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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9753759" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Three key reasons.1. Tone, not moralityYou've mentioned the moral element, but tonality is separate from morality. I have found Dark Sun, especially as its most ardent fans describe it, to be unrelentingly joyless in its tone. I get--very much--the need for darkness in a setting in order for it to cohere, to feel like it makes sense. Dark Sun comes across as enforcing a dark tone in every possible nook and cranny, no matter how insignificant. I guess some folks see that as "it's only REAL heroism if it's a sacrifice", but that's not a thesis I really agree with, and thus the incessant joylessness of the setting can be a real turn-off for me.2. Restrictive environmentLess the geography per se, and more that because of the setting conceits, there can't be bodies of water, there's only one true forest as I understand it, there emphatically can't be snow or even alpine territory, etc. It would get a bit monotonous for me. I run a game set in an arid-to-desert region, but it has jungles to the north, forests to the south, steppe beyond the mountains, and a vast ocean teeming with all sorts of environments. The aridity is the main setting, but I have the option of alternatives. Dark Sun doesn't really allow that.3. Defiling vs Preserving -- the eternal problemEvery version of DS I've seen has, per its own fans, failed to truly make the defile/preserve dichotomy actually work. Usually, it's either that defiling is so overwhelmingly strong, and preserving actively harmful, so most people either just don't get involved or always defile, which leads to uninteresting experiences with it; or defiling is so nasty for so little reward, while preserving is not really that hard, so essentially ONLY the most evil twisted wicked folks would do it. Both of those are...bad. And I don't know how to make it not-bad, where preserving is viable but still weaker, while defiling is stronger but not overwhelmingly better with barely any downside. Finding that sweet spot seems to be really, really important for actually nailing the feeling of playing Dark Sun, and I have yet to see rules that would achieve that while still producing fun gameplay.</blockquote>

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