Revisiting Eberron Remixed

Yes, I know this isn't really an Eberron piece...

My EBERRON REMIXED was always a minor project to begin with, but one that I rather enjoyed while I tinkered with it.  I never did go back and add house rules or discussion about the Dragonmarked Houses and stuff like that, but that's probably OK.  The feats can be readily adapted by any GM who needs them from the d20 rules themselves without too much work; after all, that was the promise of m20, that any d20 element could be adapted.

Rather, I think the setting being remixed is what's more important to discuss rather than some mechanical elements or components.  Let's revisit the way I'm doing this.  The remixing process requires:

1. Adapting a system that better manages the expectation of that high concept than the highly tactical and static and rulesy and bloated modern versions of D&D (I've selected my own m20 variant, but you can go with something else, if you like) - COMPLETE, although I need to make sure my Eberron rules are still in harmony with the newer version of DH5 or FANTASY HACK, which I don't think that they are anymore.
2. Establish some guiding principles which, if adopted, means you can fine tune the remix at the detailed level when in game in order to better coincide with the good, old-fashioned, pulpy tone that the setting is trying to reach for but failing for a variety of reasons (but most especially the demands of conforming to details of the social justice delusion about the nature of reality) - COMPLETE, see below
3. Pruning esoteric D&Disms that are unrecognizable outside of the world of D&D junkies and more in line with what anyone with a familiarity with the foundational myths and fantasy literature of Western Civilization would recognize - WORK IN PROGRESS
4. Adapt setting elements as highlighted in this brief prospectus over the course of a few blog posts into this paradigm. - WORK IN PROGRESS

Now keep in mind that I don't really want to change too many things for its own sake; if I'm changing something it's because 1) it's more convenient do use something already off the shelf than reinvent the wheel, or 2) an Eberron element doesn't fit the vision of the Remix and therefore needs to be adjusted to one that does, or 3) an Eberron (or D&D element in Eberron) element simply didn't work as well for me as the author thought it would, and it came across as either hoaky, strangely esoteric, or just odd and unlikable.  Yeah, yeah—that third point means I can make any change for any reason I want, but I reserve that right, I suppose.  

Anyway, the Guiding Principles are as follows; also reposted from before:

1. Eberron is a D&D setting, but the pulp and noir elements that inform its tone clash with D&D as it has become (D&D is not cinematic, action-packed or swashbuckling; it's careful, cautious and tactical, and it actively punishes anyone who tries to be pulpy or swashbuckling.)  The very first thing I noted that is important to successfully "remix" the setting is to find a new system for it that better accommodates its tone.  
2. Along those lines, pulpy, swashbuckling settings from the actual pulp era were much more humano-centric, and D&D was initially expected to be so as well.  The more I've thought about it, the more I've come around to the wisdom of humano-centric settings.  I used to be perfectly fine with weird, cosmopolitan, and fantasy-alien settings, but that doesn't really work well for the tone of Eberron.  The tone of swashbuckling pulp and noir really needs to be humano-centric.  So, for every nation, I've changed the population balance to greatly increase the expectation of humans, and greatly reduce the expectation of non-humans.  
3. It's also striking how much social justice dogma has infiltrated any official D&D publication.  I'm very interested in remixing out any of those strains of melody (to probably take the remixing analogy a little too far.)  The former point actually supports this; an understanding of biological HBD, for instance, makes social justice equalitarianism ridiculous.  The piling on on traditional institutions of Western civilization (or their fantasy surrogates) is insulting and any instances of it will be removed with extreme prejudice, the elevation of strange hippiness as a surrogate for actual moralty will cease, most of the female NPCs that are acting like men will be reskinned as men, and vice versa.  
4. Finally, I just want a more coherent whole.  I've always thought that coherency is one of the things that Eberron lacked, because, as Keith Baker said repeatedly, everything from D&D had to have a place.  This might mean that some elements; even important ones, are left out.
5. UPDATE: Adding a new guiding principle; a setting like Eberron is deliberately BIG, so that there are lots of different places that can appeal to lots of different people as needed for their own campaign style and taste.  Golarion or Forgotten Realms is similar.  HOWEVER, any given campaign can't reasonably be set all over the place (although it was often a hallmark of Eberron adventures that you were taking magic trains and airships and traveling a fair bit) so realistically I should focus my efforts on remixing only a single geographically constrained region—at least, if you mean beyond what I've already remixed for background context.  Because Breland and Sharn in particular are the spotlight areas and main protagonist area, if you will, I think it makes the most sense to focus my efforts there if I do any additional Eberron Remixing.

Now, granted, Sharn and the surrounding area needs considerably less remixing than the entire setting, but I also need to think of what kind of adventures would be set primarily there and not hightailing it all over the continent (or even beyond).  Certainly few of the official adventures would do so.  That's OK, but maybe the two need to be done in concert; i.e., lets start working on developing a potential campaign arc of sorts and see how that impacts additional development needed on remixing the setting and vice versa.  Luckily, being a relatively cosmopolitan area, the remixing (beyond what's already been done) can be kept more or less to a minimum.  Sharn was probably one of the setting's best single elements anyway.

Along those lines, the remixing has to apply to the adventure styles too.  If I'm saying Eberron failed to live up to its promise in large part because it was straining to be something other than D&D but stuck in a D&D game, that's especially true of the "signature" adventure; the one set in Sharn and spotlighted in the Campaign Setting book, "The Forgotten Forge".  Starting out as a kind of noir mystery, it quickly turns into.... a dungeoncrawl in the caverns underneath Sharn.

Sigh.  I probably ought to at least skim the modules, or read some decent summaries of them online or something, and see what elements are ripe for theft into a new paradigm, but otherwise, it's not like I can't do a fantasy urban noir mystery and intrigue adventure on my own, of course.  I've done it before and can certainly do it again.

So, I might yet revive this tag and do a little more work on it after all.  Maybe.  Certainly, right now I'm feeling warmer to that idea than I have in a long time.