Ebberlance

[Zappo]

I'm not an Eberron-hater, and not a Dragonlance-hater either. However, I (very likely) won't buy Eberron, and I won't play Dragonlance again any time in the future. In both cases, they are simply not interesting enough. They are both fairly usual fantasy. Trancejeremy - they are different from D&D, but D&D is far from being representative of fantasy in general. In the grand fantasy scene, they are quite vanilla.

 

[Goobermunch]

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.

I sure hope that's not true since Keith is busy writing his Eberron novel! I'd hope that his first novel will be excellent.

--G

 

[weiknarf]

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.

FR was not. Mr. Greenwood had developed the world before D&D came out.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm not an Eberron-hater, and not a Dragonlance-hater either. However, I (very likely) won't buy Eberron, and I won't play Dragonlance again any time in the future. In both cases, they are simply not interesting enough. They are both fairly usual fantasy. Trancejeremy - they are different from D&D, but D&D is far from being representative of fantasy in general. In the grand fantasy scene, they are quite vanilla.

Exactly -- saying Dragonlance is not very generic by comparing it to Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms is being obtuse. Very little ever done by D&D fails to be generic, except maybe Dark Sun, Spelljammer, and maybe Ravenloft and Planescape.

I suspect that what most D&D players want, though, is something that's different but not too different. I don't think something like Dark Sun or Spelljammer is the right direction to go, because it won't pick up a big enough following.

 

[the Jester]

Er, I don't see much resemblence between the two other than the fact that they're both dnd worlds.

Really, DL was written to encourage horrid, blatant railroading. Ebberon- with action points, intercontinental travel and so forth- sounds like it's written with the idea of making the players more free to choose the course of their adventures.

 

[Cam Banks]

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.

Actually, it was. Dragonlance was very much a setting that drew upon the AD&D rules in every sense throughout its early stages, and even when Dragonlance Adventures was released in 1987 (three years after the modules and novels first began to appear) the rules in that volume went hand-in-hand with the direction of AD&D at the time. It's worth noting that all of the changes in Dragonlance when it first appeared were cosmetic - no orcs, no drow, gold pieces replaced by steel pieces, no clerics (for the first module, at least), etc. The only thing rules-wise that was added to the series were kender, as for the most part everything else was taken from the AD&D core and contemporary supplements such as Monster Manual II.

You don't see moon magic, specialized Knights of Solamnia, tinker gnomes, minotaurs as a player race, priests with variant abilities, etc until Dragonlance Adventures was published, and in many ways this was possible because TSR was experimenting with variant and alternate rules at the time (Unearthed Arcana is why the Knights are a subclass of Cavalier and why Fritzen Dorgaard is a thief-acrobat in DL12).

Dragonlance continues to follow the trends of whichever edition of the D&D game it is being written for. It took kits in 2nd edition and reassigned classes among the 4 class groups, for example, and in 3rd edition it makes extensive use of prestige classes, feats, templates, and so forth. I think that Eberron and Dragonlance do share the "built with D&D in mind" legacy, something which will no doubt be observed 20 years from now when (and if) Eberron gets updated for a new edition and the gaming audience says "why does it have all of this stuff built-in to the world? how dated!"

Cheers,
Cam

 

[BiggusGeekus]

How is Eberron different from Dragon Lance?

Dragonlance had kender and Eberron has hover trains.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.




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On a less smart-alecy note....

Dragonlance was highly linked to the main characters. The races and classes were built around the Heroes of the Lance. So a Knight of Paladine had a definate path to walk down and with the wacky multi-classing rules in 2e, there was little reason to not walk down that path. Kender and gnomes ensured that every group would have comic relief. The moon-based magic system (with the black moon that no one could see but somehow didn't block the view of the stars behind it) tied spellcasters to alignment so you couldn't just casually be a magic-user and encouraged arcane casting for a more serious sort of player.

Now, I know very little about Eberron, but why let ignorance of highly relevant facts get in our way? Eberron seems to be more of a game world designed around the concept of player-characters adventuring in it. FR/Greyhawk were bulit around this model, but both authors of those worlds had a habit of tacking on things they liked around the edges of what they already had. This is especially evident in the Forgotten Realms (and if people want me to babble endlessly about that, I can do so for a disturbing length of time).

Eberron looks like it is taking a more thoughtful approach to high fantasy. The Forgotten Realms is supposed to be riddled with gates, but where are the gate maps? Eberron will have hover trains and I'm sure we'll be left with a very good idea how they work and how they connect the cities.

So that's my take.

And I'll be buying the book.

Because I'm a tool.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

There is one major difference I see that seperates Eberron from all other settings that I can think of.

Other Setting - "It's like regular D&D, but take away X and add X."
Eberron - "It's like regular D&D, but add X."

Everything made for D&D, with the exception of the core gods, has a place in Eberron. I guess the same could be said of Greyhawk or the Realms, but those two don't have the flexibility to add new things in the way Eberron does.

Eberron takes into account things like Savage Species and psionics. The other settings make using those things a bit more difficult. Not impossible by any stretch, but it just doesn't.....mesh.. like it does with Eberron.

 

[Robbert Raets]

....the Forgotten Realms (and if people want me to babble endlessly about that, I can do so for a disturbing length of time)....

Knock yourself out. I'm listening.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Because I'm a tool.

Welcome to the "tool club", card carrying member since '89 here.