New Campaign Setting Hint Is Eberron?

Eberron? Count me in!

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Ah, thanks Charlaquin, I wasn’t aware of that. The plot thickens!

 

[HawaiiSteveO]

I really dig the idea of updated 5E 'lite' versions of previous settings!

I've read my share of massive campaign setting books, and always had trouble turning them into reality at the table. Short of asking everyone in my group to read a 256 page book, it's difficult to execute without massive info dumps to players.

 

[Von Ether]

Eberron? *Crosses fingers!*

 

[Bacon Bits]

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.

Your point seems to be "Yeah there is no difference, I just like Eberron's world building."

That's fine, but it doesn't help explain the statement I responded to:

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.

That seems to be trying to make a genuine criticism of other settings. I'm just questioning that criticism because it seems completely baseless.

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

Is any travel in any campaign uneventful? The point is that the mode of conveyance does not imply anything special about the type of adventure you're going to have or the sort of encounters it might lead to.

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.

Good Lord these are some tiny nits to pick. Are your points really: "Steampunk and magepunk/magitek are totally unrelated and not remotely similar setting genres and have a vastly different look and feel in spite of the fact that they're both set during periods of industrial revolution driven by their respective instrument of change." and "There's fluff explaining that the stuff that would take high magic in other settings isn't actually high magic in Eberron, so it really isn't even if you say it is."

I say that in both cases you're using the narrative framing the setting as the lipstick for the pig.

I like and enjoy both steampunk and magitek aesthetics. That doesn't mean that I want to run or play in a game in either using 5e D&D. As I said, I would use Savage Worlds to do that because I think it pushes either aesthetic much better.

3) There are no guns in Eberron.

There were in the two campaigns I played in Eberron. Two different DMs, one in 3e in Arizona, one in 4e in Michigan. If that's not accurate to the setting book that's fine, but I gotta say that I've never seen an official D&D setting where guns would feel more appropriate... except perhaps Ravenloft.

I'm sure now someone will now respond, "Oh, you didn't play 100% pure Eberron. No wonder you didn't care for it."

 

[Mercurius]

I don't see Xen'drik as being anything like Chult, personally. (Assuming I am right about Chult being a dinosaur-infested jungle.) Xen'drik has all sorts of terrain (since it is a continent), the ruins of the Empire of the Giants, tribes of scorpion-worshipping Drow and the Traveller's Curse that makes all journeys potentially problematic.

"Anything like?" Come on. Don't get me wrong: Xendrik is great and I agree there's a lot more going on than in Chult, but from the outside and for the vast majority of people, they are similar enough in a Calimshan/Al-Qadim sort of way.

 

[Aldarc]

Is any travel in any campaign uneventful? The point is that the mode of conveyance does not imply anything special about the type of adventure you're going to have or the sort of encounters it might lead to.

Except that it does. It's not as if your airship will be raided by sea pirates, sahuagin, and kraken. The mode of transporation is an inherent limiter. But the mode of transportation does frequently say something about encounters when coupled with genre conventions, such as pulp action train heists or murder mysteries.

Good Lord these are some tiny nits to pick. Are your points really: "Steampunk and magepunk/magitek are totally unrelated and not remotely similar setting genres and have a vastly different look and feel in spite of the fact that they're both set during periods of industrial revolution driven by their respective instrument of change." and "There's fluff explaining that the stuff that would take high magic in other settings isn't actually high magic in Eberron, so it really isn't even if you say it is."

I say that in both cases you're using the narrative framing the setting as the lipstick for the pig.

But it's not an industrial revolution period. Steampunk primarily leans on Industrial Revolution and Victorian aesthetics. But Eberron is all over the place. It is medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, with a tiny smattering of Post-WW1. It's uneven aesthetic is precisely because of how magic has unevenly advanced their societies in some ways where magic can apply, but it remains utterly medieval in other ways.

I like and enjoy both steampunk and magitek aesthetics. That doesn't mean that I want to run or play in a game in either using 5e D&D. As I said, I would use Savage Worlds to do that because I think it pushes either aesthetic much better.

I don't doubt that other systems, such as Savage Worlds and Fate, could do justice to Eberron.

There were in the two campaigns I played in Eberron. Two different DMs, one in 3e in Arizona, one in 4e in Michigan. If that's not accurate to the setting book that's fine, but I gotta say that I've never seen an official D&D setting where guns would feel more appropriate... except perhaps Ravenloft.

Guns are mostly pointless in Khorvaire due to the prevalence of magical artillery available. Why use a gun? Guns miss. Wands of magic missile do not. And who needs to "hit" with wands of fireball?

 

[T0kume1]

Don't they need both the Psion and Artificer for Eberron?

 

[Eponymous]

that looks like a clear hint at Mystara to me. Given the OSR and the love of retro the timing couldn't be better for Mystara

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I never cared much about Eberron. I read the setting book not long ago and found it generic and kitchen sink, but with a layer of paint that that tries too much to present the setting as ''totally not your average D&D''. Anyway. I'd still like to see the 5e version of it, maybe people could sell it to in a better way. I see many people talking about pulp and noire genre, but core D&D doest support greatly social and exploration pillars so far. I like setting books to throw in some new mechanics and assumption to the core rules, not just for players sakes (magic item creation and whatnot) but also new rules for DM to elevate the flavor of the setting beyond ''Core with a new coat of paint''.

So, having just finished reading the corebook for Blades in the Dark, I would really be interested in some elaborate mechanics for heist and managing crews of expert. Also I find the Clocks as plot-timers would be very interesting for a game that pushes heavily on the faction politics such as Eberron.

I could even propose to steal the Audience rules from AiME to further enhance the fact that in Eberron your average hero is still playing against powerful groups that wont be bullied unlike in Fearun where the world bows down to the god-like powers of the adventurers.

 

[amethal]

"Anything like?" Come on. Don't get me wrong: Xendrik is great and I agree there's a lot more going on than in Chult, but from the outside and for the vast majority of people, they are similar enough in a Calimshan/Al-Qadim sort of way.

I think Q'Barra is more like Chult than Xen'drik is. However, I'll agree with your last bit, since I don't think Calimshan is much like Al-Qadim either ...