How do YOU play Dark Sun? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How do YOU play Dark Sun?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
zombiegleemax
Apr 12, 2005 3:01:13 No, I'm not talking about the mechanics of the game (this is year nineteen for me when it comes to role-playing games, but I am generally new to third edition rules), I'm talking about your campaign and more specifically its style.

Just browsing this message board I get the feeling that a lot of people play the game a little different than I have in the past. We always played Dark Sun with more of a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic survival theme (psionics included of course but not to the point where the running theme is bogged down), whereas I get the overall feeling here that the majority of posters play a more metaphysical, superhero ("epic") type of campaign. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. This thread is not to belittle anybody, so let's not even go there. No game is better than the other, and that's one of the hidden beauties of Dungeons and Dragons. I could be wrong with my assumption, but that's really for you to tell me now, isn't it? ;)

...Getting back to the reason of this message, how do YOU play Dark Sun?

Like I mentioned we played the game with our characters exploring Athas, and subsequently having to constantly adapt to any and all given situations just to makes ends meet. It was more brain than brawn that way, but don't get me wrong; we fought tooth and nail when we had to. We just never really concentrated on the political workings of the various city-states; just enough to keep informed so that we could keep our stay to a minimum. Get in, barter for what we needed, and get back out to be able to repeat this process.

In retrospect, our characters had absolutely zero impact on and in the world of Athas. And to be honest none of us, as characters, had intended to do otherwise. We were cool with being no names, wandering the world, or parts of it, exploring ruin after ruin. Hell, our names were nicknames: Priest, a cleric of water and purveyor of oddities that hated people but just couldn't turn his back to them; Braakus, "break us", after our first encounter with the sometimes gentle half-giant (he wasn't kidding, he wanted to break us, it's just he kept getting distracted :D ); Punch, a notorious brawler and a bastard of a thief that turned fugitive after one of his more ambitious scams went south...real fast!; Hack, a wheezing preserver who never was afraid to speak his mind, that is, in between his coughing fits; and finally Catskill, our resident (w)itch who nobody really ever knew much about. She actually acted as our main contact with the various trade outposts as she was on several payrolls, but none at the same time. ;) :D Cliched characters, and pretty lame nicknames, but that's the way it was.

And the thing is, we just did our thing. Sift through the trash of an age gone by and introduce it, mostly on the down low mind you, as treasure to the Present, just like the saying. Fun while it lasted, too.

Anyway, enough from me. What about YOU? You don't need to detail your entire campaign, just let us know your characters in general and more importantly the style in which you play, or have played, Dark Sun.

It's a nothing thread...
#2
pringles
Apr 12, 2005 7:09:35 I play your way. But sometime, the character have to take mather in there own hand like when they had to fight Kalak or save some people, so yes, they had big impact in my campaign world. They still have to survive tough even if they are now in there 10th level average and some have follower.

I emphasis hard on the role-play.
#3
Dragonhelm
Apr 12, 2005 9:57:05 It's been years since I ran Dark Sun, but my old game was based on the idea of hope in a hopeless world.

Had the campaign gone further and gotten to epic levels, I would have presented the players with the chance to save the world, but at the cost of magic.

It's a bit different, I know, but it worked well. We had fun.
#4
jon_oracle_of_athas
Apr 12, 2005 10:56:10 My players often play anti-heroes with their own agendas. They work together out of mutual benefit, though an item here and a silver there can get pouched. Athas is a jhakar eat jhakar world. To say that the characters in my campaigns are friends is usually exaggerating. Their relations are convenient, give them greater strength and a hope of survival.
#5
pringles
Apr 12, 2005 17:27:42 In mine too. There was at some point a player playing a thri-kreen water cleric and another player playing an elf (now dead), and both hated each other but they had no choice to rely on eachother. Also, there was a girl in my game playing an half-elf and she was hated by the elf player.
#6
Prism
Apr 12, 2005 18:50:49 I am DM'ing two DS campaigns on and off.

The first was more of a fun pass time really for when one member of the group couldn't come. The characters were originally Role Master characters and were rolled up over 15 years ago and they are still only 10th level which shows how often we play. They came to Athas via an ancient one way trade portal situated in the sea of dust linking with Greyhawk and are currently about half way through the Black Spine module. I keep it simple due to the intermittent gaming and the players really don't care about getting too bogged down into the Athas theme. To them its just another world to explore.

The second campaign is more serious and I hope to capture some of the Athas feeling. Most of the activity has been inside the city walls of Balic which means all sorts of plots to sway the power base in a city without a sorcerer king. I feel that exploring in the wilderness is just too dangerous at these levels- I've set the EL of a random wilderness encounter to be somewhere between 8 and 15. The party has made one forray into the wilds but only with a well armed merchant caravan. At some point I guess they will feel confident enough to go it alone but after some of the encounters I threw at them last time, hopefully they will realise how hard it will be

I'm quite enjoying the city development aspect of DMing, with an Athas twist but I am waiting to use all the good old water/heat/wild beast options of the wilderness when it comes up.

I enjoy the idea of a fairly high powered game and although the party's activities may never be world changing I can see them being famous in the Balic region or even beyond after some of the adventures I have planned
#7
zombiegleemax
Apr 12, 2005 21:23:21
The party has made one forray into the wilds but only with a well armed merchant caravan. At some point I guess they will feel confident enough to go it alone but after some of the encounters I threw at them last time, hopefully they will realise how hard it will be

Or perfect trail-masking and all that other fun stuff that comes with guerrilla warfare.

I know we developed a bit of a knack for it; we had to. Elves (or as Punch used to call them "long ears") were like mosquitoes except they swarm-attack when you swat just one of them. Psionic recluses are like gods (we ran into one one time, and just got raped). Halflings were straight out of Lord of the Flies (Lil' bastards!). Those guys with the bells (what were they called? Punks);for a while they stuck to us like flies to you know what. ;) And then there were the ruins...
#8
xlorepdarkhelm_dup
Apr 13, 2005 2:17:14 I did an epic-style, huge-event campaign. But usually, I tend to play it as a very harsh, deadly world, where the only thing more rare than metal on it, is hope. People are mystified by magic and psionics easily, and quite superstitious, besides being quick to form an angry mob/uprising against a would-be wizard that they have percieved. Most people are illiterate, and don't have a problem with that (why would they want to waste their precious energy and time reading, when they need to focus on the basics of survival). Not only are there the Templars who are quite corrupt and problematic in a city, but the Sorcerer-Kings have a form of "secret police" that move around, spying on all people, including the Templars.

Outside the cities, life only gets more harsh, with hot, dry, sand-filled winds cutting past you, a dangerously-hot sun during the heat of the day (which results in people basically having 2 rest/sleep periods each day - once during the cold of the night, and once during the hottest partsof the day), water is extraordinarily scarce, and if that wasn't bad enough, there's some very aggressive and nasty flora and fauna to contend with that has adapted to this brutish environment.

All in all, I've had several campaigns where, starting at level 4, entire parties had died by level 6 - usually because the group didn't really understand the perils of a savage desert environment. Well, actually, once it was because the group decided they'd stage a coup de grace and overthrow Nibenay. That did not last very long.
#9
dracochapel
Apr 13, 2005 2:42:27 xlor sounds like an archetypical-DS campaign. Deadly cities, even deadlier outside the cities.
I'm a fan of the "evil has won" style of DS.
My games have ranged from twinkie blood baths
ooh look my monk thri-kreen has a ton of arms, and a ton of attacks

to a fairly standard DS campaign, travelling into the hinterlands, and back through the tablelands into Balic
and realising that 40ft giants arent just large repositories of HPs

right up to (my favourite, though short) a 1 on 1 campaign with me the DM and a single player who was a Templar in Tyr, as well as his half-giant bodyguard. It was mostly mystery and intrigue, with a lot of problem solving. Had a whole 6 hour adventure about a murder mystery without either of us rolling a dice.
Have never run a high level DS campaign. Closest was taking a 21st level Dragon into the multiverse and playing catch with Faerunian druids :D
#10
zombiegleemax
Apr 15, 2005 12:38:05 In my Dark Sun games, a happy ending means you survived.

My games are brutal with utter ruthlessness and decadence. The nobles are fat and surrounded with fine wine and many beautiful women while the commoners starve. The templars are corrupt and would sell you into slavery for your "Crimes", which they use their imagination to create. The merchants are greedy and would betray for a ceramic piece. A horrible death follows the players where ever they go.
#11
zombiegleemax
Apr 17, 2005 13:11:47 My 90's games were more about how to get rich while ticking of templars and killing slavers.

My current stuff is about how a few people are trying to understand their world and how they fit in. While they do it, they are effecting the world a small small small piece at a time.

The recent events caused fear and uncertainity in nobles and templars in Balic. A lone fighter forced into the arena became a figure for hope for the commoners. He won despite the odds and thus gave them hope and a hero. The audience was being killed to quell them before they reached riot level. Suddenly the concept of mass revolt meant something to them.

needless to say- the hero was forced to flee the city before being killed.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Apr 12, 2005 3:01:13	No, I'm not talking about the mechanics of the game (this is year nineteen for me when it comes to role-playing games, but I am generally new to third edition rules), I'm talking about your campaign and more specifically its style. Just browsing this message board I get the feeling that a lot of people play the game a little different than I have in the past. We always played Dark Sun with more of a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic survival theme (psionics included of course but not to the point where the running theme is bogged down), whereas I get the overall feeling here that the majority of posters play a more metaphysical, superhero ("epic") type of campaign. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. This thread is not to belittle anybody, so let's not even go there. No game is better than the other, and that's one of the hidden beauties of Dungeons and Dragons. I could be wrong with my assumption, but that's really for you to tell me now, isn't it? ;) ...Getting back to the reason of this message, how do YOU play Dark Sun? Like I mentioned we played the game with our characters exploring Athas, and subsequently having to constantly adapt to any and all given situations just to makes ends meet. It was more brain than brawn that way, but don't get me wrong; we fought tooth and nail when we had to. We just never really concentrated on the political workings of the various city-states; just enough to keep informed so that we could keep our stay to a minimum. Get in, barter for what we needed, and get back out to be able to repeat this process. In retrospect, our characters had absolutely zero impact on and in the world of Athas. And to be honest none of us, as characters, had intended to do otherwise. We were cool with being no names, wandering the world, or parts of it, exploring ruin after ruin. Hell, our names were nicknames: Priest, a cleric of water and purveyor of oddities that hated people but just couldn't turn his back to them; Braakus, "break us", after our first encounter with the sometimes gentle half-giant (he wasn't kidding, he wanted to break us, it's just he kept getting distracted :D ); Punch, a notorious brawler and a bastard of a thief that turned fugitive after one of his more ambitious scams went south...real fast!; Hack, a wheezing preserver who never was afraid to speak his mind, that is, in between his coughing fits; and finally Catskill, our resident (w)itch who nobody really ever knew much about. She actually acted as our main contact with the various trade outposts as she was on several payrolls, but none at the same time. ;) :D Cliched characters, and pretty lame nicknames, but that's the way it was. And the thing is, we just did our thing. Sift through the trash of an age gone by and introduce it, mostly on the down low mind you, as treasure to the Present, just like the saying. Fun while it lasted, too. Anyway, enough from me. What about YOU? You don't need to detail your entire campaign, just let us know your characters in general and more importantly the style in which you play, or have played, Dark Sun. It's a nothing thread...
#2 pringles Apr 12, 2005 7:09:35	I play your way. But sometime, the character have to take mather in there own hand like when they had to fight Kalak or save some people, so yes, they had big impact in my campaign world. They still have to survive tough even if they are now in there 10th level average and some have follower. I emphasis hard on the role-play.
#3 Dragonhelm Apr 12, 2005 9:57:05	It's been years since I ran Dark Sun, but my old game was based on the idea of hope in a hopeless world. Had the campaign gone further and gotten to epic levels, I would have presented the players with the chance to save the world, but at the cost of magic. It's a bit different, I know, but it worked well. We had fun.
#4 jon_oracle_of_athas Apr 12, 2005 10:56:10	My players often play anti-heroes with their own agendas. They work together out of mutual benefit, though an item here and a silver there can get pouched. Athas is a jhakar eat jhakar world. To say that the characters in my campaigns are friends is usually exaggerating. Their relations are convenient, give them greater strength and a hope of survival.
#5 pringles Apr 12, 2005 17:27:42	In mine too. There was at some point a player playing a thri-kreen water cleric and another player playing an elf (now dead), and both hated each other but they had no choice to rely on eachother. Also, there was a girl in my game playing an half-elf and she was hated by the elf player.
#6 Prism Apr 12, 2005 18:50:49	I am DM'ing two DS campaigns on and off. The first was more of a fun pass time really for when one member of the group couldn't come. The characters were originally Role Master characters and were rolled up over 15 years ago and they are still only 10th level which shows how often we play. They came to Athas via an ancient one way trade portal situated in the sea of dust linking with Greyhawk and are currently about half way through the Black Spine module. I keep it simple due to the intermittent gaming and the players really don't care about getting too bogged down into the Athas theme. To them its just another world to explore. The second campaign is more serious and I hope to capture some of the Athas feeling. Most of the activity has been inside the city walls of Balic which means all sorts of plots to sway the power base in a city without a sorcerer king. I feel that exploring in the wilderness is just too dangerous at these levels- I've set the EL of a random wilderness encounter to be somewhere between 8 and 15. The party has made one forray into the wilds but only with a well armed merchant caravan. At some point I guess they will feel confident enough to go it alone but after some of the encounters I threw at them last time, hopefully they will realise how hard it will be I'm quite enjoying the city development aspect of DMing, with an Athas twist but I am waiting to use all the good old water/heat/wild beast options of the wilderness when it comes up. I enjoy the idea of a fairly high powered game and although the party's activities may never be world changing I can see them being famous in the Balic region or even beyond after some of the adventures I have planned
#7 zombiegleemax Apr 12, 2005 21:23:21	The party has made one forray into the wilds but only with a well armed merchant caravan. At some point I guess they will feel confident enough to go it alone but after some of the encounters I threw at them last time, hopefully they will realise how hard it will be Or perfect trail-masking and all that other fun stuff that comes with guerrilla warfare. I know we developed a bit of a knack for it; we had to. Elves (or as Punch used to call them "long ears") were like mosquitoes except they swarm-attack when you swat just one of them. Psionic recluses are like gods (we ran into one one time, and just got raped). Halflings were straight out of Lord of the Flies (Lil' bastards!). Those guys with the bells (what were they called? Punks);for a while they stuck to us like flies to you know what. ;) And then there were the ruins...
#8 xlorepdarkhelm_dup Apr 13, 2005 2:17:14	I did an epic-style, huge-event campaign. But usually, I tend to play it as a very harsh, deadly world, where the only thing more rare than metal on it, is hope. People are mystified by magic and psionics easily, and quite superstitious, besides being quick to form an angry mob/uprising against a would-be wizard that they have percieved. Most people are illiterate, and don't have a problem with that (why would they want to waste their precious energy and time reading, when they need to focus on the basics of survival). Not only are there the Templars who are quite corrupt and problematic in a city, but the Sorcerer-Kings have a form of "secret police" that move around, spying on all people, including the Templars. Outside the cities, life only gets more harsh, with hot, dry, sand-filled winds cutting past you, a dangerously-hot sun during the heat of the day (which results in people basically having 2 rest/sleep periods each day - once during the cold of the night, and once during the hottest partsof the day), water is extraordinarily scarce, and if that wasn't bad enough, there's some very aggressive and nasty flora and fauna to contend with that has adapted to this brutish environment. All in all, I've had several campaigns where, starting at level 4, entire parties had died by level 6 - usually because the group didn't really understand the perils of a savage desert environment. Well, actually, once it was because the group decided they'd stage a coup de grace and overthrow Nibenay. That did not last very long.
#9 dracochapel Apr 13, 2005 2:42:27	xlor sounds like an archetypical-DS campaign. Deadly cities, even deadlier outside the cities. I'm a fan of the "evil has won" style of DS. My games have ranged from twinkie blood baths ooh look my monk thri-kreen has a ton of arms, and a ton of attacks to a fairly standard DS campaign, travelling into the hinterlands, and back through the tablelands into Balic and realising that 40ft giants arent just large repositories of HPs right up to (my favourite, though short) a 1 on 1 campaign with me the DM and a single player who was a Templar in Tyr, as well as his half-giant bodyguard. It was mostly mystery and intrigue, with a lot of problem solving. Had a whole 6 hour adventure about a murder mystery without either of us rolling a dice. Have never run a high level DS campaign. Closest was taking a 21st level Dragon into the multiverse and playing catch with Faerunian druids :D
#10 zombiegleemax Apr 15, 2005 12:38:05	In my Dark Sun games, a happy ending means you survived. My games are brutal with utter ruthlessness and decadence. The nobles are fat and surrounded with fine wine and many beautiful women while the commoners starve. The templars are corrupt and would sell you into slavery for your "Crimes", which they use their imagination to create. The merchants are greedy and would betray for a ceramic piece. A horrible death follows the players where ever they go.
#11 zombiegleemax Apr 17, 2005 13:11:47	My 90's games were more about how to get rich while ticking of templars and killing slavers. My current stuff is about how a few people are trying to understand their world and how they fit in. While they do it, they are effecting the world a small small small piece at a time. The recent events caused fear and uncertainity in nobles and templars in Balic. A lone fighter forced into the arena became a figure for hope for the commoners. He won despite the odds and thus gave them hope and a hero. The audience was being killed to quell them before they reached riot level. Suddenly the concept of mass revolt meant something to them. needless to say- the hero was forced to flee the city before being killed.