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

[earthsea_wizard]

When 2E is discussed today people are most likely to praise its gonzo settings above anything else, but for me they were a big part of why I lost interest in D&D in the 90’s. I liked the B/X “Known World” and Greyhawk, but mostly because they were the settings that got me started with D&D. I never really liked Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or any of the outlandish 2E settings like Dark Sun and Spelljammer. The only 2E setting I really liked was Al-Qadim, but I never got to play or run it. I missed the Mystara gazetteers, Planescape, and Birthright completely.

So I would not run it because I never liked it in the first place. I disike grimdark or post-apocalyptic settings in general, and never cared much for the pulp sword & planet or sword & sorcery stories that inspired it.

Interesting. Pulp sword and sorcery very much inspired Greyhawk, and arguably Known World, which you liked.

If you aren't into any of the stuff that influenced early D&D and the original settings, what influences on fantasy do you like and what are you settings of choice?

 

[Umbran]

... I personally don't want to play or DM a game in a "dying world" where nothing can ever get better.

Pretty much the same here. Just not my favorite theme.

Even more importantly, my players wouldn't care for it. Especially right now - my players aren't interested in unyielding dystopias. If there's problems in the fictional world, they wanna be able to do something about them.

 

[Flying Toaster]

Intereting. Pulp sword and sorcery very much inspired Greyhawk, and arguably Known World, which you liked.

If you aren't into any of the stuff that influenced early D&D and the original settings, what influences on fantasy do you like and what are you settings of choice?

When I was a kid I don’t think I picked up on the sword & sorcery elements in the Known World, but now it seems obvious that the strongly themed nations packed together in one convenient continent are very similar to REH’s Hyboria, which used stand-ins for lots of real countries, often with the names barely changed. Greyhawk too seemed to be high fantasy, exept for things like cold wasteland swamps named after ruling demon lords.

I was a big Tolkien fan just like all of my friends, and read a lot of the derivative “heroes vs. dark lord” series that were popular at the time. I probably should have sought out more of the Appendix N material, but a lot of it is probably too cynical and gritty for my taste. I used to be very picky about the way settings changed things from the D&D baseline, so at the time I thought that Krynn had too many changes for the sake of changing things.

Today I would probably want to build my own world with inspiration from history, literature, and mythology, especially from the ancient world, the early Middle Ages, and Asia. Lots of material like fey beings to introduce a bit of weirdness and mystery.