Why are you looking forward (or not looking forward) to Eberron?

[Pants]

I am looking forward to it, but I don't know if I will buy it or not. I am, however, lifting ideas from it for my homebrewed campaigns.

 

[Wombat]

Also, Eberron has been chosen from 10,000 entries. It can't be all bad?

Actually being The Chosen from 10,000 entries doesn't necessarily promise quality. Who agrees with the Oscars every year? Not that many.

Eberron may well be fantastic, it could be awful, but just because it was chosen out of 10,000 potential entries guarantees nothing -- the Impressionist painters were judged to be absolutely awful when they started ("Why can't they paint accurately?") and hundreds of artists at the time were more widely celebrated than Manet, Monet and Renoir. Only later did they gain their reputation. OTOH, WotC might have chosen the true gem of all entries, the one that truly revitalizes the hobby.

We will probably only know when the game comes out.

 

[Imhotepthewise]

I was initially pretty lukewarm about it. After reading Cosmology and The Warforged, the fix was in...IT MUST BE MINE!!!!!!!

 

[rounser]

Actually being The Chosen from 10,000 entries doesn't necessarily promise quality. Who agrees with the Oscars every year? Not that many.

Some things also look better in a line-up than they do presented on their own. I'm not much of a fan of the rust-metallic red border in the core books, but I can see how it might have looked really good when presented with some alternatives (which was how it was probably selected, I'd assume). On it's own...to me it's a bit meh.

 

[mearls]

I wasn't interested in Eberron.

Then I was. Ohhhh, warforged! Why weren't you in that preview booklet from GenCon '03?

Then I wasn't.

The only thing in the setting that really hooked me was the warforged. I didn't particularly like the design behind them in the Dragon article (way too 2nd ed. for my tastes) so I don't think I'll pick up the book. I've re-written the warforged to fit my vision of them, and I'll gladly use the Eberron figures that will be part of the D&D minis line.

But I just don't see a killer app that makes me want to buy it.

Now, while I'm not interested in Eberron, I really hope it succeeds. WotC has put a lot of resources around it, and it seems like they're going to push it very hard. If it tanks, heads'll probably roll.

Honestly? I have this weird sense that WotC isn't sure how to market it. I get the sense that the marketing pitch is like "You should like this. We spent a lot of money it. It'll be cool. Trust us. Our focus groups dig it, and they look a lot like you."

 

[Belen]

A "right" to judge things beforehand? We "must" judge the campaign on what we know?

Why not wait and judge it on the actuality? There isn't any hurry is there? I'd agree that there is an "opportunity" to start to form a judgment about something based on previews, but going further to that seems... an unusual decision.

Regards

Previews is all we have. Also, the only true way to judge the book would be to buy it and read it from cover to cover. If the previews are namby pamby, then there is no reason to buy the final product. It is a waste of time and money.

I am right there with Mearls. Nothing has grabbed me. I just cannot imagine having fun adventures in Eberron. It's too permissive, and well...boring.

But that is just an opinion.

 

[jasper]

Thanks belenumeria that is exact what I was trying to say.

 

[WizarDru]

I didn't particularly like the design behind them in the Dragon article (way too 2nd ed. for my tastes) so I don't think I'll pick up the book.

Mike, speaking as someone who passed on 2nd edition, could you qualify this a little more? I'm just curious what it means, really (i.e. too dry, too mechanically oriented, too silly?)

I just cannot imagine having fun adventures in Eberron.

Hey, in my book you've got every right to form an opinion, judge and outright dislike the setting. That's just your basic right as a consumer. It's WotC's job to convince you to part with your ducats.

That said, you can't imagine it at all, or just that it wouldn't be worth your time for the investment of effort (i.e. poor ROI)? I mean, I don't like Dragonlance or the Realms much, for example, but I could imagine having fun adventures there. I just don't feel like spending the effort to do so, especially when I'd be happier elsewhere (be it homebrew or otherwise).

 

[Klaus]

I will be checking out Eberron, and decide on buying based on what I see.

So far I like some of it (the different cultures, the magic-shaped-society), and it reminds me a bit of Battle Chasers (I just wished the warforged looked more like Calibretto than a guy in form-fitting armor), but without the mana-guns and the gravity-defying Red Monika (although _there's_ an application to "levitate" if I ever saw one).

 

[Belen]

Mike, speaking as someone who passed on 2nd edition, could you qualify this a little more? I'm just curious what it means, really (i.e. too dry, too mechanically oriented, too silly?)


Hey, in my book you've got every right to form an opinion, judge and outright dislike the setting. That's just your basic right as a consumer. It's WotC's job to convince you to part with your ducats.

That said, you can't imagine it at all, or just that it wouldn't be worth your time for the investment of effort (i.e. poor ROI)? I mean, I don't like Dragonlance or the Realms much, for example, but I could imagine having fun adventures there. I just don't feel like spending the effort to do so, especially when I'd be happier elsewhere (be it homebrew or otherwise).

It's not worth the investment. If I want to tell the types of stories that Eberron seems suited for, then I can do so on my own while having a far more unique setting.

The whole magic is pervasive deal is....boring. "Explaining" how all these things work is also boring. It really leaves little mystery. Also, I know that being a low level caster will be even more difficult if everyone gets to use some magic. It's not as if a lvl 1 wizard can melee!

Eberron seems to further the trend to rip the imagination out of the game and replace it with rules frosted with flavor rather than the other way around.

That is the impression I get from the previews. I can the impression that things are repackaged a bit, tossed around, but that no real research has gone into fleshing it out to more than eighteenth century Europe with magic rather than tech.

I could end up being wrong and I know that other people will enjoy the setting.

However, I find it boring with a lack of depth. The previews would have excited me when I was 15 or if I just started gaming, but I do not see what this setting offers to me after 11 years of gaming.

Just some thoughts.

Dave