Craig Shackleton's page

I'm not making you out to be an extremist - you just let the players run all over you.

This is hilarious. I just defended myself against being accused more or less of infringing on player freedom and now I let them walk all over me.

I said these were ideas that I have seen presented to me or other DMs. I didn't say that all of them were allowed to run wild, either by me or by those other DMs. Certainly some were, back in the day, which is why I firmly believe that adventuring parties need to be balanced and cohesive.

The common thread with all of those outlandish characters is that the players wanted to "just have fun with it" or "spice up the game" or "do something different"... All of those ultimately lead to disruption of the game - which, as a DM, is your responsibility to stop.

Which is pretty much exactly what I was saying.

I once ran "The Power Behind the Throne" (Warhammer FRP adventure) for a group of my friends. Basically it was a dynamic event-driven political intrigue mystery that was extremely difficult. I didn't understand why there was this unconnected fight with beastmen in the middle of it. Until the adventure got to that point.

My players had run out of steam. They couldn't put the clues together, they were frustrated and unmotivated. Then beastmen busted into their inn and the party tore them apart in no time. Brutalized them.

After the fight they were literally cheering and jumping up and down. They buckled down and immediately started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It was awesome.

Of course, usually when I run an important fight, my goal is that at least half the party should think they are headed for a TPK before they win, but they should win with no loss of life. It's a tight envelope to push, but the players savour the victory more when it was hard fought. Especially because they all know that I never fudge a roll.

I think why the beastmen fight worked so well was becasue all of the previous hard work that had yielded so little suddenly appearred to have been working towards this new victory. So even though, the fight was easy, they still got the hard slog ending with a victory.

Anyway, next time you are in St. Louie i'll buy you a beer Scribe and we can discuss ;)

Sounds good. I really do enjoy this kind of discussion, but I think we may be at the 'agree to disagree' stage with this.

Sorry, I never addressed a couple of specific points:

(correct me if i'm wrong) Scribe suggests that the mindset of each player and DM should be that the PCs that adventure in the DM's world need be suited to overcome any challenge that could be set forth for the party.

Actually I said that the party should be prepared to deal with any type of challenge of an appropriate level. I am firmly opposed to the view that a DM can place whatever encounter wherever and it's up to the players to decide what to deal with.

I'm suggesting that these are the wrong questions that gamers should be asking about their game. It doesn't matter what the PC makeup of the party is, their individual adventures should be designed or modified to reflect challenges that are fair and reasonable (this is being a "fair referee" as Scribe has indicated in other post) for them.

Actually, that was not my term. It's a small point, but I've never liked being called a referee as a DM. I consider myself to be the "challenge setter," much as I think you suggest. I just think that part of the party overcoming the challenge is good party and character design.

Consider this. What if a player drops out, a PC gets killed, or the palyer decides to retire their character and make something new? Should I now re-tailor my adventure? If the character works with the party and DM to make sure their new character still works to create a balanced group, I don't need to.

Okay, obviously I was being ironic.

I feel that I am being presented as an extremist when all I am saying is that the party and DM need to work together.

And while my examples are extreme, I have at various times seen players present to me or other DMs all of the following.

Totally incompetent characters too numerous to list, intentionally made so for the fun of the role-play.

Pacifist characters who try to impose their pacifsm on the entire party for the role-play fun.

A mute bard.

Parties that as a whole totally lacked either healing, combat ability, any magic, etc.

Characters intentionally designed to create conflict with specific other members of the party. And I'm not talking tension, I'm talking conflict.

This is disruptive and destructive to the game. The DM should not be expected to have to tailor everything to make these imbalances work. And the more the players work together to make a balanced functioning group, the better the DM can make great encounters that challenge everyone.

Well, I've had a change of heart.

I talked it over with my group, and they agree with Ace, so we've scrapped my old campaign and everyone made up new characters, and I have to say I never saw what role-play opportunties I was missing. Everyone made up the interesting character they want and this is what I have:

A pacifist Paladin who has sworn to never harm a living creature.

A blind, one-handed ranger. He has an excellent background about being caught as a poacher.

A cowardly halfling sorcerer who only has spells that help him flee, hide, and avoid damage.

A Half-orc cleric of Nerull.

So I'm going to run the Whispering Cairn. Can you advise me on how to modify the adventure to suit this party? It's gonna be great!

ACE,

I was going to go through your response point by point, but essentially I can turn each on it's head. Why would a group want to limit the options for types of encounters a DM can throw at them? If a DM doesn't have time to restructure a module for an unbalanced party, I would also hate to see the results, so why would they do that?

I'm not saying that the party is wholly responsible for game balance. I am saying it's a two way street.

And one more point where I must ake the opposite postion to you to demonstrate the middle ground where I actually stand: One reason I would want to put an encounter that an unbalnced party can't overcome is realism. How can I justify not using a reasonable defense that a villain would take just because my players choose an unbalanced party? It makes no sense. Many DMs set up encounters with NO regard for challenge compared to party level because they feel that it's more realistic. And they're right. I am not that extreme. But I'm not going to take all of the traps out of the lich's tomb just because my players don't want a to have a rogue among them.

I am all for letting the players explore interesting ideas and characters, finding different party balance, etc. But the DM should not be their slave.

Sorry, one more thing. If we accept that part of the game is the presentation of challenges to be overcome, I feel that part of this includes the challenge of varied encounters needing to be overcome by good party balance.

This is getting further and further from the topic of skill points.

Not to pick on you Scribe, but this a good example of the kind of thinking that is problematic for tabletop group play in general. This quote is perfect for munchkinizing or beating a video game, but discounts one of the core principles of tabletop gaming; chiefly, the role of the GM. It is the GM's job to tailor make challenges from the top down: Campaign, Group, and Individual. A group of gamers who all want to play halfling illusionists should be able to do so with the same rate of success as a traditional power party.

Pick away, I drank my potion of barkskin.

I accept your view as valid, but I see a few reasons why this doesn't work for me. One is that many gamers run adventures that are amde by other people and don't have the time or ability to customize them or create their own (what magazine is this site for?). If the party is unbalanced, problems can arrise, but there are many ways to balance a party.

Also, even if I am making my own adventures, a poorly balanced party limits the type of challenges I can set. For example, if there is no rogue, I cannot expect them to overcome a magical trap except by setting it off. If there is no one who can heal, there are all kinds of problems.

Funny thing is, I do work very hard to tailor my encounters to the challenge level I want, but I do it in a general sense, not for my particular group. I rarely miss my mark either. And my experience has backed up what I was explaining in my first post; low-level encounters are more random and therefore harder to balance.

Also, I'd like to point out that I actually advised against changing the skill rules, because I don't have a problem with them, and think that doing so throws off other aspects of the game.

The two problems I see are the lack of a trap-finder and the lack of artillery spell-casting.

Healing can be taken care of by wands pretty early on; the druid and rangers can both use them. Potions and Scrolls too.

Trapfinding is one of the rules that I find problematic, becuase unless you use alternate base classes, the only way to get it is to take a level of rogue. Maybe you can convince one of the rangers to do so or to instead play a scout (if you allow them). This would not change anyone's concept too drastically.

Also, you seem limited in ranged combatants, and even if one of the rangers is an archer, it's hard to duplicate the effectiveness of ranged spells. I don't use druids enough to know where they sit as far as this goes, the one 3.5 druid I DM'd for spent most of his time in wildshape. At the same time, you've got two fast movers, or three if one of the rangers does become a scout, so you can get some heavy melee fighters close fast. Flying opponents will cause trouble.

I'm sure there will be other case by case difficulties, but these can happen in any party, if the spellcaster has used up their spells or prepared the wrong ones.

And don't forget that a great number of skills can be used untrained......

The current edition is about maxing out a few skills or capacities to be very useful, if you spread too much you'll not be able to overcome some challenges.
You cannot be too good at everything, if you give too much skill points that's the way you go.

Right, this is important too. Your PARTY needs to be good at everything. Your CHARACTER doesn't. Speacialize your character to balance your party.

I agree with several other comments to this effect: the classes are generally balanced and skill points is one aspect of that. If you want a skill based fighter, play a ranger, or use your non-bonus feats to take "open mind" which gives you five skill points (CAd), or give yourself a high intelligence.

Clerics' low skill points bother me aesthetically, but remember that the cleric was just voted in a landslide the most powerful class. I think the problem is that there isn't a high skill point cleric equivelant (in the way that the ranger is for the fighter). At the same time clerics should not be the general clergy IMO. Although Eberron was the first palce to specify this, I think that most 'priests' should be experts (the npc class). Also, why on earth would a cleric ever take the healing skill? All they really need is knowledge (religion) and concentration.

Wizards generally have a high intelligence and this mitigates their low skill points. My one beef is that later intelligence increases don't give retroactive skill points. I think they should.

As to the comments about needing a +10 or 11 because of the d20, I do get this (I think), so I will give my explanation.

Basically when you roll a d20 and add a modifier of say, +5, the modifier is fairly insignificant compared to the variable. The die roll determines more than the modifier. As 1st level characters often have +5 as a good skill modifier, their skills have little impact on their success.

So, the options to fix this are to use a different variable or give more skill points. Unearthed Aracana has a variant for using 3d6 instead of a d20 and I'd like to try it sometime. This way the range of results is similar, but the frequency of extreme results is greatly reduced.

If you want to increase skill points, I think you should just start the PCs at a higher level. Why? because the same problem affects attack rolls, saving throws etc. Also, messing with starting skill points messes with class balance and probably creates more skew than it fixes.

Also, there are lots of ways for characters to boost their skills at first level within the rules. Higher stats, special tools, skill focus and all the +2 to two skills feats. At second level, synergy bonuses kick in too. I can easilly build a second level character with +12 or even 15 in some skills.

On a related note, the reverse problem comes up with higher level characters. Eventually, the die roll is meaningless compared to the skill bonus, especially with skill boosting magic items etc.

This is the main reason I most enjoy playing at levels 3-8 as a general rule. That's when you can be good at stuff, but luck still has some effect

So now I'm getting worried.

I sent in a full adventure in mid-October, which I know was received but I haven't heard anything back about.

On November 4th I sent in an adventure query that I haven't heard anything for.

On January 26 I sent a follow-up regarding these two just to be sure that nothing had gotten lost in the aether and I haven't heard back.

When everything was delayed indefinately it didn't worry me to not hear back, but now that it looks like I should have heard back...

Coincidentally, I submitted a proposal for a Dragon article on November 3, got the green light on December 8, submitted it January 13, followed up to make sure it was received on January 26 and received a response that day.

OTOH, I have had numerous problems with my e-mail provider. Now I'm paranoid that my server has eaten all of my rejection letters.

Mind you, this is all much faster than when I wrote my first article for Dungeon back in 1997 when I lived in New Zealand and everything had to be sent snail mail.

Rambling Scribe wrote:

I recently pitched an article query to Dragon regarding using cards to randomly generate character stats. The premise is that you do a card spread like a tarot reading, and what cards you get in what locations determine your stats.

My goal with this is to achieve a random but balanced character generation system: all characters should balance out the way they would with point buy, but there is still a random element.

Would this not also tell the players where their stats are thus forcing players to play classes that they may or may not want to play?

Yes it will, as do some methods of rolling dice. It will also include an optional rule to arrange the cards that you draw however you like to gain some control, much like rolling stats and putting them in the order you want. I'm also putting in the option to randomly choose both race and class.

Coincidentally, the same day I made the original post, I got the green light to write the article. Hopefully everyone will be able to pick it apart more thoroughly if it gets to print!

On a related note,

I recently pitched an article query to Dragon regarding using cards to randomly generate character stats. The premise is that you do a card spread like a tarot reading, and what cards you get in what locations determine your stats.

My goal with this is to achieve a random but balanced character generation system: all characters should balance out the way they would with point buy, but there is still a random element.

It would include rules for varying power level like point buy can, and also for giving varying degrees of control to the characters.

I've actually designed similar systems for other games, and it really is my favoourite system.

I'm going to address a bunch of points in one post.

First, I used to never use point buy, because I liked having characters with random elements. Now I use point buy pretty much exclusively. We tried lots of ways to make random characters balanced to each other, but always eneded up with at least one ridiculously good character and sometimes our efforts to prevent any really bad characters failed too. In the long run, balance between player characters is more important than overall power level; as a DM, you can always adjust.

On that note, if you have a party with very good stats, you are completely justified in reducing their experience award. An extra +5 overall in stat bonuses is worth at least as much as a level. I did the math once, but I don't remember the exact result. Let's look at a standard array fighter: S 15 D14 C 13 I 12 W 10 Ch 8. Compare that to a fighter with S 17 D 16 C 15 I 14 W 12 Ch 8. Lets assume they are fifth level. The second fighter gets an extra +1 to hit and damage, +5 hp, +5 skill points (as well as +1 on any skills except charisma based skills), +1 to all saves, +1 to AC... sounds like a level worth of improvements. The second character also has access to more feats (like the whole combat expertise chain).So, when you are giving out experience, you can award the second character experience as though they were a level higher. I wouldn't actually change their ECL or number of XP needed to go up, just the reward.

As for dealing with your particular fighter, there are alot of things you can and should be doing. First off, I would not allow a net to be used in conjunction with a weapon being used two-handed. Even after being thrown, the user must control the net with a rope. If they let go, the net comes loose. Even if the rope is attached to the wrist, it puts pressure that makes the left hand inneffective.

Also, I think you've miscalaculated his attack bonus. If his strength is 18, he gets +4 to hit for strength, not +6. The 1.5x bonus for two-handed weapon use (even if you allow it) only applies to damage, not to attack. Not a huge difference, but his power attack ends up +11 +11 +6 doing d8+19 damage. Much less of a guarantee, and your fighter will probably risk less against well-armoured foes.

Second, you need to hit him with will-based spells. Big fighters are almost always more susceptible to these,a nd some of them are devastating when used on them. Tasha's hideous laughter is only second level, or first for a bard. Hold person and command are first. Confusion is brutal; how happy will the players be when that fighter starts attacking them? I played in a game wherein our two front line fighters almost took out our whole party while a couple of umber hulks stood around and watched. All of these spells have higher level versions, too.

Using these spells is not punishing the player or singling him out. It is simply good tactics that an enemy spellcaster should and would use. As a player, I often try to use spells that the target will have a poor save for. Npc spellcasters should do the same.

I also agree with the previous suggestions about mixing up monsters in general, and throwing in terrain and other tactical considerations. Use more ranged attackers, and throw in a damage soaker to slow the fighter down. Put archers on balconies, and use web or entangle on the ground to slow down attackers. These are all solid tactics that will hinder your fighter, but aren't so crass as to target his particular tactic.

If you need more ideas for how to deal with this guy, try this. Make an opponent who uses the same technique, and make him a level or two higher than the party. Give him some low-level support troops and unleash him on the PCs. See how they deal with him. Now you can use their strategy against them. This is a little more hokey, but it's easy to justify. The evil twin could be from the same gladiatorial school as the PC. Maybe it was him who even tayght your hero his technique. Of course, he have other students, and some of them are getting pretty good at countering his techniques, just as your PC will be.

Well, I was going to say more but this post is long enough. Good luck with it!

I have always wanted to run a campaign that spanned years, if not generations. Pendragon had a badly implemented good idea for doing this. This is what I would do, but I haven't done it yet.

Essentially, you work out a character background that involves family and holdings etc. Pendragon worked on the basis of knights, but my plan is to have the players be community leaders in a growing colony. Then you set up a system for letting the players determine what happens with their family and holdings; basically it becomes a resource management sub-game. I haven't found a system I'm happy with for doing this, but Pendragon, Birthright, and games like Civilization have all inspired me.

Then you pepper your 'adventures' at key points over the span of years (Pendragon has all adventures occur in summer). I personally would give reduced experience, but allow the players to have their characters focus on training sometimes to gain more between adventures. Also, I'd like to include a mechanism for tracking the characters' immediate heirs. In Pendragon, when your character dies, you can continue by playing your own heir, who's background you have already built. And of course, you can even die of old age.

To me, the trick is to find or devise a system of managing holdings that is simple enough but not grossly unrealistic, and integrates well with D&D. Most systems fall into the trap of 'every year you may do one of the following...' with a list of actions that are in no way equivelant to each other in terms of effort and resources needed.

This model does not work well with the dungeon-crawl model of adventure either. IMO for this to work, each 'adventure' event should take at most two sessions. Specifically, no more than two sessions should go by without the players noting the passage of time.

With Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain both redone, I can now relive that glorious moment of my youth when my friend stuck blackrazor into a sphere of annhilation.

I don't think powergaming (even when it doesn't abuse the rules) is a necessity to have fun, or even to survive a game.

Clearly you aren't playing the Age of Worms adventure path... :)

I recommend buying RPGNow's start-up package before you go any further, regardless of how you want to sell your product. It has lots of useful information on what sells and how much, as well as loads of other useful advice. It doesn't pull any punches, because RPGNow want to sell good stuff, not host junk that doesn't sell.

This is in no way intended to recommend RPGNow over Paizo or any other supplier of pdfs.

I don't like the term munchkin because it has come to mean something derogatory. DnD players often have greatly varying levels of experience. Other players should not deride inexperienced players. Give them a chance to develop their roleplaying skills.

Just wanted to say that despite the impression my previous post may give, I agree whole-heartedly with this.

When I started gaming (1980), a TPK was the expected outcome of our games. The first five or six adventures I played wiped out the whole party. This was mostly just us learning how the game worked (especially our DM, who is now a big softy).

So what's funny or interesting? We finally had a group get out alive having explored a chunk of the dungeon. We had lost a few npcs and we were all wounded, but we had some stuff and we were alive. Well, I figured the game was done and we had won this time, and threw out my character sheet. Then I was totally surprised and had to make up a new character when the DM wanted to continue the adventure.

Interesting discussion...

The term munchkin has never been synonimous with power-gamer or min-maxer for me. I have always thought of a munchkin as a player who was young AND played in a selfish manner. I've usually found that what I thought of as munchkins were not good min-maxers, because they want the easy road to power and wealth. And usually, that's all.

I am a min-maxer. I'm also a good role-player. I get many types of enjoyment out of D&D, particularly the current edition.

I get to plan out my character very carefully to maximize my effectiveness in their particular role for the campaign. I love this kind of strategic thinking. It's like fine-tuning a CCG deck, and this part of the game I can do on my own time, out of game.

I can apply strategy to my character's actions in play to maximize their effectiveness. I enjoy doing this under any circumstance, but combat has the most opportunities, so I get more of this from a good fight. I enjoy fights that are challenging the most. The last game session we played was one huge fight. Three of us were down and bleeding at different times, but we won. If we had not used good strategy, we would have died. I find that very rewarding, because I made a difference.

I get to role-play my character. In fact, I see developing my character's background and personality as an important facet of my character-optimizing strategy. My characters have to be effective AND make sense AND be interesting. I'm currently playing a Talenta Halfling Artificer who fights with a club. He calls it a boomerang, but it only comes back if he infuses it with 'indisputable possesion' first.

I get to spend quality social time with my friends. Very important.

But here's what is the crucial must have in my game; I must feel that I have accomplished something. I used to have the attitude that it was all about the role-play. I played long sessions where I never rolled a die and loved it. But I've come to feel that if I didn't roll a die, I had no chance of failing, and if I couldn't fail, I haven't really accomplished anything. I also felt that if I never rolled a die and failed, I never had a chance, and my DM was arbitrary. So I like to roll dice. And I like to succeed, and get something done.

I also started to realize that some of those three hour sessions of deep role-playing had the net result that my character bought his groceries, but that's not really my point.

So here's where I really step over the line. I get really frustrated playing with non min-maxers. I think they are selfish, because their characters are usually useless or even a hinderance to the party. They choose to play them intentionally, so that they can get a deeper role-playing experience, at the cost of the rest of the party succeeding and accomplishing things. The recent Save my Game article about players who don't bother to learn the rules really struck a chord with me because of this.

So having established that I am a min-maxer, and probably a power-gamer, am I a munchkin? I don't think so, but you may disagree.

My final rant/point: I personally believe that people who focus on role-playing without min-maxing can equally be called munchkins as those who only min-max without role-palying. They are both detracting from the group experience for their own benefit.

I'm guessing you mean the difference between the brief description in the spell list and the full description.

I haven't checked the errata on this, but the general rule is that if the detailed description and the brief description contradict each other, assume that the detailed one is correct.

One hour per level, yeesh!

Actually, I think the large number of open Aberrations boosters is a packaging issue.

I work near a big box book store and often pick up a booster after work. I went through a spell when all I saw was opened Aberrations boosters (at least I think it was Aberrations; maybe Deathknell). Every one of them was opened cleanly, with dried cracked glue. I would take my box to the cash and say 'I want to buy this, as long as it has the right number of rare, uncommon and common miniatures. I will open it in front of you to check. I am not trying to find out which miniatures are in the box before I buy it. I bought five packs this way, and none of them were missing miniatures, and I got some decent rares out of them that I was sure any shoplifter or person checking contents before buying would have gone for.

I've noticed that the method of sealing the miniatures packs has changed a few times since Harbinger. While I don't like the excess plastic wrap on some, I really don't think the cracking glue is good for WotC or their customers.

going back to the original task of this post, however, is that while it takes an hour to read a portion of a published campaign, that hour can be spent designing your own.

Okay, that's true, but I can read a lot more in an hour than I can write, as can anyone (even ignoring additional time and effort for thinking it out, assuming the writer is creative enough to do this). Also, with a pregenerated campaign world, you can read what you need, and hopefully assume that the rest of the world is consistant enough. For example, in Eberron, you can read some of the general information about the Five Nations, a bit more about Sharn, and then the Forgotten Forge, and you are ready to go. If you need to find out more information, you can look it up as you go and gradually learn more.

And here is a further bonus of a well-organized pregenrated game setting: You can loan your book to your player and say "Your character is from Karrnath, read the player's info on Karrnath." rather than generating a handout of your own or spending time explaining it to them. Oh, except wait, you can't, because if they read the Karrnath section they will learn King Kaius' secret, even if they intentionally skip the boxed text itled "King Kaius' Secret."

This is the point. It's great that you prefer generating your own setting, but you cannot deny that there are advantages to using a pregenrated one, even if those advantages apply more to some people than to others. The problem is that the ECS has effectively negated a few of those advantages by not sorting the information into player information and DM information.

I got 128 and 129 about a week apart from each other, but that's okay, I got them. For anyone who feels that they've had trouble with their subscription, let me tell you my story.

Before I moved a year ago, I had some trouble with my subscription. It's better now. Basically, I was missing about half of my issues of both Dungeon and Dragon. Jeremy Walker very kindly sent me replacement issues. When the package of replacemnts arrived, it had been opened, and one was missing. Jeremy replaced it again, and replaced a few more issues that continued to go astray. I started keeping better track of my less important magazines and other mail.

Over the course of a year and a half, I had a total of about 24 various magazines go missing, with Dungeon and Dragon making up the bulk, but including my daughter's kids magazines (she's now five). I also had some kids books ordered on a book subscription program disappear, causing the book company to cancel my subscription when I asked for replacements.

I complained to the Post office repeatedly, and they promised to investigate, but gave me no information. Once I realized that someone was stealing my mail, I told Jeremy Walker that I couldn't in good conscience ask him to continue replacing magazines that were being shipped in good faith (he expressed a willingness to replace them, even knowing what was happenning). In the end, I had about seven or eight paizo magazines that I never got. I bought new copies of a few of them, but there is still a hole in my collection.

So I have two points here. One is, if you get your magazine late, be happy it came. The other is that the people at Paizo really do their best to help out their subscribers, and I for one, appreciate it.

Sorry if I come across as preachy. I mostly just wanted to share my tale of woe.

I ran The Queen with the Burning Eyes and The Forgotten Forge basically mashed together. Mind you, I modified the forgotten forge a lot. Basically, I made the PCs figure everything out on their own instead of Elaydrin telling them everything. At the same time, they were investigating the disappearance of a friend (who had been eaten by the Queen), and Elaydrin actually gave them information on that adventure. It worked well and definately set the scene for Shadows of the Last War.

I totally agree with Dryder about Whipers though. To be honest, I found that not only did it not really fit the series, the ending made no sense to me. So I just cut it completely and harvested all the best encounters for my own use.

Next I ran Fallen Angel, and Tela Kaelys made a good lead in for Moroni in Grasp of the Emerald Claw. My group finished Grasp (although they totally bungled it), and now I'm taking a break while my brother runs AoW converted to Eberron.

Unfortunately, I also won't be running Oakbridge. I got 129 a week ago and called my brother to tell him that I had the next installment of AoW. I also told him there was an Eberron murder mystery set in Sharn, and he decided to incorporate it into AoW. I almost cried, because that left only the 17th level Realms adventure for me to read; I don't play the Realms, and so far, none of our campaigns have made it to 17th level. sigh.

Anyways, I recommend taking all of the Eberron adventures you can get your hands on, putting them in a jar and shaking them up. So far I have found that it is pretty easy to start leading into the upcoming adventures before you've finished the one you're in.

Say, Anyone have any good ideas for following up Grasp of the Emerald Claw, preferably featuring the amulet from Queen with the Burning Eyes?

I have to say, I agree in general that the books should keep secret information seperate from player information. Some players will find out, but not all. I have never read any Call of Cthulhu secret stuff because I have been waiting to play it for about 20 years.

In addition, I believe that the biggest problem with the ECS (which I love) is that it brutally mixes up player and SM info. Also the secret of King Kaius is the worst example of this, being revealed in several different places, sometimes mixed into paragraphs intended for players. I let one of my players read the ECS, and he tried to not find out any secrets, but couldn't help himself.

I have also noticed that both the rules and the novels for Eberron are unclear or contradictory in places as to what is supposed to be common knowledge and what is not. Like the secret of the thirteenth mark, which one source says is supposed to be all but unknown, but another portrays every hick farmer as knowing it. Dividing these things in the ECS would have at least established what characters should and shouldn't know, even if it didn't prevent players from learning secrets that their characters shouldn't know.