D&D 5E Whatever "lore" is, it isn't "rules."

[ProgBard]

... say, founding a the Grand Empire of Bruce in the middle of the Sword Coast ...

Dude, careful with the giving me ideas, here.

 

[ProgBard]

Now I'm glad in the official rules they made the clas elf only because that actually gives the lore some meaning. Now they also threw in what I call "the homebrew clause" that reminds people you can do whatever you want in your home games.

Though I confess to some trepidation in even venturing forth here, I must say I think I fail to perceive the point you do us the honor of making.

 

[Shasarak]

It's not the same Realms that it used to be, although with the exception of Erin Evans' work, the novels still present largely the same Realms as ever. And the Realms has had quite a bit of its own unique lore that differentiated it from the other settings - shellfire, the seven sisters, the magister, and the relationship between the Deities and their world is significantly different from Greyhawk for example, which was much more the default D&D game until probably mid-2e and enormous amount of material for the Realms, along with the rise of the splat books with kits and 2.5e with skills and powers the core rules began to feel more like the Realms. That would have been fine, but they just didn't know where to stop...

Things like Spellfire definitely need their own rules and on the other hand are nowhere near as important to a setting then say Defiling magic in Dark Sun.

I have been playing in a Greyhawk campaign for years now and to me, other then the place names and NPCs, it does not feel any different then when I adventure in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't agree with this. What makes Eberron, Eberron is the feel and history of the setting. It's not just a name. You can make some changes to a setting and still have it remain that setting, but you can't eliminate it entirely, or even mostly. The line where it will change from being that setting into something else will vary from person to person, but I don't know anyone who would accept that I am running the FR if it's entirely my creation and none of the FR is left except for the name.

In my example, though, mostly everything would be left as it is...with the difference being that it took an entirely different route (history) to get there.

Back to Eberron: as one example of many, the Warforged (never liked that name, but whatever) would still be exactly what they are but would certainly have come about via a different sequence of events than Eberron canon suggests. Still looks, walks, talks and plays like Eberron at the table...but I can't call it Eberron?

Lanefan

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Things like Spellfire definitely need their own rules and on the other hand are nowhere near as important to a setting then say Defiling magic in Dark Sun.

I have been playing in a Greyhawk campaign for years now and to me, other then the place names and NPCs, it does not feel any different then when I adventure in the Forgotten Realms.

Yes, it's not really as important to the setting, but it's one of many little things that makes the Realms what it is.

When did you start playing in Greyhawk? Because prior to the release of the Realms, all my campaigns were in Greyhawk (not much choice back then, but we enjoyed it). The world is much more a collection of quasi-feudal states and the politics more akin to the wars that you see in something like Game of Thrones. Far less magic, in both the types of spells, types of magic, and quantity of magic items. Even following the Greyhawk Wars supplement, the world has a much darker feel, kind of like late Dark Ages vs early Renaissance.

That doesn't mean your Greyhawk has to be that way, but that's the sense I always got from the design.

 

[Remathilis]

In my example, though, mostly everything would be left as it is...with the difference being that it took an entirely different route (history) to get there.

Back to Eberron: as one example of many, the Warforged (never liked that name, but whatever) would still be exactly what they are but would certainly have come about via a different sequence of events than Eberron canon suggests. Still looks, walks, talks and plays like Eberron at the table...but I can't call it Eberron?

Lanefan

That returns to the question again of "why bother?"

Lets pretend for a moment you plan on using Eberron as written, but changing the backstory to something totally different. You still have necromancer elves, dinosaur-riding halfling barbarians, the twelve nations (including one that is destroyed by magic and almost Mad-Max like), the dragonmarked houses, artificers and magewrights, Sharn, the City of Towers, warforged, shifters, kalashtar, psionics, scorpion-focused drow and Xen'drik, and the faiths of the Sovereign Host, Dark Six, and the Church of the Silver Flame, but everything has a different background than the one presented in the ECS.

I ask, what is the value of that? Why create an alternate history that gets you EXACTLY to the world described in the ECS? Sounds like an awful lot of work just to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Lanefan]

That returns to the question again of "why bother?"

Lets pretend for a moment you plan on using Eberron as written, but changing the backstory to something totally different. You still have necromancer elves, dinosaur-riding halfling barbarians, the twelve nations (including one that is destroyed by magic and almost Mad-Max like), the dragonmarked houses, artificers and magewrights, Sharn, the City of Towers, warforged, shifters, kalashtar, psionics, scorpion-focused drow and Xen'drik, and the faiths of the Sovereign Host, Dark Six, and the Church of the Silver Flame, but everything has a different background than the one presented in the ECS.

I ask, what is the value of that? Why create an alternate history that gets you EXACTLY to the world described in the ECS? Sounds like an awful lot of work just to reinvent the wheel.

In my own personal case, because my Eberron would not be the only world in my/our played universe (all our different campaigns are very vaguely tied together by their ancient history and some other things) and tying an Eberron-like setting into what's already there would be both relatively easy and very - to the point of surprisingly - well-fitting.

The one thing on your list I know I'd immediately mess with is psionics; I've already dropped them (as something PCs can do, anyway) from my current game and I think it's better for it. But the rest - yeah, I could work with all of it, most likely.

Lanefan

 

[Blue]

The same is true of fluff. Few people will care if your orcs worship Gruumsh, Orcus, or Bane, but if you make the LG pacifist farmers and then say you run "Forgotten Realms", it starts to smell a little funny.

*snirk* Sorry, the homebrew setting I had for the campaign before what I'm currently running had two very different cultures of orcs, but also a sect of NG orc druid healers hidden in this aware forest that didn't like interlopers (especially the loggers).

But yeah, not FR material.

 

[Maxperson]

In my example, though, mostly everything would be left as it is...with the difference being that it took an entirely different route (history) to get there.

Back to Eberron: as one example of many, the Warforged (never liked that name, but whatever) would still be exactly what they are but would certainly have come about via a different sequence of events than Eberron canon suggests. Still looks, walks, talks and plays like Eberron at the table...but I can't call it Eberron?

Lanefan

I understand what you are saying, but I don't agree with it. Can you re-write how a race like warforged came into being? Yes, absolutely. Will they still be Eberron warforged? No, they won't. Eberron warforged came into being with the Eberron lore. Change that and you have some other kind of warforged. Change the entire history of Eberron and leave the current situation "the same" and you won't have Eberron. You'll have Antimatter Universe Eberron. A different, but somewhat similar setting.

 

[Maxperson]

I have been playing in a Greyhawk campaign for years now and to me, other then the place names and NPCs, it does not feel any different then when I adventure in the Forgotten Realms.

They are very similar settings. Greyhawk has the Scarlet Brotherhood, FR the Cult of the Dragon. Both have deserts caused by an arcane war in the distant past. And so on. There are a few key differences, but not a lot.