Eberron?

[rounser]

Your'e right. This does sound silly.

I'm sure in your D&D worlds entire magical railway sets are more than welcome, eh? No accounting for taste.

Yes, but... where are the magical tanks in Eberron?

Nowhere. I'd changed gear to using another example of anachronisms in D&D - you're right, I should have pointed that out explicitly though, given the thread subject matter.

 

[WizarDru]

The line is fine, but it's gotta be drawn somewhere.
[snip]
YMMV.

I assure you, it most certainly does.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm sure in your D&D worlds entire magical railway sets are more than welcome, eh?

I guess from what I've read, I don't see this as an entire magical railway set that has affected the world. I'm under the impression that this is one. One magical train in the entire world. A handful of airships.

By the book, you can find our vaguely lobsterlike friend in any metropolis in the land (admittedly, metropoli aren't exactly common to begin with, but meh)....vs. one magical train in all the world?

I mean, it's not like the technology is ubiquitous...it just postulates that when you have 50+ wizards, clerics, psions, sorcerers, adepts, and, now, magewrights, just sitting around in a big city, they're going to do things to make it a better place to live. Just like in ancient cities with a big population, they had sewage systems, for instance. It's not "every semi-literate society had sewers." It's "this one did, because it made sense for them to do it."

 

[Goobermunch]

I put down that I'm going to buy it. I've known Keith for a few years (though not terribly closely), and I've seen some of his other game designs. Based on my knowledge of Keith's genius, I'm in whole heartedly.

Of course, this rationale doesn't apply to most folks.

--G

 

[teitan]

I don't get it.

How are Midnight, Dawnforge, and Morningstar "wonky variations" of D&D, while Forgotten Realms and Eberron are "real" D&D?

By any objective standard Eberron seems at least as "wonky" as anything else that is "not-Greyhawk."

Wulf

It uses the D&D rules and not several modifications, like Legendary Classes (Morning Star I believe), a new magic system (Midnight) and heavily modified classes, not sure about Dawnforge but don't really like what I have heard, though I would like to look at the book before I make final judgements. I just don't like the heavy modifications that these settings make to core D&D. Eberron might make some big modifications to the core for all I know but so far it still looks like D&D from the previews, plus Action Points, something I use anyway...

WHat I mean by D&D is possessing the classical D&D tropes. FR is more D&D to the average consumer because it is the real default setting since 2e and in all the video games and comic books just about. Sure Greyhawk is as pure D&D as it gets, but FR was Greyhawk with cooler bells & whistles. Outside of FR, Greyhawk and MAYBE Dragonlance, the other settings have had more of their own identity outside of just D&D. When I play one of the three I say I am playing D&D but if I play Dark Sun, Midnight or whatever, I feel like I am playing THAT setting and not necessarily D&D. Scarred Lands I would add to that "I am playing D&D" category as well because, again, it feels like classical D&D as opposed to a neat little variation of D&D.

FR is by far... now... my favourite setting. I used to hate it, but now it is awesome and only Planescape comes close.

 

[Stone Dog]

FR is by far... now... my favourite setting. I used to hate it, but now it is awesome and only Planescape comes close.

Yeah, I used to loathe FR myself. The new book really put it in a better perspective. Aside for the fact that I just love everything that I have seen about Eberron so far this little fact would make me give it a shot. If WotC can make a setting I couldn't stand seem palatable then something that I am interested in should rock.

 

[Orius]

There's a fine thematic line between a magical robotic submarine lobster and a magical train, but to at least some of us it seems clear when it's crossed.

If you say so....

 

[Orius]

Sometimes it strikes me as odd which anachronisms D&D players will find out of place and which they won't.

Or how they find WotC's stuff to be too silly for their classic Howardesque grim-and-gritty campaigns, yet will use stuff like the obviously Looney Tunes-inspired portable hole.

 

[rounser]

Or how they find WotC's stuff to be too silly for their classic Howardesque grim-and-gritty campaigns, yet will use stuff like the obviously Looney Tunes-inspired portable hole

I guess it's the associations you make. I never thought of the portable hole that way until you pointed it out just now...and besides, silly isn't the same thing as anachronistic. A portable hole fits into a magical paradigm fine because it's just like a gate of some sort, in precisely the way that a train doesn't. It is a silly device, but not a suspension-of-disbelief destroying one like the idea of a lightning rail, IMO.

 

[Hamburger Mary]

The line is fine, but it's gotta be drawn somewhere. As silly as it sounds, a magical transforming robot lobster submarine doesn't scream "industrial age" in the same way a magical train does...but rather, Leonardo Da Vinci gone wizardly, which is much more acceptable in terms of the measure of anachronism.

*shrug* To me, the apparatus is much sillier, especially when you add in the transforming aspect. I've never been a fan of all the gnomish goofiness (gnomish ATMs? Sheesh!). But the train doesn't really bother me, primarily because I don't see it intruding on my campaign. If the players have an apparatus, they are cruising around in their very own transforming tank/submarine. It's smacking me in the face all the time. With the train, it's simply a means to get from place to place. It's a few sentences in the story that allow me to move on to the more exciting next act, unless I actually wanted the game to occur on the train for some reason. It lets me have one adventure in the arctic wilds and then wisk the party off to the desert, and I like that sort of flexibility.

Obviously, you could get the same thing from a series of teleportation gates, and my impression is that you would find that to be more acceptable. But that implies a *very* high level of magic industrialization -- having wizards powerful enough to create such gates in the first place, and then spread them across the world. I like the fact that in Eberron teleport *is* something impressive, that a wizard who can cast the spell is a remarkable individual, and that people don't just say "Teleport? I'll just take the portal."

As you say, YMMV. You use the apparatus as a gun platform for your mages, and I'll take a ride on the magical train.

(I will admit that the appearance of the engine is a little too modern for my tastes, especially when compared to the airships or even the warforged titan. But the idea of the train doesn't bother me, and I can easily get a friend to sketch a convoy vehicle that's more to my tastes.)