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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SSquirrel" data-source="post: 4951119" data-attributes="member: 5202">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.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 street4E, 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.</blockquote>

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