About to start Darksun - What have been your experiences with it?

[Staffan]

2) Fear Halflings. It's not just that they're cannibals, which they are.

<pet peeve>No, they're not. A halfling would never eat another halfling, or even hurt it (unless absolutely necessary). Other races are fair game, however, but that doesn't make them cannibals, any more than a tiger eating a human is one.</pet peeve>

Well, there is one halfling NPC in one of the adventures who got exiled for eating another halfling, but he's pretty clearly an aberration.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Speaking of halflings, people will want to know what makes them so nasty.

Here's a brief history of the halflings.*Snip*

all this is common knowledge? I played earlier in the game and much of this was darkest secrets, use spoiler tags if you want to give away the farm.

Othewise, good summery I had lost touch with the world and actually knew only about half of this-

 

[MDSnowman]

No, not common knowledge. People, in general, know nothing about the real events in the past. The sorcerer kings (Rajaat's old champions) benefit from keeping the average person ignorant, hell if they knew that their "god kings" were real people (albeit 40th level Wizards/Psions) they'd have more trouble on their hands than they did during the Prism pentad novels where 3 of them died, and another one was banished for 1000 years.

 

[Turanil]

I am currently wrapping up my d20 Modern campaign and another player will be taking the reigns as DM. He wants to run Darksun.

He has sent us info and pointed us to Athas.org. Most of the group wants to give the world a chance but we all think it's weird and a few players are finding it not that interesting, simply from reading the material. Mind you, we have never played DS before, so this is only from reading.

For those of you that have played in Darksun, did you like it/hate it/were indifferent about it? I just want to know what I'm getting into.

PS: We're doing a one-shot first to see if we like it, so it's not like we're diving in head first.

I have layed Dark Sun many times when it was Ad&d 2e. What I did like, was it was such an exotic setting, with psionics that were new during these days. As such it was really great.

The main problem was the lethality of the game. Because it was said to be a "brutal world", PCs would have to die every gaming sessions. Frankly, this is just utter stupidity to me, and this crap of having a brutal world where PC will die at the first opportunity even when they are high level, is just the thing that made me abandon this gaming world. So I suggest the GM forgets about DS being a PCs killing machine.

My suggestion is to use D20 Modern. Seriously. There are few other ways of balancing a setting where, not ony are you not going to find a +1 suit of armor, but the armor is just inix hide!

Oh yeah, and be sure to use the XPH psion, even if you're using D20 Modern rules.

In such case, I would rather suggest to use Grim Tales (than d20 modern), plus Green Ronin's Psychic's Handbook... (There is a new and long review by me of Grim Tales on Enworld review)

 

[Spatula]

He has sent us info and pointed us to Athas.org. Most of the group wants to give the world a chance but we all think it's weird and a few players are finding it not that interesting, simply from reading the material. Mind you, we have never played DS before, so this is only from reading.

Athas.org is more about rule conversions than flavor. A pdf of the original box set is available for $5 from svgames.com and is a good primer for players. The 2nd campaign box set pdf is also available for $5, but it doesn't include the world map for some reason and gives away the secret history of the world. It also takes place after the Prism Pentad series of novels, which radically altered the state of Athas.

The movie pitch for Dark Sun is basically "Mad Max meets Conan." It's post-apocalyptic D&D. Imagine a normal D&D world like FR that was devastated by the magical equivalent of a nuclear war, thousands of years later. The environment has been shattered. Mutated creatures (i.e. that have developed psionic powers) are everywhere. The world's resources (such as iron) are nearly tapped out. With everyone fighting to hold onto their small piece of what's left, society has slid backwards. Evil socererous despots rule over independant city-states and tribal warlords live free out in the wastelands. Slavery is commonplace. Wizardry is outlawed. Heck, reading/writing is outlawed. The gods are gone, having left the world to its fate.

(note that the above is not the official history of Athas, which is pretty much unknown to just about everyone on the planet, but it sums up the "idea" of the setting, compared to other D&D worlds)

For those of you that have played in Darksun, did you like it/hate it/were indifferent about it? I just want to know what I'm getting into.

Well, I like it and my old gaming group was really into it. It's a good change of pace, because the setting is very exotic and it turns a lot of the standard D&D concepts on their ear. DS elves are gypsies, rather than the usual tolkien-esque D&D elves. Halflings are pygmy jungle cannibals (technically not really cannibals as has been noted, as they don't eat their own kind). There are no gnomes, no half-orcs (or orcs, for that matter). Most of the standard-issue D&D monsters don't exist - none of the humanoids, no true dragons, no lycantheropes, no recognizable undead aside from skeletons and zombies. A lot of normal animals are gone as well. Characters ride around on giant insects or lizards rather than on horses, for example.

If your group doesn't like to try out new things, they may not be that into it.

 

[MDSnowman]

no recognizable undead aside from skeletons and zombies.

Well that's true and untrue, I think a lot of Athas undead were templated creates back before their were templates that's all.

 

[Spatula]

Well that's true and untrue, I think a lot of Athas undead were templated creates back before their were templates that's all.

Yes. But there were no D&D ghosts, no vampires, no liches, no wights, no ghouls, no ghasts, no spectres... none of the usual D&D undead aside from the mindless animated ones. Instead there are dwarven banshees, dune runners, kaisharga, raaigs, etc.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Many civilizations were destroyed, including that of the elves. The Tohr-Kreen survived untouched, but the small thri-kreen/avangion nation was destroyed.

What thri-kreen/avangion nation? I thought I was pretty fit in my knowledge of Dark Sun, but I never heard of this one...

 

[Heretic Apostate]

What thri-kreen/avangion nation? I thought I was pretty fit in my knowledge of Dark Sun, but I never heard of this one...

In the Dragon Crown adventure, if I recall correctly, the party came upon a huge sculpture, one side of which had the face of a thri-kreen and one side had the face of an avangion. It invokes an ancestral memory in all thri-kreen who see it. It brings up memories of the "Great One."

And that about is all the info that is known.

**************

@ whomever brought up the "Tohr-kreen" civilization:

Spoiler

The Tohr-Kreen are NOT a civilization, not now, not ever. Instead, they are the result of the Zik-Chil (a caste of thri-kreen) sculpting of thri-kreen, into scouts. All those "noblest of thri-kreens," the ones which show how barbarous the thri-kreen of the Tyr region are? They're scouts of the Thri-Kreen Empire, spying on the demihumans, preparing the way for the inevitable conquest.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DarkSun was a blast in 2Ed, at least for my game group. Some of it was wonky, but overall, it had a fun feel to it.

As a setting, I'd compare it less to Mad Max than to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom or Leigh Brackett's Skaith books.

BTW- I've seen ads for DarkSun D20, but haven't seen the book. Is it out yet?