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Message: <blockquote data-quote="~Johnny~" data-source="post: 1616390" data-attributes="member: 16493">Sorry to open up this little debate again, but I can't resist! Gundark, to me, Eberron is about its wealth of details and twists rather than one major paradigm shift. Rather than try to explain those details, I'll incorporate them into the rest of this post. (BTW, given your forum name, I'll mention that one of the things I love about Eberron is that it seems to have very much the adventurous spirit of the Star Wars universe, but at the same time it's classic sword-and-sorcery D&D.)As one of the people who thought the pre-release cries of "magitech! magitech!" where overdone, I have a few explanations for this.The first is that Eberron's approach to widespread low-level magic doesn't act like any "magitech" I've seen in other games or works of fiction. Most times I've seen magitech, it has taken the form of complex machines with lots of gears and moving parts powered by magic rather than steam or electricity. Simply put, Eberron does not feature any magically-enhanced complex mechanical devices. Inside warforged, you'll find sinuous, animated wood rather than gears. Airships don't have propellors or hot-air balloons; they're boats with rings of bound elemental power. The Lighting Rail is the closes to traditional magitech, but it's a bunch of floating compartments suspended over crystals, none of which required post-medieval technology to develop. I won't argue that Eberron has "magic-tech," but it's not a Final Fantasy or Arcanum clone. It's more like a less silly Ringworld (though again, not to that extent).The second is the negative connotation aspect that Gargoyle explained.The third is that people are used to campaign settings that are essentially one-horse ponies. When they saw the first images of Eberron, they were convinced that "magic as technology" was the core of the setting. It's not. It's one of several major themes, including cold war politics, ancient ruins, dragon prophecies, new frontiers, and the cycling planes. So you saw people like Keith, me, Stone Dog and others trying to get people to stop thinking of it as "the magitech world."I'm really unclear what you mean by this. When I look at Eberron, I see places for every kind of plot I've ever wanted to play. The book practically throws dungeon-crawling opportunities at you, with the ruins of Xen'drik, the Labyrinth of the Demon Wastes, the ruins of Last War fortresses everywhere, and the Mournland right in the middle of the continent. Your reasons for entering dungeons can range from fighting evil monsters to retrieving artifacts for world-spanning organizations. Political intrigue is similarly everywhere, with opportunities for participating in it described in every region summary. Kidnappings, natural disasters, planar incursions... all these plots are available and -- in my opinion -- more conducive to dramatic set-pieces and realistic motivations than in previous D&D settings. If you want an epic war, it's brewing on every set of borders. If you want to slay monsters, head to Droaam or Xen'drik. Piracy? Lhazaar welcomes you, as do the southern seas near Sharn. Horror? There are opportunities in the Mournland, in Karrnath, and in any manifest zone linked to Mabar, the plane of endless night. Prefer to frolic in the forest with fairies? Head to the Eldeen Reaches. I could go on.What type of fantasy adventure do you think is missing or discouraged?Your definition of pulp seems a bit limited, and I'm not sure what Eberron's emphasis on organizations has to do with it. "Pulp" is an approach, one that basically started as a synonym for "sensational, action-packed, and a little trashy." It's not a confining genre like Horror, Intrigue, Post-Apocalptic, Sci-fi, or Kung-Fu.I think Eberron's as welcoming of different play styles as Forgotten Realms. So what is the difference? This is merely my opinion, but I'd say that just as FR was a little less vanilla than Greyhawk, Eberron's a bit less vanilla than FR. All three settings are great, and Eberron doesn't have the history/nostalgia factor of the other two, but I like my gameplay as flavorful as possible.</blockquote>

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