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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4932327" data-attributes="member: 2067">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."</blockquote>