Eberron-as corny as I think?

[Hussar]

I would say that warforged fit perfectly in Eberron. However, the only reason for that I can see is because the author decided there should be warforged in Eberron.

Of course. That's the entire point. Silvanesti Elves fit where they fit because the designers made them fit there. Now, some races are generic enough to fit pretty much anywhere. That's true. But, being designed to fit in a particular setting isn't a problem. It's not like you are being forced to accept Warforged in any other setting other than Eberron. There are no modules featuring warforged in Greyhawk for example.

The complain is that warforged don't fit in DnD. Well, my response is, Warforged fit perfectly well in Eberron. While Eberron may not be everyone's DnD, it's still DnD. It uses most of the same mechanics as any other setting. There may be some changes, but, that certainly doesn't make it "Not DnD" any more than Athas is "Not DnD".

Or, look at another way. Hollow Knights are listed as a player race (with a rather whopping level adjustment) in Scarred Lands. Storywise, they are pretty close to warforged - a race of sentient constructs built to fight a war. Although they were built by gods in SL, most of the rest is pretty much the same all the way down to the idea that they are trying to find a place in post-war Scarn.

Does that make SL a bad setting? Does that mean that SL is "Not DnD"?

As far as airships go. Well, lets not forget Dragonlance had flying castles. Floating battle platforms from which to wage war. That's about as solid a Space Opera SF trope as you can get. Would anyone care to claim DL is not DnD?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Eberron reminds me of playing a Final Fantasy game. I like final fantasy, the problem is that i have played 11 of them now, including an online version, And to be honest final fantasy is for screwing around after work and relaxing, D&D is for halfway serius interactions between freinds and high drama. I have read Eberron and been a player in two games and it had no drama at all to me, i kept picturing Cloud beating down a monster and Sephiroth cackling in the background.

I've only played Final Fantasy VII, and I can't really see the resemblance.

However, I do see a lot of parallels to the political and social climate of Earth after WWI, which is rife with possibilities. I studied the Weimar Republic in detail back in school (not uncommon in Germany), and the sort of political tensions that existed back then are perfect adventure fodder. I dunno, but the political and social situation of Eberron seems more interesting and realistic than those of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and all the others - which means it is a lot easier to steal from real world history (at some point, I'll introduce a book entitled "The Protocols of the Elders of the Trust"... ).

Sure, Eberron might not be the best fit for classical Epic High Fantasy - there are no titanic clashes between the forces of "Good" and "Evil". But then again, I prefer my Epic Fantasy linked with Cosmic Horror, with no one to bail out the PCs if they screw up in their battle against the Abominations From Beyond - and Eberron is perfect for that style.

 

[Staffan]

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.

Eberron has taken measures to increase the amount of low-level magic as well. Notably:

• The Artificer class can create lots of magic items.
• The Magewright NPC class provides people knowing useful spells (e.g. continual flame without being adventuring-caliber classes.
• The Dragonmarked houses make certain magical services common.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

According to his criteria: "which means there had to be elves and dwarves and orcs, fire-and-forget magic, divine magic and its dedicated practitioners, paladins and monks, and so on.

Elves, Dwarves, Orcs: Krynn - Check. Athas - Check.
Fire & Forget Magic: Krynn - Check (except in Saga, which isn't D&D at all), Athas - Check (even if psionics exist).
Paladins & Monks: I'm not 100% certain here, especially since monks weren't core in 2E, but I"m pretty sure they could be played.

There are no Orcs in Krynn. Well, there are not SUPPOSED to be any in Krynn, but sometimes they slipped in in older novels. There are now Drow either.

 

[Hussar]

I'm still not understanding where the criticism is coming from. Even if it were true, why would corny be bad? It's entirely a taste thing.

I would accept Eberon as being bad if it were poorly written. I would accept it if there were glaring mechanical errors. I would accept it if the editting was very poor (even for an RPG book). I would even accept it if the setting was internally inconsistent.

But, none of these criticisms are being raised. From most accounts its well written, decently editted, mechanically ok and consistent.

Where's the problem?

"I don't like it" is a perfectly valid opinion. Personally, I don't like psionics. However, "I don't like it so it must be crap" is a blindingly ridiculous position to take. If there are problems with the setting, that's fine. Let's discuss that. Simply standing up on a soapbox and denouncing it as "NOT ONE OF US" is hardly constructive.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think it's more because Eberron is WotC's setting. It's what they're trying to push. As far as they're concerned, Eberron is all that matters. They only support the other settings because, frankly, the players would revolt if they stopped support to Forgotten Realms (or Greyhawk, if they ever even did support it beyond lip service).

They are supporting the Forgotten Realms because they make them money. The same is true for Eberron.

Supporting Greyhawk, on the other hand, is probably not financially viable as a complete line for a company as large as WotC, which is why they don't support it these days. Besides, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are rather similar in design, so there is no point in publishing them both by the same company. Eberron, on the other hand, is sufficiently different from either of them that it can establish its own share of the market without impacting too much on the sales of the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Numion]

It is impossible to support Greyhawk. Whatever you do the small but very vocal minority of grognards won't be happy (because it wasn't done by EGG). It's like every single product you published for it had instant, free, very negative PR on the largest RPG sites on the net.

Who wants to put out products like that? WotC is a business, and GH is very bad for business.

 

[hong]

Eberron reminds me of playing a Final Fantasy game. I like final fantasy, the problem is that i have played 11 of them now, including an online version, And to be honest final fantasy is for screwing around after work and relaxing, D&D is for halfway serius interactions between freinds and high drama.

 

[shilsen]

I'm still not understanding where the criticism is coming from. Even if it were true, why would corny be bad? It's entirely a taste thing.

I would accept Eberon as being bad if it were poorly written. I would accept it if there were glaring mechanical errors. I would accept it if the editting was very poor (even for an RPG book). I would even accept it if the setting was internally inconsistent.

But, none of these criticisms are being raised. From most accounts its well written, decently editted, mechanically ok and consistent.

Where's the problem?

"I don't like it" is a perfectly valid opinion. Personally, I don't like psionics. However, "I don't like it so it must be crap" is a blindingly ridiculous position to take. If there are problems with the setting, that's fine. Let's discuss that. Simply standing up on a soapbox and denouncing it as "NOT ONE OF US" is hardly constructive.

Unfortunately, I think the single biggest reason (though not the only one) for people disliking Eberron is the fact that it is well outside the more traditional pseudo-medieval fantasy zone that most of D&D has been written in/for. So it's well beyond a lot of people's comfort zones, and the primary argument against it is actually "I don't like it." So, while there might be some useful critiques, on the whole I don't expect you'll see much constructive criticism of the setting.

Personally, I wasn't particularly enthused about or interested in the setting when I first heard about it. But after some good reviews on these boards, I bought the ECS and completely fell in love with it (been running two campaigns in it for over a year each). Some of the things I like about Eberron:

* It seriously considers the effects of magic on society

* It very explicitly makes the PCs the focus of the setting as well as the campaign.

* It embraces the core D&D rules rather than fighting them, as most settings tend to do.

* It uses wide magic rather than either high or low magic. There's a lot more low-level magic in Eberron than in the DMG assumption of magic in a campaign, and a lot less high-level magic.

* It takes the traditional D&D races and puts a creative spin on them. Dinosaur-riding halflings, ancestor-worshipping elves, zen berserker orcs, etc. And it made gnomes scary!

* The in-built politics of the setting.

* The treatment of deities as distant, unfathomable entities, if they even exist.

* Retaining D&D alignment without it being simplistic black-and-white.

And a few dozen other things I could mention. In short, I really like the setting. and I really don't care if people dislike it, since that doesn't affect my game and I don't expect my tastes to affect theirs. I do, however, find threads like these very amusing, since they often contain criticisms that are evidently based on never having looked in-depth at or thought about the setting's contents.

 

[cmanos]

Ipersonally love Eberron. It is not everyone's ball of wax when it comes to fantasy games. That's why there's things like Greyhawk and Dragonlance.