Which Campaign Setting has the best fluff? Why?

[hong]

Yes, I suppose you can play D&D as a darwinian fantasy where the PCs and high-level NPCs really are Nazi ubermenschen, inherently superior to their social lessers.

You say THAT like it's a negative thing.

But that would only really make sense if all the PCs are from the upper classes.

Well, you know how the saying goes: power grows out of the barrel of bat guano.

As soon as the serfs start producing some kids who hit 4th or 5th level themselves, its right back to "why the am I supposed to die for this 's treasury?"

"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the bat poo."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Yes, I suppose you can play D&D as a darwinian fantasy where the PCs and high-level NPCs really are Nazi ubermenschen, inherently superior to their social lessers. But that would only really make sense if all the PCs are from the upper classes.
As soon as the serfs start producing some kids who hit 4th or 5th level themselves, its right back to "why the am I supposed to die for this 's treasury?"

Last I checked, that's exactly what happens - 4th and 5th level serfs become adventurers, go to the big city, and either get shipped off to Xendrik or make names for themselves, becoming wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.

The nobles in Eberron tend to be in the 3-5 level range, the commoners 1-2; PCs, whether common or noble, tend to get well beyond 5th if they survive. However, their lives are considerably more dangerous, so very few of them ever hit 6th level. Those who do become part of the upper class by default (or by wealth-by-level guidelines).

A PC's starting gold is enough to pay for the food and shelter of a dozen peasants. By the time he hits 3rd level, he's rich. By 6th level, he has a fortune. By 10th level, he's got more cash (admittedly, much of it tied up in non-liquid investments like magic items) than most any regional lord.

You're also apparently saying that in D&D worlds feudal lords have a vested interest in having highly educated serfs, because those serfs will be participating in combat with the goblins.. is that correct? because I don't get that point at all. In the real world peasents were regularly forced to serve in their feudal lord's armies, and it was just one more reason why you would NOT want peasants to be educated at all.
As soon as a serf is even slightly educated, they'll become more aware of how mind-numbingly crushing their existence is, and want to better it. The serfs wanting to better their existence means they won't want to be your serfs anymore.

I don't entirely agree regarding educated serfs, but it's really beside the point.

Education means the difference between a 1% chance of having Adept levies and a 3% chance of having Wizard levies. That IS the difference between winning and losing. An army that can't manage the latter WILL lose. Simple as that.

Since life in Galifar appears to have been relatively easy and comfortable prior to the Last War, there was no sweeping drive for educated serfs (who are quite able to 'better' themselves if they're willing to risk life and limb on a daily basis) to rise up and overthrow their not-terribly-oppressive overlords. Revolutions spring up far more often from starvation than from education. Education, if anything, simply made revolutionaries more successful than their predecessors.

Once again, the Last War, a time of actual hardship based off somewhat flimsy motives, seems unrealistic. The War surely trained many veterans to higher levels (3-4, at least) and gave them a reason to want to rebel - particularly if they were spellcasters with sufficient Knowledge ranks to know that while Khorvaire beat itself to a pulp, cyclopean powers loomed on basically every other continent, possibly waiting for a chance to strike. A century of this? No, that's NOT realistic.

 

[Kanegrundar]

The evidence is right there in the book, unless you elect to ignore the inconsistencies.

Oh for Pete's sake, it's called suspension of disbelief!!! When you play in a fantasy game (or sci-fi for that matter) you play in a world filled with the unreal from dragons to magic. If you're able to suspend disbelief for that, how can you not for these societal inconsistencies?!?!?

Kane

 

[Kanegrundar]

Again, like I said already on this thread, when it comes to this sort of thing NO effort is preferrable to a HALF-ASSED job.

I HIGHLY disagree that Eberron was done half-assed. There are a LOT of setting out there (some done by TSR back in the day) that were/are way worse. It may not be your cup of tea, but I find it to be well-done for what it sets out to do. It created a fantasy world that is interesting and fun to play. Period.

I've really got to wonder. What do you hope to gain by blasting Eberron into the ground? Are you hoping that people that enjoy the setting will change their minds and stop supporting it? Are you simply wanting to flex your intellect? Or are you simply that riled up about a game setting? If the last is true (I won't comment on the first two), then get over it and move onto something that you enjoy more. After all, the bottom line of any game is to have fun.

Kane

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Oh for Pete's sake, it's called suspension of disbelief!!! When you play in a fantasy game (or sci-fi for that matter) you play in a world filled with the unreal from dragons to magic. If you're able to suspend disbelief for that, how can you not for these societal inconsistencies?!?!?

For what it's worth, I have trouble accepting societal inconsistencies, too, although Nisarg and I have different standards of acceptability and, for that matter, of inconsistency.

Humans react to stimuli in ways that can be gleaned from the historical record. In situation x, an average human will often respond by y. Situation in this case encompasses things like climate and culture. While it's impossible to predict the response of an individual human, it's not impossible to predict the response of an average taken from, say, a million humans (although fantasy worlds have a bizarre tendency to skew their demographics so low that you couldn't assemble a million humans).

When a world grossly violates what we can determine to be the average response, it sticks out to me. Eberron's culture seems relatively believable to me, although if one seeks to poke holes in it the fabric is thin in spots. Toril (the planet of the Forgotten Realms) displays completely unbelievable cultures, and yes, they bug me. Krynn (Dragonlance) is in some ways worse.

Magic doesn't necessarily change what humans are. Dragons should (being clearly the top of the food chain, the spot humanity has held for millennia), but rarely do.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I HIGHLY disagree that Eberron was done half-assed. There are a LOT of setting out there (some done by TSR back in the day) that were/are way worse. It may not be your cup of tea, but I find it to be well-done for what it sets out to do. It created a fantasy world that is interesting and fun to play. Period.

I've really got to wonder. What do you hope to gain by blasting Eberron into the ground? Are you hoping that people that enjoy the setting will change their minds and stop supporting it? Are you simply wanting to flex your intellect? Or are you simply that riled up about a game setting? If the last is true (I won't comment on the first two), then get over it and move onto something that you enjoy more. After all, the bottom line of any game is to have fun.

And the bottom line of any message board is to argue pointlessly.

What do you hope to gain by blasting Nisarg's blasting of Eberron?

I agree with you as to the halfassitude of Eberron (or lack thereof) and disagree with almost every point Nisarg has made about either Khorvaire or Europe, but relish the chance to contest the matter.

 

[Kanegrundar]

For me, Moogle, I didn't even think about the supposed inconsistencies that Nisarg is arguing. There are times that I notice such things in campaign settings, but as long as the material is well-written and interesting, I don't care. If there's only one thing that miffs me about a setting I overall enjoy, I can always say "POOF" that culture or whatever that is annoying me is gone. So it's not that I don't see these things, it's just that they don't bother me in the way that they get under Nisarg's skin because I realize that it's a game and doesn't matter to anything in the long run.

Kane

 

[Kanegrundar]

And the bottom line of any message board is to argue pointlessly.

Hehehe. True. But there is such a thing as savagely beating a dead horse.

What do you hope to gain by blasting Nisarg's blasting of Eberron?

I guess a little insight. I loathe to admit it, but his way of thinking intrigues me at times. I rarely agree with him, but it's sometimes interesting to read his tirades about WOD trying too much to cater to the "intellectual" and then go on a sociology rant about Eberron. It's hilarious. I'd just like to know a bit about why he continues to slam Eberron as he has since before the release. Yeah, I know, I'm weird.

Kane

 

[Nisarg]

I guess a little insight. I loathe to admit it, but his way of thinking intrigues me at times. I rarely agree with him, but it's sometimes interesting to read his tirades about WOD trying too much to cater to the "intellectual" and then go on a sociology rant about Eberron. It's hilarious. I'd just like to know a bit about why he continues to slam Eberron as he has since before the release. Yeah, I know, I'm weird.

Kane

Whoa whoa hold it there.. I did NOT slam Eberron before its release! I had, in the rare posts I had mentioned Eberron, stated both my hopes and fears for the setting, and my then sincere hope that it lived up to what buzz I was hearing about it.
My disappointment with it now is due to my disillusionment with the finished product as compared to the hype. Its like watching really really bitching previews to the film only to find out that everything good about the film was in the minute and a half of preview footage and the rest sucks.

As to the socio-historical issues, I realize many people will be able to enjoy playing in Eberron; I couldn't enjoy Eberron as such because its inconsistencies happen to be those that particularly get to me; much the way some people can't enjoy certain sci-fi settings because those settings claim to be realistic but are based on completely flawed science... I'm not bothered at all by the science part of sci fi, but I imagine if I was, to draw a connection to this issue, I would be less bothered by a totally unrealistic sci-fi setting than by a supposedly "more correct" sci fi setting that in fact was nothing of the sort.

Ergo, translate that to socio-historical issues, and you can see why I can live with FR, but not with Eberron.

And it is at the root of the "why" of these inconsistencies that we get to why I think Eberron is a BAD example of fluff, because it was made pre-fab with the fluff all being there for the sake of the crunch, rather than the fluff being first and the crunch to accomodate. To me it lacks both the "lived-in" feel of parts of the realms (specifically the parts that were from Ed Greenwood's original setting) or the kind of consistency of setting that Midnight has (and this given that midnight has very little originality to it, its still very well done).

To me Eberron just feels like someone looked through the D&D manuals with a fine-toothed comb and thought "now how can I make THAT and THAT and THAT a part of the setting?".

Nisarg

 

[Pants]

And it is at the root of the "why" of these inconsistencies that we get to why I think Eberron is a BAD example of fluff, because it was made pre-fab with the fluff all being there for the sake of the crunch, rather than the fluff being first and the crunch to accomodate.

You say this... but I see nothing backing it up. Is it just an opinion or do you have some insider information that no one else is privy to?