That's pretty frikkin' cool, Aos.  I love it.

Quote from: Stuart;291401Edit:  Serious question for people playing 4e -- do you use FR exclusively or your own campaign world?

I've only played 4e in homebrewed settings. I might try Eberron when it comes out. I don't like Vanilla Fantasy (Greyhawk, FR, Your Favourite Series of Fantasy Novels' Setting, etc.).

Quote from: Aos;291405Excuse my public masturbation:

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=11468

I love your map!

My own campaign is set on the same world (Aedorea) I have been using since just before the dawn of 3E, but a very very small part of it- I actually built it for an RPG system called The Window. Back in 1999.

Currently my campaign is only a single valley wide. Two towns (Perreluna and the dwarven barony of Copperpot Hold, invented by Drohem), and a multi-level dungeon. I am thinking of relocating some of my other multilevel dungeons down in the valley as well, and perhaps a 3rd town.

Quote from: counterspin;291403I agree that the designer's are play's bitch, but you're still getting something out of the book, or you wouldn't buy it. Eberron has a noir feel because of words written in the book and transmitted to the GM.  If we reduce a setting to only the things you use in your game, we really have nothing to talk about.  My Eberron could be so wildly different from your that there would be no association.  But that's unlikely, because the book transmit themes and ideas, since that's what books do.  The fact that there were a whole bunch of high level guys in the FR book certainly had an effect on  lots of peoples' games, even if it didn't effect yours.

You really do have to reduce a setting to things that you use in your game because there are things that don't just matter to your play and yes, that means that association is shot from the start. Seriously, trying to compare my FR game to Ed Greenwood's is a waste of breath. If we're talking campaign settings and not individual games, that's a whole another story. The problem is the people at the table insisted on including items that were ruining thier play because they insisted on playing the world like some psuedo-MMO where both the players and DMs were literally trying to keep tabs on a million other game sprites and ongoing activity threads - a frustrating endeavor for even a team of human beings. It is on THEM.

Quote from: KenHR;291409That's pretty frikkin' cool, Aos.  I love it.

Thanks, it's about as close as I come to contrinbuting around here. I just wish I had more time to put into it, but grad school is eating me alive- even this week, which is supposed to be spring break. I'm going to aim for a few more entries before the end of the weekend.

Quote from: Stuart;291401Edit:  Serious question for people playing 4e -- do you use FR exclusively or your own campaign world?

I use my own world - Shattered Isles - that I hope to publish before 5e comes out.   I have never been impressed with FR or Eberron.  If you like steampunk fantasy, I highly suggest looking at Iron Kingdoms / Warmachine.

I hope Dark Sun comes out with the PHB III.

My DM uses FR but it's highly non-canonical and most of used fluff is from Loudwater, a random name generator, and centers around Bane.

When I ran FR, I used a lot of stuff from Volo's Guide to the North, The North boxset, and Silver Marches but there was a lot of stuff that was also my own (for example; a great portion of Yartar was overtaken by undead and in the center of this mess, there was a great garden overseen by a powerful druidess of Chauntea; I made a lot of these huge footmarks because it seemed dumb given all of the magic being tossed about not to).

Quote from: Spinachcat;291440If you like steampunk fantasy, I highly suggest looking at Iron Kingdoms / Warmachine.

The little I've seen of Iron Kingdoms / Warmachine looks very good.

Hey... to take an example out of Eberron right here, "Stormreach" is cool name for a place, I think. It's infinitely better than "Shadowdark" (can't help but laugh each time I write it), in my opinion, so that doesn't necessarily have to do with some "old vs. new" paradigm in my mind. Just sayin'.

I hated and liked Eberron. I'll leave it at dislike. You won't find me playing in this setting, 3e or 4e...

Quote from: RPGPundit;291372Because Eberron was, essentially, already a "4e" world, a pre-fab piece of crap that was essentially an excuse for running "4ncounters".   Since FR wasn't "optimized" because it did stuff like have places that weren't for 4ncounters, places where roleplaying might happen but you don't have the chance to bring out the battlemat and D&D minis (TM, Sold Separately), it needed to be butchered in order to make it 4e-compatible.

Eberron, already being full of suck, a product of the worst corporate-board-member thinking of the 3.x era, will not have that problem.  It will require no extra injection of suck.

Not even close on this call! Eberron was one of the better settings for Dungeons & Dragons.

Multiple massive themed story arcs to base your campaigns in. Magic with both technology and advancement. Sentient golems (errr... Warforged). shades of Lycanthrope. Cyre (The Haunted Wastelands)... Xen'Drik, Argonnosen (Home of the Dragons), Sarlona (Home of the Outsiders and the Dreaming Darkness), The Five Kingdoms (Thrane, Aundair, Breland, Karnnath, & the Eldeen Reaches), The Monster Kingdoms (Shadow Marches & Droamm), The Ancient Ruins, The Last War (really the first, as far as the players are concerned), Vast unmapped continents to drop your own setting into, Elves and Dwarves that are that are not gloomy depressed refugees from the Tolkien sagas... Halflings that ride Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs. Drow that are not evil. Magical Shards that can be enchanted to create new magic. Unpredictable magic. The Draconic Phrophecies. Pirates & Freebooters in the Lhaazar Principalities, and much.. much... more.

In the hands of a competent GM, this can be a place for really great adventures. In the hands of a bad GM, it can be total suck , and an experience not worth repeating (unfortunately).

Let's not forget that this setting was originally created by a gamer, for other gamers, and was a nod to GM's everywhere unlike most of the settings and material we are seeing released with 4e (which is not even a nod to the players really, or the gm, it's a nod to a company).

I believe Eberron is going to be relegated to a smaller portion of the RPG market with 4e than it was with 3e, and while it will be relatively easy to translate many of the special effects for 4e, Eberron won't be able to improve 4e substantially.

Put pearls on a pig and it's still just a pig wearing pearls.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;291410I've only played 4e in homebrewed settings. I might try Eberron when it comes out. I don't like Vanilla Fantasy (Greyhawk, FR, Your Favourite Series of Fantasy Novels' Setting, etc.).

Eberron is a good choice for stealing some freaky stuff. Always has been in my case. I doubt I'd ever use it as a campign setting but as some place to continuously steal ideas from, it's pretty damn cool, IMO.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: GameDaddy;291534Let's not forget that this setting was originally created by a gamer, for other gamers,

No, a few pages were created by a gamer, for winning a contest by creating the most kitchen-sink generic concept possible.  The rest of the setting was created by corporate committee.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;291396What I didn't think was cool was having to know all about spellfire, which archmage controlled what area, the weave, the alternate planar setup, and the overly detailed lingo they wanted you to use.

Good thing none of those was required.

QuoteIt sort of mounted up, even if you tried to play down to a local area, like "Ok, this campaign will be set in the Moonshaes only.." you would still run across who the ruler of the region or  his 5 heroic sons were before too long, because if you didn't use that stuff it wasn't "real forgotten realms", and there was a lot of stupid arguiing about canon.

This only happens because of the players involved.  Find a group who doesn't have a continual supply of sand in their vaginas about canon.

QuoteEberron was designed with foreknowledge of this problem in mind. I think some of the rulers of the places are detailed, but the whole thing is a lot less set in stone and more focused on PCs being the heroes instead of just some random walk-on in the area. In XE for example, we would often have adventures where the players would have to save the city of Stormreach- and there was one where the PCs were called on to help avert a war between Karrnath and Breland.

This has nothing to do with the way the settings were written and everything to do with the style of play you and your group prefer, which is as close to 'rules as written' as possible.  No setting will ever really satisfy such a group; either being too light on rules, allowing lawyers to have a field day, or too heavy on rules, adding ever increasing amounts of handle time to task resolution.

QuoteIn LFR now...

You are referring to a style of play that doesn't apply to the vast majority of players.

Quote from: RPGPundit;291372So, how much do you think it will change?

My bet: Hardly at all.  Certainly nowhere near as radically as FR had to change.

Because Eberron was, essentially, already a "4e" world, a pre-fab piece of crap that was essentially an excuse for running "4ncounters".   Since FR wasn't "optimized" because it did stuff like have places that weren't for 4ncounters, places where roleplaying might happen but you don't have the chance to bring out the battlemat and D&D minis (TM, Sold Separately), it needed to be butchered in order to make it 4e-compatible.

Eberron, already being full of suck, a product of the worst corporate-board-member thinking of the 3.x era, will not have that problem.  It will require no extra injection of suck.

RPGPundit

My personal preference for Eberron is at odds with your personal preference against Eberron. I liked it, you didn't. 'Nuff said.

Now, while you think that Eberron is full of suck, for something that sucked it appears to have sold pretty well.

So, with 4E Eberron coming out, I don't think the important question is how much will the setting change. I think the important question will be the same one for Planescape and Dark Sun in 4E.

Will the 4E consumer have to buy any other extra books besides the PHB1, DMG1, and MM1 in order to support their play in Eberron 4E? Will rules for shifters be in the setting book or do 4E gamers have to have the PHB2 as well to fully utilize Eberron 4E? In short, how much buy in will be required by 4E gamers to fully use the settings that are coming out?