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Message: <blockquote data-quote="earthsea_wizard" data-source="post: 9749350" data-attributes="member: 7049259">I remember conversations like this around the time it came out and for years after. I'm one of those people whose first interaction with Dungeons & Dragons was the Dragonlance novels in the late 90s (sub in the 1980s or Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk etc. depending on the person). This was not long after having read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Quickly after Dragonlance it was into Forgotten Realms. I like Larry Elmore, Caldwell, Parkinson etc. I've ran and played games in Greyhawk and Faerun and dabbled in the Wilderlands. D&D is/was something very specific to me. Many of us have a similar story, I'm sure.Some elements of Eberron appealed to me from the beginning, and I've always been a fan of fantasy genre elements that weren't Tolkien-esque when it came to hobbies other than D&D. I played the Final Fantasy games and similar JRPGs throughout the 90s, 6 through 10 being my favorite. I loved Nausicaa and Ghost in the Shell and Akira and Princess Mononoke and Full Metal Alchemist. I read Dune, Discworld Ursula K. Le Guin, Hellboy, His Dark Materials and Game of Thrones. Moebius is among my favorite artists. The original Star Wars movies were huge for me as a kid in the early 90s. I could go on.In short, there is a lot there that should easily translate to an enjoyment of Eberron from the get go. I have even been aware for almost the entire time I've been into D&D of the gonzo, pulpy nature of the early D&D game and how Eberron is entirely in the spirit of the game as it was envisioned in the 1970s (big difference in the application and execution, I know, but the spirit is there, the rest is semantics). No surprise given who Keith Baker cites as many of his favorite authors (Howard, Vance, Moorcock, Burroughs) and the fact that he started playing in the 1970s. But this knowledge still fell flat for me on a personal level when it came to expanding my campaigns beyond the borders of Tolkien, Greyhawk, The Realms and so forth.As I've gotten older, however, my chokehold on a specific perception of what D&D should be is beginning to change, especially as I look back over more recent years and my reading habits. Every 5 years or so the type of fantasy and science fiction I look for diverges more and more from those early years, which really leaves nothing but nostalgia for me to lean on when it comes to D&D. But I recently began to really wonder, what if I reach for all of the other fandoms and genres and aesthetics and titles that I've loved over the years and incorporated those into my D&D. What would that look like? I'm not one to spin up my own setting, so I started looking around again at settings that I had overlooked.Eberron stood out like a sore thumb, and I can't seem to shake it. So I have begun preparing a campaign for my group (thankfully mostly the same group for decades now, and we still play 3.5, so that makes it even easier to use the Eberron books). Finding this gallery of the original concept art really helped here, as it has an otherworldly/alien feel that did not quite make it into the core books. It reminds me of Nausicaa, Star Wars, Morrowind and Moebius: <a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/i-got-hold-of-wizards-of-coast-eberron-pre-production-style-guide-circa-2002-2003-check-out-evolution-of-setting-O2MJzXX" target="_blank">I got hold of a Wizards of the Coast - Eberron Pre-Production Style Guide (circa 2002-2003) Check out the evolution of the setting! - Album on Imgur</a>I recently saw this quote from Rob Kuntz (co-DM of Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign and author of some of the early D&D supplements). What he says here really rings true of Eberron for me, and reminds me that I have likely missed out on a lot of good stuff over the years due to my hard coded vision of Dungeons & Dragons (and fantasy, sci-fi etc as a whole to a degree). I don't put the founders of the game on any sort of pedestal, but the following has a lot of merit to me and is relevant here:Good stuff. There is an argument to be made that if I do have a certain "feel" or "aesthetic" or genre assumption in mind for D&D, then it is fine if that is what my D&D is even if I expand my genre horizons in other areas. D&D can be my tolkien/dragonlance/conan/whatever ripoff. But the above argument seems to be the one winning out for me right now and Eberron feels exciting and full of adventure potential and like a rewarding, challenging place to run games. And yeah, some might argue that it isn't even that far from traditional D&D, but in many ways it is for me, but seems to be a very nice stepping stone (even if I end up staying there!). Though a small part of me still feels like I am abandoning something that was special to me and perhaps speaks to a time period in which gaming was a certain way for me.Did anyone else have a similar journey?</blockquote>

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