Is Eberron a dead world yet?

[Nlogue]

What makes Eberron good at doing certain genres of pulp?

1) Action Points: Creates a setting where the heroes have an edge on their opposition (villains don't get action points except in rare situations, and not at a heroes level). Could it be done differently, with a better pulp feel? Sure. That doesn't negate the tool.

2) Heroes stand out: Eberron NPCs are NPCs (PC classes are rare), and the PCs don't really have high level characters they can run to for help. Once a PC reaches mid-level, they are movers and shakers. That also means if they fail than there is going to be a big mess, because the backup won't be as powerful as the PCs.

3) There are shades of gray in alignment: No, alignment hasn't been eliminated (sticking to the D&D rules was part of the contest rules). However, there are a lot of things that make alignment a much trickier situation in Eberron compared to the standard D&D campaign setting. Consider that even the most chaotic evil priest of the Silver Flame will detect as lawful and good, not as chaotic and evil as one example of this.

4) Atmosphere: As I mentioned the campaign has gone to pains to create the atmosphere of the pulps. The political atmosphere is Post-WWI Europe. Xen'drik covers the lost mysterious continent. Lighting Rails and Airships make fast travel much easier, without relying on the teleport spell (which is very, very rare because of the low level of NPCs in the campaign).

Something that's rarely mentioned is that the kalashtar and Dreaming Dark conflict draws somewhat from the 50's cold war feel, which was important to the post WWII pulpish fiction.

Do these things make it pulp? I wouldn't say that. However they do facilitate the pulp stories.

The above is a truly excellent boiled-down treatment of what makes Eberron not only pulpy, but also unique and interesting as a campaign setting.

The differences should be obvious. In FR you ain't never gonna be Elminster. In Eberron there ain't no Elminster...you get to become him.

Action Points are such a breath of fresh air...they let you do stupid stupid pulpy action-adventury things without getting creamed for it. They remind me of the old Top Secret S.I. Fate Points (I think?) and that is truly awesome in my opinon. C'mon, how many times have you wanted to say "I leap off the cliff and try and jump on the dragon's back!" but then thought "well there is no way I can make the Jump check so why bother?" Well, with action points you might make it just this one time, cause the fates, or adrenaline or the needs of the story are on your side. Excitement ensues. In my Eberron campaign out here in Hawai'i one of my friends plays a halfling extreme explorer...he can't fight as well as anyone else in the group...but he is the star of every gaming session...cause he gets to use all those action points to do incredibly awesome things that burn into the imaginations and memories of the other players (and me). Action points are a great mechanic...very pulpy, and also just plain loads of fun.

The political machinations of Eberron are nothing like those of FR (both are great in my opinion). There are tons of secrets in Eberron that most of the world is simply not privy too. There are no Harpers running around everywhere spying on the baddies for you. Great forces of evil are working against each other in Eberron and you are caught in the middle of conflicts between The Dreaming Dark, The Lords of Dust, the Aurum, the Blood of Vol, etc. To say nothing of the Dragonmarked Houses (I like to think of them as family-owned mega corporations with a little Shadowrun feel to them), which really has no equivalent whatsoever in FR or DL.

The alignment "problem" (as I am fond of calling it) in D&D gets a real breath of fresh air in Eberron too. I hate the racist tropes set up in D&D that "all goblins and all red dragons" are evil. That's just stupid and has no place in the complexities of society...and more importantly the This Race All Evil take removes any real sense of tragedy to an adventure's story. If they are evil just killa-kill em. It's much more tragic when the people you have to kill aren't always evil, they just believe in something that directly opposes your beliefs...this is the backdrop for seriously awesome drama (or dramma, as I's like to call it).

Lastly as Glyfair pointed out - the atmosphere of Eberron is totally unique. The Last War is completely different from the other wars you mentioned from DL and FR. It was a war that consumed most of the civilized world that went on for a very long time, and as Glyfair pointed out, it didn't really end as much as it went from boil to simmer. The legacies of the war are so rife with roleplaying flavor and adventure hooks. The Last War played a huge factor in the lives of most of the PCs in my campaign out here and the hostilities/regrets/nightmares they deal with from the War really drive their characters' storylines. Pulp is very connected to WWII and post WWII. The connection here is obvious too, and more importantly, even if it weren't pulpy (which it definitely is) it would still be really really cool (and it definitely is).

Let me close with this:

I HATED Eberron when it first came out. I held almost all the same opinions expressed by Rounser above and a lot of other vocal opponents of the setting. Then I picked it up in my FLGS, sat down there and read it...I was converted. It is really a brilliant work of game design. Read it if you haven't. You'll see.

 

[hopeless]

Pulp?... in Eberron

Who said it was focused? I think it has an overall theme, but not a particularly focused one.


I'm not familiar with the details of FtA, but it's not just that a big war ended. A big war ended without any true resolution, with war simmering ready to break out any second. There are other parallels to the situation in Europe as well. It's not a direct analogue, and it shouldn't be.

Strongly reminds me of the opening movie from FF12


Who said that's what makes it a pulp setting? I said they were put into the setting to facilitate themes in pulp adventures, There are plenty of settings with airships, for example, that don't have a particular pulp feel.

What makes Eberron good at doing certain genres of pulp?

1) Action Points: Creates a setting where the heroes have an edge on their opposition (villains don't get action points except in rare situations, and not at a heroes level). Could it be done differently, with a better pulp feel? Sure. That doesn't negate the tool.

Haven't been put into the situation where they've been used...yet.

2) Heroes stand out: Eberron NPCs are NPCs (PC classes are rare), and the PCs don't really have high level characters they can run to for help. Once a PC reaches mid-level, they are movers and shakers. That also means if they fail than there is going to be a big mess, because the backup won't be as powerful as the PCs.

Nice point

3) There are shades of gray in alignment: No, alignment hasn't been eliminated (sticking to the D&D rules was part of the contest rules). However, there are a lot of things that make alignment a much trickier situation in Eberron compared to the standard D&D campaign setting. Consider that even the most chaotic evil priest of the Silver Flame will detect as lawful and good, not as chaotic and evil as one example of this.

Oooh! Are you sure about this? I always assumed that they weren't detected because nobody suspects a member of the Silver Flame being evil just fanatical...

4) Atmosphere: As I mentioned the campaign has gone to pains to create the atmosphere of the pulps. The political atmosphere is Post-WWI Europe. Xen'drik covers the lost mysterious continent. Lighting Rails and Airships make fast travel much easier, without relying on the teleport spell (which is very, very rare because of the low level of NPCs in the campaign).

Yes I do admit to liking that detail

Something that's rarely mentioned is that the kalashtar and Dreaming Dark conflict draws somewhat from the 50's cold war feel, which was important to the post WWII pulpish fiction.

And I think they're connected with the earlier conflict with the Daelkyr but thats my plot idea.

Do these things make it pulp? I wouldn't say that. However they do facilitate the pulp stories.

Indiana Jones, the 13th Warrior, Van Helsing all have the feel that would look fine in Eberron even that other thread about an opening sequence where they're fighting on top of a lightning rail comes to mind.
Imagine the Shadow set in Sharn with its lead hero having been in the Demon Wastes where he was trained to fight the evil his comrades couldn't stop leaving the wastes?
Then the Mummy where an expedition releases something truly dreadful and only the heroes aided by the remaining descendants of those charged to keep watch over the tomb have to stop this walking plague from consuming Xendrik/Khorvaire, etc.

My only problem is that I can run Psionic rules on a Vancian measure using 3.0 but not 3.5 and looks like I'll have to use either d6 fantasy or gurps 4th editon to run Eberron instead and thats even more painful!

Take care and all the best!

 

[Glyfair]

Oooh! Are you sure about this? I always assumed that they weren't detected because nobody suspects a member of the Silver Flame being evil just fanatical...!

Yes. Eberron has a rule that states that clerics need not be within one step of their deity's alignment (thus allowing a chaotic evil cleric of the Silver Flame to exist). The D&D cleric/detection rules state that a cleric detects as the alignment of their deity.

I believe it's been debated whether the above mentioned cleric detects as both law, chaos, good & evil. It's Keith's POV that the strength lf the law & good auras override the chaos & evil auras. Since I consider that to be most consistant with the rule of MGF (maximum game fun), I use that.

 

[Deekin]

My only problem is that I can run Psionic rules on a Vancian measure using 3.0 but not 3.5 and looks like I'll have to use either d6 fantasy or gurps 4th editon to run Eberron instead and thats even more painful!

Man What?

Are you saying the reason you need to use Gurps or d6 fantasy is that 3.5 Psionics is broken?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Very little beyond smoke and mirrors. The standard D&D game makes heroes special by default; you don't need action points or low level NPCs to do that - any player knows that the PCs have plot protection, in that they're challenged appropriately according to their level. The campaign focuses on them and their actions by default.

As for your war and lost world, post wars FtA and the Amedio Jungle or Hepmonaland would do fine. Or post Black Eagle Barony vs Karameikos and a trip to the Isle of Dread. Or post Time of Troubles FR and Chult.

Can't speak for Greyhawk, but the post-WWI parallels are stretched very thin for the Forgotten Realms. I've studied this era in detail (especially the Weimar Republic), and the parallels in Eberron are quite obvious.

The Times of Troubles, on the other hand, weren't really a Realms-wide war as much as a Realms-wide natural disaster. The last true conflict to span even large parts of the continent was the Horde invasion, and even that did only affect a small part of the continent. In Faerun, the various nations and regions are just too isolated from each other to make such a vast war possible.

Eberron, on the other hand, has both long-distance communication and long-distance transport which are both reasonably common and affordable for the reasonably affluent. This makes the Five Nations grow closer together while highlighting the tensions between them - just like in the Interwar period of Earth.

 

[rounser]

Can't speak for Greyhawk, but the post-WWI parallels are stretched very thin for the Forgotten Realms. I've studied this era in detail (especially the Weimar Republic), and the parallels in Eberron are quite obvious.

It's all in the execution. Zhentil Keep is continually encroaching on the dalelands, and they're basically definitive Indiana Jones style proto-nazis (read Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, and their meddlings there are very reminiscent of those movies). Red Wizards come in nicely as mad scientist types. In D&D terms, the pulp is actually an adventure, not a setting. Eberron may have it's own Orient Express, which would be nice if it didn't come at the cost of adding a sore thumb of an anachronism, and really play up the lost world stuff, but we're not really talking much new here that can't be accomplished elsewhere without the wacky stuff that's there to support a genre that D&D could approximate without anachronisms already.

Eberron, on the other hand, has both long-distance communication and long-distance transport which are both reasonably common and affordable for the reasonably affluent.

FR really stresses the whole gate thing as a way of moving around (which I'm not sure isn't a bit of a cop-out even when presented there, in that if you need to travel such a long way and don't want to deal with the "in-between bits", why do you need such a large setting? But that's just a personal setting theory thing - you need a certain size to fit in a sense of epic, diverse cultures etc.). Okay, so you can't do chase scenes with gates, but they will get you there. Gate to Chult.

I think there comes a point where you have to ask why they're trying to do this with D&D. If you really want pulp chases on blimps and trains, why not go the whole hog and go get yourself a 1930s setting and ruleset, then your two-fisted heroes can sling revolvers and hold onto their hats at the right technology level and with direct analogies, not anachronistic abstractions.

In other words, I think the WOTC designers would really rather be playing a different game, but it has to be D&D, so let's shoehorn. The result is quite weird to me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

In other words, I think the WOTC designers would really rather be playing a different game, but it has to be D&D, so let's shoehorn. The result is quite weird to me.

Whatever other argument you might want to make, I can assure--both as a designer who has worked on Eberron, and as someone who knows many of the others who have done so--that this could not be farther from the truth. They, and I, still love D&D with a passion. The idea is to open up the game to new sorts of experiences*, not to be playing something else entirely.

* And the fact that other settings can handle the sorts of games Eberron was designed to handle doesn't mean they do so as well, or that people would necessarily have thought of doing it.

 

[rounser]

Whatever other argument you might want to make, I can assure--both as a designer who has worked on Eberron, and as someone who knows many of the others who have done so--that this could not be farther from the truth. They, and I, still love D&D with a passion.

Okay I can accept that. Opposing political parties can both want what's best for the country, but disagree on how best to achieve it (or not trust the other side to do a good enough job if given the responsibility).

The idea is to open up the game to new sorts of experiences*, not to be playing something else entirely.

D&D's been "out there" from the implied setting before, what with elves...in...spaaaaaace and baatezu calling PCs berks. I never ran either of these settings, but they undeniably added to the game (and produced the fabulous Planescape: Torment which is possibly the high water mark of CRPGs to this day). I think I'd feel more comfortable with Eberron if it was an uncompromising specialist like these, and didn't come across as half-hearted in it's departure from the implied setting.

As far as opening the game up to new experiences goes, busting it out of the dungeon would be a good start IMO. There's no really usable model for wilderness or urban adventures invented yet which can compare with the "dungeon flow chart", which may well be why we have PCs catching trains and airships in the first place. Just a thought.

 

[GAAAHHH]

It's all in the execution. Zhentil Keep is continually encroaching on the dalelands, and they're basically definitive Indiana Jones style proto-nazis (read Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, and their meddlings there are very reminiscent of those movies). Red Wizards come in nicely as mad scientist types. In D&D terms, the pulp is actually an adventure, not a setting. Eberron may have it's own Orient Express, which would be nice if it didn't come at the cost of adding a sore thumb of an anachronism, and really play up the lost world stuff, but we're not really talking much new here that can't be accomplished elsewhere without the wacky stuff that's there to support a genre that D&D could approximate without anachronisms already.

FR really stresses the whole gate thing as a way of moving around (which I'm not sure isn't a bit of a cop-out even when presented there, in that if you need to travel such a long way and don't want to deal with the "in-between bits", why do you need such a large setting? But that's just a personal setting theory thing - you need a certain size to fit in a sense of epic, diverse cultures etc.). Okay, so you can't do chase scenes with gates, but they will get you there. Gate to Chult.

I think there comes a point where you have to ask why they're trying to do this with D&D. If you really want pulp chases on blimps and trains, why not go the whole hog and go get yourself a 1930s setting and ruleset, then your two-fisted heroes can sling revolvers and hold onto their hats at the right technology level and with direct analogies, not anachronistic abstractions.

In other words, I think the WOTC designers would really rather be playing a different game, but it has to be D&D, so let's shoehorn. The result is quite weird to me.

Ok. Let's review.

Mystara: Airships? Yes. Intelligent constructs? Yes. Giant Robots/Mecha? Yes(Earthshaker). Train-like vehicles? Not that I recall.

Greyhawk: Airships? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. Spaceships? Yes (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks). Intelligent constructs? Yes. Train-like vehicles? No. Giant Spider-Mecha? Yes (Queen of the Demonweb Pits).

Forgotten Realms: Airships? Yes. Intelligent Constructs? Yes. Train-like vehicles? No. Stargates? Yes.

What are you arguing about again?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's all in the execution. Zhentil Keep is continually encroaching on the dalelands, and they're basically definitive Indiana Jones style proto-nazis (read Haunted Halls of Eveningstar, and their meddlings there are very reminiscent of those movies). Red Wizards come in nicely as mad scientist types.

If you want to limit the real-world Interwar period as merely a source of whacky villains, sure.

But what's missing from the Realms is the sheer political tension you get with Eberron. There's been a huge war going on for a long time. Almost every family lost a few members to it. Several generations have lived and breathed propaganda. And now the war is over, and without a clear outcome. To many people, this could mean that their loved ones fought and died for nothing. And that tends to make people very, very angry.

And angry people tend to get radical. In the real world, such tensions gave rise to Communism, the Nazis and other fascists, and all sorts of other radical groups - many of which were stockpiling weapons. Sure, for a few years things might be good and peaceful - but everybody was expecting the other shoe to drop.

Like I said, I've studied the Interwar period in detail, especially Weimar Germany. Which is not too surprising, since I am German, and the question how our country could give birth to such monstrosities as the Nazis continues to haunt us. And it is worth remembering that the Nazis did not come out of a vacuum - they emerged from the zeitgeist of the times, the social tensions and unresolved problems.

Eberron has these same tensions - much more so than, say, the Forgotten Realms. The setting is full of people who are angry and want to blame someone - whether it's Karrnath or Breland or Cyre or the gnomes (my favorite - I suggest reading through "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" or other anti-semitic propaganda and replacing every mention of "Jew" with "gnome" to get you in the right mood).

In D&D terms, the pulp is actually an adventure, not a setting. Eberron may have it's own Orient Express, which would be nice if it didn't come at the cost of adding a sore thumb of an anachronism, and really play up the lost world stuff, but we're not really talking much new here that can't be accomplished elsewhere without the wacky stuff that's there to support a genre that D&D could approximate without anachronisms already.

I think the magic-driven trains are far from anachronistic, as long as you don't think of D&D as something that must be based on the European Middle Ages. But then again, I am a long-time GURPS veteran - so mixing bits and pieces of different eras and campaigns and working out the results is nothing new to me.

FR really stresses the whole gate thing as a way of moving around (which I'm not sure isn't a bit of a cop-out even when presented there, in that if you need to travel such a long way and don't want to deal with the "in-between bits", why do you need such a large setting? But that's just a personal setting theory thing - you need a certain size to fit in a sense of epic, diverse cultures etc.). Okay, so you can't do chase scenes with gates, but they will get you there. Gate to Chult.

So why does nobody than PCs and high-level NPCs ever seem to use them?

I think there comes a point where you have to ask why they're trying to do this with D&D. If you really want pulp chases on blimps and trains, why not go the whole hog and go get yourself a 1930s setting and ruleset, then your two-fisted heroes can sling revolvers and hold onto their hats at the right technology level and with direct analogies, not anachronistic abstractions.

What's wrong with these abstractions? Why shouldn't the heroes combine swords and wands with magic trains and airships? What in the D&D Core rules says that these things do not fit together?