Dark Sun in Dungeon #110

[Welverin]

It's really just like the Extended Universe for Star Wars...everything you see in the EU is canon UNTIL Lucas contradicts it.

One, it's the expanded universe.

Two, none of it is ever canon unless Lucas puts it in a movie. Such things are however part of official SW continuity unless contradicted by one of the movies.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I know I'm digging up something nearly a day old, but I think that clarity is always a good thing no matter how delayed... ;P

Sorry, but I allow everyone to have a few hits and a few misses under their belt. All in all, I've like most of Noonan's work. Just not the Spelljammer conversion.

Just to clarify, Dave Noonan did not author the Spider Moon Spelljammer mini-campaign. Andy Collins did.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Mach2.5]

So anything in Dragon/Dungeon are official versions of DS for 3.5 and anything else is now strictly fan based. Official fansite is kind of misleading that way. You can ALWAYS be overruled by the folks with the copyright

Canon, shmanon. Use what you will and be damned with 'official' titles and such mularky. Its a game. More importantly, when at your own gaming table, its your game. I don't care who puts it out, I just want more DS material than I can conceivably create on my own. I don't care if WOTC puts out the DS setting with pink muls in frilly satin shirts with SK DJ's spinning disco hits and the term 'defiling' has more of a taboo sexual innuendo. Official doesn't always mean good. Crap is still crap, even when trademarked. When in doubt, go with what appeals more, not what has a 'seal of approval'.

Besides, as I understand it, the only way for any of the fansites to be 'overuled' is if they were asked to shut down. WOTC isn't showing any signs of digging the dead settings from their graves, so there's no chance of any kind of overruling anyhow. The fansites aren't cutting into profits, and that's all that matters.

Personally, I dug Dark Sun, but the only people that I knew playing it were folks I didn't particularly enjoy gaming with (and, unfortunately, Dark Sun did little more than boost the behavior I didn't like)

Innitially, DS seemed to garner a lot of support from 'power-gamers' and munchkins. It took me almost a year to rework a decent group of gamers out of that mold and into a 'role' playing group. At least, that was the kind of turn-off behavior that I experienced from early fans of the setting.

Give me the stuff that REALLY matters and let ME worry about the rest.

Ahh, the root of the disagreement. I guess different things matter to different people. I already had tons of stats in 3e form for ships. If I wanted to zip them into space, I could have done that in far less than 50 pages. What matters to me then are the little things, the details. The fluff. The descriptions. The narratives. The setting. Give me something that I cannot create on my own at times - unique, derisive, and compelling avenues for the expression of my story. You can use crappy chunked up rules and still tell a good story and have a good game, but even the best game mechanics won't cover up for a flat, generic, lame setting. The SJ mini-game gave me some nice rules to use, but gave me a cruddy little lifeless and uninspiring setting to work with.

But, like I said, different things matter to different people. And in the end, my opinions mean absolutely zilch when you gather around your gaming table Its still your game.

So the Aristolean physics refers to things falling faster if they're bigger and slower if they're smaller, or at least that's one angle of it all. So they updated the science of it all by oh...2500 or so years. Works for me.

It refers to the feel of the setting in general, that the fantastic is more probable than the realistic. When in doubt, go with the route of fantasy rather than the route of sensibility and real science. That was what was missing from the article.

 

[Erebus]

I would have to say that back in the day, the Dark Sun concept was really cool and was what initially hooked me. It was just so different (and still is) from everything that TSR produced during its run and I look forward to the new material. Will I use it? Maybe. Regardless, it remains my all-time favorite setting. The fact that we're getting updated "official" material is awesome. No offense to the good folks at athas.org, but some of their early material especially smacked of "fanboy" (read: unprofessional) and really didn't meet my tastes. It also seemed somewhat stale. Admittedly, I haven't checked out any of their current projects.

If the setting in the magazines is somewhat "re-imagined", who cares? Use what you like and discard the rest, or don't use it at all. The original campaign setting has all the flavor you'll ever need and you're free to change what you don't like. The update more or less provides the crunch you can use to run the game under 3.5. There are folks on RPG.net, in fact, who have taken Dark Sun and used different game systems entirely to run it. In short, the mechanics don't really matter - it's all about the flavor. If you find it lacking in the new material or at odds with your personal "vision" of what Dark Sun should be like, that's fine - don't use it.

I don't mean to sound patronizing, but some people get way too worked up about this stuff. It's a game, people!

 

[Ranger REG]

It's really just like the Extended Universe for Star Wars...everything you see in the EU is canon UNTIL Lucas contradicts it.

Unfortunately, I think like a Trekkie. Only any motion picture (TV series and movies) produced from the franchise in Paramount (and of the former studio, Desilu, acquired by Paramount) are considered canon. Even the latest crappy ones that deserve a temporal reset button (despite I hate Braga's temporal-thematic stories, they give me migraines) are canon.

Not even a book's entire content written by one of the former VOYAGER producers (Jeri Taylor) that detailed Janeway & Crew's origin are considered canon, but only what relevant content that is shown or mentioned on-screen.

And yeah, regarding Star Wars EU, I'm in denial. I don't think Chewie is dead or that the Vong invaded Star Wars. Nor do I think that Mara Jade is suffering from a debilitating disease.

So anything in Dragon/Dungeon are official versions of DS for 3.5 and anything else is now strictly fan based. Official fansite is kind of misleading that way. You can ALWAYS be overruled by the folks with the copyright

True, which is why I'd rather give them a non-canon status BY DEFAULT until WotC proclaimed them canon.

Hey I'm all for it. Why the heck WOULDN'T they use a revised bit of Dark Sun to promote the new version of the Psi Handbook? DS was the ONLY D&D game world they've ever made that really did much with Psionics at all. They should definitely milk it, altho hopefully they'll also do a good conversion that the fans will be pleased with. I was hoping these issues were in store so I could look at them but sadly not yet.

Why wouldn't they? I honestly don't know, other than drawing the ire of DS purists and patrons of the official fan site, some of them who are miffed that the site is not involved with the development of Paizo's DS treatment, but from what I hear, they advanced the timeline so they can steer clear of any conflict with them.

IMHO, that is a clever move, because I personally would not have done it myself.

 

[Welverin]

Nor do I think that Mara Jade is suffering from a debilitating disease.

Not any more she doesn't, surprised you even care. Or are there just some parts of the EU you don't like?

 

[Mach2.5]

Unfortunately, I think like a Trekkie. Only any motion picture (TV series and movies) produced from the franchise in Paramount (and of the former studio, Desilu, acquired by Paramount) are considered canon. Even the latest crappy ones that deserve a temporal reset button (despite I hate Braga's temporal-thematic stories, they give me migraines) are canon.

So, no matter how much something bites, if it falls within your definition of canon, it stays? Wow, that's lame, no offense. I'll stick with 'if it falls within my definition of cool, it stays'. Uncool stuff gets thrashed, trashed, and forgotten about, no matter where the source is. Been thinking about getting into a bit of Star Wars d20, but definately going to restructure some of the background more to me and my players liking.

IMHO, that is a clever move, because I personally would not have done it myself

I must agree with you there. I also don't have a problem with the shameless plug of DS to sell the PsiH. Exposure is still exposure. If it gets a few more people to my weekly DS game then I'm a happy camper. I just hope that none of them want to take some of these changes as 'must haves' for my game. Its just not going to happen.

In short, the mechanics don't really matter - it's all about the flavor.

*sheds a tear*

I love you man. That was . . . beautiful.

Just to clarify, Dave Noonan did not author the Spider Moon Spelljammer mini-campaign. Andy Collins did.

Thanks for the clarification. My bad. Had not read the article since it came out and was taking a previous poster's comment "It's odd that you say this, but then below mention that you think he'll do a respectable job by using the same techniques that made the SJ mini-game [snip]" as refering to Noonan having writen the SJ mini-game.

 

[Erebus]

*sheds a tear*

I love you man. That was . . . beautiful.

In a manly way though, right?

 

[Alzrius]

Thanks for the clarification. My bad. Had not read the article since it came out and was taking a previous poster's comment "It's odd that you say this, but then below mention that you think he'll do a respectable job by using the same techniques that made the SJ mini-game [snip]" as refering to Noonan having writen the SJ mini-game.

My bad there. I can see how the sentence would be misleading. To clarify, I was referring simply to the fact that the same "techniques" were being used; I didn't mean to imply that the same person was using them.

 

[SSquirrel]

Two, none of it is ever canon unless Lucas puts it in a movie. Such things are however part of official SW continuity unless contradicted by one of the movies.

Strikes me as semantics. If he acknowledges something as official continuity, that makes it canon. He can (has and will) change his mind on things and remove them from continuity when he does something else that negates them.

Canon, shmanon. Use what you will and be damned with 'official' titles and such mularky. Its a game. More importantly, when at your own gaming table, its your game.

Oh I agree with you completely. It still doesn't change that in the ST universe, what happens in the TV shows and movies is definitely canon. Same with the Star Wars movies. But yeah when you run your game change everything you dislike.

Besides, as I understand it, the only way for any of the fansites to be 'overuled' is if they were asked to shut down. WOTC isn't showing any signs of digging the dead settings from their graves, so there's no chance of any kind of overruling anyhow. The fansites aren't cutting into profits, and that's all that matters.

I would consider them overruled if WOTC published Dark Sun material without really conferring with them. Oh wait, they already did.

Ahh, the root of the disagreement. I guess different things matter to different people. I already had tons of stats in 3e form for ships. If I wanted to zip them into space, I could have done that in far less than 50 pages. What matters to me then are the little things, the details. The fluff. The descriptions. The narratives. The setting. Give me something that I cannot create on my own at times - unique, derisive, and compelling avenues for the expression of my story. You can use crappy chunked up rules and still tell a good story and have a good game, but even the best game mechanics won't cover up for a flat, generic, lame setting. The SJ mini-game gave me some nice rules to use, but gave me a cruddy little lifeless and uninspiring setting to work with.

Most of the folks I see complaining about the SJ minigame already HAVE all the old 2E SJ stuff. You don't need more flavor text, it's all right there. The setting in the minigame is (IMO) supposed to be a bit "flat, generic, lame" since they're relying on the DMs out there to fill it in with pretty much everything. We'll just disagree on this point I think heh.

It refers to the feel of the setting in general, that the fantastic is more probable than the realistic. When in doubt, go with the route of fantasy rather than the route of sensibility and real science. That was what was missing from the article.

Well considering that 3E in general takes a more scientific approach with most everything, I think that alone would be reason enough to see it like that.

So, no matter how much something bites, if it falls within your definition of canon, it stays? Wow, that's lame, no offense. I'll stick with 'if it falls within my definition of cool, it stays'. Uncool stuff gets thrashed, trashed, and forgotten about, no matter where the source is. Been thinking about getting into a bit of Star Wars d20, but definately going to restructure some of the background more to me and my players liking.

Yes for your game this is the perfect attitude to have. However, as far as the corporations are concerned, said uncool stuff did happen (sometimes unfortunately) and it is part of their continuity.

Hagen