Eberron It Is? [UPDATED & CONFIRMED!]

As I said in the other thread, the question is now whether we're just going to see DMs Guild and PDF support, or whether, once the psionic and artificer rules are set, we'll be seeing something more substantial in the way of an actual published book. I have a feeling that once the necessary rules are in place (with a likely rules expansion book early next year for new classes and races), we'll be seeing a full book, and this is just to whet the appetite and get things started...

 

[ad_hoc]

There is a lot of fuzzy math here comparing between comparing sales numbers to active players and and 3e’s sales in the first year (with sales numbers still increasing) to 5e sales active players after several years of growth, not to mention the words “counting every edition” are never mentioned anywhere near the 20 million active player number and so on, which shows that no one has hard numbers other than WotC. (Besides even with the 5e PHB’s great sales numbers, the number of people who bought the book is likely much smaller than the number of active players. Pretty clearly that’s been the case for every edition.)

Sure, 5e is selling great and selling better than 3e and a lot of that is from awesome growth (which is awesome!), but there’s no evidence in these numbers that players of older editions are an insignificant number of 5e players without making a lot of unfounded assumptions.

I have no idea what the number is, but from WotC’s actions, they at least seem to consider both the players of all previous editions and new to 5e players to all be worthy groups to target.

If you're going to argue this you should educate yourself. The sales are not even close. 5e outsold (in units) 3e/3.5/4e (individually) by August 2016 (probably earlier, Mike Mearls gave this as a response to a question as he cannot give out sales numbers and also doesn't have numbers from the TSR days).

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/764241988128419840?lang=en

This is the 5e sales history on Amazon - Take this in, actually look at it and think about what it means.

View attachment 99633

And you are misrepresenting things as well:

"WotC estimates that over 20 million people worldwide have played Dungeons and Dragons." - in 2002

That isn't active players. That is the total amount of people who have ever played D&D as of 2002.

 

[Echohawk]

I'm assuming you forgot the sarcasm tag on this, because otherwise you are dead wrong. Personally, my desire for more Dark Sun is 76th on the list of settings I want to see done, slightly below Jakandor and a smidge above wherever setting the first D&D movie was set in.

That would be the Empire of Izmer, just in case you were wondering, which you almost certainly weren't.

 

[hbarsquared]

"This book and a theoretical print release will be designed to complement each other, though some material (artificer, races) will be duplicated."

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/1021497273757458433?s=09

So, it looks like the idea, at least one of their potential models, is for this book to be it's own thing, fluff and lore wise, with a future book product repeating only the rules material. So, Eberron aficianados get something from this book, but the crunch is free to appear in a real book. I dig this, hard.

This would actually be... dissapointing. From what I've been able to dig into so far, this is what a "Player's Guide" or intro to a Campaign Setting should be. This is the most newbie-friendly introduction to an unknown fantastical world I've ever seen - much more welcoming than the traditional exposition dump and geography lesson of every other published setting.

This should be the model.

 

[Demetrios1453]

This would actually be... dissapointing. From what I've been able to dig into so far, this is what a "Player's Guide" or intro to a Campaign Setting should be. This is the most newbie-friendly introduction to an unknown fantastical world I've ever seen - much more welcoming than the traditional exposition dump and geography lesson of every other published setting.

This should be the model.

I was about to come here and say something very similar. I've been reading my D&D Beyond version for the past couple of hours or so, and I have been deeply impressed so far. I love that it's presenting a lot of basic facts - but then asks lots of questions concerning those facts on how they pertain to your character or your game. I love the solutions it proposes to sticky situations concerning things not quite "canon" to the setting (You want to play a tortle? Well, perhaps you were a real turtle caught up in the Mourning. Want to introduce non-Eberron, but core D&D, concepts like Asmodeus or Gruumsh? Perhaps the planar barriers that separate Eberron from the rest of the universe are breaking down in your particular game), and of course it goes on to say those aren't the only solutions so, hey, go ahead and make up your own if you want to!

I would truly love to see this style repeated in other settings, such as Greyhawk, or a full Forgotten Realms guide (so we can finally see the state of the areas outside the Sword Coast).

 

[guachi]

I didn't play 3e or 4e so I have no direct experience with Eberron and I disagree that Eberron counts as a setting for "old-timers" or "grognards".

However, the setting does benefit from having its creator publishing stuff for it. If the setting isn't going to have an official hardcover then DMs Guild is where it will be and having Kieth Baker writing stuff overcomes the biggest problem with DMs Guild - finding something you want to buy.

So I give it thumbs up for Eberron fans having something available to them.

 

[Langy]

I'm happy that Eberron got a release today - we're having Session 0 Part 2 of an Eberron campaign on Saturday - but still sad that it looks like they're slow-rolling an actual book release. Maybe it's for the best - getting it tested and all's a nice idea, after all - but I'd still have rathered they release a full Eberron book this year, and this looks like it's going to be more in the 1-2 years away timeframe.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I didn't play 3e or 4e so I have no direct experience with Eberron and I disagree that Eberron counts as a setting for "old-timers"

Quite, Eberron is a young upstart that struggled to stay the course. "City State of the Invincible Overlord" would be a setting for old-timers like myself.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To be honest, this seems to make both of those, and any other, settings getting support much more likely.

This is clearly an experiment, to see if digital updates of old settings prove popular. If this format proves popular, then it's pretty much inevitable that pretty much every old setting Hasbro still has the licence too will receive similar treatment.

(And if no-one buys it, then the format will be abandoned)

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Read through this tweet and replies. Mearls gives several pieces of info, including that next month should be the new UA for the Artificer:

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/1021496102800056321

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Anyone reviewed the Eberron book yet?