Sharn is the capital city of Breland, which is the default country in Eberron. Sharn: City of Towers is one of the (almost uniformly good) sourcebooks for the 3rd Edition D&D magi-punk setting Eberron. Woof, look at the level of detail in Sharn… This is a setting guide that knows its genre and plays it to the hilt (if you’ll pardon the expression), and I don’t feel it’s ever been equalled as a setting for a game of derring do and swashing buckles. The richness of Théah as a setting practically oozes from the pages of Swashbuckling Adventures, which benefits from an entire line of books in the 7th Sea game all compressed down into one of the most evocative books I’ve read. The standard D&D classes are re-flavoured for suitability, some don’t exist at all and new ones are introduced. Then, each nation also has its own prestige classes, fighting styles, secret societies and even different kinds of magic. The kind of swashbuckler you play is rooted in your character’s nationality, so choose the one most in line with the style you want to play with. This makes sense: Swashbuckling Adventures incorporates all of the swashbuckling archetypes that exists and some fantasy ones too, but the swashbuckling genre has been represented very differently in different cultures. They each have their own very distinctive personality and style, and nationality is such a big aspect of character that it is the first decision you make at character creation. The countries are thinly-veiled composites of elements from countries in the real world, but taking the most swashbuckling era of each of them. I sort of feel that it is the quintessential ‘alternative Earth’ swashbuckling setting. Swashbuckling Adventures is an adaptation of the setting for the game 7th Sea into the 3rd Edition D20 rules, but it has its own line and can be read entirely independently of 7th Sea (and indeed, I haven’t read much of 7th Sea).Īs a setting, Théah is massively detailed between the two lines of books. I talked about this a little yesterday when discussing Luex Aeternum, as a point of comparison. Théah from 7th Sea and Swashbuckling Adventures The title of this post comes from a game one of my friends ran which was an utterly generic fantasy game with names like “the Dark Tower of Doom” and “the Forest of Trees”. Some of these have already appeared elsewhere on the blog, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. I’ll be focusing on setting guides that create a concrete place rather than a tone or a framework for building your own places, just because otherwise this would take all night. I talked yesterday about my difficulties with Lux Aeternum and today I’d like to give some examples of really good setting guides, because I think it’s an underestimated skill. ![]() While I like to be challenged, I also enjoy light-hearted or heroic settings where answers may not be easy, but they won’t leave your soul rent in twain at the end of every session. ![]() ![]() ![]() I chose Hillfolk today because the settings in it are a challenge to think more deeply about the worlds we create and the problematic aspects of humanity that make us uncomfortable.įor my actual article, I wanted to lead into talking about what makes a good setting guide. bad morality of many other roleplaying games. The majority of them deal with problematic aspects of genres or history and challenge the players and GM to roleplay the points of high drama in settings that deliberately address subjects very far from the good vs. The corruption of Golden Age Hollywood, the paranoia of cold war Moscow, fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War, “Breaking Bad meets The Wrestler” and escaped African slaves seeking revenge all feature, among many other more fantastical settings. Also, the second half of the book is a series of short treatments for settings and campaigns, some of which are recognisable from other games or media ( Malice Tarn is Watership Down by way of Bunnies and Burrows) but others are settings that are so rooted in high-concept, meta or real-world history that there isn’t much similar stuff out there. Hillfolk itself is ‘A game of Iron Age drama’, which requires a greater knowledge of human history than a stock fantasy setting (and also research!). One reason is that the Drama System requires a fairly in-depth understanding of narrative concepts like dramatic poles and themes, but the other reason is the sample settings included with the book. For me, the game I own that has intimidated me the most with its evident smartness is Hillfolk. Day Seven of #RPGaDay is ‘Most “intellectual” RPG owned’ and I’ve seen many interpretations of what “intellectual” means (I took it to mean something that was kind of self-consciously clever and knew it, probably with a dash of hipsterness as well).
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