critical-hits.com/2010/07/08/canon-fodde...
He makes some compelling points about options, but I personally see no problem with limiting class and race options for a specific setting, with the caveat that the players can play anything, but they have to give me a good story as to why they are in existence, and with the knowledge that they will be the only one.
Originally posted on the Dragonlance Nexus, by Duke5150
As a veteran darksun fan and a pretty hardcore dragonlance fan, I'v fought an unending battle with canon for a long time. I'v always been a fan of the cleansing war. The idea of it and the story is awesome. But the limitations are suffocating. Now, with 4e removing divine power, the walls are again begining to close in on me. Only now, I make my own windows, regardless of what the "official" word happens to be "this" edition.
I'v also never liked how the novels steamroll DMs. Either you go by the canon, or the fandom community will boo you right out of the hobby. Which is one thing that instantly sold me on eberron. It was a "make this setting your own" game from the start and kept that philosophy in 4e. The novels tell you what could happen, if that's what you want. It gives you options and not commandments. In the end, the choice is up to you, making the game far more friendly to anyone not a die-hard setting master. And the die hard setting masters can STILL run their games exactly as they would have. The novels can still direct their game if they choose. But at least they have a choice, like the rest of us. Dictatorships are bad, Mmkay.
Beyond kicking the creativity out of my d20s, there is also a matter of waste money. This is the biggest problem for me. Buying something you cannot use in a setting and if, like me, you give canon the bird and use it anyways, you have to endure the "that didn't happen! This isn't dragonlance! Go back to video games!" responses when trying to discuss HOW TO USE IT in that setting. (not something I'v encountered much on this site, thankfully)
Point is, I support a complete disconnect between the novels and the game. I also support the eradication of absolutes as default setting standards. I'd like to sit down and play the war of the lance without having to hear how my tarmak warrior never killed verminaard or how there is no way in hell it was my thrikreen psion who threw the heartwood spear, wounding kalak during the liberation of tyr.
When, in comparison, I can say that my warforged is Bulwark suffering from memory loss and I'm the new aberrant lord of house tarkanan, with an aberrant mark of death and not get stoned to death by eberron fans. Give ME the choice and stop telling me I'm doing it wrong because it doesn't fit your vision of what the game should be. (you, as in the hobby-as a whole)
/endlongwindedpost.
I must say I pretty much agree with it.
On limitations of races and classes, from what I understand Chris Sims is saying is pretty much what you just have Raevhen.
i welcome a clear canvas on which to paint new stories and new ideas.
I now shed my bigoted mantle of canonhood!
/geek
Point is, I support a complete disconnect between the novels and the game.
Amen, dude. That's an idea I've been pushing for years.
I was never a huge fan of the specifics of the cleansing wars (I never saw the point of saying there used to be gnomes in the setting). What worries me about what I'm hearing, however, is the feeling that the sword and planet aspects of the setting may be the baby that is being thrown out with the bathwater.
I'm not enthused about the idea of the primordials having defeated the gods at the dawn of time. To my mind it makes the setting feel a bit too mythic, a bit too close to high fantasy. It isn't about the details, it's about tone. I liked the fact that Dark Sun had a feeling to it which was somewhat closer to science fiction.
It's certainly not a deal breaker to me, but I dislike the idea that objections to the changes must be rooted in some false fidelity to canon.
I'm not enthused about the idea of the primordials having defeated the gods at the dawn of time. To my mind it makes the setting feel a bit too mythic, a bit too close to high fantasy. It isn't about the details, it's about tone. I liked the fact that Dark Sun had a feeling to it which was somewhat closer to science fiction.
See, and I like this take. I was always a fan of What if? or Elseworlds comics. I like an idea that is similar to What if the Greek Titans had put down their upstart god offspring? What would their mythology have looked like? How would the world have turned out instead? Combine that with an apocolypse and it could be very interesting.
I'm not enthused about the idea of the primordials having defeated the gods at the dawn of time. To my mind it makes the setting feel a bit too mythic, a bit too close to high fantasy. It isn't about the details, it's about tone. I liked the fact that Dark Sun had a feeling to it which was somewhat closer to science fiction.
See, and I like this take. I was always a fan of What if? or Elseworlds comics. I like an idea that is similar to What if the Greek Titans had put down their upstart god offspring? What would their mythology have looked like? How would the world have turned out instead? Combine that with an apocolypse and it could be very interesting.
I think it's a great idea for a setting. I'm just not convinced that it's the best fit for Dark Sun. Maybe I'll change my mind when I've had a chance to read through the setting book.
Point is, I support a complete disconnect between the novels and the game.
Amen, dude. That's an idea I've been pushing for years.
I've definitely grown to the idea myself over the years. I used to be in the canon-only group, now I'd rather a setting that is malleable and not attached directly to the books, allow for DMs to simply do with the setting as they will.
Point is, I support a complete disconnect between the novels and the game.
Amen, dude. That's an idea I've been pushing for years.
I've definitely grown to the idea myself over the years. I used to be in the canon-only group, now I'd rather a setting that is malleable and not attached directly to the books, allow for DMs to simply do with the setting as they will.
Exactly. Present me with a great idea with lots of open options (campaign settings), then offer me awesome suggestions on what could happen (novels) and then take a step back and let me do my own thing. Sadly, this is often easier said than done when you have to face the "according to official canon" fan blockade.
Which can sometimes be very conflicting. I'm a fan of the cleansing war for many reasons. But I'm also a fan of creative freedom and group storytelling. So as the DM, I can say a champion went to war against the gnome to exterminate the entire race and the loss of life was great, And that's all I would say. I wouldn't say whether or not the champion was successful.
This way, I can still run adventures with that the extermination theme, or the endangered species theme, without telling my players they are unable to play what they want and that the creative and interesting character stories they have are simply not going to happen.
This also applies to creature limitations, power sources, different planes and those who inhabit those planes and basically everything. Instead of saying " No, that doesn't exist in this game" or "No, that doesn't fit", don't say anything at all. Show me what you put in the game and leave it at that. Although this isn't always the case.
The dawn war in darksun shouldn't have been done. It should have been left as a silent event that the DM can add if that's what would make the game more enjoyable for that specific group. I believe it was added so PoL fans or new D&D fans can find ways to connect the PoL lore to darksun, making darksun a universally friendly addition to the core 4e game.
Which means that if you're a PoL fan, athas might still have gods and could work in a logical way if you use the PoL lore as your inspiration. Torog, for example, was in the underdark before the dawn war. So, torog COULD be in 4e darksun. (a topic for another thread) You could also have the "divine resistance" themed campaign, where the gods are not destroyed or driven off, but are hiding, waiting to marshal forces and begin the next war, the Dusk War. In which case, surviving gods COULD be in 4e darksun. As could baator, the abyss, and ruined astral domains.
While I agree that having those options is anything but bad, the forced inclusion IS. It should have been left silent, up to the creativity of the user. While I'm not a huge fan of it and I would have prefered it the way it was (GROGNARD POWER!) I must admit that the possibilities are interesting, especially when considering an athasian spin on the PoL lore. Since, after all, anything touched by athas is automatically better. (FANBOY POWER!)
As always, Nb4 torog ate my city-state.
I just finished watching a Doctor Who episode that somewhat highlights this concept, and shed some light on how it could be for me (new series, Season 4, The Doctor's Daughter). The people fighting (Humans and Hath) don't remember how long they've been fighting, they don't even remember why they were fighting, only that they must fight. They recorded history based on the number of generations of clones that were being produced by machines. They didn't remember their past at all. Now, this episode is an extreme (since they've only been fighting for 7 days total in the end), but the idea of not remembering the past, and it doesn't really matter -- that's kinda what I've been thinking for Athas. The writings of the past are lost, destroyed, or otherwise misplaced forever. Nobody, not even the SK's really know about the past, they only know they need to survive, and that the status quo must be kept (which makes Kalak's death a bit scary for everyone, because the status quo got upset from that...)
I was fortunate though that in those days, myself and the group did not have much money...so we pooled our money to buy all the Darksun material, with myself as DM having sole control of the info. I did my best to be a benevolent dictator of the knowledge and the players understood, that as the game progressed, they would learn more about Athas and it's mysteries.
I love the idea of the Cleansing Wars... it's epic and tragic, and lends well to the setting of a world in decline, soaked in the blood of the countless victims of these purges. But to me, the idea of the last orc tribe, numbering barely 100 strong, wandering the wastes, being led by incredibly intelligent and strong orcs, pillaging only when they can be certain of no casualities on their end and that they can escape into the sands... is far more interesting than just saying, "there are no orcs".
Point is, I support a complete disconnect between the novels and the game.
Amen, dude. That's an idea I've been pushing for years.
I've definitely grown to the idea myself over the years. I used to be in the canon-only group, now I'd rather a setting that is malleable and not attached directly to the books, allow for DMs to simply do with the setting as they will.
Exactly. Present me with a great idea with lots of open options (campaign settings), then offer me awesome suggestions on what could happen (novels) and then take a step back and let me do my own thing. Sadly, this is often easier said than done when you have to face the "according to official canon" fan blockade.
Which can sometimes be very conflicting. I'm a fan of the cleansing war for many reasons. But I'm also a fan of creative freedom and group storytelling. So as the DM, I can say a champion went to war against the gnome to exterminate the entire race and the loss of life was great, And that's all I would say. I wouldn't say whether or not the champion was successful.
This way, I can still run adventures with that the extermination theme, or the endangered species theme, without telling my players they are unable to play what they want and that the creative and interesting character stories they have are simply not going to happen.
This also applies to creature limitations, power sources, different planes and those who inhabit those planes and basically everything. Instead of saying " No, that doesn't exist in this game" or "No, that doesn't fit", don't say anything at all. Show me what you put in the game and leave it at that. Although this isn't always the case.
The dawn war in darksun shouldn't have been done. It should have been left as a silent event that the DM can add if that's what would make the game more enjoyable for that specific group. I believe it was added so PoL fans or new D&D fans can find ways to connect the PoL lore to darksun, making darksun a universally friendly addition to the core 4e game.
Which means that if you're a PoL fan, athas might still have gods and could work in a logical way if you use the PoL lore as your inspiration. Torog, for example, was in the underdark before the dawn war. So, torog COULD be in 4e darksun. (a topic for another thread) You could also have the "divine resistance" themed campaign, where the gods are not destroyed or driven off, but are hiding, waiting to marshal forces and begin the next war, the Dusk War. In which case, surviving gods COULD be in 4e darksun. As could baator, the abyss, and ruined astral domains.
While I agree that having those options is anything but bad, the forced inclusion IS. It should have been left silent, up to the creativity of the user. While I'm not a huge fan of it and I would have prefered it the way it was (GROGNARD POWER!) I must admit that the possibilities are interesting, especially when considering an athasian spin on the PoL lore. Since, after all, anything touched by athas is automatically better. (FANBOY POWER!)
As always, Nb4 torog ate my city-state.
The core problem with Novels is that they outline the Future.
I'm persuaded the Campaign Setting should give us the Past; not something suffocating, not something overly detailed, but something that gives the setting a definite personality and story. Why Athas is a desert, who is the Dragon, where do the SK come from, what empire left all those ruins et cetera. We should have some leeway in giving our own spin to that past (are the SK actually immortal? what did that Empire look like? an important Emperor left powerful artifacts around the world? this kind of stuff should be up to DMs).
And then, since it's DS, there should be some major element shroud in mistery. What's the Pristine Tower? Where did the gods go? What happened to the suns? and so on. There's some stuff even DMs shouldn't know, at least before they decide for themselves.
The most interesting elements of a game, for players, are Present and Future. As DMs, we tend to focus a lot on the Past because it's *our* playground (we actually have little power on the Present, as that is the players' story), but it's not as important as we make it out to be. Sure, we may think that the true nature of Halflings is a gamebreaking issue, but in most games, for the players the revelation is worth about 5 minutes of surprise. What matters in D&D, and expecially on Athas, is the Present and the slim chances to have a Future.
A place like Athas makes the Past more interesting because it's a post cataclysmic world. That makes the past much less relevant on one hand (because, quite literally, people tends to live by the day; some event "resetted" history at some point, and in a world were getting to tomorrow is a challenge, yesterday is a detail), but much more interesting on the other: the players have the unique chance of finding out something literally nobody else knows. And given how fascinated with are with disaster, finding out what made Athas look like it does is quite the quest.
And this is what makes the issue so hard with DS: there's no DM book. If WotC doesn't give us a "true story of the cataclysm", Dark Sun will be an incomplete setting. It's something too important to be left without any sort of "canon answer" (suffocating details would be a no no, but if I end up reading "nobody knows what made Athas like that, maybe a huge war or magical abuse" I'll ram my head into my desk) that leaves room for homebrew but gives some guidelines to homebrew (a perfect example of this comes from A New Hope: we're told Anakin fought in the Clone Wars... and that's that - DMs back then were making up explanations for the Clone Wars on their own, and that's how it should be for DS; we should know what happened but have full freedom on how).
However, since such answer will be in the manual Players will use to, it will mean that the answer will be known to all, and the entire mistery lost.
And this is what, in a way, makes me sort of wish no answer is given at this point. It's a lose-lose situation; I can already imagine us having to open all posts with "in my game it's this this and that" to have some sort of conversation. We may hate on Rajaat and Cleansing Wars and all but look around: what discussions would we have without that? We claim to hate that Kalak is dead and half the topics are about that. We never discuss the "living" SKs. We may loathe "that" story but a setting needs A story we can comfront and discuss about.
The 1 book format breaks the game for DS. We can't have real fluff because half the point of the game is having players not knowing, but that means that DS will be an authistic setting where all possible discussion will be the stale exposition of someone's personal answers (which can be fun, and often is) with little to know common ground between different games.
We may hate on Rajaat and Cleansing Wars and all but look around: what discussions would we have without that? We claim to hate that Kalak is dead and half the topics are about that. We never discuss the "living" SKs. We may loathe "that" story but a setting needs A story we can comfront and discuss about.
Without that stupid metaplot, we wouldn't be having discussions about that stupid metaplot.
We could expect the quality of the discussions would be much higher and more creative -- not the same "I hate/love Rajaat" discussions we've had for ten years -- more discussions about actual games in progress and the personalized details of our games. And I say that given long experience on boards where games that have settings without metaplots, or even completely open settings, are discussed regularly.
Without that stupid metaplot, we wouldn't be having discussions about that stupid metaplot.
We could expect the quality of the discussions would be much higher and more creative -- not the same "I hate/love Rajaat" discussions we've had for ten years -- more discussions about actual games in progress and the personalized details of our games. And I say that given long experience on boards where games that have settings without metaplots, or even completely open settings, are discussed regularly.
My experience differs. I've experienced in the past that middle grounds are bad for fanbase interaction. Open settings (like WoD fundamentally is) work wonderfully, because there's no common ground and just the player's imagination. Detailed settings (like FR) also work well because the discussion can be multitiered (from discussing the plot to discussing how you ignore the plot).
Middlegrounds are a huge mess. An extreme example could be the PoL "world". I'd hate to see DS go that way.
Besides, once again, there's people who like the metaplot. I don't, you don't, but that doesn't give us the right to call those who do stupid.
We could expect the quality of the discussions would be much higher and more creative
On the Internet? Seriously?
For the table, you can do what you want. If we all admit to it, we will come up with a genormous list of our super-cool critters that we totally want to be in the Dark Sun setting even if they should not be there. That's totally fine. That is what your home game is all about.
But, when it comes to a setting, there is a real benefit to a shared history and to players knowing the setting. There is also a real benefit to uniqueness. Having goblins appear in DDE is a mistake (and it actually was a mistake by the author). It violates the expectations of those players steeped in the setting, and for what? Is the setting really better for having goblins in it? Or would it be better using Athasian equivalent iconic monsters (silt runners, hejkin, etc.)?
Trolls may be your favorite monster, but they are usually a swamp or forest creature. I generally think wet moist environment. Sure, we can make a desert troll, but when we have a history of them being destroyed then that becomes an opportunity for uniqueness. This is especially true in 4E, where it is so easy to reskin a troll and make it appear very differently but still gain what we like about it.
When we remove absolutes we create more sameness. Absolutes are the excellent unique bits that every table can choose to break. I am all for them and I want more of them. Don't take away my absolutes (which are my history, my uniqueness, my very way of comprehending Athas) without a really good reason. That designer y likes monster x is not a suitable reason.
To speak to the question of divine, this is in fact an interesting new absolute that never existed. There were no clerics, but there were elemental priests and templars. In 4E templar becomes a theme, with no divine powers. The setting obviously doesn't lack healing/leaders - there are warlords, bards, ardents, artificers, etc. And the absolute is largely fine - it underscores a point and helps to make the setting unique. At the same time, the loss of elemental priests strips away a really cool part of the setting. That image of the dwarven sun priest kneeling before the rising sun and being able to stare right into it as he prays... that is so Athas! It really deserves coming back. It doesn't necessarily need to be divine, but it should be there. It isn't a shaman. It is really a new class. In a home campaign, not hard to deal with, but it would be nice for the setting to address it.
To speak to the question of divine, this is in fact an interesting new absolute that never existed. There were no clerics, but there were elemental priests and templars. In 4E templar becomes a theme, with no divine powers. The setting obviously doesn't lack healing/leaders - there are warlords, bards, ardents, artificers, etc. And the absolute is largely fine - it underscores a point and helps to make the setting unique. At the same time, the loss of elemental priests strips away a really cool part of the setting. That image of the dwarven sun priest kneeling before the rising sun and being able to stare right into it as he prays... that is so Athas! It really deserves coming back. It doesn't necessarily need to be divine, but it should be there. It isn't a shaman. It is really a new class. In a home campaign, not hard to deal with, but it would be nice for the setting to address it.
Elemental is a as of yet still comfirmed power source for a later PH. If there are no direct ports in it for Dark Sun, some DDI article will sure come up with something.
Let's hope. I too want to see people siphon power from the Elemental Chaos, eventually making epic tier pacts with powerful primordials to further their goals.
Primal and elemental are indeed different. The Elemental Chaos is not nature...nature is what D&D describes as the "natural world". Nature is primal, Elemental Chaos is elemental.
Middlegrounds are a huge mess. An extreme example could be the PoL "world". I'd hate to see DS go that way.
The original box set certainly resonates "PoL" with me, and I find that to be a good thing. PoL seeds the concepts of the game, and it's up to the DM to flesh things out. Most of the lore in D&D books has always struck me as "for DM eyes only" too, in that it details things that almost no one should know until they've been introduced to it (during the game) - but it's presented as "fact," giving the impression that this is the way it's "supposed to be" - and making players think that by reading it, they're prepared for what's coming. 4e's approach of providing options and even suggesting two incompatible routes that a DM can take is much better. It emphasizes that this is a creative process and that we're telling stories, not reenacting someone else's made-up history.
As for absolutes, they are not necessary for differentiation. Most of the Eight Characteristics of Athas are what I'd call "seeds." They introduce the possibilities of Athas; by that I mean, they tell you what you can use Dark Sun for. But at the same time they don't say what you can't do.
- "The world is a desert" doesn't tell you that there absolutely cannot be any non-desert terrain - but if you come across any, it's going to be special.
- "The world is savage" comes out and says that kind/compassionate characters exist, but are rare.
- "Metal is scarce" is unique and defining, but certainly not limiting. It describes the materials that are used in place of metal, and I love peoples' reactions to metal when it is around.
- "Arcane magic defiles the world" but there is also the art of preserving.
- "Sorcerer-kings rule the city-states" brings up the exception of Tyr.
- "The gods are silent" seems to take an absolute position; whether or not a sidebar will discuss this is yet to be seen.
- "Fierce monsters roam the world" mentions common animals that are missing, but this doesn't affect players. The reason that monsters are fierce is left ambiguous, with some suggestions.
- "Familiar races aren't what you expect" covers the 'typical' examples of a race on Athas, but races aren't physically incapable of acting contrary to their expectations. A few of the pregen characters are atypical of their race.
What does the Cleansing War get us? As-is, it means that beyond anyone's memory but the sorcerer-kings, they tried to kill all non-humans/non-halflings and even succeeded for a few races. After manipulating history for centuries, no one really knows this happened. It doesn't affect the lives of the characters, but it affects the options of the players, to no benefit.
In regards to elemental priest, being a theme it's not tied to shamans; it's just that we've only seen it combined with shaman so far. I've got a warlord elemental priest kicking around in the back of my head.
The original box set certainly resonates "PoL" with me, and I find that to be a good thing.
I disagree. Your "points of light" in most campaign worlds are fairly safe and nice cities. You can be a tavern keep, farmer, or shop owner and have a nice orderly and normal life.
On Athas, the few cities are under the harsh dictatorial of the most evil creatures in the land. Your average working person is a slave or close to it. They are lucky to see an old age. Anyone in a village has to know that most villages don't last long - destroyed by the environment, raiders, slavers, or monsters. That's not much "light". This is one of the big differences that sets the world apart from other campaign settings.
You can make Dark Sun a PoL setting. An easy step is to put them in Tyr post-Kalak, with some protection by virtue of their employer, and let them handle manageable threats. For example, instead of the promise of near-devastation by Urik requiring almost impossible odds to prevent, you can have the threat of war with Urik and have the PCs handle some part of that and avert it.
You could also have them start in a nice quiet village that has merchant protection and have it be a merchant campaign. Working for a noble could accomplish the same security. There are ways to keep it PoL if you want that.
On Athas, the few cities are under the harsh dictatorial of the most evil creatures in the land. Your average working person is a slave or close to it. They are lucky to see an old age. Anyone in a village has to know that most villages don't last long - destroyed by the environment, raiders, slavers, or monsters. That's not much "light". This is one of the big differences that sets the world apart from other campaign settings.
Points of Blinking-Lights? Points of Dimming-Lights? Really-Small-Points of Light? Points of Light with Roaming Dark Clouds?
I think players will need at least a little breathing room... otherwise they'll get a little overwhelmed. While Dark Sun DMs might like to keep their players on their toes, it's exhausting. Players want to be flatfooted once in a while: play some downtime, buys whatever equipment they'd like... before taking another deep breath and diving headfirst.
The original box set certainly resonates "PoL" with me, and I find that to be a good thing.
I disagree. Your "points of light" in most campaign worlds are fairly safe and nice cities. You can be a tavern keep, farmer, or shop owner and have a nice orderly and normal life.
I disagree. "Points of light" don't have to be nice or safe, they just have to be civilized, relative to the monster-haunted wilderness and dungeons. A borderland fort populated by frightened serfs ruled by a dictatorial, xenophobic warlord is still a point of light. Thunderspire Labyrinth is a "point of light" but I wouldn't want to raise a family there.
However tough it might be, it sounds to me (who is by no means a Dark Sun expert) like life in an Athosian city is a sight better than life outside for anyone who isn't part of a nomadic tribe. Sure you might be a gladiatorial slave, but at least you have a fighting chance and maybe a few people interested in your survival. You could live for weeks if you're good or lucky. Outdoors, no one cares and you're not likely to last a day.
As for canon, I never got into Forgotten Realms precisely because of canon. I like the Eberron mode and I'm never going back, even if I do play Dark Sun. If players think they know something about the setting, then it's only what they've heard. The very harshness of Dark Sun means that most people can't spend time worry about history without becoming it themselves. If someone sees some trolls, so what? Most people have probably never seen elves either and lived to tell about it. If someone believes in the gods, what are they going to say if you tell them the gods don't exist? Maybe that what the gods want you to think....
If you opened the floodgates as wide as Eberron and let everything in, even then I don't see a problem. In Eberron, halflings are Eberron halflings, elves are Eberron elves, goblins are Eberron goblins. In Dark Sun, halflings are Dark Sun halflings, elves are Dark Sun elves, and I don't even know or care if there are Dark Sun goblins, but if there are I'm sure they're Dark Sun goblins. If there were trolls, they'd be Dark Sun trolls, even if mechanically they're the same as what's in the Monster Manual. There'd be some weird twist to them. Maybe they make giant sand designs, Nazca-style to try to call back the gods. Maybe they write poetry in crayon. They would have a thing, whatever, and it would mean that you were in Dark Sun, not in Eberron, or Forgotton Realms, or generic PoL. Is someone seriously going to tell me I can't have trolls because they don't dwell in the desert? This is 4E, we don't have to do that sort of thing anymore. We never did, but 4E showed us the way.
Points of Dimming-Lights?
This is the way I look at it. The points of light are there, but just not bright and shiny. This is a world where the bad guys won. I look at the characters as trying to bring the world back from over the edge. An all but impossible job, but they are the heroes.
If you opened the floodgates as wide as Eberron and let everything in, even then I don't see a problem.
There is never a problem with playing a game the way you like it.
At the same time, there can be real benefits to something having a unique feel. I really mean unique. I can run Arabian Nights-style D&D any day of the week and have a good time. Desert of Desolation (Egyptian style) is fantastic. Warforged can walk around in shiny metal (maybe with a fan system), magic can be cast freely, trolls can fight goblins, etc. And that would be a ton of fun.
But, what has often attracted people to Dark Sun, the reason it has had such a huge following and has been brought back is that it was a really unique setting. You could really experience it. From the things you wield and wear to the races and classes, from the monsters and cities, to the harsh environment, from the challenge level to starting at 3rd level - this was something completely different. I think when new players read my blog, they dig learning about new things. The uniqueness is what is most attractive. When my DDE table breaks their weapon and I show them the weapon chart and point out a possible substitute that one of their opponents has... that is just a really different experience.
Different experiences can be momentary departures. Maybe you leave high fantasy behind, play a little DS to refresh, then come back. Ravenloft was that way for many. Or, maybe it is that unique feel that appeals to you (my longest campaigns have been in DS). But, I think those differences are really good from a business standpoint. Making too many worlds the same and all-encompassing cuts off these opportunities and forces gamers outside to Shadowrun, L5R, Eclipse Phase, Spycraft, etc. That's ok (I like playing other games), but it is nice to have uniqueness within the D&D umbrella.
Making too many worlds the same and all-encompassing cuts off these opportunities
I don't think "all-encompassing" means "the same". Everything in D&D is in Eberron, but a deva PC might never meet another deva. So, why not say that a player can have a gnome PC in Dark Sun, but was orphaned, never knew his parents, and has never met another gnome?
I don't think the specific history of Dark Sun is even a very large part of what makes it unique. I think a DM could play a one-off game of Dark Sun and never get into any of the core conceits apart from the deadliness, and maybe the lack of metal. But, like I said, I was never very involved in the setting. It seems fine, but I hope its not as restrictive as people are saying.
Making too many worlds the same and all-encompassing cuts off these opportunities
I don't think "all-encompassing" means "the same". Everything in D&D is in Eberron, but a deva PC might never meet another deva. So, why not say that a player can have a gnome PC in Dark Sun, but was orphaned, never knew his parents, and has never met another gnome?
I don't think the specific history of Dark Sun is even a very large part of what makes it unique. I think a DM could play a one-off game of Dark Sun and never get into any of the core conceits apart from the deadliness, and maybe the lack of metal. But, like I said, I was never very involved in the setting. It seems fine, but I hope its not as restrictive as people are saying.
This is probably the root of my disagreement. Chris Sims is saying the game is better without restrictions. He points out that most tables will do their own thing. I think the game is better with restrictions, especially because most tables can then do their own thing.
If in your game, you want gnomes, fantastic! You can change the Champion that killed gnomes to have killed something else, or you say that the PC gnome is one of a few that escaped, or you just remove that Champion. Done, and on to awesome gaming. But, if what we do is say that we will never have games restrict things, then we lose uniqueness for all the tables in the world. When LFR allows anything under the sun, sure, we can all have whatever we want, but the world becomes really generic. FR isn't so special that it is a big deal (and we can reskin warforged as Gondsmen or whatever), but it does still lose something. To me, the loss is much more apparent in a special setting like Dark Sun. Also, when one setting absorbs everything, you then also rob the other settings. If everyone in LFR starts to play Athasian races (or Athasian versions of them) your home campaign for Dark Sun becomes a lot more like your home or living campaign for FR.
Again, all of this is about the really broad level of what WotC releases. Every individual home campaign can always adjust the setting. At the broad level, I love restrictive. At the home campaign level, I love giving permissions. One of the awesome things about permissions is how they foster so much story and RP. Having metal warforged on Athas is silly. Even obsidian would mean the PC has a walking street value that would have led to their being killed for parts at a young age. But, we can totally handle that at the home campaign level. It could be a really cool and fun thing. The same is true of a gnoll or drow in FR. But, just letting every single PC be whatever they want just hurts the setting.
All right, I've said plenty so I'll lurk from here on out.
Trolls may be your favorite monster, but they are usually a swamp or forest creature. I generally think wet moist environment. Sure, we can make a desert troll, but when we have a history of them being destroyed then that becomes an opportunity for uniqueness. This is especially true in 4E, where it is so easy to reskin a troll and make it appear very differently but still gain what we like about it.
HEY! I resemble that remark.
*goes about generating desert trolls*