Mike Mearls is a Genius

[Belen]

And yet you like Modern? Seems like IH's Tokens and Modern's Action Points serve the same purpose.

You do not have to use AP points in Modern. The game will run without them. If Iron Heroes institutes a system where you can pull the classes out without needing to use Token, then cool. However, I detest Action Points etc. They are gamist in nature and only serve to draw attention to mechanics rather push them to the background.

 

[Belen]

While that makes sense as a concept, I can't see how that's actually true. Adding dragonmarked feats into my Cthulhu-fantasy, for example, certainly didn't turn the play style into Eberron. I've given serious consideration into adding warforged, and if I'd had Eberron when I started, I mighta added shifters and changelings too in place of some the races I do have. My campaign plays quite differently from Eberron; quite differently than D&D even, but I would have easily integrated those elements without changing the feel to a play style similar to Eberron.

Adding Robots and Mutants into my game would completely change the feel of the setting. If I wanted scifi fantasy for a feel, then that would be cool, but that is not how my setting works.

Dragonmarks could have seen a successful port into my game, but I choose to use the Midnight Heroic Paths instead.

 

[Odhanan]

I think Eberron is excellent as a sourcebook for homebrew setting, at least for me. I picked up warforged and changelings, still wonder how to include Aerenal elves but want to, an so forth.

I particularly agree with that Most of the d20 products I see don't take advantage of the mechanics to create a setting. They don't create new feat chains to represent a particular path, or PrCs to represent a particular concept. I think there should be more racial feats and more feat chains that represent a particular path within a class. FR had a great idea when they implemented Regional feats, and I think the racial feats and the druid feat chains in Eberron go a long way in giving the mechanics an Eberron feel to them.

Of course, I am staying away from Iron Heroes because of the Tokens. No way do I need more idiotic action points messing with my game.

There's a huge gameplay difference here. Tokens depend on classes, reinforce their archetype, and you get pools of token to use on abilities. Using glass marbles or whatever comes to hand, this gives a particular flavor to IH's gameplay, but that is clearly not for everyone, that is, namely, people playing RPGs as pure improvised theater.

 

[Desdichado]

Adding Robots and Mutants into my game would completely change the feel of the setting. If I wanted scifi fantasy for a feel, then that would be cool, but that is not how my setting works.

Ah, but you didn't say anything about your setting, you were talking about traditional D&D. As near as I can tell, traditional D&D has always had a subtle blend of sci-fi elements overly a superficially Tolkienien overlay.

And warforged aren't really robots, although that's a discussion for another thread. I don't know for sure what you mean by mutants at all -- what mutants are there in Eberron? Am I missing something obvious?

 

[Belen]

Ah, but you didn't say anything about your setting, you were talking about traditional D&D. As near as I can tell, traditional D&D has always had a subtle blend of sci-fi elements overly a superficially Tolkienien overlay.

And warforged aren't really robots, although that's a discussion for another thread. I don't know for sure what you mean by mutants at all -- what mutants are there in Eberron? Am I missing something obvious?

Shifter's and Changelings are mutants. They are both humans with blood that give them special powers.

 

[Desdichado]

Shifter's and Changelings are mutants. They are both humans with blood that give them special powers.

No, they're hybrids. They're part doppleganger and werewolf respectively, which makes them firmly in the traditional fantasy camp. Calling them mutants is a strawman.

Especially when you consider FR to be worthy mining ground, with it's proliferation of planetouched, half-this and half-that. Those are more mutant like than shifters or changelings.

 

[Belen]

No, they're hybrids. They're part doppleganger and werewolf respectively, which makes them firmly in the traditional fantasy camp. Calling them mutants is a strawman.

Especially when you consider FR to be worthy mining ground, with it's proliferation of planetouched, half-this and half-that. Those are more mutant like than shifters or changelings.

Shifter's are part lycanthrope, not just werewolf. They can have the blood of any of the various lycanthropes in them. They are mutants as well as a core race of the setting. The various planetouched etc are not core races in FR. You can choose to use them or delete them.

Shifter's and Changelings are core to Eberron. And I was not the first to start calling them mutants. I had a teenager play in my one-shot Eberron adventure. He got the shifter rogue. When I explained the race to him, his response was "Cool, I get to play a mutant!" After a few minutes, every agreed that shifter's and changeling were mutants.

I do not think calling them mutants is a strawman. They are races with special powers. They are core to the setting. They are unlike any of the "normal" races, except maybe gnomes with their spells/day.

 

[Desdichado]

Shifter's are part lycanthrope, not just werewolf. They can have the blood of any of the various lycanthropes in them. They are mutants as well as a core race of the setting. The various planetouched etc are not core races in FR. You can choose to use them or delete them.

Yes, I know they are all lycanthropes, not just werewolves, but based on their portrayal in the art and fluff, they are pretty much exactly like the classic werewolf. So, again, you are saying they are mutants and therefore sci-fi, but just because you say that they are, while ignoring the long, long fantasy tradition of werewolves.

And your distinction between "core" and "not core" is lost on me. Shifters and Changelings can just as easily be deleted from Eberron. And the planetouched are all right there in the core FR book. What's the difference?

 

[BryonD]

We're definitely different audiences.

I use ETools + published campaign settings + published adventures to help me with all the prep work that I don't enjoy and then I spend most of my time as a DM doing what I love, running the game. I've come to realize that I'm probably an odd duck among DMs, I enjoy running the game more than I enjoy preparing it. Of course, in order to enjoy running the game, I have to prepare for it. DMing is not without it's ironies.

Mind you, I do homebrew. In fact I'm running a Norse game on Saturday. No published adventure, no published campaign world. Of course, I doubt anyone's going to publish a Norse campaign setting with Psionics and Cthulhu, but I could be wrong.

Yeah, I understand where you are coming from. And I wasn't trying to be critical. I very much enjoy the process of build home brews. I can't draw for crap and my ability to write fiction pretty well meets the defintion of hopeless. I greatly enjoy running games. But prep and world building is to me a different but equally fun activity and is probably my main creative outlet.

So, I just found it interesting to find what seemed (and still seems) to be a marked different perspective.

 

[BryonD]

With FR, I can safely lift things from the books that will fit with a traditional fantasy world. I cannot do the same with Eberron except in very small doses.

I think what BryonD is trying to say is that pulling stuff from Eberron forces you to accept a style of play similiar to Eberron, while pulling stuff from Midnight, FR, or AU/AE allows you to accept/ maintain the traditional feel of D&D.

Maybe somewhat. But mostly it just the simple matter of the specifically related elements.

There is a more pseudo industrial feel and magic as technology aspect that certainly contrasts with traditional fantasy. I don't mind those things, but I don't prefer them. So that may play into it.
I also find Eberron to be somewhat more in tune with more modern approaches to cartoons and such. Where there seems to be a blurring of fantasy with science fiction and supers. Look at the new races: metal men and shape changers (times two), all three stand out as having characteristics I'd consider more typical of supers characters than D&D. Not to any great extreme. I'm not claiming broken or such. Just that they are into a different archtype.
And if that fits in with what younger gamers want in D&D, then that is great. And that would be an offsetting factor in sustained popularity. Heck, if true then that alone will MORE than offset my concern at a market level. I already said I'm not predicting failure. I'm simply pointing out why it offers less to me personally.

Anyway, not a single thing in the above is intended as a criticism. That is simply me listing some factors in regard to the setting as I see it. I somewhat prefer traditional fantasy. But I don't see my personal preference as ultimately relevant.

But I know that warforged PClasses and feats will be unusable to me. I know that dragonshard elements will require more than typical work to adapt. I know it will be a minority. But I can reliably expect 20 to 30% of the material in an Eberron book to be tied to other mechanical elements of the setting.

With FR I can take Purple Knights, rename them and go. I can put Red Wizards in one place with one name and dump a Red Wizards Pclass on a completely different group. I can take the Harpers full out, or just this class and that feat. The only thing that I can't use (which has occured to em so far) is Spellfire stuff. I don't like spellfire. Spellfire in FR doesn't compare to warforged in Eberron.

FR is 99% modular. Eberron is 75% modular. Are those number scientific and exact? No. Are they fair for arguements sake? Yes. I'm not interested in spending money on a book that is 25% wasted for my uses, before I even crack the cover.