Eberron-as corny as I think?

[RedWick]

Eberron has grown on me. I was mostly indifferent about it until I picked up the Sharn book a while back and enjoyed what I read. Then I started paying attention to the different threads which popped up about the setting. My curiosity and interest had been piqued enough to the point where I actually picked up the campaign setting book. If I can ever find enough players locally, I might actually give running it a go.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah, and I bet you were an unbiased judge of them too.

I admit, I do tend to be a wee bit critical of people who routinely dismiss games as trash without first reading and/or playing them and make fun of people who play anything new or different when they themsevles are afraid to try it. That brand of propaganda nazi doesn't deserve to be treated as anything but, really. They earn it.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

So.. What defines corny, then? Did I miss someone defining it earlier in the post? I'm too lazy to read every post.

If those things you listed are corny, J-Dawg, then I share opinion. If not, then I must fight you. We will appear in different areas on an alien planet and have to battle it out with just the weapons that evolution gave us.

My evolution includes the use of the club. (Behold the riant anthropoid, and 'ware his crooked thumb...)

As for industrialized magic - that is one of the things that I like best about the setting, and for that matter with the Iron Kingdoms setting's Mechanika. If the use of magic a=was as widespread as it is in a typical D&D world it would be nigh inevitable. (And as a child I enjoyed reading Randall Garret's Lord Darcy stories as soon as they appeared in the magazines. )

The Auld Grump

 

[Odhanan]

I admit, I do tend to be a wee bit critical of people who routinely dismiss games as trash without first reading and/or playing them and make fun of people who play anything new or different when they themsevles are afraid to try it. That brand of propaganda nazi doesn't deserve to be treated as anything but, really. They earn it.

I can see where you're coming from, really. That's like me and people calling other people munchkins and powergamers and making fun of them. That irritates me to no end. And what you're talking about too, by the way: belittling people who play a game one doesn't like, making fun of them, criticizing the game or setting without having even read its core book/boxed set/whatever. That sucks. Big time.

 

[genshou]

My evolution includes the use of the club. (Behold the riant anthropoid, and 'ware his crooked thumb...)

As for industrialized magic - that is one of the things that I like best about the setting, and for that matter with the Iron Kingdoms setting's Mechanika. If the use of magic a=was as widespread as it is in a typical D&D world it would be nigh inevitable. (And as a child I enjoyed reading Randall Garret's Lord Darcy stories as soon as they appeared in the magazines. )

The Auld Grump

See, that's where I get annoyed in evaluation of Eberron. Magic is not as common as many people seem to think in standard D&D. They see these things as "nigh inevitable" as you put it, but really, there isn't enough magic out there to have as large of an impact as some of the more vocal "D&D is too high-magic" Enworlders would have you believe. Most of the people who rant about those kinds of things haven't worked out statistics to see how rare those things actually are; they simply assume that because the PCs find them they must be everywhere, and in mass quantities.

I'm working on a thesis about the availability of magic in a standard D&D society, and the amount of impact it would be able to have on world development. Unfortunately, it's a slow process due to attention being diverted elsewhere (such as to the forums). The thing I've learned the most from writing it is that magic items are way more rare and special than I ever thought. That's probably part of why Eberron bugs me–too many +1 swords around every corner.

 

[rounser]

As far as "magic robots", none of the warforged detractors (here or elsewhere) has yet to explain why golems are perfectly acceptable as walking bags of hit points, but not as sentient PCs. I'm really kind of curious. I suspect the only answer is what I've already hypothesized, though (i.e. "It's new and different, therefore it is bad and wrong!").

You're bordering on betraying yourself as more closeminded than those your criticise with that statement.

I'll speak for myself, though. I prefer a party of "straight" characters that throw the fantasy of the world into contrast. If the party are a bunch of monstrous characters themselves, the real monsters become all the less monstrous. I realise that dwarves and elves are arguably monstrous, but they're not traditionally presented as such, and therefore don't have that vibe about them....maybe one day warforged will enter the same category for me, but I doubt it. Then there's just the aesthetics of a "tin man" PC which grate on my nerves....in moderation it's fine, but I don't like the flavour of it 24/7 as a PC - it's too much pepper that spoils the meal.

The wannabe-doppleganger and wannabe-werewolf races also bring aesthetic problems in that they come across as "watered-down substitutes for the real thing", and because we know the behind-the-scenes reasons for why they are this way they are thus another example of the rules defining the "flavour", mystic theurge stylee, which is another thing which I have trouble swallowing.

That said, I really like the "flavour" of golems as an NPC, and think they make fantastic monsters because of the automaton quality (meaning they can be set up as part of puzzles and traps, and all that optional "becoming almost human" stuff makes them interesting).

As another example, I don't like PC psions, because I prefer psionics as an alien seasoning to the campaign for making stuff like illithids all the stranger. Psion PCs is too much of what should be a spice, IMO, just like the way that a single instance of industrial magic as an adventure hook might be cool and interesting, but too much compromises the "feel" of the game for me...or one crashed spaceship introducing laser rifles might be fine as a novelty, but pervasive laser rifles as the PC's primary weapon might be too much.

A lot of other folks are a lot more free and easy with the tone of their game, or prefer a tone where psionics and robots and magic-as-substitute-technology are centre stage....you're one of them, right?

 

[Hussar]

So, in other words, to boil that down a bit, Golems as PC's are bad because you don't like them?

 

[rounser]

So, in other words, to boil that down a bit, Golems as PC's are bad because you don't like them?

Absolutely. And they're good because you like them. Good for you!

 

[Odhanan]

Well, I like the warforged, personally. And the Changelings too. Cool stuff.
Now, playing a psionic character in an Eberron campaign, like say, a Psion Kalashtar, that would be cool.

 

[Asmor]

You're bordering on betraying yourself as more closeminded than those your criticise with that statement.

I'll speak for myself, though. I prefer a party of "straight" characters that throw the fantasy of the world into contrast. If the party are a bunch of monstrous characters themselves, the real monsters become all the less monstrous. I realise that dwarves and elves are arguably monstrous, but they're not traditionally presented as such, and therefore don't have that vibe about them....maybe one day warforged will enter the same category for me, but I doubt it. Then there's just the aesthetics of a "tin man" PC which grate on my nerves....in moderation it's fine, but I don't like the flavour of it 24/7 as a PC - it's too much pepper that spoils the meal.

The wannabe-doppleganger and wannabe-werewolf races also bring aesthetic problems in that they come across as "watered-down substitutes for the real thing", and because we know the behind-the-scenes reasons for why they are this way they are thus another example of the rules defining the "flavour", mystic theurge stylee, which is another thing which I have trouble swallowing.

That said, I really like the "flavour" of golems as an NPC, and think they make fantastic monsters because of the automaton quality (meaning they can be set up as part of puzzles and traps, and all that optional "becoming almost human" stuff makes them interesting).

As another example, I don't like PC psions, because I prefer psionics as an alien seasoning to the campaign for making stuff like illithids all the stranger. Psion PCs is too much of what should be a spice, IMO, just like the way that a single instance of industrial magic as an adventure hook might be cool and interesting, but too much compromises the "feel" of the game for me...or one crashed spaceship introducing laser rifles might be fine as a novelty, but pervasive laser rifles as the PC's primary weapon might be too much.

A lot of other folks are a lot more free and easy with the tone of their game, or prefer a tone where psionics and robots and magic-as-substitute-technology are centre stage....you're one of them, right?

With all due respect, it sounds to me like you just want to hog all the fun toys. What you've basically just said is "It's okay if I (through the NPCs) use golems/psions/etc to show off how weird and alien and cool my ideas (through the world) are, but the players should just play normal stuff so I look even cooler."

With all due respect, what about what your player's want? My friend was always laughing and telling anecdotes about his godly Thri-kreen he used to play in Dark Sun so many, many years ago, and I never heard anything about his other characters. No player wants an ordinary character. They all want to be something special. The master of the spiked chain, the 2.5-foot tall gnome that can take down a hill giant, the bad-ass golem with a heart of gold...

I think it's a DM's job to figure out how to allow the players to do what they want, not to tell them they can't do something. Your player wants to play an honest-to-god true dragon? Groovy. There's a couple of dragons-as-classes in Dragon #320. Sure, they'll have to start off as tiny little dragonlings and won't grow much bigger, but they'll still be dragons! You wanna be a werewolf? Well, that would be a little too unbalanced with the other guys, but check out this shifter class from the Eberoon CS... etc.