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(+) What would you want for 5e Dark Sun?
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<blockquote data-quote="squibbles" data-source="post: 8336670" data-attributes="member: 6937590"><p>I'm glad you found the map/number crunching useful, and am in general agreement with you that Athas works best at a small scale without many verdant biomes. But there's also plenty you could add that would be perfectly themed--a forest of giant redwoods petrified by ancient defiling or a mountain of bones deliberately collected during the purification wars. There's lots of novel high concept wierdness that can go with Dark Sun.</p><p></p><p>I also think you are giving the existing lore more credit than it deserves. A lot of ideas that got added after the first boxed set--the pristine tower, rajaat (& a definitive catalogue of rajaat's champions), ur draxa, the cerulean storm, the dead lands--ARE major departures from the themes of the setting and often quite bad. And, indeed, the first iteration of Dark Sun very clearly intended for there to be 8+ city states on the far side of the sea of silt, as well as 8+ to the south of it and 8+ to the north of it. That fitting new sorcerer kings into the established lore is hard and doesn't make sense is a <em>failing of the established lore</em>, not an inherently bad idea.</p><p></p><p>The main thing you gain by adding new territory and sorcerer kings is artistic license. You led the OP with the goal of adding more female, LGBT, and ethnically diverse characters. That would be very easy to do on the opposite side of the sea of silt, or to the north or south of the Tyr region. There are many other cool things that could be done by adding more canvas to the picture.</p><p></p><p>For example: [USER=58172]@Yaarel[/USER] 's <em>utopian advanced city with water, but not enough water to share with others, that turns away outsiders</em> would allow you to play with lots of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics" target="_blank">lifeboat ethics</a> style questions which you otherwise could not, and which would still be very Dark Sun appropriate if you handled them well (and didn't wall them off from the wider setting so as to be basically irrelevant, as is Kurn). That partiular setup isn't in my headcannon, but it's not a bad idea either.</p><p></p><p>I also like the idea of adding more sorcerer kings because of how it collectively diminishes them. Rather than being big world-consequential figures--who, though they be dicks, have protected the world for centuries from not-Sauron--they are petty, small-minded, unimportant, fossil fuel executives who, in the twilight of the world they destroyed, get to rule toy countries like little defeated Napoleons exiled to Elba.</p><p></p><p>But regardless, I think you're already pretty confident of what is in your headcannon, so, as to that:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are a couple of priorities to think about when setting scale, each with its own proscription.</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You can try to make a fantastical place verisimilituniously plausible and work out the logical consequences of its size, resources, and population (my preference, obviously).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You can try to make a fantastical place with distances and organization that <em>feel </em>right in evoking a particular milieu.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">And, what is best for gaming, you can think about how scale actually matters in the process of play.</li> </ol><p>1991 Dark Sun, with it's 30-mile key, was conceived somewhere between priorities 2 and 3. It has an awesome ancient world aesthetic, with a near eastern feel, and greek political organization and land area. But though its city-states look like south asian or near-eastern metropoli, it lacks the fertile river valleys or large bureaucratic empires that made them possible; it doesn't quite make sense as a believable place despite how awesomely evocative it <em>feels</em>.</p><p></p><p>To make the Tyr region more believable in service of priority 1, you either need to reduce the size and magnificence of its societies (my choice) or increase its land area--which 4e did by giving its maps a 75-mile key. But increasing the scale by, say, moving the decimal place creates problems with 3. Because the Tyr region really doesn't have that many points of interest in it, increasing the scale creates A LOT of empty space. And, given that human populations tend to build towns and villages in about 10-mile intervals (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWWtqfwacQ" target="_blank">fun video explainer</a>), that deficit of settlements creates problems of verisimilitude too, even in a population depressed place like Athas.</p><p></p><p>If you prioritze 3, you usually want to make things more content dense and, to not go insane, smaller (which is also verisimilitudinous in its way, since most places have a <em>seriously large</em> amount of adventurable stuff in a small area; <a href="http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2012/03/being-illustration-of-contents-of-1.html" target="_blank">see this brilliant exploration of a 1-mile hex scale via google maps</a>). Most D&D settings with giant continents over thousands of miles are gameplay-useless leisure reading (enjoy them though I do).</p><p></p><p>So, though I'm not sure what your predilections are (I haven't read through pages ~5-30) you'd probably be best served by increasing the scale of the map a little, tuning down the impressiveness of the Tyr region's city states (especially the army sizes), and filling the map--and cutouts of it--with points of interest. The wierdness that gives you pause at a setting scaled level of importance is probably fine as a local point of interest, i.e. an oasis/pond that is a giant quiescent ooze creature rather than a whole ocean that is ooze creature.</p><p></p><p>If you're concerned about the remoteness of the cities from each other, think of it this way: most pre-modern people never traveled more than a few days walking distance from home, if that. Even Gulg and Nibenay, the closest cities, are 30 miles apart on the 1991 map; that's a big enough distance that ordinary people would rarely if ever walk it. Making the cities feel far apart is, therefore, a <em>player mechanics</em> problem, and you can figure out limiting factors that make travel inconvenient, take longer, or otherwise feel like a big deal. Maybe it just takes expensive desert survival consumables to get from A to B safely, and starting PCs don't have any (but all the merchants and nomads do).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="squibbles, post: 8336670, member: 6937590"] I'm glad you found the map/number crunching useful, and am in general agreement with you that Athas works best at a small scale without many verdant biomes. But there's also plenty you could add that would be perfectly themed--a forest of giant redwoods petrified by ancient defiling or a mountain of bones deliberately collected during the purification wars. There's lots of novel high concept wierdness that can go with Dark Sun. I also think you are giving the existing lore more credit than it deserves. A lot of ideas that got added after the first boxed set--the pristine tower, rajaat (& a definitive catalogue of rajaat's champions), ur draxa, the cerulean storm, the dead lands--ARE major departures from the themes of the setting and often quite bad. And, indeed, the first iteration of Dark Sun very clearly intended for there to be 8+ city states on the far side of the sea of silt, as well as 8+ to the south of it and 8+ to the north of it. That fitting new sorcerer kings into the established lore is hard and doesn't make sense is a [I]failing of the established lore[/I], not an inherently bad idea. The main thing you gain by adding new territory and sorcerer kings is artistic license. You led the OP with the goal of adding more female, LGBT, and ethnically diverse characters. That would be very easy to do on the opposite side of the sea of silt, or to the north or south of the Tyr region. There are many other cool things that could be done by adding more canvas to the picture. For example: [USER=58172]@Yaarel[/USER] 's [I]utopian advanced city with water, but not enough water to share with others, that turns away outsiders[/I] would allow you to play with lots of [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics']lifeboat ethics[/URL] style questions which you otherwise could not, and which would still be very Dark Sun appropriate if you handled them well (and didn't wall them off from the wider setting so as to be basically irrelevant, as is Kurn). That partiular setup isn't in my headcannon, but it's not a bad idea either. I also like the idea of adding more sorcerer kings because of how it collectively diminishes them. Rather than being big world-consequential figures--who, though they be dicks, have protected the world for centuries from not-Sauron--they are petty, small-minded, unimportant, fossil fuel executives who, in the twilight of the world they destroyed, get to rule toy countries like little defeated Napoleons exiled to Elba. But regardless, I think you're already pretty confident of what is in your headcannon, so, as to that: There are a couple of priorities to think about when setting scale, each with its own proscription. [LIST=1] [*]You can try to make a fantastical place verisimilituniously plausible and work out the logical consequences of its size, resources, and population (my preference, obviously). [*]You can try to make a fantastical place with distances and organization that [I]feel [/I]right in evoking a particular milieu. [*]And, what is best for gaming, you can think about how scale actually matters in the process of play. [/LIST] 1991 Dark Sun, with it's 30-mile key, was conceived somewhere between priorities 2 and 3. It has an awesome ancient world aesthetic, with a near eastern feel, and greek political organization and land area. But though its city-states look like south asian or near-eastern metropoli, it lacks the fertile river valleys or large bureaucratic empires that made them possible; it doesn't quite make sense as a believable place despite how awesomely evocative it [I]feels[/I]. To make the Tyr region more believable in service of priority 1, you either need to reduce the size and magnificence of its societies (my choice) or increase its land area--which 4e did by giving its maps a 75-mile key. But increasing the scale by, say, moving the decimal place creates problems with 3. Because the Tyr region really doesn't have that many points of interest in it, increasing the scale creates A LOT of empty space. And, given that human populations tend to build towns and villages in about 10-mile intervals ([URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PWWtqfwacQ']fun video explainer[/URL]), that deficit of settlements creates problems of verisimilitude too, even in a population depressed place like Athas. If you prioritze 3, you usually want to make things more content dense and, to not go insane, smaller (which is also verisimilitudinous in its way, since most places have a [I]seriously large[/I] amount of adventurable stuff in a small area; [URL='http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2012/03/being-illustration-of-contents-of-1.html']see this brilliant exploration of a 1-mile hex scale via google maps[/URL]). Most D&D settings with giant continents over thousands of miles are gameplay-useless leisure reading (enjoy them though I do). So, though I'm not sure what your predilections are (I haven't read through pages ~5-30) you'd probably be best served by increasing the scale of the map a little, tuning down the impressiveness of the Tyr region's city states (especially the army sizes), and filling the map--and cutouts of it--with points of interest. The wierdness that gives you pause at a setting scaled level of importance is probably fine as a local point of interest, i.e. an oasis/pond that is a giant quiescent ooze creature rather than a whole ocean that is ooze creature. If you're concerned about the remoteness of the cities from each other, think of it this way: most pre-modern people never traveled more than a few days walking distance from home, if that. Even Gulg and Nibenay, the closest cities, are 30 miles apart on the 1991 map; that's a big enough distance that ordinary people would rarely if ever walk it. Making the cities feel far apart is, therefore, a [I]player mechanics[/I] problem, and you can figure out limiting factors that make travel inconvenient, take longer, or otherwise feel like a big deal. Maybe it just takes expensive desert survival consumables to get from A to B safely, and starting PCs don't have any (but all the merchants and nomads do). [/QUOTE]
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