Dark Sun sourcebooks

[Drowbane]

Thri-Kreen of Athas....

One of my favorite 2e books.

 

[Alzrius]

Sure. Care to explain the thought process?

The way I see it, the second you start releasing stuff like history of the world (especially the way they did it in 2e, which was always tied into a novel series), you rob the game of a bit of mystery. I like the idea of Dark Sun in the original set, where the history was hinted at, but never really explained - it lets GMs fill in the blanks, without having to go in depth or anything like that.

The Dark Sun history, what with Rajaat and Champions and Cleansing Wars... just didn't do it for me.

Simply put, I think that mysteries are fun, but that fun is predicated on the idea of eventually solving them. Yes, the do-it-yourself method of saying what the real truth is can be fun for a lot of people, but I don't buy pre-made campaigns so that I can do the work myself; that's what I'm paying other people for.

I also suspect that this will reflect poorly on me, but a lot of the time I think that other people can simply do it better than I can. I simply don't have the time/energy to devote to inventing a great meta-plot/narrative (and even when I try, I can't seem to find that "sweeps me into it" inspiration that some other people seem to have). I'd like to think that this isn't a case of me being creatively bankrupt, but rather that this is an area where other people are more gifted (and in a better position to create) than I happen to be right now.

Similarly, when I do against the grain and make up my own material, I find that less is not more - more is more. Having a greater back-story and meta-plot helps because it does the proverbial heavy-lifting for me. Far easier to fill in the smaller areas than to have to paint in broad strokes, as it were.

I think that the story of Rajaat and the Champions was very intriguing, and that it helped lend greater definition to the campaign world. I also don't think it subtracted anything that was already there, as the actual PCs were likely to be uneducated, illiterate people with no way of knowing the history anyway. So DMs could bring the meta-plot into focus as much or as little as they wanted, while still maintaining the harsh post-apocalyptic feel of the world.