D&D 5e: A Case for Eberron

There's been a lot of talk on the interweb about what campaign setting (if any) Wizards of the Coast should be looking into publishing next. Or soonest. Or most profitably. Or ever.

You get the idea.

Without going into excruciatingly unique or idiosyncratic detail, I want to offer a brief pitch for one particular setting to be brought up to speed in 5e.

Dungeons and Dragons--and indeed most traditional RPGs--have a particular, familiar, comfortable format. From Tolkien, through Chainmail, and into the "modern" era of gaming: sword-and-sorcery; dwarves, elves, and "hobbits"; mysterious but often predictable magic; Euro-centric medievalism; and heroes who are born to look for power gain, glory, and gold. I'll start by saying that there is nothing wrong with this; I love playing "standard" D&D, whether it takes place in a homebrew setting, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or what-have-you.

However, there is more to D&D than these (awesome) traditions.

When I was first introduced to the Eberron campaign setting, it changed the way I saw D&D. More than that, it changed the way I realized that stories could be told. I'm sure every "true believer" has their own story of why their precious setting should be the next one that Wizards updates to the new edition, but here are just a few reasons I think Eberron should be it. (Disclaimer: I am no expert on the setting. In fact, the very idea that I'm not an expert in it and I'm advocating for it is one of my minor points in its favor!)

I'll start with the obvious/overt:

• Eberron's "new" items (warforged and artificers, to give just a single example) provide fresh material for those who come to D&D and see only what they've already encountered in traditional fantasy literature--up to and including Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore and countless others.
• The twists on traditional roles (good undead, sentient machines, elves as recovering slaves, etc.) introduce the right mix of familiarity and novelty. 
• Magic-as-technology bridges many play-style gaps and allows Roland and Edward to play right alongside Gandalf, Conan, and Cadderly.
• Steampunk, a movement that seemed like a passing fad in the early 2000s when Eberron came on the scene, persists--even thrives. A return to Eberron touches on all those cosplayers and crafters who think in terms of airships and machines without electronics.
• In terms of game mechanics, 5e's focus on character as mechanic would flourish: ideals, bonds, flaws, and especially backstory are nothing new to players in Eberron. Belonging to a noble house or being a scion of a great nation or being a new-forged mechanical being or, well, not being one of those things means a great deal even if you're only doing a dungeon crawl: dragonmarks, racial abilities, and other game mechanics were already hinging on these now-codified pieces.
• Keith Baker left much of his world undefined. That means there's plenty of room for the loremaster DM who wants to know who lives where, why, for how long, etc. and the fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants zero-prep DM and the homebrew expert who fills in the gaps with his own fanfic that's better than published fantasy.
• Wizards has clearly seen the need for the setting: it commissioned it in the early 2000s and updated it into its fourth edition--an honor only shared by two other settings (and only one from the previous edition).

 Some less standard thoughts:

• Eberron has just had its great cataclysm.
• The Last War is fresh, gritty, and real--but also over. What's left is a world that is ripe for new stories to be told. The "average" setting's earth-shaking events either happened in aeons past or are about to happen. Eberron takes a uniquely different path by offering characters the chance to be a part of something much more difficult than standing at the precipice of a cataclysm: standing up amidst the rubble shortly after.
• There is a relative newness to the "recorded history" of the kingdoms of Eberron. 

• Dragons or aliens or even giants may have once been in charge and held long complicated histories--but they aren't humans (or demihumans). Elves and dwarves aren't the "elder races" anymore (and neither are humans). That means the Last War isn't just a terrible cataclysm, it's the terrible cataclysm as far as 95% of the world the PCs interact with is concerned.
• Everything inhuman is that much more alien.
• Speaking of the 95%, the other 5% becomes rare, strange, and exotic.
• Exploring makes sense. 
• In a new world, with alien creatures and exotic discoveries to be made, exploration is not just a romp through bandit-infested forests or spider-filled caverns. Exploration becomes a way of life; whole sectors of the globe are uncharted--or perhaps even more interestingly, the charts themselves are so out of date as to be dangerously inaccurate. Eberron craves adventurers naturally to solve, search, and explore.
• The playstyle (film noir meets bursts of action meets movie-style scenes meets investigation and problem-solving) encourages fewer "random" encounters and more story-infused encounters. The new Dungeon Master's Guide operates under the assumption that whatever your group's playstyle, you are telling a story. A setting that was designed with storytelling in mind? Perfection.

There are, of course, tremendous arguments for other settings, but my heart still sits with Eberron. In the end, I just hope we do see traditional setting guides and not just "adventure path supplements" with mini-gazetteers. Having a "setting bible" is (for me) an important part of using a setting in an edition (for me). In retrospect, it may be why I didn't continue with Pathfinder after the "Rise of the Runelords": there wasn't (at the time) a Golarion setting guide, and I felt disconnected from the adventure path's purpose (or context).

Here's to all of us getting something we can sink our teeth into for our beloved Dungeons and Dragons.

D&D 5e: The Art Style

Disclaimers: My artistic sensibilities are not professional, so apologies to "real artists" who can discuss this subject with far more precision! Also, I am basing most of this discussion on the Player's Handbook (and other source books used by players) in each edition: your average player doesn't use/see a DMG or a MM, and so I'm staying somewhat away from them as indicative of the art style for the edition.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I do feel that the art direction in 5e is certainly distinct from that of previous editions.

Third edition's bright, vibrant illustrations were high contrast, overlaid with dark, dark tones and highlighted with bright, white highlights. Fourth edition discarded the grit, and replaced it with cartoony, comic-book style, over the top proportions and unified color schemes. Fifth edition retains the color palette of Fourth (though it does tone it down somewhat; earth-tones replace neon vibrancy). Rather than gritty, high-contrast Third edition artwork, Fifth softens the hard edges and blurs the lines. Even the "parchment" style of the page fills is much softer than the earlier two editions.

I am in favor of this shift in art style for the most part in that it is something novel that continues to advance the genre's flavor (a combination rather than a renouncement). What I dislike are the same things that most people seem to be head-scratching over: font, flatness, and indexes (I won't worry about indexes here.).

The font choice, while incredibly legible, is tiny. On the one hand, this makes the book appear to have a vastly increased amount of information from previous versions: they're still hefty tomes, but with smaller fonts there should be more information per page, right? Maybe not. I think the designers made more use of margins and splashes to add art and design to more of the text-pages, ultimately leaving us with the same amount of information in a slightly less easy-to-read font-size. The overall effect is beautiful, but not as practical.

As for the artwork itself, the sophistication level is high, the resolution sound, and the pages glossy. The overall effect (ironically?) serves to flatten the artwork onto the page, rather than make it pop out, off the page. Third and Fourth source books were both designed in a way that made it appear the artwork (particularly partial splashes) were leaping off the page, interrupting the flow of the document and drawing your eye. The new artwork is still eye-catching (truly!), but the new artwork appears behind rather than in front of the text. The text is the center-piece, and the artwork takes a backseat.

I have to wonder if the layout directors thought this "Text-Pop" method would make up for making the font smaller? Smaller font leads to more room for artwork, so the artwork takes a backseat to spotlight the smaller text...

I guess anything's possible?

In the end, I fall back on the metaphor I used in my last post. The source books themselves feel like a travelogue of an aging hobbit. Soft, sketchy artwork, beautifully--even carefully--rendered, with clear, articulate descriptions accompanying the artwork. Even the tone of the text (if I can include that in this discussion of its art value) is closer in tone to one friend talking to another in an intimate letter.

Illustrations are mostly "realistic"--in proportion, realistically colored, and portrayed in naturalistic lighting. They are, however, also impressionistic in the way the colors and lines are occasionally blurred. A person's face may be in full, sharp clarity, while that person's hands and feet may be blurred so that the digits are soft and indistinct. The effect is that of an observer who paid attention to certain details but left others to the imagination--capturing the important or essential qualities of the creature, person, locale, or artifact while ignoring, or at least setting aside, the rest. This is a big change from Fourth (where the cartoony art style meant that all things were "in focus") and from Third (where all things were in gritty, unrealistically clear focus, or else were supernaturally shadowy).

Conclusion? Fifth's art is not as ostensibly "memorable" as the other editions, but--like a good bass line in your favorite song--I think its art is just as recognizable, and maybe necessary. Without the art, the edition would fall flat; with it, there is a distinct flavor to each of the source books that should be maintainable and variable to create new and exciting visual content to accompany supplemental material.

For those of you without a physical copy of any Fifth Edition materials, I would point you toward the Third Edition's Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting as a good analogue for the Fifth Edition feel. Smaller fonts, heavy "parchment paper" backgrounds, and soft, masterfully done images.

I can't wait to see how the Dungeon Master's Guide utilizes this kind of art, and I very much look forward to seeing how a new 5e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting manages to deal with the long shadow cast by its Third Edition predecessor!