Which Campaign Setting has the best fluff? Why?

[fredramsey]

Transportation in Eberron has a tremendous impact on the world, same as it does here. Trade, for one, is so easy as to create vast wealth for the Dragonmarked Houses, which allow places as advanced as Sharn to exist. Also, because of ubiquitous transportation, the integration of different cultures makes it possible to soften, a bit, the effects of the Last War.

With Eberron, you can't just point at a single element, like the lightning rail, and say, "That's silly, it is just background." You can't talk about the lightning rail without discussing the role of the Dragonmarked Houses, about trade, and about where the rail goes and *does not go*.

There's plenty of things going on in Eberron that tie all the elements together. It takes a little more than skimming the ECS to find them. The ECS does not have page after page of socio-economic thesis material, it's a game book. It's up to the DM to decide how much to deal with these things in his or her game. The lightning rail can just be for exotic combat, or you can look at how it affects trade and culture exchange.

 

[Nisarg]

So I'm looking through the Dragonshard articles and I'm trying to find which one specifically refutes the charges about Eberron that I laid out.. and I'm just not finding it.

Could someone point out to me which article it is that specifically deals with these charges?

Or was the point in hyping the articles just to say "hey look, Keith Baker is talking about fluff"?

In which case, I would say that its very nice that in a backwater internet-article in the recesses of the Wizards homepage he's talking about fluff, but that doesn't take away from the facts of what the actual books constitute. It also smacks to me of damage control. If my points were wrong, the fluff material is exactly what should have been in the main books. The fact that instead its relegated to the relative obscurity of the internet is pretty damning evidence of what Wizards priorities for Eberron are.

Note that I in no way think (nor have ever thought) that Keith Baker is the guilty party here. It seems to me that he has precious little to do with the whole thing, in fact.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Transportation in Eberron has a tremendous impact on the world, same as it does here. Trade, for one, is so easy as to create vast wealth for the Dragonmarked Houses, which allow places as advanced as Sharn to exist. Also, because of ubiquitous transportation, the integration of different cultures makes it possible to soften, a bit, the effects of the Last War.

With Eberron, you can't just point at a single element, like the lightning rail, and say, "That's silly, it is just background." You can't talk about the lightning rail without discussing the role of the Dragonmarked Houses, about trade, and about where the rail goes and *does not go*.

Yes, and yet everyone is still living, looking and acting medieval. It would be like if in the real world the railroad was invented and everyone was still running around in platemail, living in feifdoms, working a serf-based economy and practicing catholicism.

You can't have an advancement in the technology without an equivalent change in the intellectual, artistic, cultural and social fabric. Yet in Eberron this does not happen. Why? Because Wizards wanted Eberron to be a "medieval fantasy setting". Even though it in no way fits. They wanted it because they thought it would be what sells.

Nisarg

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, and yet everyone is still living, looking and acting medieval.

Medieval and "I have a sword" are not equivalent. There is nothing else medieval about Eberron other than the most superficial of elements.

No one has specifically refuted your claims, because your claims are ridiculous to begin with. If you want to accuse Eberron of being modern-medieval, or whatever it is you're actually calling it, you might want to investigate what "medieval" actually means.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Yet in Eberron this does not happen. Why? Because Wizards wanted Eberron to be a "medieval fantasy setting". Even though it in no way fits. They wanted it because they thought it would be what sells.

Nisarg

And so what? Eberron is selling well, so this must be what players wanted in a setting? Asking WotC to shoot over the heads of, I dare say, 75% of their market is stupid. Most people that play RPG's are do so to simply have fun. Does going into all the societal factors caused by lightning rail trains add to that fun? I would seriously doubt it. They do get into it in many factors, as stated by others, with the wealth of the Dragonmarked houses and effect that wealth has on the areas connected by the rails vesus those that aren't. Beyond that, who really cares? Are they going to sell more books by spending more energy making the world one that's believable in a real-world society sense or by focusing on making the world an interesting one to play in? After all, we're talking about a game here.

Kane

 

[Nisarg]

And so what? Eberron is selling well, so this must be what players wanted in a setting? Asking WotC to shoot over the heads of, I dare say, 75% of their market is stupid. Most people that play RPG's are do so to simply have fun. Does going into all the societal factors caused by lightning rail trains add to that fun? I would seriously doubt it. They do get into it in many factors, as stated by others, with the wealth of the Dragonmarked houses and effect that wealth has on the areas connected by the rails vesus those that aren't. Beyond that, who really cares? Are they going to sell more books by spending more energy making the world one that's believable in a real-world society sense or by focusing on making the world an interesting one to play in? After all, we're talking about a game here.

Kane

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote here. Thank you for this honest assessment of Eberron, free of the efforts to leap over logical craters others have used in their efforts to justify Eberron as a serious setting.

I'm glad that you agree with me then, that Eberron is perfectly good at what it does, but has absolutely no place being on a list of "settings with the best fluff".

Nisarg

 

[Henry]

The fact that instead its relegated to the relative obscurity of the internet is pretty damning evidence of what Wizards priorities for Eberron are.

It's just not for you, plain & simple. Worked fine for me and mine.

 

[fredramsey]

It's just not for you, plain & simple. Worked fine for me and mine.

Exactly. But Henry, there are quite a few people on this planet who not only want everyone to know that *they* don't like something, but that want to make sure you understand that *you* are less cultured than they are for liking it. If they had their way, the things they don't like/agree with would be eliminated, or at least made illegal.

Your and my likes or dislikes don't enter into his thinking. We're scum, he's god, just ask him.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Its not a suspicion, I confirmed it several posts ago. I have never read the "dragonshard articles" and indeed have no idea what they consist of or where they can be found.
Nisarg

As I edited my post to say, you said this while I was posting.

So I'm looking through the Dragonshard articles and I'm trying to find which one specifically refutes the charges about Eberron that I laid out.. and I'm just not finding it.

Could someone point out to me which article it is that specifically deals with these charges?

Or was the point in hyping the articles just to say "hey look, Keith Baker is talking about fluff"?

The charge that I mentioned the Dragonshard articles as refuting was, and I quote,

Eberron's fluff is all pre-fab. It was done by committee to allow maximum crunch to satisfy a target demographic.

This is proven to be false by the existence of the Dragonshards articles, as well as by Keith Baker (as Hellcow)'s many posts on WotC's boards.

As you are condemning the fluff of Eberron as "damage control," "[existing] purely to allow some new feat, PrC, inclusion of some creature from the MM," and the setting as "a slap in the face to fluff," you condemn the creator of that fluff and that setting as a writer of damage control, condemn his writing as drivel and uselessness (other than to allow new crunch), and as an insult, a "slap in the face," to "real" fluff.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with everything you wrote here. Thank you for this honest assessment of Eberron, free of the efforts to leap over logical craters others have used in their efforts to justify Eberron as a serious setting.

I'm glad that you agree with me then, that Eberron is perfectly good at what it does, but has absolutely no place being on a list of "settings with the best fluff".

Nisarg

I didn't agree with you. I simply don't care for ANY campaign setting to be a simulation of cause versus effect. Let the DM decide all that, just give him and interesting place to play. THAT is the fluff of the setting, which I think Eberron has some great details and locales to play in and around. Not going into every nook and cranny of a setting doesn't denote there being bad fluff.

Kane