Do you think Eberron will go the way of Ghostwalk?

[Belegbeth]

I won't argue with someone who thinks diversity is a bad thing in a setting. ... and I can't offer a much better retort than the fact that by your reasoning, the diversity of the real world is hopelessly incoherent.

I definitely don't think that diversity is a bad thing in a setting. I think incoherence is.

The real world is diverse but not incoherent. It makes sense.

And using the real world as an example of how a world can be diverse but still make sense is problematic w/re. a fantasy setting. We bring a lot of background knowledge to the real world. A campaign setting trying to be as diverse as the "real world" without this background knowledge is bound to look incoherent. It would be better to start with a particular part of the world (e.g. something equivalent to "Western Europe"), explain how *that* is coherent, and then move out from there.

More generally, though, the particular elements Eberron hopes to combine (Tolkien AND Chandler; Indiana Jones AND Star Wars; Cold War AND Renaissance City-states; etc.) is what makes me think it will likely not work.

Eberron looks as though -- in its hope to appeal to everyone -- it is making a virtue out of diversity. This is the surest route to some kind of implausible mish-mash.

IMO.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Yes.

Just as a "peanut-butter and bacon sandwich" might be only one small item on a menu at a restaurant -- and an item I need not order -- it says something about the restaurant as a whole.

I never use prepackaged worlds. But a world like "Midnight" looks like a hip late-night diner. Eberron so far looks like McDee's.

You sir are a crack fiend with no taste. How on earth can you turn down the wonder of a peanut butter and bacon sandwhich. Peanut-butter and bacon are like butter everything is better with it.

And besides your idea of turning down a resturaunt based on one item doesn't seem very well thought out to me. One item isn't going to tell you anything about the resturaunt on the whole, unless your talking some kind of moral objection like I wont eat at a place who serves up endangered species as food.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Way off topic, but yes. At least several places in San Diego have peanut butter and bacon burgers and they started out here in a trendy 50's style diner. God help me, they are so good.

place in sacramento's old sac called fanny anns has a jiffy burger as well. They be glorious. I need to find one in the bay area.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Peanut butter, bananas, and mellow-fluff is the only true sandwiche. Everything else is a poor imitation...

OMG... I'm sounding like Diaglo...

bah if your going that way its the nuttella, marshmallow fluff, rice crispy, banana sandwhich.(I call it the Jonnywhich in honor of the person who created it) I prefer using french toast dusted with powdered sugar as the bread.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

It is neither silly nor petty if the feature in question is representative of the "character" of the setting as a whole. There seems to be a "throw-everything-in-and-the-kitchen-sink" approach here. Like Dino-topia? Okay, we have a country for it. Like cold war drama? Okay, we have a country for it. Like "magic-as-technology"? Okay, we have a country for it. Like "hard-boiled" detective stories? Okay, we have a country for it. Like the Lord of the Rings? Okay, we have a country for it. Like ... [repeat] ...

I've seen nothing that suggests that's the case. Sure they have a country for the dinasaur riding halflings, but that actually fits the pulp feel the setting as a whole seems to be going for. That's what seems to be thrown in all over the place things that help support an overall pulp feel. It's not some disorganized hodge-podge of ideas just thrown into try and grab an audience.

 

[Stone Dog]

I've seen nothing that suggests that's the case. Sure they have a country for the dinasaur riding halflings, but that actually fits the pulp feel the setting as a whole seems to be going for. That's what seems to be thrown in all over the place things that help support an overall pulp feel. It's not some disorganized hodge-podge of ideas just thrown into try and grab an audience.

That is what I feel as well. This isn't going to be like TORG with different themes just slapped down hard wherever you want it.

 

[johnsemlak]

Sorry, gotta speak my mind about this...

Given that a vast majority of players order games on-line these days I don't think that game/book store presence really matters that much anymore. In pretty much every case I can buy a book cheaper on Amazon than I can at a book store and I know right away if they do or don't have the book. I don't have to call all over town looking to see if any of the stores have it in stock. WoTC pisses me off over the cost of their materials. When I originally bought my Scarred Lands books I did so because their books had great content AND cost quite a bit less than WoTC. Case in point... The FR Campaign Setting book cost $40 and my Ghelspad book cost me only $30. Sword & Sorcery also oftentimes runs specials where you can buy bundles of books for much less than if you bought them separately. Good products and good prices made me move away from WoTC to support 3rd party publishers.

Even if brick-and-mortar bookshop presence doesn't matter as you claim (which I don't agree with) and most RPG books are bought online, presence at amazon and the main online portals does matter. WotC/D&D has it's own webpage at amazon to promote it's products. All WotC products are discounted, and they all are immediately available for shipment.

Availability & visibility of non-WotC RPG products online varies dramatically but generally doesn't match that of WotC products.

 

[rounser]

With the exception of the Lightning Rail, none of Eberron's so-called magitech resembles modern technology.

Which is to say, it's something you might not like, but it can be ignored, just like the dino riders. Which was my point.

While "pulp" often refers to stuff in the vein of Indiana Jones or Doc Savage, Conan is the classic example of pulp fantasy.

That's not the genre of pulp we're being told about. D&D already is "pulp fantasy", which is Conan, as opposed to "pulp", which is apparently Eberron.

Pulp refers to good vs. evil, high action and high adventure.

...and no contemporary concepts or anachronisms at all, like calling people "dame"? Or being a detective? That sort of thing?

Psionics is integrated into the world, but it's exotic and not part of everyday life on the continent that's the default home for PCs (the Faerun equivalent). There's an entire continent where psionics plays a bigger role than magic.

And an entire continent to ignore if you don't want psionics in your game...

But I'd look twice before you dismiss Eberron's psionics as "sci-fi."

Heh, I'd prefer they were sci-fi. What you've said above is like saying, "But I'd look twice before you dismiss Eberron's magic as "fantasy"'. I may not like psionics much, but if it has to be used I'd rather see it kept pure...otherwise don't pretend that psionics is what it is.

 

[~Johnny~]

So we've talked about what's familiar, now some notes about what's distinctive

Rounser, if your rush to disagree with everything I'm saying, you're missing my point. I'm not saying that the more distinctive aspects of Eberron are there for you to ignore. Whether you're talking about the Lightning Rail or the impossibly tall buildings in Sharn, applied magic is a part of the setting that you're definitely going to run into when you're in "civilized" areas. Similarly, as I said above, psionic abilities are an integrated part of the setting (though a bit easier to ignore, since Sarlona's not exactly welcoming).

My point is not that you can strip all that stuff away if you want ...because if you do, you might as well just be playing in Greyhawk. My point is that the seemingly disparate elements of the setting are so well integrated with one another that most folks playing in Eberron won't want to ignore them. For example, I normally wouldn't play with psionics in a D&D game, but I really like the way psionic abilities are tied to the history and cosmology of Eberron.

A campaign setting trying to be as diverse as the "real world" without this background knowledge is bound to look incoherent.

Well, isn't that what sourcebooks are for? WotC is hoping to fill several books with background knowledge. It's in their best interest to create a setting that takes a lot of books to fully explain.

If you're looking for a common thread to tie everything together, though, look to the planes. While on its surface, Eberron is a pretty classic D&D world, you'll find a lot of outsiders and extraplanar phenomena if you dig a little deeper. Couatls and rakshasas battled each other at the dawn of time, sparking a conflict that persists in some form today. Druids exist not just to revere nature, but to defend the planet against the outsiders that invade when other planes are coterminous. Psionics tap into the power a plane where dreams and nightmares are entirely real. Aberrations are the result of an ancient alignment between Eberron and the distant plane of madness, an event that will be repeated soon. Lycanthropes were hunted nearly to extinction, but thrive in a sylvan plane. Demons who came to Eberron centuries ago are trapped beneath the earth itself, marhsalling subterranean allies while plotting their escape to the world above...

Add to that the biggest unknown: Dragons. They're there and they're very significant. They're prohpecying something, they're somehow associated with "dragonshards" and "dragonmarks," and they're on Eberron's side against all that extraplanar nastiness.

So yeah, don't worry about coherence and backstory. Eberron will have books full of it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Johnny, I just want to chime in and tell you not to get frustrated. I don't know if your posts are having any impact on the people they're directed at, but they're at least making me ever more enthusiastic about the world.

And considering that, not too many years ago, I wouldn't touch anything that didn't look like it was a mirror of traditional, Tolkienesque fantasy (except Ravenloft and Dark Sun), the fact that I'm truly interested in Eberron is nothing shy of a miracle.