Why didn't Eberron click?

[Kitsune]

After reading through the torrent of glowing reviews, I trundled on out to the nearest B&N with an eye towards picking it up. I grabbed the copy, sat down in a comfy chair, read for an hour, then put it back. It had utterly failed to spark any excitement.

Thing is, I don't understand why. On the surface, it had a lot going for it. Who wouldn't want to play a golem? How long have people been wanting artificers? It had the ingredients that it should've taken to spark any Final Fantasy fan's evil little heart, but I didn't even feel a twitter. Mostly I just felt a vague sense of disappointment, that the solid-gold ingredients lacked a proper execution. The Shifters could shift, and the Warforged were golem-y, and everything was pretty much by the numbers, but nothing ever leapt out at me in a 'Whoa, cool!' moment.

Take the Warforged. Golem people, check. Metal and tough and stuff, check. And... that's about it. Instant improvement for them, right off the top of my head, make 'em battery powered. Have a store of 'charge points' or what have you, burning one point a day, recharging by absorbing beneficial spells at one point per spell level. Have a list of short-term special abilities that can be activated by using charge points. Have a level of a prestige class (or a feat high up a feat ladder) give them SR, with spells that fail the SR being converted into charge points. Bam, instant new dimension for a character, a host of interesting toys for players to mess around with, life is fun.

Psionics. Boy did they miss that boat. Hearing that Eberron was going to fully support psionics raised my interest considerably, until I read the extent of that support that can be summed up as, 'If you have the Psionics book, you can use it.' The Realms have more complete support than that in the Player's Guide, at least they actually went to the trouble of making up psychic organizations and a prestige class. Nary a new class nor power nor feat that I could find even whispered a word about psionics, making me suspect that the one-paragraph mention of it was stuffed in post-production when they decided they wanted to sell the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Dark Sun is a poster child of integrating psionics into a campaign setting, a feat that was sadly not even seriously attempted with Eberron. The freaky two-souled people have a lovely ring to them, but no interesting rule mechanics to back up their description.

I think, after some introspection, that my disenchantment with Eberron came from just that, a lack of rule mechanic meat under the lovely shiny ideas. Keith Baker strikes me as the opposite of Monte Cook; Monte's a master at making enthralling rules but pretty lackluster at detailing a campaign world, while Keith made up a great world but fell flat at coming up with fun mechanics to make it run. If only science had some way of combining them...

 

[Alzrius]

It's somewhat ironic that I'm replying when I don't have the book yet (my FLGS will be paying dearly for that), but I'll try anyway.

About the warforged thing...your idea seems great, but it's rather powerful...your idea of "absorb spells to power special effects" is much too open to abuse, since a few wands in the hands of a fellow party-member could keep that going all day. Likewise, they didn't seem to want to totally reinvent the wheel - the warforged and the shifter, from what I understand, are basically attempts to de-power a monster type to being LA +0.

With regards to psionics, its simpler: WotC doesn't want to have a large component of the book be reliant of owning another book. That's a tactic from TSR, and WotC has avoided it like the plague, so its no surprise to see that here, especially as they're stepping up their attempts to draw in new people who have never played D&D before.

As I said, I haven't read it yet, but I feel pretty confident I'll be enthralled. I believe that, while it does sound like it has great new mechanics (in the form of new existing paradigms, such as new spells, feats, etc.), that the real rub is in how those are used. The technomagical aspect really appeals to me, and I think I'll be suitably wowed when I finally get the ECS.

 

[Dark Psion]

Eberron has great potiential, the real deciding factor will be in it's support.

If it is slow, people will either lose intrest or start crafting their own personal Eberron and ignore future books.

If it is too weak or worse too munchkin, that might be a critical hit to the setting.

The setting is open to almost all that has come before; XPH, Vile Darkness, Exalted Deeds, Draconomicon, althought the lack of Planetouched races is disturbing. I'm affraid they were left out because someone thought they were exclusive to the Forgotten Realms. That kind of thinking will hurt this setting.

I think we will know by Christmas, with the next few books we will see for ourselves if the Eberron will really last.

 

[Azazyll]

Not everyone likes the planetouched running around. In Eberron, they don't quite fit the setting. But besides that, Eberron doesn't need planetouched, although they could, I suppose, exist, they just aren't integral, as they are starting to be in the FR. Eberron has four new races, two of which fit particularly well with the setting (warforged and shifter). Beyond that, they made elves interesting for the first time in perhaps a decade (if you ignore the teen crush on orlando bloom), and all the other races at least got a twist. Gnomes, praise god, have their gonads back, and I'm actually inclined to use Orcs in my campaign. Druidic, nature loving Orcs? The spiritual goblins? Wait wait, goblins actually get a moments notice, unlike in FR? I was hooked.

I was, however, also very sad about Psionics. It does not blend into the setting well. It is defnitely modular, but very cleverly integrated, IMHO. I actually feel cheated out of an idea, that the same source of psionics I wanted to use in my setting. In fact, Eberron has done so many things that I want to do in my own setting, either directly or coming up with something just as good, that I for once feel no shame in using someone else's campaign. Which is a way I always felt about FR. To me, FR lacks soul, but has everything else. Eberron has soul. If it's lacking everything else, well, it doesn't have more than a decade of support or WotC's darling status to support it. Psionics got less than what it's gotten in Eberron so far in the original campaign setting book, and at least in Eberron Psionics has a life of it's own instead of being "personal weave magic" and taking backseat to the arcane. If FR has been incorporated into the rest of WotC's products, it's because of demand. And because they knew they could seel the Player's Guide and make money off of it. Which caused a lot of griping on these message boards, if I remember correctly. But then, people always complain at first and then praise when it helps later complaints. That's just how people are.

I disagree that the mechanics have fallen short. [edit: it is possible to overdo the mechanics tastelessly, and no one could accuse Eberron of this. There's a little of everything, from the standard feats, races, PCs, spells and domains, to the more recently popular core classes and house rules, but erring on the side of "this is a setting, not a supplement". Don't think of it in terms of FR, which pushes feats and prestige classes as if that was the lifeblood of a campaign world, but more like Greyhawk, where you rarely see a new rule but the campaign is still going strong 25 years later. Rules do not the game make.] The dragonmarks are a stroke of genius. Background and mechanics blend beautifully, with the added twist of the Heirs of Siberys, detailed connection to the setting and an interesting history. Warforged and Shifters get bonus feats that, rather than exhausting the possibilites, point the way to exciting character ideas. I hardly think that adamantine or mithril body plating are the only possibilities, and I'm pretty sure we'll see more options to come. Shifter feats are some of the most graceful game mechanics I've seen in a long time, since the entire genre of feats doesn't just open up knew options of what you can do, they all allow you to do those things often and longer. These are the kinds of ways feats should be used for. This is one of the first books where I didn't feel feats were a dime a dozen in a long time.

But the best part of this book is ideas. People are always complainging about not having enough fluff. Well, this book has enough. I can see why Keith Baker won the setting search. "The same but different" is right. He made the divine interesting again, with believable, actual pantheons and a church earily similar to the real world (the best attempt at the real world church I've ever seen in a fantasy game, but still "fantasy" enough to fit and PC enough not to start MADD up again). He made economics actually feel important to the campaign. There really is an Indiana Jones-ish feel, that nineteen twenties feeling of exploration and wonder laced with intrigue and horror, which has some how comfortably come to rest in a world that is most definitely high fantasy. And about time, there are plenty of low fantasy games out there right now. Not that I don't think midnight or my own favorite ravenloft don't have their places, but I was glad to see that High fantasy can still be cool, since FR hasn't had a breath of fresh air in ages.

In the end, you'll either like Eberron or you won't. But there's no denying that a lot of heart didn't go into this project, or that it brings a truly new and unlooked for mood to the fantasy community that hasn't been caught unprepared in years.

 

[erian_7]

Exact Opposite

I actually liked the Eberron CS more because it didn't throw in a ton of new rules/feats/spells/PrCs/whatever. I pretty much avoid all d20 products that are just collections of rules--there is already such a glut of feats and PrCs that I plan on restricting future games to just WotC stuff. Give me some fresh new ideas for characters, plots, organization, etc. We've already got plenty of rules to monkey with.

Eric

 

[FireLance]

I guess it depends on what you were expecting from Eberron. If you were expecting a load of mechanics, I can see why you might be disappointed.

The ECS is, after all, a campaign setting book. Most of the book is focused on the history, countries and organisations of the setting. What mechanics there are only cover the bare basics of running adventures in the setting, e.g. races and classes unique to the setting, dragonmarks, action points, setting-linked PrCs, etc.

I was expecting the book to deliver an interesting campaign setting, and I was not disappointed. What I liked the way in which it managed to present a fresh slant on many old D&D staples, and introduced many new and interesting concepts as well. I liked the interplay of history, culture and organizations, and the way that adventuring possibilities seemed to be everywhere.

Of course, as a rollplayer, I'm also hoping that WotC will announce the splatbooks Races of Eberron, Player's Guide to Eberron and The Complete Artificer soon .

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

I haven't done more than glance at Eberron in a store. It looked okay, but then, I think the main reason it didn't grab me is that I'm not actually in the market for a new D&D setting. I don't need one and I don't see myself needing one in the near future.

Now, if someone else bought it and wanted to run it, I'd probably be more interested than if they just pitched me another Greyhawk or FR game. (But less interested than I'd be in, say, Planescape or going back to our Scarred Lands campaign.)

As it stands, though, we've got enough on our gaming To-Do list right now to keep our group occupied for the next year; but, y'know, one of our regular GMs has a pulp adventure fetish, loves airships and trains, and I could see him picking up the Eberron book and wanting to run it at some point. So it might happen, and I might eventually have a reason to look more closely at the book than I have so far.


Beyond that, I just have to say that I read this:

Take the Warforged. Golem people, check. Metal and tough and stuff, check. And... that's about it. Instant improvement for them, right off the top of my head, make 'em battery powered. Have a store of 'charge points' or what have you, burning one point a day, recharging by absorbing beneficial spells at one point per spell level. Have a list of short-term special abilities that can be activated by using charge points.

...and thought "Ew, that's a horrible idea." I guess I'm siding with erian_7 here; I'm happier with things that have more new ideas than they do new mechanics, unless the mechanics are absolutely fantastic. And honestly, I'd be shocked as hell if someone came up with new, absolutely fantastic mechanics at this point. (Charge points sure ain't it. )

But your point on psionics is well-taken. Personally, I hate psionics, largely because they were so awful in previous editions, so completely unbalanced and out-of-place, that I just don't buy the idea that they'll ever be done well. But if you're going to say that it exists in your setting, THEN PUT IT IN YOUR SETTING. This isn't something you can do half-assed and make it work later; it's already enough of a struggle to shoehorn psionics into the game, the setting shouldn't be expecting you to do even more work to fit them in. Either make psionics a fully-functioning, completely natural-feeling part of your gameworld, or leave them out entirely.

--
and i'd agree that dark sun is the gold standard for integrating psionics into a setting
ryan

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I actually liked the Eberron CS more because it didn't throw in a ton of new rules/feats/spells/PrCs/whatever. I pretty much avoid all d20 products that are just collections of rules--there is already such a glut of feats and PrCs that I plan on restricting future games to just WotC stuff. Give me some fresh new ideas for characters, plots, organization, etc. We've already got plenty of rules to monkey with.

Eric

I agree one hundred percent!

I enjoy some of the new feats, though the only ones i'll be using are the dragonmarked ones!
Its great to finally see a book that doesnt devote 1/3rd ofthe book to spells. I can wait for a supplement for that.

How much better would FR had been if all the new spells in everybook were simply all placed in Magic of Faerun...leaving more room in those books to expand FR's story.

How much better would FR had been if all the new races (after those which premeired in the FRCS) appeared in RoF.

etc etc etc.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Eberron has rekindled the enthusiasm of my seven players (this group started with 3.0 in August 2000). Two of them have already bought it after checking it out and another couple may buy it as well. And they don't buy every supplement that comes out.

To me, this setting is designed more for the thirty something crowd. Many things my players have wanted to do but felt constrained in other settings are possible. Moral grays, ability to use undead and not necessarily get burned at the stake, and a rich backdrop of roleplaying laid out using the themes of war, intrigue, action, and heroics.

As to rules, Eberron already has 960 pages of rules. The core rulebooks. Plus however long the Expanded Psionics Handbook if you want to use that. What went in the core campaign was just enough to make the setting come alive.

I'd say psionics is a big part of the setting. A whole plane of dreaming is built on psionics, a whole player character race is psionic, and a whole battle between that race and their evil masters is a part of the base setting. Lots of psionic support in my mind. Very mind oriented, intrigue laden plots.

Planetouched races probably weren't in Eberron because of the level adjustment. Eberron is made for 1st level heroes as well as high level heroes. No level adjusted races were included. Orcs, goblins, and kobolds would actually make more sense as player characters than aasimar or tieflings and would have more built in roleplaying opportunities.

 

[Hand of Evil]

When thinking of a setting think of a pyramid, down at the bottom the seetings appeal to the greatest number of gamers, they have the same look and feel as each other and they allow the greatest flexability in rules. Now move to the mid-level of the pyramid, less appeal but the setting is more focused, it sit and is based on the level below, but tightens up rules to present a feel and image. A the higher you go up the more focused the setting but less appeal to gamers.

Ebberron is a step up, moving away from the standard medieval fantasy games but still is not focused too tightly on concept, allowing the DM to adjust as needed.