Shipyard Locked
How long do I have?
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2017
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When the Eberron setting comes up, both its creators and fans focus on its potential for Indiana Jones style adventures, but I find it much more interesting for James Bond adventures. Here are my observations and techniques.
To be more than the usual freelance murder hobos, Bond style PCs need a home nation worth fighting for. With that in mind, I'd say choose one of the human nations and make it "the good (enough) guys". Now, all of the Eberron nations are morally ambiguous by default, but you can easily accentuate the good and downplay the bad, the way most of the Bond films polish up England (and sometimes the U.S.). The easiest nations to do this with are Breland, because of its slowly emerging democratic ideals and rising superpower status, and Aundair, because of its sneaky, snobby but basically decent Western Europe vibe. Both nations also have royally appointed spy organizations that very naturally stand in for MI6.
Of course, you can make an imaginary nation sound as wonderful as you want, but unless that nation is a tangible game benefit to the PCs they will do the D&D thing and turn into renegade paranoid anarchists as the first sign of trouble. The nation must provide safe houses, stylish transportation, swanky cover identities, lower level agents as back up, and crazy gear (more on that later). But more than that, it must provide psychological security, the confidence to swagger out into a world of secrets and lies knowing that a solid home office has got their back. Therefore, this next thought might be controversial, but hear me out:
Make the players an out-of-game promise that their secret service bosses and regular colleagues will never betray them, and stick to that promise. The bosses might sometimes have disavow the PCs for a while, but they'll still eventually try to help and rescue them within reasonable limits. Yes, many fine spy stories are built around constant anxiety over being unable to trust anyone, but this isn't a John Lecarre novel, it's a James Bond inspired tabletop game. The impact of that big twist when the PCs' boss turns out to have gone rogue will last one session, but the resulting apathetic nihilistic rampage on the part of your group will last until the campaign sputters out in a blur of rejected NPC adventure hooks.
(cont'd)
To be more than the usual freelance murder hobos, Bond style PCs need a home nation worth fighting for. With that in mind, I'd say choose one of the human nations and make it "the good (enough) guys". Now, all of the Eberron nations are morally ambiguous by default, but you can easily accentuate the good and downplay the bad, the way most of the Bond films polish up England (and sometimes the U.S.). The easiest nations to do this with are Breland, because of its slowly emerging democratic ideals and rising superpower status, and Aundair, because of its sneaky, snobby but basically decent Western Europe vibe. Both nations also have royally appointed spy organizations that very naturally stand in for MI6.
Of course, you can make an imaginary nation sound as wonderful as you want, but unless that nation is a tangible game benefit to the PCs they will do the D&D thing and turn into renegade paranoid anarchists as the first sign of trouble. The nation must provide safe houses, stylish transportation, swanky cover identities, lower level agents as back up, and crazy gear (more on that later). But more than that, it must provide psychological security, the confidence to swagger out into a world of secrets and lies knowing that a solid home office has got their back. Therefore, this next thought might be controversial, but hear me out:
Make the players an out-of-game promise that their secret service bosses and regular colleagues will never betray them, and stick to that promise. The bosses might sometimes have disavow the PCs for a while, but they'll still eventually try to help and rescue them within reasonable limits. Yes, many fine spy stories are built around constant anxiety over being unable to trust anyone, but this isn't a John Lecarre novel, it's a James Bond inspired tabletop game. The impact of that big twist when the PCs' boss turns out to have gone rogue will last one session, but the resulting apathetic nihilistic rampage on the part of your group will last until the campaign sputters out in a blur of rejected NPC adventure hooks.
(cont'd)
