Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DBlizzard 03-05-07, 12:28 AM	Eberron's main book covers each of the nations or regions of Khorvaire, with a few pages given to each. Since then only five of the nations have been covered in the Five Nations book. One region (the Lhazaar Principalities) has been covered in a two part Dragonshard. Instead, WotC has elected to cover the other continents and has skipped covering the other Khorvaire nations. So I was wonder how you would have chosen to present the information on Khorvaire's nations or regions, if you got to chose from the beginning? Would you stick with the current plan (multiple nations in one book)? Would you prefer smaller softbound books ala the Known World Gazetteers, or the Forgotten Realms region books? Maybe smaller sketchy books ala the Birthright nation books? Something else? I started a poll on ENWorld, with a bit more wider focus (since you can't do polls here) here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3380312#post3380312)\ for those interested in that sort of thing. Even if not, I'm curious about what the feeling is here.
Splendide 03-05-07, 12:54 AM	I would've done regions instead of Five Nations. So one for each of the five nations, and relevant nearby regions. Old Empires: Darguun and Valenar The South: Breland and Zilargo, maybe Droaam The Plains: Thrane, old Cyre and the Talenta Plains The Northwest: Karrnath and the Mror Holds The North: Aundair and the Eldeen Reaches Frontiers: Lhazaar Principalities, Q'barra, Shadow Marches
PoeticJustice 03-05-07, 11:17 AM	I'm satisfied with the direction they're taking the setting. I think producing material about the Khorvaire Frontiers out of obligation would lead to lower quality work. Aside from that, it's good to have a lot of 'soft' geography in which only the minimum detail is given. For example, it's relatively easy to run a Dragon encounter or small-scale invasion in the areas they've not covered in a splatbook, and hard to do it, for various reasons, in area covered by 5 Nations.
Seghan 03-05-07, 11:23 AM	I would have gone for more of an FR thing, even like the old Volo's Guides (with a bit more utility and less cheese), at least for major areas. The detailed descriptions were always something that I think FR got right. In general though, aside from the size and mapping inconsistencies, I think Eberron has been fine as it is.
Nuclear_Buddha 03-05-07, 11:29 AM	I kind of like Splendide's idea, since it allows the book to focus on one major nation and then a couple of smaller ones. But then you've got to wait a while for the 5 Nations to be documented; probably not the best course of action for a brand new campaign setting.
Yakman 03-05-07, 12:43 PM	I'm satisfied with the direction they're taking the setting. I think producing material about the Khorvaire Frontiers out of obligation would lead to lower quality work. Aside from that, it's good to have a lot of 'soft' geography in which only the minimum detail is given. For example, it's relatively easy to run a Dragon encounter or small-scale invasion in the areas they've not covered in a splatbook, and hard to do it, for various reasons, in area covered by 5 Nations. I agree. The frontiers of Khorvaire don't demand WotC attention, and there are more interesting and important areas to cover through sourcebooks--like Khyber.
DyloniusFunk 03-05-07, 03:28 PM	I think once the get done with the other contintents they'll go abck and do books on the other nations. I imagine they wanted to do the big players first since players a dn DM's ar emore likely to be running adventures in one of the 5 nations than say the Eldeen Reacher or Droamm. I think they'll go with regions for the rest since it makes sense. Looking at the map we can see that if they do a boo for the east, south and west that will cover the rest of the continent. So hypothetically they could do... The West-Droamm, Eldeen Reaches, Demon Wastes, Shadow Marches The South-Zliargo, Dargunn, Valenar The East-Q'Barra, Lazar Principalities, Mror Holds.
Splendide 03-05-07, 05:58 PM	But then you've got to wait a while for the 5 Nations to be documented; probably not the best course of action for a brand new campaign setting.I actually think it would be better (obviously). I think the main issue that we have, even after Five Nations, is differentiating between the five nations as independent states and not just "Galifar+zombies, Galifar+magic, Galifar+religion, Galifar+industralization and Galifar+nuked". The argument you made could've been made for releasing something like Player's Handbook II before they released the Completes. I think that would've been a bit of a mistake, the way that I think Five Nations the way it was released was a bit of a mistake. Five Nations was a real toe-in-the-water, we-don't-know-how-good-the-setting-is book....to come straight out with the regions individually would've shown great confidence in the brand, but they didn't do that. Which is why my proposal clearly has the benefit of hindsight. If they re-release Eberron with 4.0, then I wouldn't want to see Five Nations 2.0
PoeticJustice 03-05-07, 07:54 PM	I actually think it would be better (obviously). I think the main issue that we have, even after Five Nations, is differentiating between the five nations as independent states and not just "Galifar+zombies, Galifar+magic, Galifar+religion, Galifar+industralization and Galifar+nuked". I gotta disagree. Having tried to sit down and read Shining South and Unapproachable east many times, I do not think there is any inherent benefit to describing the continent in this manner. Further, I think there's really only so much work you can do on a topic before Diminishing Returns begins working against the effort. Ideally, designers should want just enough information to give DMs an easy time creating adventures for the region (as in NPC names, what goods are available, prevailing alignment and social structure, and plot hooks) but not so much that DMs feel beholden to upholding a book (like say, the names and levels of all the published Lhazaar Princes). EDIT: Oh yeah, 4.0 isn't coming out for at least two years, if at all. No need to start predicting what the lineup will be.
Splendide 03-05-07, 08:28 PM	I gotta disagree. Having tried to sit down and read Shining South and Unapproachable east many times, I do not think there is any inherent benefit to describing the continent in this manner. Further, I think there's really only so much work you can do on a topic before Diminishing Returns begins working against the effort.I'm not sure how a book on Breland and Zilargo would be an exhaustive supplement. Ideally, designers should want just enough information to give DMs an easy time creating adventures for the region (as in NPC names, what goods are available, prevailing alignment and social structure, and plot hooks)Well that was all in the ECS. EDIT: Oh yeah, 4.0 isn't coming out for at least two years, if at all. No need to start predicting what the lineup will be.I'm not. I'm saying that now that they know Eberron is actually fairly popular, they probably won't repeat the Five Nations gaffe, and will spread the good stuff around a bit, like they did with the Completes.
Euangelion 03-05-07, 08:59 PM	The big mistake was not involving Keith (or James) more in developing those 2nd generation sourcebooks. Frankly, you can tell they were not part of 5 Nations, Explorer's Handbook, or Magic of Eberron. Thus for me it isn't so much what books they released when, it's who was asked to do what. I truly think that WOTC basically thought that once the ECS and S:CoT were released, that they would be able to handle developing sourcebooks on par with those books in-house or with other freelancers rather than directly involving Keith. They were wrong, not because their guys stink, but because Keith is just very good at working with a couple of other people to put together a great Eberron soucebook. You can tell there's a difference between Faiths of Eberron and Secrets of Sarlona, and Faith isn't bad at all. There's just a certain something "extra" to SoS. Compare Explorer's Handbook to Secrets of Xen'drik, especially in the Xen'drik material, and you can see it there as well. Basically, to me it wouldn't have mattered what the subject material was, whether on Five Nations or Wild Khorvaire or even Sarlona. Involve Keith in the development of the whole sourcebook, and you get a quality product. Don't, and it's really hit or miss. I really don't mean to sound like a huge Hellcow fanboi, but that's just the way I see it.
Splendide 03-05-07, 10:29 PM	I haven't had a writer crush like the one I have on Hellcow since Nigel D. Findley was churning out awesome Shadowrun sourcebooks.
SSj3goblin 03-05-07, 10:36 PM	The region covering has been great up to now, except for one exception (giving and accusating gaze to my SoX book). What I'm really waiting for is the Planes of Eberron book, though.
PoeticJustice 03-05-07, 11:10 PM	I'm not sure how a book on Breland and Zilargo would be an exhaustive supplement. And I'm not sure how it could not be exhaustive, given the the page counts. Even with Droaam you're talking about around 40 pages of text; that's more than each of the Sarlonan nations got and they're incredibly large by comparison . I know I couldn't write that much about Breland without getting burned out.
goblin_pride 03-05-07, 11:25 PM	I'm not sure how would be best to release further information on the nations of Khorvaire. Part of me wants to see a book on each nation so that a player or DM could pick and choose which nation they wanted to add to their collection and they would be as complete as humanly possible, but that would hurt the bank account of WoTC's consumer base and might possibly kill the setting. Another book that tries to cover too much area in a small format like the Five Nations book wouldn't be bad, but it's a bit thin on useful material. As a side note, Darguun and Valenar are not "old empires", both nations are less than 30 years old. If you want a book on the "old empires", it would have to focus on the Dhakaani empire and the Vales Tairn, rather than Valenar and Darguun.
Euangelion 03-05-07, 11:30 PM	And I'm not sure how it could not be exhaustive, given the the page counts. Even with Droaam you're talking about around 40 pages of text; that's more than each of the Sarlonan nations got and they're incredibly large by comparison . I know I couldn't write that much about Breland without getting burned out. It depends on how much you want to get specific about cities. There's a whole sourcebook devoted to one city in Breland, and it never feels like it has too much information. In fact, to me it feels like it still could have more information, such as on Morgrave University. The other factor is organizations and/or potential patrons. With enough detail about various organizations and patrons that would appeal to a wide range of players, a sourcebook could fill up fast. Again, I don't argue with the topics of the initial sourcebooks, I question who they didn't have working on them.
goblin_pride 03-05-07, 11:35 PM	And I'm not sure how it could not be exhaustive, given the the page counts. Even with Droaam you're talking about around 40 pages of text; that's more than each of the Sarlonan nations got and they're incredibly large by comparison . I know I couldn't write that much about Breland without getting burned out. I don't know about that, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 handwritten pages on Darguun and the Dhakaani empire. I would imagine if I edited and sliced away some of the older and contradictory material it would still come out well over 40 pages without any problems. Page count is no indication of quality, I could probably cover Breland in 40 pages with fluff text and side-bar crunch, but it wouldn't be as good as something written by a player or DM that prefers Breland over the other nations. From a DM that favors Breland, I'm sure you'd find reams of handwritten pages of notes, descriptions, fluff text, crunchy bits and so on.
goblin_pride 03-05-07, 11:37 PM	Again, I don't argue with the topics of the initial sourcebooks, I question who they didn't have working on them. Aye, there's the rub.....
Sturm Jaeger 03-06-07, 02:15 AM	The Northwest: Karrnath and the Mror Holds That should be Northeast, by the way.
Splendide 03-06-07, 03:29 AM	You'll have to wait for the errata to be released