1) What was your favorite aspect about creating the Dark Sun campaign setting?
I suppose the best part of creating the Dark Sun universe was the newness of it all. I was fairly new to the TSR design team at that time, and I was sure that other, more experienced designers were going to be assigned to the project. But, when few of them showed enthusiasm for such a large piece of work, I got the chance. The whole environment of the TSR design department in those days was especially enjoyable. Many designers played regular games, and I participated in many, some role-playing and some not. Role-playing was still in its brightest age and everyone was glad to be creating new rules and adventures. Specifically with regards to Dark Sun, Troy Denning and I had a pretty free hand to make up whatever we wanted. Our only directive from upper management was to create a new world with a scope that could eventually replace the Dragonlance universe, which they perceived to be weakening and even dying in the marketplace. The decision was reached early on to create something other than another Tolkien-esque world (TSR already had three: Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance). We also decided early on to tie the world to two other rules books that were being developed and released at approximately the same time, the Battlesystem miniatures rules and the Complete Psionics Handbook. In all, the completely clean slate we had to work with was invigorating. Never before or since have I had such a free hand and such incredible resources to work with.
Those ideas remained in my head and Dark Sun took a new direction. My overriding master plan was to make it clear that the City States were the last bastion of humanoid civilization on a planet primarily dominated by an enormous Thri-Kreen Empire. Future adventures would pit the dwindling humanoids against that empire.
Nice! Never thought about that, but it's brilliant - that's the way I'm going from now on. If you believe the Kreen are offshoots of the Life-benders, it suggests that they took the "long view" and won in the end.
On the other hand, the Outcast novels are my least favorite.
NO argument there...
To misquote Beavis and Butthead: "It's great...if you like things that suck."
We made a conscious decision early on that each game master’s Dark Sun campaign would take on its own character. Part of that was allowing players to become enormously powerful, even champions. Rather than introduce new champions, we left that to each game master and his players.
Bingo.
I always wanted to expand on the basic humans in the game, in keeping with the widely varied humans with which Brom populated his paintings. What’s the difference between this fanged human and this blue-skinned human? I always wanted to know.
That reminds me: I found my "mutations" table for humans on Athas. This was a risky thing for my players as, in life, not all the mutations were good. Enough were, however, that they wanted to give it a shot on the "table of doom:"
Roll a % dice.
1-60: No mutation.
61-85: 1 mutation.
86-95: 2 mutations.
96-00: 3 mutations.
3d10 roll Result
3 No eyes.
4 Insect-like carapace (AC +4, Charisma -2).
5 No hair.
6 Huge ears.
7 Pointed ears.
8 Webbed fingers and/or toes.
9 Metallic-colored eyes and/or skin.
10 "Patchy" skin (skin has patches of scales, Charisma -2).
11 No facial hair.
12 Lizard Scales (AC +2, Charisma -2).
13 Eagle Eyes (double iris, double sight range).
14 Small tail (reptilian or mamillian at player's option).
15 Prehensile tail (operates at 1/4 player's strength, round down).
16 Long tail, reptillian (1d4 damage with tail sweep).
17 (Very) long fingers.
18 (Very) long arms and/or legs.
19 Short arms and/or legs.
20 Small, retractable claws (natural attacks of 1d4).
21 Large, semi-retractable claws (natural attacks of 1d6).
22 Extra arm (1/2 strength)
23 Silt-breathing gills.
24 Wing-like flaps (allow for clumsy gliding).
25 Bird-like head (Charisma -2).
26 *Parasitic conjoined twin (see below).
27 Third eye (gives infravision out to 20ft, Charisma -2)
28 Dog-like head (enhanced smell and hearing, Charisma -2)
29 Psionically gifted (Has powers of 1st level psion for free).
30 Psionic Null (no wild talent, immune to telepathic powers).
* Roll for Internal (1-30) or External (31-00).
Internal: 20% chance of debilitating headaches under stress. 40% chance of twin being sentient. In this case, 2d6+2 is rolled for Int, Wis, and Cha. There is a 40% chance of this twin to be psionically active (can obtain levels as a psion). Mental skill checks (skill checks based on Wisdom, Charisma, or Intelligence) can be rerolled 1/day per level of twin, if twin's intelligence is greater than 8.
External: 40% chance of being sentient. In this case, roll 2d6+2 for mental attributes and 1d6 for physical attributes. Either way, if twin is in a visible location, Charisma -4.
That was about it. I had some varients running around, but this was the one I found. You could make the bad ones harsher or make fewer good ones.
But I'll hold my peace there... ;)
Nice! Never thought about that, but it's brilliant - that's the way I'm going from now on. If you believe the Kreen are offshoots of the Life-benders, it suggests that they took the "long view" and won in the end.
I agree. With this idea of a huge Kreen nation and Sysane's sundered region stuff there is a huge wealth of material I can introduce into the later levels of my campaign
I have a bunch of questions about things he'd written in the unreleased Secret of the Deadlands manuscript that haven't seen the light of day.
But I'll hold my peace there... ;)
Well, I of course have it and have read it all the way through.
Feel free to send me the followups if you want and I'll send to Tim to see if he's interested, then send you the answers. Once we get SotDL out I can then post that Q&A to the boards.
I always wanted to expand on the basic humans in the game, in keeping with the widely varied humans with which Brom populated his paintings. What’s the difference between this fanged human and this blue-skinned human? I always wanted to know.
SYSANE!
Can you make human racial levels, like 2-3 sets of them, that would account for those indeed weird mutations found in Brom's paintings?
SYSANE!
Can you make human racial levels, like 2-3 sets of them, that would account for those indeed weird mutations found in Brom's paintings?
I could, but doesn't Dawn's mechanic capture that already?
I don't want to step on anyone's toes.
Plus I have a mechanic similar to Dawn's but its used to create "New Men". Those being the races spawned by the Pristine Tower.