D&D General What do you like about Eberron?

[payn]

I like EBERRON for it's diversity, magitech, elemental ship, lightning rail, the history of the Last War and the mystery for the destruction of Cyre, the factions, the Dragonmarked Houses, the twist on otherwise standard species, the cryptic Dragon Prophecy and so many more....

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

It was Dungeons and Dragons Online where i gained appreciation fit Ebrrron and all it has to offer.

 

[Laurefindel]

For me, Eberron was THE blueprint for “D&D” with a twist. It takes the “our elves are different!” trope and applies it to pretty much everything, which at first was both refreshing and intimidating.

The classical D&D settings all started as somebody’s home game but Eberron was the first setting to feel like an “official homebrew”; even more so than Darksun IMO. The best word that comes to mind when thinking about Eberron is “deliberate”. It seeks completeness, coherence, consistence, thoroughly and deliberately. I can appreciate that.

 

[MarkB]

For me, Eberron was THE blueprint for “D&D” with a twist. It takes the “our elves are different!” trope and applies it to pretty much everything, which at first was both refreshing and intimidating.

Just a shame that it somehow managed to fall victim to the "all dwarves are the same" trope. Even between the Aurum, the dragonmarked house and the subterranean lost civilisation, there's still little to distinguish them from dwarves of other settings, a rare miss for this setting.

 

[overgeeked]

It’s a slight coat of paint away from Final Fantasy and Sword World.

It’s both pulp and noir.

It’s set between two wars and pulls heavily from Europe between WW1 and WW2.

It’s filled to overflowing with factions, story hooks, interesting locations & NPCs, etc.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I love the artwork and the look of the original books. I get such good vibes from leafing through the sourcebooks.

 

[Blue]

although i don't deny this is a good thing, i think it had the unfortunate side of effect of, for a number of the fans, things that were made for ebberon were unofficially restricted to ebberon, because their lore were specifically made to tie into it's world so strongly with no more generic alternatives, i can't tell you the amount of times i've heard on this site things to the effect of 'no, you can't use warforged outside of ebberon, the forges don't exist and the war never happened to incite their creation' or 'you can't have dragonmarks because the houses only exist in ebberon'

I don't see this as an unfortunate side effect in the slightest. If the DM is restricting because they know those details and desires that everything in their setting is highly connected to that setting, that's an absolute win.

We know that kitchen sinks setting like FR get republished and sold across editions, and that thematically restricted settings like Dark Sun get republished and sold across editions, so both are absolute valid ways to play. A DM who is trying to have a highly thematic setting, enough that they don't want to add something because it won't have those connections, is making a perfectly valid choice and it's not "unfortunate" to me that they picked one reasonable choice instead of a different reasonable choice of a kitchen sink.