Why I feel so abysmally let down by the "Ravnica" news...

[Gradine]

It features airships, which are generally associated with Steampunk.

I've played roughly... <does some quick napkin math> a bazillion JRPGs, and while quite a few of those might have been classified as "Schizo Tech" I can't think of a single one I'd really class as steampunk, and yet 99.9999% of these featured airships.

My immediate association with airships is Final Fantasy. I can kind of see the similarities between Eberron and FFVI if I squint hard enough, but FFVI was still "technology powered by magic" where Eberron is "magic is the technology".

Notably, Eberron lacks both the steam engine as well as anything you might consider clockwork, at least one of which I would consider kind of mandatory to qualify as steampunk. Also: no gunpowder.

I don't even necessarily consider that much more technology advanced than the typical D&D setting. The key distinction, as I see it, is that Eberron essentially asks the question: "But what if wizards were capitalists?"

Fun fact: the representative images of both "Magitek" and "Dungeon Punk" on TVTropes are from Eberron.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I believe the term is "dungeon punk".


So did Teddy Ruxpin, but I wouldn't call that "steampunk".
As did Stardust. And every Sky Pirate type story. And, for what it counts, Spelljammer has airships as well...

Spelljammer is explicitly steampunk. And sky pirate stories tend to get filed under Steampunk on Amazon.

The technology is futuristic (or at the best contemporaneous) but looks antiquated, with steam or clockworks. Often with Victorian fashion. It's steampunk when you add modern tech to the past (or what is meant to be the past).

This is pretty much completely wrong. Steampunk technology is what people living in the 19th century thought futuristic technology would look like (and 1920 was the future in 1899). Thus, it is often "magical" because of Clarke's 3rd Law: "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

All of that applies to Eberron.


And actually, the Steampunk aspect of Eberron is the only bit I like.

 

[schnee]

Spelljammer is explicitly steampunk.

I'm glad you are here to be the absolutely unquestioned authority of a genre that you didn't invent, publish in, or otherwise influence

This is such a useful thing to see over and over and over and over again in the thread

Please, keep arguing every point strenuously, with so many words

It's truly the single most important thing to talk about here

 

[billd91]

Magic sales have dipped slightly and dnd sales have risen. Just my guess but they are trying to peanutbutter and chocolate the two brands. Will it work? Who knows, dnd nerds can be stubborn sometimes about settings.

The real question is - since WotC has owned TSR's IP since the late 1990s, "Why haven't they done this sooner?" That we're 20 years on, I'm surprised it has taken this long do do this in such a substantial way.

 

[billd91]

Steampunk features Victorian era dress, steam power, and clockwork technology. Something that doesn't have steam power is not steampunk. It's literally in the name.

Well that's blatantly incorrect. Steampunk doesn't preclude other science fiction sources of power - it just has to be inspired by the same kind of aesthetic.

 

[Mistwell]

"The inspiration for Eberron came when Keith Baker was working on VR-1's cancelled pulp MMORPG Lost Continents. Baker aimed to fuse the energy of pulp adventure and film noir settings to traditional fantasy settings and steampunk."

 

[OB1]

It’s fine to be disappointed when entertainment doesn’t live up to what you had hoped and dreamed about. Just don’t let that disappointment become toxic. The dark path of fandom that is.

Ive been disappointed three or four times now that the Guide to the multiverse that I’m hoping for hasn’t been what gets announced. Then I look at the product they did make and get excited.
And in the meantime, I’ve taken all my speculation about what I would personally love to see and added it to my homebrew. So my Sigil has a District of Tomorrow straight out of Bladerunner, a Frontier District straight out of Westworld, a Fantasy district where NPCs compete in the most popular entertainment show in the Multiverse, Sigil Demigod Warrior, and where an Inn called Beaches offers 1,000 rooms, each a portal to a cottage on a private beach somewhere in the multiverse.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

Interesting, @Elfcrusher. First, you disagree with the notion that authorial intention is dead, then you try and use deconstruction as a methodology to prove that my interpretation was not the only reasonable interpretation. Ironic. In any case, of course, it isn't the only reasonable interpretation. That isn't the point, however. If a text is overly ambiguous, you can't control the direction that a reader's interpretation will take, and you can't fault them for coming to whatever interpretation it does take. That is the caveat of the deconstructive method. The distance between, "I reasonably came to expect X," and, "X is the only reasonable interpretation," is vast. If you make me reasonably expect X, however, then I am reasonably disappointed when X turns out not to be true. In my opinion, more effort should have been taken to ensure that fans were not misled and then disappointed. It is disheartening to see just how much discontent this announcement has generated, and I sympathize, as I can't help but feel that discontent too. I tend to be pretty easy going, so, that emotion has hit me with a fair degree of surprise as well.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Spelljammer is explicitly steampunk.

Haha, no. Spelljammer is neither Steam nor Punk.

 

[MNblockhead]

I'm a long-time D&D fan (since the early '80s) and I'm excited to see a brand-new D&D setting. Much more than just another update to prior settings. Updating prior settings in DMs guild, allowing time for playtesting, and then giving POD access makes a lot of sense to me (i.e. Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron). In a short period of time I get:

• Dragon Heist, a low-level heist game set in Waterdeep with city-campaign crunch and a fleshed out classic-setting city [Hard Cover, classic setting]
• Dungeon of the Mad Mage, a high-level Dungeon Crawl in a classic dungeon, with room for the DM to expand it built into the design [Hard Cover, classic setting]
• Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron, a very well-written guide to Eberron, authored by the person who created the setting, in PDF and DnD Beyond, which will be updated, later available for print on demand
• A brand-new setting for 5th edition, taken from the rich lore created for Magic the Gathering

What, exactly, am I supposed to be upset about? The Eberron model also gives a financially feasible way for WotC to bring many of the old settings to 5e.

Really, I'm VERY happy--as a long-time D&D fan--about the recent and upcoming releases. The only thing I can think of that would really rock my world is if they managed to get Gary Gygax's actually Castle Greyhawk material and release it as 5e hardcover.

I just can't manage to find anything in all of these announcements to trigger my inner nerd-rage hulk.