Load me up with Eberron!

[Aus_Snow]

I have been looking more closely at this setting, though still from afar, as it were. It has occurred to me that I might like to run it some day. And I like some of Keith Baker's other works, so. . .

Anyway, what would you recommend a DM get, if they want to inflict the Eberron experience in its full might and glory on some unsuspecting (but experienced, adult) players?

 

[CharlesRyan]

The Players Guide to Eberron is pretty handy. It provides a lot of the little details that help players understand their characters' national and cultural backgrounds, which I think is especially important in a setting that often emphasizes intrigue and politics. I especially like the sidebars that appear in every section: "Five things every Karnathi [or other nationality] knows."

 

[Aus_Snow]

The Players Guide to Eberron is pretty handy. It provides a lot of the little details that help players understand their characters' national and cultural backgrounds, which I think is especially important in a setting that often emphasizes intrigue and politics. I especially like the sidebars that appear in every section: "Five things every Karnathi [or other nationality] knows."

Excellent. That's just the kind of information I'm hoping for. Thank you.

 

[Robert Ranting]

The lack of detail about the Last War in most of the early Eberron books always irritated me. It just seemed incredibly unhelpful to say that the war is a recent memory that has affected every character in the setting, and then simply gloss over the war as "100 years of shifting allegiances and bloodshed." Thus, The Forge of War is my favorite Eberron book. It finally lays out a full history of the war, who fought whom, where, when, why, how, and so on. It gives a player enough detail to actually hang a character backstory on, and precise dates that let you know what battles a dwarf or elf might have fought in long before the current generation of humans were born. Best of all, once it's done outlining an "official" history of the war, it offers suggestions on how to alter it to suit the individual DM's purposes, including running campaigns set during the war, and how player actions might have changed it.

Granted, I only borrowed it from a friend for a couple days, but one read through was enough to get me interested in Eberron as a setting with a story, rather than a random collection of pulp adventure tropes and new mechanics.

Robert "YMMV" Ranting

 

[Glyfair]

Anyway, what would you recommend a DM get, if they want to inflict the Eberron experience in its full might and glory on some unsuspecting (but experienced, adult) players?

As mentioned by Charles, Player's Guide to Eberron. There is a big criticism of the book out there. Some DMs of the "players only know what I tell them" school feel that there are too many "secrets" in the book. Another complaint is that the book places a lot of the optional races and classes in Eberron in sidebars without a big bold "optional" header that many seem to want. I personally don't think these are major issues, but your game may vary.

I also highly recommend the free Dragonshards articles written by Keith. They are interesting looks at parts of the world. His Eberron Expanded articles aren't bad either.

If you are looking for adventures, I first recommend a number of Dungeon adventures. Chimes at Midnight (#133) is, IMO, one of the best adventures period. The sequel, "Quoth the Raven" is in the last print issue (#150) and the final one in the series will appear in the first online Dungeon (which will be free, as I understand it). Also top quality are "Steel Shadows" (#115), "Fallen Angel" (#117) & "Murder at Oakbridge" (#129) from Dungeon.

Outside of Dungeon I'm enjoying running Eyes of the Lich Queen. I like Voyage of the Golden Dragon (even if it requires make the ship bigger), but haven't run it. One of the adventures (it has several linked adventures) has 3 or 4 plotlines running at once, some of which the character may never interact with. If you aren't good at that sort of DMing, you might want to avoid that adventure or modify it heavily.

 

[green slime]

Personally, I liked the Races of Eberron book, as it fleshes out the details of the Eberron-specific races, and provides some needed extra goodies for those characters.

 

[FreeXenon]

I'll second Races of Ebberon. It roxors for information and background on the new races.

Five Nations is also really good for information about each of the 5 main nations of Galifar - really detailed

Magic of Eberron is Eh.
Faiths of Eberron is alright.

 

[shilsen]

Besides the ones that have been listed, I'd highly recommend Keith Baker's Sharn: City of Towers. The book is all about Sharn but gives an excellent sense of Eberron and you could run a number of campaigns using just that one.

 

[Stormborn]

I will simply re-iterate that "Fallen Angel" (Dungeon #117) is great and an excellent place to start and adventure. Other than that Five Nations and Player's Guide have lots of nice setting info that would be useful for a DM, especially one who intended to take "Fallen Angel" and make it a campaign, you might want to add to that Secrets of Xendrik, although I dont think its really vital. Races of Eb seems to occasionally get bad press around here, but if I was a player in a Eberron campaign and going to use one of those races I would want it available.

 

[The Lost Muse]

The Players Guide to Eberron is pretty handy. It provides a lot of the little details that help players understand their characters' national and cultural backgrounds, which I think is especially important in a setting that often emphasizes intrigue and politics. I especially like the sidebars that appear in every section: "Five things every Karnathi [or other nationality] knows."

I think the sections you are referring to are in 5 Nations, not the Player's Guide to Eberron.

I'd recommend staying away from Races of Eberron, but almost all of the other books are pretty good, except for the modules.