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Dark Sun fans: What are the essential elements of Dark Sun to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8947443" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p><strong>Essential themes:</strong> environmental collapse due to exploitation of natural resources, extreme wealth inequality and class struggle, the corrupting influence of power. Questions of faith in an explicitly godless world are welcome but not essential.</p><p></p><p><strong>Essential tone/aesthetics:</strong> “sword and sandals” in a post-apocalyptic desert world with elements of pulp and weird science. Extreme resource scarcity. Little to no metal.</p><p></p><p><strong>Essential gameplay elements:</strong> Heavy focus on survival in extreme environments with limited resources. Highly curated player options, including a different set of races (preferably human, elf, dwarf, mul, thri-keen, half-giant, and aarakocra; Dray are welcome but not essential) and no divine-powered classes. Highly limited access to magic, especially healing magic. Rules for defiling and preserving as distinct ways of doing magic (although see the note regarding psionics). Above-average PC power levels, <em>far</em> above-average combat difficulty.</p><p></p><p><strong>Regarding psionics:</strong> For me personally, psionics are not an essential element to the setting, but I know they are important to a lot of people. My feeling is that they <em>can</em> serve the setting well, particularly in terms of aesthetics and tone, as they fit very well with the weird science elements. On the other hand, they have to be handled very carefully to avoid conflicting with the themes of environmental collapse due to exploitation of natural resources and the corruption of power. Those themes require that the world have been ruined by the greed of fallible mortals, who prioritized their own power over the health of the world. If psionics exist as a viable alternative to arcane magic, those thematic elements are significantly weakened. It is therefore paramount that if psionics are incorporated, they must not be able to reproduce the effects of arcane magic, or at the very least, must require far more personal investment to be able to do so. Even then, it can step on the toes of preserving magic as the more difficult, responsible path. If going this route, it may be best to remove preserving magic and make all arcane magic defiling.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8947443, member: 6779196"] [B]Essential themes:[/B] environmental collapse due to exploitation of natural resources, extreme wealth inequality and class struggle, the corrupting influence of power. Questions of faith in an explicitly godless world are welcome but not essential. [B]Essential tone/aesthetics:[/B] “sword and sandals” in a post-apocalyptic desert world with elements of pulp and weird science. Extreme resource scarcity. Little to no metal. [B]Essential gameplay elements:[/B] Heavy focus on survival in extreme environments with limited resources. Highly curated player options, including a different set of races (preferably human, elf, dwarf, mul, thri-keen, half-giant, and aarakocra; Dray are welcome but not essential) and no divine-powered classes. Highly limited access to magic, especially healing magic. Rules for defiling and preserving as distinct ways of doing magic (although see the note regarding psionics). Above-average PC power levels, [I]far[/I] above-average combat difficulty. [B]Regarding psionics:[/B] For me personally, psionics are not an essential element to the setting, but I know they are important to a lot of people. My feeling is that they [I]can[/I] serve the setting well, particularly in terms of aesthetics and tone, as they fit very well with the weird science elements. On the other hand, they have to be handled very carefully to avoid conflicting with the themes of environmental collapse due to exploitation of natural resources and the corruption of power. Those themes require that the world have been ruined by the greed of fallible mortals, who prioritized their own power over the health of the world. If psionics exist as a viable alternative to arcane magic, those thematic elements are significantly weakened. It is therefore paramount that if psionics are incorporated, they must not be able to reproduce the effects of arcane magic, or at the very least, must require far more personal investment to be able to do so. Even then, it can step on the toes of preserving magic as the more difficult, responsible path. If going this route, it may be best to remove preserving magic and make all arcane magic defiling. [/QUOTE]
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Dark Sun fans: What are the essential elements of Dark Sun to you?
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