Dungeons & Dragons Online is slowly changing my mind about Eberron

[Klaus]

I've gotta be honest: speaking as a big fan of Eberron, the only thing surprising to be about this is the fact that DDO was the thing that won you over. That game must not be as terrible as I'd heard!

Personally, I don't find that at all with Eberron. Khorvaire seems pretty natural when you start to compare it to 19th-century Western Europe. OTOH, I absolutely have the same complaint you mention when I think about the Forgotten Realms. ("Here's Fantasy-Spain, here's 'The Shire', here's America, here's Ancient Egypt, and here's Medieval Japan and China! Enjoy!")

I agree, the cultures in Khorvaire aren't nearly as sharply different as in FR. The five nations have a common cultural background, and the differences arose through time (Karrnath reliance on undead came from a period during the war where famine and foreign attacks almost obliterated the country, leading King Kaius I to rely on the Blood of Vol church to animate those killed in battle, for instance).

 

[wingsandsword]

I've gotta be honest: speaking as a big fan of Eberron, the only thing surprising to be about this is the fact that DDO was the thing that won you over. That game must not be as terrible as I'd heard!

I'm having fun with it. It's got some quirks, like how everything outside the towns is instanced. . .including the wilderness, but it's far better than the reports I heard when it first came out.

When DDO first came out I kept hearing about how it was designed for parties only, and not for soloing. Now it's very soloist friendly, at least at the levels I am playing it at.

As a free game, it's quite fun. The amount of free content apparently drops off around 9th or 10th level, but by then you've got a lot out of the game for free, and you could still play for free if you scrounged around for the few free quests available or create a new character.

Some of the fun is that the game is pretty faithful to the 3.5 ruleset (even in character creation: you normally make 28 point characters but you can buy as a premium option the ability to make 32 point characters). They've made some adjustments to the needs of MMO's, like bonus HP at 1st level, and using a spell point based system (Sorcerers and Favored Souls get more points but fewer spells they can always use, Wizards and Clerics get fewer points and lots of spells but can only prepare a few). They do go to significant effort to use the official 3.5 era artwork for creatures, which means that Mind Flayers, Kobolds, Dragons, Sahaguin ect all look like they do in the MM.

I don't know if I'd be a regular subscriber to the game at $15/month. If I was going to pay I would probably get back into WoW, but for free with maybe paying a little here or there as I go if I want access to higher-level dungeons or extra character creation options it's worth it.

 

[IronWolf]

I don't know if I'd be a regular subscriber to the game at $15/month. If I was going to pay I would probably get back into WoW, but for free with maybe paying a little here or there as I go if I want access to higher-level dungeons or extra character creation options it's worth it.

yeah, unless it has changed I think it is best to take advantage of one of their point pack sales and buy ala carte without the VIP subscription.

 

[doctorhook]

Seems to me D&D highlighted the different 'shiny bits' about Eberron to mask what is essentially a 'kitchen sink' setting.

I've always found the radical repulsion and attraction rather perplexing.

Or perhaps I'm just unusually apathetic.

I feel like "kitchen sink setting" is something of a pejorative, but in a way it's apt for Eberron...sort of. The truth is that you can put probably anything from D&D into Eberron, but the other half of this is that anything you put in will change to fit Eberron.* If that makes it a "kitchen sink setting", then there ya go. Personally, I like how Eberron manages to be both so versatile and yet always mostly true to itself.

*For the sake of illustrating my point, give me anything and I will demonstrate how it can fit. Some examples:

• You wanna adventure with Drizzt in Eberron? Go for it! Now he's got white scorpion-venom tattoos, lives as an outcast from the jungles of Xen'drik. He's had some famous adventures in the mountains of the Mror Holds with his friend Bruenor Battlehammer.
• Wanna fight Orcus? Call him a Demon Rajah, have couatls trap him in a crystal underground in the ancient past, and have his cult (another Cult of the Dragon Below) scheme to release him into the world again. Add PCs and let simmer.
• Your favorite deity is Bahamut, the Noble Platinum Dragon? Your paladin can say he learned about him from a tribe of Seren barbarians (human? dragonborn? lizardfolk? whatever.), who worship him as their patron deity. When you tell NPCs about Bahamut, expect them to spend their time explaining to you how "Bahamut" is just some primitives' misunderstanding of Dol Arrah, one of the deities of the Sovereign Host.
• Elminster? Maybe he's not only a prodigiously powerful wizard, but maybe he's also carrying a Siberys Mark. Or maybe he's one of founders of Morgrave University. Or maybe he's not really a wizard at all, but instead a powerful dragon in disguise...or worse.

 

[Asmor]

To be fair, the kitchen sink thing was an explicit design goal. I think they even used the line "If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron." Whether that's an admirable goal or not I leave for you to decide...

 

[doctorhook]

To be fair, the kitchen sink thing was an explicit design goal. I think they even used the line "If it's in D&D, it's in Eberron." Whether that's an admirable goal or not I leave for you to decide...

I think people tend to misinterpret that, though. I think what they meant was, "If it's in D&D, it can be in Eberron." The difference is slight, but it's important: first of all, it's your campaign setting (like any setting you play at home), which they want you to use as you see fit; second and subsequently, Eberron in particular was written and presented specifically as a setting with lots of blanks for details to be filled in by DMs. This approach is reflected symbolically by the fact that it was inspired by a fan competition to design the next "big" setting.

Maybe Eberron should be though of as less of a "+kitchen sink setting" and more of a "Mad Lib setting". It's got room for the kitchen sink, but there's no reason to include it if it's not what you're into.

 

[eamon]

Put me in the camp of Eberron supporters! It's fantastically flexible, and it's not quite as predictable or hashed out as forgotten realms. I like Forgotten Realms, but it's rather something I'd read about than DM; it's too restrictive. Dark Sun has a lovely flavor; we'll be using it in an upcoming game (different DM), but I expect it's not a setting to be reused in tons of campaigns. It's distinctiveness both a huge strength, but also means that not every campaign will fit equally well.

For me that leaves Eberron as a kind of pimped Greyhawk: a flexible default setting with lots of internal consistency. I mean, if the PC's can use trivial magic every day (easily possible both in 4e and 3e/pathfinder), up to and including hiring NPC's and finding tons of magical trickets, it's stands to reason that they're not the only ones. Indeed, tons of monsters are inherently magical, and encountered all the time in a typical D&D campaign.

Then you've got classes and how they fit into the world. It's one thing to say that wizards can be extremely scholarly types; yet most PC's level and gain their power by themselves through adventure. And (certainly in 4e), they're not inherently more powerful than the fighters and other non-magical types; nor are they much more fragile or special at low levels. If so, where are all the beginners? The mundane magicians? Eberron makes that click - they're there, they're useful, they're just rather niche and not particularly powerful.

 

[amerigoV]

*For the sake of illustrating my point, give me anything and I will demonstrate how it can fit. Some examples:

• Elminster? Maybe he's not only a prodigiously powerful wizard, but maybe he's also carrying a Siberys Mark. Or maybe he's one of founders of Morgrave University. Or maybe he's not really a wizard at all, but instead a powerful dragon in disguise...or worse.

"Some say he caused the Day of Mourning, as he has not been seen since that day..."

This is spot on - I was tempted to run Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk and put it in Cyre (the country that blew up). Just set it a few years before the end of the War.

 

[wingsandsword]

I think people tend to misinterpret that, though. I think what they meant was, "If it's in D&D, it can be in Eberron." The difference is slight, but it's important: first of all, it's your campaign setting (like any setting you play at home), which they want you to use as you see fit; second and subsequently, Eberron in particular was written and presented specifically as a setting with lots of blanks for details to be filled in by DMs. This approach is reflected symbolically by the fact that it was inspired by a fan competition to design the next "big" setting.

Maybe Eberron should be though of as less of a "+kitchen sink setting" and more of a "Mad Lib setting". It's got room for the kitchen sink, but there's no reason to include it if it's not what you're into.

This.

Now that I've actually begun to review a copy of the Eberron setting book, it explicitly says that it was intended that everything in the core three books is meant to be in the setting.

The idea that Eberron MUST have EVERYTHING in it is one thing that turns people off of it. Cram incarnum, pact magic, shadow magic, every monster in 4 additional Monster Manuals and the Fiend Folio, ilumians, goliaths, Exalted and Vile spells, classes and feats, samurai, truename magic, ninja, scouts, dread necromancers, archivists, dragon shamans, spirit shamans, shukenja, knights, duskblades, beguilers, wu jen, swashbucklers. . .that's part of why I didn't like it. This idea is pervasive, and I've seen among my acquaintances cases of someone coming up with a wacky combination and demanding they be playable in an Eberron game because Eberron has everything it has to be out there.

 

[doctorhook]

The idea that Eberron MUST have EVERYTHING in it is one thing that turns people off of it. Cram incarnum, pact magic, shadow magic, every monster in 4 additional Monster Manuals and the Fiend Folio, ilumians, goliaths, Exalted and Vile spells, classes and feats, samurai, truename magic, ninja, scouts, dread necromancers, archivists, dragon shamans, spirit shamans, shukenja, knights, duskblades, beguilers, wu jen, swashbucklers. . .that's part of why I didn't like it. This idea is pervasive, and I've seen among my acquaintances cases of someone coming up with a wacky combination and demanding they be playable in an Eberron game because Eberron has everything it has to be out there.

I totally see why it would be a turnoff, too!

..And yet, Eberron still could find a spot for any and all of those things. Weird new classes? Assume they were either members of some new experimental squad during Last War, or that they hail from some isolated tribe who still practices a long-lost ancient Giant (Goblinoid, Draconic, Demonic?) magics. Strange race you've never heard of? They come from somewhere in Xen'drik. Never-before-seen monsters? Either they're living weapons leftover from the Last War, or they're living weapons leftover from one of the planar invasions.

Personally, I don't think Incarnum or Exalted or Vile stuff fits very well into Eberron, but I'd let a player use it for their character in Eberron (assuming I let a player use it at all ). Eberron's got lots of places to hide strange little groups of no political consequence practicing their own types of magic, which is a big part of how the setting is so versatile.