JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Mystery Man said:
Who was it insulting to? The setting? Ed Greenwood?
Forgotten Realms VS. Eberron. Which should I run?
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Who was it insulting to? The setting? Ed Greenwood?
Mystery Man
First Post
JoeGKushner said:
It was insulting to me Joe. But, this is getting way off the point of the thread. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss it.
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Thanee
First Post
Campaign Settings have feelings, too! 
Heh. Altho, magic isn't really so overly common in FR, just in some places, and of course, at the higher end of the scale. Commoners are just as poor as anywhere else and you can even play low-magic campaigns fairly well in many regions of the realms.
And those NPCs are really rather irrelevant. If you don't want them you don't use them. Never had a problem with that.
Bye
Thanee
Christopher Lambert said:
Heh. Altho, magic isn't really so overly common in FR, just in some places, and of course, at the higher end of the scale. Commoners are just as poor as anywhere else and you can even play low-magic campaigns fairly well in many regions of the realms.
And those NPCs are really rather irrelevant. If you don't want them you don't use them. Never had a problem with that.
Bye
Thanee
Personally, I don't use either FR or Eberron, being an old school Greyhawk fan who has enough books to buy as it is. I'm familiar with and have played in both settings before, however, and I really don't think one is inherently better than the other. Both are very imaginative and fun. It depends more on your group's tastes in fantasy and gaming.
FR is much more developed, having been around longer than D&D has. So it has much more depth than Eberron at the moment. Many DMs, though, myself included, don't consider such detail to be an asset if players insist on sticking to the "real" Realms. Keeping track of all those novels, comics, computer games, etc. is a full-time job. Just ask Lucasfilm.
Eberron, on the other hand, is entirely new, giving DMs a lot of creative license to develop things on their own. Of course, they may end up "invalidated" by later Eberron source material, but that's the risk you run with any published campaign setting.
I don't know why so many people point to "a recent catastrophic war" as something interesting in Eberron. So many campaign setting feature "recent global catastrophes" (The Greyhawk War, The Time of Troubles, The Cataclysm, et al.) that it's become a cliche.
Eberron is much different in tone from most other published settings, however, in that it feels closer to sci-fi than fantasy, with walking "robots" a common site, lightning-powered trains, etc. Like Star Wars, it marries the two genres, with Eberron being closer to fantasy and SW closer to sci-fi. I assume this "fresh" approach was a conscious decision on WotC's part when they chose Keith Baker's submission, to keep D&D from becoming stale. A lot of people seem to like it, but it's just not my cup of tea.
People have different tastes, and I think that's great. If you do end up trying Eberron, though, I suggest you leave out warforged or adjust them somehow, because they're very broken. They're immune to practically everything under the sun, which is only balanced out by them being vulnerable to shatter spells, basically. Good gaming!
FR is much more developed, having been around longer than D&D has. So it has much more depth than Eberron at the moment. Many DMs, though, myself included, don't consider such detail to be an asset if players insist on sticking to the "real" Realms. Keeping track of all those novels, comics, computer games, etc. is a full-time job. Just ask Lucasfilm.
Eberron, on the other hand, is entirely new, giving DMs a lot of creative license to develop things on their own. Of course, they may end up "invalidated" by later Eberron source material, but that's the risk you run with any published campaign setting.
I don't know why so many people point to "a recent catastrophic war" as something interesting in Eberron. So many campaign setting feature "recent global catastrophes" (The Greyhawk War, The Time of Troubles, The Cataclysm, et al.) that it's become a cliche.
Eberron is much different in tone from most other published settings, however, in that it feels closer to sci-fi than fantasy, with walking "robots" a common site, lightning-powered trains, etc. Like Star Wars, it marries the two genres, with Eberron being closer to fantasy and SW closer to sci-fi. I assume this "fresh" approach was a conscious decision on WotC's part when they chose Keith Baker's submission, to keep D&D from becoming stale. A lot of people seem to like it, but it's just not my cup of tea.
People have different tastes, and I think that's great. If you do end up trying Eberron, though, I suggest you leave out warforged or adjust them somehow, because they're very broken. They're immune to practically everything under the sun, which is only balanced out by them being vulnerable to shatter spells, basically. Good gaming!
The_Universe
First Post
I prefer Eberron to the Realms, and homebrew to both.
Eberron puts the spotlight on your PCs by design and leaves it there. They'll be the stars of this story, because there really isn't anybody else.
Forgotten Realms seems contrived to constantly remind them that while they may be the good guys, they're certainly not the best guys. Not only does it remove some of the joy of victory, but there's a tangible loss of the fear of defeat, as well - if they don't stop the apocalypse (or whatever), they know that there's another adventuring party, or a Drizzt or Elminster or Blackstaff to solve the problem.
Who wants to play Green Arrow to someone else's Superman?
But YMMV. Play what you enjoy.
Eberron puts the spotlight on your PCs by design and leaves it there. They'll be the stars of this story, because there really isn't anybody else.
Forgotten Realms seems contrived to constantly remind them that while they may be the good guys, they're certainly not the best guys. Not only does it remove some of the joy of victory, but there's a tangible loss of the fear of defeat, as well - if they don't stop the apocalypse (or whatever), they know that there's another adventuring party, or a Drizzt or Elminster or Blackstaff to solve the problem.
Who wants to play Green Arrow to someone else's Superman?
But YMMV. Play what you enjoy.
LoneWolf23
First Post
I've come to enjoy Eberron mostly because of the factors mentionned above: Religion that is more about Faith then just following the orders of a Supernatural Being; magic being applied to more then just adventuring; The Warforged; Sharn; Alignment being a guideline, not a straight-jacket, and creatures who aren't bound to "ALWAYS" be of a certain Alignment (Want a Neutral Good Red Dragon? Sure! How about a Lawful Neutral Archon? No Problem! Chaotic Evil Mind Flayer? Why Not?)...
...I admit, there are things I like about Forgotten Realms too. The Tolkienesque flavor, the High Fantasy flavor, the recognizable cultures... The sheer amount of existing details is rather daunting, though.
...And I haven't really checked out Iron Kingdoms, though I do have DragonMech.
Now, just to inject a little more spice in this debate: Has anyone considered combining Eberron and Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk?
...I admit, there are things I like about Forgotten Realms too. The Tolkienesque flavor, the High Fantasy flavor, the recognizable cultures... The sheer amount of existing details is rather daunting, though.
...And I haven't really checked out Iron Kingdoms, though I do have DragonMech.
Now, just to inject a little more spice in this debate: Has anyone considered combining Eberron and Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk?
Desdichado
Hero
(double post)
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Desdichado
Hero
Uh, no, that's not true at all. They have very few of the construct immunities at all, unless you take lots of levels of the Warforged Juggernaut prestige class, and they have many of the construct frailties instead (immune to healing magic, for one.) My experience does not indicate that they are broken at all; in fact, the warforged player in our Eberron game (who is not at all a power gamer; he's all about suboptimal characters if they're interesting, and is in fact playing one in another campaign I run) thought that if anything the Warforged could be called underpowered.Keoki said:
Not only that, they are a signature component of the setting; leaving them out is a bit like leaving elves out of Forgotten Realms.
Brennin Magalus
First Post
Gez said:
No. It was a perfectly acceptable and economical way of displaying my contempt for an inferior setting. Why is it inferior you ask? Here are some reasons off the top of my head:
A) An ineptly cobbled together, bloated pantheon of disparate gods, many of which were lifted from the Deities and Demigods book without further reflection or research (e.g., there is no Keltic "Sylvanus"--that's a Roman name) .
B) Nonsensical geography, such as a huge glacier coterminous with a hot and dry desert.
C) Anachronisms, such as an Ancient Babylonian culture and an Ancient Egyptian culture coexisting with High Middle Age cultures.
D) Lame novels that often work their way into the setting (e.g., the Avatar trilogy)
E) Lack of verisimilitude--FR doesn't even attempt what Walt Disney called the "plausible impossible."
F) Annoying, 2-D uber-NPCs
In fine, the Forgotten Realms is an inferior setting that makes for inferior fantasy. D&D would be much better off if it had remained forgotten in the dank recesses of Ed Greenwood's mind.
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MetalBard
First Post
Why narrow your options?
You might want to look someplace other than Wizards of the Coast. I am a huge Realms fan, but I know that if one gets tired of the Realms, it's usually good to try a bit of a break. Permament replacement might be too hasty, I would give Eberron a try with a one-shot. I tried that with a friend who was really excited about Eberron, one that was decidely not so excited and one that hadn't really known about it, other than that it's a new D&D setting.
I found out some things I liked and didn't like about the setting and I decided not to go with it as far as DMing (playing in it would be cool for me), but it was valuable to try it out rather than making a permanent decision on it without any first hand experience.
The other thing you may want to consider is casting your net a little farther out for more traditional fantasy. You say you're into Iron Kingdoms. That's a pretty cool setting and there are a lot more of those out there. There are a lot of variations on the "traditional fantasy" that you may get more mileage out of. There's Midnight, for a more serious and probably closer to Tolkien approach than FR. There's also Blackmoor, which has the quirkier elements of fantasy thrown in with the more typical.
Anyway, to wrap up, I would consider a setting that doesn't bump too much into the concepts that the Iron Kingdoms is covering. Eberron may do that in unexpected ways and it sounds like you're tired of FR, so I would look around more at some of the other settings available.
You might want to look someplace other than Wizards of the Coast. I am a huge Realms fan, but I know that if one gets tired of the Realms, it's usually good to try a bit of a break. Permament replacement might be too hasty, I would give Eberron a try with a one-shot. I tried that with a friend who was really excited about Eberron, one that was decidely not so excited and one that hadn't really known about it, other than that it's a new D&D setting.
I found out some things I liked and didn't like about the setting and I decided not to go with it as far as DMing (playing in it would be cool for me), but it was valuable to try it out rather than making a permanent decision on it without any first hand experience.
The other thing you may want to consider is casting your net a little farther out for more traditional fantasy. You say you're into Iron Kingdoms. That's a pretty cool setting and there are a lot more of those out there. There are a lot of variations on the "traditional fantasy" that you may get more mileage out of. There's Midnight, for a more serious and probably closer to Tolkien approach than FR. There's also Blackmoor, which has the quirkier elements of fantasy thrown in with the more typical.
Anyway, to wrap up, I would consider a setting that doesn't bump too much into the concepts that the Iron Kingdoms is covering. Eberron may do that in unexpected ways and it sounds like you're tired of FR, so I would look around more at some of the other settings available.
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