Strands of Eberron (or “How I Learned to Stop Fearing and Start Loving Fate”)

In Chris’s articles, he describes the path our group is currently on.  We’ve been playing in Eberron using 4^th edition D&D. Although our game has started well, and everyone has been relatively happy with the experience, there are enough of us that think Fate can give us more.  I was a big proponent for this change until it hit me, “Oh crap, I have to DM this for everyone!!!”

Classically, I have taken the stance that the DM should know the game the best.  He has to make rulings.  He should be able to answer rules questions as they come up.  He should be in a position to help players get the characters they want to play.  I picked up the Strands of Fate book and did what I always do – I started reading from cover to cover.  Now that I have a wife, a 9-year old, a 1-year old, pets, and a mortgage, it’s a bit harder to find the time to do that…

In order to hide my shortcomings, I made a deception roll against my group – 4 plusses!!  (That’s right; in Fate, you roll a different set of dice than the traditional polys or 6-siders.  The “dF” (as it’s known) is a d6, but instead of 1-6, you have 2 blanks, 2 ‘+’s, and 2 ‘-’s.)

I used the character creation method suggested by Strands.  We all sat down as a group and went around the table describing the characters with their Defining Aspect.  With everyone in the group chipping in and helping each other flesh out their aspects, everyone ended up with beautiful Defining Aspects that fit their character.  For example:

• Amearus – Resurrected Valenar Warlord of Legend
• Malic – Mercurial Tiefling Scoundrel
• Ashen – Savage Shifter Shaman
• Ulgarzi Bearsoul – Dragonmarked Gatekeeper Druid of House Tharashk
• Shalondra – Eladrin Warrior Guided by Fate

This is the start of our 4E conversion, and thanks to the group doing the heavy lifting, my DM tension is at an all-time low.  So far, so good.  The rest of aspect generation went smoothly and we spent the rest of our first session making some of the best looking / sounding characters I’ve had the pleasure to share a table with. We then entered into the transition adventure.

I kept the encounter mapping as simple as possible so we could focus more on aspects and the abstractions of the game.  Going into the first area, Ashen’s player makes a declaration by throwing a fate point and shouting, “It’s a trap!!” Perfect; the unadorned, unfilled, undecided 3-chamber crypt that was going to be full of horrid to-be-decided aberrations became instead a trap gauntlet that I was able to on-the-fly adjudicate by using the PC’s aspects against them.  The players enjoyed it immensely, and not a lot of prep work was needed by me – fantastic!!

I plan on going into the next adventure fairly free-form and leave more openings for my players to make more declarations and assessments and grow the scenes as we describe them to make the game a little more theirs, and the burden a little less mine.  That’s what makes the game so fun to run, everyone at the table  is involved in the rewarding and enjoyable endeavor.