Needed to start Dark Sun campaign
The best books from the rpg line were the original boxed set (which is th is link, to answer Geoffery:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...1&category=2545 )
, dragon kings and terrors of the desert. The original boxed set and dragon kings was designed around the 2nd ed. psionics handbook. Dragon kings is mostly DM material that reveals epic level style movers and shakers of the setting (and allows the PCs to attain those positions eventually). Terrors of the desert is the first monster manual. Both books contain some of the coolest and original ideas to come out of TSR, IMHO.
Other titles worth picking up are Slave Tribes, Veiled Alliance, Elves of Athas, Dune Trader, Valley of Dust and Fire, City State of Tyr, 'Earth, Air, Fire and Water' and the Ivory Triangle. Avoid the revised setting materials, especially mind lords of the last sea. I would use personal judgement on the rest of the series based on your interests.
I also would like to second Aaron L's statement that the mutated halfling concept they introduced at the end of the prism pentad series was LAME, alomng with how the dragon is killed. My advice is if you run Dark Sun, set it during the uprising of tyr and don't follow the events of the 5th book in the novel series, allow the dragon to remain a legend no one knows whether it is real or not. Everything with the champions of Ragaat slaying the fantasy races and then creating the dragon and turning on Rajaat is good though. I like the stuff with the wraiths in the black as well.
As for ditching the races, think twice until after absorbing the setting material as they all play an important role in the Dark Sun setting and are really different from their tolkien-esque origins.
Lets put it this way, dwarves have no hair anywhere on their bodies, must take a focus craft or labor (and if they die before completing it they become undead, cursed to haunt their work) and the elves are maurading cut throat tribes who will betray and con anyone (including other elves) except members of their own tribe and those who have earned their friendship.
My feeling is that Dark Sun started off well, and then was veered of course when Brom and the original designers were seperated from the project. The only MAJOR mistake by Troy Denning (on of the designers and authors of the first novels) being the death of Borys in the 5th book. So if you run Dark Sun I recommend stick to the cannon of those three books I recommend and then use your own judgement where to take your game.
When I ran Dark Sun, I had three different game nights with different parties going at one point, two of which got over 12 th level and the other had made it to level 16-18. Between all three of these groups, only one of them every encountered the dragon and it was in passing. As they were travelling on a caravan following the shores of the silt sea, headed north to a merchant's outpost, the winds picked up and blew sand into the air suddenly. As the covered their faces, they begin to feel a churning in their stomachs and an aching feeling through out their bodies. Each of them were forced to drop to their knees as the winds got stronger and the plants around them withered and died. They heard a gutteral roar overhead, then the feeling subsided. As the sand settled down, once the air cleared well enough to see, they looked out across the sea of silt and saw a large batwinged creature sillouetted agianst the sky, flying out over the silt sea until it was out of sight.
That was their only 'encounter' with the mythical dragon.
