Roleplay opportunities in Dark Sun

[rossmills]

I just got the Dark Sun Campaign Setting book, and I'm looking to start a player journey that will take them from one city to another, and beyond.

My main worry is that the Dark Sun landscape is pretty vacant of intelligent life that doesn't want to kill, eat, or steal from you.

What can I do to encourage roleplay in my group, if they are alone?

I was thinking maybe having the players going along with a caravan for NPC contact, but would that not get stale after a while? What are the best ways to spice up sticking around the same NPCs if I go for this?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Make the caravan a dynastic house merchant caravan traveling by a double-mekillot-pulled argosy. The argosy is essentially a rolling castle, with all the staff and equipment necessary to run. Sure, the PCs might be expected to stay outside the argosy most of the time, but there certainly will be enough NPCs around for roleplaying events. House merchants double dealing each other, fellow hired guards plus house guards. House staff. Animal tenders. Scouts.

And the bloody thing moves slow enough it could allow for a brief expedition off the route for swift exploration or retribution back at raiding tribes in time to return to the argosy.

 

[rossmills]

I had to look up what an argosy was, because I couldn't find a reference in the Setting book, but holy hell that's an amazing idea!

I can basically put the contents of a small town within one of these things!

You're an absolute star.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

A lot of the action in Dark Sun goes on in the seven big city-states and in the smaller villages around the setting. Your characters will inevitably get reasons why they want to go into the various cities, where they'll have to deal a lot with various NPCs without direct murderous intentions.

 

[Wik]

Generally, a DARK SUN campaign looks sort of like this:

1. The PCs, while following a quest of some sort, are out in the desert. The large monsters nearly kill them, while they are barely able to negotiate with the herders, raiders, hermits, and traders that wander the wastes. After much time in the desert, they barely have any supplies left, and gratefully make their way back to the refuge of the cities...

2. The PCs arrive in a city of their choice, and now have to survive templars, thieves, cuthroats, shadowy monsters, veiled alliance rebels, traders, wily elves, and every other damned thing. After nights or even weeks of watching their backs, the PCs grab the nearest quest they can find, so they can get out of this festering hellhole and back into the remembered comfort of the wilderness....

3. Repeat.