Why is Eberron being pushed so hard?

[Henry]

Ladies and Gentlemen, let's please do away with the personal attacks on one another. The thread was going along pretty well with good, yet heated, debate, and I'd like to see it continue. If it can't, then it won't continue.

 

[Henry]

As for Eberron preference,

Let's just say, "To each his or her own."
Perhaps Eberron is more preferable to you as Forgotten Realms is more preferable to me.

That's really the bottom line in this. With all the supposition from several posters of, "Oh, the kiddies will just love this Final-Fantasy-esque setting," It's a little single-minded view of the appeal to the setting. The setting is a little more complicated than an anime designed for a 5-year-old, which a lot of people insinuated earlier this year. But no one's demanding that it be embraced by the entire D&D audience.

I also see occasional worries and fears about FR being cancelled or at least shoved to the back-burner. I take a more optimistic view even on this; even if Forgotten Realms WERE discontinued, perish the thought, there has been so much material released on that setting that people could game there for 40 years without running out of new adventures, new places to visit, or new concepts to inject.

My group and I were just discussing which alternate setting to run in off-weeks (my DM is running a good game right now, and we're talking about an alternate setting for me to run so that we don't burn out of either one) and I had a hard choice between my existing Forgotten Realms game and a new Eberron campaign. I settled on an Eberron game because (A) I wanted to try it out, and (B) I wanted to try a different genre, and for our group using (1) the 3.5 rules, (2) the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and (3) a pulp-style game are all brand-new to us. It was an excellent opportunity to engage in something that was D&D, yet was TOTALLY on new ground. Eberron offers us the Exploration and Combat-heavy scenarios that some of us love, the Political intrigue that others of us love with the nations and houses, and the pulp-adventure idea which will be new to each of us. Accentuating the shady morals, the world-spanning, the integration of magic into everyday life, will be something we've never really done before.

 

[shock the monkey]

Before it was released I was concerned about the dinosaurs, trains, and robots... er, I mean, war-forged.

Now that it has been released, I find my suspicions were correct. In my humble opinion, I think Wizards could have done a lot better.

 

[hong]

I had pretty much gathered as much. His style certainly seems to reflect that of the RPGnet boards...

Excuse me. ***I*** post on the RPGnet boards.

Ahem.

 

[Henry]

Actually, I do, too, but that's neither here nor there; It's not there, and it certainly doesn't need to be here, and it isn't, unless it is, in which case it shouldn't, IYKWIM,AITYD.

Carrying onward, shall we?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Neither modern (or quasi-modern) technology nor the post WWI-intellectual environment can exist in a medieval setting.

The former because the intellectual development of industrial technology (be it magical or otherwise) requires an intellectual environment that demands a renaissance. Industrialization itself would CHANGE the medieval society's cultural paradigm.

Likewise, the post WWI-intellectual environment led to the creation of relativist thought, something that is the exact opposite and totally anathema to the medieval absolutist intellectual environment.

Because, of course, intellectual and social change can only occur on the rigid schedule exemplified by Western Europe and North America.

Bollocks.

And even if we gave you that, and all social and intellectual changes were required to occur in a specific order, (independent of the presence or absence of such reality-altering concepts as guys who can fling fireballs, control your mind, and summon living embodiments of Good, Evil, Fire, etc.) then there's still the issue of transition periods.

But those don't happen. Overnight, the entire world became overrun by "relativist thought." And of course, no one in the world still exists in an absolutist intellectual environment.

All of these things can and did (do) coexist in the real world. I see no reason to assume they cannot in a fantasy world with an entirely different history, social structure, and even physics.

 

[WizarDru]

Actually, I do, too, but that's neither here nor there; It's not there, and it certainly doesn't need to be here, and it isn't, unless it is, in which case it shouldn't, IYKWIM,AITYD.

I...
I....


Oooh. My head hurts now.


[Saizho.]

 

[Celtavian]

re

I'm pretty displeased they didn't choose either Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms for the MMORPG, but I'm actually happy they are pushing a new setting.

As a FR's fan, I have everything I will probably ever need to make an interesting FR campaign. There is so much material already written about the FR whether a campaign book or novel, that the world has gone stale.

If the FR drops off the radar, it will make it easier to do what you want with it. Sure, you can do that anyway. I still feel the need to keep up with official material so as to keep setting continuity. If it drops off the market, then setting continuity is then left up to the individual DM's. I like that. That was one of the nice things about the original Greyhawk, you weren't inundated with material that made your own version of the world seem somehow lacking continuity.

 

[BryonD]

Missed your comments the other day somehow...

That depends on your homebrew world - maybe people can`t have a wild chase through and above a lightning rail (or any other raillike vehicle) in your world?

I fail to see how the the trivial details are relevant. I can have a wild chase on the backs of rampaging slaver caravan triceratops teams or runaway mine carts or any of an unlimited number of other options.

Also, lightning rail is the one thing pro-Eberron people point to every time "what's new" comes up. but if you mention magi-tech and the pro-Eberron people start talking about how insignificant the lightning rail is.....

But I think there is little point to compare Eberron to your homebrew world - you created the world to do exactly the things you like, and you spent a lot of time to do so (I guess). Though you are both biased towards your own setting, but the setting is probably better to you anyway - it suits your needs. A official setting will probably never give you that. But remember, there are many gamers out there who might just start into D&D, and lack the experience to create new worlds. And then there are gamers who simply lack the time to do so.
So, they only question remaining is: Why not Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms?

Ah. But I am NOT comparing anything to my homebrew. I am comparing Eberron to FR.

FR = useful TO my homebrew and therefore good.

Eberron = NOT useful TO my homebrew and therefore NOT good.

That`s something I like for a world, if I want to use it. Especially if all of this knowledge is contained in a single book.
Forgotten Realms is a big setting with a rich history and thousands of details. I could never create my own adventures there, because I would always see the risk of breaking continuity with older books or adventures. I know, I could do it and just say: "This is my FR". But I have two players in my group that are ten years older than me, and they probably know a lot about FR. If they suddenly can`t trust their own memories of the setting, it becomes incredibly difficult.
With Eberron, I can take the book, and have all the information I need. At least for now - maybe this is wrong in 2, 5 or 10 years. But unlike with FR, I will be grown up with it.

(These things aside: I will probably not master in Eberron. And I am happy with it, because I prefer playing in it. I already have the burden to master a Diamond Throne / Arcana Unearthed campaign I would prefer playing in )

Again, I don't play in FR, I just buy its products because they are valuable to the game world I DO play in.

Well, he is telling what his setting makes swashbuckling action - not what you might be able to do in other settings. But see it from this point of view:
If you`re a new gamer, you probably don`t have the Unearthed Arcana book (why should you need variant rules if you aren`t familar with the standard rules?)

I think you are being overly charitable. He is saying that these are things that Eberron brings to the table.

Bunk.

But the final reason for Wizards of the Coast pushing Eberron so hard:
They have invested some money into it. They want to be sure to get it (and much more) back. They already have a strong book line with Forgotten Realms and their Complete xyz handbooks. They are not pushing only one thing. This might be a danger, if they saturate the market. But so far, it seems not to happen. We´ll see it in a few years...


If Eberron is well-made (and so far, I think it is ), then this isn`t bad. Jonny Playstation might grow up to a John Roleplayer thanks to it.


Mustrum Ridcully

Of course, I have no problem with any of that.

 

[BryonD]

I've not repeated replies that I put in my post to Mustrum_Ridcully

Again, I've never once felt that the book was telling me what I could or couldn't do, unless the book saying "Most orc tribes live in these locations" is a limiting factor. I don't find it to be such.

Obviously it is a limiting factor, by its very defintion. However, I would not claim that petty things like that are the issue. Though when you start adding in gnolls, drow, giants, etc.... , etc...., etc... it starts to add up.

But the entire world is built to focus on the political dynamics and anything that would tend to take pressure off the cold war tension is pushed to the back.

That's just the point, to me. If I buy a campaign setting, I want a campaign setting. Sure, I'll probably steal bits out of it and use them in my own homebrew as well, but I want the setting to stand as a world. The fact that FR doesn't is a failure on its part, IMO.

(To be fair, I don't attribute that failure to Greenwood. I attribute it to the fact that this single fantasy setting has had dozens if not hundreds of different creative directions and developers at one time or another.)

But a setting that doesn't hang together as a world isn't a setting, IMO. It's a toolkit. Toolkits are great, but not when you expect to be buying a setting.

I buy toolkits.
I think a lot of other people do so as well.
If Eberron doesn't start being a toolkit, it may find a loss in sales.
FR may be a failure by your defintion of "good setting". But it a great success by the definition of generating revenue into the gaming market for many years.

Sounds like the best parts of real-world history/historical fiction to me.

Absolutely. Of course great fiction tends to make for bloody awful gaming....