Is Eberron a dead world yet?

[blargney the second]

I've recently started reading the Eberron novels, and I've got to say that they've really enhanced my appreciation of the setting. My top three favourites:

1) The Binding Stone. It's quite enjoyable, and really makes me want to play a shifter.
2) Tales of the Last War. This anthology of short stories is the one I started with, and I enjoyed all but one immensely. I particularly enjoyed Ari's and Keith's stories.
3) City of Towers. WOW. This one was not only better than most fantasy novels I've read, it was quite good. Wow.

-blarg

 

[Nightfall]

Bren,

No He Who Abides, Abides no longer in my revision. But you're right it's only MOSTLY dead.

Ari,

My problem stems from the face I'm not 100% sold on warforged. Your possible change in that assessment might encourage further change.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

[FR] was DOA

I reject your [fantasy] and substitute my own!

 

[Nightfall]

Bren,

That works for me! I'd have use Spelljammer though. Most people wouldn't care.

 

[Mouseferatu]

My problem stems from the face I'm not 100% sold on warforged. Your possible change in that assessment might encourage further change.

Well, the warforged are certainly an integral part of the history and events of the Last War, so certainly if you choose to omit them from your own campaign, there will be some material in the book that is not of use to you.

That said, the same is true of any setting book, if someone chooses to omit an aspect of said setting; or any rules supplement, if someone chooses to omit a race or class that makes use of those rules.

The focus of Forge of War is (obviously) on the Last War, certainly a much larger topic than the warforged who fought in it. So even if you do omit warforged from your vision of Eberron, there's far more usable for you in the book than not.

 

[Nightfall]

Like more living spells perhaps? *likes the idea the Last War might gear some Titanswar weapons for complete devastation*

 

[Mouseferatu]

You know better than to try to pry specifics out of me before release.

 

[Frostmarrow]

I forsee Eberron will die when Khyber inside the 'O' of the logo awakes. That's what the dragons of Argonessen are waiting for.

-Then it's bye-bye Sharn!

 

[Nightfall]

You know better than to try to pry specifics out of me before release.

yeah well, can't blame a guy for trying.

Frosty,

Don't mean, bye bye Eberron?

 

[Glyfair]

While Wolfgang is certainly more than capable of defending his own work and explaining his own viewpoints, I will say that what I saw of his work on FoW certainly did not suggest, to me, that he had any problem at all "getting" Eberron.

Just so these reading this can see what I'm referencing, this entry in his blog is most of where I get this impression.

It's a project I enjoyed, but despite spending a fair amount of time sorting through the fine points and contradictions of the setting, Eberron hasn't quite won me over. Maybe it's just because I've been reading so much darker stuff lately (Poe, Stross, and Mieville), but Eberron's pretensions to noir aren't cutting it for me. Halflings on dinosaurs, magic trains, and the evil cardinals of the Silver Flame all add up to "slightly campy pulp" to me, not noir. That said, The Forge of War plays it straight: no jokes, no humor, downplay the goofy elements as much as possible. It's a military-focussed book, written to detail and incorporate the defining events of the setting. I'll be very curious to hear what people say about it.

He seems to want it to only be noir. However, pulp is really what Eberron is about, whether it be noir, lost worlds, or the heroic crimefighters (the Shadow, Doc Savage) in a magic setting.

I admit, I'm concerned about the statements "downplay the goofy elements as much as possible" and "written to detail and incorporate the defining events of the setting" in combination. This might work, but might end up with a book that is excellent but "not Eberron" (to be fair, lots of the Eberron supplements get this complaint for some members of the fan base) because he downplays a defining element of the setting.

Yeah, the setting lacks a core narrative, and I always get the feeling that the hard design choices were never made (hmmm: dinosaurs or steamtech — let's have both!).

The kitchen sink approach has some appeal, of course, but the Realms already does that and does it well. Eberron seems muddled rather than open-ended. And that noir hype/marketing talk (since abandoned?) raised my hopes for the setting and then dashed them.

I know the Eberron campaign that I would want to run. But the products to date don't support it. I like to think that Forge of War may steer things in a direction that more people like.

Again, he seems to want a limited theme that, IMO, will exhaust the possible appeal of the setting for too many people. One note settings very often get a fanatical following, but rarely are big successes with longevity as an active product line.

'd say, in fact, that the sections he worked on are all the better precisely because they played to his strengths, and I'm quite happy with what I read of them, not just as a co-writer but as a fan of the setting.

This is what I'm hoping for. It seems like it may play to his strengths. As long as I don't see "steamtech" (which isn't part of Eberron, that's Iron Kingdoms) or the fantasic parts of the setting ignored then I'll be happy with it.