If you think about a canonical film noir, like Double Indemnity, it is dark and yet, at the end, the system isn't corrupt, blind, or toothless, and amorality (and immorality) is punished.
#SWORDS AND SANDALS 3 WHY IS MAGIC OP CODE#
Nevertheless, most of the classic film noirs reject moral ambiguity in whole or in part because they were filmed under a production code that required the triumph of virtue.
As Keith Baker put it above- the system is corrupt, blind, or toothless. While most people, in common parlance, might think of such signifiers as "Detective" or "Femme Fatale" or "Urban" or "Amorality" as markers of the genre, none of these are required.įor that matter, while many would look to visual signifiers as well (use of black & white film, chiaroscuro lighting, use of blinds and other elements to create shadows and/or obscure elements on screen including characters' faces), this also isn't universal.įinally, there is the assumed given that film noir has a pessimistic outlook.
The biggest problem with defining film noir as a coherent body of film is that there are certain aspects that define it (noir-esque) but none that are exclusive to the genre. We can look to Keith Baker's own brief definition: "oir intrigue thrives on shades of gray, uncertainty, and on questions that don’t have simple answers." "One of the basic principles of noir is that the system is unreliable-either corrupt, blind, or toothless." Okay! But what does "noir" really mean? Where did "noir" come from?Ī film noir (black, or dark film) was a descriptive term to describe a particular set of films that emerged from Hollywood during and immediately after World War 2. But what exactly does "noir" mean? Now we get to the confusing part. So there is almost universal agreement that Eberron was designed with "noir" in mind and is a "noir" setting. "Eberron is designed with two story poles in mind: pulp adventure and noir intrigue." The reason why these statements are so universal is because they are accurate, and because that's how Keith Baker describes the setting. When people discuss Eberron, one of the main descriptions they use is "noir." We see multiple people refer to it as such Mirrorball Man " Eberron is a noir and pulp fantasy campaign setting in which magic has been harnessed to fuel an industrial "My players are about to get their first real taste of that in a while in my Eberron game, which is normally more grounded and noir/pulp inspired." Eberron.īrief primer- Eberron is a campaign setting designed by Keith Baker. While this topic originally came up regarding Greyhawk and "Swords and Sorcery" (S&S), I thought I'd first look at why this is necessarily a limited discussion by examining a slightly different campaign setting. Moving somewhat tangentially from the previous 3,804 threads on Greyhawk (numbers are approximate), I thought I'd go more deeply into a discussion about why there is a limit to analogies regarding campaign settings and genre.