I've been athas.org, reading everything there, and visited all the links it had listed. I know about the pdf files you can buy but I am hesitant about paying for a electronic file instead of a book. I also know you can also maybe find the original books on ebay and such.However I don't feel like going on a goose chase for that.
Whatever the case I don't want to buy anything until I know more about it. So I would appreciate any pointing to the right direction.
Start with websites. In order to do that, you need a list of Dark Sun fansites. Fortunately, we have an avid link collecting silly frog who runs a site called the Silt Skimmer which has the largest collection of links for DS fansites.
But . . .
Unfortunately that isn't likely to get you very far. See, no one has gone and simply detailed out the setting on the web. For starters, that simply isn't very legal, and at the time that DS websites were popping up in any real numbers, WOTC was sending out more than a few email warnings about potential lawsuits for sites that contained just a bit too much info.
Then there's . . .
Athas.org's conversion document. But once again, there's precious little flavor text about the setting. It may give you a slight snapshot of what Athas is like, but it certainly isn't the complete picture, being a rule book and not neccessarily a setting guide.
Which leads to . . .
Here of course! But then there's the trouble of reading through a few hundred threads and trying to sort out what's what, what's canon, what's garbage, what's fan based material, what the heck is up with the giant space hampsters. That can be tiresome, migraine inducing, and very time consuming.
So basically . . .
Your S.O.L. While I'd certainly love to give a brief synopsis, I highly doubt that I could give any kind of detailed overview that you couldn't garner from the collected sources noted above. If your not too sure about the setting after checking about in the above, then its probably not really worth it to you. If your still intrigued, however, and would like to learn more, its going to cost you a measly 5 bucks. Yup. Download the PDF for the core box set. If its piqued your interest so far, trust me, its a few bucks well spent. And for less than the price of a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice, and without the embarrasing photos afterwards, your on your way to adventuring under the Crimson Sun.
Hope that does point you in the right direction.
Cheers!
As for people not associated with Athas.org, you could be putting yourself on the recieving end of a friendly email about infringment of intellectual property or copywrite. To my knowledge, WOTC hasn't actually had to take a case to court over a fansite having up 'too much fluff', but then again, most every website I knew that recieved an email about it promptly removed any of the material in question.
Of course, this limitation doesn't infringe upon new material at all and in fact, WOTC has been more than encouraging that fans that support any setting come up with their own material for it. Athas.org gets to put its own seal of officiality stamp on anything new that they create, but the big wigs in the board room have said on several occasions that they won't go around with law dogs if some creates something original based off their intellectual property.
Then again, I may be wrong.
Its been known to happen.
Once . . . maybe twice.
I'd love to get an official word on this
Originally posted by Korvar
So in theory, we can't do a Revised Elves of Athas (even if it was completely rewritten from scratch), but we could do, say, Pterrans of Athas?
I'd love to get an official word on this
Pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Bout the only thing we can redo from most of those accessories is mechanics that changed and NPCS, however, we have to come up with all new flavor text when redoing said things.
At least that's the way I understand it.
We can create new setting material, but can't copy old one. The old ones are still cheap, as Mach said. Just head over to SV Games or RPG Now to buy AD&D Dark Sun material for 5$US.
Lexus, I'd recommend you start by buying the Original Campaign setting and the Revised Boxed Set. That'll cost you 10$US and give you a very good idea of Dark Sun. I understand that PDFs aren't the same thing as books, but they're really cheap. You won't have to spend much to get an idea of the setting.
Originally posted by DisruptorX
Not xp compatible though
Funny that I can get it to run on my XP machine, heh.
Just right click, properties, compatibility tab, set compability to win95. Boom.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Funny that I can get it to run on my XP machine, heh.
Just right click, properties, compatibility tab, set compability to win95. Boom.
I know how to set set compatibility mode, it never makes any difference though, so I don't bother. On my, and all my friends computers, dos based games either don't run or lag so badly as to be unplayable.
I have to use actual windows 95 on a different computer to play shattered lands.
Originally posted by DisruptorX
I know how to set set compatibility mode, it never makes any difference though, so I don't bother. On my, and all my friends computers, dos based games either don't run or lag so badly as to be unplayable.
I have to use actual windows 95 on a different computer to play shattered lands.
Interesting.
Got a real slow machine, or a real fast machine?
Originally posted by DisruptorX
I know how to set set compatibility mode, it never makes any difference though, so I don't bother. On my, and all my friends computers, dos based games either don't run or lag so badly as to be unplayable.
I have to use actual windows 95 on a different computer to play shattered lands.
DOSBox is your friend.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Interesting.
Got a real slow machine, or a real fast machine?
Top of the line, although by shattered land's standards, even a 300 mhz computer is exponentially greater than the requirements.
On a funny note, I finally have a computer with enough conventional memory to run some of my old games, but none of them will run on NT based windows XP. DOH!!!
*adds swamp to mana pool*Originally posted by DisruptorX
Top of the line, although by shattered land's standards, even a 300 mhz computer is exponentially greater than the requirements.
On a funny note, I finally have a computer with enough conventional memory to run some of my old games, but none of them will run on NT based windows XP. DOH!!!
Guess your machine is *too* fast, heh. /me shrugs
I've got it running on a 333 Mhz just fine though, heh.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Guess your machine is *too* fast, heh. /me shrugs
I've got it running on a 333 Mhz just fine though, heh.
Yes, it runs fine on my 90 mhz 8 year old laptop w/broken screen.
I think the problem is that windows xp doesn't run off of msdos. In fact, msdos doesn't exsists within it. The emulation process is poorly done and makes it lag, methinks.
Originally posted by DisruptorX
I think the problem is that windows xp doesn't run off of msdos. In fact, msdos doesn't exsists within it. The emulation process is poorly done and makes it lag, methinks.
Yeah, DOS went away with the release of win2k I think, it might have been ME, not quite sure.
Usually running most of my old DOS games in win95 or win98 compatibility mode works though, in fact, I haven't had a problem yet.
Trust me, I've got tons of those games, hehe.
Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Trust me, I've got tons of those games, hehe.
You ever play a game called Dragon Lore? Great myst-style adventure game. Haven't been able to run it since I had a 486
Only recently have I had a computer that could even meet the 606 K of conventional memory required and it crashes after the intro movie on xp. Oh well, guess its back to max payne2 and warcraft3
--note to developers: rpgs with orginal settings are very enjoyable. Darksun=original setting. hint hint--Originally posted by NytCrawlr
Yeah, DOS went away with the release of win2k I think, it might have been ME, not quite sure.
Usually running most of my old DOS games in win95 or win98 compatibility mode works though, in fact, I haven't had a problem yet.
Trust me, I've got tons of those games, hehe.
DOS + Windows: Win3.x, Win95, Win98, win98SE, WinME.
Windows only: WinNT, Win2K, WinXP.
(also - winNT & OS/2 were the same thing with different graphic sets originally).
WinNT comes before Win3.x - it was what Microsoft took when they splitom the joint venture between MS and IBM (called OS/g originally). IBM picked up the pieces and made OS/2. Microsoft then had WinNT adjusted so that it worked on top of MS-DOS, and called it Win3.0 (which, ironically, was released before WinNT, even though WinNT was designed first). win 3.0 became Win 3.1, and Win3.1.1 for workgroups. that was redesigned to become Win95, and later Win98. That was enhanced to become Win98SE, and then finally WinME. Luckilly, that ended the existence of the half-completed, and horriblky buggy OS design that worked from the horribly inneficient MS-DOS. On the other line of things, WinNT was revised as Win2K to include many features that were in the already-existing Win9x line (then features from Win2K were added to Win98SE and made WinME). Then Microsoft, in a final attempt at brilliance, ended the Win9x/ME line and instead advanced Win2K into becoming WinXP, their current top-dog OS (with the exception of the Win2003 Server, which is quite funny to think about, much less use).
Ok..... history lesson done....
.....gawd, I know too much Computer trivia.....
You ever play a game called Dragon Lore?
I recall that game having a bug that made the teleport spell fizzle. Kinda annoying when you're mandatory stuck in a cave with no exits.