What the Dorruh are you doing to my Eberron?

[Remathilis]

Though a tip to those Eberron fans who are up in arms. If you hated 4e then play the 3.5 stuff, not like they're going to further flesh out the campaign setting after all. If you love 4e and want more details on the setting use the 3.5 stuff. Sure the crunch is useless but the fluff is still intact right. Just trying to look on the bright side of things.

Before people think I'm a b4sher, I do like 4e. I love Eberron. I'm just unhappy with some of the decisions I've heard so far for integrating Eberron in 4e.

Granted, the planes are a small element overall in Eberron (as a DM, I haven't used them yet except in passing reference) but its the thing we know about. The dragonmarks is another. I'm concerned through that they are fixing things that aren't broken; I can't think of an Eberron DM upset that they couldn't use an Abyssal adventure and most of my players knew certain marks were for certain races for a reason. My fear is how many other "changes" will creep in.

We shall see though.

 

[Mournblade94]

I was skimming dragon 370 and I found this little nugget lodged in the Design & Development Column



AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! DO NOT WANT!!!!!!

One of the coolest innovations of 3e was the "multiple multiverses" aspect; Greyhawk had the Wheel, Faerun the Tree, Eberron the Orrery, etc. Similarly, there were no demon-lords or archdevils, there were the Rajah, who were just as powerful BUT tied directly to Eberron. This gave Eberron a unique feel from the traditional planes like the Abyss or Celestia and tied nicely to the 12+1 motif in Eberron (12 planes + Dal Quot).

Now, Eberron is getting slammed with the same old boring cosmology as everyone else; back to the 2e multiverse of everything goes.

Yeah, I can see that its easier to sell books like that (as an Eberron DM, I found no use for FC 1&2 or Drow of the Underdark) but I'm disliking this turn. Eberron's calling card was it was a very unique take on D&D, its looking more and more like the 4e version is going to be "The D&D setting with warforged & choo-choos".

Anyone else afraid 4e Eberron will be as unrecognizable as 4e Realms?

I don't think they will destroy eberron as they had the realms, but they are homogenizing everything. Individual flavour is gone.

They homogenized the classes, so they might as well homogenize worlds.

I look forward to the day when the defiler can run around casting spells on the Moonshae islands. There will soon be no difference between WoTC's campaign worlds.

I was never a fan of Eberron, but it had its place. Now it seems WoTC wants all realms to be similar to Eberron, all the while reducing the internal integrity of Eberron.

 

[Mournblade94]

Selling a lot of books would probably indicate that they have value to the people who buy them.
But if you dislike the aesthetics of the new cosmology, fair enough. don't buy the new books.

But as i see it, the changes are all being made to improve accesability and usability for new and old gms, and new and old players.

My problem with this, is making things accessable to the 'Everyone' often dumbs things down.

Fable 2 was a great game, but there were some conventions that the developers left out, eg. minimap. The developers said that they wanted FABLE 2 to be accessable to the casual gamer as well so alot of the conventions that the hardcore gamers were used to were left out.

They dumbed the game play down to be more accessable. Instead of expecting people to learn new ways, they find ways of simplifying, even if the hardcore gamers' conventions are more efficient once learned.

Our education system does this as well, so WOTC is not all to blame.

ANYTIME something is made accessable to the masses its integrity declines.

And also to ensure that the new books are inclusive and usable without a library of 3e books.
Which i find is a fairly reasonable design goal.

They don't need 3e books they just need a DDI subscription and a printer. I don't think most CASUAL gamers spent $96 a year on books above and beyond the core.

I've played an eberron campaign for a few years now. Very cool and (sometimes) very different from other more standard dnd worlds. But While there have been some references to the planes, it wouldn't have mattered much if our gm had used another cosmology. As i see it the cosmology is not the important or defining feature in eberron.
IMO eberron flavour is best described as high fantasy pulp, with low(ish) fantasy heroes. The specific Cosmology is slightly unimportant (but not entirely ofcourse) background fluff.

Eberron filled a nice niche. I never played in it as it is not to my tastes. I do not however think that Eberron will be massacred like the realms have been. Eberron seems to fit the 4th edition model better.

 

[Mallus]

ANYTIME something is made accessable to the masses its integrity declines.

Statements like this work (marginally) better if you proofread them.

On-topic: I like the idea of one loosely-defined metacosm that forms the basis of several different cosmologies, so subsuming Eberron's metaphysics into 4e's default doesn't phase me. If individual groups want to diverge from that baseline, or replace it completely, I'm sure there's some material in the Manual of the Planes that will prove useful. We use a homebrew cosmology in our 4e setting and the DM's keep finding useful material in the new MOP.

 

[Desdichado]

Okay, this tired old assumption has got to go.

It's possible that this isn't a fear of change as much as it is a fear of their games not being as much fun anymore.

That is a legitimate fear. (snip)

It seems to me that, despite all the verbiage you used there, that you've merely restated "fear of change" and tried to insist that is in fact something else when, in fact, it isn't.

we could already have Count Strahd flying a spelljammer, crewed by tiefling pirates from the lands east of Faerun, across the planes and perhaps stopping off in Sharn to trade astral diamonds to tribal halflings for some dinosaurs.

I don't know about you, but that I think that sounds kinda awesome.

Frankly, what bothers me is that they had to reinvent planar cosmology for 4E. It isn't as though the previous version somehow needed fixing.

I disagree; planar destinations weren't good adventuring sites, with a few notable exceptions, and they were incredibly complex and required a lot of baggage to use "correctly." I'm 100% on board with fixing the planar cosmology from 3e to 4e. One of the best moves 4e made, IMO.

 

[DaveMage]

I knew that! Do I get a cookie?

Two!

 

[Jack99]

I'm actually going to agree with WotC on this one

I think Mr. Asmodeus is pretty cold right about now.

 

[billd91]

I'm actually going to agree with WotC on this one (first time for everything, I know). I think planar cosmologies in official settings should either be standard, so as to allow for ease of comprehension as well as easy movement from one world to the next, or they should be completely disassociated. I really wasn't a fan of having all of these linked but different cosmologies for each campaign world in 3E. FR, for instance, seemed like a lot of deviation from the standard great wheel cosmology for really no purpose other than the aesthetic.

Frankly, what bothers me is that they had to reinvent planar cosmology for 4E. It isn't as though the previous version somehow needed fixing.

I'm more inclined to go the opposite direction on this topic. I don't mind the new 4e cosmology too much. I think the idea of the Astral Sea makes for a nice metaphor. I'm not too keen on some of the names like Feywild and Shadowfell, but the whole structure doesn't bother me and I find it a reasonable replacement for the old cosmology (disclosure: I was never into Planescape).

But I don't see as much value in standardizing all of the cosmologies. Aesthetic differences, when it comes to the flavor and feel of a campaign setting, matter. Cosmological viewpoints can and should be used to illustrate how the natives see the the universe around them and contrast with the natives of other campaign settings. Frankly, I don't think enough campaign settings ever dealt with this as effectively as they could. FR should have emphasized more forest/natural vista connects as mystic and powerful places to work well with the Great Tree metaphor of the planar cosmology.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I just looked again at the three-page introduction in the ECS, which describes what Eberron's all about. Nowhere does it mention cosmology. It lists Ten Things You Need to Know, and to my knowledge WotC isn't planning to change any of them. Many of those ten things will still Eberron apart from other campaign settings, from the Last War to the dragonmarked houses to the Five Nations to the magical technology to the pulp and noir influences.

Now, I cannot be sure that I'll like what WotC does with Eberron, but so far the changes seem more limited in scope than what they did with Forgotten Realms. In the absence of more substantial information, I humbly suggest that we withhold judgement.

 

[demiurge1138]

Around a year ago, there was discussion on the WotC boards about the possibility of 4e changing Eberron's unique cosmology into the default. I called it back then. Lots of people thought I was being too cynical, or not giving the 4e design team any credit. And (as I recall) Keith Baker tried to assure everyone that he was certain there wouldn't be anything as bad as some people feared.

THAT WAS DESIGNATED... A LIE.

There we go, there's the Cyberman reference for the thread.

I, too, saw this coming. When the charming idiosyncrasies of decades of D&D were sacrificed on the altar of "playability", I knew that the unique touches of the various campaign settings would be bulldozed for conformity's sake. I like 4e, but it's definitely not the D&D I grew up on, and I prefer the latter.