Dark Sun Hopes & Dreams & Fears & Nightmares

[Desdichado]

He also has an opinion on your future Dark Sun campaign, and it is *not* good, if you get my drift.

Athas isn't just Barsoom, it has a fairly large Clark Ashton Smith flavour to it, too...anicent, mysterious, horror...plus Smith's conemporary, Robert E Howard!

So, Barsoom + Stygia + Zothique

Well, I didn't say it was just Barsoom, I said it was Barsoom + Dune. But that's not my opinion; I don't know the setting well enough. When Stan! did his interviews with the setting developers for the Campaign Classics issue of Dragon several years ago, that's how they described it.

 

[Spatula]

Never run/read that one. But I hold by my original point. Just because a published adventure goes away from what I see as being "the point" to the setting, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

While you can't be "wrong" about what you see as the point of the setting, there isn't much to back it up. The original DS box set doesn't say much of anything about the planes, and implicitly condones the existence of some of the standards (astral and ethereal spells & psionics are not altered or banned, frex). The Dragon Kings hardcover has a section that presents the usual 1e cosmology (later contradicted by the novels & the elemental priest splatbook). There's official art pieces depicting extraplanar creatures early on in the campaign's life. One that I recall is a Baxa piece showing a female mage summoning a glabrezu; I think it first appeared in Dragon Kings.

To be honest it seems like the designers didn't know what to do with the topic of the planes, and as a result different authors put forth different ideas. So I don't think it's possible to truly say what the original point of the setting was, in regards to extraplanar stuff.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, KidSnide said pretty much what I would've said, and probably better.

So I don't think it's possible to truly say what the original point of the setting was, in regards to extraplanar stuff.

Sure. Which is why my concern isn't about "what the original point was" as much as it is "what will my experience in a few months be like?" The thread is, ideally, forward-looking.

I think 4e could easily improve on what came before by delivering a better Dark Sun experience than even the original Dark Sun gave.

I play in Dark Sun in part to tell stories that I couldn't tell easily in standard D&D. If I wanted to tell a story about a magic-rich plane of rampant nature, or githyanki, or a demon invasion, I don't need to do that in Dark Sun. Settings are not pits that people are thrown into and never get out of. I don't have to choose between the slide and the sandbox. I've got the whole playground!

 

[Spatula]

I think 4e could easily improve on what came before by delivering a better Dark Sun experience than even the original Dark Sun gave.

Yeah, I've had that same thought as well. And I share your concerns about shoehorning stuff in; not just the feywild but also the underdark, the far realm, gnomes, goblins, and so on.

 

[Desdichado]

And I share your concerns about shoehorning stuff in; not just the feywild but also the underdark, the far realm, gnomes, goblins, and so on.

I hope they find a way to shoehorn in Shadowdark, Darkbad, Shadow Shadow Bo Badow, Double Hell and Scarytown.

 

[Plane Sailing]

As much as the concept of Dark Sun seems exactly up my alley, some of the execution didn't seem right, starting with the fact that it was fundamentally a D&D setting that didn't really want to be a D&D setting, but a setting for some other game entirely.

I thought so too, so I modified RQ2 rules slightly to run Dark Sun back in the day - it was a match made in heaven

 

[Mouseferatu]

I thought so too, so I modified RQ2 rules slightly to run Dark Sun back in the day - it was a match made in heaven

Assuming the future/higher-level boxed sets retain the same feel as the first, I'd dearly love to see a Dark Sun "hack" for GR's Dragon Age RPG.