Why is Eberron being pushed so hard?

[mattcolville]

I admit I never really cared for it. I had my Forgotten Realms and my Dragonlance and wa content.

I then recently heard that thier is a new D&D MMORPG coming out and it's set in Eberron. What? Why? Greyhawk and Faerun have dedicated fans and tons of history that legions of fans are familiar with, so why the new kid on the block. I was gonna play it but not now... be playing EQ2 anyways =D

Also I saw a D&D RTS coming out, also set in Eberron, again! I'd love to have an RTS set in Faerun! But nah, New kid on the block again.

What else do I come to learn? Eberron is the new Flagship setting for D&D! Greyhawk to old and boring? Last time I checked none of Eberrons news races are in the PHB. Nor is it's gods.

Meh. Meh I say!

I've read some reviews and I've even flipped through the book. I know it's interesting but does it really deserve to be fed to us so much?

Or am I just an old gamer to set in my classic ways?

The setting search and everything that's followed was an attempt to engineer the kind of success TSR had with FR and Dragonlance.

 

[Jakar]

I think it comes down to, if you like it you like it, if you don't you don't. I like it myself. It is fresh and looks to be better than both FR and GH, which have become stale, IMO.

I plane to start a game set in Eberron soon.

 

[Ranger REG]

I think it comes down to, if you like it you like it, if you don't you don't. I like it myself. It is fresh and looks to be better than both FR and GH, which have become stale, IMO.

I plane to start a game set in Eberron soon.

Let's just say, "To each his or her own."

Perhaps Eberron is more preferable to you as Forgotten Realms is more preferable to me.

Granted, resistance is futile when it comes to every fresh, new things (e.g., Debbie Gibson, which is replaced by Britney Spears, which is replaced by Avril Lavigne), but that doesn't mean I will assimilate it.

 

[Jakar]

Let's just say, "To each his or her own."

Perhaps Eberron is more preferable to you as Forgotten Realms is more preferable to me.

Granted, resistance is futile when it comes to every fresh, new things (e.g., Debbie Gibson, which is replaced by Britney Spears, which is replaced by Avril Lavigne), but that doesn't mean I will assimilate it.

That is what I was trying to say Ranger, but it is way to early here in Oz and I am not awake yet. LoL

By fresh I meant that there is a lot more possability in it atm than the FR or GH. Every man and his dog has not had a product made about them yet.

FR, to me at least, has become stale. I still enjoy our weekly games set in the great white North, but everybody knows what is around the next corner.

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

Nisarg is a known troll on RPGnet. That's all I'll say on that topic.

I had pretty much gathered as much. His style certainly seems to reflect that of the RPGnet boards...

 

[JoAT]

Neither modern (or quasi-modern) technology nor the post WWI-intellectual environment can exist in a medieval setting.

The former because the intellectual development of industrial technology (be it magical or otherwise) requires an intellectual environment that demands a renaissance. Industrialization itself would CHANGE the medieval society's cultural paradigm.

Likewise, the post WWI-intellectual environment led to the creation of relativist thought, something that is the exact opposite and totally anathema to the medieval absolutist intellectual environment.

Nisarg

The problem here, however, is that this requires that the setting be a direct paralell to earth. We can't say that the development required to create this technology (or more specifically magic as technology) is actually required, since it's not earth, and, in fact, is a fairly big departure from earth. Besides, the industriaization that you're talking about doesn't exist, and the development is strictly in the hands of those who are the elite, and already outside the monarchist system.

The medieval mentality doesn't actually exist, in just about any FRPG that I've ever seen - fantasy, as a general rule, does not deviate from what we know as reality enough to require that we all completly shift mindsets. If it's not medieval, I would venture to say that its 'medieval enough' - it's enough to have fun in, enough to work as a society, and enough to make sense under it's own rules. The whole Divine Right of Kings shift, and the other medieval-type traditions, in that fashion, I'd argue as being impossible under D&D rules altogether (or at least not makeing a great deal of sense) the medieval trappings, which, in many cases are what people refer to when they say medieval (kings, swords, knights, ect), are entirely possible. The medieval mindset is... improbable...

And I've just realized that this is fairly pointless... Errr... I mean a debate as to whether or not this is possible, when the whole thing really comes down to a game, and what a person's own, personal definition of what medieval is. Hell, technically, medieval is a time period, or at least everything relating directly to that time period, and seeing as how I'm opperating off of a basic high school academic education here, one that you probably know more about then I do.

 

[halomachine]

Its simple......the WotC setting search was for a setting they could use for RPGs, Videeo games, novels, etc.....it was MEANT from before it was Eberron to be a cross-media setting.

 

[WizarDru]

It should be pointed out that until Final Fantasy VI, there were little to no technological elements in Final Fantasy...they were primarily classic pseudo-medieval fantasy settings. The introduction of them came in VI, which I think was supposed to take place in the same world as one of the previous installments, and act as sort of a 'updating' of the setting, letting players explore previous countries in the game, now changed from hundreds of years of development.

Final Fantasy VII, which was the first really huge game of the FF line (being one of the Playstation's killer apps, and having a successful PC incarnation), is the one most folks think of today as 'final fantasy', although many older players balk at that assertion, some considering it to be one of the weakest...or 'the game when eveyrthing started to go wrong'. Both VII and VIII were really sci-fi games, with tradtional console RPG elements, and not really fantasy, at all. One only needs to watch a few minutes of the Final Fantasy movie, Spirits Within, to see that being set in a fantasy world is not the core requirement for FF, any longer. The game mechanics are the core, and the setting has become more and more diverse. FF 9 was a return to a more traditional fantasy idea, but still holding some 'steam-punk' elements (such as ornate and unworkable flying ships, odd non-ergonomic subways, and so forth). It also had the classic 'ancient society who left their technology behind' trope, which runs through many installments of the FF series. FF X, X-2 (the only direct sequel ever made in the FF Line) are also in more of a sci-fi setting...but one that accepts that magic is a workable, powerful force.

Really, the only binding force in Final Fantasy is that magic is a usable force. Over time, other trends have emerged, such as being able to summon powerful beings during combat, the 'Gaea/World life force' concept and angst. Lots of Angst.

The assertion that FF only appeals to 14 year-olds (carrying the thinly-vieled insult against 14 year-olds) is, of course, also inaccurate. The lion's share of sales went to 18-34 year olds, and RPGs tend to skew well across gender lines, having a much better record with female gamers than, say, sports or fighting games. Take a look at how successful Kingdom Hearts was, for example.

And, as JoAT points out above, gamers don't want accurate medieval historical recreation: they want adventure. They want an environment that sets up chances to kill monsters and take their loot. Eberron does this extremely well, for my money.

As a setting, it does exactly what WotC wanted it to do:

• Advertises the D&D brand
• Provides a clean point of entry for new and old gamers (no lengthy back catalog, no huge established canon)
• Generates demand for new published works (setting detail books, modules, player options, gazeeters, organization books, etc.)
• Creates a framework for D&D licensed works (MMORPG, board game, video games, novels, movies, franchise opportunities)
• Offers a setting that is generic enough to accomdate a wide variety of play styles and tastes
• Gives WotC a setting that is purely developed under the third edition, fully under the current 3.5 rules, without legacy problems, rules quirks or retcons (and no fragmentation of the setting's fan-base, such as the Greyhawk Wars)
• Licenses and agreements that are made with respect to the publishing realities of today, with right's cleanly established in all materials (no web ambiguities or CD-rom collection legal problems, rights to video games, novels, movies and other materials clearly established with authors from day one)

Why is WotC pushing Eberron? Because it makes the most financial sense for WotC to do so. And that's why they're still in business.

 

[herald]

The fact that the world was designed to appeal to "Johnny Playstation" (by resembling Final Fantasy) and support a MMORPG are two pretty damning criticisms of Eberron...

These features alone demonstrate why it will not appeal to many traditional fantasy enthusiasts.

But as a gimmick to attract new gamers? Sure, the kids will love it.

I've re-read this statement 5 time and I'm trying to se your point. Do you have anything to backup your point?

 

[herald]

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.


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.

Sorry, I have to go with Nisarg on this one. Saddly the Renassance is highly overlooked as a source of campaigns and should be reconsidered (Swashbuckling Adventures, anyone) as a viable setting.