Adapting the New FR from Eberron

[Graf]

So game worlds develop and so do game systems. Worlds frequently iterate upon each other. Bigby and co live in Greyhawk, FR gave us drow as player characters, Spelljammer produced the Arcane, etc.

People have remarked that several similarities exist between elements of Eberron (Wizard's old "main campaign") and the 4e Forgotten Realms ("returning champion" I suppose).
In a recent video chat I think Perkins alluded to FR's status by suggesting that people should mine FR for things for their own campaigns.

So what did they like enough to bring with the from Eberron?

All in all it seems to me that 4E FR tries to combine the "best" parts of Eberron (e.g. 'Spellscars', anyone?) and the 'Points of Light' concept and remaining fiercely loyal to the Core Rules (the number of Deities, for example).

Original Post
I tend to concur that it sounds a lot like Spellscars will be mechanically similar to Dragonmarks.
In story terms they seem to be completely different. Dragonmarks are an integral part of Eberron's history, explaining social movements as well as providing an IC reason for the PC races to be *important* (i.e. they're marked by the Draconic Prophesy). They're also the justification for most of Eberrons Weird Magic Infrastructure (and the houses that build them).
Spellscared in FR seems like it'll be much looser. Anyone can develop them, they seem vaguely reminiscent of mutants and superheroes.
An easy way to differentiate characters, or provide a limited suite of magic powers without having a character take levels in Sorcerer, or have an impressive magic item.
In some ways, because it's far more flexible, the Spellscar's are probably a more attractive narrative option.

The spellscared are tied into the other thing that new FR seems to have imported from Eberron, the Mournlands. That part of Eberron was marked, after a magical catastrophe (you could probably go so far as to say magical holocaust), with an area of intense magical radiation that creates powerful warped creatures, offers sanctuary to evil that dwells within it and generally acts as a giant dungeon and plot generation in the middle of what was the most civilized section of the world.
4e FR will have something similar, many zones of twisted magic, that create warped creatures, grant Spellscars and so forth left behind after a magical catastrophe. Sounds a bit post-apocalyptic when I put it like that...
This also seems more narratively attractive than biding it to on particular location. A Mournland on the doorstep of every PC town, so to speak.

Can people think of other things that are being brought over from Eberron? Have they been changed? Are the changes good/bad?

 

[Graf]

I'll toss out something else, though I think that it may have come from Eberron through Points of Light (and I'm not sure if its true or not; until the FR book comes out with a level spread it'll be hard to see whether this holds up or not.).

Eberron prominently offers the "feature" of having very few high level NPCs. To the point that it's sometimes argued that there isn't a whole lot for higher level PCs to do (unless you want to take on the near-epic-level badguys like the Quori, the Lords of Dust, Vol, or a Daelkyr).

Points of light refines that a bit, by saying that there are few high level good characters. (I.e. the PCs are the points of light). Seems like Eberron, with more bad guys.

With the words "nuke" having been applied to certain NPCs (I -think- I saw this in the video interview with Chris Perkins? apologies if I'm wrong) it seems like this is another idea that flowed from Eberron -> (Points of light) -> FR.

 

[bganon]

What I remember hearing was that Eberron's lack of high-level NPCs and emphasis on the heroes was at least partly a response to the perceived problems of having so many powerful NPCs in FR. So people already felt it was a problem when Eberron was in the design stage. Eberron was designed that way because of FR!

So I wouldn't see a reduction in the number and power of NPCs in FR as really coming from Eberron, so much as a correction of something people have been wanting to fix for a while now.

 

[Voss]

Just to be nitpicky, drow as PCs predate the realms. You could kludge them out of the FF entry, as I recall, and official rules for drow PCs were in the 1e version of Unearthed Arcana.

I agree with bganon, though. Most of the big changes in FR are catering to the people who didn't like FR and potential new customers. People who actually liked FR as is were apparently too small a market share to bother with.

Most of the other ideas though... eh. Just generic, shared domain fantasy ideas that been beaten to death, like the proverbial horse. If I had a $ for every magical-post-apoc land I've seen, I could go buy Terry Brooks.

 

[Graf]

Just to be nitpicky, drow as PCs predate the realms.

I confess to having been totally lost for a specific example.
I bought the "grey box" almost immediately when I started playing DnD (after the red box D&D basic set and the Douglas Niles 1st Moonshae book). I think I was 10 or 11?
Anyway I absorbed DnD with FR-as-baseline.

I have no visibility as to what DnD was like before FR, honestly now I can't even really see any differences between it and Grayhawk (in terms of storytelling engine, obviously there are lots of differences in detail).

I'm sure that FR iterated away from Grayhawk in some fashion (or else it would never have supplanted GH). I just don't know how.

 

[Voss]

Greyhawk was a little less high fantasy. Mostly, anyway, spider-shaped spaceships of evil demon-goddesses notwithstanding. (actually, there was a consistent sci-fi in fantasy seam that lingered throughout blackmoor and greyhawk).

Heroes didn't jump out of the windows of whorehouses while being attacked by multiple beholders, archmages and zhentarim footsoldiers, after foolishly exposing themselves to a roomfull of informants, which tended to happen in Ed's games. That style of thing.

But really, both veered toward generic fantasy over time, its just that greyhawk stayed a bit more traditional and low key. Its hard to explain, really, but while you could reasonably expect El to show up and smack Manshoon down if he got too uppity, you couldn't really say the same for Bigby and Iuz. Iuz would send out armies, and bigby would gather his buddies, and they'd gather armies (and heroes) and send them out to die. No one NPC was really going to change the world- the best they could hope for was to go mad and become demi-gods, and frankly, you could still stick a sword in them.

Also, up until the greyhawk wars and that mess, there was a fairly firm... agreement, if thats the right term, that everybody would stay where they were put and wait for PCs to show up, or for the DM to make decisions as to what was actually happening. They authors weren't, with one significant exception, going to blow up the world if you decided to skip a book or two.

 

[Spatula]

Aside from the spellscars :: dragonmark thing, there's also the plaguelands which sound an awful lot like Eberron's Mournlands.

Eberron prominently offers the "feature" of having very few high level NPCs.

High-level "good" NPCs. There are plenty of high-level bad guys (or neutral out-for-themselves guys) in Eberron. The point is that only the PCs can take on whatever high-level threats that rear their head.

I'm sure that FR iterated away from Grayhawk in some fashion (or else it would never have supplanted GH). I just don't know how.

In the old days... a 12th level character in Greyhawk was someone of note, an important & powerful individual. A 12th level character in the Realms was the innkeeper. I'm sure Greyhawk has changed since those times, though.

 

[Graf]

Greyhawk was a little less high fantasy.

Thanks. I was wondering if I'd gotten it wrong.

Heroes didn't jump out of the windows of whorehouses while being attacked by multiple beholders, archmages and zhentarim footsoldiers, after foolishly exposing themselves to a roomfull of informants, which tended to happen in Ed's games. That style of thing.
...you could reasonably expect El to show up and smack Manshoon down if he got too uppity, you couldn't really say the same for Bigby and Iuz. Iuz would send out armies, and bigby would gather his buddies, and they'd gather armies (and heroes) and send them out to die. No one NPC was really going to change the world- the best they could hope for was to go mad and become demi-gods, and frankly, you could still stick a sword in them.

Power level (or implicit power level) aside and frequency of world-altering-events there was nothing more specific?