Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 1617175" data-attributes="member: 957">Well, I think it was you that I had this exact discussion with before.I don't for the life of me see how you can look at the sentence "In Eberron, magic is almost technology." and then turn around and try to argue that it is not magic-tech on the basis of your own personal and highly narrow definition.  Magic-tech means that magic functions as technology.  Of course the insides of a magic tool will look completely different than the insides of a physics and chemistry technical tool.  Who cares?  Magic tech is about magic as the alternate process of achieving the same function.Quite simply, you were wrong.And if that were the end of it, then no big deal.  But to then go around slamming other people for being "ill-informed" when it turns out they knew what they were talking about better than you did is fairly lame.On the "pulp" thing, I think you are taking advantage of this term being used to mean different things.  If "pulp" simply means what you are now saying, the Eberron is no more pulp than Greyhawk.  Seriously, by the defintion you are now using, how are FR NOT pulp?  Action points?  I've got Unearthed Arcana, so I can add Action Points in a snap.  What does Eberron got that meets the definition you are now using that FR does not?Eberron is described (on page 8, among other places) as a setting of "Swashbuckling action and dark adventure".  Other terms used to describe it include heavy in intrigue and political and economic conflict.  Plots are described as strongly inspired by Indiana Jones meets Casablanca style action.  "Pulp" has been used as a shorthand for this.  And it is a sufficiently accurate defintion.  But just because the term has other, more generic, defintions, you can not ignore the context of the usage.IMO, a world where you are told where the drow are and where the half-orcs are, and so on and so forth, and many of the character features (feats, PClasses) are tied to houses and other political groups, then you are nudged (not FORCED, but nudged) into having these intrigue elements built into your character's lives and those into the plots that they go into.  And I know that you can shoot down these points one by one.  I can list more and you can shoot down those as well.  The point is not that these issues are unassailable.  It is that if I don't want to deal with one or more of these issues, then a setting that does not require me to shoot them down is preferable.  And I do think that the intrigue, cold war (whatever term you prefer) thing plays into this and to some degree requires it.  The intrigue is based on the set dynamic of the setting.  Political strife between houses and other groups is important.  But it is hard to be in a cold war and keeping secrets from other houses when there are F'ing drow coming out of the ground everywhere trying to destroy ALL of the houses.  That would change the political dynamics and take away from the +2 to bluff and intimidate that two of the four new PC races have.  Of course, I can easily throw Keith's recommendations out the window and have a massive drow invasion.  But I would be out of step with the plan.If I read your comments correctly, then Eberron is 100% as good as FR in every way, except for certain types of action, in which it is better.  Is that truly your assessment?  I do not believe that this lack of give and take exists.Mouseferatu,My turn to nitpick.  On the changing defintion of "pulp".  You first brought up the Ravenloft example.  And in these two quotes you change the working defintion from the Eberron context, to this new (applicable to virtually any D&D setting) defintion.  I'm not trying to simply be an ass and say "I got you."  Because I haven't and that isn't the point anyway.  I am simply demonstrating that the defintion in which my point about "pulp" is reasonable, is and has been used.Now, it is funny that I need to be on the defensive about all this.  If you go back and look I don't think you will find anywhere that I have said Eberron is bad.  Hell, I seriously think I may use it for some one-offs.  I have been a bit aggressive about the "you are ill-informed if you think it is magic-tech" thing.  I'm sorry that I am not enough of a Zen dude to be less irked by that.  But I'm not.  But none of those comments have been aimed at Keith or WotC or Eberron.  There is no reason they should be.  This thread is about "what is different?".   To me, two things jump out that are different.  1) It IS magic-tech and 2) It colors the plots within the setting with "pulp definition #1", politics, whatever.  There is not a single thing in the world that makes either of these things bad.  And OF COURSE there are going to be lots of people for whom this is EXACTLY what they want.  If those things are neutral or positive to you and you are even slightly in the market for a campaign setting, then GO BUY THIS BOOK.  It is well done.  I can show you where I said that before, can you show me where I contradicted it?I get the idea that some people are really caught up in Eberron, though, and any statement that can be viewed in any way as a downside for anyone is to be attacked.  These two things just are not that big a deal.  But there just may be some people out there who are interested in hearing opinions from people other than those in the choir.</blockquote>

Verification