Nisarg said:
Well, I would say it cannot be all of those things. And certainly not at once.
Swashbuckling is a product of the late renaissance, its atmosphere is very different than either the grim and grittiness of a low medieval or the arthurian nobility of a high medieval setting.
While there is some overlap between swashbuckling and pulp heroes, there is also a strong difference between the two. Pulp heros tends to be about two-fisted action, "wierd tales", etc. lacking almost all of the finesse and charm of swashbuckling in the classice sense.
By "WWI angst" I didn't mean "angst" in the White Wolf sense, just the kind of nihilism and uncertainty, and the sense of the end of conficdence in institutionality, gods, and absolutisms that you saw in our culture after the great war. This especially is COMPLETELY opposite to medievalism, which is all about ABSOLUTE faith in the institutions of God and King, and a completely defined world view. You cannot be doing something that requires renaissance culture ("swashbuckling") in a medieval world. You cannot be doing something that requires the birth of post-modernism (post-WWI noir) in a renaissance or a medieval world.
What I am saying is that Eberron's terrible mistake was trying to be too much. If it wanted to be Swashbuckling, it should have had an early modern culture, not still be stuck in the barbarism of the middle ages. If it wanted to be Edwardian, then go all out with the magic-as-tech and create a basically modern industrial culture (which doesn't mean the kingdoms would have to act like 20th century america, or victorian england, they just COULDN'T be "medieval").
Instead, Eberron tried to be all three, and succeeds in being none.
I, on the other hand, would contend that it can be all of the above. Just not as strongly as you seem to be stateing the various genere fragments.
Swashbuckling may have been a product of the renaissance, but there's nothing that limits the tone of a swashbuckling adventure to being merely a late renaissance - it has more to do with a certain tone than with the setting. And that tone means that you have heroes who are flambyoant, flippant, and skilled - a swashbuckling hero has a small measure of invulnerability because they are capable of dealing with many lesser foes with ease and of performing outragous stunts - the villians are similar each one being, in essence an outragous stereotype, a ham, even. This, more than anything, makes swashbuckling, and is why you can have a swashbuckling adventure anywhere, in any time period.
Pulp, on the other hand, is often about two-fist action, weird tales, ect - but! There is quite often a swashbuckling undertone. Characters are larger than life, just as with the swashbuckler. They are well-round, well educated, and quite often, are much better than your nomral person, and capable of amazing things. Psudeo-science abounds, and so do delightfully stereotyped villians, characters who fall almost directly into one of a select amount of molds. Though it's rarely been applied before, pulp too, can take place in any time-frame, as a genre description.
The medival atmosphere... I really don't see where the grim, grittiness even comes in - low fantasy is quite obviously not what Eberron is about, most of the time. High fantasy... Or, rather, high medevil... well, yes. An Arthurian fantasy contains many tales of brave men (and women, since D&D is, of course, not sexist these days..) risking life and limb to save beatufil damsels (or.. well, you know..), with the heroes being... witty, charming and skilled. To be quite honest, the whole thing seems to be alot like the pulp heroes and the swashbuckling ones. One of the reasons, then, that these can all be used together is that, in essence, they are the same - the important aspects of these settings are all incredibally similar. The horses, the rapiers, the space-ships, the guns, the armor... these are, for the most part, window-dressing. The high adventure and the characters, the important things are all largely the same. And these trappings, those of swashbuckling and the medival times are both available to each and every PC and enemy.
The nihlism and uncertainty... well, for the most part, there is no nihism. UNcertainty abounds, but after reading through the book, I found that there was a sense of hope more than anything - the game can't be anything it isn;t, after all, so I'm going to leave the sense of nihlism out of it. But the uncertainty... This is relfected in the setting, it's there, and it's something that's fairly easy to work into. The culture is evolving and changing - the one, invincable emprie in which everyone held their faith in has crumbled, and has been replaced by... warring kingdom-states which have so recently made their peace with each other. The future is being looked towards, but with a sense of aprehension. The fact that alignments have been strechted to include the mildly good and kinda evil helps this out - alignment can still be protected, but there's no way to tell the diffrenece between someone who kills and trotures people, and someone who just glowers at them sourly when they shop in his store, wishing them ill.
What we have, then at this point, is fundamentally a setting with bigger than life heroes who are better than most of the people around them, gurranteed to be able to go on adventures of all sorts, in a setting which includes a modicum of uncertainty. It can most certainly be all of this.
And, by the way, medival means diffrent things to diffrent people. In your case, I have this feeling that it's a Divine Right of Kings, old middle ages Europe - on the other hand I tend to see the trappings of a medival society, the time frame, or the society (in terms of there being a king, commoners and people who sell things...) In the sense of Divine Right of kings... That ended roughly 100 years ago. The trappings are still there, but things are changeing - one of the kingdoms is trying to push a democracy, and such-like.
No, I wasn't saying that. I did say that I could see how this would appeal to other people. People who aren't 14 or powergamers. One group I know it won't appeal to are people who like their setting's social structure to make sense, which is a shame because that was one of the things people kept saying was going to be Eberron's great strengths, and thus something I was hopeful about.
Instead, "making sense" gets defined as meaning "they use magic as technology". Well, yes, which would seem to create a believable world if you know NOTHING about humanities. But by creating a world of magic=tech without creating a non-medieval world, they have AUTOMATICALLY created a world which makes no cultural/historical sense.
Eberron cannot be medieval and make sense.
Nisarg
It is good to see that you're not assuming that it's 14 year old power gamers - I didn't think so, but, well, the way you were talking about the setting, the comparisons that you were drawing, the tone you've been using and the way you were talking about those it would attract... It is better to come out and say these things rather than let the fans feel insulted, isn't it?
Now, the thing is, the social structure does make sense - Eberron is thought out quite well - this is part of the apeal, to me. the magic is NOT used as technology - it is not in the hands of the common people, nor can it ever be. Magic is a tool of the elite, and will always be so - aside from in major cities, it is actually quite rare, though not rare enough to keep there from being someone who can use magic being in most areas. The entire setting is designed around the fact that the magic in 3e is being used logically - that the setting evolved with all of these things existing (or comeing into existance as time went along). It works. And, as a side note, why does technology not make sense with the trappings of a medival culture? I see you proclaiming this (and a great deal many other things), but I don't see any actual backup to your ideas an opinions, and am quite curious as to why this would be so - the oppportunity to be educated is always a good thing, so please enlighten us.
