Alicornutopia

Of the discussion:

jalapeno_dude wrote:-I've had a lot of success with starting immediately before or on the Day of Mourning itself. In this case the players would be Cyrans who somehow survive the Day of Mourning. Then there are lots of ways to go from there: political maneuvering to keep Cyre a viable state; desperate research to try to reverse it, or prevent something like it from happening again, or figure out how to exploit it was a weapon; attempting to find new meaning with one's country and home and family gone.
-There's always the whole "expedition to Xen'drik" thing. This could be played lots of different ways: a straight-up Indiana Jones-style race-the-evil-organization-to-the-artifact, a wild West gold-rush scenario, a Heart of Darkness-style descent into madness as the expedition succumbs to the Horrors that destroyed the Giants, an anthropological expedition to make contact with the Drow...
-Did I mention something about a Draconic Prophecy?
-Anti-deathism in Eberron. Go Blood of Vol!
-Warforged trying to figure out their origins and the future of their race.
-Political and corporate intrigue with the dragonmarked houses.
-If something is named the Last War the Next War is right around the corner. Espionage time!
-Casablanca in Thronehold, the only neutral territory left in Khorvaire.
-Pirates!
-Let's all be artificers and bootstrap Eberron even further. Magical transistors?

I also [url=http://alicorn.elcenia.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=17117#p17117]agree with Kappa about preferring a hopeful story. I agree with Tamien about preferring struggles to be good where that’s hard over struggles to be good where that’s impossible, liking good villains, competent people with different values, exploration, and discovery.

Among the listed scenarios, I rank them as 4 > 3 > 5 > 2, with 1 not getting a ranking because I think I need to know more of the facts about warforged before I can evaluate it (things that the characters would already know, not things that they’d discover about themselves).
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Are the overly-specific denials in the infodump post things that practically any character would “know” to be true, like how everybody in 1900 knew that space and time are constant and filled with a luminiferous aether, or things that practically any character would “know to be true”, like how the king is wise and benevolent (and if he thinks you might disagree then you’ll soon learn about his benevolence firsthand)?

I think the prospective scenario that makes me most starry-eyed right now is a #3 if it has room for an Ordinary Person stumbling into the middle of the plot so I can throw a StevenChainsaw at it. I am excite about StevenChainsaws and want to play with one.

@Kappa: #5 seems like a Miles-y type of scenario for me, especially a Miles who people don't expect to be competent (like how Galen thought Miles was just coasting on his father's reputation). The Tribunal is totally the sort of place that's filled with incompetent younger relatives of more important people.

@DanielH: I'm happy to give you more specific information, but you need to narrow it down a little bit. What do you want to know about warforged beyond the discussion of them in the infopost? As for the denials: the thing about drow is purely OOC, the thing about dragons is mostly in your first category, the thing about dragons and religion is OOC snark (it might be true but if it is it's not known to anyone but the dragon and not suspected by anyone but a handful of scholars who have studies other sets of religions and found similarities to the Sovereign Host), the thing about the Prophecy is basically the same situation (the Prophecy exists, and there's a set of the dragons who actively try to manipulate it, but that's not something anyone in Khorvaire is really aware of), and the thing about Erandis d'Vol is entirely true but again not known to anyone other than maybe a few people in the highest levels of the Blood of Vol. Did I miss anything?

I'm slightly reluctant to play a Miles in this sort of environment because Mileses have this tendency to scoop up the plot and run off cackling, and I'd rather be someone less likely to constantly demand center stage. But on the other hand a Miles in the middle of a sea of incompetent younger relatives of important people with discoveries to make and politics to upheave sounds delightful.

I should also give a disclaimer about my level of preparation for each of the scenarios, which you might want to keep in mind when evaluating which ones interest you: from most to least it's 1>4>>5>2>>3. For #1 and #4 I know the character backgrounds I'd want (warforged, probably at least slightly traumatized ones, for #1 and scholars or artificers, etc. for #4). I also have a fairly good idea for how the plot of #1 would go, and at least a starting point to a plot for #4. For #2 and #5 I don't have a plot in mind, but I do have a good idea of the setup and structure of a campaign, the backgrounds of the characters I'd want to have people make (members of the Twelve for #2 and members of the Tribunal for #5), the type of situations that would come up, etc. For #3 I really have none of that--it would just be attempting to cohere all of the more crazy elements in Eberron into something that more or less holds together. And I also don't have any limitations on the type of characters that would be appropriate (practically anyone could work, they just have to stumble upon something or have mysterious dreams). So it would be important for us to discuss this as a group and collectively plan characters so they actually have interests in common and a reason to stick together.

Kappa wrote:I'm slightly reluctant to play a Miles in this sort of environment because Mileses have this tendency to scoop up the plot and run off cackling, and I'd rather be someone less likely to constantly demand center stage. But on the other hand a Miles in the middle of a sea of incompetent younger relatives of important people with discoveries to make and politics to upheave sounds delightful.

Hooray crossposting! Yeah, for #5 I think the only sensible way to go would be for the PCs (to greater or lesser degrees) to be the only ones who are *actually competent* and *actually interested in justice*, while drowning in a sea of bureaucratic incompetency. We'd want to manage character creation, for this and for every scenario, so that everyone has a role to play and probably a niche in which they're the best.

If I had to rank scenarios by my personal interest level: 3[StevenChainsaw] > 5[Miles] > 1[Hall] > 4[Tony] > 2[Libby].

My personal interest level goes like 4 >3 > 1 > 2 > 5

Whoops I made a spreadsheet. Hopefully its function is reasonably clear. So far it seems like 3 and 4 have the most total interest.

I think I'd prefer 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 >> 5. Might throw a Sam at it (he requests an aberrant dragonmark and a truly unnecessary amount of dramatic flair), or Theo, or someone new.