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tzirean posted:Did you ever get around to compiling these? My players just finished heroic tier, and I'm digging for ideas and suggestions on what to do in paragon. I have two main plot points to start with: http://smg.photobucket.com/user/dwarf74/library/4e%20monsters I used City by the Silt Sea in low paragon and it went splendidly.
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Jan 29, 2014 04:13
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dwarf74 posted:I haven't yet, completely, but this is something I hope! Oh, man, this is phenomenal, thank you. I don't know if I'm a good enough DM to pull off City by the Silt Sea (never played it, only read it, and it's obviously decently complex), but I'd love for that to be what kicks off paragon.
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Jan 29, 2014 06:43
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I've broken Dark Sun. I'm DM'ing a 4E romp through the setting and my PCs have just resurrected a minor river god and, as a result, his river. All hell is about to break loose as everyone in the world tries to get in on the river flowing through Tyr, which is in trouble since having a bloody great river suddenly pop into existence downtown cracked the walls wide open. Also the sorcerer queen Sielba is not dead and has arisen to claim credit for the act (she did help) and rulership of Tyr, which certain people in the city are not happy about. The civil war might already be on if it weren't for the fact that all the horrible critters living in Under-Tyr just got flooded out and are coming up to voice their complaints by savagely murdering everybody. We're waaaaaaaaay off script from whatever the hell the canon is. I just like the idea that actively trying to save the world might make it even worse.
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Feb 13, 2014 15:14
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Quiet Feet posted:I've broken Dark Sun. Sounds like fun over there, though!!
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Feb 13, 2014 16:02
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Dark Sun looks really cool, but I'm wondering how to make a dramatic story that the players have reason to care about. Sure you can rescue some slaves, but they'll cut you apart and eat you once the supplies are running low. Sure you can be on a caravan, but why wouldn't the town you're visiting simply kill off the caravan and take their stuff? For the City-States, why don't the Sorcerer Kings not go out every couple of weeks and kill everybody that's not some pathetic weakling (or literally worshipping them)? Dragons can only be hit by magic weapons, so why not go for a murderous stroll and let everyone know who's boss? Even if the players somehow outsmart the GM playing the dragon, the GM could simply say that "Of course an ancient super-genius would see your plan coming! Of course he has magic bombs/guards/traps/whatever stationed there just in case somebody thought of that!" When you can safely assume most people you run into in the game are psychotic murderers, it becomes difficult to care about anyone, and since the Sorcerer Kings own everything worth owning, there's nothing to care about. Sure basic survival being difficult can make you attached to your character, but when they're up against things where no amount of preparation, Natural 20s, or good roleplaying can save them, it becomes tedious. "So, how are our characters going to get horribly murdered this week?" Basically, is it worth the $40 for the Dark Sun book for the monsters and such? I'd like to run a game that's a bit less grimdark than Dark Sun as I'm a huge fan of character narratives, and a toned down Dark Sun seems great!
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Feb 13, 2014 20:26
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You have a false perception of Dark Sun that's way more nihilistic 'everyone is awful no matter what' than it actually is in canon. People on Athas aren't psychotic murders by default, they're just driven by self-interest in a world with very limited resources or opportunities to get ahead in life. Rescued slaves won't turn on you at the drop of a hat because they're still capable of being grateful, towns don't kill caravans because then caravans stop coming to bring supplies the town needs (and caravan houses probably have the money to pay for people to gently caress that town up) and the last Sorcerer-King who got cocky ended up with a spear in his chest and reminded the whole world that they're just as killable as everyone else on the planet.
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Feb 13, 2014 20:47
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I dunno about the others, but I don't run Dark Sun as a grimdark setting. I don't like games where everything is hopeless crap all the time. There's plenty of space for heroism in Dark Sun, and plenty of opportunity to make the world a better place.
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Feb 13, 2014 20:49
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Yeah, I run Dark Sun as a very redemptive and progressive setting where the players can really feel like their efforts have made the world a better place. Your standard fantasy setting has PCs protecting the status quo from some great threat. In Dark Sun, the status quo is terrible and the PCs are the great threat that will tear it down and build something better in its place. Quiet Feet, you didn't break the setting at all. You're way off canon, but so loving what. Your PCs are doing exactly what DS PCs should be doing: improving their benighted world and dealing with the challenges that entails.
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Feb 13, 2014 21:05
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Dark Sun is actually a really great example of the Points of Light thing that 4e is about: the world is mean and scary and dangerous, but there are safe spaces (some even non-temporary) and you can make the world a better place.
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Feb 13, 2014 21:54
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There's a lot of freaky-deaky flora and fauna that will murder the hell out of you out in the wilds, but yeah Dark Sun is no Warhammer 40K. Also hasn't Borys the Dragon kinda been MIA for a while?
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Feb 13, 2014 21:59
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Dick Burglar posted:There's a lot of freaky-deaky flora and fauna that will murder the hell out of you out in the wilds, but yeah Dark Sun is no Warhammer 40K. Also hasn't Borys the Dragon kinda been MIA for a while? Borys is back because they rewound the metaplot to right after Kalak's death. You could run a post- Prism Pentad campaign, but the book presents the setting right after the events of Freedom and The Verdant Passage. And UrbanLabrynth is spot on. Dark Sun is PoL as all get out. The only deviation is that the actual points of light are often not the civilized areas, but rather secluded places where Athas clings to its former glory in some way or another.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:12
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Dick Burglar posted:There's a lot of freaky-deaky flora and fauna that will murder the hell out of you out in the wilds, but yeah Dark Sun is no Warhammer 40K. Also hasn't Borys the Dragon kinda been MIA for a while? That was my initial impression, where most of the challenges (an invading Space Marine Chapter, the Exterminatus) are storms to be fled from, rather than things that can be fought. I'll have to pick it up then!
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Feb 13, 2014 22:13
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PeterWeller posted:Borys is back because they rewound the metaplot to right after Kalak's death. You could run a post- Prism Pentad campaign, but the book presents the setting right after the events of Freedom and The Verdant Passage. Yeah I know Borys is still alive and around in 4E's timeline, I just thought he was kind of hanging out in some way-out-of-the-way desert wastes rather than actively terrorizing anyone.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:31
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TwoQuestions posted:That was my initial impression, where most of the challenges (an invading Space Marine Chapter, the Exterminatus) are storms to be fled from, rather than things that can be fought. I'll have to pick it up then!  Yeah, despite being written in the 90's, dark sun is all about heroes saving the world. In answer to your other question from before - for my tastes, most Dark Sun monsters are very Dark Sunny and instantly recognizable as abnormal for a standard D&D setting. That may just be how engrossed in the setting I am, rather than inherent to the monsters, but I don't like porting them to other settings, myself. YMMV, of course!
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Feb 13, 2014 22:41
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Dick Burglar posted:Yeah I know Borys is still alive and around in 4E's timeline, I just thought he was kind of hanging out in some way-out-of-the-way desert wastes rather than actively terrorizing anyone. Oh, my bad. I think they just leave him sort of vague and up in the air like the original boxed set did before they revealed all the stuff about the slave levies and Rajaat's prison. Like many things in the 4E relaunch, he has been handed back to the DM to use as he or she pleases.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:54
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What keeps Dark Sun from pure grimdark is that the apocalypse already happened. The setting is generations later, some races died out or whatever but life went on. It's not an anything-goes, apocalypse-in-progress setting like The Walking Dead. There are rules, power structures and societies. And the typical campaign is setup with the players able to be the turning point where things get better and civilization becomes more civilized.
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Feb 14, 2014 00:28
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Also, I know a whole lot of people like to talk up Dark Sun games where you're 12th level, the best weapon you have is a jawbone, the slaves you freed just tried to sell you into slavery, you fought a drake for a single copper coin, and you're currently dying of thirst in the desert ... but as far as I'm concerned, that's not what it's about. By the time my group got to Paragon, I stopped with long travel sequences with a handwaved "Yeah, you got this covered; gith are no threat. You get there in two weeks." and stopped worrying about tracking food & water. poo poo gets old; let them be heroes.
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Feb 14, 2014 00:44
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TwoQuestions posted:Dark Sun looks really cool, but I'm wondering how to make a dramatic story that the players have reason to care about. Sure you can rescue some slaves, but they'll cut you apart and eat you once the supplies are running low. Sure you can be on a caravan, but why wouldn't the town you're visiting simply kill off the caravan and take their stuff? For the City-States, why don't the Sorcerer Kings not go out every couple of weeks and kill everybody that's not some pathetic weakling (or literally worshipping them)? Dragons can only be hit by magic weapons, so why not go for a murderous stroll and let everyone know who's boss? Even if the players somehow outsmart the GM playing the dragon, the GM could simply say that "Of course an ancient super-genius would see your plan coming! Of course he has magic bombs/guards/traps/whatever stationed there just in case somebody thought of that!" When you can safely assume most people you run into in the game are psychotic murderers, it becomes difficult to care about anyone, and since the Sorcerer Kings own everything worth owning, there's nothing to care about. Others have already said it better than I have, but it's not that "everyone is psychotic murderers" and more like "just about everyone is looking out for number one." And really a lot of what you're saying could be applied to any setting. What's to stop any DM from saying that the BBEG of their game would've thought of whatever plan the PCs come up with? I think it's a setting that really allows for flawed heroes. Hell, my PCs are trying to restore the Green Age and I've got a soul-eating warlock, cannibal halfling, druid who cares more about money than anything else, and a psion who effectively lobotomized and enslaved one of his friends. They're terrible people but they want the world to be nice again.
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Feb 14, 2014 00:50
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dwarf74 posted:Also, I know a whole lot of people like to talk up Dark Sun games where you're 12th level, the best weapon you have is a jawbone, the slaves you freed just tried to sell you into slavery, you fought a drake for a single copper coin, and you're currently dying of thirst in the desert ... but as far as I'm concerned, that's not what it's about. Yeah, the constant danger angle is really a low level thing. Higher level PCs should have as much agency as they do in any other setting. Just look at the published modules: the PCs start destitute, but by mid levels, they have saved the population of a city from a dread ritual, led the vanguard of a victorious army, helped an avangion begin his metamorphosis, and become political figures of no small import.
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Feb 14, 2014 04:15
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dwarf74 posted:Also, I know a whole lot of people like to talk up Dark Sun games where you're 12th level, the best weapon you have is a jawbone, the slaves you freed just tried to sell you into slavery, you fought a drake for a single copper coin, and you're currently dying of thirst in the desert ... but as far as I'm concerned, that's not what it's about. Dark Sun always seemed best when focused very heavily on the environment. It is very much of the Sword and Planet genre. At low levels that is the sun, lack of food, etc. At higher levels, the setting has environments fitting for a paragon adventurer (with fairly trivial aspects like food, water, sun, pushed into the far background). Fighting a kraken in the middle of a storm is a paragon type activity in a normal adventure. Falling overboard is bad. Fighting silt horrors in the sea of silt is a paragon activity in dark sun. Falling overboard is extra special bad. Nobody should fall over though as long as they respect the prospect of falling overboard. Ideally though, the prospect of falling overboard, and how completely messed up the backdrop of the fight is, is something that should be memorable. Then you've got environments that will make epic players want to curl up into a ball and weep. Like the pristine tower. The real point of the setting never really seemed to be an intent to beat players down and make them feel small. It always seems best when it is the backdrop to their characters. Sort of a "I'm going to explain the super screwed up hell zone that you are in, so you can understand how hard your characters are." Of course, the players have to respect the environment, otherwise it cheapens the backdrop.
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Feb 14, 2014 05:01
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While all that is true, it's really no different than any other setting when you boil it down. All D&D settings are filled with ridiculous death monsters, and via the planes have more than enough insane murder environments. I don't mean to downplay the setting's uniqueness amongst the worlds of D&D. Dark Sun has a very distinct motif and aesthetic, its themes are clear and focused, and its adventures bear a clear brand. But it's still D&D, and its distinction comes more from limiting and focusing its scope than expanding it.
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Feb 14, 2014 05:09
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I'll agree that it is D&D at the end of the day. The point was that usually D&D focuses more heavily on the who and what, since there where is more often than not a fairly standard Northern European default setting. Players don't need a tree explained to them when they can look out the window and see a very similar tree. Dark Sun has who and what elements, but the where plays a much bigger role. Especially because the where had a lot more than the usual amount of influence on shaping the who and what. You don't have Fremen or Sardaukar without what environment from which they are from. Mechanically 4E core and 4E Dark Sun are the same, and interchangable (which was a good thing from a mechanics point of view). Historically, Dark Sun characters were just faster, smarter, stronger, and harder than core characters, and it was because of the environment.
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Feb 14, 2014 05:28
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Well, it was really because the rules said they started at level 3 and rolled 4D4+4 for stats.  But I agree that Dark Sun does have a more distinct environment than most, and the alien nature of that environment is a major focus. That in itself, though, doesn't make Dark Sun unique among D&D worlds. Planescape and Spelljammer are also strongly focused on their strange environments. And while they don't get as many starting bonuses as Dark Sun characters, they are still strongly influenced by their strange environments.
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Feb 14, 2014 05:54
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A Czech artist by the name of Michal Vondracek posted some Dark Sun art back a few years ago. Dude had a distinctive style, which fit Dark Sun pretty well. Check out this gith: Sadly, that's a Wayback link because the site hosting the art has gone offline. Thanks to secret hacker magic, I managed to find someone who had put the images back online. Since the presentation method--slideshow--is dumb and bad, I shoved the whole kit and kaboodle into an Imgur album.
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May 8, 2014 05:28
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Occassionaly some weird Dark Sun stuff pops up. This must be from the TSR era.  It sold last week for $130.
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Jul 17, 2014 22:44
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So I am running a Dark Sun game, have implemented a craft system, my characters are loving up the gangs in Tyr right now but are still level 1. I need to know everything I can about your ideas on a crafting system and this inherent bonus thing I have never hosed with.
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Jul 19, 2014 03:08
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ritorix posted:Occassionaly some weird Dark Sun stuff pops up. This must be from the TSR era. Oh man, I want this. Also, it makes me really happy that this thread is still around and hasn't
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Aug 5, 2014 02:19
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It's the Nibenay of threads. It's immortal and it doesn't show itself publicly very much, but when it does it's impressive.
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Aug 5, 2014 02:57
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There is a wealth of knowledge is this thread but drat is it long.
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Aug 5, 2014 04:48
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So if I was looking at running a Dark Sun campaign starting out of modules, which version of a Dark Sun is the most iconic? Also, which modules? I plan on using Roll20 and have mostly inexperienced players.
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Aug 9, 2014 22:04
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Moriatti posted:So if I was looking at running a Dark Sun campaign starting out of modules, which version of a Dark Sun is the most iconic? Also, which modules? I plan on using Roll20 and have mostly inexperienced players. However, there's not too many great adventures for Dark Sun 4e. Personally I'd recommend the 2010 free rpg day, Bloodsand Arena, which was available for download at one point. Followed up by The Vault of Darom Madar, from Dungeon.
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Aug 10, 2014 00:08
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Yeah, the 4E Setting and Monster Guide are legit awesome. I would use those as a base. Then use the magic of internet to find a copy of the original 2E Adventure Freedom, rip all of the monsters out and replace them with 4E equivalents. It's a great intro adventure to the setting and will get you and your players comfortable enough that you can start riffing and make your own.
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Aug 10, 2014 00:12
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I had occasion to run several sessions of 4E Dark Sun earlier this year. We started with a slightly modified version of the sample level one adventure at the back of the Campaign Setting book and ran with it, had a lot of fun.
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Aug 10, 2014 00:33
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Vault of Darom was decent. There was another module whose name I'm forgetting that was a 4e product, the only one for DS that was at stores, but it wasn't too good. 2e has the most material and some of the best stuff to use, but you have to convert it to whatever you are playing. That isn't too hard, since 3e and 4e all have monster stats and whatnot. 3e also has a lot of stuff, since athas.org came up with monster and player guides and you could probably use that in Pathfinder too. It might even be possible to run it in 5e if you really wanted, no psionics though, I'm doing a test run of that now. 
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Aug 10, 2014 00:37
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I wished I asked that questions earlier...
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Aug 10, 2014 04:10
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If I ever get a chance to run a long-term Dark Sun campaign, I'll probably just straight up steal the plot of the Wake of the Ravager video game.
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Aug 10, 2014 05:14
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What was the story behind Wake of the Ravager? I only played it a couple times, once in depth, and it was a long time ago and ended with a game-killing glitch. The Shattered Lands is among my favorite CRPGs, so it was a tough act to follow for me.
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Aug 10, 2014 05:50
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jigokuman posted:What was the story behind Wake of the Ravager? I only played it a couple times, once in depth, and it was a long time ago and ended with a game-killing glitch. Wasn't overly complex or anything. But basically following the death of King Kalak of Tyr, the Dragon's minions are moving in to take power in the city-state. It turns out that their eventual plot is to release an imprisoned being called the Ravager (it's the Tarrasque, although of course given the limitations of the system it is itty-bitty in-game) and presumably control it. To stop them you've got to track down the four elemental artifacts which were used to imprison the tarrasque originally: a hammer which turns rock and earth to dust, a jewel which creates fire, an endless cup of healing water, and an air-based one that slips my mind at this time. All together they allow you to imprison the tarrasque after you've managed to beat it into submission. Probably would reverse the roles a little, with the idea that the Ravager is being released by someone as a desperate attempt to kill or defeat the Dragon (since he hardly needs an unstoppable super-beast, considering he already is one). The original Shattered Lands game makes for a decent, lower-level adventure as well. Having to unite different tribes and villages of ex-slaves in a desperate attempt to hold off the armies of a sorcerer king is a good long-term Dark Sun plot.
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Aug 10, 2014 10:26
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