Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ksbsnowowl 03-26-05, 11:59 PM	I realize this is a rather biased place to ask this question, so I'm somewhat shooting myself in the foot to begin with, but here it goes... In all honesty, when I first heard about Eberron, I said to myself "No way, not ever!" I'm a big fan of classic-style high fantasy, and am well invested in the Forgotten Realms products. I also play 3.0, which is another mark against Eberron in my mind (in all truth, the 3.5 ranger is about the only thing I like about the new edition). I also have developped a home-brewed Norse campaign setting, as that time period, mythology, and outlook really interests me. I flipped through the ECS sometime last summer but didn't put much thought into it, as I didn't seriously consider ever picking it up. But over the last two months or so the idea up picking up the campaign setting had begun to grow on me....until I took another curious look at it in a book store last week. Granted, I only had time to look through it for about 5-10 minutes, but when done I felt unimpressed. I'll certainly give it a more thorough look before I make my decision, but right now I'm strongly leaning toward not purchasing Eberron. Everyone has different tastes, and maybe Eberron just isn't for me. Anyone have any advice on the matter? Is Eberron a good breath of fresh air? Am I being too stubborn? Thanks for any replies, KSB Snow Owl
AvonRekaes 03-27-05, 12:17 AM	Well, Eberron is certainly a breath of fresh air for many of us here. It throws away many conventions about humanoid cultures and completely shucks off traditional racial history. Elves and Orcs do not hate each other, in fact they probably have no opinion of each other one way or the other. Eberrons "standard of living" is also marginally increase from other settings, which leads it to have a more "modern" feel without actually using any modern technology. Basically, you summed it up yourself. You like high-magic traditional fantasy, for which FR is excellently suited. Eberron adds a more pulpy feel with a dash of film noir. It's really a matter of preferrence.
Edymnion 03-27-05, 12:33 AM	I realize this is a rather biased place to ask this question, so I'm somewhat shooting myself in the foot to begin with, but here it goes... In all honesty, when I first heard about Eberron, I said to myself "No way, not ever!" I'm a big fan of classic-style high fantasy, and am well invested in the Forgotten Realms products. I also play 3.0, which is another mark against Eberron in my mind (in all truth, the 3.5 ranger is about the only thing I like about the new edition). I also have developped a home-brewed Norse campaign setting, as that time period, mythology, and outlook really interests me. I flipped through the ECS sometime last summer but didn't put much thought into it, as I didn't seriously consider ever picking it up. But over the last two months or so the idea up picking up the campaign setting had begun to grow on me....until I took another curious look at it in a book store last week. Granted, I only had time to look through it for about 5-10 minutes, but when done I felt unimpressed. I'll certainly give it a more thorough look before I make my decision, but right now I'm strongly leaning toward not purchasing Eberron. Everyone has different tastes, and maybe Eberron just isn't for me. Anyone have any advice on the matter? Is Eberron a good breath of fresh air? Am I being too stubborn? Thanks for any replies, KSB Snow OwlActually, you sound just like me. I looked at the advertising WotC was doing, and went "God, what a load of crap! Dinosaur riding halflings, steampunk locomotives, golem PCs..." I dismissed it out of hand, and didn't think twice about it. Later on, like you, I took another look at it, just a skim, and it still looked stupid, I put it back on the shelf. But then, things just kept nagging at me until I finally borrowed a copy, sat down with it, and read the thing through. Long story short, I'm an Eberron Convert for life :D I know that a lot of stuff in here looks overpowered at first glance, or that its some kind of magitech setting, and while its not, I doubt anything I can say, argument wise, will really change your mind. I am biased, after all ;) I will personally say that, before Eberron, I was getting burned out on normal D&D. Years and years of play, all sorts of differant settings (official and homebrew), and in retrospect, they were all essentially the same. High fantasy Tolkien clones dressed up to look differant. Not that those aren't great, but it gets kinda repetative when thats all you play. Eberron, once I sat down with it, was a breath of fresh air. Finally, a setting that is actually NEW and UNIQUE. A setting that takes everything old and stodgy about the game, throws it out the window, and rebuilds it from the ground up. For example, I kid you not, there are people CLAMOURING to get to play half-elves and gnomes in Eberron. Honestly. People WANT to play a Half-Elf or a Gnome because they're COOL! In what other setting have you ever heard of someone going "Come on, they're so cool, I just have to play a gnome!"? Or where the goblins aren't sniveling monsters, they're an ancient martial empire that once ruled the entire continent? Or where halflings aren't hobbit/kender crossbreeds but hearty fighters? Or dwarves wearing jewelry? My best advice to you is to read the Dragonshard articles on the main website. Seriously, the best thing I can advise you to do to really help you make up your own mind is to read the setting book, and to read the Dragonshard articles (which are written by the same guy that wrote the setting, the same guy that is a regular here on the boards that you can seriously just walk up to and say "I don't really understand this, can you help me?", and have him actually help you figure it out). http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/archeb/2004 Thats the link to the 2004 Eberron archives on the main site. Scroll down towards the bottom to find the first Dragon Shard, and start reading them. They're not very long, and they go a LONG way to helping you get a feel for the setting. If you don't want to read them all, I'll link you to some that I think will help you get the message: Half-Elves Dragonshard (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040906a) Eberron Elves, the Warrior Race (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041004a) Eberron Dwarves (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041101a) and Eberron Gnomes (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041129a) Other than this, I'm not going to try and convert you, because frankly, I don't think I need to. The setting itself is just so damned good, it speaks for itself, once you give it a chance. Good Gaming :)
Chiba_Monkey 03-27-05, 02:33 AM	Wow...Edy...your entire post could have been posted by me with, like, no changes. When Eberron came out, I was just starting to really, truly build up my home campaign world (and don't get me wrong, I still love it). I'd occasionally read the Dragonshard articles, but they meant little to me. I counted Eberron as corporate WotC just trying to make more money and vowed to spend not one dime on it. At GenCon last year, I ended up in the VIP room of the DnD 30th anniversary party thing (I work for the RPGA at GenCon, it was good enough for the bouncer). I talked with Keith for awhile (His wife was dressed up as the dragonmark heir person in the ECS ;) :D ). I talked with him about Eberron, mostly my concerns about Warforged, from what I had read, they seemed overpowered. A few days later I won the ECS for free (so, really, I didn't spend any money on it). I started reading it when I got home. By December, I had literally finished it cover to cover, read every Dragonshard, and was DYING to run an Eberron game. So, does Eberron live up to the hype? I say...no. It takes the hype, straps it to a high-yield explosive, and completely blows it away.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 03-27-05, 03:26 AM	If you like Forgotten Realms, chances are the Eberron setting as a whole won't quite be what you're used to. The exact reason I picked it up, in fact, is because it was completely different from anything I've played before. Front and back it's new, a remix, not a rehash. As a DM, it offers a new footing for my own modifications. Let's face it... adventuring in New York City would be more or less the same as adventuring in Tokyo... But it would likely be completely different than adventuring in Omnos Theta on Alpha Centauri 4. Yes, I'm gutting some of the magic in Eberron for a definite steampunk feel for my campaign, but if magic you want, magic there be. Even Sharn, the most jaded metropolis in any setting I've ever seen, magic is rampant. Bridges that cast Feather Fall on anyone falling within 30 feet of them, flying canoes ferrying people to and fro, the Sharn Skyway, Heward's Folly, and the massive towers themselves!... Even in my steampunk version of Sharn, the city is magical beyond belief, with the only change possible without requiring a full rewrite of Sharn: City of Towers is turing the Cogs into a steam-powered center of industry instead of one of magic. Still, if you want a Forgotten Realms-style adventure, it could be found in Xen'Drik or even Aerenal. Your Norse adventure could easilly take place in Frostfell (although Grendel would be a wyvern for sure, since you do NOT want to screw with the Dragons of the Eberron setting ;)). The Five Nations would be places that your players will have heard stories of, but never visited, and people don't come from there ("the pompous blowhards are too busy with their hoity-toity cities to enjoy the company of REAL men like we have here in Frostfell!"). However, the ECS gives little information on the lands beyond Khorvaire, so I would reccomend waiting until The Explorer's Guide to Eberron comes out so you could get some reviews on that. Also, the ECS has no poster-map of Khorvaire, but that will be released with the Eberron DM Screen. Just a head's up... That was the only thing that really irked me with my copy. In the end, I say borrow a copy, spend some time with it, and ask yourself "Would I like to run a campiagn or twelve in this world?" There will be your answer.
polt 03-27-05, 03:43 AM	Well, i didn't like Eberron that much in the beginning, it was when i sat down and started to read it from front to back that it started to become interesting. So read it from the beginning, i would start with the races and the description in the beginning. And then start reading on the Nations, start with Aundair and just read about them. Also read the elven nations, those are cool :)
ILL34GL3 03-27-05, 04:50 AM	The only reason I bought the Eberron campaign guide was because I joined a group that was using the setting. I've always preferred Greyhawk but now that i've been reading through the Eberron book I'm quite impressed with the potential of this new world. In the past I've always preferred being a player rather than a DM but now I really want to DM this setting.
ksbsnowowl 03-27-05, 10:40 AM	Thanks everyone, it looks like I've gotten some good advice, especially from you, Edy. I haven't had time to read those articles with it being Easter weekend and all, but I'll give them a look over later. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who owns the book, so I can't really borrow a copy and curl up with it on a couch, but I'll certainly spend an hour or two looking through one at Barnes and Noble. Now I just have to decide which I'd rather get first: my next D&D book, or the third season of The Shield on DVD...
a_psh 03-27-05, 12:11 PM	I think Eberron is a great example of marketing failing to bring out the true beauty of a product rather miserably. Previews for it touted dinosaurs, action, and exxxxxxxxtreeeme!!!! adventures. Then I saw the Dreaming Dark preview article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040413a), which more or less blew all of my concerns away. Practically the entire setting is like that: well thought-out, interesting, new without totally wrecking the old, and integrated together. For example, the new races, in addition to being fun to play, aren't just something that got thrown in: geographically, historically, politically, and culturally, they all have a place in the world. And, unlike basically every other fantasy setting, their histories and cultures interact and overlap rather than just existing as a bunch of completely orthogonal timelines and traditions. (Compare that to elves, which are certainly one of the more popular and well-developed common races, in practically every other setting... how much does human history really affect them and vice versa?) Where FR is a muddled patchwork of largely unrelated nations, Eberron manages to pull off a world that's just as varied, but much more of a seemless whole. It's also got a very cinematic sort of feel... since my group started in October (quasi-weekly, about 20 sessions so far), there've been numerous moments that everyone involved described as reminding them of "cutscenes" in video games. Sure, part of that's just the interplay of our personalities, but there's a big way in which the setting itself contributes to the sheer pizzazz of one's gaming sessions. Running it, I'm seldom short of ideas and never experience burn-out, and everyone involved starts salivating over the next session about 10 minutes after the current one finishes. Also, as much as I appreciate certain facets of other settings, I like not having to say "Yeah, I know the sourcebook says that, but I think it's really dumb, so I'm changing it" every week (e.g. the spaceship! I love you, Greyhawk, but why in the world did you have to include that damnable spaceship!?).
Edymnion 03-27-05, 03:34 PM	Thanks everyone, it looks like I've gotten some good advice, especially from you, Edy. I haven't had time to read those articles with it being Easter weekend and all, but I'll give them a look over later. Unfortunately I don't know anyone who owns the book, so I can't really borrow a copy and curl up with it on a couch, but I'll certainly spend an hour or two looking through one at Barnes and Noble.Well, to help you make better use of those hours, here's the sections of the ECS I suggest that you read up on while you have access to the book, and which areas you should skip. Skip: All of the race information for the standard races. The reason I say this is because there are dragonshards online for the Elf, Gnome, Dwarf, etc etc etc. You can read those online at your leisure, so you don't have to burn any of your hour or two with the book on them. Read: Chapters 7 and 8, Life in the World and Organizations. Thats a lot to cover in one sitting though. So, I'd suggest: Chapter 7: The World of Eberron (page 129), Life Across Khovaire (p. 131), Khovaire (page 134), The Mournlands (p. 188), and Beyond Khovaire (page 224). Chapter 8: Church of the Silver Flame (p. 229), Dragonmarked Houses (p. 231) Really, if you notice, I didn't really suggest that you read anything about rules. Because really, Eberron has very little to do with the rules and all that, its all about the flavor. I mean, in Eberron, you can very well play a Commoner/Adept as a character, and do quite well in the game. The entire setting is focused more around it's flavor and how the players interact with it than it is about introducing a bunch of new rules just for the sake of having new rules.
RadicalTaoist 03-27-05, 04:10 PM	If anyone remembers the Eberron Limericks thread, I penned this little piece that neatly summed up how awesome I thought it was for Eberron to take everything we thought we knew about D&D and kick it in the arse. In normal D&D we're all betting That dwarves tough it while weak elves are fretting But here elves are mean wankers While the Mror dwarves are bankers!?! God I love this brand new campaign setting Nuff said.
Megrim_Lord 03-27-05, 04:33 PM	Ebberon can accommodate you in many ways. There are no whiny players throwing novels at your head or trying to clone an existing famous NPCs. The details are very ambiguous, allowing for numerous interperations of events, the timeline, and culture, so you don't have PCs throwing world history around like definite fact. If you want a low level campaign as Eberron had been originally intended for, then you can dive right in. If you want high level campaigns, set it in the distant past of Ancient Dhakaan, or an indeterminate future, designed by you and you alone. Eberron takes all your perceptions about fantasy, crumples them up into a little ball, stomps on them, burns them, and scatters their ashes in a river while simultaneously stuffing the ECS into the empty crevasse that was once the thinking portion of your brain.
DanjaNinja 03-27-05, 06:02 PM	My story with Eberron is pretty much the same as everyone else here (diehard skeptic turned diehard fan), but I just want to add one thing: The only people I've met who don't love Eberron are people who haven't read the ECS in depth.
Xaaon 04-22-05, 06:45 PM	I echo the majority of what's been said...plus... I love the unique cosmology of Eberron...how the planes are in elliptical orbit around the material plane. Wonderful...especially if you are playing when several planes are currently Coterminous, and remote... The planes have a very distinct affects on the material plane. Shifters, Warforged, Kalashtar, Changelings, great races, The fact that Dark Elves don't worship Lolth is wonderful!! Ork paladins guard the rest of Khorvaire from the evils of the Demon wastes. Personally, this is a great world, and a great new approach at some of the old rules. Course I'm someone who likes Swashbuckling, High Magic, dark fantasy, and alternate settings, my favorite games are DeadLands, Earthdawn, 7th Sea, and Eberron. I hate the spells/day system of DnD with a passion, and will be using a modified magic point system. But the flavor of Eberron is wonderful...I love it.
Solarious 04-22-05, 08:22 PM	Dude... what's with the necromancy?
Gurv 04-22-05, 08:29 PM	Somehow, I missed most of the hype for Eberron. I heard about it, but I've always played homebrew settings ever since I started playing in 2nd edition. So I ignored the "Gearing up for Eberron" stuff, and flipped past ads for it. I have no idea how I got so involved in it, but here I am with an average of 4.5 posts a day, almost entirely in the Eberron boards. So I can agree with what everyone else has said: if you give it half a chance, you might be hooked for life. The flavor of the world is completely unique, unattainable anywhere else. However, what I like the most about Eberron is entirely based on game-mechanics. Eberron doesn't have any more magic than the DMG suggests a game world should have; it simply acknowledges what the rules already say, and gives reasons why it is possible. According to your DMG, it is entirely possible to go to a hamlet with a population of 400 and buy 50 potions of cure light wounds. In most other settings, the apparent lack of magic in day-to-day life would lead most DMs to consider this too odd to allow. In Eberron, it is easily explained, because they have taken the idea of ready magic to its logical concusion: if healing potions can be made at a huge profit, they will be. The aforementioned hamlet could easily have a 4th level cleric, two 2nd level clerics, and four 1st level clerics, according to the DMG. It is illogical to assume that there wouldn't be abundant healing potions in such a world, but that is how most DM run their settings. Eberron isn't a high magic setting, nor a magitech one. It is simply D&D, with some thought gone into what people have done with all that the sourcebooks give them. And the result is interesting. Low-level magic is common. High level magic (and NPCs for that matter) are not. Eberron actually lowers the numbers of NPCs with PCs classes and still comes up with a more realistic view of what a world would be like if minor magic was available. It isn't a powerful wizard with telekinesis or fabricate who reshapes the world; such are too few in number to do more than make a dent, even if they wanted to devote their power to a day-job. It is what hundreds of people scattered around a city can get accomplished with tenser's floating disk and prestidigitation available.
Wren 04-24-05, 06:08 PM	Nothing much to say past... "I like it ... alot... and suggest you take a real close look. You may very well become a convert." end input.
cr0w 04-25-05, 03:56 PM	I'll just echo the sentiment here as well. Though my only complaint with Eberron is the marketing of it as "noir" and "pulp". I am really sick of those two terms. I think those two words are the biggest reasons people are turned off by Eberron. I'm 2/3 of the way through reading the ECS cover to cover and I am really excited about getting my campaign ready. Like others have suggested, read the Dragonshard articles. Start with the first and just read them in order. You should be able to get a decent idea about the setting.