Zeitgeist is a 13-part adventure series; ENWorld started publishing it back in 2011. It was originally written for D&D 4e, but was later adapted to Pathfinder 1e, and then D&D 5e. (The 5e version was based directly on the Pathfinder 1e version, for another layer of separation.) There was an official conversion to ENWorld's own WOIN system, and a fan conversion to Pathfinder 2e, but both remain incomplete to this day. I personally think that Zeitgeist's 4e incarnation is the definitive version, because it contains the most unique and custom-tailored mechanics, and because it really makes the most of the campaign's superhero-like power scaling, as I talk about here:https://www.enworld.org/threads/i-absolutely-love-the-power-scaling-of-zeitgeist.669229/https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/97964681/#97964829I have played Zeitgeist from levels 1 to 30. My DM wrote a guide on how to better run the campaign and patch up its shortcomings; run a search for "Zeitvice." My DM and I were contracted by ENWorld to write for the sequel setting book as freelancers; I am in the credits as "E.S. Edna." I am saying this to establish that I am actually familiar with Zeitgeist.Zeitgeist is pseudo-steampunk and heavily magical. Its 4e version, at least, is also very superheroic, with characters starting off as street-level action heroes and reaching "an entire unit of 40 satyr archers is, collectively, a single level 20 minion to be scythed down in an instant" power levels even before the epic tier. However, another major facet is debates over philosophy and political systems. PCs are encouraged to be invested in philosophy and political theory (e.g. one of the character themes and its associated paragon path is a philosopher), and throughout the campaign, PCs encounter many NPCs eager to strike up philosophical and political debates.(Continued.)
A major theme of Zeitgeist is that it is impossible to devise a philosophy and a political system that are 100% the absolute best. Everything boils down to pros, cons, tradeoffs, the unpredictability of society, the disparate needs of the masses, and the tendency of power to corrupt. The main, overarching antagonist is a philosopher who wants to create a new world order; during part #7 out of 13, his bad guy organization splinters apart into multiple factions (and the PCs are present when this happens) precisely because they cannot agree on a unified philosophical and political vision.An important contrivance is "planes," or in other words, what this setting calls moons and planets. For millennia, the world has been surrounded by eight "planes," each of which confers special traits onto the world. The bad guy organization figures out how to swap the world's eight "planes" for a different roster, thus radically recalibrating what life is like in the world. The aforementioned splintering during part #7 happens because the bad guys cannot agree on the new roster. At the start of part #9, one faction just barely manages to perform the reconfiguration ritual, thus swapping in a new roster of eight (actually nine, due to double-slotting) "planes"...... which causes huge problems. In part, these are because of a hasty, improperly performed ritual that failed to screen for complications, such as alien invaders. However, it is also due to the pros, cons, and tradeoffs caused by some of the new "planes" themselves. For example:
• The gas giant Perlocus, a Voice on the Wind, makes people easier to persuade. Minds can be changed more easily, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Hucksters and demagogues have it good.• Bland and barren Ratios, the Cold Logic, enhances logical arguments, but makes intimidation and intuiting other people's emotions less effective. In 4e terms, it gives +5 Diplomacy for rational arguments, while imposing −5 Intimidation and Insight. Again, this is not necessarily a good thing. Clearly, between Perlocus and Ratios, this faction of antagonists wanted a world of rational discourse.• Illocus, the Cascading Flame, alters grand-scale causality such that "consequences cascade rapidly." In the best-case scenario, this allows social and societal change to spread like wildfire, as a single stirring speech can spark a wave of reform. In the worst-case scenario, this results in a catastrophic pileup of unrest and doomsday plots.These are some fairly interesting "planes," in my opinion. They have pros, cons, and tradeoffs, and are not strictly good or bad. Some value systems might exalt them, while others may condemn them.Of course, among the roster are some 100% beneficial "planes":• Jiese, the Fires of Industry, allows "precision technology" (anything with small moving parts, many moving parts, etc.) to function. This "plane" was always around. Nobody dares to remove it from the roster, especially with the industrial revolution already underway.• Ostea, the Beating Heart, gives everyone minor regenerative abilities and prevents anyone from bleeding out. This tremendously reduces the number of deaths by violence.• Baden, the Ghost Moon, makes flight magic easy to develop, whether for personal use or for vehicles.• Fourmyle, the Selfish Dominion, gives everyone teleportation abilities: but these cannot trespass property.Okay, sure. Maybe it is fine for a small number of "planes" to just be utopian must-haves. But not most of them, right?
Cosmic RecalibrationThroughout parts #12 and #13, the main antagonist is so frustrated that he wants to redo the ritual with an entirely new roster of "planes." His desired configuration is multiple layers of mind and fate control, resulting in a world wherein everyone is a mind-controlled drone playing out a preordained fate. The PCs, meanwhile, are also obligated to redo the ritual on their own terms, so they travel the cosmos (while meeting more figures to debate) and assemble a new roster of "planes" to surround their world with. Ideally, this would have forced the PCs to make the same tough decisions as the bad guys: weighing the pros, cons, and tradeoffs of each "plane."In practice, it does not play out this way. A large chunk of the "planes" confer properties that are simply incompatible with civilization. For example:• Metarie, the Swamp of Sabotage, disrupts technology. Whereas Jiese's property allows "precision technology" to function, Metarie disrupts technology in general. This would send society back to the Stone Age, if not worse.• Ringes, the Barren Moor, makes sapient creatures go mentally unstable, and then murderously violent.• Apo, the Unknown Disk, intermittently spawns spheres of annihilation across any given area: including where someone might already be standing!• Drozani, a Dead City in the Clouds, makes the birth rate slowly dwindle to zero.• Hunlow, a Place for Pirates, turns the ocean into "literally a blood-thirsty god who loves villains."• Thrag, the Beastly Bounty, makes it such that "[r]eincarnation is rapid, and memories are retained." This sounds nice, but the catch is that the reincarnation is into savage beasts and even ambulatory plants, in such a way as to create endless cycles of suffering.• Avilona, the Final Murmur, makes flight and other air magic never last for more than five minutes.• Padyer, a Clean Realm, makes all water burn and purge.These options turn the world into a hellscape.
On the other hand, there are various "planes" that are mostly utopian. For example:• Iratha Ket, the Graveyard Revel, increases altruism across the world. Sometimes, musical numbers spontaneously occur. People have natural aptitude for the performing arts, and their performances hand out small buffs.• Obliatas, the Devouring Light, makes the sun harmful to undead. (This is a setting wherein the great, great bulk of undead are harmful, unhealthily obsessive, or both. The main antagonist, from the beginning, has been a ghost!)• Elofasp, the Spawning Hive, makes animals larger, but more obedient. This makes the world somewhat Pokémon-like.• Ascetia, the Hidden Jungle, makes people more aware of history. In 4e terms, people get a +5 bonus to History checks.• Amrou, the Salt Waste, allows mundane apotropaics (e.g. circles of salt) to ward away supernatural threats, such as fiends and aberrations.• Bhoior, the Walking Whisper, makes sounds echo in such a way that "people are innately more aware of the past, and are less likely to repeat the mistakes of it."• Caeloon, the Paper Wind, makes people resilient in the face of tragedy.These are fairly good picks. Iratha Ket + Ascetia + Bhoior + Caeloon, as just four "planes," makes the world significantly more pleasant. Additionally, the adventure allows players to cherry-pick and preserve preexisting "planes" like Jiese, Ostea, Baden, and Fourmyle. It is not that hard to create a flatly utopian world.But wait! Remember the previous mention of "double-slotting," which allowed there to be nine "planes" instead of just "eight"? With a check whose DC is trivially hittable by endgame, the PCs can perform up to eight double-slottings, for a whopping sixteen planes! Nothing is stopping the party from utopiamaxxing their way into sixteen beneficial "planes."
Consequences and PotentialThe above has two (probably unintended) consequences. One, it laughs at a major theme from earlier in the adventure: that it is impossible to devise a philosophy and political system that is 100% the absolute best. (Here, the PCs are just supernaturally brute-forcing their way into utopia.) Two, the well-meaning antagonists look stupid for having never realized that it was possible to just slot in a roster of strictly beneficial, utopia-engendering "planes," up to sixteen in number!What could the adventure have done instead? I think it could have shifted the focus towards "planes" that offer pros, cons, and tradeoffs. And indeed, we see some of these during the cosmic journey. For example:• Reida, the Arc of History, makes both foresight (including prophetic magic) and predestination strong. However, this functions only for two millennia, then deactivates for two millennia, and so on.• Teykfa, the Ticking Pendulum, makes people "more aware of the scale of time, and they can better weight long-term consequences." But for good or for ill, time manipulation magic is easier to develop.• Egalitrix, Fortress of the Golden Legion, makes "fantastic grand industry" develop more rapidly, but it will be driven by greed.• Etheax, the Tended Flame, makes everyone more patient. But for good or for ill, fire magic is easier to develop.• Dunkelweiss, the Fermented Peaks, makes alcohol beneficial to one's health, as opposed to destructive. However, drunk people still act drunk.• Wilanir, the Lair of Discontent, makes thick fog appear around people who have committed wrongs. This is indiscriminate, and the definition of "wrongs" is vague.• Shabboath, the Severed Sea, creates an underdark-style cavern system beneath the world's surface, full of both wondrous resources and great terrors.• Av, Plane of Mirrors, gives reflections magical influence. It also creates both a Feywild and a Shadowfell, and their creatures.
Between "planes" like these, and preexisting "planes" such as Perlocus, Ratios, and Illocus, there could have been great potential for PCs to contemplate and debate the pros, cons, and tradeoffs of a new roster of planes. (No, the campaign's circumstances prevent PCs from leaving it up to worldwide, democratic voting. The world is simply gripped by too much epic-tier bedlam for a global vote to be even remotely feasible.) And maybe there could have been fewer than sixteen slots.But this is not how Zeitgeist is actually written. So what did my own party do during our campaign? Sixteen-slot utopiamaxxing, baybee. So much for "no perfect system," right?In the sequel setting, the main author assumes that the "canonical" party, for whatever reason, did not bother with utopiamaxxing, and double-slotted only once. Sure, they left Jiese and Ostea in place and included Iratha Ket, Ascetia, Amrou, and Caeloon among their picks, but their other three choices were merely okay-ish (e.g. Av solely to generate a Feywild and a Shadowfell). From a setting-writing perspective, this is a necessary evil, because the world still needs to be flawed enough to have actual conflicts, and having a Feywild and a Shadowfell around creates adventure potential.This is just my own opinion, though. What do you personally think of this concept of reconfiguring the roster of "planes" (i.e. moons and planets)? How would you have personally handled the divide between bad picks vs. beneficial picks vs. "pros, cons, and tradeoffs" picks?
I can't take you seriously because of the fact that you made everyone in the game a lolitl;dr
>>98232207This honestly sounds really interesting and makes me interested in the campaign setting. It sounds to me like it has shades of Planescape and of Eberron’s having the configuration of planes influence the Prime Material, but in a way where the players get to directly interact with cosmic mechanics by the end. That does indeed sound very appropriate for 4e which is the only version of D&D I know of to explicitly incorporate the epic level play experience into the core ruleset.It seems an obvious fix to rebalance the planes so that they have an upside and downside. Or perhaps to lock certain planes together so that the negative aspects of one can only be checked by certain others. And to just adjust how difficult it is to combine them. But I would say that having a party of diverse morals probably makes it more of a decision: a lot of the ones you describe as purely negative seem like they would be just fine for a more extremist Druid or Necromancer character.I’m also interested in what the planar entities get out of this. They’re named as you describe them. Are they sentient? Do they in some way feed off the emotions and possibilities they influence?
>>98232244I’ve been seeing Edna post here since before ToZ even came out, including when they got into an autism stand-off with the nazimod, so it’s really hard for me to hate them even though their ideal game is miles from my own. I’m glad some people still effortpost here.
>>98232292Honestly, the autism has gotten tiresome. I'm fine with the effort posting and I even like some of the mechanics analysis, but the total lack of awareness of why not everyone wants to play pedo games and a refusal to engage with anything other than hyper-granular balancefests has just worn out after a decade.Still luv me 4e though
>>98232264>That does indeed sound very appropriate for 4e which is the only version of D&D I know of to explicitly incorporate the epic level play experience into the core ruleset.Yes, it is indeed very appropriate for 4e, and why I maintain that the 4e version of Zeitgeist is the definitive version.>It seems an obvious fix to rebalance the planes so that they have an upside and downside. Or perhaps to lock certain planes together so that the negative aspects of one can only be checked by certain others. And to just adjust how difficult it is to combine them.This is what I would have personally done, yes.>But I would say that having a party of diverse morals probably makes it more of a decision: a lot of the ones you describe as purely negative seem like they would be just fine for a more extremist Druid or Necromancer character.This part is easier said than done. Throughout parts #1 through #11 of this 13-part adventure, the heroes have been obligated to carry out standard-issue "save the [city/nation/world]" superhero quests.It would be weird if these exemplary, world-saving superheroes suddenly decided "Actually, let us go ahead and turn the world into a hellscape.">I’m also interested in what the planar entities get out of this. They’re named as you describe them. Are they sentient? Do they in some way feed off the emotions and possibilities they influence?The great, great bulk of these "planes" are uninhabited. Some once had flourishing populations, but suffered an extinction event. Only a rare handful have living or undead populations, such as Iratha Ket, which has a single city.
>>98232384If I wanted to run this now in a currently supported system, what would you suggest?
>>98232427D&D 4e with one of the various "rewrite and improve most of the game" homebrew projects (e.g. erachima's homebrew, absolitude's homebrew), Draw Steel, Path/Starfinder 2e, 13th Age 2e, Daggerheart, and so on and so forth.A lot of systems could run Zeitgeist well enough. Use whatever you are most comfortable with. You will have to do plenty of conversion work, however.
Unrelated Bonus Observation: During part #10 of 13, there is a sequence in which the PCs must fight four giant, rampaging monsters. One PC gets coronated as monarch of the nation, and receives tremendous bonuses while battling the aforementioned titans.>the monarch should get a +8 bonus to all defenses and attack rolls, and saving throws; a +9 bonus to Strength-, Dexterity-, and Constitution-based checks; regeneration 40 in addition to the normal regeneration 10 the monarch always has; and can interact with the titan as if he or she were also gargantuanWhich, of course, means that the party is best-off coronating a striker like a barbarian, as opposed to a warlord or a bard. And indeed, that is exactly what we did in our playthrough.
Seems like either a big oversight to not address dual-slotting, or you've read it wrong somehow.I would personally have massive consequences for going ham with multiple dual-slots. Like things get progressively twisted the more you add, to the point where reality just ends at 16.
>>98233860This is the full text for double-slotting:>Cheating>The ritual assumes you put one planar icon in each column, and that you’ll have a total of eight planes. It is possible, however, to put multiple icons in a single column. When the column sinks into the ground, whoever placed the extra icon must make an Arcana, Nature, or Religion check (DC 32). If the check fails, the column refuses to sink, and the energy tendril immediately switches location to strike the person who tried to make that linkage.>It’s also possible to complete the ritual with fewer than eight columns, since most planes provide multiple energy types. You could link only to Obliatas, though the resulting world would be bland and over-lit. Or you could cleverly put two icons each in a pair of columns, and those four planes could potentially have all eight energy types.Part #9 shows us that double-slotting is possible, given the nine "planes" in place.DC 32 Arcana, Nature, or Religion is completely trivial for a level 30 character in D&D 4e to hit on a natural 1+.Meanwhile, in the Pathfinder 1e version, it is a DC 32 Knowledge (arcana, nature, or planes) check for 20th-level PCs, which is even easier to blast right through on a natural 1+.The sequel setting canonically assumes a single double-slotting.
>>98232473Savage Worlds?
>>98233860Even if we can perform only a single double-slotting (as is already the case in part #9, and also in the canonical sequel setting), we can still run a roster of Jiese (precision technology functions) + Ostea (everyone gets minor regeneration) + Baden (flight magic is easier) + Fourmyle (everyone gets teleportation, which cannot trespass property) + Iratha Ket (greater altruism and bard-like performances for everyone) + Ascetia (people are more aware of history) + Amrou (mundane counters against supernatural threats are actually effective) + Bhoior (people are less likely to make the mistakes of the past) + Caeloon (people are more resilient the face of tragedy).This sounds like a reasonably nice world to live in, with conflict greatly minimized.This in stark contrast to a nine-"plane" roster of Metarie (all technology is disrupted) + Ringes (sapients go mentally unstable, then murderously violent) + Apo (spheres of annihilation intermittently spawn, including where people are already standing) + Drozani (the birth rate slowly dwindles to zero) + Hunlow (the ocean is "literally a blood-thirsty god who loves villains") + Thrag (endless cycles of reincarnation and suffering) + Avilona (flight and air magic never last for more than five minutes) + Padyer (all water burns and purges) + Egalitrix ("fantastic grand industry" rapidly develops, but it is driven by greed), which is a really nightmarish hellscape.>>98233939Possibly, but I am not too familiar with it.
>>98233947>muhtacticsnigger doesn't know SWlel
Imagine a more just planar conjunction where instead of OP becoming obsessed with 2hu, the Tales series and Chinese gacha they became obsessed with the far superior Kiseki.
>>98232207Did you play War of the Burning Sky as well?
>>98233860I think just having some of the good stuff be incompatible with the other good stuff, either obviously or not, would go a long way. Like built in reactions in some planets to other planets and maybe make the PCs work to uncover those. The choices get more interesting if you either can't utopiamaxx or have to work much harder to get there. Especially if things are on a timer and you could only choose to investigate some of the total stuff on over.
>>98235464No, I did not play War of the Burning Sky, but I did have a thorough look at it. The adventure series seems to be stuffed with meaningless filler combats, in much the same way as most Paizo Adventure Paths.>>98236454Yes, incompatibilities would have been nice to see (and, ideally, be forewarned of).
