Keith Baker on Eberron's Theme

[Grymar]

<double post...sorry>

 

[Hellcow]

There's a reason The Maltese Falcon doesn't have battles atop German Zepplins, and Indiana Jones does not descend into a world of moral ambiguity.

Essentially, however, that's exactly what I said. The point on concept artists is a good one. If, on the cover of an adventure, you have an image of characters fighting atop a lighting rail with a pack of masked warriors on clawfeet running alongside, I'm going to expect pulp action from that adventure. Nothing about that suggests noir, and that's fine. Not only don't you need noir elements to be in Eberron, it's expected that many DMs will actively choose to avoid them.

On the other hand, an adventure like "Steel Shadows" is aimed entirely at the noir side of things. Good and evil play almost no role; it's about greed, madness, and the tragic aftermath of war. It's a slow mystery, not a high-octane "grab the McGuffin" expedition.

Again, the key to Eberron is that it was designed with both adventures in mind. If you want the pure pulp, there are locations and villains specifically created to serve those adventures. The Order of the Emerald Claw essentially exists to fill the role of COBRA - they are the pulp black hats, the people we KNOW are up to no good. On the other end of the spectrum, the Chamber are the dubious allies who could turn into enemies at any time, whose goals may or may not even serve the interests of humanity. The dragonmarked houses are driven by love of gold and the quest for power.

So I'm not worried about putting a zeppelin chase in the Maltese Falcon, because there's nothing in the setting requiring you to do so. Again, the core statement of the setting was "Lord of the Rings meets Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Maltese Falcon" - but the point there is "Lord of the Rings meets Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Lord of the Rings meets The Maltese Falcon" - not necessarily "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Maltese Falcon". Page 250 of the ECS states that "Eberron supports two styles of play - swashbuckling pulp adventure and dark intrigue." If you can do both, great; certain villains and plots work well for this. But by and large it is a spectrum, and as you move closer to one extreme you move away from the other. The legacy of the war and threat of the Mourning are examples of things that can serve either style of play. But in an adventure that deals with the Mourning, are you primarily dealing with the despair it's created and the effects of the refugees it's driven from home - or the horrifying monsters it's spawned and the treasures left hidden within?

As I see it, Eberron adventures are trying to do one or the other (more often pulp than not), and that's what is probably throwing off a lot of people.

I'd certainly agree that the adventurers printed by WotC have been almost exclusively pulp. The Paizo adventures often go the other way. Nic Logue is interested in the darker aspects of the setting, and much of his work reflects this. For my part, "Steel Shadows" certainly plays to the noir side, while "Fallen Angel" is dark urban action, but still about action more than intrigue or mystery.

So yes, the SUPPORT for the world has been weighted more towards pulp adventure than noir. But *I* still see the noir, and still look forward to exploring it further when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Hellcow,

Thanks. I picked up a couple of books, but I haven't followed Eberron too closely because I didn't get the pulp-noir thing. You have flamed my interest in the setting with the fire of ten thousand suns. Thanks!

-BG

PS your planet is still itty bitty wrong sized! fear my dorkness of paleontology!

 

[blargney the second]

I finished watching The Maltese Falcon for the first time just twenty minutes ago as a result of this thread. Wicked stuff.
-blarg

 

[Darklone]

Guess it's time someone starts another "Which class combo has Indiana Jones?" poll.

Keith: Good posts. Thanks for the tips about the adventures.

 

[Baby Samurai]

I just want to say that "psi-fu" is the breatest term ever.

No, "breatest" is!

 

[buzz]

I'm not Keith, but...

I think one needs to keep in mind that, at it's core, Eberron is a D&D setting. Given that D&D is a game about action and high adventure, adventures in Eberron are obviously going to skew towards what most might consider "pulp," i.e., action and high adventure, i.e., the stuff for which one busts out the battlemap.

The "noir" seems to me to present itself more in the motivations behind all that action and adventure. My group has been playing Eyes of the Lich Queen for three sessions now, and it's been all about fightin' cool monsters in exotic locales, which one might say is "pulp." But the backstory that drives the plot seems pretty dead-on in the realm of intrigue that Keith is talking about.

Basically, I don't see any "brand confusion." Eberron seems to be doing what it advertised: facilitating fun D&D play with a good dose of pulp and noir color.

Aside: as kudos to Keith and the WotC folk who've worked on the setting, I have to say that, IMO, Eberron is a fantastic fit for D&D3.5. I think it facilitates the tropes of D&D and the kind of play I and my players like to see better than most of the other settings we've used. EotLQ has been a blast so far.

 

[Imaro]

Well I for one was very dissapointed in Eberron...not at first, but as I bought more and more sourcebooks I felt like I had been kinda baited and switched. Dark/noir/pulp were suppose to be the sources for this campaign. It does and continues(with majority of the sourcebooks) to do pulp well. In fact I think the tropes of D&D itself caters to this mode of play more than noir or dark fantasy. A perfect blending of these genres is, IMHO, Brotherhood of the Wolf. There is pulpy action in the fight scenes, ambiguity in the good/evil spectrum of everyone(including the protagonists), A dark and gritty atmosphere throughout the movie, etc.

one thing I want to say is...intrigue does not equal noir. Noir has specific tropes that include...flawed and ambiguously moral "heroes", a shading of right & wrong, A sense of urban grittiness and corruption that permeates the "scenery"...there's more but I'll stop here. The only official sourcebook I've seen that could be considered "noir" is Sharn.

I personally think these two "genres" are hard as hell to mix(that's why I could only site one movie that I think did it well). They're almost polar opposites and one is probably going to supercede the other. In my case, I felt D&D is mostly "pulp" out the box, thus as Eberron progressed I saw nothing genuinely inspiring me since I wanted the noir and dark fantasy elements to differentiate it from stock D&D. In the end I found Iron Kingdoms fit my ideas of noir and dark fantasy better than Eberron...YMMV of course.

 

[buzz]

I think the most problematic issue for Noir is the simple fact of how Alignment works in D&D, despite the commentary on it in the ECS. Black and white morality and objectivity are hardwired into D&D.

Aside: The Sons of Kryos (a podcast) have been running Eberron using Spirit of the Century. It's pretty cool stuff, and a good example of how big an impact the rules in play can have on the feel of the game.

 

[Hellcow]

The "noir" seems to me to present itself more in the motivations behind all that action and adventure.

It's certainly an aspect. Looking to Chapter Nine of the ECS, a few things are mentioned that could play to any sort of story. Alignment is unpredictable. Stories don't always end well. Things are rarely what they seem.

Looking to the "Halfling battle on the lightning rail" storyline, motivation is key. If you're going to the pure pulp, then those halflings should be savages who want to kill you simply because they want to feed your flesh to their dinosaurs. There's no question of whether fighting them is the right thing. OF COURSE IT IS! You're on your way to stop the Emerald Claw from activating the Necrotic Resonator, these savages attacked you, if you don't stop them they'll kill everyone on the train, crack their bones and suck out the marrow. There you have it. Pulp.

If you wanted to have a more noirish adventure that still involves halflings and lightning rails, have a friend in House Orien ask the party to accompany him on a journey or protect a special cargo. The halflings attack. But someone who speaks Halfling or has a high knowledge religion may come to realize that House Orien has placed the lightning rail across their sacred hunting grounds, or that it's destroying the range they capture their dinosaur mounts, or what have you. They aren't evil. They believe that the party, as servants of the aggressors, are evil and aren't especially interested in parley: this is the culmination of a long-simmering holy war. Meanwhile, if you take it to House Orien, they'll just say "Progress is progress - what's more important, the economic recovery of the Five Nations or one tribe of savages?"

Perhaps that's all there is to it, and it's a simple question of civilization at the expense of the old ways. Or perhaps there's another layer; those halflings are a Gatekeeper offshoot protecting a daelkyr seal (something they'd never discuss with outsiders), the lightning rail is weakening it, and the Orien "friend" has turned to the Dragon Below and is behind it. The players defeat the savages who were threatening the rail (and let's bear in mind, MOST of the people riding the rail are innocents). House Orien is grateful. Job well done. And a week later, the daelkyr emerges. In this situation, what were the players supposed to do? Let the halflings kill the people on the rail? Pulp is black and white: you can usually tell who the bad guys are, and beating them is always the right thing to do. Noir isn't always about deception; sometimes it's simply the case that in a noir story there's NO right answer. There are no good guys or bad guys, just varying shades of gray, and you need to pick the best path you can and hope you can live with the results.

By the picture, there's no way to know which story you're playing. You're fighting halflings on a lightning rail. But if you're IN the story, you'll feel the difference. So the noir story CAN be based in the grimy despair of lower Sharn, but it is possible to work noir elements into any story... if that's what you and your players want. The question is if it IS what they want - hence the spectrum. The further you push in one direction, the more you move from the other. You can hover in the middle. You can aim for the noir, like "Steel Shadows". Or you can embrace the pulp, and keep things black and white.

With that said, things like deception and loss aren't limited to pulp games. Looking TO Indiana Jones, the different movies have their share of allies who turn out to be enemies and reversals of fortune. The very first thing that happens in Raiders of the Lost Ark is that Indy does a dungeon crawl... and then has his treasure stolen from him. As Eberron says, Stories Don't Always End Well. The point is that Raiders isn't a single adventure; it's an adventure path. The reversal of fortunes in the begining is what makes us hate Belloq and savor his eventual downfall (thus touching on ANOTHER point from Chapter Nine of the ECS - recurring villains).

The adventure "Shadows of the Last War" actually went through a number of significant changes during the editing process.

• The people who attack the players in the very begining aren't kobolds led by a warforged. They're House Deneith mercenaries, using weapons temporarily augmented to possess the merciful quality. Once they are defeated, Elaydren presses the bag of holding on you, says "There's no time to explain. Get on the first rail out of town. The letter's in the bag. GO!"
  There's a few factors here. As the attackers are House Deneith, there's no telling who they're working for. THEY don't know who they're working for; the house simply gave them the assignment. And from Elaydren's attitude, it's clear that if you hang around, more of them will show up.
  Beyond this, these aren't "monsters". They're people doing a job. In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that they're using nonlethal weapons. Do you try to kill them? Or do you resort to nonlethal attacks yourself?
  These elements together are supposed to raise questions. Elaydren is an heir of House Cannith. Why's she meeting you in this dingy part of Sharn, clearly worse off then when she saw you before? Are the Deneith mercs after you or her? Hmm - the Deneith mercs had temporarily augmented weapons. That's artificer work. Who has the most artificers in Sharn?
  Nonetheless, the action is fast and furious. They're after you! Get to the rail! Get out of town!
  In the final version, these were changed to a group of kobolds led by a warforged, who were seeking vengeance for the events of the Forgotten Forge. The problem with this is that it takes away the question of "Should we be fighting", "Who hired them", and the urgency - there's no real indication that there's a lot more of these guys out there. It's simpler, and I think that may have been the issue. It IS more black and white - you're attacked by bad guys, you defend yourself. I was aiming for more ambiguity.
• In Darguun, Failin's vehicle is a lightning runner - a stagecoach-type vehicle that runs on lightning rails. There's a fractured rail system left in Darguun, but Orien won't take the chance of running it. Failin is taking advantage of this to serve an economic niche. His vehicle isn't terribly useful to PCs because it only runs on rails. As is, he has a land cart - something that's MORE useful than a lightning rail, and I've certainly had a number of parties want to kill him and take it from him. Essentially, the lightning runner focuses on opprtunity created by the Last War, and you're literally riding the ruins - you are seeing the consequences of the battle. With the land cart, it would be a great thing to have ANYWHERE, and it's somewhat inexplicable that this excoriate in Darguun has his hands on it.
• Ultimately? The Emerald Claw shows up and takes the schema from you. There's no copy; you can't copy a schema. It's supposed to be the scene from the begining of Raiders. You're hopelessly outnumbered, and the bad guy shows up and takes your prize away from you after all your hard work. You get nothing. To make matters worse, a House Cannith party finds you - too late - and reveals that Elaydren has been misrepresenting herself. She was never part of Cannith South; she was with Cannith East, and working with the Karrns all along. The Deneith mercs were working for Merrix. Now, the Emerald Claw has almost completed the schema. So now we've established the villain. He's used you, stolen your prize. Now it's time for vengeance.

I do understand the reasons for many of these changes. It certainly simplifies things. The end is more satisfying for the party than "All our hard work was for nothing". My point was "Our hard work has been stolen, but now we know the truth, and now we'll make them pay" - an early defeat to make the final victory the sweeter. Stories don't always end well. HOWEVER, given that the next adventure in the arc wasn't going to come out for months (and as it turned out, didn't really follow directly on the previous story), I can understand WotC not wanting to end the story on what was essentially a cliffhanger with a sense of failure.

Anyhow, my point is that Shadows did have pulp elements. The Emerald Claw? Clear villains. Fighting glass-studded zombies in the ruins of a destroyed city. A slowly rotating chamber threatening to dump you into a pit of fire. And so on, and so on. But it also had consequences of war, economic infighting, a critical betrayal, and an unfair ending. So I was trying to walk that middle line on some level.

I'll also note: I'm the first to say that neither pulp nor noir stories are limited to Eberron. You can run either in ANY setting. Eberron was designed with this in mind, but "Stories don't always end well", "Good people can do bad things", "Use recurring villains", etc - there's nothing about these principles that's inherently anchored in Eberron.