Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 gmanjkd Sep 30, 2013 23:50:53	Hello all.  I am revisiting AD&D 2nd ed and never got to run many of the settings.  Due to time constraints I will be using modules.  Would those of you who have ran Dark Sun in the past recommend the "Freedom" adventures over the "Black Flame" adventures?  Thanks :-)   Gary
#2 Kamelion Oct 01, 2013 5:39:57	If you've never run Dark Sun before, I'd definitely recommend Freedom over Black Flames. Freedom details the arrest and imprisonment of the PCs, their subsequent slavery and attempts at revolution - set against the backdrop of a sorcerer-king's mad gambit for immortality, and his subjects' attempts at regicide. Black Flames has the PCs assist a (disguised) dragon in an attempt to loot a ruined city-state. When one of the sorcerer-monarchs gets involved, it turns into a dragon vs dragon smackdown, with the PCs on the sidelines. A battle with undead and one of the dragons rounds it out. As you'll see, Freedom is much better suited to a first DS game than the more epic Black Flames, which relies on certain obscure setting elements to really make sense. Both adventures have their problems. Freedom is nice and modular, allowing you to chop and change scenes as you go along, but it requires at least some PCs to be enslaved in order to work. You could also argue that most interesting stuff in Freedom happens off-camera (NPCs get to do all the awesome regicide stuff, as detailed in the Verdant Passage novel). But you can make it work, especially if you amp up the slave rebellion elements. Black Flames is equally railroady and its premise is very unusual for Dark Sun. Dragons are secretive and reclusive - not even acknowledged to exist by most folk - so having two of them duking it out is problematic from a thematic level. I always recast Black Flames for much higher level characters and place it towards the end of an adventure arc. If you use it as the capstone of adventures leading to Yaramuke or involving the search for draconic metamorphosis, it could work. Like most DS adventures, though, it needs some proper tlc.
(Reply to #2) gmanjkd	Awesome!!!!!! Thanks for the in depth answer.  This helps a TON!  This is exactly the info I needed.  The Freedom adventure line is definently what I was looking for.  Thanks again.   Gary
(Reply to #2) gmanjkd	I plan to run my dark sun campaign using published adventures.  Do I need the Dark Sun monstrous apendix 1&2 or do the published adventures contain the Monsters utilized in the adventure itself?   If I must have the monstrous appendix do I have to get them both?  .the 1st one is like $50 on Amazon!  Ouch   thanks again Gary
(Reply to #4) Kamelion	Initially, at least, the adventures use creatures only found in the boxed set, or include new ones with stats. With later products, monsters from the MC appendices are included. There will be abbreviated stat blocks, but you do need the MCs for the full info. Yeah, they can be expensive. They're also unfortunately not available in pdf form (at least, not legally) over at Drivethrurpg. Or if they are, I can't find them. They used to be, so maybe they'll be added back at some point. I suppose you could use Terrors of Athas from athas.org - it's for 3e but you might be able to use the stats. I was lead designer on that and we tried to hew as close as we could to the 2e versions of the creatures (perhaps too closely, but there you go) - the core stats aren't a million miles apart.
#6 gmanjkd Oct 02, 2013 3:19:11	Again thank you very much.  This is all that I needed to point me in the right direction :-)   im looking forward to Dark Sun and some old school AD&D 2w
#7 gmanjkd Oct 09, 2013 19:52:04	So, I got the 1st ed DS box in the mail 2 days ago and agree that it is AWEsOME!  I have no idea how I missed this back in the day.  Next I will be running the following adventures.  Freedom, Road to Urik, Arcane Shadows, Asticlian Gambit and Dragons Crow.  Our game sessions run exactly 4 hours.  Tipically how many game session can I expect to get out of each of these adventures?  4?  Maybe 6?     Thanks for for the insites.   Gary
#8 Kamelion Oct 22, 2013 4:03:35	Those adventures are modular, with scenes you can add and delete as needed. The shortest I spent on one of those is 2 sessions of 4-6 hours each. Usually I'd get three or four sessions of that length out of the flipbook adventures. Dragons Crown is harder to judge because it's so big and there's lots of supplemental material. I'd guess 6-8 sessions, easily.