, otherwise they will like correct them, but that hasn't happened in in the game. So it's part of their arc and it's part of the story that I'm telling with Sigil. So it's it's not anything where I'm going to lay out the ins and outs of it here and now. It's just if it comes up, it will come up. And if it's just an accepted part of the story and never really gets
00:31:09
Speaker
never becomes an overt arc in and of itself, then that's also fine too. But just right now, Sigil uses they them. Within Eberron, it wouldn't be that strange, especially with a warforged, because in the older editions, they were described as
00:31:30
Speaker
like in the notes next to their stat block, you would get male persona or female persona warforged because of course warforged don't have biology exactly. And so it would seem to me not to be very strange for a warforged to not select either option as a persona.
00:31:52
Speaker
And if anybody's interested in Eberron specifically in this discussion, Keith Baker has discussed both warforged changelings specifically and proper pronouns and things like that. So you can go find his discussions on that as well if you so choose. At his blog, KeithBaker.com.
00:32:15
Speaker
Yep. The next question comes from DeviousPopTart.
Implementing Dragon Marks in Genesis
00:32:20
Speaker
DeviousPopTart asks, have you designed any rules for dragon marks in Genesis? And if so, would you be willing to share them? I thought of how I would implement them in the Genesis system and it seems like the most simple method would be to make talents that work off of a skill that doesn't necessarily have to be a magical skill. But I could see someone bringing in the force powers from FFG Star Wars and changing them since there's no force rating or force die.
00:32:41
Speaker
And this actually spawned a really interesting discussion in the DM Brain Trust channel in our Discord. So if you'd like to see some of our community members kind of work through this and discuss it outside of my own thoughts that I'm about to share with you all, please go to our website, thegeekpantheon.com. The Discord link is there. Hop on, it's open for everybody. And we'd love to have you be part of discussions like the one that this question spawned.
00:33:09
Speaker
At this stage of the game, and this is just for all the listeners in case you're curious about where we stand in the process, none of the players have a Dragon Mark, so there's no rules for Dragon Marks right now. This has probably been the biggest conversation I've had, not only with Philip,
00:33:30
Speaker
but also with GM Chris and GM Wholey from the Forge and other members of the Genesis community about trying to break down the best way to do dragon marks. And kind of where where I've landed based on the latest conversations I've had is having a tier five talent that is a Sybaris mark.
00:33:56
Speaker
And the prerequisite for that is that you cannot have taken a dragon marked heroic ability and having the standard dragon marks because heroic abilities have a built-in progression system where you can start with least, then go to lesser, then greater, and having the progression be built into the heroic ability progression itself.
00:34:18
Speaker
Obviously, that does make it to where you have to take. If you want just a standard Dragon Mark, you have to take it at character creation. But frankly, that's the method that they have for fifth edition now, too. So with with Dragon Marks being a sub race. So it would also be true within your own game, because I think Eric has landed on the most simple idea because all the other ideas that he and I talked through were just convoluted in the end. Yeah.
00:34:43
Speaker
It would also be true that in your game, if someone decides they want to manifest a dragon mark, I don't think it's game breaking to allow someone to switch heroic skills. Yeah. Um.
00:34:55
Speaker
There's also, I think, an alternative rule in the Tarenov source book about once you hit a certain amount of ability points, allowing somebody to take a second heroic ability. I may have just seen that in the community somewhere. There's all kinds of solutions. The one that I'm landing on is
00:35:13
Speaker
the most simple, requires the least amount of bookkeeping and the least amount of rules creation. Because as GM Chris put it to me when I was presenting him an overly convoluted version of Artifice when we first started this conversion, he said, hey, if you guys want to play Genesis, you should just play Genesis. You shouldn't create a bunch of rules to make Genesis not Genesis anymore. I was like, that's fair. That's a good call out. So.
00:35:41
Speaker
Um, our next question comes from Keith or, uh, who says just subbed really excited. You're using Genesis for the new campaign. Welcome. Uh, I know you stated some of the foundry options you were using, but I'm curious how you're organized, uh, how you organize the player options for talents. Uh, it seems like there weren't, there aren't a ton of options for characters where the players limited to a certain, to certain sources, or did you just let them loose on the system?
00:36:08
Speaker
So there is a big old document many pages long that has essentially every talent from every Genesis source, including the new book Secrets of the Crucible, and then also has a conversion of a pretty good deal of talents from the Star Wars system converted for Genesis in addition to some custom talents that I made to fill in some gaps from what I knew the players were going to want to do.
00:36:38
Speaker
Um, so there, there's a lot of talents and the, the big reason I brought so many talents in is because I started doing some mental math, I think like three or four weeks before session one of our campaign and realized like, holy crap, if you just use these talents in Ternoth, um,
00:36:59
Speaker
the core rules in the expanded players guide. Like if players are earning XP at X rate, you can only last like, we could only last like a hundred episodes or something was what I thought before they'd just taken every talent and they're all the same. So I kind of had to do some legwork to create a robust amount of talents to prevent that from happening.
00:37:25
Speaker
Um, and it's robust guys. There are so many talents when he gave me that document. Uh, and I had looked through the books and I was like, man, this is, you know, this is a handful of talents should be pretty. Then he sent us that document was like, Oh my gosh. Um, and before anybody asks, this document has all of the talents with all of their, um, all like,
00:37:47
Speaker
Basically, I copy pasted for my PDFs of the books, so I cannot share that because that would be. Yeah. I think I have the custom talents I made for Jeff's monk up in. Well, that's actually the next question, so I'll wait to reveal that. But but no, I can't share that document with you all. I'm sorry.
00:38:08
Speaker
And the next question comes from Kevin. Do you have a document you can share of all of your Eberron Genesis conversion work? I'm curious how the flurry of blows and artifice are working. Also, are there any standard Genesis rules you changed?
Strain and Concentration in Genesis Mechanics
00:38:23
Speaker
Philip said the strain was stacking up to maintain augment on Jeff's PC. Was that due to needing a second maneuver to concentrate?
00:38:31
Speaker
So Kevin, all of the documentation for the Genesis Eberron conversion is actually in the DMs spell book, which is the, I think $3 a month tier for the Patreon. So anybody that's on that is added to the OneNote document has access to all of that material. I think I have some new things that I need to plop in there, but that's where I've been keeping
00:38:58
Speaker
everything as I've kind of created it and added it and I will continue to do so moving forward. So if you want access to all of that stuff, that will be where it is available. In terms of changing rules, I don't think any of the base rules have been changed. I was using two maneuvers. That's why the strain. He's not charging the strain to concentrate. I was just using extra maneuvers to do stuff.
00:39:24
Speaker
Concentration is a maneuver in Genesis. So if Eris wants to be able to move on her turn and then continue concentrating that cost to strain. Right. But if she doesn't move, no cost. So. And our final question comes from Danny. She says, does having four players make it a little easier amongst you guys as podcasters slash performative players by sharing the verbal burden or is it an adjustment in the other direction to not talk over each other as much?
Managing Player Dynamics with Four Players
00:39:53
Speaker
I've had experience running games for anywhere from two players up to eight players at one point, and that was a real mistake. Yeah, Phillip was at that table and Randy was at that table. It was a nightmare anyway. So four players isn't isn't daunting as as the GM and also editor and producer of the show aspect.
00:40:18
Speaker
kind of have wearing those hats at the same time, trying to construct things in such a way to afford everybody at least a moment. And I think another dynamic to take into account at this phase of the campaign that I'm hoping at least will find some equilibrium moving forward
00:40:35
Speaker
is as certain people become more comfortable with their characters, they're naturally going to speak more because they are more comfortable with their characters and the people that are still finding their feet may be a little reticent to to hop in as much because they don't know what their character's voice sounds like yet.
00:40:54
Speaker
I think as time goes on, there will be a little bit more evenness outside of the amount of time that I talk as the GM, which is way too much. Thanks for the question, Danny. I agree. I don't think it's harder or easier. It is a little bit different, but I don't think it's harder or easier.
00:41:17
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, you know, we all have our different styles too. I mean, you know, I don't talk as much as two of our other players, but, you know, I try to find my moments. You know, I think it all meshes really well, you know, and then I think Trevor's going to get in there and he's going to find his moments. So I think it'll, I think it's going to be just fine.
00:41:42
Speaker
I do want to give a quick plug for anybody wanting to continue to get some insight on just the construction of Eberron in Genesis. Probably, I don't know in relation to when this episode drops. We're recording it after this episode drops. If you aren't currently following the Forge podcast, I'm going to be becoming a pretty regular guest
00:42:12
Speaker
host on the show for a new segment that they're introducing called Eberron Reforged. Yes, it's spreading. But the first thing that we're going to be talking about, Arnor, your question about knowledge skills. The first thing we're going to be talking about is the curated skill list that I went with for Eberron and why I picked that in kind of a high level discussion of
00:42:40
Speaker
initial setting conversion slash creation, and it's all centered around Eberron. And it'll be interesting because it will be two people not involved with this show giving me pushback and asking me questions about the decisions I made and providing their insights and their ideas to people that know the Genesis system very well. And Chris knows the Eberron system very well as well. So I think it'll be a really interesting discussion and you might get some insight into changes that are going to be happening to the
00:43:08
Speaker
to the mechanics of the show before the players know. So that's definitely going to be worth checking out. OK, and that's all the questions we have for this week's Eberron Reviewed. Thank you all so much for bearing with the delay and kind of the erratic nature of this episode. We hope that you all have enjoyed it. Obviously, we don't want the next one to be like this and it shouldn't be. So, yeah, thank you all so much for listening. If you want to be part of the conversation and head over to the Facebook group,
00:43:38
Speaker
TheGeekPantheon, we're also on Twitter and Instagram at TheGeekPantheon, or you could hop onto our Discord, which is the best place to talk to us and all the other wonderful community members over there. You can find the link to the Discord over at our website, thegeekpantheon.com. Anyway, thank you all so much for listening. Once again, I've been your Game Master, Eric, and because the audio got messed up, I'm all alone.
00:44:03
Speaker
you