However, Dungeon Crawls work for Dark Sun -- there is more than enough ruins scattered all over the Tablelands full of who-knows-what. A band of adventurers is a bit less likely to work in Dark Sun, however with the right structure it's possible to have such a group. I had one group that the first thing they were was Urikite slaves, they broke free from enslavement, slipped off into the wastes, and learned to eke out an existence on their own, while hiding from (mostly imagined and occasionally real) search parties that they were certain were after them.
Let's see. with that group, I think the first guy died from the heat, the second from a Spider Cactus, the third from a Tigone, the fourth from a Dune Trapper. Fifth and Sixth ran into a Dune Runner. The final one eventually got eaten by Halflings. So then the next adventure resulted in characters ensuring that they were Freemen at character generation, and were able to survive a little longer.
The important thing was that they understood the extremely hostile and high lethality of day-to-day life on Athas. After a while, I was able to relax on it a little, and focus on an actual storyline, once the players were in the proper frame of mind.
I'm a newbie to Dark Sun and I'm really keen to start a campaign. From what I've seen, Dark Sun is a brilliant campaign setting and has some really cool stuff. But one thing I haven't really got the feel of is stuff for low level characters to do. Usually, in the other campaigns I have been a part of, you can have the PCs go on dungeon crawls or just be adventurers. Maybe it's the bleakness of the setting but do those sorts of plot hooks work in Dark Sun? What are some ideas that you guys have used as plothooks for low level characters?
Darkhelms suggestions are quite fitting. I would say a lot of us old-time DarkSun players began exploring the world themselves witth the 'Freedome' adventure and I would suggest a similar approach for most other DarkSun intros. That is: let them start as slaves. Gladiatorial slaves might be an option but this likely quite deadly for 1st level characters. I would suggest slaves put to work in the heat of the sun for other projects. Let them work a bit at that, perhaps help other slaves and help avoid disasters (like breaking down scaffolding at the work-site). With the experience earned by that the surely will plan to escape soon and so it begins ...
As a side note: In 2nd ED DarkSun, because of the deadliness of the setting, PCs were to start at 3rd level. So you might consider allowing this as well.
Anyway, welcome to DarkSun and a nice time playing/DMing it!
In Greyhawk or Eberron or the Realms, a bunch of PCs decide to enter a sealed tomb, in fact a vast complex that contains lots of traps, spell effects, guardians, and ultimately the ancient undead master of the tomb...
...or they enter an underground complex such as a part of the Underdark, and in the way to reaching their destination combat evil locals and monsters who happen to live in said area.
I don't see to there being an underdark beneath the sands of Athas, nor to tombs having been created in the Green Age fully pre-equiped with guardians and those elements mentionned above.
So...where do you (the DMs who do these kind of adventures) situate and how do you setup those dungeon crawls?
Dungeon crawls I find difficult to integrate into a DS campaign. To those who do it regularly, how do you do it?
In Greyhawk or Eberron or the Realms, a bunch of PCs decide to enter a sealed tomb, in fact a vast complex that contains lots of traps, spell effects, guardians, and ultimately the ancient undead master of the tomb...
...or they enter an underground complex such as a part of the Underdark, and in the way to reaching their destination combat evil locals and monsters who happen to live in said area.
I don't see to there being an underdark beneath the sands of Athas, nor to tombs having been created in the Green Age fully pre-equiped with guardians and those elements mentionned above.
So...where do you (the DMs who do these kind of adventures) situate and how do you setup those dungeon crawls?
A bard sings about some lost artifact, or ruins filled with unbimagineable treasure. The group, intrigued, atempt to find out more. While carefully dodging the poisons and other fun things the Bard slips to them (or they just die for their efforts), they go find these ruins, and begin the hunt for this treasure.
A dungeon crawl doesn't necessitate anything even remotely as complicated as the Underdark. It just needs a dungeon, hell, it doesn't even need to be an underground facility -- it can be the ruins of an ancient city, dealing with all that is above-ground there, with maybe some underground. Dark Sun is well suited for dungeon crawls. Have you seen the number of ruins that dot the landscape of the Tablelands?
Speaking of which, I nearly killed a 12th level thri-kreen ranger last Friday with a dosen razorwings I had him encounter while hunting using a Survival check. :P
So...where do you (the DMs who do these kind of adventures) situate and how do you setup those dungeon crawls?
Undertyr :D. Deep, dark and right on your doorstep. Some groups wander in there just out of a desire for the thrill of subterranean adventuring. Other times it is used as a location for particular adventures (characters wishing to join the Veiled Alliance are required to visit and survive the Crimson Shrine, for example, and for a while I had Dote Mal Payne hiding out from the PCs down there). Other times it is used as a way of getting around the city (such as escaping from templars through the Drunken Giant or sneaking into the Golden Tower through tunnels beneath it). Then there are those Undertyr sites that are visited in and of themselves (the Night Market, the Poison Sting etc).
In addition to ruins beneath the city-states, I also use occasional ruins out in the Tablelands, but these tend to be incidental rather than the focus of entire adventures. For larger dungeoneering expeditions, however, there are ample places to visit: Bodach, Tarelon, Kalidnay, the Buried City, Othand etc etc.
I agree, though, that dungeon-style adventures are not the best hooks for low-level characters. Some wilderness trekking always goes down well, as does city-based adventuring. Check out the sample adventures at the back of City-State of Tyr, especially "Faro Blossom", "A Night on Trader's Way" and "Bellringers" - these are great examples of how to make city adventures work for low-level characters (well, "Bellringers" might be a bit hefty, but we all love a good bughunt ;)...)
If you can find Freedom, run that. And you should seriously consider starting the PCs at 3rd level. The published releases all assume you will be doing this, and if you're running 3.x some of the monstrous races won't even be available because of ECL.
Starting the PCs as slaves -- gladiatorial slaves, usually -- is the standard introduction to Dark Sun. Make sure everyone has character trees of 4 PCs each. Be sure to kill at least one or two PCs in the first adventure in a blatantly unfair and humiliating way.
There are no "adventurers" on Athas. "The adventurers meet at an inn and decide to go searching for treasure" is too clicheed even for Forgotten Realms; it has absolutely no place here. People struggle to stay alive, they don't go galavanting after shiny baubles.
Class -- social class -- matters. Slavery is real. Several times I've had one PC be a Noble or a Templar (once they were all gladiators and one templar slavemaster, until Andropinis was imprisoned and the slaves escaped...), and this character gets unfair advantages, like "50 times starting gold" and access to psionic and magic items that most campaigns don't get until 10th level.
Imagine you were building a city. Take 20,000 illiterate peasants from the worst war-torn slums of Mogadishu. Then take 500 spoiled rich kids from Orange County and put them behind a wall in the middle of the city. Then take 500 blackshirt thugs from fascist italy, give them military-grade firepower, and unlimited police authority. Then take a 2,000 year old genocidal demon whose every action brings the universe one step closer to destruction and who can access the innermost thoughts of any of his citizens, make him about character-level 50 and put him in charge of everything.
Now tell me the scrappy wisecracking hobbit, the taciturn dwarf, and the pointy-hatted wizard are going to meet at an inn and go searching for buried traysure. ;)
A bard sings about some lost artifact, or ruins filled with unbimagineable treasure. The group, intrigued, atempt to find out more. While carefully dodging the poisons and other fun things the Bard slips to them (or they just die for their efforts), they go find these ruins, and begin the hunt for this treasure.
A dungeon crawl doesn't necessitate anything even remotely as complicated as the Underdark. It just needs a dungeon, hell, it doesn't even need to be an underground facility -- it can be the ruins of an ancient city, dealing with all that is above-ground there, with maybe some underground. Dark Sun is well suited for dungeon crawls. Have you seen the number of ruins that dot the landscape of the Tablelands?
Aarokocra are claustrophobic... how do/would you handle those types of characters in these situations?
Well when the fight was over- the defiler got away- they went back to their camp to get their stuff and the desert floor gave out from under them, spilling them into a buried fortress- the fireball had weakened the ceiling of the room they were standing over.
There was no way they could get back up, so they had no choice but to get through this small section of 'dungeon' I made- little more then 6 or seven rooms, with three encounters- one room had 2 medium and 2 small paraelementals in it, one had several resetting traps and 8 skelletons, and the last encounter was with this 6th level Fallen fighter (undead creature from Terrors of the Dead Lands). They got a little treasure, I think there was a ring of sustance (I have these items only reduce the need for food and drink by half), a masterworked set of scale armor, and a scroll that detailed this rite they could do to enable them to communicate together (from the DMG II).
Imagine you were building a city. Take 20,000 illiterate peasants from the worst war-torn slums of Mogadishu. Then take 500 spoiled rich kids from Orange County and put them behind a wall in the middle of the city. Then take 500 blackshirt thugs from fascist italy, give them military-grade firepower, and unlimited police authority. Then take a 2,000 year old genocidal demon whose every action brings the universe one step closer to destruction and who can access the innermost thoughts of any of his citizens, make him about character-level 50 and put him in charge of everything.
Now tell me the scrappy wisecracking hobbit, the taciturn dwarf, and the pointy-hatted wizard are going to meet at an inn and go searching for buried traysure. ;)
Quoted for truth, glorious truth.
DS cities in a nutshell.
But to be back to Athas: my suggestion is to first find the main direction and style of your DS campaign. There are several possibilities, a lot depends on what type of characters (races and classes) the players want to play, or you can do it the other way, tell your players what kind of campaign you will do and ask them to bring their characters accordingly.
Examples:
-party working for a Sorcerer King/Queen (good to have a templar character as a leader, if they are slaves any race or class can go)
-or opposite, party working for the restoration of Athas (clerics, druids, rangers bonanza)
-party working for a Merchant House (almost anything can go, maybe defilers are a bit problematic)
-party is a band of independent mercenaries (possibly needs at least medium level characters to go realistically)
Aarokocra are claustrophobic... how do/would you handle those types of characters in these situations?
Well, they either need to be making the checks, or the group needs to work on dragging them along. I've found that group dynamics usually resolve such things. It does make life more interesting when a character refuses to enter the dungeon due to racial claustrophobia.
besides, as I said, a Dungeon Crawl doesn't even have to be underground. That same Aaracokra could relatively be OK with it, if the group was digging around in the aboveground ruins that don't even have a single fully-constructed room in one piece, much less a building. If everything is open-air, and not enclosing at all, then there's no cause for the claustrophobia.
Well, they either need to be making the checks, or...
Oops... guess I shuld have read a little more carefully, just now noticed they have a -2 penalty on all rolls :P
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find incontrovertible evidence that this man is a Defiler, and get evidence to the Templars, forcing them to take action. This Magic Mouth spell will self destruct in five seconds."