Raduin711
Hero
Once upon a time I ran a 3.5 Dark Sun game for my group. My players really enjoyed it, but I was super stressed out by the experience. Ever since they have been begging me to do it again, and lately I have been giving it a little consideration.
One of the things that I struggled at the outset was trying to manage the available player options. For most of them this is their only real exposure to the setting. I recall a lot of debates over "well, why CAN'T this be in Dark Sun?" and me trying to work some concepts into the setting for the players in a lore-friendly way, and then the players forgetting that lore and walking away with a very jumbled view of the game. I try to be a "Yes, and" kind of DM, but trying to find a way to include some of the myriad options available in 3.5 without totally breaking the lore is a real challenge. I tried to point them toward more lore-friendly options in Athas.org, but they seemed to turn their noses up at them, instead trying to get me to let them play some obscure option from the "Book of Nine Complete Whatevers" instead.
So what's your approach to this?
One of the things that I struggled at the outset was trying to manage the available player options. For most of them this is their only real exposure to the setting. I recall a lot of debates over "well, why CAN'T this be in Dark Sun?" and me trying to work some concepts into the setting for the players in a lore-friendly way, and then the players forgetting that lore and walking away with a very jumbled view of the game. I try to be a "Yes, and" kind of DM, but trying to find a way to include some of the myriad options available in 3.5 without totally breaking the lore is a real challenge. I tried to point them toward more lore-friendly options in Athas.org, but they seemed to turn their noses up at them, instead trying to get me to let them play some obscure option from the "Book of Nine Complete Whatevers" instead.
So what's your approach to this?