Mike Mearls is a Genius

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not predicting that Eberron will go down in flames. But when compared to the established success of FR, it is clearly missing the home brew support element. I don't recall ever actually playing a game set in the Realms. Maybe once or twice, but I don't recall any right now. But I buy a large portion of FR material. I don't buy Eberron material because it doens't offer me things I am looking for.

It doesn't offer the homebrew support element FOR YOU. I know quite a few people who bought Races of Eberron to use outside Eberron. The element is there, it's just not there for you.

Call of Cthulu holds no interest for me, but I'd never go far as to say it lacks anything, just because I'm not the target audience for any of the products. In the case of Eberron, that's you.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm not predicting that Eberron will go down in flames. But when compared to the established success of FR, it is clearly missing the home brew support element. I don't recall ever actually playing a game set in the Realms. Maybe once or twice, but I don't recall any right now. But I buy a large portion of FR material. I don't buy Eberron material because it doens't offer me things I am looking for.

I don't know how "clearly" it's missing the home brew support element. If anything, I'd say Eberron is even more clearly designed with the idea that elements will be pulled out and used in homebrews. I don't know what you're seeing in FR that isn't in Eberron unless you simply don't like the Eberron elements.

That's a fair opinion, but the conclusion you draw from it is unwarranted. I know for a fact that warforged, changelings, shifters and dragonmarks, at least, if nothing else, have been integrated into a lot of homebrews recently.

 

[qstor]

thanks for pointing that out. It was a great read.

Mike

 

[BryonD]

I don't know how "clearly" it's missing the home brew support element. If anything, I'd say Eberron is even more clearly designed with the idea that elements will be pulled out and used in homebrews. I don't know what you're seeing in FR that isn't in Eberron unless you simply don't like the Eberron elements.

That's a fair opinion, but the conclusion you draw from it is unwarranted. I know for a fact that warforged, changelings and shifters, at least, if nothing else, have been integrated into a lot of homebrews recently.

Yes, but if you don't take warforged, then you pretty much can't take any of the organizations, feats, PClasses, etc... that are built around them. Ditto Dragonshards. Ditto changelings and shifters. Ditto the house politics.

What I see in FR is a whole bunch of stuff that works completely independently of each other. Can you name a race from the FRCS that has feats which are pretty much unuseable without that race?

In fact, I'd say you are mostly wrong to claim that I dislike the specific Eberron elements. The only one I really don't care for is warforged. A fantasy world with an entire race of what amounts to androids doesn't click for me in the slightest. Individually, I like a lot of the other stuff. I'd certainly be open to adding shifters and/or changelings into a game. But I haven't been motivtaed to do so yet. So when a new book comes out with Eberron in the title, I know that some non-zero fraction of the material contained WILL be directly tied to core stuff that makes it non-compatible with games not using that core stuff. The LACK of that restriction is what I see in FR.

WD, I think that mostly answers your comment. But I'll point out that I never claimed to speak for anyone other than myself (and if you read carefully you'll even find the word "me" in your quote). If my opinion is not significant to the overall market, then I don't have the slightest issue with that.

But, as long as there is some fraction that agree with me, then that is a percentage of the homebrew market that has less to gain from Eberron than from FR. If its 1% then I'm talking silly minutia that isn't worth my time or yours. If its 75% then it could result in the eventual death of the line. I doubt it is anywhere near either of those extremes. So it isn't relevant that Bryon doesn't buy any Eberron for his homebrew and Joe Blow buys every Eberron product that there is for his homebrew. Its the overall average D&D spender that matters in the end.

But in the end I'm just offering my personal opinion. And next time it'll be my opinion again, most readers will get that.

 

[fanboy2000]

Interesting difference in perspective.

When I dive into a new campaign with a new setting, I find it to be far less work to make up the setting as I go for what I need, than to try to look at someone else's work and make certain I'm doing it correctly. Trying to remember who is where and what the relevant established factors are is exactly what I find bureaucratic.

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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, but if you don't take warforged, then you pretty much can't take any of the organizations, feats, PClasses, etc... that are built around them. Ditto Dragonshards. Ditto changelings and shifters. Ditto the house politics.

Huh? Most of those are incredibly portable, especially the races. Yes, there is a great deal of lore built up around those races in the setting (well, not that much around Changelings), but there's lore built up around all the races, including the PHB ones. They're absolutely portable, as are the dragonshards, many of the prestige classes (the druid one in particular can be carved into multiple seperate ones -- a prestige class for an evil druid is a pretty nice one to have), and so on.

What I see in FR is a whole bunch of stuff that works completely independently of each other. Can you name a race from the FRCS that has feats which are pretty much unuseable without that race?

What a strange requirement to put in place -- it's more fair to compare to "Unapproachable East," which actually has truly new races, and has feats just like that.

So when a new book comes out with Eberron in the title, I know that some non-zero fraction of the material contained WILL be directly tied to core stuff that makes it non-compatible with games not using that core stuff. The LACK of that restriction is what I see in FR.

Huh again? FR has the exact same thing. Some portion of the material in "Unapproachable East" or "Serpent Kingdoms" is useless to anyone not using FR. That's not a bad thing, it's an FR book.

 

[RigaMortus]

Ok, maybe I am just dense or have a low reading comprehension skill, but... What is this Live Journal all about really? What is the point of the article? What "insightful" thing did he write that we already didn't know.

Sorry, I am just lost on what the article was supposed to be conveying.

 

[woodelf]

It would be extremely cool if Mike gets hired by wizards and helps develop Planescape 3.5 specifically for epic-level play.

You know, i might buy that. I was one of those who never accepted the outer-planes-for-low-level-chars thing, and just couldn't get past that in order to give Planescape a proper chance. Return them to the high-level-only setting, and i'll check it out.

 

[Aris Dragonborn]

As you've read earlier, I propose a #3 :
3. Eberron has several core stories. (and thus no focus)

Absolutely.

When I first paged through the ECS, I thought that the Shadowrun core story would work well here. After further reading, I thought that the Star Wars core story would also work well. Ditto for LotR. And I'm almost 100% positive that there are others to be found.

Eberron supports multiple core stories, so that any DM can find the one he wants to use for a particular campaign. Not only that, but those core stories can be used in conjunction with each other, as Mike showed in his LJ (Star Wars with a dash of Shadowrun).

As always, it is up to the individual DM to determine what core story he wants to focus on.

 

[Belen]

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.

Interestingly enough, I am the same way. I hate to prep mechanics for my sessions. I also use e-tools for all my mechanics needs and even used it to stat Eberron characters for the one shot I ran at my local FLGS.

Running Eberron turned me off of it. Maybe I am too old fashioned, but I prefer a more sword and sorcery setting than technomages, robots, dinosaurs, and mutants in my setting. Eberron seems more suited to be a fantasy version of Mutants and Masterminds or X-men than a good fantasy world.

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.