Dark Sun Revised vs. Original

[hailstop]

Okay, I DM'ed Dark Sun with the Original Set and was out of D&D entirely when the Revised Set came out.

So my question is what parts are so objectionable in the Revised Set? I've heard about the issues with killing off the Dragon and half of the Sorceror Kings...but what about the Pre-history? Anything else in the Revised?

Basically, if I read the Revised Set and ignored the last 10 years of history, is that the way to go?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My vague recollection is, outside of negative lore changes, the new rules were slightly better.

The new psionics was just as broken. It was 2e. Nothing was balanced anyway. And Dark Sun was even less balanced.

There were new races, like the aarakocra and pterrans. You might have liked them. You might have hated them. The aarakocra could maybe be unbalanced due to free flying (I never saw one in play, though).

 

[Wik]

Mm. I dunno.

The rules part of the revised set is probably better, in some ways. Tables are fixed, things are evened out a bit. However, I think the earlier edition did defiling magic better, and it included templar as a character class, which I think is the way to go. Personally, if I were running a 2e game, I'd use both rule books, and pick and choose what fits your preferences best.

As for everything else.... the revised setting gives us a history of the world that is a bit bizarre, and focuses on "life-shaped" items and the like. It posits a world that was originally run by halflings, and talks about ancient genoicidal wars led by the sorcerer kings. Unlike the original setting, which suggests that the current sorcerer-kings are just wizards of great power, and that there were more than likely other city-states beyond the Tyr region, the revised setting says "these sorcerer kings are the only SKs, and there will never be any more".

The revised setting gives a much larger area to explore (they say about eight times larger, but a lot of that is "empty space"). However, it adds a lot of silly stuff that feels very "anti-Dark Sun" to me. The plain of obsidian is an example - it's filled with undead gnomes and the like... and of course, since obsidian is so valuable, it's a lot like a plain of silver in any other campaign setting.

Then we have an empire of thri-kreen, civilized halflings that live on a cliff and ride hot-air balloons, and evil psionic overlords around a dying lake. Note that none of those elements are exactly "lame", and I could see a campaign built around any of them. But, for some reason, they never seemed very "athasian" to me.

The revised setting also gives the PCs a theme. Whereas the original set kind of just detailed a world, and said "go adventure", by the time the revised setting came out, it was assumed the PCs would be fighting against defilers, slavery, and the evils of the world. Some would really jump on that, and the 3.5E revision would put the PCs in the role of "underground revolutionaries" in a lot of ways. I never really bought into it, though - I liked a darker setting (and most of my players did, too). I guess TSR wanted to make the PCs good guys, fitting with their standard operating procedures at the time.

there is some very cool stuff from the revised setting, though. The bandit states. the city-state of Celik. Aarokocra as a character race. The trader class. And a few others I can't think of at the moment, but I'm sure are there.

Ultimately, I'd say get them both. Use the original setting as your "core", and then pick and choose what you like from the revised. It's a bit more work, but you'll have a better end result.

 

[Wik]

My vague recollection is, outside of negative lore changes, the new rules were slightly better.

The new psionics was just as broken. It was 2e. Nothing was balanced anyway. And Dark Sun was even less balanced.

There were new races, like the aarakocra and pterrans. You might have liked them. You might have hated them. The aarakocra could maybe be unbalanced due to free flying (I never saw one in play, though).

The new psionics were kind of broken, but I found they worked better in actual play. At least, they made more sense to me at the time.

pterrans were kind of cool. The aarokocra were not super powerful because of their flight, I found - it never really came up in our play experiences. Compared to half-giants (double the normal hit points), or the Thri-Kreen (double the normal attacks), they weren't really anything big. I think we only had one, though.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Much of the appeal of the Original boxed set was the mysteriousness of the history, the origins of nearly everything, how things came to be. That veil was obliterated with the Revised set.

There was a lot of cool that came out under the revised era, I'm fond of lifeshaped artifacts, shadowcasters, cerulean mages. I still regret the loss of mystery.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Much of the appeal of the Original boxed set was the mysteriousness of the history, the origins of nearly everything, how things came to be. That veil was obliterated with the Revised set.

This. Leaving aside whether or not one liked the history presented in the Revised set (I personally didn't care for it much), I believe its mere presence detracted from the flavor of the setting. I don't want to know what Athas used to be like. It ruins much of the feel for that information to even exist. (And yes, I know the DM can change or ignore it, but that's not the point.)

Now, I may be biased. As I said, I didn't care for a lot of what the Revised set introduced, such as the "halfling bio-tech." It felt shoehorned and inappropriate. If someone wanted to create a brand new setting around the precepts of the Revised DS history, I'd be all for it. It'd make for a fascinating setting unto itself, and I think there's a good chance I'd even come to like many of the elements that first turned me off. But only in the context of its own setting; as a precursor to the Athas we all know and love, I strongly feel that it didn't work.

 

[Wik]

This. Leaving aside whether or not one liked the history presented in the Revised set (I personally didn't care for it much), I believe its mere presence detracted from the flavor of the setting. I don't want to know what Athas used to be like. It ruins much of the feel for that information to even exist. (And yes, I know the DM can change or ignore it, but that's not the point.)

Now, I may be biased. As I said, I didn't care for a lot of what the Revised set introduced, such as the "halfling bio-tech." It felt shoehorned and inappropriate. If someone wanted to create a brand new setting around the precepts of the Revised DS history, I'd be all for it. It'd make for a fascinating setting unto itself, and I think there's a good chance I'd even come to like many of the elements that first turned me off. But only in the context of its own setting; as a precursor to the Athas we all know and love, I strongly feel that it didn't work.

And yeah, I fully agree with this sentence. I would JUMP at the chance to play a game with life-shaped halflings fighting a Kreen Empire, while the Mind Lords of the Last Sea try to dope up their populace.

I just don't like it in Dark Sun.

Also, Ari, I haven't said it yet, but when Rich Baker listed you as one of the contributers for Dark Sun, I did a little happy dance. One of the best pieces of news I've heard yet; I tend to agree with your views on Dark Sun, so it's good to know you're involved in the project.

 

[Krensky]

To me, the first edition was very Post-Apocalyptic D&D, where Revised felt much more like a Sword & Planet setting without the sci-fi. I enjoyed them both for what they were.

 

[Shemeska]

I rather liked the revised box and the development of the setting. The Thri-Kreen empire was just freaking cool, and it and some other expansions around the same time period really gave a sense of expanded scope and a much larger, stranger world beyond the tablelands than was present in earlier material. Things got stranger and more evocative to me, and I appreciated that, it'll be a shame if most of that is dialed back (not that it matters as much to me since I'm not interested in 4e).

 

[frankthedm]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/203607-dark-sun-special-rules-other-stuff.html

I did not like the turn TSR took Dark Sun after the first boxed set. Dark sun stopped being dark sun to me with the Death of Kalak in Freedom.

BTW, you might like this dragon toy if you are a fan of Borys of Ebe. look soon though as it was released a year back.

Here was an older discussion of this subject...

Dark Sun in Dragon magazine - EN World D&D / RPG News

Troy Denning created the setting but he also destroyed it.

The Prism Pentad was the death knell for Dark Sun. Everything that you knew about the setting from the original boxed set was thrown right out the window. Half the sorceror-king's died along with the world's only dragon.

NPC's should never have that kind of drastic change on the setting. Never. Its bad design and even worse marketing.

I also blame Bill Slavicsek for releasing the abomination that was the "Revised" Dark Sun campaign setting. Talk about nerfing the entire feel of the setting.

Really disliked the defiling taint rules. IMHO the Taint of a defiler is that they have blasted athas to barren wasteland, can never be good, and cause all wizards to be hated. Dark sun was not about using supernatural punishments for the unheroic, that was Ravenloft. Brom era Dark sun was about survival in a blasted land ruled by wicked sorcerer kings where the very concept of paladin had gone extinct long ago. Defilers even earned XP notably faster than preservers to boot. What balances that out? Nothing other than how much your allies are willing to put up / be seen with you.

Being a preserver means you are taking the moral high road on a world where that is not rewarded. If the DM wants to reward that, making the Veiled Alliance more helpful is a great way to work that.