It's kept a steady "neutral" for me.
It's quite good. It has a nice overall flavor and feel, and does a nice balance of traditional and newfangled. It does what it does pretty solidly.
But it all rings a little plain to me. After the novelty and excitement of D&D with trains and skyscrapers and robots wears thin, once we've had the experience in Eberron that's not drastically different from the experience in regular D&D, I start wondering what more there is.
Eberron seems shallow, in other words. I got this feeling after reading the ECS, and it's pretty much persisted. You can do cool things in Eberron, but there's nothing that Eberron does that you can't do in standard D&D. That is a blessing, and was part of the reason the setting was chosen, I'm sure. But it's also a curse. There's no REASON to play Eberron.
Perhaps it will come. Greyhawk, FR, and Krynn all have extensive histories and geographies that have been explored by adventurers and novelists in interesting detail all over the place. The reason to play in Greyhawk is because you like to visit and revisit the Flaness, the reason to play in FR is becuase you like to visit and revisit Waterdeep, and the reason to play in Krynn is because you like to visit and revisit...I dunno...tinker gnomes.
Eberron doesn't have that quite yet. It has no tradition. It has shiny newness that has been done to death, but after everyone's gotten used to the concept of RoboPC's and Splat-touched, it doesn't have a lot to lend itself to deapth. It has cool imagery, but little going on beneath the surface.
Again, that's not nessecarily a bad thing -- that's what makes it flexible and portable as a setting. You can inject your own creative juices comfortably into Eberron no problem, and you don't need to worry about adapting and adopting every little thing to fit the setting. That also might make it short-lived though. There's no REASON to linger around. Nothing pulls you back in. It's too generic, too adaptable. It has a personality of its' own, but that personality is something you can do adventures around, not entire settings. Once you've done a few adventures around it, nothing keeps you there. There's no anchor. It's personality is shallow.
I think it still has potential left to be milked, but the focus has to shift from "Eberron is good for you, no matter what you do!" to "This is what you can do in Eberron that you CAN'T do in your own campaign!" It needs to focus on what it does that is special. Hint: It's not warforged (or any other race for that matter).
Some ideas that can keep milking Eberron's specialness:
- The tribal halflings. Bold and aggressive halflings are something new that doesn't fit the usual type. No one else does tribal halflings.
- The cult of death amongst the elves. Again, they do it special and no other setting really does it. People love the critters, too.
- Pulpy jungle exploration with Giants and Drow. This is something of a unique flavor that has been sorely underdone.
That's not exhaustive, but it's some ideas on where Eberron is truly unqiue. Get away from the main continent for a bit. The main continent is for typical D&D style tomfoolery. Get something special. Something different. Something that can add more to the game than another species for players.
