Post originally by Conan McKegg at 2004-07-16 01:45:34
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The pulp feel of Eberron is actually supported by a lot more than this reviewer seems to be aware of.
The basic background of the setting - a post-war world with a number of political cold wars beginning - is a standard noir trope.
Xen'drik and the elves of Aerenal are straight out of pulp adventure settings.
The new class, artificer is a straight out pulp mad scientist created for the feel of the setting.
The dinosaurs and halflings - pulp again.
In actuality, the setting just smacks of pulp tropes and feel.
If anything, the action points system doesn't match up with the pulp atmosphere of the setting itself. I look at the adventure, nation descriptions and races and I just keep seeing pulp and noir nods throughout the book. But the action points aren't flexible enough to do what they aim to do - provide cinematic escapes and lucky hits. They need to be more like Spycraft's system.
But to say it's just old D&D shows that this reviewer doesn't really have a strong understanding of the tropes of pulp and noir works...
Post originally by Ernest Mueller at 2004-07-16 05:14:04
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The "noir" assertion is even more questionable thatn the "pulp". Why, don't you recall Humphrey Bogart going up against the elves of Aerenal in Casablanca? And his classic line "Play it again, Xen'drik!"
Post originally by Yamo at 2004-07-16 05:23:35
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"The problem here, and elsewhere in the book, is the attempt to convey the tone and unique flavor of Eberron by simply asserting that tone and flavor, instead of relying on the actual substance --"
Post originally by Buzz at 2004-07-16 08:20:48
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<i>D20 is a system designed for Dungeons and Dragons, and the attempts to make it a universal system and map the package of classes, levels, and StrDexConIntWisCha onto other settings and genres have all been failures to one degree or another.</i>
I almost stoppped reading your review at this point.
<i>Only a couple of low spots here: the Investigate feat allows a PC "to find and analyze clues at the scene of a mystery" with the Search skill, while the Research feat allows the use of Knowledge skills to "extract information from books, scrolls, and other repositories of facts and figures." Those seem like pretty straightforward uses of the respective skills to begin with, and requiring a feat to perform those specific actions (instead of just having the feats give bonuses to those actions) is too constraining.</i>
Keith explained on ENWorld that these feats simply mean the PC is exceptionally good at these tasks, not that PCs w/o the feats are precluded fom doing them.
<i>Unfortunately, this somewhat radical take on level distribution in society is never commented upon explicitly -- for example, there's no information to supersede the DMG's description of level distribution in different-sized communities, which clearly can no longer apply.</i>
I seem to remember a table in the book that addresses this, but IDHTBIFOM.
<i>Simply put: saying it don't make it so.</i>
Why not? How else do you convey feel? There's lot of d20 adventures out there that use the same rules but have vastly different feels. It's all about attitude, isn't it?
Post originally by Kester Pelagius at 2004-07-16 09:46:54
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>>Eberron had to account for and allow for everything in the three core rulebooks, including all those spells and every single one of those Monster Manual monsters.<<
Just out of curiosity, are you inferring that everh game world should, by default, make use of every single monster and class found in the core rulebooks?
Post originally by Chris at 2004-07-16 10:25:37
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Hi Kester,
Eberron was the result of a WOTC contest where fans got to submit their setting ideas for publication, with a cash reward for those selected. In the interest of marketing, WOTC made requirements such as the one above part of the contest. It's not so much the reviewer making a judgement on Eberron based on that, but pointing out that it holds together remarkably well despite having to follow that restriction.
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