Why I love Eberron

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think I've figured out why I like Eberron: It's a kitchen sink setting... But it is a good kitchen sink setting!

It is such a mixture of diverse elements that I can run almost any genre and adventure with it. Pulp, noir, swashbuckling action, cosmic horror, traditional fantasy, and even some transhumanist soul-searching (with the warforged). And the best part is, it all fits! I can switch genre and mode in mid-campaign - or even mid-adventure - without breaking the player's suspension of disbelief.

While there are other settings that impressed me at least as much, if not more, from a design point of view (Transhuman Space, Blue Planet), the only other setting I can think of that brimmed so much with promise and potential is Fading Suns, which does essentially the same thing for science fiction.


So... why do you love Eberron?

 

[Hand of Evil]

I would not say love but I do like it a lot, is reminds me of Earthdawn. Maybe it is that pulpy goodness about it, more than just sword and sorcery but airships, trains, heros and villians. Yes, it is a catch all but it is one that works and does things well.

 

[Akrasia]

I think I've figured out why I like Eberron: It's a kitchen sink setting...

Hmmm ... this is one reason why I don't like Eberron.

I just don't like 'kitchen sink settings' (even if they are 'well done').

But maybe that's just because my kitchen sink right now is a little, um, ripe...

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I ended up liking this setting far more than I would have imagined.

To me it is one of the most exciting settings I have seen for any D&D product, with the sole exception of Iron Kingdoms.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Love it, buying everything for it (when money permits)

 

[Henry]

I love it because my players love it, more than anything. I've had one who has told me to call me when I run Eberron. His implicit suggestion is NOT to call him when I run any other D&D setting... The other players are enjoying it same as any other D&D game they've played, and that's what keeps us running it through to the end of our current story arc, coming up soon.

The pulp feel is definitely there in the subtle rules alterations, and the setting is sufficiently varied to play all sorts of scenarios in. Having only barely scratched the surface of the Campaign setting, some of the things I can forsee doing with Eberron are:

- A "Sharn (L.A.) Confidential" type of game
- Gaming out parts of the Last War
- Running an artifcact hunt a la Indiana Jones
- Running a high-politics style of game with the Houses
- Running Church Inquisitors for the Silver Flame
- Replaying the desparate struggle between the Silver Flame and the Lycanthropes
- Running a Lhazaar Pirate Kings game

The player who likes Eberron to the exclusion of other settings is playing an artificer who is running his own magic item business. He loves it because he rarely gets to play an entrepreneur in D&D, but he loves it! He enjoys the dungeon crawls, but he enjoys his character accumulating wealth all the more. It's his thing, who am I say it's "bad wrong fun", to borrow a phrase from Psion?

 

[CronoDekar]

I love it because... I can't exactly pinpoint a reason why. For one thing, I like how if something's in D&D it can fit in Eberron -- particularly that they put in room for psionics. Another is the recent history with Cyre and the Mourning, then there's how the fantastic elements of it are really fantastic (Lightning Rail, Sharn, Demon Wastes, pretty much everyplace listed that's in a manifest zone...). Neat planar setup, and I like how magic works in the system and that it's really integrated into the setting. Plus I like that it's gotten away from "medieval fantasy" but not so far away.

Oh, I just thought of it. Well, probably not the only thing, but one of the most significant: that the races actually got new identities. Rather than the traditional elves (who I hate with a passion), we have the Aereni and the Valenar. Sure Aereni are stuck-up, but they're cool again! Then we've got tribal halflings on dinosaurs and the urban halflings in the Boromar clan, and orcs and half-orcs as inquisitives, prospectors, and some of the most important druids ever. Half-elves control weather and airships, making them really cool. And, perhaps the best change in my opinion (mainly because I love gnomes), is that gnomes are actually important. They're not comic relief, they can do a lot of stuff (elemental binding, shipwrighting...), and they're dangerous. (OK, dwarves didn't get much change, but eh, dwarves are cool anyway.)

Overall though, Eberron just "clicks" for me in how it works as a whole. To be sure, I've always liked the Forgotten Realms (particularly its cosmology and history), but I never figured I could like a campaign setting as much I do Eberron.

 

[Darkness]

"bad wrong fun", to borrow a phrase from Psion?

That's an rpg.net-ism, I think.

 

[Henry]

Ah! I knew that I had heard it somewhere else, as well...

 

[KB9JMQ]

I love it for all the above stated reasons.
But the main reason was when I read it I said WOW !
Only Dark Sun had done that before.
I also like it because it is new. Hardly anyone knows anything about it.
Rather than having every locale memorized by one of the players.