New Campaign Setting Hint Is Eberron?

Eberron? Count me in!

 

[Bacon Bits]

One of the hallmarks of Eberron is that thanks to airships and lightning rails a single adventure might take you to several far flung locations.

I guess I don't really see the difference between, "You board the lightning rail/airship, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully," and "You board the sailing ship/join the caravan, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully."

Personally, while I appreciate steampunk and find Warforged to be the most interesting race by far since Tiefling and Aasimar were introduced with Planescape, I'm not really interested in a return to Eberron. Higher magic and higher technology don't interest me as much, and if we're going to do a pulpy adventure with guns and magic I'd rather use Savage Worlds.

 

[vpuigdoller]

Mike Mearls mentioned on Twitter that this months UA involves races, maybe they will revisit Eberron races?

I would love more Eberron is a great Campaign Setting!

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Here's an official "Chronomancy and the Multiverse" doc written by TSR designer Roger Moore. IIRC, it was an appendix in the Chronomancer book, but then it was filled out with more examples of time travel (hence the "version 1.1") and posted by Moore on the TSR AOL network. It's now hosted at the WotC-designated Official Fan Site for Mystara:

http://pandius.com/chron.html

It shows how Chronomancer, like Planescape and Spelljammer, was a meta-setting which connected the various D&D worlds.

 

[Palladion]

I guess I don't really see the difference between, "You board the lightning rail/airship, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully," and "You board the sailing ship/join the caravan, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully."

Personally, while I appreciate steampunk and find Warforged to be the most interesting race by far since Tiefling and Aasimar were introduced with Planescape, I'm not really interested in a return to Eberron. Higher magic and higher technology don't interest me as much, and if we're going to do a pulpy adventure with guns and magic I'd rather use Savage Worlds.

Savage Eberron by Kristian Serrano: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sE2Xa9aWOlHXfB3ZX14gdJLvxm3Lzs2qJfaJozlx1vQ/edit... and now you have both!

 

[machineelf]

I guess I don't really see the difference between, "You board the lightning rail/airship, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully," and "You board the sailing ship/join the caravan, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully."

Because one is an airship that flies, and one is a regular ship that doesn't. What do you mean you don't see the difference? Oh, you mean because neither is real and it's just words out of the DM's mouth and at the end of the day the same result is achieved?

Well do you see the difference between your character shooting a bow and arrow vs. shooting a gun? Or see a difference between a warrior using a shield to deflect an attack vs a wizard using a shield spell? They are just words and aren't really real after all.

Hopefully you get my point. The airships and such of Eberron help tell a story and paint a picture of a different world. All those details added together give a different "feel" to the players playing in those worlds. And besides, in Eberron you often don't ride in an airship or lightning rail and arrive at your destination uneventfully. It's a long way to drop if you get pushed over the edge of an airship during a fight on it.

Ultimately your post just sounds like you don't like Eberron, which is cool. To each their own. But clearly the descriptive differences of a fantasy world do matter, to the story.

Edit: you know, I think I might not have understood the meaning of your post at first. On second reading, it seems like you are just saying that in terms of traveling far distances, it matters little if it's by caravan in one setting or by airship in another, in terms of getting to far-off locations. So I apologize if I was addressing something that you did not mean. Cheers!

 

[Staccat0]

I keep seeing Greyhawk dismisses as being too similar to the realms.

I think this would depend on how it was handled.

I’d like to see Greyhawk return as a large boxed set with maps done in the old Judges Guild format. No grand campaigns. One box that gives you the land, some framework and tons of little hints as to what would be found in a particular hex. That’s it. The rest is up to you.

Give a hex number where the old modules are located and have at it.

I was just thinking that it seems pretty telling that so many people would like to see Greyhawk and don’t expect to get it.

Honestly, I could see Greyhawk 5e essentially being “5e with OSR hacks”

my my actual prediction is basically a pdf that combines Planescape and Spelljammer elements (2 settings) and an announcement of DM’s Guild support of all of the settings or something lazy like that

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Sweet baby Jesus... be Eberron!!!

 

[hbarsquared]

Another one hoping for Eberron! I neither need nor want a Campaign Setting. The source material we already have is superb. I would just like 5e rules for races/artificer/dragonmarks, packaged neatly in a globe-trotting pulp adventure.

 

[Aldarc]

I guess I don't really see the difference between, "You board the lightning rail/airship, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully," and "You board the sailing ship/join the caravan, and arrive 1,000 miles away at your destination uneventfully."

Does any campaign party board the lightning rail/airship and expect uneventful travel?

Personally, while I appreciate steampunk and find Warforged to be the most interesting race by far since Tiefling and Aasimar were introduced with Planescape, I'm not really interested in a return to Eberron. Higher magic and higher technology don't interest me as much, and if we're going to do a pulpy adventure with guns and magic I'd rather use Savage Worlds.

1) It's not steampunk; it's magepunk. Magic fills a similar role as technology while also being capable of accomplishing things that mere technology cannot, even the fantastical technology of steampunk.

2) It's not higher magic; it's wider magic. Most of the world is fairly low-powered in terms of magic. Eberron presumes, however, that the relative prevalence of lower level magic would still be used for industrial and socio-economic ends by people. A lot of the bigger projects (e.g., lightning rails, airships, etc.) represent the collaboration of multiple Dragonmarked houses pushing innovation to make a buck.

3) There are no guns in Eberron.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Does any campaign party board the lightning rail/airship and expect uneventful travel?

This. One of the single best combat set pieces I've ever run, in any edition (it was 3.5), was a running battle on the lightning rail, with the rail (traveling at full speed) and the PCs being attacked by Emerald Claw on flying carpets, and their leader on a nightmare.

Any Eberron adventure that uses the lightning rail or an air ship and doesn't actually do anything with them is written wrong.

1) It's not steampunk; it's magepunk. Magic fills a similar role as technology while also being capable of accomplishing things that mere technology cannot, even the fantastical technology of steampunk.

2) It's not higher magic; it's wider magic. Most of the world is fairly low-powered in terms of magic. Eberron presumes, however, that the relative prevalence of lower level magic would still be used for industrial and socio-economic ends by people. A lot of the bigger projects (e.g., lightning rails, airships, etc.) represent the collaboration of multiple Dragonmarked houses pushing innovation to make a buck.

3) There are no guns in Eberron.

This, too.

It's perfectly fair for people not to like a setting, but I have to give some side-eye when they dislike it based on misapprehensions and not actual content.