Is it time for a new setting?

[ProfessorCirno]

Eberron is a gorram joke. Anyone could have written that tripe. It's just everything D&D all mashed up into some unrealistic melting pot of craptastic crapitude. I like for my settings to make sense, to have some sort of plausibility to them. A theme. Eberron is just a melting pot that says, "I am trying sooooo hard to be everything and anything about D&D!"

And it's just full of epic fail. So yeah, I have no faith in WotC ever producing a unique setting as richly themed as Dark Sun or Midnight.

Don't be rediculous. Eberron is amazing.

Swinging on chandeliers, airship battles, artificer magic gunslingers, living warforged pimps, a loli pope, dinosaur riding halflings, Drow that don't fail miserably...Eberron is, quite frankly, my second favorite premade setting. Easily. How many other settings let you invade France*?

Afraid Planescape edges out ahead of it, though

Ok, so it's CALLED Aundair. We all know it's France, and it's led by the Wicked Witch.

 

[MindWanderer]

While maybe not a complete "setting" I would like to see various World-Builder books, which has lots of different sections you can slot in and out of a campaign setting to build it up.

So you would have a "Post-Apocalyptic Builder" it showcases various fantasy apocalypse scenarios and various ways races would survive, plot hooks, pre-generated NPCs, Factions, etc.

Another could be a "Technology Builder" where it goes from medieval to say 1900's in technology. With the book divided up to showcase each signifigant difference in technology and again how races adapt to this, plot hooks, factions, NPCs, equipment, etc.

Weren't those done already in d20 products? I don't use the d20 Modern line, but don't d20 Apocalypse and d20 Past cover those? I would think they'd be moderately easy to adapt to 4e.

 

[Aria Silverhands]

Aria Silverhands, I've highlighted the words that specifically incriminate you as someone who has never read the Eberron Campaign Setting. You should have a look at it, it's actually pretty amazing once you give it a chance. Giving the ECS a read might also help you not to sound so pretentious and bitter. Think about it.

I've read the setting, I've played in games and I already formed my opinion about it. It's crap. GORRAM CRAP. It's a piece of crap that shouldn't have ever been published. It's a marketing ploy by WotC to try and sell more books. 4th edition campaign books are driving this point home even further because the will expect you to own every single gorram "core" book wotc puts out.

Swinging on chandeliers, airship battles, artificer magic gunslingers, living warforged pimps, a loli pope, dinosaur riding halflings, Drow that don't fail miserably...Eberron is, quite frankly, my second favorite premade setting. Easily. How many other settings let you invade France*?

Chandeliers, hardly unique to Eberron.
Airships, hardly unique to Eberron.
Guns? Don't belong in D&D.
Yeah, pimps and loli... just what D&D needs...

Eberron is quite frankly, the worst setting ever made, imo. It has no theme, no plausibility... just a damned marketing melting pot to sell more books.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Chandeliers, hardly unique to Eberron.

In my experience, no other setting implies their usage for swinging as much as Eberron

Airships, hardly unique to Eberron.

Same with the chandeliers

Guns? Don't belong in D&D.

They don't use actual guns. You really haven't read anything about the Eberron setting, have you?

Yeah, pimps and loli... just what D&D needs...

Both were jokes. You're doing this on purpose.

Eberron is quite frankly, the worst setting ever made, imo. It has no theme, no plausibility... just a damned marketing melting pot to sell more books.

I will admit, if a person refuses to read a setting and instead decides to hate it come hell or high water, then...yes. To that person, Eberron will be the worst setting ever made.

 

[doctorhook]

I've read the setting, I've played in games and I already formed my opinion about it. It's crap. GORRAM CRAP. It's a piece of crap that shouldn't have ever been published. It's a marketing ploy by WotC to try and sell more books. 4th edition campaign books are driving this point home even further because the will expect you to own every single gorram "core" book wotc puts out.


Chandeliers, hardly unique to Eberron.
Airships, hardly unique to Eberron.
Guns? Don't belong in D&D.
Yeah, pimps and loli... just what D&D needs...

Eberron is quite frankly, the worst setting ever made, imo. It has no theme, no plausibility... just a damned marketing melting pot to sell more books.

"...To sell more books," you keep repeating. Well, obviously, Silverhands; WotC writes and publishes books, so if they aren't trying to sell more books, they're doing something wrong. That said, the Eberron Campaign Setting was among the finest books published in 3E, according to the polls here at ENWorld.

Eberron is arguably the most cohesive setting currently in publication. It was designed from the ground up to have a place for every game element currently supported, and it does a fantastic job of having a meaningful place for each. (By comparison, Toril seems like a hodgepodge fantasy setting of pseudohistorical cultural groups.) Eberron, like any good inclusive setting, has got a number of major themes for DMs to choose from:

- Volatile regional politics? Check.
- Elaborate urban adventure and diplomacy? Check.
- Threat of imminent planar invasion? Check.
- Powerful religious institutions beset by internal and external corruption? Check.
- Sprawling magical ruins from civilizations long destroyed? Check.
- Vast conspiracies and counterconspiracies by insidious powers? Check.
- Ancient prejudice and warfare between powerful magical forces? Check.​

Eberron holds a clear place and path for any campaign a DM could want to run, and it does this along with slaughtering a herd of D&D's sacred cattle. It's fresh, exciting, and particularly coherent, especially if you bother to read up on the setting.

 

[doctorhook]

ProfessorCirno: I never really cared for Planescape during 2nd Edition, and yet now I can't wait for it! I seriously hope Planescape is in 2010.

 

[Mercule]

Nah. I wouldn't object down the road, but I don't see the need. There are enough legacy settings to mine -- or re-envision. Talk to me after 4e FR, Eberron, Greyhawk, Darksun, Ravenloft, Birthright, Al-Quadim, and Kara-tur (the latter two preferably decoupled from FR) have been produced.

Actually, I wouldn't object to a swashbuckling (both in terms of duelists and pirates) setting being produced sooner, rather than later. I suspect that 4e will be a much better mechanical fit to that style of play than prior editions.

 

[Novem5er]

I voted No... but only because I don't think they should release one now. As a fan of multiple settings, I'd love to see something new, but I really don't think there's a market for ANOTHER highly detailed setting. Now, if they stuck to the 3-book strategy, then I'd be more open.

My problem with "new" setting of the past (i.e. Eberron) is that I started off buying every source book in a vain attempt to stay "on top of things" like I had failed to do with Forgotten Realms. In 2e and 3e, there was that since that everything was so detailed (by way of source books) that a prospective DM had to know everything or at least more than his/her players.

Of course, there eventually were too many source books to keep up with, and what's more, is that the newer books were often better than the first releases.

Take this for example: The Adventurer's Guide to Eberron should have been release FIRST! It took all the flavorful parts of Eberron and made a convenient encyclopedia for both players and GMs... throw in some "crunch" and it would have made a perfect first book. In contrast, do you know how many times I had to read the ECS to really "get" it?

Regarding Eberron itself, I've really enjoyed reading some of the novels, most recently the Blade of the Flame trilogy. Every time I read an Eberron novel, I want to quote the whole book and say:

This.

But the dozens of source books leave me overwhelmed.

 

[Voss]

Which is precisely why Eberron rocks!

Actually, I consider Eberron same old-same old. It takes generic D&Disms and tries to justify them. Larger it fails to do so, and adds even more modern anachronisms is in very generic, D&D way. But it never breaks out into new an interesting concepts.

But I guess I skipped the part of the thread where people went over this at length. Feel free to ignore this if you want. But Aria does have a point... there isn't anything particularly unique about Eberron. Its just generic D&D distilled down (even more) into modern fantasy tropes and viewpoints (along with some other fairly tropes from other genres that make it feel disconnected in places).

 

[Novem5er]

RE: Eberron, I think even Keith Baker said somewhere that Eberron was "built around" the 3e rule system, which created some of the odd systems that felt tacked on. I think Mr. Baker has expressed much excitement for Eberron in 4e because the rules are more flexible and may fit better with some of Eberron's themes.

Now, I LIKE Eberron, but I never felt the mechanics behind it were especially inspiring. Maybe 4e will allow the setting toe really flourish.