D&D 5E Mike Mearls on Settings

[Hussar]

Signal boosting this for truth; I've used "Magicpunk" to describe Eberron in the past, particularly to folks whom I know are cyberpunk fans. Which is why this comment:



...is absolutely right about what it means to be "punk" (that is, commentary about modern culture) but largely misses the mark about Eberron itself. It's subtle, and it may not have even been intentional in all places (though given the sources of inspiration, I'm skeptical about that), but Eberron as a campaign setting is a lot more subversive than people tend to give it credit for.

YMMV of course; every DM's game is going to be quite a bit different, emphasize different aspects of the setting, etc. But the punk aesthetic is absolutely the reason my players and I took to the setting as much as we did.

I was more specifically talking about Steampunk, which obviously leans on Victorian traditions, which Eberron isn't quite as interested in. Feminism, particularly, is a major element of Steampunk, but, is largely a non-issue in Eberron. Or, rather an absent issue. A female PC is (hopefully) treated exactly the same as a male PC at the gaming table, so, the subversive elements (such as Doctor Who giving us a female (and saurian) Sherlock Holmes.

Now, as far as Eberron being subversive, actually, I would agree. For one, it is hugely subversive of D&D itself. It takes a lot of the D&D tropes and turns them on their heads - humanoids as integrated members of society, for example. Evil scheming Mob Gnomes. So on and so forth. So, yeah, I'd agree with the idea that Eberron is a punk setting. Magipunk? ((I do LOVE Khyberpunk)) Just not Steampunk.

 

[renevq]

For one, it is hugely subversive of D&D itself. It takes a lot of the D&D tropes and turns them on their heads...

Oldie but goody

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why wouldn't it be punk? I mean, it's definitely not steampunk (that's purely aestetic). However, the "punk" assumptions you see in cyberpunk are there: overarching corporate power (dragonmarked houses), man-made sentient beings searching for a sense of being (warforged), the seedy underbellies of a huge metropolis (sharn), an actual orwellian mind controlling police-state (riedra), etc, etc. Cyberpunk has a lot of overlap with noir (most notably Blade Runner), and a lot of those themes are there. Magicpunk?

Or just DnDPunk, honestly, since it uses the tropes and assumptions of DnD as a canvas, rather than the age of steam, or futurism.

But one thing all xpunk genres have in common is that they take a set of ideas, tropes, etc, and a cultural zeitgeist, and extrapolate it beyond its natural habitat, and imagine a "future" from it. Other than the OG -punk, cyberpunk, they are all some form of retrofuturism, and even cyberpunk can be considered such.

And Eberron certainly fits that to me. That and it is a lot like a DnD setting written by a fan of cyberpunk, so...yeah.

Someone on the dndbeyond forums claimed that Eberron is "high magic" this week, btw, and I was really confused. Like...had they read the Eberron material at all?

 

[Dausuul]

Guys, it's obvious what genre Eberron falls into:

Khyberpunk.

Sir, you win the Internet today.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Oldie but goodyView attachment 83478

This is why I love Eberron.

Me and a buddy had characters that were cousins, both members of House Tharashk, raised in a Gatekeeper family, in the Shadow Marches. He was a Half-Orc Barbarian, and I was a human Assassin (one of the only 2 humans I've played in DnD, ever), and the cultural ties and biases that were part of our shared origins brought a lot of fun into the campaign.

Right now I'm DMign for a half-drow warlock raised by his very racist Tairnadal grandparents, after his mother died, and his half-drow father "wasn't welcome" (see: barely got out of here alive). Someone in his family, or a Keeper, interfered with him doing the ritual to find out if he was chosen by an ancestor, but his mentor has been helping him in secret, first taking him to Valenar, and then traveling after the Mourning, to strengthen his bond with his ancestor, who is he same as the mentor. The mentor just revealed to him that he should have been allowed the ritual and was blocked, through subterfuge, from doing it. Heads may or may not roll.

You can tell all the same stories you're used to in Eberron, if you want to, but then you can tell all sorts of other stories that would be a huge stretch in FR or Greyhawk.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Look, medieval fantasy is the staple of D&D. The fact that they have more than one setting (Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Birthright, probably a couple others) that fall under than umbrella doesn't mean that all but one of them are superfluous or that the differences are insignificant--it means the game is working as intended. If you think Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Wheel of Time are all more or less the same thing, then you are looking at the distinctions in medieval fantasy through a less finely discerning lens than intended.

The D&D settings that break the medieval fantasy mold were intended to stand out by so doing. They are cool because they do something totally different, the others are cool because they provide alternative takes on medieval fantasy.

Medieval fantasy isn't intended to be just one equal option amongst many genres of fiction that D&D encompasses. It is intended to be the baseline, with internal variants, and satellites with various degrees of divergence are a bonus.

 

[unnatural 20]

All the analogies in the first part of this thread made me hungry.

That being said, Greyhawk leaves a bland taste in my mouth. Eberron and Darksun are far more tempting to my palate.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I can't say I'm an Eberron expert but what I’ve read of the setting turned me off. Magical trains, robots, the more 'modern' feel, and all that stuff Steampunky was kind of how I've viewed it, some kind of punk.

But I'm fine with regular dwarves, halflings as hobbits*, and all the traditional trappings. If you are bored with that I understand. But for the beer and pretzels gaming we do its perfect. Heck my players don't even make up backstories unless its on the fly usually to make some kind of bad joke. So all the non traditional opportunities for character stories are lost on us.

* instead of the monstrosities they are in the 5e PH

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Dont get me started on gnomes.