Ebberron - Dragon magazine preview

[Lalato]

I rec'd my copy of Dragon today. The preview is all of three pages and it consists of a collage of images. There is some text that accompanies the images.

Some of the images look very intriguing, especially the different cultures represented therein. Others truly do appear to be magical "tech". Yes, there are also a couple of images of domesticated dinosaurs, but it's not overwhelming.

While I'm intrigued by the cultures, I have to admit I'm a bit put off by the magic "tech". I think I could accept the magic "tech" if it indeed looked like magic based technology. However, it looks like industrial tech that they just decided to call magic.

Honestly, that's pretty lame. If you're going to have magical technology, let it truly be magical. It shouldn't look like anything we recognize. Instead we see things that look like robots, bullet trains, floating castles that look like battleships.

That said, the jury is still out on this. The cultures do look intriguing. The question is... are they intriguing enough to overcome the cheese dripping off the indust... erhm... magical tech stuff.

--sam

 

[Upper_Krust]

Thanks.

I won't see the issue for at least another month here but I appreciate the info.

 

[barsoomcore]

They are splashing pictures of people riding domesticated dinos all over the place. They need to stop doing that before people get turned off.

"Get turned off"? What sort of people get turned off by dinosaurs?

By DINOSAURS?

There's not some double meaning to the word "dinosaurs", is there? We are talking about the same dinosaurs, here, right? Big, incredibly awesome beasties with horns and teeth and claws, big long talons, tails and spikes and armour plating and all that, right? We are talking about evolution's finest moment, isn't that correct? The absolutely coolest lifeforms ever imagined, not to say actually walked the earth at some point, right?

Okay, maybe I'm a little on the extreme side, here, but honestly -- people get turned off by dinosaurs? What people? Am I really that out of touch?

Weird.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Re: Re: Ebberron - Dragon magazine preview

"Get turned off"? What sort of people get turned off by dinosaurs?

By DINOSAURS?

There's not some double meaning to the word "dinosaurs", is there? We are talking about the same dinosaurs, here, right? Big, incredibly awesome beasties with horns and teeth and claws, big long talons, tails and spikes and armour plating and all that, right? We are talking about evolution's finest moment, isn't that correct? The absolutely coolest lifeforms ever imagined, not to say actually walked the earth at some point, right?

Okay, maybe I'm a little on the extreme side, here, but honestly -- people get turned off by dinosaurs? What people? Am I really that out of touch?

Weird.

Yeah, beats me. Apparently they're "not D&D," whatever that means. Kinda funny how they wasted 3 or 4 pages in the monster manual on something that "isn't D&D," but oh well.

 

[Mallus]

Re: Re: Ebberron - Dragon magazine preview

"Get turned off"? What sort of people get turned off by dinosaurs?...What people? Am I really that out of touch?

Weird.

No. You're fine. Dinosaurs rock on toast. Or rock with toast. Whatever, they're great.

The anti-dinosaur crowd is quite clearly mad --and do they know how many pages in the 1st Ed. Monster Manual were devoted to dinosaurs? Grewhawk was nothing but demons, devils and dinosaurs back then.

Now if only Eberron featured a gin-loving fallen angel with a passion for canasta and garlic-laden schrimp scampi as the Big Bad/Hero of Civilization... okay, let's cut to the chase... If only Eberron was the setting I submitted....

 

[Lalato]

I'm with barsoomcore on this one. I like the dinosaur thing... and I'm not even all that extreme about it. I just think it's cool to have dinosaurs wandering about.

The only thing I have a problem with is the magical technology that looks exactly like industrial technology. That's extremely silly. Sure, there can be magical technology that serves the same or similar purpose as industrial technology, but it shouldn't look the same or even similar. I think it should look more organic, less industrial.

So if you want to have something that *acts* like a bullet train... go ahead... but perhaps it *looks* more like a centipede. Or if you want to have robot-like creations... what's wrong with golems?

Anyway... you get the idea... (i hope)...
--sam

 

[barsoomcore]

Re: Re: Re: Ebberron - Dragon magazine preview

Now if only Eberron featured a gin-loving fallen angel with a passion for canasta and garlic-laden schrimp scampi as the Big Bad/Hero of Civilization...

Um, yeah.

Wait, gin-loving. Fallen angel. Passion for canasta. Garlic-laden shrimp scampi. Big Bad/Hero of Civilization.

Great Scott! You mean *I'm* in your campaign setting?

 

[rounser]

Yeah, beats me. Apparently they're "not D&D," whatever that means. Kinda funny how they wasted 3 or 4 pages in the monster manual on something that "isn't D&D," but oh well.

They're usually considered D&D the most when used in a "lost world" context. i.e. Dinosaurs in "lost world" campaigns like the (formerly) RPGA's Living Jungle, or in lost world bits of campaign worlds, such as the Isle of Dread, Amedio Jungle and Chult. This keeps the anachronism levels low, because having your medieval peasants be eaten by a dragon is one thing, by a t-rex another. It seems strange, but it's less jolting to suspension of disbelief to have dragons attacking Waterdeep or Greyhawk than t-rexes.

Folks riding domesticated dinosaurs in non-lost world areas is something of a break with that tradition, although that's not necessarily a bad thing...but it'll need a compelling context for it to seem "right".

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Getting back to the Great Wall thing for a second, the "myth" refers to seeing it from the moon. You can't see jack squat in terms of man-made objects from the moon with the naked eye. The Earth only takes 2 degrees of arc in the lunar sky. You CAN see the Wall from orbit, but this doesn't mean much. Technically, you could orbit the earth at 100' high if you go fast enough. If you are talking low earth orbit (LEO), I understand you can see plenty. On the Gemini V mission, astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad took pictures of the colossal Launch Complex 39 at Cape Canaveral, used for the Apollo missions a few years later.

On to Eberron: I'm a little bugged by D&D dinos in general. As long as it's kept to a minimum in Eberron, and can be safely ignored if I don't go to those places dinosaurs are found in, than no big whoop.

As for the steampunk/tech level/magic-as-tech argument, I'm not sure I want to rehash here what I've said in other threads. So I'll just summarize:

1. It will bug me if this setting skews higher-tech than what we commonly think of as "medieval". Not to do with the setting itself, but this seems like a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Setting Submission Guidelines. I'll withhold judgment until I see the finished product.

2. I don't have a problem with magic-as-technology, as long as it's well-thought out and imaginative. Having "magic hovering railroads" that look just like modern railroads for no good reason is silly. The real-world railroad took the form it did via an organic process, evolving over time and to fill very specific needs. It came out of a specific time and place - the Industrial Revolution. I doubt even an educated man of Europe's Medieval era would dream up anything like a railroad. To say that a medieval "magi-tech" society that needed to move men and materials over long distances would just pull a railroad design out of thin air is, frankly, uninspired.

 

[barsoomcore]

Folks riding domesticated dinosaurs in non-lost world areas is something of a break with that tradition, although that's not necessarily a bad thing...but it'll need a compelling context for it to seem "right".

Goshdarnit, it's time some traditions were overthrown! We can't live in the past forever! It's time for people all over the world to rise up and insist on their God-given right to have folk riding domesticated dinosaurs! Now! Before it's too late!

Who's with me?

I mean, let's face facts. Rampaging dinosaurs improve ANY and ALL forms of entertainment. Think how much better the classics of cinema would have been had they had more instances of sudden rampaging dinosaurs.

"Louis, this could be the beginning of a beautiful -- holy crap, it's a Tyrannosaurus Rex!"

"Frankly, Scarlet my dear, LOOK OUT! BRONTOSAURUS ATTACK!"

I mean, come on. It's obvious.