Darksun Teasers

[CapnZapp]

Rich Baker posted an interesting entry on his blog in the Wizards community (here)

What's up with using light gray text on white background?!?

Practically impossible to read without doing "select all"...

 

[CapnZapp]

Some folks would say that I really overthought this. It's a fantasy world, and the answer could be "it's magic" or "the gods willed it so." That's certainly true, and I probably could have left well enough alone... but some Dark Sun fan's going to pick up the campaign guide next year, look at the map, and he *won't* wonder why the Dragon's Bowl isn't filled with silt, like I did.

Good job - now only ten times as many DS fans will wonder why there's suddenly a mountain range where none was before?

Why the sudden concern for realism? You guys haven't bothered about verisimilitude once before in 4E, so why start now?!

 

[CapnZapp]

This week's update: I've finished up my rewrite of Avenger

Whoa? The Avenger's been rewritten?

Which book will this be?

 

[CapnZapp]

And before you say it: no, I didn't read the massive thread before posting...

Edit: Fwiw, now I have. Didn't find any answers to my questions though.

 

[CapnZapp]

Weird. It's grey (or gray if you prefer) in IE8 or Chrome, but black in Firefox.

Light gray for me, using Firefox 3.5.3...

 

[Phaezen]

Whoa? The Avenger's been rewritten?

Which book will this be?

Avenger is a novel (book 3 of the Moonsea Trilogy) not the class.

 

[MrMyth]

Good job - now only ten times as many DS fans will wonder why there's suddenly a mountain range where none was before?

Why the sudden concern for realism? You guys haven't bothered about verisimilitude once before in 4E, so why start now?!

A few folks have posted along these lines in this thread, and I think there is a misunderstanding. 4E having a lower priority on simulationism does not mean they are going to just throw out 'concern for realism'. It means that it takes a backseat to their other priorities - when there is a conflict between what they feel makes a fun game, and what makes a realistic game, they go with what they feel is 'fun'.

But if there is an area where there is no conflict, and they feel a touch of realism will improve the game without detracting from it in any other element - as in this case - nothing about 4E is actually 'anti-realism'.

 

[avin]

Warforged and Devas should be worked as very rare races. Fixed.

 

[Andor]

For the record, I'm not saying the 4e Designers are going to make a perfect product. I honestly believe they're going to screw at least a few things up. But I have faith in what they release. Hell, even if they release a load of crap - a setting with metal weapons, non-cannibal halflings, planar Tieflings, Desert Devils, and Gods - it's going to be good. Because it will renew interest in a setting that has otherwise been dead for over ten years now. Meaning, even the worst possible product released will ultimately be a good thing for Dark Sun.

I gotta disagree. If they release 'Strawberry Shortcake with sunburn' it's going to suck outloud. If a new player picks up a craptacular product he doesn't get interested in the original material, he wonders why anyone bothered to reprint crap.

 

[Wik]

I gotta disagree. If they release 'Strawberry Shortcake with sunburn' it's going to suck outloud. If a new player picks up a craptacular product he doesn't get interested in the original material, he wonders why anyone bothered to reprint crap.

Well of course there are limits. But let's say they release a really happy, heroic game in a desert, like you suggest.

Those who are old-timer Dark Sun fans know it's crap. You and I do little more than pilfer it for monsters, and run our old Dark Sun games.

Those new guys, though, many will think "it sucks" and leave it at that. But it doesn't stop there. There will always be people who check things out - and that means new "recruits". It means more people talking Dark Sun (I'm really looking forward to that - I'll be able to go online and see a bunch of new Dark Sun posts!). It possibly means more third party support for Dark Sun (maybe they won't call it "Dark Sun", but I'm sure we'll see some "savage desert" books come out next year, just like when Eberron was released we saw more Steampunk books hit the shelves).

Right now, Dark Sun is a dead setting. It saw a few releases for the entire 3e era, and they weren't "true" releases that could really stoke fan interest too much. But they still got people buying back PDFs, and talking.

When they remade The Day The Earth Stood Still, everyone knew it was a garbage movie. But people still talked about the original... and how many people do you think watched the awesome original, having never thought about it before?

And let's be honest. They're not really going to screw up Dark Sun that bad. There will be a lot to it that is awesome. The write up for the Mul, Thri-Kreen, and Half-Giant is going to be fine. There will be cool new feats. The monsters will be plentiful, and cool. New Psionics will probably be there. The map will be pretty. I'm sure we'll have easy-to-use, cool defiler mechanics.

In other words, the future is bright for Dark Sun. (There's a joke there, but I'll let you make it).