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

[Faolyn]

I've got a + thread going about the Realms, thought I would even it out with a - thread! I recently fell for Eberron after mostly ignoring it for 21 years, but am curious what it is by 2025 that has people not enjoying it? It is now more difficult for me to look at most other D&D fantasy settings without considering how applying the Eberron approach is so much more immersive and gameable. I've seen people say Eberron ruined every other setting for them because of this, and I can see why. But still, I know many aren't into it.

I can guess at some of the general turnoffs, most of them probably aesthetic (that was my hurdle), but lets hear it.

What do you consider the "Eberron approach" to be?

For myself: the setting is OK but not really my jam. I prefer (my own interpretation of) Ravenloft.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Modern magic.

Magic as a substitute/parastitute/branch for technology and science is a big turn-off for me. I like magic to be mysterious and rare in the world.* Eberron appears to lean into modern magic and I'm not willing to spend $25 on a book I likely won't like.^ I don't really care for the treatment given to magic as a college degree program in the likes of Harry Potter, Name of the Wind, and Strixhaven.°

* I expect the Players Characters to experience more magic than the "background level" of magic in the setting because they are adventurers who seek this stuff out. Just like a sasquatch "researcher" will experience more bigfoot "encounters" than me because they are adventurers who seek that stuff out.

^ Although I must say I rarely, if ever, see It on used book shelves, which is an indication that people really love their Eberron books.

° Although at the beginning of the Harry Potter craze I thought it was a cool way to get kids excited about higher education.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I much prefer my own homebrew campaigns, and always have, but I absolutely loved reading the Eberron fiction novels.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like Eberron for the most part - Sharn in particular is great, and I like the spectre of the Last War hanging over everything -- but even from the beginning, it felt a little too detailed for my tastes and, as time has gone on, canon has filled in more and more of the empty spaces on the map.

I already have an everything-in-3E-is-in-here setting centered around a great urban setting -- Ptolus -- but if that book didn't exist, I would probably be running my own take on Eberron, with blackjack and hookers.

 

[Scribe]

Its overwhelming to me at this point in my life. Just the 5e content alone that Baker is a part of (official + guild) is just too much for me to care to process now.

 

[Laurefindel]

I love Eberron for different reasons than I love FR.

I know the appellation of “medieval fantasy” is frown upon, but Eberron is in my mind the first “modern” setting. Spelljammer and to a lesser extent planescape and ravenloft departed from “medieval” early on in D&D history, but Eberron was the first setting to approach modernity in themes and content (beyond glimpses of anachronistic aesthetics). At first, it turned me off, as it signified a greater departure from FR faux-renaissance than Spelljammer even.

Then I learned to lean into it. IMO, Khorvaire is too big and not populated enough to support that genre, so I usually default to halve all distances and double all populations to up density. It probably should be x5, but given that we’re just out of a 100-year war, a lower population makes sense.

Eberron also works best at level 1-8 IMO. At first it used to bother me in a « but I’m only using 33% of the game! » kind of way. Then again I realized that that’s what I prefer anyway…

 

[TheSword]

I might be wrong but just for the record I’m not sure there is such thing as a [-] thread. As a [+] thread is one where folks can only say nice things. It means don’t argue with the basic premise of the thread. So by asking “what don’t you like?” A [+] thread still means people shouldn’t wax lyrical about how great Eberron is and how everyone must love all of it.

 

[Distracted DM]

Because I'd rather run my own setting and pluck inspiration from stuff like Eberron, curated to my own needs.

 

[Maenalis]

The dragonmarked houses and the lightningrail are the 2 main reasons. The last one is the lack of info about what happened to Cyre and what is the Lord of Blades up to.
If someone writes an adventure path about the mystery of the Mournland, or about the rising warforged empire, or just the draconic prophecy, I would be happy to play in Eberron again, although I would still remove the dragonmarked houses and the lightningrail.

 

[Remathilis]

I won't run Eberron because the book was delayed. Once it's out, I will run it.