Dark Sun Revised vs. Original

[Mouseferatu]

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.

That's great to hear. Thanks.

I wasn't as heavily involved as some of the other folks were, just because I came on board a ways into the process. (I was busy working on Tomb of Horrors 4E and the sequel to The Conqueror's Shadow, so I couldn't do as much DS as I might've liked, even if they'd offered me more of it.) But I'm really stoked about the parts I did work on--I think it's some of my best 4E stuff to date, and it was certainly the most fun 4E gig I've had.

As soon as I'm allowed to actually say what I worked on, specifically, I'll do so.

 

[vagabundo]

That's great to hear. Thanks.

I wasn't as heavily involved as some of the other folks were, just because I came on board a ways into the process. (I was busy working on Tomb of Horrors 4E and the sequel to The Conqueror's Shadow, so I couldn't do as much DS as I might've liked, even if they'd offered me more of it.) But I'm really stoked about the parts I did work on--I think it's some of my best 4E stuff to date, and it was certainly the most fun 4E gig I've had.

As soon as I'm allowed to actually say what I worked on, specifically, I'll do so.

Nom nom; sounds fab. DS was a setting that fascinated me in my youth, but that I never got to run. I'm a fan just through the art and the few articles that got printed in dungeon/dragon back in the day - I also picked up some of the flipbook adventures; it was all so alien. I loved it.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

AGree with much of what's been said
Athas must MUST be kept mysterious, up to individual DMs to work out their own backstory...or just kepe it simply unknown.
the msytery helps add to the setting imensely

I've played the setting sicne it's bene out and slowly let my players know my history..but evne that may be false/wrong as it was os long ago and Athas is so strange.

Yeah the old 2nd ed psionics rules *stunk* way too much of a pain, hence I made up my own system, got published in European Polyhedron, too!
Silverblade in D&D Print!

Having "Life shaped" artiffacts, or any wierd thing, is ok if the DM is ok with it, it enhances the fact that Athas is strange and IMHO ancient.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

Yeah, this. And what TSR put behind the veil was pretty lame.

I liked the concept behind dragon metamorphosis (although I believe that was actually introduced in Dragon Kings, not the Revised boxed set), but otherwise I felt the main contribution of Revised Dark Sun was to inject a lot of mediocre metaplot and back story into a world that was doing just fine without them. I cordially despise metaplot, which is why I don't generally approve of having novel tie-ins to campaign settings.

Even setting aside my general dislike of metaplot, I think Athas does better with a vague, lost history. It's a setting where everyone is scrabbling for bare survival, a world relentlessly focused on the here and now. The past should be a kind of distant, romantic, tragic dream; like people in the reality of medieval Britain, enduring the Wars of the Roses and the legacy of the Black Death, telling stories of Arthur Pendragon and the Knights of the Round Table.

And killing off the Dragon! Sorceror-kings, fine, we've got enough that we can spare a few. But the Dragon was the iconic threat of Athas; the scourge of all life, the fury of the wastelands incarnate. Athas without the Dragon is like Middle-Earth without Sauron, or Star Wars without the Sith.

(I think this might actually be the heart of why I hate Rajaat and the whole Champions business. Compared to the Dragon, Rajaat made for a pretty pathetic uber-villain. Instead of a titanic spellcasting monster that literally sucks the life out of the world, we have a self-hating lunatic who wants to return the world to the halflings. Um... yeah, whatever.)

 

[Wik]

Yeah, this. And what TSR put behind the veil was pretty lame.

I liked the concept behind dragon metamorphosis (although I believe that was actually introduced in Dragon Kings, not the Revised boxed set), but otherwise I felt the main contribution of Revised Dark Sun was to inject a lot of mediocre metaplot and back story into a world that was doing just fine without them. I cordially despise metaplot, which is why I don't generally approve of having novel tie-ins to campaign settings.

Dragon Metamorphosis was introduced in Dragon Kings, as you say. In fact, according to the introduction to Dragon Kings, that information was intended for the Original Setting, but had to be cut due to space. So, really, "Dragon Kings" were part of the intended setting, and I don't really consider them to be an "expansion" - just part of the rules that got printed in a later source.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

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.

Good point. There is a lot to not like. For me though, when I remember that Dark Sun was heavily influenced by ERB's Barsoom, the lifeshaped bio-tech artifacts (not the newly grown stuff by the Jagged Cliffs halflings) that are buried in ruins beneath the sands of the desert just strongly fit a Barsoom-themed Dark Sun quite well to me. Helped to highlight the sci-fi influences upon the setting.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

This was posted by Rodney Thompson over at RPGNet:

Hey guys, lead developer of the 4E Dark Sun books here. I can't say too much about the books right now, but I will say a few things in general.

First, Dark Sun 4E won't be a kitchen sink setting. Not only is there not enough space for that (remember, each year of products adds more to the game's content), but it doesn't fit Dark Sun's motif. The guy who posted about there being not enough of things on Athas is spot-on. In a post-apocalyptic world like Athas, the threat of eradication is 100% real. We've kept that.

Will there be new things in the setting that weren't in 2E? Absolutely. Will there be things shoehorned in that don't make any sense? Absolutely not. I'm about as die-hard a fan of the original boxed set as you can get (being less a fan of the revised version, to be honest), and I have worked very hard to make sure the book feels the most like the original boxed set that it can, while still realizing that it's not 1991 anymore and some basic assumptions about D&D are different.

So, don't expect to see everything from D&D in Dark Sun. What you will see, however, are some (I think) great guidelines and tools for taking those things that we don't include and putting them through the Dark Sun filter to drop into your own game. We're not going to tell you where beholders live, what they do, how many there are, or even if they exist on Athas, but we have got a great set of tools and guidelines for you to bring beholders into the setting if you want to. Just an example.
__________________
Rodney Thompson
RPG Designer/Developer, Dungeons & Dragons/Star Wars
Wizards of the Coast
Webmaster, SWRPGNetwork
Follow me on Twitter: wotc_rodney

Sounds good to me.

 

[Wik]

Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Thanks for posting it!

 

[StarFyre]

I really liked the new races they added....so will certainly be house ruling them into 4E dark sun (Lready have all the races converted for our house rules, and any races missing or losing their flavour to fit the generic 4E mold, will be house ruled anyways)

some of the contents from the novels (death of Borys, etc) weren't very cool story wise in my opinion, but as a DM, you can change whatever you want...

Sanjay