D&D 5e: A Case for Eberron

There's been a lot of talk on the interweb about what campaign setting (if any) Wizards of the Coast should be looking into publishing next. Or soonest. Or most profitably. Or ever.

You get the idea.

Without going into excruciatingly unique or idiosyncratic detail, I want to offer a brief pitch for one particular setting to be brought up to speed in 5e.

Dungeons and Dragons--and indeed most traditional RPGs--have a particular, familiar, comfortable format. From Tolkien, through Chainmail, and into the "modern" era of gaming: sword-and-sorcery; dwarves, elves, and "hobbits"; mysterious but often predictable magic; Euro-centric medievalism; and heroes who are born to look for power gain, glory, and gold. I'll start by saying that there is nothing wrong with this; I love playing "standard" D&D, whether it takes place in a homebrew setting, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or what-have-you.

However, there is more to D&D than these (awesome) traditions.

When I was first introduced to the Eberron campaign setting, it changed the way I saw D&D. More than that, it changed the way I realized that stories could be told. I'm sure every "true believer" has their own story of why their precious setting should be the next one that Wizards updates to the new edition, but here are just a few reasons I think Eberron should be it. (Disclaimer: I am no expert on the setting. In fact, the very idea that I'm not an expert in it and I'm advocating for it is one of my minor points in its favor!)

I'll start with the obvious/overt:

• Eberron's "new" items (warforged and artificers, to give just a single example) provide fresh material for those who come to D&D and see only what they've already encountered in traditional fantasy literature--up to and including Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore and countless others.
• The twists on traditional roles (good undead, sentient machines, elves as recovering slaves, etc.) introduce the right mix of familiarity and novelty. 
• Magic-as-technology bridges many play-style gaps and allows Roland and Edward to play right alongside Gandalf, Conan, and Cadderly.
• Steampunk, a movement that seemed like a passing fad in the early 2000s when Eberron came on the scene, persists--even thrives. A return to Eberron touches on all those cosplayers and crafters who think in terms of airships and machines without electronics.
• In terms of game mechanics, 5e's focus on character as mechanic would flourish: ideals, bonds, flaws, and especially backstory are nothing new to players in Eberron. Belonging to a noble house or being a scion of a great nation or being a new-forged mechanical being or, well, not being one of those things means a great deal even if you're only doing a dungeon crawl: dragonmarks, racial abilities, and other game mechanics were already hinging on these now-codified pieces.
• Keith Baker left much of his world undefined. That means there's plenty of room for the loremaster DM who wants to know who lives where, why, for how long, etc. and the fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants zero-prep DM and the homebrew expert who fills in the gaps with his own fanfic that's better than published fantasy.
• Wizards has clearly seen the need for the setting: it commissioned it in the early 2000s and updated it into its fourth edition--an honor only shared by two other settings (and only one from the previous edition).

 Some less standard thoughts:

• Eberron has just had its great cataclysm.
• The Last War is fresh, gritty, and real--but also over. What's left is a world that is ripe for new stories to be told. The "average" setting's earth-shaking events either happened in aeons past or are about to happen. Eberron takes a uniquely different path by offering characters the chance to be a part of something much more difficult than standing at the precipice of a cataclysm: standing up amidst the rubble shortly after.
• There is a relative newness to the "recorded history" of the kingdoms of Eberron. 

• Dragons or aliens or even giants may have once been in charge and held long complicated histories--but they aren't humans (or demihumans). Elves and dwarves aren't the "elder races" anymore (and neither are humans). That means the Last War isn't just a terrible cataclysm, it's the terrible cataclysm as far as 95% of the world the PCs interact with is concerned.
• Everything inhuman is that much more alien.
• Speaking of the 95%, the other 5% becomes rare, strange, and exotic.
• Exploring makes sense. 
• In a new world, with alien creatures and exotic discoveries to be made, exploration is not just a romp through bandit-infested forests or spider-filled caverns. Exploration becomes a way of life; whole sectors of the globe are uncharted--or perhaps even more interestingly, the charts themselves are so out of date as to be dangerously inaccurate. Eberron craves adventurers naturally to solve, search, and explore.
• The playstyle (film noir meets bursts of action meets movie-style scenes meets investigation and problem-solving) encourages fewer "random" encounters and more story-infused encounters. The new Dungeon Master's Guide operates under the assumption that whatever your group's playstyle, you are telling a story. A setting that was designed with storytelling in mind? Perfection.

There are, of course, tremendous arguments for other settings, but my heart still sits with Eberron. In the end, I just hope we do see traditional setting guides and not just "adventure path supplements" with mini-gazetteers. Having a "setting bible" is (for me) an important part of using a setting in an edition (for me). In retrospect, it may be why I didn't continue with Pathfinder after the "Rise of the Runelords": there wasn't (at the time) a Golarion setting guide, and I felt disconnected from the adventure path's purpose (or context).

Here's to all of us getting something we can sink our teeth into for our beloved Dungeons and Dragons.