Darksun Teasers

[Henry]

I gotta say I'm a "Loved the first boxed set, hated the second, am liking what I hear about 4E Dark Sun still" guy. So far, the fact that they are trying to keep it relatively logical is find with me. I'd rather not have a "gods willed it so" answer in a setting where the gods are definitively dead. So far, so good.

 

[Andor]

I gotta say I'm a "Loved the first boxed set, hated the second, am liking what I hear about 4E Dark Sun still" guy. So far, the fact that they are trying to keep it relatively logical is find with me. I'd rather not have a "gods willed it so" answer in a setting where the gods are definitively dead. So far, so good.

Exactly! "The primordials willed it." makes much more sense.

... I still see no need to panic. Just wrap your original DS boxed set in pink plastic. Everybody knows WotC game enforcement ninjas can't perceive pink.

 

[SSquirrel]

Hi, I'm the guy who never liked Dark Sun, at the time it seemed nasty, over powered and full of a level of micromanagement that I never liked. It just seemed to be an attempt to cash in on the gritty WoD inspired mood in gaming at the time, complete with heavy handed political allegory (ooh ecological damage...)

I always figured Dark Sun started as a tangent of some designers talking about Dying Earth or Dune or some such. I didn't see the ecological damage as a deeply political angle, I saw it as they started with a premise about the world being a desert and everything is so shattered, with magic as the cause. What if magic pulled its power from the planet itself and mages were responsible for the way things are. Then you end up naturally having some who try and avoid that and those who don't care. It all seemed to fit together pretty nicely really.

I'm not sure gritty is ever the word I thought of to describe WoD, and I played it an awful lot. The real world done darker and more F'ed up, more corrupt, etc. I suppose that might be grittier, but I guess I think of gritty as more along the lines of "Your wound was unbandaged, it has begun to fester, fever reduces all stats by 3 the first day" or "The runt orc soldier with the halbard braces for charge and rolls (rollrollrollrollroll) 472, which is a class E crit, looks like you were impaled thru the heart, look of shock frozen on your face, dead in 2 rounds. Sorry dude, gimme that sheet". [Spot the Rolemaster]

Ken Hood's Grim and Gritty rules were an interesting spin on 3E, but they were also rather complex and tried to cover so many rules sections. The Revised rules were perfect, combat was nasty and quick and you could easily die if you were not prepared and watchful. I never had the same feelings in a WoD game as I did with Ken's rules. Just another example.

The world never sounded like anything I'd want to play and the oddities were mostly used as grim anecdotes (the halflings do what?)

Dark Sun cannibal halflings may have had some influence on the first halfling rogue I made in 3E. He was NE and had a bit of a bloodlust. He killed an ogre in the dark with one blow (someone else in the group had already shot it, he swung a good swing and killed it, but couldn't see in the dark and was convinced he was amazing b/c of it) then ended up with some fresh cut ogre tusks and more than a lil blood on himself. He was a fun one.

I'm also one of the loved the original box, hated the 2nd like Henry. Basically up thru Dragon Kings (ignoring the events of the Prism Pentad) and I think the Valley of Dust and Fire came out around then. I remember really loving that book. Happy about the fact that 4E is having Dark Sun as its next game world, reading the preview books and the way they were talking about the internal game world, I thought it sounded like Dark Sun in many ways. "Hmm you only have control very near the cities, people don't trust people from far off, sometimes not even down the street

4E, Arcana Evolved and Ken Hood's Grim & Gritty Revised are the 3 versions of D&D related game system I would prefer to play, if I'm going to play D&D. No New World of Darkness (except Changeling) only Old, and even then not Werewolf heh. Various other systems are fair game too.

EDIT:Added a few things right after I posted the original version.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I always figured Dark Sun started as a tangent of some designers talking about Dying Earth or Dune or some such.

The truth is closer to the designers saw some of Brom's art hanging on the wall while he worked for TSR while they were coming up with ideas on how to do a D&D homage to ERB's world of Barsoom--of his John Carter of Mars series--and went from there. Seriously.

Many Athasian things first appeared in some Brom art the designers fell in love with so much they found a place for it in the setting. The desert aesthetic is both in Brom's art and in Barsoom. Barsoom also has the "oceans disappeared leaving deserts, multi-limbed desert tribe warriors, mental telepathy, world is slowly withering away" thing going.

Read "A Princess of Mars", it was published in 1917, so it is public domain and should be in Project Gutenburg. I think it is worth owning regardless. Then compare with Dark Sun. If you find the similarities eerie, well you should.

 

[catsclaw227]

So, so you think that someone somewhere, outside the hobby, will write some socio-political blog entry or something about how Dark Sun is a veiled political message about environmental irresponsibility?

[ooops.... was this too tangential and/or in violation of the no politics rule?]

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

That would be under the "They aren't hanging on every word and thus do not subscribe to the mentioned set of people" group

Cirno

Why don't you accept that there are way more people who are excited and happy about the possibility of a 4E Dark Sun than those who dread the idea?

You are in the minority here, Cassandra

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

So, so you think that someone somewhere, outside the hobby, will write some socio-political blog entry or something about how Dark Sun is a veiled political message about environmental irresponsibility?

[ooops.... was this too tangential and/or in violation of the no politics rule?]

I am perfectly willing to believe that TSR did not write Dark Sun as a "veiled political message about environmental irresponsibility", but even if they did, I would file this under: "anvils that needed to be dropped"

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Why don't you accept that there are way more people who are excited and happy about the possibility of a 4E Dark Sun than those who dread the idea?

You are in the minority here, Cassandra

Ok, I accept that, at least on this thread, I am VERY clearly in the minority.

...Doesn't change the fact that people like me who are hanging on every word most likely fit into one or more of those four catagories, and people who are not hanging on every word and are simply eagerly looking forward to 4e Dark Sun aren't in the group to begin with

 

[Alphastream]

To try to keep this thread on the topic of DS teasers (belive it or not, the thread is not actually about WotC forum screen appearance ...

Twitter from the Dark Sun playtests says a player was bloodied by defiling magic!

"Hah! I just got bloodied by an ally's defiling magic. Potentially the first time that has happened in official 4th Edition."

 

[SSquirrel]

Interesting. Defiling only sucked away at the environment in 2E and people in my group always wondered why you never hurt the people around you while you turned so much ground to ash. I wonder if this is life loss to nearby people from defiling and if so how much. I assume it is in addition to anything your casting does to the land around you. Or maybe you can choose to injure the people around you instead of the land.

"Yes my minions are easily replaced, I can sacrifice them in this already blasted land and still power my spells"

Different but interesting and another case of solving something that was a common question from people I would introduce Dark Sun to.