I just finished running TFoE in my Eberron campaign. My players said, "These adventures weren't written for Eberron are they?" Even though I organized it around Keith Baker's suggested changes, the adventurs themselves DON'T have the Eberron flavor.
Where are warforged? Where are artificers? Dragonshards? The list goes on and on.
I like the concept of AoW, but it's just too much work to convert to Eberron. I'm thinking of dumping it and going on to something else.
Shucks!!
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Adding Dragonshards and Warforged Miners (to be encountered after work in Diamond Lake), or some Artificers should not really be the problem. I think Keith Baker didn't made any notes on them, because it's really no problem to change a given NPC into an artificer or some healers into Halflings - and so on...
I haven't started yet, but I find that the AoW fits nicely into Eberron and Eberron as a setting gives way more to the AP than it takes from it.
Ok, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it!
Don't dump it - change it!!!
Where are warforged? Where are artificers? Dragonshards? The list goes on and on.
Diamond Lake is a small town. If you use Keith Baker's population breakdown, you'd see that there should be very few artificiers. There are no magewrights detailed, but almost any skilled worker can be a magewright.
Again, the warforged would be few and far between. IMC there was only one warforged in Diamond Lake: the party cleric/paladin. The Church of the Silver Flame in Diamond Lake was rogue, cutting off its ties to Thrane during the Last War. The forged was sent from Thrane to bring the congregation back to the fold. The miners were racist against warforged, and the head of the Church took advantage of this and preached that flesh is the only true vessel of the Silver Flame. It turns out that the head of the Church was Theldrik, and he was actually a worshipper of the Mockery.
The scythe wielding grimlocks of the Keeper were harvesting dragonshards in the underdark for Theldrik and the Faceless One. The black pool of the Overgod is constructed of khyber shards.
We're in the 6th adventure right now (Gathering of Winds) and so far the adventure has been very "Eberron-esque". The key thing to remember is that not EVERY PLACE in Eberron has all of the eccentric aspects of the setting. My group really liked the fact that Diamond Lake seemed like your typical D&D town (for the most part). The party had the special elements (warforged, dragonmarks, kalashtar) which made them unique.
The feel is also in how you present the material. In TFoE for example I had the Faceless One escape via gaseous form to the Black Pool. Once the adventurers made it there they saw undead versions of the grimlock cleric, Theldrick and the Faceless One sacrifice themselves and plunge into the Ebon pool. Also, after the aspect died, I had the deadly pool rise and begin flooding the chamber quickly, forcing the party to run out of the mine Indiana Jones style saving miners along the way.
Just recently the party won the Champion's Games and the nobles of Skyway chartered an airship to take the party back to Diamond Lake to visit Allustan. The destruction of Diamond Lake was much more impressive from the view of a suddenly silenced "booze cruise" hundreds of feet above the ruins.
I still have trouble getting the "feel" of Eberron. I get that it's more modern than middle-ages. I also get that most of the people in power got there by selfish machinations and trickery, and as such, those in power are often engaging in secret betrayals and such forth to rise in position or just to keep their current position, and so we have a lot of people plotting against each other. There's a general feel that anything that you thought you knew, might turn out to be a lie, as if a pit trap that you thought was a regular floor, and you can't adventure without walking on what seem to be (and usually are) regular floors. That's about as far as I get, though.
I think if the differences between generic/Greyhawk and Eberron could be phrased better in words, then it's easy to know what needs changing in order to adapt it.
If you thought 3FOE was a hard fit, Encounter At Blackwall Keep is going to seem even more like a setting-killer. But there's a couple of things you can change that will make it more of an Eberron experience, especially one really BIG thing:
Travel.
Eberron is ALL about how people get different places in a big freakin' hurry. Magebred Horse? Elemental-driven barge up the Dagger River? Elemental landcart? Lightning Rail? Airship? All SORTS of things that will add that crunchy Eberron flavor.
Here's what I did for Blackwall Keep; in The Five Nations, there's a tiny town in eastern Breland called Mistmarsh, the same name as the swamp in E@BK. So I put the keep IN the town... just let it be a small town that grew up around it when the War moved on. It also adds the element of a birning village and screaming civillians clamoring to be let into the keep.
The players had to choose how they would get there using Allustan's money; since they were also his escort, they had to choose a realtively safe route to travel so their job of protecting him would be easier. Allustan gave them lightning rail maps, Orion caravan schedules, and other such info. After much debate, they decided it would be faster (and safer) to travel by magebred horse (which Allustan could get on lona) to Wroat, the country's capital (and a chance for big-city purchases, sights and encounters), and catch the lightning rail to a nearby outlet on the border with Darguun. Once there, they would take their horses (which rode with other animals in a special car) to Mistmarsh and Blackwall Keep.
IF your players won't find this fun, that's okay; have Allustan make the plans for them and describe the sights they see while traveling by the fastest horses around and by the lightning rail, a sight by itself. That should leave them with a enough flavor to last this module (it's pretty short anyway).
BTW... Age of Worms and Eberron don't mix? To that I say:
Age of Dragons
Age of Demons
Age of Giants
Age of Monsters
Thank you.
Hey, I understand your concern. The adventure path as written isn't Eberronesque because Eberron wasn't in mind when they planned it; Greyhawk was. And I like Greyhawk. But I'm running AoW in Eberron, and it's working pretty good for me.
The key to making it feel like Eberron is like others said before, changing some stuff around. And you don't even have to change a lot. Change just enough that the players see the difference. If that doesn't work or you don't have the time (and really it's not time consuming), try running it as is. It's a fun campaign.
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for warforged, look at the Warforged in AOW thread. it has a new monster called a Wormforged. Also, try changing a few villains to warforged. This can also be done with the minor NPCs to artificers.
If AOW was written for Eberron,thenit would probably be even harder to convert to Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms.
If AOW was written for Eberron,thenit would probably be even harder to convert to Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms.
I think it would be about the same. If you took Keith Baker's notes and based a campaign around them, it would take an equal amount of work to reverse engineer the campaign to its default Greyhawk-centric state.
EaBK is all about Remnants of the Last War. This is where the adventurers get to journey beyond the typical D&D town and travel through war torn battlefields. According to the notes you'll also find lost undead soldiers from Karnnath; you can expand on this encounter to add some flavor. The harpy scouts were Brelish, but perhaps they abandoned their positions after the revolution in Droamm and are attempting to coax the lizardfolk into joining the ongoing war effort? Droamm is technically not a part of the Treaty of Thronehold. Lizardfolk in Eberron are generally the minions of dragon gatekeepers, and in this case the head dragon supports of LoD instead of the Chamber and is using his followers to spread the diseases of Kyuss.
All of these are typical "Steal this Hook" ideas from the Eberron website. Eberron is much more than just dragonshards, warforged and the lightning rail.
Creative Director
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I think it would be about the same. If you took Keith Baker's notes and based a campaign around them, it take just as much work to reverse engineer to campaign to what it currently is.
I'd have to disagree. The problem with Eberron is that while it's relatively easy to import standard D&D into the setting, it can be much more difficult to export Eberron-specific material back to standard D&D, simply because there are conventions in Eberron that just won't in most other settings.
When we publish Eberron adventures, we try to make sure that there's a reason for it to be set in Eberron. Which is why you'll see Eberron adventues with train wrecks and floating towers and warforged and dragonshards. If we have an Eberron adventure that doesn't make use of uniquely Eberron material, we instead present it as standard D&D since that way it's more useful to a wider range of our readers.
That's a horrible attitude towards the setting. 95% of the material in the Eberron sourcebooks deal with history, folklore, geography and beliefs; EVERY D&D setting will have these unique aspects. I think you choose Greyhawk as the default backdrop so you can sneak in history, folklore, geography and beliefs that you prefer to promote.
The Shards of Eberron series was my favorite so far and the adventures aren't that difficult to port to other settings. Xen'drik could just as easily be Amedio or Chult. The Queen with Burning Eyes could have been placed in just about any hidden cultist area. If you look at the adventures in the Mark of Heroes, many of them have a lot of background Eberron material but they are very easy to convert to FR or Greyhawk.
You can even make a "core rules only" adventure that uses Eberron as a backdrop. Here's a list of ideas that have nothing to do with lightning rails, warforged or dragonshards:
-An ogre mage takes residence in the sewers under Sharn and starts befriending all sorts of criminal characters -- is she more of a threat to Sharn's citizens, or to the crime-bosses of the Sharn underworld?
-The PCs dive to the undersea caves near the Lhazaar Principalities using magic water breathing paraphernalia -- but the rare artifact they discover emits a disruptive antimagic field.
-The money's good, but will the adventurers accept the offer to explore the dungeon that is haunted by living stinking cloud spells?
-Druids at a timeworn, stone observatory in the Eldeen Reaches find evidence that an upcoming meteor shower may rain fire down on populated areas of eastern Khorvaire.
-Bloodscale lizardfolk shamans activate ley lines connecting six overgrown jungle temples, which form the head, body, and limbs of a titanic golem.
-Researchers in Aundair require documents believed to be stored in the lost tomb of a pre-Galifar wizard in order to operate a time-traveling eldritch device.
-Jhazaal Dhakaan summons goblinoids from hundreds of miles in every direction into a massive army loyal to her talented voice.
-A kalashtar child's nightmares begin corrupting the thoughts of her entire village.
-Under deep vaults in the Mror Holds lie the remains of a long-dead madman, which must be properly buried in sanctified ground before his spirit will stop haunting the mountain passes.
-A rakshasa begins construction of an enormous musical instrument composed of the skulls and bones of hundreds of elves -- an eldritch machine designed to bring forth melodies capable of waking the rakshasa's dark masters.
-Royal guards of Aundair attempt to prevent the heroes from getting access to a suicidal prince on a high cliff.
-During a routine plant recognition session in the King's Forest during their botany class, seven of the party's fellow students are kidnapped by the Jungle Boys.
-The dean of Morgrave University selects twelve students to join him on a special expedition to the north coast of Argonnessen.
-A desperate young halfling begs for the PCs' help, revealing that he is the thief the Brelish army is looking for.
-A young bodyguard of House Medani seeks aid in finding the blue-spotted beholder who charmed his mistress, a baroness.
-A PC discovers that a lost relic belonging to her family is on sale at a New Cyre marketplace, and the party traces it back to Ikar the Black's unscrupulous salvage gang
-A cabal of worshipers of the Mockery infiltrate a mountain outpost in the Mror Holds, then betray and conquer it, sending mock communiqués to a second, nearby outpost.
-The PCs are hired to uncover a smuggling ring led by a greedy mind flayer and to locate a precious locket belonging to Zil royalty.
-A blackguard constructs a massive chessboard in his lair, and then he collects prisoners from Thrane to act as his living chess pieces.
-A bard appears out of thin air, wounded and haggard, in the center of a small town, claiming to have been transported from a brutal land full of vicious monsters; he asks for help before he is transported back again.
-A Karrnath businessman has purchased a tract of farmland believed to be haunted, and he is hiring brave souls to investigate; he doesn't tell them that he knows most of the ghosts personally.
There are literally hundreds of "Steal this Hook" ideas that you could build an adventure or even a campaign path that are just as full of Eberron flavor and fluff but are also extremely easy to convert to Greyhawk, FR or any setting that is based on the core rules.
(He knows about the secret Greyhawk brainwashing plans! He must be silenced!)
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Creative Director
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That's a horrible attitude towards the setting. 95% of the material in the Eberron sourcebooks deal with history, folklore, geography and beliefs; EVERY D&D setting will have these unique aspects. I think you choose Greyhawk as the default backdrop so you can sneak in history, folklore, geography and beliefs that you prefer to promote.
It's not a question of attitude toward a particular setting at all.
We only assume our readers have the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Whenever we reference material from other sources, we have to cite those sources and provide some information to our readers as to what we're talking about—in other words, going outside of these three core books effectively lessens the amount of content we can fit into any particular issue. At this point, Eberron is not part of the core D&D experience, and so Eberron material has to stay with Eberron adventures. And if an adventure is generic enough that it doesn't HAVE to be set in Eberron, we'll set it in the core D&D world so that adventure can be more useful to a wider range of players. It's simple math.
Keep in mind that we at Paizo have access to the numbers. We can look back over the previous issues and see what sells and what doesn't sell. We take this information and use it to make a better product, so that new issues will do better. Dungeon has seen healthy growth over the last year on a scale that is unprecedented in the magazine's recent history. Which tells me that we're doing something right. The majority of our readers (and by extension, all D&D players) game in settings that adhere closely to the core D&D rules, so therefore its just good business sense to focus the majority of our attentions on the most popular settings and styles of play.
The simple fact of the matter is that, at this point in time, fans of classic D&D settings like Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk outnumber the Eberron fans. Why? Eberron hasn't yet had decades to build a fan base. Fans of D&D worlds are fiercely loyal to their favored settings (as you've more than proven in your numerous posts). This is a major part of what makes the game so great. And it's also a huge part of what makes it difficult to produce magazines for the game.
We'll continue to support Eberron in Dungeon; never fear. Looking at the Dungeon schedule, I see several Eberron adventures on the way. We've certainly got more Eberron adventures scheduled at this point than Greyhawk OR Forgotten Realms adventrues. (I don’t count the adventure paths, since they support all three settings.) Eberron is far from lacking for support in the magazine.
We were discussing ease of conversion. Can you agree that there are literally hundreds of stories that can be done using only the core mechanics and yet are still rich in Eberron lore?
Whenever we reference material from other sources, we have to cite those sources and provide some information to our readers as to what we're talking about—in other words, going outside of these three core books effectively lessens the amount of content we can fit into any particular issue. At this point, Eberron is not part of the core D&D experience, and so Eberron material has to stay with Eberron adventures. And if an adventure is generic enough that it doesn't HAVE to be set in Eberron, we'll set it in the core D&D world so that adventure can be more useful to a wider range of players. It's simple math.
You add in details that flesh out the Greyhawk world all the time, yet you feel no obligation to point to any references despite the fact that Greyhawk is no longer supported by WotC as a campaign setting. The mechanics are the same, just as with Eberron examples above, yet you don't feel the need to refer to an outside source expand on the setting backdrop.
For example, if you have references to Magepoint, you don't feel the need to point players to The World of Greyhawk or the Return of the Eight or other sources to learn about the coastal town. Why would you feel the need to refer players to the ECS or Five Nations if you used Fairhaven or Thaliost as a backdrop?
There are core mechanics, and a few references to Greyhawk related deities and cosmology in the core books, but no where in the core books is a "core D&D world" detailed. Paizo is expanding on geography, politics, religion and other elements that have no foundation to begin with from a "core book only" perspective.
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Creative Director
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We were discussing ease of conversion. Can you agree that there are literally hundreds of stories that can be done using only the core mechanics and yet are still rich in Eberron lore?
I'll certainly agree that we could just name drop proper nouns from Eberron, but as you say, its the ease of conversion that is the most important. Eberron is a subset of D&D. It just makes more sense to use as the baseline something that more people are familiar with. In a few years (or decades), if Eberron's still around, perhaps it'll be the new baseline. For now, Eberron is far from baseline.
Anyway, we're arguing in circles. Which means it's time to take a break here at Paizo and go outside to watch the crazy thunder and lightning!
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Creative Director
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Wow. Not to derail the conversation... but we just had the weirdest snow storm I've ever seen. Giant chunks of snow, about the size of marbles, powering down through the thunder and lightning like soft marshmellowy hail! There's a snowman with a cigarette in his mouth and leaves for arms on top of Jason Bulmahn's car right now... I wonder if the l'il guy'll make it over the lake on the ride home?
I took plenty of pictures of him and the weird snow, so if I can figure out how to post them... behold! Snowpocalypse 2006!
I'll certainly agree that we could just name drop proper nouns from Eberron...
History, politics, geography...you can write adventures about these things using the core mechanics that are much more than "proper nouns".
Eberron is not a subset of D&D AS A BACKDROP; it is the new standard. Greyhawk as a backdrop isn't even a subset anymore, it's more of a footnote the magazines continue to refer to.
I have to go to a wedding and will be offline for most of the weekend. Sorry to hear about the freaky snow; haven't seen much of that since I moved to Sacramento from Connecticut years ago.
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Senior Software Developer
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(Temporary further derail.)
"Mmmm, sky looks dark over there, and there's thunder. Better catch the early bus so I can beat the storm," I said to myself, and rushed out of the office.
Two minutes later I'm walking to the bus stop and the hail starts coming down. Giant lightning bolts light up the sky, thunder rumbles a second later. And James, while the hail was a little mushier than normal, it still hurt!
The bus driver said I was brave for not having an umbrella. Or a hat. Or even a coat. Yay me.
Oh, and of course the hail stopped by the time the bus got to my neighborhood. Which would have been just in time to catch my regular bus, had I waited. D'oh!!
Surely there's something special to Eberron that can't be satisfied just by swapping a few place names and NPC races?
I once had a disastrous attempt at running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in the Eberron setting, and it just didn't work because RttToEE just isn't Eberron's adventure style. It's not "search slow, fight fast", it's a lot of dungeon crawling. It's not about the journey; the moathouse is next door to the village. It's not pulp and noir, it's kick-in-the-door with a smattering of Cthulhu-esque horror. Everything generally IS how it seems.
To correctly convert a standard D&D adventure to an Eberron adventure, you have to know what it is that makes an Eberron style of play, and then change the adventure to fit that. It's really hard for me to say that, though, since we've really very little Eberron material to base it on.
This is what you get for deviating from the Forgotten Realms (where AoW fits snugly). Down with Eberron! Long live Faerun! :)
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Eberron is not a subset of D&D AS A BACKDROP; it is the new standard. Greyhawk as a backdrop isn't even a subset anymore, it's more of a footnote the magazines continue to refer to.
though interesting settings in their own rights, contrary to popular belief, the Forgotten Realms nor Eberron are NOT the core settings for this editon; Greyhawk is. just a footnote for magazine reference? please. Dark Sun. Birthright. Planescape. Mystara. Ghostwalk. those are footnotes in gaming history that can be (and are, at least once a year,) used by the magazines for reference (no disrespect intended toward the fans & creators of those fine settings). Greyhawk continues to be (despite all attempts to make this not so) a living campaign setting. when i open my CORE books i don't see references to the Lords of Dust or Church of the Silver Flame. i see Greyhawk specific content. now in three, six, or even twelve years that may change. but until then the core setting is Greyhawk.
if i seem a little indignant, its because i'm an old-school gamer that has seen (and played) every edition and every setting of the game to be churned out by TSR and WoTC. i know my roots and they began with Blackmoor and Greyhawk. don't disrespect the past, because without Greyhawk, there would be no Eberron.
don't disrespect the past, because without Greyhawk, there would be no Eberron.
Here here.
I love Eberron, about as much as I love classic Grayhawk. I agree that perhaps in 10 or 15 years it would not be a surprise if Eberron was the core setting (or maybe when 4th edition comes out, whichever comes first).
Going back to the original direction of this thread, I'm really impressed with the ideas for using AoW in Eberron that were put forward in the thread, as I've been scouring these boards for months for just that sort of info.
The Keith Baker info in the overload was nice, but didn't sell me.
As a general query, are there plans for any other adventures set in those footnote settings? I'd love to see a Planescape adventure or an Adventure path where the PCs start out as influential individuals, a la Birthright (perhaps without the Birthright mass combat rules).
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I don't think Eberron will become the core setting, because while it's really interesting, It's doesn't really match the flavor of D&D very well. Warforged are a bit annoying, as heal checks won't work on them, and shifters and changelings just seem like attempts to make lycanthropes and doppelgangers player races. Also, while I like the basic idea of lightning rails and warforged, they just look a bit too much like real technology.
That's a horrible attitude towards the setting. 95% of the material in the Eberron sourcebooks deal with history, folklore, geography and beliefs; EVERY D&D setting will have these unique aspects. I think you choose Greyhawk as the default backdrop so you can sneak in history, folklore, geography and beliefs that you prefer to promote....
That was unfairly accusational, and the initial point was valid.
Eberron has a very distinctive character. It's one thing to come up with a list of generic, Eberron-friendly hooks. It's quite another to write a dozen pages of an adventure without having a good bit of campaign-specific material that is incompatible with other milieux.
Like it or not, Eberron is easily the most difficult environment (of the major choices available) to make compatible with other alternatives.
Regards,
Jack
PS -- this is not a criticism of Eberron, just an observation.
Eberron has a very distinctive character. It's one thing to come up with a list of generic, Eberron-friendly hooks. It's quite another to write a dozen pages of an adventure without having a good bit of campaign-specific material that is incompatible with other milieux.Like it or not, Eberron is easily the most difficult environment (of the major choices available) to make compatible with other alternatives.
This is exactly my original point. Eberron is SO different that it is very difficult to convert even a vanilla D&D adventure to it. AoW in FR is much easier since it is really high magic Greyhawk!
I had the same problem when I DM'ed Dark Sun--just too different. And since I'm pressed for time as a DM a lot of this needed conversion is just too much work.
But the AoW writers didn't make it easier by building up a story around Greyhawk names, characters, and places all over---I mean, "Spawn of Kyuss" for heaven's sake! How much more blatant can you get!?
But the AoW writers didn't make it easier by building up a story around Greyhawk names, characters, and places all over---I mean, "Spawn of Kyuss" for heaven's sake! How much more blatant can you get!?
I'll agree with that completely -- AoW is thinly disguised Greyhawk (but they admit that freely).
But as far as the Spawn of Kyuss goes, it has been a part of core D&D for a long time; I don't think it's accurate to identify it solely with GH.
Regards again,
Jack
Eberron is not difficult to convert at all, considering that 95% of Eberron is built from the core books.
Queen with Burning Eyes was very easy to convert, as was the Shards of Eberron trilogy. It's all about how you write the adventure.
Greyhawk is not a setting at all in the 3.5 world, it's just a bunch of proper nouns in the Core book. A new player to D&D has no place to turn, as far as retail support is concerned, to build a detailed campaign. Eberron and Forgotten Realms are now the only supported campaign settings and only Paizo (and con PUGs) continues to dole out snippets of the dead to retail setting to the old grognards of the past (with their dusty tomes on their shelves to reference).
Greyhawk dead? And yet, many of us still play in Greyhawk campaigns (or run them). Necromancy Rocks!!!
(He knows about the secret Greyhawk brainwashing plans! He must be silenced!)
I was just thinking much the same thing. You must be in my brain! Get out! Get out! =)
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Creative Director
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Greyhawk is not a setting at all in the 3.5 world, it's just a bunch of proper nouns in the Core book. A new player to D&D has no place to turn, as far as retail support is concerned, to build a detailed campaign. Eberron and Forgotten Realms are now the only supported campaign settings and only Paizo (and con PUGs) continues to dole out snippets of the dead to retail setting to the old grognards of the past (with their dusty tomes on their shelves to reference).
I suggest you do a little more research. Greyhawk IS a setting in 3.5. It's not directly supported by WotC with products, but it IS supported by the RPGA with the Living Greyhawk campaign. A campaign that is being played by about 15,000 players.
Furthermore: Greyhawk content helps us sell magazines. We see spikes in sales when we do Greyhawk material. Many of our best-selling issues over the past few years were Greyhawk-heavy issues (Maure Castle in #112, the big Greyhawk poster maps, and Age of Worms). Frankly, we just haven't seen as heavy a reader response to Eberron material, but that's probably because the campaign setting is still so new and is still in the process of finding its place in the fan base. We'll continue to support Eberron, and as I've said elsewhere, we've got a LOT of Eberron adventures coming in Dungeon. We'll be providing the same conversion notes for AP3 for Eberron that we have been for Age of Worms, and we've learned from the mistakes we've made there and should be able to stay on top of things better with the third Adventure Path.
And think of this: simply because WotC doesn't directly support a campaign with products doesn't magically make the thousands and thousands of fans of such a campaign vanish. They're still out there, and they still want to see their beloved campaigns get attention. Paizo is in a unique position in the industry to provide content these fans seek. And until the current staff at Paizo is replaced, I doubt you'll see any changes to this policy.
Here's something to mull over: if WotC decided to cease producing Eberron products, would you want the magazines to cease supporting the setting?
Eberron is not difficult to convert at all, considering that 95% of Eberron is built from the core books...
...Greyhawk is not a setting at all in the 3.5 world, it's just a bunch of proper nouns in the Core book.
OK. Fine. Eberron is easy to convert.
Greyhawk scenarios are even easier to convert, lacking (as they do) changelings, floating cities, lightning rails, and the warforged. Just change the names and it's any campaign you want. That way you won't have to accuse the staff of Dungeon of disingenuous plots to censor non-GH content in the magazine.
Regards all :)
Jack
old grognard of the past
I suggest you do a little more research. Greyhawk IS a setting in 3.5. It's not directly supported by WotC with products, but it IS supported by the RPGA with the Living Greyhawk campaign. A campaign that is being played by about 15,000 players.
As a card carrying RPGA member who plays in the Theocracy of the Pale, I'm well aware of my PUG options when I go to conventions. The Living Greyhawk Journal is DEAD, yet you seem to be exploiting a few paragraphs and proper nouns in the core books to recessitate it. Star Wars Gamer was cancelled yet Living Force played for years. Have we seen Star Wars material in Dragon or Dungeon since Polyhedron was cancelled, even though there are thousands of players at con PUGs?
From the perspective of retail product support, new Greyhawk cannon has about as much place in Dragon or Dungeon as Star Wars material does. It sticks out like a sore thumb, because there is no where for a new player to turn to for proper product support. It's supplementary material with no base in the 3.5 (and arguably the 3.0) world.
How many people are still playing 1st or 2nd edition? I suspect the numbers are higher than the number of LG players, but I've yet to see any support for them.
Furthermore: Greyhawk content helps us sell magazines. We see spikes in sales when we do Greyhawk material. Many of our best-selling issues over the past few years were Greyhawk-heavy issues (Maure Castle in #112, the big Greyhawk poster maps, and Age of Worms).
That's the chicken and the egg. I am a big fan of Age of Worms not because of the setting but because it's quality material and unique to the market. The same can be said about the poster map and Maure Castle.
Frankly, we just haven't seen as heavy a reader response to Eberron material, but that's probably because the campaign setting is still so new and is still in the process of finding its place in the fan base.
You don't think this has anything to do with spelling Eberron incorrectly, using the D&D miniatures tiles for maps, liberally throwing in warforged in places they aren't needed or the lack of consistent art?
We'll continue to support Eberron, and as I've said elsewhere, we've got a LOT of Eberron adventures coming in Dungeon. We'll be providing the same conversion notes for AP3 for Eberron that we have been for Age of Worms, and we've learned from the mistakes we've made there and should be able to stay on top of things better with the third Adventure Path.
Until the editors change the "Eberron is too different to be considered for core articles" attitude you're going to continue segmenting your audience, in both Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Please stop focusing on the differences.
Are the conversion notes filled with information on warforged or lightning rails or airships? No. From the perspective of the CREATOR of Eberron you don't need these unique elements to create an Eberron adventure. The title of this thread asks "Does AoW and Eberron mix?" It doesn't mix with the Paizo's vision (and occasional article selections) of Eberron, but everything about the conversion notes fits Eberron very well, as you can read above before the threadjack.
They're still out there, and they still want to see their beloved campaigns get attention. Paizo is in a unique position in the industry to provide content these fans seek. And until the current staff at Paizo is replaced, I doubt you'll see any changes to this policy.
You could read this as "there'll always be the classic campaign issue", but if I'm reading between the lines correctly it actually says "we're big Greyhawk heads and we will insert as many references as possible throughout the mag".
Here's something to mull over: if WotC decided to cease producing Eberron products, would you want the magazines to cease supporting the setting?
100%, without a doubt, the answer is YES. The Campaign Classics excluded, I would find Eberron material in Dragon and Dungeon out of place if WotC announced they the setting was discontinued and added it to the ranks of Spelljammer/Dark Sun/Planescape/Mystara. The question is, wouldn't YOU feel it's out of place? If so, why the double standard?
When was the last time we saw Ravenloft material in Dragon or Dungeon beyond the classic campaign issues? When Castle Ravenloft is released this fall by WotC, are you planning any type of material? If so this is appropriate. If next month you had a headline of "Secrets of the Lady of Pain", don't you think that would be a little weird?
It seems fitting that the official Greyhawk board is listed under the following heading on WotC's site:
Other Roleplaying Worlds
Wizards doesn't make new material for these worlds anymore, but fans do. Take a look.
If Eberron is ever put on that list, I would only want to see new material in the campaign classic issue, not from Paizo on a regular basis. Can everyone agree to this?
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Creative Director
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Well, since it seems obvious that nothnig I can say seems to make a difference to you, and since we have no plans on abandoning Greyhawk content OR of dramaticaly increasing Eberron content, I suppose that this is where the discussion needs to end. I do hope you continue to check out the magazines, because, as I've said before, we have a LOT of Eberron stuff coming up. Feel free to ignore the Greyhawk stuff as you will, but keep in mind that there are many people out there who feel the exact opposite.
Well, since it seems obvious that nothnig I can say seems to make a difference to you
If what you said made no difference to me then I wouldn't have passionately and thoughtfully replied to everything you had to say. If any of my points neglected to consider your posts then I apologize and would love to see where I was mistaken (at your leisure of course, as I would much rather see the online supplements as soon as humanly possible).
I do hope you continue to check out the magazines, because, as I've said before, we have a LOT of Eberron stuff coming up. Feel free to ignore the Greyhawk stuff as you will, but keep in mind that there are many people out there who feel the exact opposite.
So far I don't think there's been a LOT of Eberron stuff in the magazine, yet you also said that there will not be a dramatic increase in the Eberron content. Can you elaborate?
I also feel as though you've missed my main point. In almost every post I've made in here and on the EN boards in the last few months I've only heard positive feedback on more sidebars and integration of conversion information in the magazines. I hope your comment about a LOT of Eberron stuff includes conversions for the ecologies articles, main articles, etc. All new material should include a small blurb on integrating the material into Eberron. The last thing anyone wants is a conflict of audiences with the exact opposite opinions on Greyhawk/Eberron/FR feeling like the magazine is a battleground for material dedicated to their setting. Instead of seeing articles that a casual reader sees as "This is Eberron" and "This is FR", it would be so much better to see articles that say "You can do this in Eberron & FR, here's how."
Furthermore: Greyhawk content helps us sell magazines. We see spikes in sales when we do Greyhawk material. Many of our best-selling issues over the past few years were Greyhawk-heavy issues (Maure Castle in #112, the big Greyhawk poster maps, and Age of Worms).
That's the chicken and the egg. I am a big fan of Age of Worms not because of the setting but because it's quality material and unique to the market. The same can be said about the poster map and Maure Castle.
Or maybe Greyhawk really does sell issues. No matter how hard you believe it doesn't.
Frankly, we just haven't seen as heavy a reader response to Eberron material, but that's probably because the campaign setting is still so new and is still in the process of finding its place in the fan base.
You don't think this has anything to do with spelling Eberron incorrectly, using the D&D miniatures tiles for maps, liberally throwing in warforged in places they aren't needed or the lack of consistent art? .
Or maybe -- just maybe -- Eberron isn't (yet) as popular as you want it to be.
Your opinon would seem more credible if, from time to time, reasonable points were conceded.
Jack
(He knows about the secret Greyhawk brainwashing plans! He must be silenced!)
Yeeesss maahssster... sssilenced... Oerth is great...
I have no use for Eberron adventures. If the day comes that a new edition makes Eberron the core setting, that will be the day I don't convert to a new edition. Still, I don't begrudge the necessary evil that Dungeon will have to (for my purposes) "waste" some space on Eberron adventures, as I realize Dungeon has to cater to several groups of players, including those who like settings that do nothing for me. But certainly, it is the increase in Greyhawk content and content easily portable to Greyhawk that has prompted me to renew my Dungeon subscription and to once more subscribe to Dragon.
I've never had any trouble converting generic or FR adventures to Eberron. It's much easier to add elements to an adventure than it is to take things out when doing a conversion.
As far as AoW in Eberron, my opinion since Day One has been that AoW has out-Eberron'd any Eberron adventures I've seen (whether in Dungeon or the WotC releases). How could you not look at Diamond Lake and not think "Spagetti Western?"
I do see the other side, however. Where Greyhawk and FR are straightforward fantasy worlds, Eberron, although a fantasy setting, was designed specifically to accommodate non-fantasy stories. So, yes, it can be problematic to give an FR adventure a noirish detective flavor, for example, if that adventure was never intended to be such; the workload involved in changing NPC motives, altering the plot and so forth can be frustrating. It's not impossible though...
Instead of seeing articles that a casual reader sees as "This is Eberron" and "This is FR", it would be so much better to see articles that say "You can do this in Eberron & FR, here's how."
people seemed to like it when we did that for "Monsters of the Mind". :)
Exactly. The casual reader didn't look at Monsters of the Mind and see it as "core" or Greyhawk canon. It was well presented by saying "You can do this in Eberron & FR, here's how". (That's actually one of my favorite issues.)
I have no use for Eberron adventures. If the day comes that a new edition makes Eberron the core setting, that will be the day I don't convert to a new edition. Still, I don't begrudge the necessary evil that Dungeon will have to (for my purposes) "waste" some space on Eberron adventures, as I realize Dungeon has to cater to several groups of players, including those who like settings that do nothing for me.
My thoughts exactly.
I have no use for Eberron adventures. If the day comes that a new edition makes Eberron the core setting, that will be the day I don't convert to a new edition. Still, I don't begrudge the necessary evil that Dungeon will have to (for my purposes) "waste" some space on Eberron adventures, as I realize Dungeon has to cater to several groups of players, including those who like settings that do nothing for me. But certainly, it is the increase in Greyhawk content and content easily portable to Greyhawk that has prompted me to renew my Dungeon subscription and to once more subscribe to Dragon.
I can't say I understand this attitude. Although I drift between Eberron and settings of my own creation, I've never looked at FR, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, whathaveyou material as "waste." One DMs waste, is another's "Hey! Cool map!"...
"AoW and Eberron Don't Mix"
Of course not, D&D and Eberron don't mix. Sorry, had to be done.
Call me the old guard or a fanboy or whatever - I despise Eberron. It's the only reason I didn't jump into the MMOPRG and it's why I dread v4.0. My D&D charcaters should not be robots (sorry, warforged) and shouldn't be riding trains and airplanes to the next dungeon. If I wanted to play Gamma World or something, I would.
That being said, converting a Greyhawk or FG adventure to Eberron is far simpler than the opposite. Add some lightning rails and make some of the NPCs warforged. Don't have the PCs recover a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, have it be a dragonshard. If, on the other hand, the point of the module is to uncover why the Artificer's Guild caused a lightning rail to skip the tracks on its way past all of the dinosaurs of the Talenta Plains while on its way to some summit aboard an airship between the halflings and one of the dragonmark houses...well, good luck converting that to any other setting.
At the end of the day, Eberron will die out soon. It's too cliquish and those settings (see Dark Sun, which I loved, Mystara, Spelljammer, etc.) always die because they're too far removed from the core.
If, on the other hand, the point of the module is to uncover why the Artificer's Guild caused a lightning rail to skip the tracks on its way past all of the dinosaurs of the Talenta Plains while on its way to some summit aboard an airship between the halflings and one of the dragonmark houses...well, good luck converting that to any other setting.
Change the artificers to an alchemists guild. Change the train to a large caravan of dozens of horse pulled wagons. The dinosaurs could be any type of D&D monster. Replace the halflings with your campaign's barbarians, the dragonmarked houses with a noble house and the airship with a hilltop tower overlooking the plains.
A terrific adventure using the Eberron backdrop you described could be done using material that's only in the core rulebooks. As long as the stat blocks, maps and story are good it's an easy to port adventure.
Background fluff should have very little impact on the actual adventure if the adventure is modular by nature. Only Paizo can make Eberron background fluff and they should do so even for generic modules.
If, on the other hand, the point of the module is to uncover why the Artificer's Guild caused a lightning rail to skip the tracks on its way past all of the dinosaurs of the Talenta Plains while on its way to some summit aboard an airship between the halflings and one of the dragonmark houses...well, good luck converting that to any other setting.Change the artificers to an alchemists guild. Change the train to a large caravan of dozens of horse pulled wagons. The dinosaurs could be any type of D&D monster. Replace the halflings with your campaign's barbarians, the dragonmarked houses with a noble house and the airship with a hilltop tower overlooking the plains.
...and every single one of these details is like fitting a square peg into a round hole. You've changed everything that made that adventure that adventure. You're left with such a hacked product that you're left wondering why you bothered in the first place. You could have written your own adventure.
You know, even if Dungeon is full of Greyhawk buffs who want to see the setting supported this is not a bad thing at all. OD&D was built around Greyhawk because Gygax and Kuntz designed the setting to be generic enough for each DM to make it his or her own, and that's how they intended it to be. Take a look at the scant details in the original WoG Folio and you'll see the "setting" is little more than a map and proper nouns with enormous blanks for each individual DM to fill in himself. Greyhawk didn't see much development in the way of background and history (ala From the Ashes) until Gygax left. Despite that, the setting remains particularly generic and rather vanilla in a lot of ways; I'm certain this is one of the things that gives the setting so much appeal to so many gamers. It's quite easy to add things to Greyhawk and make the setting your own. It's a much different story to modify Eberron. To do so, you have to take away things that make the setting unique. And you're left with the dilemna I described above; why did you bother in the first place when all of this would have been easier with a generic adventure?
Having run campains in Greyhawk/Forgottenrealms/conan and tried the Eberron MMORPG/scoured the Eberrron books, I have to weigh in with my support for the 3.5. Yeh the gods (proper nouns did you call them?) have greyhawk names, but they also have domain powers that are different from their Forgotten Realms counterparts, for example. The core books are greyhawk as far as I am concerned. And I think that is a "good thing"
Although I wish the Eberron creators all the best it is just not for me. And I think the Eberron campain world is too far from the DnD core. I have voted with my wallet on this one. And I will continue to do so. I think our illustrious editor is trying to be polite about reasons for the lack of Eberron numbers but I'm involved in the DnD scene in this city and I say it's a flop.
You know, even if Dungeon is full of Greyhawk buffs who want to see the setting supported this is not a bad thing at all. OD&D was built around Greyhawk because Gygax and Kuntz designed the setting to be generic enough for each DM to make it his or her own, and that's how they intended it to be.
I was trying to think of a way to make this point, and you did it perfectly, so I'll just second it.
There are many of us that run homebrew settings, myself included, and I simply find it much easier to adapt the Greyhawk adventures to my world than I can Eberron or even Faerun (and I love Forgotten Realms).
So, the core setting (and it IS the core... just because Wizards isn't developing or supporting it doesn't erase two decades of it being the heart of the game) actually has TWO strokes on it's side: One from those that love the setting, and one from those that love its ease of adaptability.
Dungeon and Dragon are products that need to strike a cord with the lowest common denominator to survive (as any retail product does). It makes perfect business sense for the majority of their product to have an ease of adaptability feel, in addition to the specialized articles and adventures for the two officially supported campaign settings.
There's my logical response... here comes my rant...
I've played Basic, Expert, 1st Ed, 2nd Ed... up through 2 decades. You do not get to stroll in here and tell me that everything I remember loving is dead, dust, and buried just because the new parent Co. decided to run some contest and throw all thier money behind the new upstart winner. Using Eberron as the setting for the on-line world was a SLAP IN THE FACE to old time gamers, and this new setting that you love so much IS getting the lion's share of resources from Wizards already, so what are you complaining about? One of the things I LOVE about Paizo is the nod they give to those of us that have watched this game develop over 20 years (Morgan Ironwolf in April's Dragon comes to mind.... even if it appears the illustrator gave her a sex change operation). I love that feeling of connection. I love that feeling of history. And I love Paizo for nurturing it.