D&D General Why wouldn't you run a Dark Sun game?

[Zardnaar]

That was the point - TSR felt the D&D chassis could do much more than generic fantasy. If you look at the very early D&D stuff there was a lot of stuff from from John Carter in particular, which they had to remove for copyright reasons. Dark Sun was, as first conceived, John Carter with the numbers filed off.

Personally, I think TSR were right, I think it’s a shame D&D became locked in generic fantasy, and we didn’t see even more extreme variations on D&D. I suspect it was the failure of Spelljammer that killed that. At least Ravenloft survived.

To answer the original post, I will happily run Dark Sun.

I think that's why people like it. DS is different.

Also has that vibe. Newbies have often hard of it and there's a few youtube videos on it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Probably will not run it. I find aspects interesting, but I have always disliked psionics.

 

[TheSword]

I probably shouldn’t post because I absolutely would run it.

In my experience, grimdark works best when there is also wry humour beneath it. The cannibal halflings, thieving elves, and bald dwarves gives me just enough subversion to riff off.

 

[GM Lent]

In my experience, grimdark works best when there is also wry humour beneath it. The cannibal halflings, thieving elves, and bald dwarves gives me just enough subversion to riff off.

Hear, hear! And never mind the elf-eating thri-kreen. My first D&D character ever was a thri-kreen psionicist/ranger with a STR score of like 20, and I couldn't have asked for a more gonzo or rip-roaring intro to the game.

Our battles would generally begin with me rolling the halfling fighter at the enemy like a bowling ball (the halfling generally blew his attack roll, which just made it funnier), and another tactic was me opening a dimension door portal under an enemy's feet, with the return portal a foot or so above so the enemy would be caught in an endless loop of falling into and through the power. So much for that 20' tall beasthead giant boss!

I loved the psionics system and how it worked, but the whole psionics-is-different approach (of which I was a purist and an evagelist and frankly a real jerk for a long time) really made things wacky. Great memories, but whoo-baby would I never want to try and run it myself. Not with players like me around!

 

[sevenbastard]

I like the idea of Dark Sun, blasted wasteland, Sorcerer kings, no gods, ect. But like many posters above i dont like psionics.

My solution was to homebrew my own version of a low magic, grim dark, no cleric, wasteland setting. So I probably wont play Darksun, but I will play my knock off.

 

[TwoSix]

Dark Sun always felt like a game setting wrestling against the system it was designed for, in both its 2e and 4e incarnations.

But I did run Dark Sun with the Worlds Without Number system, which felt in play like a much better fit for how I envisioned Dark Sun. The rule set helped push the game into a more "Mad Max" vibe, which I felt was what Dark Sun really wanted to be.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I’ve always loved the Dark Sun setting, but ironically, I don’t think D&D’s rules are the right fit for it. Athas is a world where survival extends far beyond combat. In fact, combat should usually be the worst possible option—something characters resort to only out of desperation or when forced into it. Most fights should leave them outmatched, drained, or worse. That design tension is intentional, and it runs directly against the grain of what D&D usually emphasizes. That’s part of why Dark Sun appeals to me in the first place.

But because Dark Sun was published as a D&D campaign setting, it remains bound to the rules it was designed to subvert. That constraint, to me, holds it back from reaching its full potential. Instead of being its own thing, it often feels like D&D in cosplay—or just “hard mode” D&D with extra restrictions bolted on.

You can see the cracks in nearly every case where Dark Sun insists that “things are different here.” Take magic: the setting says it’s rare, feared, and destructive to the world’s fragile ecosystem. Yet in practice, wizards are still fully supported as player options, with little mechanical consequence to reflect the supposed danger or stigma. Or consider clerics: Athas has no gods, so there should be no divine casters. The solution? Simply reskin clerics as elemental priests and shuffle their spell lists a bit. The message is clear—don’t worry, you can still play a cleric, just with different window dressing.

This “yes, but…” pattern repeats everywhere. Rules that should reinforce the world’s premise instead work around it to preserve the standard D&D experience. The setting says “scarcity and danger define every choice,” while the rules quietly say “business as usual.” And that tension is why, for me, trying to run Dark Sun under D&D rules feels unsatisfying.

If I were to run a proper Dark Sun campaign, I’d lean into what makes Athas different rather than sanding it down to fit inside D&D’s mold. Survival would be the centerpiece: food and water always the highest priority. Combat skill and raw power might make life easier, but neither guarantees access to the most valuable resources. In this vision, the measure of success isn’t defeating enemies—it’s enduring long enough to see another day.

I realize that’s not everyone’s ideal game. Plenty of players come to Dark Sun expecting the familiar rhythms of D&D with a coat of Athasian paint, and for them, the published rules deliver. But I see Dark Sun as something more than that—a world whose tone, priorities, and mechanics should break away from traditional D&D, not be shackled by it. That difference is the whole point.