Eberron-as corny as I think?

[genshou]

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.

That is a new way of looking at it. Thanks.

Edit:

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

*bows*

 

[Barak]

Ahh but see, to me that's where the metagaming crawls in.

While the mass creation of Golems for war purposes can make sense, giving them sentience at the cost of other, more useful abilities for such a creation doesn't make sense... Unless you figure in that, later on, they will be ECL +0 PCs.

 

[Asmor]

Backstory of the Warforged, condensed version by someone who's only skimmed the info:

High magic world.

Big war.

One of the "neutral" houses (think Switzerland) invents this awesome weapon that they sell to
both sides, a living construct to serve as both troop and weapon.

Big war's over.

All these living weapons are left wondering what the hell they're supposed to do now.

I leave it up to you to decide if that's a metagame reason or not.

 

[JohnSnow]

And what they wanted out of those "living weapons" was self-motivation. They wanted troops who'd follow orders, didn't get tired, didn't eat, could repair themselves, etc., etc. Basically, the same reason that, in many science fiction settings, societies create robots or androids.

And like Asimov's robots or Dick's Androids, there were "ghosts in the machine" and they got a sentient self-aware race BY ACCIDENT.

Not on purpose. By accident. How? Who the cares?!

 

[genshou]

Backstory of the Warforged, condensed version by someone who's only skimmed the info:

High magic world.

Big war.

One of the "neutral" houses (think Switzerland) invents this awesome weapon that they sell to
both sides, a living construct to serve as both troop and weapon.

Big war's over.

All these living weapons are left wondering what the hell they're supposed to do now.

I leave it up to you to decide if that's a metagame reason or not.

Sounds pretty hackneyed to me, and:

While the mass creation of Golems for war purposes can make sense, giving them sentience at the cost of other, more useful abilities for such a creation doesn't make sense... Unless you figure in that, later on, they will be ECL +0 PCs.

 

[Barak]

Never mind.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Sounds pretty hackneyed to me

It's a genre almost a hundred years old. The tropes of it are going to be very familiar. If by "hackneyed" you mean you feel they're overdone, well duh...the entire genre has been done over and over, its corpse picked over to fuel everything from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Top Gun to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Its influence is pervasive. It's not about innovation and breaking new thematic and literary ground. It's about taking the conventions of a long-established genre and using them for a RPG setting, which has rarely been done before.

 

[genshou]

It's a genre almost a hundred years old. The tropes of it are going to be very familiar. If by "hackneyed" you mean you feel they're overdone, well duh...the entire genre has been done over and over, its corpse picked over to fuel everything from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Top Gun to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Its influence is pervasive. It's not about innovation and breaking new thematic and literary ground. It's about taking the conventions of a long-established genre and using them for a RPG setting, which has rarely been done before.

I meant that the warforged creation story sounds hackneyed, not the entire setting. See how I quoted a post about warforged right above where I said that?

Edit: Oooh, shiny. I'm back up to 1,501 posts. One post over a quarter of the way to 3rd-level once again!

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I meant that the warforged creation story sounds hackneyed, not the entire setting. See how I quoted a post about warforged right above where I said that?

Yeah, I know. Notice how it doesn't negate anything I said?

 

[genshou]

Yeah, I know. Notice how it doesn't negate anything I said?

Looks to me like you're talking about the setting more than about warforged. What do warforged have to do with Indiana Jones, exactly?