Post/Author/DateTime	Post
The Jake 03-26-07, 10:02 PM	Hi all I'm interested in getting my RP group into Eberron. But some of them are highly resistant to any idea of the merging of magic and technology and some people are commenting it smacks of too much steampunk amoung other things. A lot of these comments I think are based on very loose impressions and not much else. I think it looks like a unique setting. Help me to convince them its worth a try!
Splendide 03-26-07, 10:10 PM	Eberron is however you run it. When I run it, PCs still have to deal with getting attacked by bandits on a stretch of crappy road where Orien isn't running a rail. If your players don't want steampunk, its easy to gloss over bits of it that might be considered such. Throw them into an Aundair/Eldeen Reaches conflict - druids vs mages. Easy, and no tech required. Or maybe they're all in northern Karrnath, trying to keep small communities alive.
Dragom 03-26-07, 10:42 PM	Very localized spots of Eberron are very magic intensive, that is all. There really is nothing we might think of as technology. Theres the Lightning Rail and the Air ships and a sentient race of constructs and Sharn (A city of massive towers and a field that makes magical flight oh so easy and practical) and beyond that there isn't to much magic at all compared to other campaign worlds... But it does let you do things have a battle while falling a thousand feat of a tower or clash swords on the back of what could be called a train, or simply ride an airship to the ruins your going to investigating in a very conventional fashion.
Sereno 03-27-07, 09:48 AM	But some of them are highly resistant to any idea of the merging of magic and technology and some people are commenting it smacks of too much steampunk amoung other things. I'd suggest you simply get them to take a look at the Campaign Setting book ... the setting gets lots of crap for being "steampunk" but there really isn't a single steam engine in the entire setting. Yeah, the lightning rail is superficially like a train, but it's completely magical and more steeped in Eberron's 'elemental binding' magic than anything technological. Yeah, Eberron has airships and so does Final Fantasy, but Eberron's airships are actually magical boats (again, with bound elementals) and not zeppelins or dirigibles with propellers attached. Yeah, the warforged are superficially like robots, but they're actually constructs that are somehow also alive. They're more like intelligent, self-willed golems than any sort of sci-fi robot. If you've ever used a golem or other construct in your games, your players should have no objections. What sets Eberron apart, to me, is that it is fully designed to capture the film noir and pulp fiction genres of literature better than any DnD setting to date; it just "feels" a little cooler and a little fresher. It's got the most interesting take on a cosmology that I've ever worked with. An excellent representation of it's gods. And, it's the first setting to truly make dragons (yes, half the name of our beloved game!) and make them something more than big fat piles of XP and cash waiting for adventurers to kill them.
Shady314 03-27-07, 05:14 PM	Hi all I'm interested in getting my RP group into Eberron. But some of them are highly resistant to any idea of the merging of magic and technology and some people are commenting it smacks of too much steampunk amoung other things. A lot of these comments I think are based on very loose impressions and not much else. I think it looks like a unique setting. Help me to convince them its worth a try! Tell them you're going to run a homebrew you've been tinkering with because you want to get their opinions on it. Then just run Eberron. :evillaugh And then if they like it give them an evil laugh and explain your trickery.
Macrovore 03-28-07, 09:41 AM	Ask if they've watch Pirates of the Carribean, or Indiana Jones. Then run an eberron campaign just like one (or both) of those movies. Eberron, if the DM and the players play it right, makes people go :OMG! that's FREAKIN' AWESOME!!! Players should do crazy swashbuckley things (bc AP ftw), almost stretching reality by the crazy awesome things the players do.
Nerdicus 03-28-07, 11:20 AM	Try stressing the fact that the setting has more potential for adventure out of the box then anything else. Give them a short list of the types and styles of games that could be played using the setting in order to pique their interest. For example: -A full out goblinoid campaign that isn't evil. -A frontier game in Q'barra where the characters are all pilgrms in a strange jungle full of new threats and ancient powers. -A full out warforged game where the characters are trying to stop the Lord of Blades from his devious plan to spread the mournland. -A full out warforged game where the characters are trying to spread the mournland for the lord of blades. -A investigative campaign set in Sharn. -the possibilities are endless.... If you can get them to stop focussing on what they on't want in the setting, in instead focuss on what they might wnat out of it, everyone might have more fun.
Slightly_Unscrewed 03-28-07, 09:46 PM	Tell them it plays like Indiana Jones, but dragons instead of Nazis. Then to what Nerdicus said.
goblin_pride 03-28-07, 11:28 PM	Tell them it plays like Indiana Jones, but dragons instead of Nazis. Dude, Karrnath, Eberron's got fascists*. *sorry 'bout that, I had to edit out the german sort of fascists in hopes the thread won't get locked because of the name of their particular political party.
Teron Gorefiend 03-30-07, 01:55 AM	This seems to be a common misunderstanding. Eberron is not a setting that fuses magic and technology - it's a setting where magic takes the place of technology. In fact, Eberron has less technology than the Forgotten Realms; the latter has gunpowder and clockwork galore, whereas in Eberron I don't know if anyone could be bothered to create a non-magical pocket watch.* Even the warforged are made of solid chunks of magically-treated metal, stone and wood without a single traditional "moving part" in their whole body - they have living, flexible, root-like tendrils throughout their bodies to provide motion instead. *Disregard the Clockwork Wonders articles on the main site. Those are screwed-up in every conceivable way.