D&D General Eberron - why don't you run it? [-]

[pukunui]

Eberron is one of my all-time favorite D&D settings. I run it regularly but have to really fight against the urge to just homebrew my own to run an existing setting.

I don't run Eberron for two reasons.

Which is it?

First, the lore is absurdly dense and hard to collate across however many books. Plus there's picking which version of the lore to follow. OG book, that plus some 3X supplements but not others, that plus all the other 3X supplements, the 4E lore, the 5E lore, that plus tracking down what Keith's added to the lore since I last checked in with his website.

It's just wildly too much. That's probably why I stick with the OG book, 4E, or Last War. Forget everything else.

And yet, for me, it's not enough! There are whole swathes of the setting that are literally just names on a map with absolutely nothing written about them whatsoever in any edition. Sometimes it's hard to believe anything exists outside of Sharn.

There's also a dearth of information on things like climate, seasons, biomes, etc. I know that in Khorvaire, for instance, it's more tropical to the south and more temperate to the north, but does that mean the "King's Forest" is more of a jungle than a typical forest?

Since I am currently running an episodic campaign set in Eberron - and this is my first time DMing a campaign set in Eberron - I get frustrated a lot by the lack of information when trying to find good places to set non-Eberron adventures and figure out what certain areas on the map are like in terms of weather, temperature, population, etc.

I know that the void of setting detail is a plus for many people; but as someone who cut their D&D teeth on the Forgotten Realms, which has at least something for pretty much every point on the map, as well as a creator who is always happy to wax poetic about things like local climates, customs, and whatnot, I guess I got spoiled!


I know this is incredibly picayune, but one thing that does bother me about Eberron is the shapes of its continents. I can't really articulate why I don't like them ... maybe because three of them look like blobby amobae, while Xen'drik looks like it has a head and arms / legs? I mean, FR and Greyhawk's continents aren't much more interesting in shape either really.

I think it's also annoying how sort of homogenous the continents are as well. Khorvaire is Europe/North America but without the mix of languages; Sarlona is Asia (complete with its own Tibet); Xen'drik is Africa; and I guess Argonnessen could be Australia, with Aerenal being the Caribbean.

Khorvaire does have some unique bits around the edges - the Lhazaar Principalities are meant to be a cultural melting pot, for instance - but overall there's not a lot of variety. I found it difficult to find places for any of the Radiant Citadel civilizations in Eberron, for instance.

Eberron supports high level play the same way any D&D setting does. There is so many interesting places to put high level foes (Khyber, Demon Wastes, Sarlona, the Mournlands, Xen'drik, the planes) but it would mean designers would have to leave Sharn and the Five Nations and design stuff for them!

I'm not saying it doesn't - or that it shouldn't. Just find it interesting the polar opposite opinions expressed in this thread!

 

[overgeeked]

Which is it?

Both. I run it regularly, but not all the time. When I don't run it it's because of the things I listed.

 

[pukunui]

Both. I run it regularly, but not all the time. When I don't run it it's because of the things I listed.

Gotcha! Thanks for clarifying.

 

[earthsea_wizard]

Mod Note:
Hey.
In the future, please don't do that.
A (+) thread is called such because the moderation rules in it are a little different than normal.

The moderators do not, and will not, support a (-) thread.

We do not support threads that amount to concerted efforts to badmouth stuff. The rules in here are unchanged.

So, keep it civil, folks.

Makes sense! I am not much of a forum-ite, seeing + threads I just made the assumption you should make a (-) thread to say that it was ok for the thread to have a negative connotation. On second thought, though, I can see why this is not needed or desired.

Anyways, been a nice and respectful conversation thus far which is good.

 

[Retreater]

I tried to run Eberron recently. It fell apart for a few reasons.
1) Too many factions and the characters being pulled in all directions.
2) We tried starting in Sharn. It was too big and intimidating. And there's always someone to get you out of trouble.
3) It's different enough that you can't easily drop in generic adventures without them feeling like they don't belong. And there's basically no official adventure content for it. So that's a trap.
4) Dragonmarked houses and special powers end up being confusing.

Eberron was my last attempt at running a published campaign setting, urban adventure, and 5E. I don't put all the blame on Eberron, but it has left the bad taste in my mouth of being the final straw.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think I just never got into Eberron because the initial pitch and then the first book seemed to be at odds with each other. Mixing magitech with what is supposed to be pulp adventures and noir just seemed like a grab bag of ideas when I finally read it on the page. Nothing really clicked for me. Like, individually, I thought any one or two of those things would work well, but Eberron always seemed to want to be all of these. Maybe for others it works well; I just can’t wrap my head around it.

 

[Retreater]

I think I just never got into Eberron because the initial pitch and then the first book seemed to be at odds with each other. Mixing magitech with what is supposed to be pulp adventures and noir just seemed like a grab bag of ideas when I finally read it on the page. Nothing really clicked for me. Like, individually, I thought any one or two of those things would work well, but Eberron always seemed to want to be all of these. Maybe for others it works well; I just can’t wrap my head around it.

What I liked about it, when I finally got around to trying it nearly 20 years later, was the noir/tech/post WW1 angle. I wanted to run it similar to a Call of Cthulhu game. Alas, it didn't work because the default 5E experience is heroic fantasy, and it seemed to be forcing the system to work in ways it was unintended to work.
IMO, what it desperately needed: rules for mooks, rules to make single enemies more threatening (and have a way out), increase access to the tech by default at 1st level, sanity/fear mechanics.

 

[TiQuinn]

What I liked about it, when I finally got around to trying it nearly 20 years later, was the noir/tech/post WW1 angle. I wanted to run it similar to a Call of Cthulhu game. Alas, it didn't work because the default 5E experience is heroic fantasy, and it seemed to be forcing the system to work in ways it was unintended to work.
IMO, what it desperately needed: rules for mooks, rules to make single enemies more threatening (and have a way out), increase access to the tech by default at 1st level, sanity/fear mechanics.

Yeah, I can see that. A different system or setting specific subsystems and rules modifications might help set the tone better.

 

[Remathilis]

I think I just never got into Eberron because the initial pitch and then the first book seemed to be at odds with each other. Mixing magitech with what is supposed to be pulp adventures and noir just seemed like a grab bag of ideas when I finally read it on the page. Nothing really clicked for me. Like, individually, I thought any one or two of those things would work well, but Eberron always seemed to want to be all of these. Maybe for others it works well; I just can’t wrap my head around it.

See for me, I tend to pick one theme and run with it rather than do all of them. I've done pulp exploration in Xen'drik, high seas swashbucklers in Lhazaar, noir political intrigue in Sharn and now Western cosmic horror in Quickstone. Eberron supports these all, but like any good ice cream bar, adding all the toppings at once just gives you a belly ache.

 

[Remathilis]

If I do have one complaint, it's that Eberron is great for running a variety of very modernistic style adventures, but kinda bad for running generic medieval D&D. The fact most of the common species are "... With a twist" means it's harder to just plop in an adventure featuring a elven forested village being beset by orcs under the control of the cult of Baphomet. You gotta do a lot of work to make that pretty standard hook work with Eberron. It's refreshing as a change of pace, but requires a lot more work than other kitchen sinks like The Realms or Greyhawk