Fantasy Craft and Eberron (featuring Reputation)

I really like the Eberron setting, and the release of Fantasy Craft gave me all the excuse I needed to dust off my campaign books and start running a campaign.

Two sessions in (not counting The Day Of Character Generation, in which everyone fought over a single PDF and tried to build characters for a very different take of D20 fantasy) and everybody appears to be having a good time (myself included).

The system is a lot of fun to run, and the rules for standard characters (who get damage saves instead of wounds and vitality) and mooks (who just die when sneezed upon) make it a breeze to GM.

I have players who have written up nice, detailed backgrounds (which are already getting tied into the plot) and who can be bribed with in-game rewards to write up the adventure.

On that subject, I’m keeping the Campaign Log over at Obsidian Portal as an experiment. The site was pointed out after I made a previous blog post seeking information about online gaming.

It seems to be working well, and lets the players contribute content without me having to give them all access to this blog. It also structures the information in a format better suited to a campaign than I could achieve here.

On the subject of rewards, I’m offering bonus reputation. This is a part of Fantasy Craft that I like a lot, at least in theory, it is too early to see how it plays out in practice. Essentially, it is a representation of how much kudos you have earned and controls your Renown (how much sway you have with a given demographic, such as the military or the common people), Favours, Contacts, Base, Magical Shiny, and so on. There is something that just feels right about giving extra renown to players who shout about how great their characters are on the Internet!