What the Dorruh are you doing to my Eberron?

[Hellcow]

There's not much I can say without breaking NDA.

What I will say is that just because something is added to Eberron doesn't mean it's the same as it is everywhere else. Let's take Tiamat as an example. In Dragons of Eberron, we gave Tiamat an official place in the world. Now, you could say "Why bother? If I wanted Tiamat in my game, I'd play a setting that already had her." But what we tried to do was to give Tiamat a unique identity within Eberron - something that makes Eberron-Tiamat different from her incarnations in other settings. In Eberron, she is a rakshasa rajah, a demon overlord of the first age. Where other overlords embody fear, discord, war, and death, Tiamat embodies the touch of Khyber within the blood of all dragons - the potential for evil that lurks within. Just as the dragons of Eberron aren't bound by the color-alignment axis, dragons of all colors are vulnerable to her influence - and fear of her power has held the influence of Argonnessen in check through the ages.

Likewise, Eberron has gnolls - but the gnolls of the Znir Pact are as different from the Butcher's Brood as the Sulatar drow are from Lolth's children. The settings may make use of ideas or creatures created for other settings, or for the generic core. But in my opinion, if the designers are doing their job well, this should provide you with new ideas and approaches to these old things. Thus you get the grist mills of Graywall, the shulassakar yuan-ti, and so on - monsters from the core given their own unique spin in Eberron. Ditto for the planes. Thelanis may be Eberron's parallel to the Feywild, but it is still a unique part of Eberron - not simply "And here's the same plane you'll find in every other setting."

 

[Hellcow]

Bear in mind: I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's concerns. There are changes in 4E Eberron - things like "PCs can have any dragonmark regardless of race" - and they won't be to everyone's tastes. Some of them aren't to MY tastes. However, the main thing is that I don't feel that I've encountered changes that have to change my game... or that invalidate what's gone before. As I said, I don't feel that the approach to the planes impacts my vision of Thelanis or Dal Quor (or any of the material I've written about them). By the rules, PCs may be able to manifest any dragonmark, and some authors may now write novels about protagonists with out-of-bloodlines marks. But personally, I'll be saying that I don't have anyone around so touched by prophecy and keeping my marks in line (both in my novels and at my table). To my mind, changes are things of this level - things you can choose to embrace or pass by, NOT the vast changes seen in the 4E Forgotten Realms. And meanwhile, there are some things that have been added that I really like, such as the role of the Eladrin in the setting (and I'll note that one of the things I like about it is that it doesn't leave me saying "So how come you never saw an eladrin in any of my previous novels?").

So there's changes. You may not like 'em all. But I don't feel that you're going to say "THIS IS NOT THE WORLD I KNOW!!!" because I'm not saying that, and hey, I know the world about as well as anyone.

 

[Shemeska]

To my mind, changes are things of this level - things you can choose to embrace or pass by, NOT the vast changes seen in the 4E Forgotten Realms.

*nod* Thanks for taking the time to comment on many folks' worries (given the treatment 4e FR received). We'll see I suppose, but I will say that I find some similarities between how you've phrased a lot of things about pending changes to Eberron and Ed Greenwood's comments about FR when it became apparent just how radically different that setting was being changed in 4e to accommodate the 4e default materials - many of which had never existed within the world prior to that point, and many of which felt forced if not downright contrived, awkward, and alien.

The burdens of a shared world I suppose, but given that Eberron's your creation, if it takes it in the chin like FR did, you'll have my sympathy man. But we'll see when it comes out.

 

[La Bete]

I suppose it is important to keep in mind that most of the changes are to align the setting with 4e - whereas FR had those AND the "fixes" to the perceived "problems" with the realms.

Since Eberron didn't seem to have said problems (by design, to a certain degree), I would expect to see lower impact changes.

 

[webrunner]

I think some of this has to do with the feel of 3.5 vs 4e, and the feel of FR vs Eberron.

3.5 was a system that, in the core rules, was great for world building, tolkien/wot-style high fantasy stories. As a result, FR fit really well into the storyline, and Eberron had a lot of changes to core 'feel' in order to fit in as a seat-of-your-pants swing-over-the-trap-onto-the-train feel of Eberron.

4e, however, in core, already feels a lot like Eberron.. all the classes/rules are about "what can we do now that's AWESOME". FR needed a lot of shoehorning and gluing to fit into that, but Eberron, to me, is already close to 4e.. so there's a feeling that 4e Eberron will be 'too close' to the core.

Eberron was never really about the cosmology, the cosmology's place in 4e was more or less there for the "12+1" window dressing, but facts on the table makes Eberron+4e feel like it would fit great.

I mean, looking at the 4e Sorceror, there's a spell that's basically "9-minion in the corner pocket" which just feels like something that fits into Eberron more then the "towers and castles" feeling of FR.

 

[Mournblade94]

I think some of this has to do with the feel of 3.5 vs 4e, and the feel of FR vs Eberron.

3.5 was a system that, in the core rules, was great for world building, tolkien/wot-style high fantasy stories. As a result, FR fit really well into the storyline, and Eberron had a lot of changes to core 'feel' in order to fit in as a seat-of-your-pants swing-over-the-trap-onto-the-train feel of Eberron.

4e, however, in core, already feels a lot like Eberron.. all the classes/rules are about "what can we do now that's AWESOME". FR needed a lot of shoehorning and gluing to fit into that, but Eberron, to me, is already close to 4e.. so there's a feeling that 4e Eberron will be 'too close' to the core.

Eberron was never really about the cosmology, the cosmology's place in 4e was more or less there for the "12+1" window dressing, but facts on the table makes Eberron+4e feel like it would fit great.

I mean, looking at the 4e Sorceror, there's a spell that's basically "9-minion in the corner pocket" which just feels like something that fits into Eberron more then the "towers and castles" feeling of FR.

Very well said!

 

[Hellcow]

Eberron was never really about the cosmology, the cosmology's place in 4e was more or less there for the "12+1" window dressing...

Well, as one of the creators of the setting, I'd have to disagree with this. The Inspired and Dal Quor have always been an integral part of the setting; Xoriat is likewise influential even in the material plane, between the Daelkyr, the Gatekeepers, and the Cults of the Dragon Below. The concept of the waxing and waning power of the planes and the development of manifest zones (both still features of the setting in 4E) are ways to give the planes an impact on adventures of all levels. Sharn is made possible by its connection to Syrania - which incidentally also makes it prime ground for radiant idols, as the "angels' trash heap". You've got thing like the Sulatar, the Greensingers, Luca Syara, and so on and so forth.

We never had a Planes of Eberron. We never had the ROOM to develop the planes in the full depth we'd envisioned. Some of the planes have been left out in the cold; Dal Quor's had much more attention than Kythri. But the planes weren't just tossed on as another Baker's Dozen. They affect the setting in a variety of ways - and I still hope to explore them in more detail in days to come, whether it's in novels or on DDI.

 

[arscott]

Speaking of the disparity between Dal Quor and Kythri, I'm curious as to how well you'd concepted the various planes.

Was it "Here's Xoriat which is really cool because[...], Here's Dal Quor which is really cool because[...], Here's Thelanis which is really cool becaue [...], and here's where the ravid lives."?

Or do places like Kythri and Irian have a lot of interesting featues that just haven't been revealed yet?