DARK SUN - Most Used City?

[Wik]

As a side track, DARK SUN was influenced by the first Iraq war, no doubt. It was released when the Gulf War was going on, and most of the city-states have ziggurats and the like. Hell, Urik is a corruption on the name Uruk, and "Hamanu" is really a version of Hammurabi.

So, yeah, there was a big Mesopotamian Influence there, and considering how the designers were told to create a "world of war" (to better use the BATTLESYSTEM rules, though that didn't really pan out), I think their natural impulse would be to think of the nation their country was currently at war with - Iraq - and use that as an inspiration.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I always figured Tyr was meant to be a free-state. It always started as a typical state in my campaigns, but would change as the PCs acted throughout the campaign.

For me, a pre-freedom Tyr is mostly great because it is so iconic. The big main center should reflect the setting elements, and Tyr as a definitively bleak, hopeless, sorcerer-king-ruled, servant-enforced city-state works better to reinforce the central ideas of Athas than one that is free.

A free Tyr works, but it's significantly less potent, less capable of reminding the PC's that they are certainly NOT in other settings where they have more freedom and autonomy. You want freedom? Go starve in the desert by yourself. You want security? Come beneath the claws of a sorcerer-king. There is no middle ground, there is no hope -- if you want there to be hope, you have to bring it yourself, not depend on the setting to provide it for you.

I like the ability of Tyr to become free based on the actions of the PC's (and have no problems with the big epic-level goal of the party being to free Tyr, and making that entirely possible), but I wouldn't set it as free from the start. You gain too much impact from the absolutely hopeless world to find much pleasure in diluting it with a place more designed for "ease of being a PC."

So free Tyr is fine, but I prefer a place with less deus ex machina, more "PC's carving out a niche for themselves in a world that demands compromise for every basic need it gives you."

 

[Klaus]

For me, a pre-freedom Tyr is mostly great because it is so iconic. The big main center should reflect the setting elements, and Tyr as a definitively bleak, hopeless, sorcerer-king-ruled, servant-enforced city-state works better to reinforce the central ideas of Athas than one that is free.

A free Tyr works, but it's significantly less potent, less capable of reminding the PC's that they are certainly NOT in other settings where they have more freedom and autonomy. You want freedom? Go starve in the desert by yourself. You want security? Come beneath the claws of a sorcerer-king. There is no middle ground, there is no hope -- if you want there to be hope, you have to bring it yourself, not depend on the setting to provide it for you.

I like the ability of Tyr to become free based on the actions of the PC's (and have no problems with the big epic-level goal of the party being to free Tyr, and making that entirely possible), but I wouldn't set it as free from the start. You gain too much impact from the absolutely hopeless world to find much pleasure in diluting it with a place more designed for "ease of being a PC."

So free Tyr is fine, but I prefer a place with less deus ex machina, more "PC's carving out a niche for themselves in a world that demands compromise for every basic need it gives you."

If any of the city-states was meant to be free (and corrupt), I wish it was some other than Tyr. The city is very iconic, to the point of lending its name to the Tyr Region.

 

[Wik]

If any of the city-states was meant to be free (and corrupt), I wish it was some other than Tyr. The city is very iconic, to the point of lending its name to the Tyr Region.

A free Balic or a free Raam would be a great thing. Balic would be one trying to make democracy work, with a big dividing line between the slaves and the patricians (with the few freemen stuck in between). Raam would be a chaotic state, "Free", but divided by dozens of factions, warring religions, and plagues galore.

Both cities also get bonus points because templars would be viable character choices - in Raam, they've been considerably weaker from the start, and in a post-freedom situation would make great rogues or warlord-like characters. In Balic, the pretense of "popular elections" could actually make some templars well-liked by the general public.

 

[Korgoth]

I don't really like the idea of a free city in Dark Sun because part of the point of Dark Sun is that the world never lets up, you never catch a break, it's just an unrelenting series of bloody trials until you die or rise to the top. Having the Mulshevik Revolution overthrow a sorcerer-king pretty much vitiates that concept for me.

If anybody overthrows a sorcerer-king, it should be high level PCs at the zenith of their heroic careers. If anybody can make Athas a better place, it is only ever the PCs (if they bother... maybe they'd rather work for the sorcerer-king's secret police or something).

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't really like the idea of a free city in Dark Sun because part of the point of Dark Sun is that the world never lets up, you never catch a break, it's just an unrelenting series of bloody trials until you die or rise to the top.

I agree. I think that, for a setting like Dark Sun, mood and theme are vital. But I don't think a free Tyr at all contradicts that. As I said, if it's written and played right--if it's a cesspool of warring factions, violent crime, and rampant corruption--then the fact that it's "free" doesn't in any way make it better, easier, or safer.

I'd strenuously argue against having any more than one free city. But I maintain that having a single one, if done right, opens up adventure possibilities that do not, in any way, violate the moods or themes of Dark Sun.

 

[Mark Hope]

Post-regicide Tyr for me as well (although I'm running a game at the moment set in pre-regicide Tyr, which is also great fun.) It's clear from the first boxed set that Tyr was intended to be the city where the SK gets overthrown - it as much as says it outright in the description of the city. So for me, the overthrow of Kalak was never really a "change" from the boxed set.

I've had the most fun, though, with Nibenay. Ran an arc based there that was immensely good fun. So much going on in that city. I'd use Nibenay as my default city from now on in DS games without hesitation.

 

[Wycen]

We always played with Tyr being free, though of course we understood the history. Did the original boxed set even suggest playing before Kalak's death?

I voted post-revolution Tyr, but in our games the two closest cities, Nibenay and the warrior king, (who makes me think of Humakt, but that's the wrong game)...Nulb? Himenay? Whatever the fortress city was.

Now that I think about it, maybe Gulg is the name, it is the place that's in a forest with the sorcerer queen.

Been quite a long time since playing.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But I maintain that having a single one, if done right, opens up adventure possibilities that do not, in any way, violate the moods or themes of Dark Sun.

In my mind, one of the moods and themes of Dark Sun is that there is nowhere you can go where it ever gets any better.

A free cesspit is still free -- it still implies the hope for a change, the optimism of being without a sorcerer-king, the possibility for things to be different. It also triggers similar revolutions or revolutionary musings throughout the region (think of the spate of revolutions right around the mid-1700's to 1800's, worldwide). If a sorcerer-king can be killed by a scrappy band of buddies with a can-do attitude, it changes the world from one of suffering to one of "looking for the right heroes."

I much prefer the idea of DS as a place that says that everything you want in life is impossible, until you beat it out of the world the hard way. Want to be free? Kill a sorcerer-king or survive the wastes as a hermit. No one is born free. No one gets freedom handed to them. No one has a champion fighting for them, or a representative who shares their ideals (at least, not successfully).

I don't think a free Tyr necessarily invalidates all that, but since Tyr is the Dark Sun city, making it free implies there's hope for the world in a more potent way than making some little-known and rarely-mentioned podunk town with a poseur sorcerer-king free, off to the side, where no one cares, and where it's going to get swallowed by the wastes within a week.

A free Tyr implies that there's hope in the world. Another place failing at an attempt for freedom implies that even if you could kill the sorcerer-kings, the world would still choke you in the end. It's hard for Tyr to meet that fate -- it's too central of a city.

 

[Klaus]

Which is why I wish another city-state was the "free" one, instead of Tyr. And by following Mouse's comment on it being a divided cesspool, bordering on downright chaos, the inhabitants of the other states will have a choice of either toeing the line with their kings and having at least some security, or being left to their own devices in an anarchy where might makes right, and the "nobles" are just the ones who can pay for the most bodyguards.