Am I the only one who feels Eberron's setting to be limiting?

[arwink]

When you start talking about adding things to settings, I get this huge image of a clockwork Cloud City, enormous gears in the background, with Luke clutching his severed wrist while Darth Vader, smokestack on his back churning away, mechanical noise in the background, stands saying... "I am your father."

...followed by a whistle blowing and Luke screaming.

Meanwhile, Leia, Chewie, Lando and the droids are escaping Cloud City with flintlocks in hand...

Darn it, arwink!

You know, I'm looking for something to serve as the basis of a True 20 campaign that's starting in the next couple of weeks. I'm very tempted to just cut and paste that as an option when i pitch the settings to the players...

 

[Nightfall]

OK, now this one I just don't get. At some point, players are going to want to fight these guys (or a GM will want them to get loose), and it has to make sense that they're REALLY nasty, so that they haven't been stopped at some point already (looking at you Champions of Ruin!).

Uhm because they decided they want to free their masters the Rajah...or they're worried about the dragons.

(CR 30 dragons man. They DO exist. )

 

[ssampier]

Everything is better with Ninjas, Zombies, Talking Apes, Cyborgs, and PIRATES!

We have the winner.

I think almost all of those can be found in Eberron (not sure about the talking apes, though).

 

[Glyfair]

This month's Dragon has a very cool Eberron article: Lords of Dust. I like this. Intrigue. Dark deals. Plots within plots. Some dark fatasy afterall! CR 30 villains. (screech!) CR30!? Darn, dug too deep again...

The reason for the stats seems to have been twofold. First, Keith wanted to give them a baseline so you could see what a Rajah is like (not quite godlike, but much more than an archfiend). Second, some people have been saying there aren't any epic level challenges in Eberron, and Keith wanted to show a possiblity.

However, in general, these fill the role of Cthulhu-like monsters. You aren't really supposed to defeat, or even meet, them. They are there as a plot device. The BBEGs you are dealing with are supposed to be trying to free them (in long, involved plots, being immortals). Their power level is extra encouragement for players to stop the plots. The plots aren't "if it succeeds the end factor will be annoying," they are "if the plots reach their long term goal, the world is in big, big trouble."

 

[Stone Dog]

The closest "genre" I can think of to pin on this setting would be "Steampunk", and not a very compelling one at that.

People keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it does.

 

[Stone Dog]

If you've ever lived in a high-rise, do you ever worry about what happens if the foundation subsides and the building falls over? Or the laws of physics that allow it subtly change?

Brad

Or living in California with the constant threat of earthquakes. Or in the south and being ravaged by hurricanes. Or tornados in the midwest. Or floods. Or any number of naturally occuring things that happen and people just move right back where they used to be.

Check out the history of the city. One tower fell. It is a big deal to the inhabitants. They still live there. Sound familiar? Less than once a year an earthquake hits and causes some (usually minor) damage. San Francisco deals with that all the time.

People get used to disasters. They rebuild and get on with their lives. They remember and try and prepare for/prevent the next event. Sharn is no different.

 

[Staffan]

If you're an elf, maybe you took part in the war. Maybe that's where you got your 1st-level of fighter from. (Who starts play as a 1st-level 300 year old elf?) If you're a 100 year old dwarf (again, who starts at such an age), maybe you did.

Maybe not 100 and 300, but if you roll starting age, a dwarf starts between 43 and 82 years old, and an elf between 114 and 170.

 

[Klaus]

We have the winner.

I think almost all of those can be found in Eberron (not sure about the talking apes, though).

Awakened Horrid Ape?

Awakened Babboon from Aerenal?

 

[Reynard]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Eberron Shmeberron"!

Ok, I'll elaborate on that.

Eberron as it is described: "Dark Fantasy", "Pulp Fiction", "Noir", "Exciting!"

I'm not really sure the folks that pin Eberron with these tags know quite what they're talking about. As Inigo Montoya would say: "You keep using that word, I don not think it is meaning what are thinking it is meaning..."

I think it is more of an issue of you having in your mind meanings for those terms ("Dark Fantasy" notwithstanding, since Eberron isn't and has never, to my knowledge, been described as such outside this thread) that aren't really what they mean. Look again at the list of movies at the beginning of the ECS and tell me Eberron isn't all of those things, and more.

The closest "genre" I can think of to pin on this setting would be "Steampunk", and not a very compelling one at that.

There's not a gear or steam engine to be found in Eberron that i am aware of.

The feeling it most invokes to me is one of "Confusion" or "Meh"...

Different strokes and all that, but I think your criticisms are based on simple preference, not anything that is "wrong" or "mis-represented" about the setting. Thinking too hard on floating skyscrapers and elemental powered airships is going to give you a headache, but so is thinking too hard on dwindling elven civilizations and angelic wizards from across the sea.

 

[Rel]

Awakened Horrid Ape?

Awakened Babboon from Aerenal?

An Awakened Dire Ape, a pair of Awakened Dinosaurs and an Ashbound Druid TPK'd the party in the Eberron game I'm running.