Have you been disillusioned by Eberron?

[MoogleEmpMog]

I fail to see how D&D has ever been Sword & Sorcery, at least since AD&D. Perhaps our definitions of Sword & Sorcery vary; in mine, wizards do not cast fireballs about willy-nilly, nor are their a multitude of spellcasting clerics whose primary function is healing (regardless of what gods they worship), nor are their heaping great piles of magic items, nor are their strongly defined alignments, nor are there a multitude of 'good-aligned' non-humans, nor, for that matter, are there orcs.

D&D has a few Sword & Sorcery themes, but a lot more High Fantasy ones.

I like Sword & Sorcery a great deal; RPGs, such as Mongoose's OGL Conan, that try to get away from "D&D" and High Fantasy, hold great appeal for me.

If a world is going to be veritably dripping with magic (as ANY D&D world is, going back at least as far as Greyhawk and the Realms), I'd certainly rather it be a halfway logical magical world, and I'd rather it have alleged sci-fi tropes than High Fantasy ones. Neither is in any way Sword & Sorcery.

Indeed, since most of the great Sword & Sorcery writers were either dead, retired or near the end of their careers when people presently in their 30s and 40s were "growing up," and High Fantasy was very much in vogue, I wonder if the terms aren't being confused here. They are not the same and have no more to do with one another than Science Fiction has with either of them; indeed, thematically, I'd say Sci-Fi probably sits between the two.

 

[jcfiala]

Personally, I continue to be enchanted with Eberron. I haven't been able to use it much, but hope springs eternal.

 

[Staffan]

I wish I had more time to re-read those few Eberron books that have come out. Paradoxically (and though it'd probably not be good for the setting) I'd like to see more books come out faster.

I think they could crank up the release rate for Eberron stuff a little bit, but not too much. This year, there are a total of two adventures, four sourcebooks (including Races of Eberron which is technically core D&D, but that's mostly a formality - the others being Five Nations, Explorer's Guide, and Magic of Eberron), and two accessories (DM screen and character sheets). Given that the adventures are pretty small things and that the accessories probably don't take all that many design/development resources, I would have preferred 5-6 sourcebooks rather than 4.

 

[cincinnati reds]

not yet

I'm hashing out ideas for running an urban-noir/political conspiracy campaign right now, actually. I love intrigue, magic, and shades of gray... hence, I think I'm going to love Eberron. But I haven't actually run it yet... get back to me in a month.

I also love Shadowrun. Don't know if that means anything, but I dumped 2nd Ed for Shadowrun. Eberron reminds me a lot of Shadowrun, insofar as style goes.

 

[Desdichado]

Did you get the memo? [/Bill Lumberg]

Anime has now been redefined as term to be used whenever someone refers to someone/something they don't like.

For example:
'Greedo shot first! The new Star Wars is too anime!'
'Man, that Fantastic Four movie sucks, it's too anime!'
'The art in 3e sucks, it's way too anime!'
'Governor Arnold is horrible, he's so anime...'

And a new bit of Internet slang is born so easily. I'm totally going to adopt this, y'know.

Personally, I'd like to see the authors move away from having Sharn-centric adventures. Yeah, it's a cool city, but it seems like almost every adventure starts or revolves around Sharn. How about some action in the Demon Wastes? The Shadow Marches? Q'Barra? Or even the Eldeen Reaches?

Eberron's a big place and I feel they may be limiting themselves by basing everything around Sharn.

That's a good point. I'm currently running a Pbp game right here set in Greenblade, a little town I found on the map on the shores of Silver Lake kinda in the border areas between Breland, the Eldeen Reaches and Droaam. With a few modifications, I'm using the keyed map and description of Diamond Lake from the Age of Worms adventure path as a stand-in for the town. But I felt the same thing; I had already done the adventure in the setting book and the first of the published modules, and while I thought Sharn was pretty cool, I wanted to explore somewhere else. Forcing all of Eberron to be so closely tied to Sharn--that attitude is just so anime.

 

[MetalBard]

I find that I'm much happier with Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk.

 

[Henry]

I do agree that the Sharn representation has been good, but I'd like to see them move on, now, to other regions. I haven't picked up Five Nations yet, but based on reports it's on my list.

I'd love to see more about Q'Barra -- the "lost world" feel of the place just makes me itch to run something there, and more plot hooks are always welcome for the place.

Karrnath is a cool place, too -- the place's "Slavic Fatalistic" feel (for lack of better terms) coupled with their views on Death and Undeath, would be fascinating to explore.

Talenta plains/barrens and the Halflings would be an excellent place to set some adventures with the looooooooosest of Wild West themes, especially pitting the Talenta against the Valenar and the Karrnathi (ambushes, village robberies, robberies of caravans on lizard-back, etc.)

And I've been brimming with plenty of ideas about the Demon Wastes, recently.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I would prefer they do more {solid} modules than sourcebooks. The feel of a setting is much better portrayed in play than in PrC's and special rules.

I think its interesting that three basic schools of thought are seen on this thread:

A> Eberron has depth that can be played as the group desires, be it Anime, intrigue, or whatever, with the group setting limits as to what is in the game.

B> Eberron is too superficial forcing robots and trains and other non-DnD stuff. No way a setting should tell us to allow everything ever written.

C> Dont care, I prefer my current game anyway.

I have to admit tho, peeling the story out from Sharn and investigating some of the 'stringettes' would be interesting. My current game started in RingBriar.. and probably will avoid Sharn altogether. The characters are aware of the city and know that that is the place to go if they need to acquire exotic/unavailable places. They also know I have recently been reading Vlad Taltos' novels and the new Thieves World books
hehehe

Anway, back to your regularly scheduled poll

 

[I'm A Banana]

Possibly we're honing in on our disagreement and misunderstanding here, KM. Would you characterize yourself as the kind of person to whom the setting and the storyline of the campaign are very tightly entertwined, and that the setting is usually a very different place for the PC's actions? I.e., setting post campaign is very different from the setting pre-campaign?

This would be generally accurate; the storyline and the setting are always very entwined, though not always in a world-changing sense. For instance, my current campaign takes place entirely in the plane of Carceri, and has a strong "freedom, imprisonment, and betrayal" theme. Most everything the PC's encounter is somehow tied to that theme, which is entwined with the setting. It's character-focused, but the setting is part of the characters. They're not going to change the world, but they are going to be changed.

So this is probably related to why I'm not into Eberron currently. It's easy to plunk down any character in Eberron. But it takes a lot of effort to inject Eberron into the characters. The same is true with plots and storylines. It's easy to plunk down a plot in Eberron. But how does it differ, in Eberron, from the plot done anywhere else? What does Eberron have to sell it?

Personally, I'd like to see the authors move away from having Sharn-centric adventures. Yeah, it's a cool city, but it seems like almost every adventure starts or revolves around Sharn. How about some action in the Demon Wastes? The Shadow Marches? Q'Barra? Or even the Eldeen Reaches?

Eberron's a big place and I feel they may be limiting themselves by basing everything around Sharn.

I think that's a really good idea, and definately could start approaching what is different about Eberron rather than how easily it can accomodate anything. It can easily accomodate everything, and that's good. Help me instead to take the feel that is Eberron's special product and put it into my game. Help Eberron *change* the campaigns I run.

 

[Sejs]

No. I think that you and Mr. Dyal are hypersensitive where Eberron is concerned and taking insult when none is offered.

"I never said that you were wrong in liking the setting."

Just that your tastes are childish if you do so.

But heaven forbid if you take offense at that assertion. Lawdy, no certainly none was intended. Perish the thought.