Ebberlance

[Eltern]

I've seen lots of discussion regarding Eberron, with the obvious sides of "this thing sucks" and "I want to bear its warforged children." I have not read every thread about it on ENWorld, so forgive me if this has been brought up before but:

How is Eberron different from Dragon Lance?

Both settings were built from the ground up with the D&D game rules in mind, with only minor additions. Both are full-fledged worlds meant for D&D play, and will be getting it. Granted, one was from a contest and the other I am unsure of the precise origins of, but I seem to think that a fair percentage of the the Eberron-bashing crowd for being too "D&D to the hilt" would not say similar things about Dragon Lance (Maybe different criticisms, but not that, at least )

So can someone explain to me how we should receive this setting differently than we would Dragon Lance?

Thanks,
Eltern

P.S. I am by no means an expert of either setting, but I thought of this pretty striking similarity the other day and thought to bring it up.

 

[Aaron L]

Well /cough... I'm not a big fan of Dragonlance either...

 

[jollyninja]

as a dl fan, here is the difference between the settings for me.

the supplimental stuff for ebberon will probably not be grossly overpriced, relying on an existing fan base to drive sales. they will probably try to cover new ground with this to differentiate the target market slightly from the FR and greyhawk markets. what currently available setting was not created specifically for dnd? GH was, FR was, scarred lands was, your homebrew was, kalamar was. i may have missed the one out there that was not but i don't think so.

EDIT- also, ebberon seems to be at least doing something different with some of the races and dl could not possibly be more generic fantasy if it tried.

 

[talinthas]

um. I'm not sure what you're getting at. Dragonlance, when developed in 1983, was concieved of being a series based around the twelve dragon types out at the time, as D&D was heavy on the dungeons and light on the dragons. As Hickman wound his way towards wisconsin, the setting changed into an epic story arc with a really detailed plot and point. a railroaders dream, if you will.

When designed, it was consciously decided that orcs and drow, the two main enemies to that point, should be left out, so that other monsters could have space in the sun, like goblins, draconians, etc. Similarly, the magic system was changed, and other subtle tweaks to the rules ensued.

In other words, dragonlance was not built directly on the D&D rules.
Perhaps you meant the forgotten realms? The setting where new rules were shoehorned into it just to show off? (see the birthright book that was transformed into an FR novel, even though it was completely different, or elminster's power of the month club...) FR's history is littered with rules and such that fit every single aspect of D&D by the book.

Eberron is along that mold, i think, and not Dragonlance's. eberron is made to showcase 3e in a setting unencumbered by legacy rules and older hang ups (non magic dwarves, etc etc). Dragonlance, on the other hand, is a setting defined by its legacies. Mages cannot use more than daggers or staves, and can't come from proscribed demihuman races, etc etc.

I don't understand what connection you were trying to make?

 

[BASHMAN]

they both suck!

JK

I never got into DL, though, and EB does not seem very interesting to me either. I wish they would resurect something that WAS good like mystarra or even Redsteel!

 

[Snoweel]

I thought Dragonlance was only turned into a game setting after the popularity of the Chronicles (the best fantasy story ever, imo).

Anyway, I get the feeling Eberron won't be internally consistent enough to ever be ruined the way Dragonlance has been since the 80s. It's truly a shadow of its former self and I blame the wierd-ass DL novels of the late 90s.

Eberron looks like nothing more than a lot of gaming fun. I don't think it's the kind of place that any decent novels could take place in.

 

[Creamsteak]

I'm not too knowledgeable about either, but one similarity that I see between Dragonlance and Eberron is that it has a lot of "unusual" races as player character options. Warforged vs. Minotaurs comes to mind.

Theres more difference than similarity, and my thoughts on Eberron is that it will be easier to run an authentic Eberron game than a DL game. Eberron is looking to put out stuff that you can just sit down and play with. Yes, there will be novels and stories, countries and modules, history and new stuff... but DL is really heavily into "itself." I could never run an authentic DL game because it seems like all the big adventure ideas are supposed to already exist in the setting. Even the Age of Mortals products, which are somewhat open, are still 3 super-modules that are meant to provide the stories of Dragonlance for you.

Eberron on the other hand hints at there being more than just the main story of the modern era of the setting. The entire world doesn't seem to be caught up on one big swing at a time, and I like that. I'm still not sure on buying the setting, but it feels less predestined than Dragonlance. Maybe my players wouldn't notice the difference, but if I'm going to tell them that we are playing in Setting X, I really would like to feel like it's my setting and not the authors, even if I use it straight out of the book.

 

[trancejeremy]

Hmmm - admittedly, I only followed the original, 1e, Dragonlance, but I don't understand how it could be called generic fantasy.

At least, it was quite a bit different than regular D&D at the time, and it was fairly revolutionary and exciting (for D&D players). A whole lot more Dragons. No orcs - the main bad guys were Draconians. There was no clerical magic, because the gods were forgotten. Instead of the standard Magic User, there were White, Red, and Black Mages, whose powers waxed and waned with the moons. There were no halflings, but instead, kender, who were quite annoying. Gully dwarves. Gnomes were tinkers instead of illusionists. No Paladins, instead you had Knights of 3 different orders (which basically were prestige classes).

And of course, also introduced to D&D, was the idea of "Metaplot". That is, you had to read the novels and buy the modules to find out what was going on. And the main wizard of the setting was not a nice guy. Raistlin (sp?) was something of an anti-hero.

Granted, I think things changed later on, probably making it more generic. And of course, some of these changes are now considered 'generic', because of Dragonlance.

I haven't paid enough attention to Eberron to see if it radically alters the 3.5 rules the way Dragonlance did the 1st edition AD&D rules. But I don't think it does.

 

[talinthas]

It's a common misconception to think that chronicles came before the modules; the books are infinitely more popular after all. In fact, Dragons of Autumn Twilight was developed simultaniously with the first module, mainly following the plot of the first arc. Books 2 and 3 came before their modules, thus leading their plot, while leaving it open enough for multiple results. The last module, for instance, has some 12-ish choices for who ends the story. For the most part though, the main body of the plot was developed simultaniously, at least for the initial trilogy/module series. After that, the books took over, and the game tried desperatly to keep up.


Of course, DL did a lot to D&D. Gnomes were given a real archetype, instead of just being dwarves who talked to badgers. The game moved away from just generic dungeons to having an actual storyplot. Other things i can't think of at 1:30 in the morning, and if i did, would be obviously biased since i absolutly love Dragonlance =)

 

[Acid_crash]

In a way, from the way I can see it, is that DL was the next step in the evolution of a campaign setting with its development in the 80's. As some have said, it was the first to have a 'metaplot', different villian races, different stereotypes with it's races (as someone said, gnomes were really gnomes and not variant dwarfs), kender were new, minotaurs were given more brething room and included into the culture of the world, the elves were very different and hated each other. The knightly orders, both good and bad, and how the gods interacted with the world.

Twenty years later, Eberron is doing the same thing (in a way). Eberron is the next step for a D&D campaign setting. It is kind of doing the same thing as DL did for the 80's. New races, new locations, new uses for magic, we have the Dragonmark Houses, new and different gods and how the gods interact with the populace, technology mixed with magic and built into the world so it actually makes sense, and the setting is a whole lot bigger than any previous setting yet. If I'm not mistaken, Eberron gives information on the entire planet, not just one continent or portion of a continent. If I am wrong, someone please let me know.

WotC is kind of giving us the next step in the evolution of a D&D setting, and yet keeping the core trappings of what makes D&D....D&D.