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

[ssampier]

...

As an side, every setting can be improved with zombies, ninjas and talking apes!!!!

You beat me; no talking apes in my settings.

Unless they dress in tuxedos and serve drinks at exclusive cocktail parties.

 

[Rel]

The other primary influence on Eberron is PULP (like, say, Doc Savage, or Indiana Jones). The pulp genre is really a product of the interwar period, and hard to capture right after WW2. Note that the primary "fantasy noir", the Garrett Files, takes place during and after a long war, as well.

An excellent point if I do say so myself.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Eberron is concieved of as technological and war-torn. So I'd have it invaded by aliens out of the X-files

Daelkyr

with vaporizing lazers

beholders

and united by an elvish Stalin.

He opened the gate to Xoriat to ferret out the dragons among us. (The dragons and the elves are currently locked in a "cold-war")

Nope, not destroyed yet.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

At its core I don't find it too limiting, as more supplements come out and or I learn more as I read things closer it feels more limiting. The oh no, pcs can't build X it takes a giant team of gnomes to build that, to the over powerful/ever present guilds it does feel limiting. You can't be messengers or supply carriers x and y guilds do that. Yeah we can say screw you either ignore that or role play are defiance but it really feels like a straightjacket.

 

[Kristivas]

I've been a huge fan of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance for many many years. When Eberron came out, I gave it a shot and liked what I found.

It moved away from typical DnD, but still kept something that makes DnD into DnD.. if you can see what I'm saying.

I love all three settings for different reasons, and use their 'limitations' to my advantage.

Don't want to have a character who's family was killed in the war? That's easy. Perhaps his father built or sold weaponry in the war, who's grandfather built up the business when the war started. Maybe your character's family profited hugely from the war and were actually more upset that it ended than by the casualties? Perhaps, also, some of the poor and starving locals are jealous of your family's wealth and the way they turned suffering into prosperity. You could use the war to bolster your character and his family, and also have enough of a story so that the family may have problems now that the battle has ended.\

I think something along those lines would be much better than.. "My Daddy's Daddy dug us a trench when the war started and I'm the first member of my whole family to come out for 100 years! Meet my lovely wife and Sister, Petunia! *nudges* She ain't quite right in the head sometimes, just don't stare too long at her teeth hyuck hyuck!"

 

[tetsujin28]

I don't feel that this is a problem at all. The fact that the world has a distinct history including a big war has in no way limited the variety and enjoyment derived from running a game in this setting.

Agreed. I'd say it's very much a feature, rather than a bug. On thing I can't stand is the 'long ago, when men were Real Men, not wimps like yourselves, the Great War took place, which little people like you will never experience the likes of'. Eberron said, "Oh, yeah? The Great War ended three years ago! Deal with it!" It creates all sorts of emotional and political conflict, and fills the world with stories. I like that every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker was affected by it. It makes it seem real, rather than mere myth or legend.

 

[tetsujin28]

At its core I don't find it too limiting, as more supplements come out and or I learn more as I read things closer it feels more limiting.

That's true of nearly every line (*cough* Exalted *cough*). It's why I've taken to just buying the core and nothing else. Make it yours, that's what it's for

 

[BryonD]

It's all relative ... Any 12th level game or beyond seems semi-supers to me with all the power and damage they can do. And in that defintion, a lot of FR NPCs are semi-super, they just look normal on the outside.

There is a difference between power level and genre.
To me, at least.

I don't care if you can drop a D20 Gandalf in with a D20 Batman and have Gandalf kick butt.
Gandalf may be more powerful, but he is still classic fantasy and Batman is still supers.

 

[Starman]

Agreed. I'd say it's very much a feature, rather than a bug. On thing I can't stand is the 'long ago, when men were Real Men, not wimps like yourselves, the Great War took place, which little people like you will never experience the likes of'. Eberron said, "Oh, yeah? The Great War ended three years ago! Deal with it!" It creates all sorts of emotional and political conflict, and fills the world with stories. I like that every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker was affected by it. It makes it seem real, rather than mere myth or legend.

As usual, tetsujin28 speaks sense. The recently ended war generates all kinds of stories. I think it is one of the best aspects of the setting. That and airships. Well, and shifters. And the numerous spy organizations. And...you get the idea. Eberron is full of cool.

 

[Crazy 'Scaper]

And of course, the war veterans themselves. For that matter, even if a character served in the war, his simple response could be, "I don't want to talk about it," and if you want, just provide cryptic snippets when desired about life in the war. (Think Firefly or Serenity's Zoe and Mal, if you ever watched those.) So there's plenty of room to fly in this setting

I think that that is a great analogy. Consider just how much an impact the Unification War had on the 'Verse and then think for a moment how much we know about what the various Serenity crew-members did during the war. Mal and Zoe fought for the Browncoats, Inara was in favour of unification and Jayne (the one person you'd most expect to be involved in a fight) wasn't involved in the war. The rest we know absolutely nothing about and this dispite the war being the most important single defining event in that settings' recent history. But does that make the characters any less rounded or their adventures any less exciting?

In a similar manner the Last War is there if you want to use it in Eberron (and if you do then it offers up some great character background, motivations and future adventure hooks). But if you choose to not explain (yet) what your charcters where doing then then that certainly shouldn't cause any problems and it definitely doesn't have to limit the game.