Stuff that wasn't Eberron

[shirak]

Anyone know where I can find all the other ideas presented in the contest that gave us Eberron? I know Keith Baker suggested an Awakened Land where Druids Awakened everything or something. And that sounds far more interesting than Eberron.

[Koumei]

Little Red Riding Hood seems far more interesting than Eberron.

But yes, a land of Awakened things sounds cool. Woah. Furniture would be really creepy, because you'd know it was made out of the hacked up pieces of the corpse of an intelligent creature.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

From my understanding, WotC told the entrants that once they send in their ideas, they couldn't share them, because they were then property of WotC.

[tzor]

How about an 18th century technoloigy "new world" where native elves have to adapt to an advancing horde of "old world" humans who are divided on the concept of bringing along some orc slaves with them to do all the manual labor?

Fortunately, my one page draft never got past that stage, so I never had to sign a NDA agreement. All the other runner ups are still tied by a WoTC non disclosure agreement and are burried under more security than the Ark of the Covenant.

[shirak]

Basically, apart from being curious, I'm interested in ideas for my new campaign world. I'm basically trying to come up with a setting for Tome games and incidentally explain all the weird rules of D&D. You know, do what Eberron was supposed to do.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm pretty sure that at least a few of the other finalists had their work published by 3rd-party companies. I think Dawnforge was one of them, for instance.

[counturl=99]Link[/counturl]

Oh, and here's a long-ass review, which should give you an idea of what it's like as a setting.

[counturl=100]Link Again[/counturl]

I believe the system parts to be kind of crap, but the setting itself might not be terrible.

[NineInchNall]

I actually really liked Dawnforge. It made for unashamedly higher powered characters than the norm.

[Prak]

well, I was just watching the Time Machine and started thinking about a Morlock/Surface race age game... explanations for the weird stuff in D&D could be worked into it...

[MrWaeseL]

What's Eberron's shtick anway? Magic trains and dragonmarks?

[Koumei]

That, a home for psionics and the way the races came to be:

Warforged, aka runner up for the race with the most annoying fanboys ever: built

Everything else: humans sexed up X, and they bred true.

[ckafrica]

1189344368[/unixtime]]How about an 18th century technoloigy "new world" where native elves have to adapt to an advancing horde of "old world" humans who are divided on the concept of bringing along some orc slaves with them to do all the manual labor?

I know it might seem futile to mention this in relationship to DnD at all but you do see how completely racist an idea this is. I mean the best you can come up as your substitution for african slaves is orcs!?! Can we have reviled gnomish money lenders too?

[Judging__Eagle]

Old Dwarven with Elven slaves, greedy Orcs are money lenders plox. Gnomes and Halflings are asians and middle-eastern.

Humans are natives of new world and get wiped out.

Nothing matches and thus no one is happy.

[tzor]

1189445916[/unixtime]]I know it might seem futile to mention this in relationship to DnD at all but you do see how completely racist an idea this is.

Yes, it's probably very racist, I don't think I even bothered to mention it on the one pager because of it. It just derives from a number of minor technical featues of D&D core; the ability of the half orc as a PC race being the greatet driving factor. Also the original design was to boil out as much of the real world references from the scenario. Light sensitivity would pose an interesting variation as well which could easily obfuscate the real world links.

I will admit that the thought of Orcs singing Porgy and Bess did come to my mind, but I was easily able to drive it away.

As for the money lenders ... well not exactly but ... they were hobbits ... I mean halflings. Generally speaking the only halfling community which would have been in the scenario would have been in the equivalent of New York City.

Basically the scenario would have been roughly placed just before the equivalent of the French and Indian war, about 1750.

[ckafrica]

The problem to using DnD races to emulate real world history is your choice in race is directly going to be attributed to a defacto commentary on real life cultures. So if your going that root, gnomes are your bankers (gnomes of zurich anyone?) squat with big noses and globally hated by everyone who secretly engage in magical rites which often include the blood of children. And consider that perhaps goblins would more controllable and toadying that an orcs if you want to truly degrate Africans rather than calling them blood thirsty savages who focus on nothing more than fighting and fvcking.

[Koumei]

One weeaboo yaoi-obsessed friend of mind claims elves are Asians, because they live longer than humans/Westerners, are isolationists/hate outsiders, lack body hair (she says this despite having slept with a number of Asians. Evidence (pr0n) suggests it all just migrated to the crotch), are generally prettier, and have their own special fighting style (martial arts vs "all elves are proficient with the following martial weapons, and see all of their special Prestige Classes").

Just throwing that out there for the "if we want to be racist, then X should be ___" crowd.

[Prak]

1189488649[/unixtime]]One weeaboo yaoi-obsessed friend of mind claims elves are Asians, because they live longer than humans/Westerners, are isolationists/hate outsiders, lack body hair (she says this despite having slept with a number of Asians. Evidence (pr0n) suggests it all just migrated to the crotch), are generally prettier, and have their own special fighting style (martial arts vs "all elves are proficient with the following martial weapons, and see all of their special Prestige Classes").

Just throwing that out there for the "if we want to be racist, then X should be ___" crowd.

actually, the races were quite racist originally anyway...

Elves= hybrid of asain and native american stereotypes
(Bonus! Drow= stereotypical evil africans)
Orcs= stereotypical african savage man
gnomes and dwarves= jews
halflings are the only thing I can think of that don't have an unflattering stereotype leap to mind, but that's because instead of offending, Gygax plagarized and stole them from Tolkien.

[Koumei]

Halflings = children (annoying little fucks who steal everything and have no place in an adventuring party).

Oddly enough, as I was a Warhammer player before a roleplayer, I at first assumed the drow would have pale skin, like the dark elves, to reflect their living in a place where the sun hasn't been invented yet.

Crazy talk, I know.

So, who are the Nords? Both the 9 foot tall, bearded Vikings and the blonde-haired large-breasted pretty pale women? Ooh! And we need the race that's going to try to wipe out the gnomes and dwarfs, too!

And I always picked dwarfs as being stereotypical Russians: drinking a lot, gruff and unfriendly at first, though they stick together with their comrades, always at war with someone, the whole "mining in very cold places" thing... then Iron Kingdoms made Khador, the Dwarf kingdom, basically Sovjet Russia. Which led to mandatory "In Sovjet Khador, darkness attacks YOU!*" style jokes.

*Damning Darkness (Book of Vile Body Piercings). Check it out.

[CalibronXXX]

1189491365[/unixtime]]Ooh! And we need the race that's going to try to wipe out the gnomes and dwarfs, too!

You can take your pick from goblinoids or kobolds. Take aspects from Bugbear and Hobgoblin twist them a bit and you might have something that looks German if you squint real hard.

[Fuzzy_logic]

Dude, D&D Dwarves come straight from Tolkien, who based them on the Nibelung, an actual, preexisting nordic/germanic folktale critter. There is not, as far as I know, anything racial going on there sve for the racial element in all old myths.

Similarly, "Aelfs" are seriously Celtic myths. Not a parody of asians.

[Cielingcat]

1189488649[/unixtime]]One weeaboo

I already hate your friend.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I know several people that portray Goblins as mexicans, since we're on the racist D&D races subject.

[Captain_Bleach]

I portray all D&D races as stereotypical humans:
1. Hate each other for minor physical differences,
2. Have self-defeating and contradictory philosophical views (Alignment)
3. Justify their selfish pursuit of revenge and greed with "But they are EVIL, so we must raid their homes!" (Adventuring)
4. When one war against the Big Bad Evil Guy wins, another Big Bad Evil Guy comes along. (Real World: I have yet to hear of a single week when humans are not trying to kill each other. Not-real world: When the superheroes defeat the bad guy, the developers decide to throw in another villain to milk more money out of consumers)
5. Those who are pacifists/praise nonviolent protest get screwed over eventually (Real World: Gandhi-killed. Jesus-killed. Martin Luther King Jr.-killed. D&D world: Killing things and taking their treasure is a sacred cow of D&D)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I've also known people portray kobolds as jews, on the grounds that they thrive despite the fact the rest of the world hates them.

[tzor]

I'm a traditionalist. I prefer my dwarves wearing kilts, having a bad Scots accent, inventing golf and throwing large cabers at the Orcs.

Except for Khanedd of course the Dwarven beastrider who rode a fully decked out hog named "Harley." Of course he went crazy because after one too many resurrections by the elf cleric he converted. He is now in some forest paradise sourrounded by these fragile elf blondes going gaga over his facial hair.

Yes even the half drow paladin was confused by him.

[Koumei]

1189529385[/unixtime]]
I already hate your friend.

For what it's worth, I meant "friend" in the "This person no longer wants anything at all to do with me and I moved interstate to get away from her" way. You know, the kinds of friends who don't speak/write to each other, hang out or anything. She's actually part of why I've become as anti-Asian as I am now.

Another thing on the elves as Asians thing: Elves have +2 Dex. Asians suck at driving. Something is wrong here.

Most people I know give dwarfs Scottish accents, one person decided his dwarf spoke like a pirate. He also decided his dwarf was a complete retard, mind you, or it could have just been him. Hmm. At any rate, I just think of them as the stereotypical Russians.

Hmm. Originally this thread was about something else. Other suggested settings that are a million times better than Eberron, or something?