Eberron-as corny as I think?

[wayne62682]

I am a big fan of Eberron; well.. I was. My group disliked it because they thought it was too urban and are not big fans of the pulp genre. However, these reasons were exactly WHY I liked it. When I first saw the previews, I thought it was a stupid concept, but I looked through the ECS one day and fell in love with it almost immediately. I like how the world actually MAKES SENSE, and magic is built into society, not layered on top of it so you have medieval Europe, but there's magic, but nobody USES that magic for anything to make life better. I like how there isn't a slew of high level NPCs in every town, village and hamlet like some other settings (*cough*Forgotten Realms*cough*). Hell, I like the feel of the world and how everything seems to be written cohesively to fit.

 

[Desdichado]

I can't quit you, mang!

So far, the only question I have about this thread is why Takasi hasn't joined yet.

Yeah, back atcha mang! Er... who are you again?

I grok the necessity of a subculture to remain as 'sub' a culture as it can so that it doesn't become mainstream

Ironically, they seem to be simultaneously claiming that they represent gaming mainstream, though. And anyway, I grok that too, but that's no call to go mislabeling stuff and denigrating what you don't like. It's perfectly possible to strongly prefer more "traditional D&D flavored fantasy" and strongly dislike warforged, changelings, or whatever, and yet still not be insulting. And taking pride in wilful ignorance is just silly no matter what else.

 

[MarkB]

- Resurrection, Raise Dead. Even D&D novels let heroes die. The various resurrection magic is a metagame solution to death that just irks me.
- Arcane/divine magic separation for no reason.

I don't think any core setting is going to completely resolve either of these. I'd say Eberron goes about as far as it's possible to go, both by making it extremely difficult to actually purchase resurrection magic - legitimate priests don't sell their services, or even provide them to non-believers, and there are few who are powerful enough to cast such spells at all - and by introducing the Artificer, who accesses magic at a level beyond the arcane/divine divide, and can make use of both equally.

 

[JohnSnow]

I don't think any core setting is going to completely resolve either of these. I'd say Eberron goes about as far as it's possible to go, both by making it extremely difficult to actually purchase resurrection magic - legitimate priests don't sell their services, or even provide them to non-believers, and there are few who are powerful enough to cast such spells at all - and by introducing the Artificer, who accesses magic at a level beyond the arcane/divine divide, and can make use of both equally.

I actually agree with you that no core setting (well, no Third Edition core setting anyway...) would ever do either of these things. That doesn't mean I don't necessarily take one look at how far Eberron has gone down the path and start pondering ways to finish the job.

But that's me.

 

[Barak]

Ok, so I've come to this thread late,a nd the point I'm answering to was raised a while ago. But, IMHO, it was never answered satisfactorly.

Yes, Golems are "XP bags" that shouldn't be PC races. They are not alone! So are mindless undeads, oozes, plants, animals and magical beasts. I don't want unicorns or Gelatinous Cubes as PCs. In 99% of my campaigns, I also don't want aberrations as PCs!

Sure, in every case, I -could- come up with an explanation. I could make it relevant in the setting. But just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Yes, Warforged make sense within the framework of Eberron. Doesn't mean all DMs should like the idea. And while it's perfectly alright to like Eberron, it's perfectly alright to hate it too. And if the reason you hate it is that Golems/robots as PCs rub you the wrong way, well, that's reason enough.

I do have that Gelatinous Cube Paladin character...

 

[Psion]

And while it's perfectly alright to like Eberron, it's perfectly alright to hate it too.

True enough. But it doesn't make strawmen and hyperbole used to validate such positions into truth.

 

[Klaus]

Of course, there's something like 32,000 warforged in the entire world, so it's not exactly hard to not mention them in a home camapaign.

In fact, for the more traditionalist DMs there's plenty of adventuring room in the Eldeen Reaches, Shadow Marches, Droaam, Q'barra, Valenar, Talenta Plains, Karrnath, Lhazaar Principalities, X'endrik, Aerenal...

 

[genshou]

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.

Right, my problem isn't with warforged themselves, but rather with the fact that–no matter how hard I try–the only way I can explain the necessity of Warforged in Eberron is by metagaming. Of course, I don't own the campaign setting, so maybe after reading through a friend's copy I missed some important explanation, but it seems to me like a lot of things about Eberron can only be explained by metagaming. That's more than a a dislike because of opinion. If so many things about the setting can only be explained through metagame, that's a serious problem with the setting.

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.

Are there in-game explanations for this? As I mentioned, I don't own the books and have only read through a friend's copy. If there's an explanation in-game that could be given from an NPC to a PC who popped onto Eberron from, say, Aber-Toril, that's fine. But if as above I can't find any reasons except the metagame "the author wanted it this way", I'm unhappy and so too would be my players.

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.

This thread was started with the intent of gathering opinions. They are perfectly valid within this thread, and in fact I think we're all going off on a lot of tangents from the initial intent of the thread, with some other stuff we're debating. I don't think it's poorly written per se, but I don't think the author properly understood some of "standard" D&D's concepts before seeking to change them. Until I'm convinced otherwise on some of the points I raised above, I consider Eberron to be internally inconsistent, so I see my claims as valid arguments rather than "I don't like it so it sucks" statements like some others.

* 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.

These I see as problems with standard perceptions of D&D due to most gamers not understanding just how rare magic and high-level characters in D&D are, since they only see things from the perspective of the PCs and never study out the facts for the entire world. A setting doesn't need to fix that, and some of the ways it got "fixed" in Eberron were entirely unnecessary. I do grant, however, that Eberron does accurately portray the level of magic Keith wrote into it, something a lot of other settings should do better with the level of magic they possess. Of course, with so little magic truly available on a worldwide scale in standard D&D, the impact is much smaller than some believe it should be.

Because the really good stuff is rarely sold on the open market - it's only the weak stuff that's readily available. So you either have to go into that damn dungeon to get it, build it it yourself, or deal with some people who have all the morals of modern day black market arms dealers.

Oh, and in the latter case you really shouldn't ask where the merchandize comes from or whether the former owner misses it.


Sure, that's a different from "classical" D&D. But I think that's how it ought to be. I think it makes for a better game if there is an actual reason for going into the dungeon beyond "Let's make lots of gp quick!" And Eberron has them in spades - you are not just going into a dungeon because there might be gold and treasure down there, but because going into the dungeon represents an opportunity to learn secrets of lost and forgotten civilizations and their powers.

And exploring the cyclopean ruins of Xen'drik to discover the secrets of the ancient giant civilizations sounds more "magical" to me than going to some dungeon build by some lich who enjoys messing with adventurers and thus has put both treasures and deadly traps and guardian creatures down there...

Again, this is something a new setting is not necessary for. I've been doing this with dungeons for ages. Fact of the matter is, dungeon crawls for loot and XP are a big part of D&D's roots, but if you want to have a dungeon crawl for loot, XP, and archaeology, you don't need Eberron to do it.

I don't think any core setting is going to completely resolve either of these. I'd say Eberron goes about as far as it's possible to go, both by making it extremely difficult to actually purchase resurrection magic - legitimate priests don't sell their services, or even provide them to non-believers, and there are few who are powerful enough to cast such spells at all - and by introducing the Artificer, who accesses magic at a level beyond the arcane/divine divide, and can make use of both equally.

There are so few divine casters capable of casting 5th-level spells in core D&D, it's a wonder we ever let PCs get a resurrective spell cast for them without waiting in line for a year! And I think people shouldn't hate having priests accepting pay from random adventurers for spells, because they fail to see what a good opportunity it is for the church to earn all that gold....

If I'd just stayed up all night and responded to all these posts one-by-one, I'd have a higher post count.

 

[The Shaman]

Fact of the matter is, dungeon crawls for loot and XP are a big part of D&D's roots, but if you want to have a dungeon crawl for loot, XP, and archaeology, you don't need Eberron to do it.

I just loved that line so much, I had to pull it out and stare at it for awhile.

 

[Desdichado]

Right, my problem isn't with warforged themselves, but rather with the fact that–no matter how hard I try–the only way I can explain the necessity of Warforged in Eberron is by metagaming. Of course, I don't own the campaign setting, so maybe after reading through a friend's copy I missed some important explanation, but it seems to me like a lot of things about Eberron can only be explained by metagaming. That's more than a a dislike because of opinion. If so many things about the setting can only be explained through metagame, that's a serious problem with the setting.

Are there in-game explanations for this? As I mentioned, I don't own the books and have only read through a friend's copy. If there's an explanation in-game that could be given from an NPC to a PC who popped onto Eberron from, say, Aber-Toril, that's fine. But if as above I can't find any reasons except the metagame "the author wanted it this way", I'm unhappy and so too would be my players.

I think that's a bit of a double standard to condemn Eberron for any of that. Why does FR or Greyhawk have elves? Or dwarves? Or wizards? Or gnomes?

Yup. Metagame reasons. The creators wanted them there. If anything, the explanation of why Warforged and artificiers exist makes much more sense within the context of Eberron than any of those questions do. The artificier role is a natural consequence of the existence of D&D style magic and a population large enough, with specialized roles, to demand it, just like our society has led to all kinds of specialized jobs instead of just everyone being "hunter" "gatherer" "farmer" or "herder." The creation of the Warforged is a natural consequence of a lengthy war in a magical society.

Of course they exist in Eberron "because the author wanted it to" but they're still more grounded in logical extensions of the D&D reality than the existence of, say, elves, or sorcerers, or freaking duel wielding spellcasting rangers.