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<blockquote data-quote="GreenTengu" data-source="post: 6774632" data-attributes="member: 6777454"><p>If you can tell me where and how in Forgotten Realms you can have steampunk technology and skyscrapers and so noir style detective/espionage in regards to noble houses and crime families in Forgotten Realms, I'd really like to know how you play yours because I've never much seen anything approaching it. I was saying focus on what makes it unique as all I have ever seen from it was a complete focus on the things that make it exactly like GreyHawk or Forgotten Realms except it is more childish, anime-esque and shallow when handling those elements.</p><p></p><p>I flipped through the Player's guide for 3rd edition and it certainly didn't imply there was anything approaching diversity in any of the regions. It was very cut and dry of "this nation is race X" all across the board. Two explicitly exclusive Elven nations (even reading ALL peoples in the region were elve), an explicit Dwarf nation, an explicit Gnome nation, an explicit Halfling nation, an explicit Goblinoid nation, a region where only Warforged lived and a region that was inhabited primarily by Orcs and enough humans to make half-orcs. That sort of list certainly implies to me that everyone keeps to their own region and doesn't bother anyone else.</p><p>The races clearly indicate which race exclusively has which mark and even the Aberrant mark can only be placed on one of the 6 markable races (which just so "happened" to be the ones in the 3E PHB). Which means the moment you have an inkling a mark is being used, you know with absolute certainty the race that is using it or if you think you are going to fight someone with a mark, you know precisely what they are capable of. It is a lot like having races assign specific spells to your sorcerer. (Although... either Warlock or Sorcerer subclasses might be the perfect way to implement a mark's abilities if only multiclassing worked a bit better.)</p><p></p><p>Warforged and Shifters are pictured throughout all the Eberron art as out and proud in the open in all the various art. Though I did come across a picture of an anti-Warforged protest, so I guess there is some indication that there is meant to be some distrust of them. There has just been a very poor job done conveying this. It would be far more interesting if a Shifter had cool powers, but they'd best be sure they can trust those around them before using them and they must be quite certain not to use their abilities publically and might want to kill any witnesses to them transforming.</p><p></p><p>So if playing two Eberron-setting games and a cursory skim through the originally printed player's guide leaves one with the feeling that the setting tends to utterly eschew its unique elements in favor of generic ones and falls very short of its potential in favor of buying 100% into MMORPG mentality, it doesn't bode well for the setting as it has been previously presented. If it is going to really be its own thing, it needs to start with something that really pushes its most unique elements to the forefront.</p><p></p><p>An AP that involves a dragon-mark using family engaging in malicious activity that the PCs need to root out and confront. Make it mystery story with chases across city streets and combat in tall buildings. Make persuasion, intimidation, athletics, investigation, history and arcana checks more common than initiative checks and have the adventure involve many morally gray choices that ask the players to prioritize their values as often as "kill the evil demon-summoning baddie". And display both the shining and the ugly sides of the world as the players explore it.</p><p></p><p>You do something like that, people will pay attention. And maybe the next adventure in the setting can be quite different-- maybe it can be a western-style adventure set what is effectively the "frontier", places that have been abandoned since the war and need to be resettled, and incorporate a lot of story elements from old popular western stories, maybe mix John Wayne together with some concepts from Kurosawa's work.</p><p></p><p>The point is, if one is going to do a setting at all, then the most ideal situation is that at the end of it one should say "I just couldn't have done this story in Forgotten Realms" and outside of a few key races and possibly powers, I just have never seen that. And... really.. given how shallow Warforged and Shifters and such tend to be handled, usually you could have just told the story in Forgotten Realms just fine.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GreenTengu, post: 6774632, member: 6777454"] If you can tell me where and how in Forgotten Realms you can have steampunk technology and skyscrapers and so noir style detective/espionage in regards to noble houses and crime families in Forgotten Realms, I'd really like to know how you play yours because I've never much seen anything approaching it. I was saying focus on what makes it unique as all I have ever seen from it was a complete focus on the things that make it exactly like GreyHawk or Forgotten Realms except it is more childish, anime-esque and shallow when handling those elements. I flipped through the Player's guide for 3rd edition and it certainly didn't imply there was anything approaching diversity in any of the regions. It was very cut and dry of "this nation is race X" all across the board. Two explicitly exclusive Elven nations (even reading ALL peoples in the region were elve), an explicit Dwarf nation, an explicit Gnome nation, an explicit Halfling nation, an explicit Goblinoid nation, a region where only Warforged lived and a region that was inhabited primarily by Orcs and enough humans to make half-orcs. That sort of list certainly implies to me that everyone keeps to their own region and doesn't bother anyone else. The races clearly indicate which race exclusively has which mark and even the Aberrant mark can only be placed on one of the 6 markable races (which just so "happened" to be the ones in the 3E PHB). Which means the moment you have an inkling a mark is being used, you know with absolute certainty the race that is using it or if you think you are going to fight someone with a mark, you know precisely what they are capable of. It is a lot like having races assign specific spells to your sorcerer. (Although... either Warlock or Sorcerer subclasses might be the perfect way to implement a mark's abilities if only multiclassing worked a bit better.) Warforged and Shifters are pictured throughout all the Eberron art as out and proud in the open in all the various art. Though I did come across a picture of an anti-Warforged protest, so I guess there is some indication that there is meant to be some distrust of them. There has just been a very poor job done conveying this. It would be far more interesting if a Shifter had cool powers, but they'd best be sure they can trust those around them before using them and they must be quite certain not to use their abilities publically and might want to kill any witnesses to them transforming. So if playing two Eberron-setting games and a cursory skim through the originally printed player's guide leaves one with the feeling that the setting tends to utterly eschew its unique elements in favor of generic ones and falls very short of its potential in favor of buying 100% into MMORPG mentality, it doesn't bode well for the setting as it has been previously presented. If it is going to really be its own thing, it needs to start with something that really pushes its most unique elements to the forefront. An AP that involves a dragon-mark using family engaging in malicious activity that the PCs need to root out and confront. Make it mystery story with chases across city streets and combat in tall buildings. Make persuasion, intimidation, athletics, investigation, history and arcana checks more common than initiative checks and have the adventure involve many morally gray choices that ask the players to prioritize their values as often as "kill the evil demon-summoning baddie". And display both the shining and the ugly sides of the world as the players explore it. You do something like that, people will pay attention. And maybe the next adventure in the setting can be quite different-- maybe it can be a western-style adventure set what is effectively the "frontier", places that have been abandoned since the war and need to be resettled, and incorporate a lot of story elements from old popular western stories, maybe mix John Wayne together with some concepts from Kurosawa's work. The point is, if one is going to do a setting at all, then the most ideal situation is that at the end of it one should say "I just couldn't have done this story in Forgotten Realms" and outside of a few key races and possibly powers, I just have never seen that. And... really.. given how shallow Warforged and Shifters and such tend to be handled, usually you could have just told the story in Forgotten Realms just fine. [/QUOTE]
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