D&D General Tell me about your experiences playing Dark Sun

[Wasteland Knight]

I never played Dark Sun. It was coming onto the market when I was playing games other than AD&D. I've peripherally known about it, but never read any of the materials.

Recently I had a chance to skim through some material from the original boxed set, and my take on the game was a lot different than my expectation. I found the original materials more evocative and interesting than I anticipated.

Two things really jumped out - the focus on survival, and the recommendation for each player to create multiple characters what would be used in a sort of troupe play arrangement.
I'm curious to hear from people who actually played Dark Sun. What was the game experience like? What did PCs do in campaigns? It seems simple survival would always be a much bigger focus in Dark Sun, far beyond the "remember to buy enough iron rations for the Bag of Holding" that is my usual D&D experience.

But what else went on? Did PCs ever gain magic items? Here's your chance to tell me about your game, or tell me about your character

 

[J-H]

This is a great question... following. Thanks.

 

[ccs]

We played a bit of it when it was new the first time.
First up, nearly the entire party consisted of 1/2giants, Muls, & Thri-Kreen. There was one elf iirc.
Next up it became a celebration of higher than normal stats.
Then came the psionics. The elf (?) was a psion - all the bells & whistles. Then the DM gave everyone else some psionics.

Setting was explained a bit. And then promptly ignored save for the need for water & play was dungeon delving that would've fit in any other game/setting.

Game lasted 6 months or so.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

Never got to play back in the day, just poured over the books and dreamed.

Had one session during the 4e days, i think it was adventure in the book. half of the players moved to the other side of the planet, and the game didn't continue.

 

[Wrathamon]

Savage feel. Alien. Felt more like Sci fantasy then fantasy. I loved the setting and how it "changed" things to make them feel different. Have to like desert survival game. The defiling stuff was weird mechanically and I never felt it worked right or matched up how it was described in the books. I also never felt psionic combat never lined up with how cool it sounded in the novels. I like the concept of psionics it helps it stand out and gives it a different feel.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Too bad our games were too short to really tell a lot. I loved the races and the classes.
The feel of the setting was cool. The comouter gane was not bad at all and showed what could have been possible.
I also thinj the psionic rules held the setting back as it did not really play out as promised.

 

[Remathilis]

Disappointing. This was back in high school, so the DM wanted to run a game of it sold it as "Like Conan (the movie) but with weird sci-fi stuff". It wasn't at all how he sold it.

I made a mul gladiator, because even I could see how op it looked on paper. We had a thri-kreen psionicist, a half-giant fighter, and an elf preserver. Someone rolled up a thief, but never played. I don't think we did the pc tree thing because the DM didn't want to or didn't read enough to see it.

We dicked around in the main city for a while before deciding to go find some rumored magical item. The plot details are hazy. I remember the DM was extremely annoyed whenever the psionicist did anything because he actually hated psionics but felt it was part of the setting. I also believe my sword broke in the first fight and I was using a "shard" as a dagger for the rest of the game. The half-giant also got charmed/dominated by some strange cat-like creature and splattered the elf in one hit. I'm pretty sure we called the game there and never played it again.


I'm sure the DM did a lot to sour my impression of the game (I played with him for decades, but looking back I can see some real flaws in his game style) but after that, my impression was of a setting that was a meat grinder for munchkins. I never cared much for the setting until much later reading the 4e setting book and seeing the potential. It's not my favorite setting by a longshot (as I said elsewhere, I prefer Primeval Thule as a pulp setting), but I see some potential in it. Depending on how WotC handles it, of course.

 

[Bitbrain]

I’ve never played in Dark Sun. For me, it’s one of those “run the game you want to play” situations.

Both times I’ve run a 5e Dark Sun-in-all-but-name setting, the players have told me it was shockingly different from what they were expecting. Less fantasy Arabia and more “Bronze Age at the End of Time”.

 

[Wrathamon]

Bronze age at the end of time with Mutants is a good way of looking at it

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Dark Sun felt like an advanced setting to run well. Running the harsh environment by the rules was a major buzz kill, lack of metal meaning equipment has rules to break at exceptional rates. Heat rules and water rules added an accounting to the game that many players and DMs might not find causally fun.

A big attraction to AD&D Dark Sun was some of the power gamer service built in. Starting at 3rd level. Ability scores up to 20 (when 18 was max in core AD&D). Everyone with a chance for psionic wild talents. Large size characters as Half Giants or Thri Kreen (they were large back then), plus fighting with 4 limbs!

We ignored the character trees aspect, though all of us created them. We know the trees were really there because we were meant to expect character death in high rates but none of us could get beyond our attachment to our characters. It takes a special table of DMs and players to agree on going into a setting where character death is deliberately high.

We ignored the weapon breaking rules, and just went with the penalties.

We played the published adventures, but they were just not great and a bit railroadie.