i know that there are others on the boards who feel differently, who say that the mystery of athas, with its tyrants and unknown twisted origins is better. lesscannonical history means that each dm can make the world his or her own. while i understand this, and really do value the point of veiw, especially as articulated by greyrom, i have concerns.
first, and this has always been a point of frustration for me, the grand history of athas, some of which i helped to write, is not something that the players should really ever be able to use in game. yes, ever. the scope of the information is to vast, spanning too many millenia, for the players to ever put together. the history should always come through a lens colored by years of conamination. undead or psionic guardians should be bat crap crazy, with conflicting nonsensical info at times, and biased judgement filled propaganda at others. the sks and the sotl that let you live when you even begin to talk about these things ahould be half truths and misdirection so that you fullfil their goals, not your own. no one, not even rajaat himself, should know the truth. it sure is fun for us to talk about, but in game it should make things worse for players, not give them an advantage.
second, a reset that fails to mention rajaat and champions and life shaping is fine, and saying that the prism pentad is one possible outcome that could unfold is great. i have been doing that on my own for years now anyway. what is a problem is when that future is no longer possible. gnomes returning can make for a very interesting campaign. maybe the last tribe was awakened from their eternal slumber by the players and they must now stop them from ravaging their home village of salt view, the only place that they have found relief as escaped slaves. through the campaign they discover what gnomes were and face a choice, eliminate them and finish genocide, or abandon their home and move somewhere else. darksun can be a game with an even more intense level of morality than a more normal world, if you make the players feel it. in this example with the gnomes, its interesting and exciting. and not normal. gnomes and goblins around every corner is not.
my hope, and really i know that this is all that it is, is that athas in fourth edition will be a place where rajaat can either be there or not. i want him there, even though my players will stay in the dark about him. i want athas to stay athas. which should be big enough for rajaat to both fit and make sense for the setting, and also be left aside and never mentioned. my most exciting campaigns had nothing to do with champions, sorcerer kings, or rajaat. it was just nice to know that they were there in the background.
finally, sorry about spelling and puncuation. i wrote this on my phone.
I wholeheartedly agree with the gist. Whether a dude called Rajaat, or laser-eyed rocket-powered dolphins, or a disease, curse, or spell killed off the gnomes - and any other missing race - is of no concern as long as the conditions are set for any of those possibilities to be true.
i want athas to stay athas. which should be big enough for rajaat to both fit and make sense for the setting, and also be left aside and never mentioned. my most exciting campaigns had nothing to do with champions, sorcerer kings, or rajaat. it was just nice to know that they were there in the background.
Well said, but I think the thing to remember is: removing Rajaat and the Cleansing Wars history as canon doesn't mean the PP can't happen. It just makes that one potential history of the setting, with the PP storyline as just one potential result of that potential history.
Because I don't want to be locked into an Athas where Rajaat etc. exists in the background, whether or not he/it can be ignored, because then it therefore has to be ignored/left aside/never mentioned. I'd rather I not have to never mention it. I'd rather not mention it because it simply doesn't exist at all, unless someone for their personal campaign decides it exists.
Here's the thing: it's a fact of the setting that Athasian history is lost and mysterious. And as such, there simply shouldn't be a canon history, because players (ie: fans of the setting) are going to read it whether you want them to or not. This makes that bit of theme effectively pointless. But if no one knows what the real canon history is, that part of the mystery -- and I might even say "horror", because then you don't know why the dying world is dying, ever, really -- of the setting remains. Because then, truly and really, no one knows: it isn't just a "we pretend we don't know, but we really do".
Publishing material that contravenes or upsets part of the setting's basic themes and points of contact (like a history for a world whose history is lost and gone) is foolish. By doing so, you make the setting not the setting any longer: which, quite aside from the horrible way it was handled, was the exact problem with the PP metaplot and the 2E boxed set (and has long been identified as how and where the setting went wrong).
And please note: themes are not details. So this is not useful as a "Gnomes/orcs/etc. shouldn't be in DS!" argument...because, no, they still could be. "No gnomes!" was not a thematic point-of-contact (and if you're going "well, it is a theme for me", you don't know what 'theme' means. "Weird/twisted races" was a theme, not "no gnomes"). "Wizards don't destroy the environment" would be a no-no because the destructive effect of arcane magic is a thematic point-of-contact for the setting.
Details cherry-picked? Oh my, yes.
Details omitted? Again, yes indeed.
The events beyond The Verdant Passage not written out, as though you just entered Athas' history at a point right after Kalak is killed? Yup.
None of this points to Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars and Champions being erased. On the contrary, we have one major piece of evidence pointing towards quite the opposite, where Rajaat, et al, will remain: Rajaat was one of the big players (who also happened to do quite well) in the newest Creature Competition. They had a brief description of who Rajaat was.
I highly doubt they would have included this without having plans for Rajaat for the newest incarnation of Dark Sun. They could have included Borys, a guaranteed appearance in DS 4E. They could have included Dregoth, another now-guaranteed inclusion in DS 4E.
No, they chose Rajaat. They did so for a reason. In my opinion, that indicates that in the history of Athas section we'll get Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars, the Champions, and (very) likely the Blue and Green Ages (to give context to Rajaat's goals, no matter how brieftly described).
There is absolutely nothing that has been said by developers to indicate that the previous history of Athas is going to be erased.
I highly doubt they would have included this without having plans for Rajaat for the newest incarnation of Dark Sun. They could have included Borys, a guaranteed appearance in DS 4E. They could have included Dregoth, another now-guaranteed inclusion in DS 4E.
No, they chose Rajaat. They did so for a reason. In my opinion, that indicates that in the history of Athas section we'll get Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars, the Champions, and (very) likely the Blue and Green Ages (to give context to Rajaat's goals, no matter how brieftly described).
Awesome point, thank-you Tectuktitlay.
For example, in the Bible, the line of kings seem to overlap and contradict, yet it is inerrant. (You can believe otherwise if you wish, but don't waste your time arguing it with me) How can that be? It is because, among other things, during the book of 2 Kings, there were two nations - Israel and Judah. They had different ways of recording when the reigns started. There were also regent kings, where one would be, basically, the intern king. When the older king stepped down (usually by dying), the intern would gain the full throne, but his reign in Israel was considered to have started when he first began the training. In Judah, the official beginning of the reign was the first year after the old king left office.
Now keep in mind that this is a written historical record, copied repeatedly by a culture that insisted on accurately recording the events of its past, regardless of how they made the people look. How accurate or confusing would a historical account be of Athas, ruled by brutal kings that wield the magic that screwed everything up in the first place AND where reading itself was illegal?
There is absolutely nothing that has been said by developers to indicate that the previous history of Athas is going to be erased.
Details cherry-picked? Oh my, yes.
Details omitted? Again, yes indeed.
The events beyond The Verdant Passage not written out, as though you just entered Athas' history at a point right after Kalak is killed? Yup.
None of this points to Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars and Champions being erased. On the contrary, we have one major piece of evidence pointing towards quite the opposite, where Rajaat, et al, will remain: Rajaat was one of the big players (who also happened to do quite well) in the newest Creature Competition. They had a brief description of who Rajaat was.
I highly doubt they would have included this without having plans for Rajaat for the newest incarnation of Dark Sun. They could have included Borys, a guaranteed appearance in DS 4E. They could have included Dregoth, another now-guaranteed inclusion in DS 4E.
No, they chose Rajaat. They did so for a reason. In my opinion, that indicates that in the history of Athas section we'll get Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars, the Champions, and (very) likely the Blue and Green Ages (to give context to Rajaat's goals, no matter how brieftly described).
That's basically been the one thing that just keeps coming up in my mind and which I posted about in another thread. Why would they include Rajaat in the competition if he wasn't gonna appear in 4e DS. Makes no sense, none at all. Now, I wouldn't be surprise if Rajaat wasn't in the core 4e DS books, but instead showed up in Dungeon.
Besides, I can't think of a cooler entity to form a warlock pact with, than Rajaat. "Warbringer pact warlock", Hell yes! I might actually play a warlock if that were the case!
Gentlemen, it is quite obvious Rajaat can not be erased from DS's new edition, as he is source and force behind Athas' degradation. question is, is he going to be presented as villain or as a part of background? Honestly speaking, I'd prefer later, as I opt for keeping Athas' history secret and mysterious.
Since Rajaat lost the creature competition thing, I'd assume he'll be a background, and not a villain.
Lack of detail is awesome; I don't want to know exactly how old each SK is, or even what he looks like - I can work on that. However, at least a vague idea of who the SK are should be provided, and a vague idea of how DS got like it is should be provided.
Something like "millenias ago, a powerful entity defiled the land in his attempt to bring forth his vision of Eden; disaster struck, and the world was desertified, and while the entity was banished, his liutenants still reign as the Sorcerer Kings" could be good; every DM can customize the story (maybe the SK overthrew the entity, maybe someone else did; maybe the entity is Rajaat, maybe he's not, etc).
Something like "Athas is a desert, and there's these dudes called SKs, and nobody really knows where they come from, but they rule" would be disappointing.
The core problem with removing Rajaat is that he starts the whole story.
That's not a core problem because no he doesn't. The first boxed set didn't mention him or the history of the world, not beyond some very vague ideas about what happened. In fact "Athas is a desert, and there's these dudes called SKs, and nobody really knows where they come from, but they rule" is almost exactly what we were told, because that's all the common person of Dark Sun knows, or ever will know, anyways. And it was just fine. We had no problem coming up with ideas about what happened or just letting it be a total mystery.
"Some say Athas was destroyed by wizards who turned the world into a desert full of deadly beasts, and it is because of this that mankind must live behind thick walls of stone protected by the immortal tyrants known as the Sorcerer-Kings who have ruled their cities for millenia."
That's it. That's what we got. They past was lost. A mystery.
That Rajaat did this and the SKs are his lieutenants is one possible story from one individual's campaign (Denning's) about how the world got the way it did.
"Athas is a desert, and there's these dudes called SKs, and nobody really knows where they come from, but they rule"
You don't need Rajaat to explain why Athas is the way it is. There are so many possible ways that the world could have reached its present state.
I always thought Athas was an ancient world like the dying earth. That explained the red sun, devastated world, lack of metal, mutant monsters and prevalent psionics. The sorcerer Kings could be horders of ancient knowledge living in decadence before the sun goes out.
And thats the way I like it. I think the idea of a lost history. the Mystery of a dying world, is better than any history that someone could give.
AS A DM, I want a concrete world. Some DMs may want a "world with a mystery/no background" but not me. Further, this means no hints at a background. If a designer has a reason, they had darn well better list it! Whether it's Rajaat, Borys or a gaggle of jhackals. I don't like it when they have a reason why something happened but only hint at it and don't say it. There can be a mystery for the characters but please note that once the players learn it, it's no longer a mystery to them. That's fine with me! I can work with that in so many ways! But, as a DM, I want to know what the designers intended from day one with the big events of the world, not wait for a later supplement to explain it.
I also prefer no metaplot, similar to what Exalted has done. They should, imo, set it in FY 1 and they cannot update anything after that point but they can print something that clarifies history, i.e. anything before FY 1. This way, no DM has to worry about a new source book doing something different than they did, unless they set a campaign prior to FY 1.
Again, in most ways, Exalted as a setting, does a great job of the things I am talking about and I would like to see more game companies do it that way.
That's just my two ceramics worth.
turlough
The original box set was basically as you put it:
"Athas is a desert, and there's these dudes called SKs, and nobody really knows where they come from, but they rule"
You don't need Rajaat to explain why Athas is the way it is. There are so many possible ways that the world could have reached its present state.
I always thought Athas was an ancient world like the dying earth. That explained the red sun, devastated world, lack of metal, mutant monsters and prevalent psionics. The sorcerer Kings could be horders of ancient knowledge living in decadence before the sun goes out.
And thats the way I like it. I think the idea of a lost history. the Mystery of a dying world, is better than any history that someone could give.
But . . . but . . . do you ever explore it, as a DM or player? And if so, don't you need an explanation? Further, isn't it better to have an explanation that (hopefully) is consistent and well thought out from the beginning rather than one cobbled together years later?
I mean, if you are a player, the history probably doesn't matter.
If you are the DM and are content to run adventures that don't explore the history and only look forward to a better Athas, that's great! More power to you! Or if you want to make up the reason yourself why Athas got the way it did, that's also fine and makes sense that you don't want the history of the setting explained.
I know I do want it explained. I might not use it but I would rather the designers come up with their own ideas and explanations and have me change it rather than have nothing about the past at all. But that's me.
Enjoy it, whatever it is you enjoy!
vislor
the whole point of a campaign setting I feel is enable Adventures and give the dm ideas.
Not to tell a story on its own. Thats what books are for.
I want the opposite. the whole point of a campaign setting I feel is enable Adventures and give the dm ideas. Not to tell a story on its own. Thats what books are for.
And that's fine. We can agree to disagree.
I think if a designer has an idea, they should present it to us. Not wrap it up in a mystery with hints and allegations but never actually saying what it is they mean.
Please note, this is not the same as not having rumors or other false tales. But, for the DM, this is having a defined history. SOMETHING happened in the past and I am paying for the designers version of that something. I may disagree with it and do my own thing but I at least want to see their version of it before I do so.
Thanks!
vislor
I've never been in a game where the players did not have access to the same setting materials the DM did. It's an ideal that I've never been able to achieve. Typically, this means that the Big Mystery is never a mystery to the players, and try as they might, it will never evoke the same kind of reaction unless I take what the designers carefully crafted and throw it out.
Exalted is actually a perfect example of this: as much as I love it as a setting, they just took the Big Mystery and dumped it on the ground in front of the players. The first core book had mystery upon mystery upon mystery -- and it was major part of the metaplot. Then the next two cores came out and said: "oh, just kidding, here's what happened" and undermined everything I had tried to do with my players.
I'm intrigued by the idea that the same issue you have with revealing the future of the setting, I have with revealing the past.
AS A DM, I want a concrete world. Some DMs may want a "world with a mystery/no background" but not me.
Then you don't want Dark Sun. Because that's always been Dark Sun. That's one of the original thematic touch points of the setting.
As to metaplot, I agree with you completely. I don't want them telling me the future, either. Or telling a story. Stories are what playing the game is for, not reading about the game. That's what fiction novels are for. And the two should never, never, never become one another (it's been tried and is why so many 90's-style games were eventually frustrating and derided).
The best way to handle this is to mark what portions of the setting will be expanded on in the future, and what will be left alone. (The best-best way to handle it is to release everything that will be created for the setting ever at once.)
The first boxed set was too vague; and the core problem with it was that considering how much personality the setting had, much of it was killed by the fact that having no line of inspiration for the thousands of explanations DMs gave to things led to having no possible common ground for confrontation.
Once again, true creativity expresses itself when challenged by some sort of boundaries; and quality worldbuilding can't sum up to "there's some cool powerful Witch King wannabees; now make up some back story".
I don't want the exact details, but some (vague, and properly cloaked in "nobody can really know" mystery) information that can at least make all metaplots invented by the various DM start at the same points.
To use a metaphor, DS is a setting that shouldn't give answers, but raise questions. DMs will answer those questions, but the setting HAS to outline the questions. Making an example: we should be told WHO the Dragon was and WHY he became what he is now; DMs should have freedom in making up HOW.
A solution that says "there's a Dragon, nobody knows where he comes from, he asks for a levy" lacks personality.
A solution that says "there's a Dragon, called Borys, he was a SK, he became a dragon to imprison Rajaat, thanks to a ritual performed by X and Y on day Z, and he asks for a levy every year to perform a ritual outlined on page 272" is suffocating.
Something like "there's a Dragon, which only few know for being Borys, who used to be a sorcerer king, who became what he is against what the SK mutually agreed to avoid in the future for reasons that nobody really knows, but many associate with fighting some sort of primordial evil, and he asks a levy every year, some say to feed, some say to replenish his slave forces, some say for a ritual" would be ideal.
We would have some facts but still the freedom to decide the determining details. The primordial evil could be Rajaat, or primordial, or a throng of tarrasques, or the gods. The levy could be for a ritual, or to form an army, or to populate some sort of underground eden.
However a too vague description could lead some DMs to having worlds were Borys isn't a SK, where he is a dragon becoming a man instead of a man becoming a dragon, where he's just an Elder Red Dragon wanting food and supremacy, or where he's actually Bahamut - which could all be awesome, but should be left to the world of heavy homebrew.
The right of every DM to go 180° on each single setting is preserved by Rule Zero (I run a 7 years game in Planescape where ALL gods were evil without a single problem) and shouldn't strip a setting of all forms of personality and story that go little beyond the description of the scenery.
greyorm: But, how do you have adventures/campaigns with constant mystery? How do you tell a story without knowing what came before? I'm not arguing that you can have ruins and leave it at that. But, I think it's better to know that X ruins are from this time period and Y ruins are from this time period and Z ruins are a combo of X and Y due to the refugees. But these all beg the quesiton of what the time period was like and why there were refugees. If you have a group of players that are trying to make the world better in terms of one less SK and more plants and life. How do you do that without knowing more about the SK? To make it an epic battle, shouldn't part of it be them finding what they need to kill a SK? And to do that, don't they have to know what made him an SK and what they can do to unravel that? Or, is it merely a matter of the DM saying, "now you need this over here." Adventure. "Okay, now you need this over here." Adventure. "Okay, now you are ready." I'm not saying that's NOT possible or that it's wrong. In fact, to some extent, it can be the first adventure in Dark Sun as a setting for a group. But, for every adventure after the first, unless you are setting all of the adventures to happen at the same time and timeframe, isn't the mystery eventually going to go away? Doesn't the DM need to know the mystery from day one and won't some of that mystery be revealed with every campaign to the players? I just want to understand what you mean.
VisanidethDM: I think you touch on the fine line of game design. However, after decades of playing, my own style has evolved such that I want what they did with Exalted. I want them to make up a world with definite ideas in mind and tell me, as the DM/GM, what those ideas are. I don't mind coming up with things here and there but I don't want to have to create huge parts of the past as I think of that as the designer's job. From your examples above, I agree with what you say about one and two lacking personality or being suffocating. However, with regards to number three, I want them to say he's doing it for a ritual to keep Rajaat imprisoned. Period. That's why he's doing it. But then I want the details of that ritual left up to me. So, maybe it's definite high level ideas spelled out? Maybe that's how I need to phrase it?
Onto other things.
I think a setting should have conflicts set up for the DM. They should be specific conflicts about the game world, tied to its history or current politics and groups. In other words, it needs to be more than a map. We need to have background on the countries that exist and conflicts, whatever those conflicts are. I agree, as I said to VisanidethDM that not every square mile needs to be described but we do need them for the basis of a campaign.
I was going to talk about an example of what to say in Dark Sun but that's exactly what we are arguing so it wouldn't help! So, let me talk about Exalted. It does have spoilers if you play in it.
The Core game of Exalted is about playing (big damn) heroes called Solars. The bad guys or conflicts are:
Dragon Blooded - There is direct conflict here but they have been deceived and the heroes might be able to get them on their side.
Abyssals - They have a direct conflicting goal with the heroes but short term alliances would certainly be possible. However, at some point, the heroes and this group will be at odds.
Infernals - See Abyssals above.
Sidereals - They are split, with some working for the heroes and others working against them. Lots of opportunities here, in terms of politics and action. I think the underlying idea is that the heroes are in charge and the Sidereals are there to advise but not make the decisions but some of them need to be reminded of that fact.
Lunars - There is conflict based on what happened years ago but they are considered allies for the most part. A few will have conflicts and think they know better. They might but it's not up to them to rule but the Solars.
Guild - Lots of options for conflict, depending on what type of society the heroes (players) decide to make. If the heroes make big changes quickly, such as outlawing slavery and drugs, there will be conflict. If they try and do it slowly, they might find an ally. There is always the possibility of individual exceptions.
Empire/Mortals - Separate from the Dragon Blooded, there are also several parts of the Empire that the heroes will have to convince that they are here to make things better. It could be forced on them or not. Lots of options here depending on how the heroes resolve things.
Fair Folk - Direct conflict, political and physical. Doubtful alliances could be made, certainly not long term ones but it might be possible rarely.
There is even more than that but the point is the designers have specifically laid this out in the main book. Low level details are left up to the particular group, but everyone has the same starting page on these groups. What's really freakin' cool about Exalted, imo, then is the fact that they were able to put out extra books about how players could play as Dragon Blooded, Infernals, Abyssals, Sidereals, Fair Folk who could be in the Guild or part of the Empire or not. And they could be good guys or not, even as Abyssals or Infernals, groups that don't have long term good intentions. (Think Spawn for an Abyssal good guy but it wouldn't be forever.) But, all of this was in the main core book for the setting. Later books expanded or explained details of that group but didn't change these basic ideas.
Now, if we did that for Dark Sun, what would it look like?
turlough
(What they did with Scarlet Empress in 1E Exalted is a good example. They may have had an idea of it but all we got was vague hints. In 2E, they obviously have a specific idea but still only give us vague hints. But, I think those hints are more cohesive in 2E, rather than vague things. When I can tell what's false and not because of what I read, it's better for me as the DM. YMMV of course!)
Actually, this is the Big Mystery I referred to. The 1st edition Solar book was all "we dooooooon't knoooooooooow" and then (I forget offhand which) the Abyssal or Dragon-Blooded core turned it around and said "oh, this is what happened." That is, they told us very specifically what happened to her in one of the core books a dedicated player would have on-hand. They even drew us a picture (literally). Ditto the nature of the Abyssal Exalted themselves.
(What they did with Scarlet Empress in 1E Exalted is a good example. They may have had an idea of it but all we got was vague hints. In 2E, they obviously have a specific idea but still only give us vague hints. But, I think those hints are more cohesive in 2E, rather than vague things. When I can tell what's false and not because of what I read, it's better for me as the DM. YMMV of course!)
Actually, this is the Big Mystery I referred to. The 1st edition Solar book was all "we dooooooon't knoooooooooow" and then (I forget offhand which) the Abyssal or Dragon-Blooded core turned it around and said "oh, this is what happened." That is, they told us very specifically what happened to her in one of the core books a dedicated player would have on-hand. They even drew us a picture (literally). Ditto the nature of the Abyssal Exalted themselves.
A bit off topic but I still like this. I just think 1E handled it better than 2E. In 1E, you had to read *everything* and examine it and find that this sentence could actually be taken two ways and in the light of *this* or *that* it was different. Even up to any given "reveal" they seem to have outs as to what happened. From what I see in 2E, they knew what happened, and all of the hints led up to that. It was easy to look at rumors, good ideas for the Storyteller, and know which was true or false. The players won't know, though, so I thought that was good. Again, I think the DM should know.
As to the reveal itself, or with the Abyssals, again, I think the Storyteller should know those things! How does he know what an Abyssal will or will not do without knowing who created them and why? What the storyteller is told in the core is enough to make them bad guys and that's about it. They need more to be played and we got that in their own book.
[I'm also of the opinion that we can't get a fully fleshed out setting in one book and expect to buy more than one. So, the idea of WotC's new paradigm of three books per setting, with some follow up, seems very strange to me.]
turlough
Specifically the link to the article by Sims.
But, for me, that's only part of it. He implies but never stats, imo, that the setting also needs ready made conflict. I think that point needs to be emphasized. We aren't playing DND in the 70s and early 80s anymore where going from dungeon to dungeon was the game. I, at least, want more from the game and settings I buy.
turlough
If you like the older set mythos/cosmology etc, use it. That is the best things of pnp rpgs; you can do anything.
I think the biggest error is that we (myself included) all argue over details in the writings of the game designer, but forget that it makes no difference.
They can say santa claus flies over athas every week. Does that stop me from excluding that? nope
I like aspects of both, tbe original mystery and the later updated edition, but i dislike the 4e mythos/cosmology with the primordials (whom I use in a different capacity for my Multiverse when I DM).
With the freedom to do as you please, everyone can be happy and no doubt, will be once they play.
Sanjay
I am trying again.
In this article, www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/4... we have this paragraph.
The nature of the beast: Those exceptional few who have beheld both have—with a due sense of dread—compared the lustrous black chitin covering Oublivae's body to the black haft of Asmodeus's ruby-tipped rod: an object fashioned from a shard of the evil seed that Tharizdun hurled into the Abyss. The spiral reliefs across her body suggest endless winding into darkness and the patterns of the abyssal layers as they move. Is Oublivae an incarnation of Chaos? An avatar of the Abyss’s heart? Another angel that cast down its own god in the fashion of Asmodeus? A personification of the seed of evil? An unfathomable mystical entity akin to the Lady of Pain? An alien being from somewhere out in the dark void between worlds? The guardian of time’s secrets? A primal/fey spirit gone horribly wrong? The demoness smiles, exposing the sharp tips of her teeth, and that is all the answer she gives.
I want to use this as the example, for me, of bad design.
When I read an article, I want answers to these kinds of qustion. So, instead of "Is Oublivae an incarnation of Chaos? An avatar of the Abyss's heart?" I want them to say, "Oublivae is one of many incarnations of Chaos that can be found. In this form, the chaos of despair and lonliness are most powerful. She is not an avatar of the Abyss's heart because no one aspect of pain and torture can sum up the Abyss. There are times when the Abyss will use her but not always."
This is a subtle but important difference. In it, we are given facts about Oublivae. However, those facts lead us to other questions. But we still have facts first. It takes a specific monster/adversary and gives us specifics on them while also hinting at things that are bigger than any one thing, namely the Abyss. Whether the Abyss itself has sentience and calls forth Oublivae or a powerful demon lord does it is interesting but the focus is the creature and its specific abilities.
So, if we are hearing about a city in Athas, we get specific details. If they want to say there are several more trading houses **after detailing two or three** I'm fine with them leaving that up to the DM. They have given us some examples to use if we wish but also the ability to make up our own as we see fit. That's the best of both worlds to me. But to say there are five trading houses, have a paragraph on each of them and leave it is not good. First, it locks in a number, which is usually not good. Second, too much work is left up to the DM. There is no way a paragraph can explain everything about a trading house, what it trades, its relationships to other factions, trading houses, nobles and the SK, as well as plots and intrigues about it. But if they can give us a good example of what they see as important to a trading house in the Dark Sun setting, then we can use that to create our own trading houses as needed.
I don't know if this helps or not but that's how I would like it for myself.
turlough
But, how do you have adventures/campaigns with constant mystery?
Um, that's a lot like asking "But how do you breathe with all that air?" Stories are nothing but mystery from the first sentence to the last (and sometimes beyond that); that's where stories live.
But, for every adventure after the first, unless you are setting all of the adventures to happen at the same time and timeframe, isn't the mystery eventually going to go away?
You're putting words in my mouth with this line of reasoning: you're arguing I'm saying there must be constant mystery about everything, at all times, forever. That's a taking what I said to an obviously ridiculous extreme, so I am not responding to it for equally obvious reasons.
To make it an epic battle, shouldn't part of it be them finding what they need to kill a SK?
If it does, then decide what that is and tell them when they go looking for it! This is not rocket science.
How do you tell a story without knowing what came before?
D&D. Game of creativity and creating stories. The DM (or the group if you're into "pervy" indie styles of play) decides what came before. As much as needed right there, and then builds on it.
Or you make adventures that aren't ABOUT what came before, but what is happening RIGHT NOW. You know, like in real life. Where it doesn't matter that fifty years ago the radio station you work at used to be a gas station, because it just doesn't matter to anything important right now: like how you convince your boss you weren't the one who crossed the wrong wires and fried the transmitter.
Or it doesn't matter that your boss' dad used to beat him, unless that's important to the story. Maybe it only matters that your boss is a jerk, who knows why, it doesn't come up or make a difference right then.
How do you do that without knowing more about the SK?
I'm a writer, and we do this all the time. So I don't know how to explain this to you because it is just bloody obvious to me, but it isn't that hard a thing: you focus only on what you need to know.
Bad writers, starting writers, always make the mistake they think you have to know everything about every character right then or they can't possibly write the character. They fill out long character sheets about them that list everything and etc. because they think they might, they could, need it somewhere, sometime. No, you don't. You only need to know so much. Everything beyond that? Doesn't matter. At all.
Does the character like coffee? It isn't a yes/no question. Does it matter to the story? That's what matters. Same thing here in gaming: does it matter to the adventure?
You only need to know as much as you need to know. Which ends up not being a whole lot. And knowing things in advance does not equate to a better game. Good games build on what's known and add to it or riff off it, they don't start with everything a known nor do they need to.
As an example, take a look at the game "S/lay w/Me". It is played by two people who essentially co-write a story together from scratch. There is no "So I sit down and figure out things for hours beforehand and proceed to lead you through all my neat facts" because the other guy can change things up, play your character, you can play his, and so forth. You work together, build on what your partner does, not knowing where things are going because the whole thing starts as a mystery-of-facts and is in constant development.
Guess what? It's an awesome game that creates some fairly amazing stories.
It is not the only game that works this way and works well. My own game, ORX, gives narration rights to players, who can add to or change up whatever they want about the world: "I confront the orc guards, who beat me to a pulp and drag me in front of the orc king." Oh, orc guards? A king? I didn't plan for those. But not only do I run with it, I have to run with it.
The point is, someone knowing everything at the start of play is neither necessary nor better, and it isn't how you play any RPG, either, unless you're railroading. Which brings me to:
Doesn't the DM need to know the mystery from day one and won't some of that mystery be revealed with every campaign to the players? I just want to understand what you mean.
Do you understand above when someone asked about the future, about metaplots, and points out what you hate about metaplots is what he hates about backstory?
Flip your own argument around about how you can't understand how anyone could play without knowing everything about the past: how can anyone play without knowing where the adventure is going or what everyone else is going to do and what is going to happen?
Well, that's silly. Of course you don't know what they're going to do or what's going to happen. That comes out in play, you develop it as things happen.
So, are you incapable of being creative and developing material? Are you enslaved to metaplot? If not, then why are does the idea that the past is left for you to plot as much as the future is left for you to plot terrify you...when plotting the future doesn't?
Thus why does MY mystery have to be the same as everyone else's mystery (leaving aside for the moment it isn't actually a mystery at all because it is in the books that everyone is going to read anyways)? Why are you so focused on limiting the past to one singular vision?
Let's say this was a creative writing assignment: I give a class a brief sketch of three characters and each student has to write a story about why those characters are where they are today and their interactions with each other. (Actually, I believe that was an exercise from one of my creative writing classes back in college, though we did it as groups.)
Every student in that class is going to tell me a different story, and yet every single story is going to be as valid as the next. This is why I keep asking you: why do you NEEEEEEED the past spelled out verbatim for you? Why do you NEEEEEED absolute facts, when mysteries are presented for you to develop as the DM to make the world your own for your group? When those absolute facts do not matter.
If you are given enough to work with, given conflicts or potential conflicts, or seeds from which to create your own conflicts, then what is the point of going all Encyclopedia Britanica and flailing when you don't have every last detail and many are left for you to decide on and dvelop for your group?
A setting needs to have a story. If you want to write your own, you can. We did for decades since D&D was released. We had Dragonlance games with no iconic characters, we had campaign arcs where metallic dragons are evil, where Rajaat didn't exist and where Rikus was a wizard.
I prefer having stuff I'm free to ignore but gives personality to the setting that a big ball of nothing that some "writer" somewhere will fill without me ever knowing how.
"Sorcerer kings are magic wielders from a long lost empire" would be enough for me.
"Sorcerer kings are whatever you want them to be" is just poor world design. Because I already can make them whatever I want them to be, no matter what the book says. I want a book filled with ideas and plots and facts, because I already have the freedom to ignore them all.
Thus why does MY mystery have to be the same as everyone else's mystery (leaving aside for the moment it isn't actually a mystery at all because it is in the books that everyone is going to read anyways)? Why are you so focused on limiting the past to one singular vision?
But why do you want a setting at all then?
Make up your own.
At which point does the detail has to stop? Ok, Athas is a desert. Should we know why? If we do, apparently it's too much. But if we don't, then what's the personality of the setting? "Big desert world"?
I think you're failing to realize that you come from the priviledged position of already knowing two different sets of lore for Dark Sun. Imagine being a new player, and having no suggestion on who the SK are, and how Athas became a desert, and all the fluff we've been exposed to in years. Sure, you could tell him "there's a lot of sand, and ruins, and city states, make up a story", but you're stripping down the setting to a location.
It's a world. It's supposed to have a story. I want it to be flexible, but I want something to chew. D&D is a game but also a set of stories.
My players show up and expect to be told a story. They don't try to influence it, no matter how much I try to get them involved, either thru character journals on the wiki or at the table. They are "old school" in that they are there to play a game that I have prepared, not take part in creating/molding/shaping the story.
I was merely trying to understand your style of play. I think the past is important. I used to wing it, say a mystery, and have it open ended so that whoever the players went after, I went with it and they "solved" it. But, when they found out, they were very disappointed that they couldn't fail. So, now, when I create a mystery (literal one in terms of trying to figure out 'whodunnit' or a mystery of the world) I create a backstory and a timeline. I adjust it was we play, in terms of the bad guys 'moving up their plans' if the PCs are getting close, but otherwise I have the high level part planned out. I still wing the little details on any given session, unless there is a strict timeline to be met or followed for whatever reason but I also work what we do into the plot so it is connected.
VisanidethDM : I am with you on your last couple of posts. To me, knowing why Athas became a desert helps the PCs fix what is wrong. I also have players that have read little on Dark Sun. I also think the setting needs to set up the conflict, which is where most of the drama is found.
Thanks!
turlough
Greyorm, that's all nice and dandy but there's a point where loose is too loose.
A setting needs to have a story. If you want to write your own, you can. We did for decades since D&D was released. We had Dragonlance games with no iconic characters, we had campaign arcs where metallic dragons are evil, where Rajaat didn't exist and where Rikus was a wizard.
I prefer having stuff I'm free to ignore but gives personality to the setting that a big ball of nothing that some "writer" somewhere will fill without me ever knowing how.
"Sorcerer kings are magic wielders from a long lost empire" would be enough for me.
"Sorcerer kings are whatever you want them to be" is just poor world design. Because I already can make them whatever I want them to be, no matter what the book says. I want a book filled with ideas and plots and facts, because I already have the freedom to ignore them all.
I think you kinda missed his argument. Sure, the Sorcerer-Kings apparently will be statted out, you will have the crunchy bits for them. For the average Athasian, all they need to know is that the SK's are in charge, and very powerful. They really don't need to know that Nibenay was once Galliard, Bane of Gnomes. If you want to, you can make Dark Sun be what Forgotten Realms became after hundreds of thousands of years, and it really won't change the setting much. You have the freedom to manipulate the setting however you please. That means the setting, the sourcebooks, etc -- they don't set the story, they give you the tools to set it up yourself. Is it better to supply the tools for people to make their own ideas for the setting, or is it better to tell people everything about the setting? I'd say there is a lot more good from the former, rather than the latter. This isn't a computer RPG, where everything is plotted out exactly and that is all there is. WotC isn't telling a story directly with the 4E settings, they are giving DMs and Players the tools to tell their own stories with.
I think you kinda missed his argument. Sure, the Sorcerer-Kings apparently will be statted out, you will have the crunchy bits for them. For the average Athasian, all they need to know is that the SK's are in charge, and very powerful. They really don't need to know that Nibenay was once Galliard, Bane of Gnomes. If you want to, you can make Dark Sun be what Forgotten Realms became after hundreds of thousands of years, and it really won't change the setting much. You have the freedom to manipulate the setting however you please. That means the setting, the sourcebooks, etc -- they don't set the story, they give you the tools to set it up yourself. Is it better to supply the tools for people to make their own ideas for the setting, or is it better to tell people everything about the setting? I'd say there is a lot more good from the former, rather than the latter. This isn't a computer RPG, where everything is plotted out exactly and that is all there is. WotC isn't telling a story directly with the 4E settings, they are giving DMs and Players the tools to tell their own stories with.
I perfectly see that argument, I just don't find it convincing. I'd rather not have the SK statted but have an idea of who they are.
The idea that all canon is bad is wrong, in my eyes. A certain amount of mistery is fundamental to have DMs build stories that work well for their groups (e.g. Darth Vader is the right hand of the Emperor, and a powerful Sith lord; however, he was once a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side - how, when, and with who, it's up to the DM to decide). A blank slate not only is lazy, but will lead to a setting that is just a set of locales because the various DM stories will differ so much that it will be impossible to discuss the fluff in a coherent manner (e.g. Darth Vader is a guy in black armor with special powers; how he got them and who he was before donning the armor, it's up to the DM to decide).
Otherwise, jumping from game to game will mean that only the sand will carry over. A setting is more than a few locales and some typical monsters.
I'm fine with not taking over the Rajaat storyline; I'm fine with leaving the fine details of the SKs' past to the mistery. However, I completely disagree that we should not know who Nibenay is. If I want nameless, storyless monsters I need to create stuff around, I can pick anything in the MMs and refluff it. Orcus is an iconic entity that foundt room in thousands of games in dozens of different settings and he doesn't lack an identity.
The assumption that any DM is a storytelling genious who will outplay anything WotC can put out is naive. Freedom and flexibility are great but this is a case where going for a "nobody knows what SKs actually are" approach is detrimental to the setting. As DMs we should at least know if they're just high level mortals or some sort of primordial creatures or whatever they decide them to be.
I perfectly see that argument, I just don't find it convincing. I'd rather not have the SK statted but have an idea of who they are.
The idea that all canon is bad is wrong, in my eyes. A certain amount of mistery is fundamental to have DMs build stories that work well for their groups (e.g. Darth Vader is the right hand of the Emperor, and a powerful Sith lord; however, he was once a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side - how, when, and with who, it's up to the DM to decide). A blank slate not only is lazy, but will lead to a setting that is just a set of locales because the various DM stories will differ so much that it will be impossible to discuss the fluff in a coherent manner (e.g. Darth Vader is a guy in black armor with special powers; how he got them and who he was before donning the armor, it's up to the DM to decide).
What you are talking about there, is story, or metaplot as some might say. I've played (and run) many a Star Wars game where the main characters, events, and the like were completely irrelevant to the game. Knowing all the details of Darth Vader's life -- heck, knowing who Darth Vader is at all, was meaningless when you are on a distant planet on the rim with no real outside contacts (effectively cut off from the rest of the galaxy). Really, it shouldn't matter to most people. Yes, the Star Wars movies, novels, comics, cartoons, games, and rides are all cool, but they are more a suggestion when it comes to the game, not hard-set rules (otherwise, please explain Star Tours in the Star Wars galaxy, and where it fits into everything).
Otherwise, jumping from game to game will mean that only the sand will carry over. A setting is more than a few locales and some typical monsters.
I like to mix up my games a bit. I like to keep my players guessing from one Dark Sun campaign to the next. I don't want them to know everything about the setting. I like them to have most of it shrouded in mystery. This is why I might switch off to running a campaign in the Last Sea, for instance. Heck, I ran a campaign from within the Tohr-Kreen Empire once. Change some of the details of the setting, and suddenly the players don't know what is going on. In one game, Kalak is alive, another, he's dead. One game, they go face-to-face with Rajaat, another game, there is no Rajaat just a bleak world that is winding down. In yet another game, the players time travel and see the end of the world (in that campaign, a mere 50 years into the future, Athas was destroyed as its sun went nova).
I'm fine with not taking over the Rajaat storyline; I'm fine with leaving the fine details of the SKs' past to the mistery. However, I completely disagree that we should not know who Nibenay is. If I want nameless, storyless monsters I need to create stuff around, I can pick anything in the MMs and refluff it. Orcus is an iconic entity that foundt room in thousands of games in dozens of different settings and he doesn't lack an identity.
The assumption that any DM is a storytelling genious who will outplay anything WotC can put out is naive. Freedom and flexibility are great but this is a case where going for a "nobody knows what SKs actually are" approach is detrimental to the setting. As DMs we should at least know if they're just high level mortals or some sort of primordial creatures or whatever they decide them to be.
We should know who Nibenay is, not who Nibenay was. It doesn't matter if the old material claims he was once Galliard, Bane of Gnomes. What is important, is that to the people of Nibenay, he is their king, and he is very dangerous.
Oh, and I have a TON of fun leaving the doubt of what the SK's are in place. For me, only a very, very exclusive few know what the SKs are. The Veiled Alliance has suspicions, but no real evidence -- and in several cases, they are flat out wrong. Everyone else, for the most part, basically believes them to be powerful humans who have claimed power for as far back as they know.
The issue here is the PCs, as heroes, aren't most people. They are the ones who are going to bring the bad guys down. Shouldn't they at least figure some of this out? Granted, if it doesn't matter whether they have the Heartwood spear or their own weapon, then yes, it doesn't matter who they were.
What I don't like is the lack of verismilitude in the kinds of adventures this sets up. If some adventurers are starting to get powerful, it has been shown the SKs will come together if they are threatened. So, why don't the SKs get together and stop anyone from becoming too powerful? Why do they wait until too late to figure them out? They literally have access to magic that no one currently has! How could they NOT know about it?
And isn't knowledge is power still true? Wouldn't knowing where the powerful artifacts are or who made a powerful item give them a huge advantage compared to a bunch of idiots wondering around in the desert? How did these random people stumble onto anything of power before they died in the desert?
Just wondering.
turlough
Xlorep: The problem I have with this is several times you say, "Really, it shouldn't matter to most people."
The issue here is the PCs, as heroes, aren't most people. They are the ones who are going to bring the bad guys down. Shouldn't they at least figure some of this out? Granted, if it doesn't matter whether they have the Heartwood spear or their own weapon, then yes, it doesn't matter who they were.
What I don't like is the lack of verismilitude in the kinds of adventures this sets up. If some adventurers are starting to get powerful, it has been shown the SKs will come together if they are threatened. So, why don't the SKs get together and stop anyone from becoming too powerful? Why do they wait until too late to figure them out? They literally have access to magic that no one currently has! How could they NOT know about it?
And isn't knowledge is power still true? Wouldn't knowing where the powerful artifacts are or who made a powerful item give them a huge advantage compared to a bunch of idiots wondering around in the desert? How did these random people stumble onto anything of power before they died in the desert?
Just wondering.
turlough
Sure, knowledge is power -- but if the knowledge is lost, forever, except to those who are old enough to remember (Sorcerer-Kings, Mind Lords, and the like), it becomes meaningless. Why would even a Hero make a fuss over all of the Gnomes being dead? What does the word Gnome even mean to Athasians -- I'd bet absolutely nothing. It would be like if someone went around using the word Xlorep. It would be a made-up word with no meaning except to the person talking. People on Athas have too much on their minds to be worried about some altruistic ideal of... what, seeking revenge for a race that was killed so long ago nobody even remembers the name of it?
The player characters aren't handed information just because they are heroes (at least, not to my knowledge). The SKs long, long ago made sure to purge a lot of the references of the past -- books and the like. The books of history that remain are either made up by the SKs (or their servants), or have been sterilized so much to no longer be recognizable as history.
Even so, heroes could learn about some things. But just because something is true for one campaign, it doesn't mean the same thing is true for another campaign. Campaigns are not necessarily linked in any way -- they could be, and that's up to the DM to decide. I like to mix up the setting a little in a campaign, to keep it fresh, and keep my players on their toes. It also eliminates a lot of issues of player-knowledge seeping into the game, if the player-knowledge is incorrect anyway.
As to this: "they can't fail" stuff...what? I have no clue where you're getting this from, or the idea that I'm advocating players never failing.
Visiandeth: As to "why not just write your own setting"?
...
Seriously, why do you guys keep doing this? Taking what I'm saying and going to the extreme most ridiculous interpretation possible. From "I don't want the lost history of the world spelled out, because it is lost, I don't want to know every detail so I and my group can make the setting my own" to "If you just want to write everything, why do you need a setting?"
And this nonsense: where I say mysteries should be left in the setting is somehow equated by you to "why do you want a set of impersonal locales!" ...WTF?
Really, honestly, if you're going to just take what I say and make some weird, bizzarre, illogical caricature out of it, why are you participating in this discussion?
Xlorep: you got it, dude.
Xlorep: you got it, dude.
Well, you've made some compelling arguments over the years. And stepping away from Dark Sun for a year or so, has given me a new perspective on the setting in general.
Turlogh, dude, I'm not mad or angry in any way. I apologize if it came across that way. Communication via just text is hard.
As to this: "they can't fail" stuff...what? I have no clue where you're getting this from, or the idea that I'm advocating players never failing.
Visiandeth: As to "why not just write your own setting"?
...
Seriously, why do you guys keep doing this? Taking what I'm saying and going to the extreme most ridiculous interpretation possible. From "I don't want the lost history of the world spelled out, because it is lost, I don't want to know every detail so I and my group can make the setting my own" to "If you just want to write everything, why do you need a setting?"
And this nonsense: where I say mysteries should be left in the setting is somehow equated by you to "why do you want a set of impersonal locales!" ...WTF?
Really, honestly, if you're going to just take what I say and make some weird, bizzarre, illogical caricature out of it, why are you participating in this discussion?
Xlorep: you got it, dude.
Greyorm: Okay, I apologize for the reductio ad absurdum. However, I don't think it was anything different than what you were doing to me. I'm not looking for everything spelled out, either, but in saying I want history, I think you are interpreting it as if I do want everything spelled out.
I am seriously asking for your background, your group and your preferred style of play. I have asked several times but get no answer from you. I have tried to explain mine and while I haven't said it all, I think a fair amount of it is there.
As to thinking you are mad at me, your big response to me had several personal attacks. That led me to think I had made you mad, which is why I apologized. Up until that particular response, I thought we were having a good discussion even if there was obviously a communication barrier with the both of us.
turlough
However, I don't think it was anything different than what you were doing to me. I'm not looking for everything spelled out, either, but in saying I want history, I think you are interpreting it as if I do want everything spelled out.
But you keep saying you want everything spelled out? And anytime anyone says "mystery", you respond by saying, "No, that's bad. A GM needs to know."
It's as though you are insisting a GM can't make that stuff up on their own, or that there's something fundamentally wrong with a GM filling those blanks in themself. Unless it's in the future, in which case you want the freedom to fill those blanks in.
From over here, it comes across as an inconsistent position that doesn't make a lot of sense.
I am seriously asking for your background, your group and your preferred style of play. I have asked several times but get no answer from you.
I never noticed you asking for those things, sorry. Though I think I've given fairly concrete answers to all of that in various responses above.
For complete clarity on my preferred style: depends on my mood. I really like highly game-y approaches (what many people derisively refer to as "roll-playing"), as well as more story-oriented--or rather (player-centric) story-telling--approaches. I do not like railroading and illusionism, at all. If the GM wants to tell me a story and my character is basically a proxy-viewer to his story/plot, forget it. I have books, movies, and TV for that sort of entertainment. (However, all that is a discussion for a different thread.)
As to thinking you are mad at me, your big response to me had several personal attacks.
I'm not sure to what you're referring. I've gone back through the post now and I honestly don't see anything that would qualify as such (even as edge-cases), but I apologize for any inadvertent personal attacks, turlough.
hey I love science and rationality, but at times, it's BAD, actually
being able to relax, and accept and enjoy is "perversely to the causality modus" more important with knowing the minutea.
ie, if you try to nitpick the ins-outs etc of a relationship with a lover, it may well not be a bloody good idea ;)
most folk have not had the utter crap scared out of 'em. They don't WANT to be, so they mantain an ordered, defined world
but that's boring as hell for a fantasy game.
mystery, strange stuff, not knowing are important for atmosphere.
you do NOT need Rajaat AT ALL, as one poster so well stated!
I do not need those damnable books and their freakin plot that I HATE.
they are good for local colour, NPCs and such, but that's it, for my tastes.
My ideas of Athas is that, from 2nd ed lore, see "The Illithiad",
the mind flayers tried to put the Sun out, so they could take over easily.
they gave psionic power to humans etc, to harvest a tiny amount secretly over millenia, as power for their sun darkening.
by accident, wizards with psionis discovered combining them lead ot the discovery of defiling
all this lead to enormous wars. So-uts and other monsters were created to utterly destory enemy civilizations, not just people. So, metals, tech, knowledge etc was lost.
vast defiling battles took place.
the illithids eventually activated their Sun darkening project, but screwed up, the SuUn started to go nova. Athas is an ancient world, maybe the Sun was too old, it doesn't mater, it just happened.
the gods tried to stop this, but the ensuing havoc blasted the planar connections shut, or maybe the gods sealed Athas off to avoid the super nova, again, it just happened.
the Sun was left a red giant, not merely normal one, but it is WARPED, that is all you need ot know it's "warped", weird, malign whatever. Its effects do not need to be specified
so, between all this, Athas became a wastleand, the seas sank into the now drowned Underdark, the surviving super0defilers became the SKs.
and that story works for me. or maybe, it's wrong, no one knows except maybe the SKs and they ain't saying. It doesn't really matter.
make Athas what YOU want, or you end up with the bloody awful mess the Forgotten Realms became, a pile of rigid walls that's unusable to any DM who wants to build things for himself.
you can't as it's all hemmed in 20 years of lore products etc and some nitwits always insist it HAS ot be played to "canon". UGH!!!
1st forgotten realms set is great. grasp the difference
Okay, I understand some people's desire to want the history detailed to what they think the level of detail should be. Some are fighting for as much detail as can be fit in the book while others just want a vague desert filled with evil Sorcerer Kings in charge.
Think about why WoTC publishes settings. They do the setting so you don't have to. They are several pages in the DMG with advice on how to create your own world, but for whatever personal reasons, some DM's cannot craft their own homebrew settings or just really like the setting spawned from another person's imagination. There are also some customers who would never actually use the setting information, but just like to read it for enjoyment's sake. So to make money, because that's why they are doing what they do, WoTC creates settings for those demographic.
Why would they make a setting that is vague with no background? Their customers would complain that they could have done that themselves. WoTC is going to pack as much as they can into these books because that will satisfy the largest portion of their customer base. With too much info, everyone has enough background to satisfy their desires, because those who want less can ignore the extra, while those who want more will have what they want.
Cannibalize what you want from the new Dark Sun, consume however much you want and leave the rest for those to want to know every last detail. Arguing about how much you think should be in the books is fine to while away the time until the books are available, but Rajaat and his Cleansing Wars will be in it because there is a portion of the fan base who want it, and it's easier to cater to them and let those who don't want it to ignore it, than to not have it in there and leave customers unsatisfied.
Why would they make a setting that is vague with no background? Their customers would complain that they could have done that themselves.
Is this thing on? I keep talking, and it's like I'm speaking gibberish.
Again: "mysterious, lost, unknown history" was a thematic touchpoint of the original setting. And no one is advocating a "vague setting with no background" as the original setting wasn't "vague setting with no background".
Your argument that is what is being pushed for or that people need the background from second edition or they would revolt, and so forth -- given that, clearly, they don't -- is utterly disingenious, even possibly willfully dishonest (though I hope not).
When the original set came out, we did just fine and loved the setting despite it not having those specific concrete background facts you claim would cause customers to revolt and argue they could have done that themselves.
and it's easier to cater to them and let those who don't want it to ignore it, than to not have it in there and leave customers unsatisfied.
Because what those customers want is way more important than what these customers want? Really. Yes, sometimes you need to make those kinds of decisions, so I think the real problem is your claim it is "easier" to cater to those who want it.
I'm so tired of the "and if you don't like it you can ignore it" argument. That was one of the main arguments given during the heady days of the rule of metaplot in gaming, and it didn't work out so well then, either. People hated having to ignore things because they didn't want to HAVE TO ignore them, because they didn't want to have to rewrite entire products just to make them useful to their game.
The lesson everybody learned from 90's-style games: it is easier to add to than take away from. And it is very easy to add the second edition garbage to Athas for anyone who wants to do so, but it is much harder for anyone who doesn't want that junk in there to take it out.
An example of this in action is the "City-State of Tyr" product. Kalak is dead in it because of the events of the Prism Pentad. But Kalak wasn't dead in the original boxed set, and for anyone who wasn't following the ridiculous metaplot, who needed to know how Tyr functioned before Kalak got whacked, what it looked like, what plots were afoot, etc., who wanted a view of Tyr at the moment in time given to us by the boxed set, it was exceedingly difficult to erase Kalak's death and subsequent events from that product, and it made that product nearly useless to us.
In fact, it is actually easier to please more fans by not including Rajaat etc. as anyone could easily add him back in, and no one has to take him out. Because taking him out, or rather just not mentioning him, doesn't preclude him from the setting; whereas including him automatically pisses off a portion of your fanbase because now he's a definite.
This is supposedly a reboot to the original Athas that gamers fell in love with: the one with the lost and dead past, the one that didn't dictate that past to us and let us decide what had happened to the world, to decide who or what the major players really were, to decide what the Dragon was (or wasn't), and so on. It gave us an incredible playground, enough to work with to make it our own. It didn't tie our hands.
I'm honestly considering dropping the setting from my fandom if the Cleansing Wars and such are a part of the new Athas, because that's not the setting I fell in love with any longer. Because that betrays one of its core thematic touchpoints, because it turns from from a playground into an encyclopedia. From an open world whose pieces we as gamers could play with, into a CRPG you the player walk through as a viewer and look at. And there are enough of those latter kinds of settings on the market already.
Your argument that is what is being pushed for or that people need the background from second edition or they would revolt, and so forth -- given that, clearly, they don't -- is utterly disingenious, even possibly willfully dishonest (though I hope not).
Is this thing on?
Whoever said we need the 2nd edition background? Heck, I want WotC to go 180° and remove Rajaat and make up a completely new story. I just don't want the confusing and shallow mess that was the first boxed set. I wasn't in love with the second edition box, and ended up continuing on my homebrew storyline, but it was better than nothing.
When the original set came out, we did just fine and loved the setting despite it not having those specific concrete background facts you claim would cause customers to revolt and argue they could have done that themselves.
"We" who? Am I missing something or you're a representative of the DS Fanbase?
We can agree we all loved the first edition setting for a slew of reasons that were mostly present in the second edition one.
However, the first edition wasn't perfect and almost everyone I've played with lamented how vague and low on actual content it was. The fact that the 2nd edition boxed set gave lackluster answer doesn't mean having no answer is ideal.
I'm so tired of the "and if you don't like it you can ignore it" argument. That was one of the main arguments given during the heady days of the rule of metaplot in gaming, and it didn't work out so well then, either. People hated having to ignore things because they didn't want to HAVE TO ignore them, because they didn't want to have to rewrite entire products just to make them useful to their game.
You're taking the "less is more" philosophy a bit too far here. The scenario where there's a quality, satisfying yet not suffocating canon is preferable to the "wow there's nothing to ignore I can homebrew my stuff" picture you're painting.
The lesson everybody learned from 90's-style games:
Absolutes again. I'm sorry, that's not the lesson I learned. The lesson I learned was that TSR needed better writers for their novels, not that novels and canon were bad.
it is easier to add to than take away from. And it is very easy to add the second edition garbage to Athas for anyone who wants to do so, but it is much harder for anyone who doesn't want that junk in there to take it out.
So basically since you have a strong opinion over the 2nd edition fluff, that's the approach WotC should cater too.
I don't like the Eberron fluff; it's not my thing, and if I wanted to start homebrewing and taking out the stuff I don't like, I would never end. However, it's a quality setting, and catering to people who doesn't like it would be stupid to say the least. Eberron should stay like it is, and I should keep not playing it.
Dark Sun should be as complete and developed as Eberron, and FR; and if by any chance that means that Greyorm won't play it because it's not what he wanted or because what DS is isn't what Greyorm would want it to be, well, the world will keep spinning.
An example of this in action is the "City-State of Tyr" product. Kalak is dead in it because of the events of the Prism Pentad. But Kalak wasn't dead in the original boxed set, and for anyone who wasn't following the ridiculous metaplot, who needed to know how Tyr functioned before Kalak got whacked, what it looked like, what plots were afoot, etc., who wanted a view of Tyr at the moment in time given to us by the boxed set, it was exceedingly difficult to erase Kalak's death and subsequent events from that product, and it made that product nearly useless to us.
You mean like the Chained God is chained, and I can't use any material published about him if he's not chained in my games? Or how drows live underground, and so I need to homebrew my Drow Cloud City society? Or how Mystra is dead, or how Manshoon is alive, or how Raistlin is no more and how Orcus isn't a god even if I wanted him to be or how the Nine Hells changed?
In short, your problem is that their story isn't your story and they killed your pet NPC?
Is it so hard to realize that Athas isn't literally a sandbox and they have the right (and duty) to provide SOME canon?
This is supposedly a reboot to the original Athas that gamers fell in love with: the one with the lost and dead past, the one that didn't dictate that past to us and let us decide what had happened to the world, to decide who or what the major players really were, to decide what the Dragon was (or wasn't), and so on. It gave us an incredible playground, enough to work with to make it our own. It didn't tie our hands.
Absolutes again. I loved the first Athas, but I wanted to know more. Yes, I could make up stuff. But if I start making up stuff, I can just design a desert homebrew world and be done with it. I always felt I wanted to know more, because I tend to appreciate reading and pondering other people's ideas. My FRs are a completely different place from the canon, but I rejoyce every time I have more canon to ignore because I can steal or rebuilt their ideas, or just have fun reading them.
And when the 2nd edition box gave us answers I was left disappointed by them because most were meh to say the least, but I still preferred it to the original 1st edition version that was little more than a set of locales.
Stop claiming you're the voice of the original fanbase.
I'm honestly considering dropping the setting from my fandom if the Cleansing Wars and such are a part of the new Athas, because that's not the setting I fell in love with any longer. Because that betrays one of its core thematic touchpoints, because it turns from from a playground into an encyclopedia. From an open world whose pieces we as gamers could play with, into a CRPG you the player walk through as a viewer and look at. And there are enough of those latter kinds of settings on the market already.
And that's sensible; what Dark Sun IS may be something that doesn't suit your tastes. You'll survive and the world will keep spinning. I hope we get a setting with a strong amount of fluff and canon I may or may not decide to stick to, rather than a vague and barely developed description of a sandbox in order to avoid stepping onto an immense number of homebrew DS version that are, in the vast majority of cases, even worse than the 2nd edition one.
But I certainly don't want my favorite setting to have less crunch and less NPCs and less events than most other settings because someone else wants to cling to his own homebrew creations. Because at the end of the day, one absolute thing that can be said is that I and the rest of the DS fanbase can't care less about what you do with your game; while everything WotC does is relevant to everybody.
It was the creators who gave us Sorcerer Kings, and those are more relevant to DS than anything fans made ever since. I want WotC to take a chance and add more and more because they may give us something that is just as good, instead of wanting them to give me a reprint of the vague first version because that helps the game of someone I'll never meet.
Be a mensch: make yer own background/history! ;)
Greyorm is right, adding stuff, especially metaplot/massive changes, back-history, screws a lot of settings up, see Ravenloft, they COMPLETELY destroyed that setting, ugh
- Each city is detailed at a high level and enough so that I know the differences between them all at a glance. Something that makes them each unique.
- High level look at SKs, their templars and their goals.
- Details on the environment. (I never got satisfaction running the environment as an "entity" in terms of challenging players but that is me. I much prefer the SKs.)
- Details on geography.
- Monsters with a Dark Sun flavor.
- Ideas for a campaign or notes that give me ideas for my own campaigns.
I don't think I am asking for much and I think the designers will deliver most, if not all, of what I want and need in a setting.
turlough
Whoever said we need the 2nd edition background? Heck, I want WotC to go 180° and remove Rajaat and make up a completely new story.
I just keep saying "thematic touchpoint" and hoping it won't be ignored again by those insisting the campaign world needs/should have a comprehensive history...and yet my hopes keep being shattered.
"We" who? Am I missing something or you're a representative of the DS Fanbase?
Just like you, at least of some portion of DS fandom. We're around. We're the ones who complained about the changes made by the second edition and how it let us down, that WotC listened to for the reboot (at least in part). Notice how two of us have been posting in this thread, even. I'm not alone in these positions, if that's what you're trying to suggest.
However, the first edition wasn't perfect and almost everyone I've played with lamented how vague and low on actual content it was.
First you complain that I'm representing myself as a speaker for the majority of the DS fanbase (a claim I never made), then you turn around and present yourself as representative of the DS fanbase by way of anecdote?
You're taking the "less is more" philosophy a bit too far here. The scenario where there's a quality, satisfying yet not suffocating canon is preferable to the "wow there's nothing to ignore I can homebrew my stuff" picture you're painting.
Which is not the picture I'm painting, but I'm so tired of re-explaining my position just to have it ignored and this nonsense thrown in my face.
Seriously, using the same extreme caricature of my position that the last two guys used and were corrected on, just so you can completely dismiss it...in what way is repeating someone else's mistaken argument is logical or effective?
Absolutes again. I'm sorry, that's not the lesson I learned. The lesson I learned was that TSR needed better writers for their novels, not that novels and canon were bad.
Oh, I'm sorry. I meant "the lesson the entire industry of professional game designers and writers learned, as showcased by the abandonment of metaplots in most gaming products." Which, if you're an industry guy or have been watching (or, you know, participating in) the industry and game development for over ten years, is what you learned.
Also, I said nothing about "canon" or "novels", what I said was "metaplot" and "metaplot from novels". Changing terms in the middle of a discussion to make it seem like I've said something I haven't is rude.
So basically since you have a strong opinion over the 2nd edition fluff, that's the approach WotC should cater too.
And again you cherry-pick and ignore everything I've said that doesn't agree with this nonsense that I've explained time-and-again isn't my position, and what my position is.
I'll say it again: "thematic touchpoints of the setting".
That's in at least the last three posts I've made, and not a one of you kids has bothered to even reference it, let alone consider the implications of that idea in relation to the context of the discussion, when you're busy tossing these nonsense "rephrasings" of my arguments at me like "you want an empty world without personalities or background or anything except sand dunes and some vague stuff" and "oh, you just want WotC to cater to YOU personally".
Dark Sun should be as complete and developed as Eberron, and FR; and if by any chance that means that Greyorm won't play it because it's not what he wanted or because what DS is isn't what Greyorm would want it to be, well, the world will keep spinning.
Now you're getting personal.
You mean like the Chained God is chained, and I can't use any material published about him if he's not chained in my games? Or how drows live underground, and so I need to homebrew my Drow Cloud City society? Or how Mystra is dead, or how Manshoon is alive, or how Raistlin is no more and how Orcus isn't a god even if I wanted him to be or how the Nine Hells changed?
In short, your problem is that their story isn't your story and they killed your pet NPC? Is it so hard to realize that Athas isn't literally a sandbox and they have the right (and duty) to provide SOME canon?
Keep making strawmen for me, please.
I repeat, for the last time: a setting was presented, purchased by fans, and when that setting was finally fleshed out in supplements, it had been changed from what was originally presented. If the setting was going to be changed, then the boxed set should have had those changes in place and the supplements expanded upon the world for that snapshot in time, not some future snapshot where the very face of the setting had been altered.
Fans of the setting were treated to a bait-and-switch, one widely understood by both many fans and the designers now, to have been a really bad idea.
Absolutes again.
I have no idea what your "absolutes" kick is about, but I'm really not inclined to care at this point.
I loved the first Athas, but I wanted to know more. Yes, I could make up stuff. But if I start making up stuff, I can just design a desert homebrew world and be done with it.
Yep, and here we go again with the "OMG, you totally just want a completely empty sandbox with no detail at all! I could do that myself!"
There's so many strawmen in this thread, I could scare away every crow from here on down to Texas with them.
I'm so sick of repeating myself...so I'm not. See above posts for my previous response to this very same claim, and also what I'm actually advocating.
Stop claiming you're the voice of the original fanbase.
Stop claiming I'm doing so.
Nor am I the one saying "almost everyone I've played with", and thus suggesting I somehow hold the moral high ground or majority view.
You'll survive and the world will keep spinning.
Second time you've said something like this, so it's become pretty obvious: you waltzed into this discussion just so you could tell me to shut up and quit voicing my opinion because what does my opinion matter anyways "the world will keep spinning".
Well, too bad; not going to happen. I will continue to voice my opinion on this subject and on many others. So will everyone else, on these boards and everywhere else in the world.
If you can't handle disagreement such that you need to be snarky and insist others just be quiet by demeaning their positions or persons with statements like this, this board can probably do without you until you can deal with disagreement in a more positive fashion.
...while everything WotC does is relevant to everybody.
Yeah, exactly. That's the very issue.
Not dismissive personal comments like "[I don't care if it] helps the game of someone I'll never meet." Because, well, that swings both ways, doesn't it? Why should I care if you get what you want? Won't the world keep spinning if you don't get an exacting history for DS or what they do doesn't help your game?
I guess it will. Which is completely not germane to anything, because the world will keep spinning until it is swallowed by the sun, with or without humanity even. Making it an absolutely pointless thing to say unless your purpose is to try and shut people up.
If you want to discuss my actual position, I'm all for it. But I'm done responding to caricatures of my position, and definitely done with suggestions anyone with an honest position on a topic just be quiet.
No problem on my side with our discussions and nothing you said was insulting. I have enjoyed our discussion! Sorry for any miscommunication on my side.
Happy gaming!
turlough
I just keep saying "thematic touchpoint" and hoping it won't be ignored again by those insisting the campaign world needs/should have a comprehensive history...and yet my hopes keep being shattered.
They're shattered because you keep saying you want a theme, and people tell you they want a world, and a world has a story, and when that happens you say (like you do about 32 times in this reply) "But I never said I don't want details, you don't listen to me so I won't repeat!".
"Thematic touchpoint" means nothing. In one point you're opposing the idea of having Kalak dead because apparently you prefer to have a big box with all toys intact and being able to do what you want with it; at which I answer with examples that there's plenty of successfull works of fiction which became roleplaying worlds (and vice versa) like SW or FR or Dragonlance and which had a very strong, very defined background and a huge success. While the opposite isn't as assured.
You keep raving about how bad the metaplot is, and ignore the fact that nobody here is asking for metaplot. The "metaplot" is the evolution imposed to the setting by external sources; like, selling you a setting with 32 BBEGs and then having 4 novels come out in 3 years where 27 of them die. That's absolute evil because you take something you sold to people and later change it in a way that may negatively affect what people did with the game ever since it was released. It's what happened with the revised edition box.
And it has NOTHING to do with having a NEW edition that RESETS the canon and is free to introduce as many stories and details as it needs as long as it doesn't change them at a later point. There's no issue with metaplot here, because there's no metaplot.
If there was an issue with metaplot, I would be the first at your side. Metaplots are an absolute evil and should be eradicated from existance. A setting should be released and be a starting point and then nobody should mess with it and make parts of it invalid. This isn't the case with DS. It's a new edition, and it can introduce anything because it's a new starting point.
Just like you, at least of some portion of DS fandom. We're around. We're the ones who complained about the changes made by the second edition and how it let us down, that WotC listened to for the reboot (at least in part). Notice how two of us have been posting in this thread, even. I'm not alone in these positions, if that's what you're trying to suggest.
No, what I'm trying to suggest is that you took a lecturing tone towards another poster with something that sounded too much like "us hardcore real DS fans". I'm sure there's a strong part of the audience who hates THAT particular metaplot we got in 2nd ed. I'm part of it. But this never was about metaplot. It's about STORY, and DS needs it in my eyes.
First you complain that I'm representing myself as a speaker for the majority of the DS fanbase (a claim I never made), then you turn around and present yourself as representative of the DS fanbase by way of anecdote?
No, I don't, I simply say that everyone I play with complained the setting was "weak" compared to Greyhawk or Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms. Quite literally.
If you want to enter an internet debate, you should learn to spot the difference between saying "everyone I play with" and "we, the people". I was explicitly labeling my experience as anedoctal, in order to avoid sounding like I was standing on a soapbox, like you should have.
Which is not the picture I'm painting, but I'm so tired of re-explaining my position just to have it ignored and this nonsense thrown in my face.
Now I don't want to go into the details of your vision (because you're fully entitled to one), but if killing Kalak is bad, if knowing what SKs are is bad, if knowing what made Athas a desert or halflings cannibals is bad, what is left to say?
How do you picture the "story" chapter of the campaing setting book? You keep insisting on what you don't mean, maybe it could help if you stated what you mean. How much story is fine for you?
Seriously, using the same extreme caricature of my position that the last two guys used and were corrected on, just so you can completely dismiss it...in what way is repeating someone else's mistaken argument is logical or effective?
The problem is that you haven't corrected anything. You've been confronted on something as practical and simple as the fact that in every "normal" gaming world you do get a story of the planet, a calendar of events of sorts, and some basic, loose but still defining background to NPCs. And what you've answered was how amazing it would be if we didn't know this this and that.
My perception (also coming from the "re-imagine SKs" thread where at some point you complained about how "offtopic" it was to re-imagine the SKs in a role too close to the metaplot you hate so much) is that you've an extreme fondness of the original DS setup - which was a stripped-to-the-bone thematic setting with a severe lack of background information. It's a respectable outlook, but you're going around imposing it on others like it was the only "faithful" representation of DS.
While what we're saying is that while they imperially messed up with the revised boxed set metaplot, that's no reason for claiming that DS is better off without a story. I want to know who the SKs are and I want at least a page about the Dragon and I'm simply stating that that doesn't make me less of a fan than you.
Oh, I'm sorry. I meant "the lesson the entire industry of professional game designers and writers learned, as showcased by the abandonment of metaplots in most gaming products." Which, if you're an industry guy or have been watching (or, you know, participating in) the industry and game development for over ten years, is what you learned.
Also, I said nothing about "canon" or "novels", what I said was "metaplot" and "metaplot from novels". Changing terms in the middle of a discussion to make it seem like I've said something I haven't is rude.
See above. If that's rude, you're pretty much the rudest guy around, because nobody has been asking for metaplot, we asked for story.
And again you cherry-pick and ignore everything I've said that doesn't agree with this nonsense that I've explained time-and-again isn't my position, and what my position is.
I'll say it again: "thematic touchpoints of the setting".
The problem is that it's just a not persuasive point. YOU want just thematic touchpoints, I want a world with a story. I'm glad you love thematic touchpoints, I hope you get plenty of those, but *I* want a world.
That's in at least the last three posts I've made, and not a one of you kids has bothered to even reference it, let alone consider the implications of that idea in relation to the context of the discussion, when you're busy tossing these nonsense "rephrasings" of my arguments at me like "you want an empty world without personalities or background or anything except sand dunes and some vague stuff" and "oh, you just want WotC to cater to YOU personally".
I can't speak for the others but this "kid" has specifically answered that "thematic touchpoints" may be enough for you but they're not enough for me, and that I see the idea of leaving too much of the world's story to the homebrew playground as detrimental to the consistency and charisma of the setting.
The problem of the revised box wasn't that of adding a story to the world, it was that of adding a bad one that was in direct contradiction with what we had before. I'm just hoping to see a good one this time.
Now you're getting personal.
Am I? Me the kid or me the authistic poster who can't read "thematic touchpoints"? I've simply said that if the setting is given a solid, well done and detailed story much like Eberron had and we end up not liking it, the world will keep spinning. The world survives with me not liking the Eberron plot and the world will survive with you not liking the DS plot. I don't see how that is even remotely "personal".
Keep making strawmen for me, please.
I repeat, for the last time: a setting was presented, purchased by fans, and when that setting was finally fleshed out in supplements, it had been changed from what was originally presented. If the setting was going to be changed, then the boxed set should have had those changes in place and the supplements expanded upon the world for that snapshot in time, not some future snapshot where the very face of the setting had been altered.
Which was the metaplot, and was bad, and lead to contradiction, and I don't see how any of this has anything to do with a new edition of the game having a consistent story from the get go. You're comparing apples to poodles, and it becomes increasingly hard to follow your logic.
Fans of the setting were treated to a bait-and-switch, one widely understood by both many fans and the designers now, to have been a really bad idea.
What happened with DS was quite unique. They realize there was TOO little into the original setting, and the world deserved some fleshing out, and for some reason they decided to go for the worst possible plan and add too much canon and almost all in complete contradiction with what happened in the past. FR's metaplot is very invasive and it's nowhere near as devastating as what happened to DS.
And I'd say WotC is adamant about admitting it was wrong.
Once again, following you is hard. You hate the Revised metaplot (I do too), so DS should have.. how much story exactly? Try to be less vague about this point. Should we get info on the Dragon? A name, who he was? Or not?
Yep, and here we go again with the "OMG, you totally just want a completely empty sandbox with no detail at all! I could do that myself!"
There's so many strawmen in this thread, I could scare away every crow from here on down to Texas with them.
I'm so sick of repeating myself...so I'm not. See above posts for my previous response to this very same claim, and also what I'm actually advocating.
You seem to be under this delusion that the only way to disagree with you is not understanding you. I understand what you want, I respect it, but I violently disagree with it.
Nor am I the one saying "almost everyone I've played with", and thus suggesting I somehow hold the moral high ground or majority view.
I've never made such suggestion; I just gave my claim a little more context than "we, the free people of Dungeons&Dragonsland".
Second time you've said something like this, so it's become pretty obvious: you waltzed into this discussion just so you could tell me to shut up and quit voicing my opinion because what does my opinion matter anyways "the world will keep spinning".
Well, too bad; not going to happen. I will continue to voice my opinion on this subject and on many others. So will everyone else, on these boards and everywhere else in the world.
And if you can't handle disagreement such that you need to be snarky and insist others just be quiet by demeaning their positions or persons with statements like this, this board can do without you.
I've not been half as aggressive towards you as you've been in the last pages of several threads by now. You're free to voice your opinion. The problem is that when you make sweeping claims like:
This is supposedly a reboot to the original Athas that gamers fell in love with: the one with the lost and dead past, the one that didn't dictate that past to us and let us decide what had happened to the world, to decide who or what the major players really were, to decide what the Dragon was (or wasn't), and so on. It gave us an incredible playground, enough to work with to make it our own. It didn't tie our hands.
or
An example of this in action is the "City-State of Tyr" product. Kalak is dead in it because of the events of the Prism Pentad. But Kalak wasn't dead in the original boxed set, and for anyone who wasn't following the ridiculous metaplot,
then I feel the need to express my disagreement. I for one didn't fall in love with how scrawny, vague and unaccurate the first edition box was; and while I hate the Rikus metaplot, I don't feel the need to go around insulting those who liked it.
But really, nowhere I say you should shut up. Keep expressing your opinion, and I'll keep expressing mine, and in case we disagree (I understand you'll hate this sentence by now), I'm confident we'll both survive.
Yeah, exactly. That's the very issue.
Not dismissive personal comments like "[I don't care if it] helps the game of someone I'll never meet." Because, well, that swings both ways, doesn't it? Why should I care if you get what you want? Won't the world keep spinning if you don't get an exacting history for DS or what they do doesn't help your game?
I guess it will. Which is completely not germane to anything, because the world will keep spinning until it is swallowed by the sun, with or without humanity even. Making it an absolutely pointless thing to say unless your purpose is to try and shut people up.
"The world will keep spinning" is a pertinent answer to someone who very directly claims he knows How the Setting Was Meant To Be™. My opinion is that DS can prosper with a solid background story, and should have one. By your words, that makes me some sort of 2nd edition heretic, and I find it very amusing, and I won't refrain from musing about it.
In no way I want you to stop expressing your opinion; but since you state them in a very definite "this is how things should be, and how the setting was meant to be, and the Gamers™ who Love™ Darksun want it this way" way, I'll just state that as someone who started playing DS the moment it was out, I deeply disagree.
Be a mensch: make yer own background/history! ;)
But if I'm a mensch and want to do that, a few words on a 200 pages book won't stop me. It didn't stop me in 2nd edition, it wouldn't stop me now.
I'd argue that if you're a mensch, you shouldn't care about what WotC will do because you know you'll have it your way no matter what
.Funny thing -- one of my all-time favorite RPG settings to run has almost no (reliable) history to it -- Paranoia RPG. Seriously, the backdrop is that you're in Alpha Complex, run by The Computer, everyone has security clearances, mutants and secret societies are both illegal, and proliferate, everyone is actually a set of 6 clones (or so, in Paranoia XP it became not a hard-fast set of 6 in certain conditions). There is claims that there was some nuclear war which wiped out the rest of the world, but heck... nobody even knows what it is like outside of Alpha Complex, at all. The beauty of this setting is I could create diverse campaigns, whip them up in minutes and get playing, and they don't have to be "canonically correct".
Dark Sun started, as Greyorm has pointed out, without much of a historical pretense/backdrop. Nobody really knows what the past was, and it didn't matter. What was known, was that the majority of what was left of civilization was in the city-states, each ruled by a powerful and evil sorcerer-king. The wastes between the city-states are hazardous, as the plants and animals seem to mostly have become predatory, and several are psionic to boot -- not to mention the simple environmental conditions of a desert world to cope with. The nearby sea is lethal, as there is no water, only very fine-grained, powdery silt. The races are a combination of distorted versions of standard D&D races, and some newer ones. Magic is reviled, hated, and destructive to the world. Psionics are commonplace. There are no gods.
How did the world get to this point? It wasn't stated. It was a mystery. One that was left open for individual groups to explore, if the DM wished. Then again, I really doubt there are groups of people on Athas that spend too much time researching history, that means they can afford the luxury, and/or are probably going to die soon anyway.
Not including the backdrop of history means that the setting is... well, once again, unique to the D&D worlds. The other worlds have grand, sweeping histories. Athas really didn't. It was yet another thing that distinguished it from other settings, and in a way, once the backdrop of Rajaat and the Cleansing Wars was added to the setting, it took a little of the uniqueness of Dark Sun away from it. Mind you -- I personally do like the Cleansing Wars, Green Age, Blue Age, etc. for Athas. But it still took away some of the mystery and unique flavor of the setting that was supposed to be somewhat anti-D&D in many ideas.
Now, true, it is possible to strip the history from Athas. But it becomes a challenge when you want to provide materials for your players that doesn't include references to the history. For instance -- I had to rewrite the Wanderer's Journal and Wanderer's Chronicle, to mask the true identities of the Sorcerer-Kings, what their true natures were, any any reference to Rajaat, Champions, or even what the Dragon was (more than just legend). Basically, sterilize the material to a condition I felt was what I wanted my players to know, and provided it at my games as the only setting reference material they had. They never asked beyond it -- there was enough information to keep the setting thriving, and the history of the world wasn't relevant. The mystery wasn't even enough for my players to go digging around in, because it was of less value than standard day-to-day survival in the harsh world.
Nor does your insistence you get my point mean you do get it, when your repeated paraphrases of what you seem to believe are my arguments aren't actually my arguments.
But wasting time defending myself against strawmen you insist on setting up for me -- indeed, shoving down my throat so you can lecture me on what a rude elitist they make me (while slipping little taunts and ascribed motivations into your rhetoric! ..."big box with all your toys intact"..."you should learn to spot the difference"..."standing on a soapbox, like you"..."you're the rudest guy around"..."you'll hate this sentence by now"...) -- under such circumstances there is literally no point to even trying to explain yet again, for reasons that are probably pretty obvious.
When you stop twisting and cherry-picking my arguments, but moreso when you decide to quit making subtle personal jibes because of a motivation/attitude you have ascribed to me and feel the need to defend fandom from, I will be more than happy to discuss what I've actually said and argued for and why.
Good day and take care.
(Though one thing I just had to fix:
What happened with DS was quite unique...
...as unique as what happened to the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Mystara, Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, 7th Sea, Immortal, Shadowrun, and etc!)
greyorm: I think we mostly agree with a few semantic differences that are minor. I could be wrong, and don't want to speak (type?) for you, but I think we are closer than we think in terms of what we want to see.
I suspect the same, turlough.
No problem on my side with our discussions and nothing you said was insulting. I have enjoyed our discussion! Sorry for any miscommunication on my side.
Though again, I do apologize if anything I said inadvertently insulted you, I am glad to hear that! I have enjoyed it, too.
Thanks for the discussion!
[/spoiler]Ok, I'm not going to flood this thread with even more multi-quote statements and replies, but just give my $0.02 worth, based on where this discussion currently is at. Personally, I don't want the setting to be a massive story -- that's what was done before, and failed, abysmally, with multiple RPG settings, by multiple companies.
Which is sensible, and a point I fundamentally agree with.
I'm simply stating I don't want the setting to be a no-story one either, like the first boxed set was, because I've been there and my players did too and we felt it was lacking.
And as a point of reference, every game of mine is homebrew. I hate canon. I don't follow canon. In my FR games nothing is actually like the canon - there's no Elminster, there never was a Mystra, there was no Time of Troubles and even realms borders are different. I homebrew everything.
However, I took some of the plot points over the Shadow Lords and twisted them and changed them to fit my game; I changed some BBEGs and made them part of my story. I used locales, I rewrote events, and often used stuff like it was because it was just good.
And that's the entire point. A campaign setting book shouldn't be rules - we have all the rules we need and anything Athas specific shouldn't take more than a dozen pages. It shouldn't be (just) classes or powers or feats because that's a Player Book (we should have had one, but I digress). Sure, description of locales and towns and maps are important, but that stuff is much more invasive than fluff or story (rewriting history is easy, reshaping a planet or town much less).
My point being is that I'd rather have 200 pages of story and ignore 190 of them, than having 10 pages of story and background and then nothing more. I don't use the vast majority of the FR material, but I take inspiration and cues from a lot of the stuff I ignore. I don't want a "poorer" setting just because they got the story wrong once.
The beauty of this setting is I could create diverse campaigns, whip them up in minutes and get playing, and they don't have to be "canonically correct".
No setting should be "canonically correct", and none is unless you make it so. I agree that there are settings where it can be a pain to stay away from the canon (FR first and foremost, but something like DS Revised sticks to mind too), but I doubt anyone is asking for that.
Once again, I don't think any side of the arguments wants to see DS turn into FR or even something as devastatingly invasive as the 2nd edition boxed set; here we're discussing stuff like "should we know why Athas is a desert?". It's not a fine detail; it's a cosmic difference in worldbuilding approach and it's only natural to have people polarized to one or the other solution because it radically changes the approach to the setting itself.
Dark Sun started, as Greyorm has pointed out, without much of a historical pretense/backdrop. Nobody really knows what the past was, and it didn't matter.
That wasn't my experience. When I started playing DS, I've been through 3 different games from 3 different DMs who were excellent arbiters of Greyhawk and Dragonlance but in all honesty, our DS games were a confusing mess.
Each individual DM had his own story, and each one was so radically different that it didn't feel like the same setting or even the same planet at all. Generally speaking, having diversity in history can be a great thing, but the original boxed set had so little to work on that in one game we had Athas being a moon of Toril used as a prison planet and in another the desert was born from a war between fire giants and a race of elementals. It may sound like great stuff on paper but it led to authistic gaming where talking about the setting between different groups was nigh impossible.
DS should have mistery. It should have more than any other D&D setting. But it shouldn't just become a Desert Environment Simulator™. It should be a world.
What I want for Athas is something along the lines of much of what Eberron got. Take warforgeds for example: there is a lot of fluff on warforgeds. There's several definite, "canonical" facts about them. However, their origins are a mistery, and many of the cardinal events involving them are foggy at best. It works great. All Eberron games I've been in dealt with warforged history, each one had a different answer, but having common ground and shared facts between the different games enriched the diversity and helped consistency between games.
Coming on Athas, I don't want a chapter about SKs that goes like "Nibenay was originally called Steve, he was born in 1973 in New York and graduated at Berkley in Dark Magics with excellent scores; he got on Athas in the year XXXX and here's everything he did since then". In short, I don't want FR.
What I want is to make an example, "a few thousands years ago, while mortal races were struggling for survival, Sorcerer Kings appeared. Nobody really know where these creatures came from, and many speculate the human form they took is just a facade they put up to strengthen their rule, and bla bla bla". Something that tells me if all SKs have the same origin (there knew each other before becoming rulers? They split the city states among themselves peacefully or was there a war? Are you born a SK or you become one?).
I'll get more on this on your next point.
What was known, was that the majority of what was left of civilization was in the city-states, each ruled by a powerful and evil sorcerer-king. The wastes between the city-states are hazardous, as the plants and animals seem to mostly have become predatory, and several are psionic to boot -- not to mention the simple environmental conditions of a desert world to cope with. The nearby sea is lethal, as there is no water, only very fine-grained, powdery silt. The races are a combination of distorted versions of standard D&D races, and some newer ones. Magic is reviled, hated, and destructive to the world. Psionics are commonplace. There are no gods.
And that's all stuff that shouldn't be lost, and shouldn't be ruined by an excess of exposition.
I think the point we're discussing here is whether we want a "canonical" answer to "why is magic reviled, hated and distructive?" or "where do SK come from?".
Despite my recent "argument" with greyorm (whose positions I understand and partly support, I'm just extremely perplexed by his tone in regard to what should be the "real" Dark Sun), I find the "less is more" position appreciable in principle; however, after 20 years of DS, I'm tilting towards "I want answers as long as they promote the mistery instead of suffocating it".
I don't think we're too far away; however there's a few focal points (origins of the SKs, nature of the "cataclysm", etc) that you probably don't want to see and I definitely want to see, and it's a small but radical difference in expectations.
For what it's worth, given the 1 book format, I'm persuaded WotC is definitely gonna follow your ideal approach instead of mine.
Not including the backdrop of history means that the setting is... well, once again, unique to the D&D worlds. The other worlds have grand, sweeping histories. Athas really didn't. It was yet another thing that distinguished it from other settings, and in a way, once the backdrop of Rajaat and the Cleansing Wars was added to the setting, it took a little of the uniqueness of Dark Sun away from it. Mind you -- I personally do like the Cleansing Wars, Green Age, Blue Age, etc. for Athas. But it still took away some of the mystery and unique flavor of the setting that was supposed to be somewhat anti-D&D in many ideas.
But take a look at the "re-imagine SKs" thread. A lot of people who appreciate and support greyorm's position are still including Rajaat and cleansings and blue ages etc.
Most of us loathed that story; however, it DID capture our fantasy and while we had to butcher it and saw it and glue it together again, it became part of the setting. I fell in love with DS with the first edition boxed set but it was like a game that was over too soon; there was way too little and more importantly, I've already been there. I bloody know the thematic touchpoints; I barely need them reprinted. With all its flaws and the stuff we had to ignore, the revised box story gave something that catpured our imagination and sprung discussion and started re-imagination and that stuff became as much of DS for me than the thematic touchpoints were. And I'm happy to be free from that because it then end it was a mess, but I'm ready for round two. I want WotC to take another shot at trying to give Athas a misterious, vague and undefined story that can capture my imagination and have us discuss how we want to rewrite it.
Now, true, it is possible to strip the history from Athas. But it becomes a challenge when you want to provide materials for your players that doesn't include references to the history. For instance -- I had to rewrite the Wanderer's Journal and Wanderer's Chronicle, to mask the true identities of the Sorcerer-Kings, what their true natures were, any any reference to Rajaat, Champions, or even what the Dragon was (more than just legend). Basically, sterilize the material to a condition I felt was what I wanted my players to know, and provided it at my games as the only setting reference material they had. They never asked beyond it -- there was enough information to keep the setting thriving, and the history of the world wasn't relevant. The mystery wasn't even enough for my players to go digging around in, because it was of less value than standard day-to-day survival in the harsh world.
Maybe I'm biased by the fact that in our experience, day to day survival gameplay couldn't push your game longer than a dozen sessions. As different as Athas is, in the end DS is D&D, and games don't differ THAT much from those you have in other settings. The thematic touchpoints really matter here, because they're dressing that completely alter the flavour of the dish, but you still have adventuring and power creep and political intrigue and drama and confrontations with huge monsters and undead hunting. Your games won't live on desert survival alone.
Now you're right on how hard it was to write that stuff out, but I'd say it's more because of the way stuff was written in the first place. The real problem wasn't Rajaat or the genocide; it was killing half the SKs in a matter of a couple of years and having rain and forest and stupid lenses and a god in the setting. Having Kalak dead when the game starts isn't as bad as having him die while in your game the PCs were working for him and he was the "he's actually not that bad" SK.
There's something appreciable in the Rajaat storyline, because it's outlandish and often closer to sci fi than fantasy (which I'd say is a theme of Dark Sun - nothing was funnier than players' faces when you had them stumble into a skyscraper coming out of the sand) - it's all the was built around it that made it a mess. As long as they keep the story in the past, I'm more than fine with having some more story than the original boxed set had.
Basically I was little scared to write down, but decided to share a few words wit you.
I don't want to start a war a new, just go back to a topic. What drawn me to Dark sun was an air of mystery surrounding Athas. I remember staring at map and suddenly realizing that it depicts a river valley near the sea. What had to happen, I thought to myself, to turn once flourishing land into a harsh desert? Then I read setting and was enamored with the way it dealt with fantasy classics. Once again a question arose, what happened, that a merry halflings (bear in mind that in times of first boxed set I was not aware of their history and origins, not to mention Blue or Green Age) became savage little monsters?
This is what good setting is about: to inspire, to set questions to rise flames of imagination. It has to be solid foundation, that you are willing to expand, to create something new and interesting.
Now, I had bipolar feelings toward revised edition. On the one hand I love way the Bill expanded history and provided information of terrain surrounding Tyr Region. When I learned about halfling's role in world's shaping, mystery of Rajaat, true names of his Champions, it was great. I was craving for it information. On the other hand, explaining things stripped them form air of mystery, but it is a general case, not issue with Dark Sun.
Question stated at the beginning was, why hid that knowledge from players. I'm not going to, as well as I am not going to give it to them free. The will have to wrestle it from Athas itself, learn with tears, death and harsh life. Piece by piece they will learn of world's change, of it's downfall and finally will realize state of it's being.
But wasting time defending myself against strawmen you insist on setting up for me -- indeed, shoving down my throat so you can lecture me on what a rude elitist they make me (while slipping little taunts and ascribed motivations into your rhetoric! ..."big box with all your toys intact"..."you should learn to spot the difference"..."standing on a soapbox, like you"..."you're the rudest guy around"..."you'll hate this sentence by now"...) -- under such circumstances there is literally no point to even trying to explain yet again, for reasons that are probably pretty obvious.
When you stop twisting and cherry-picking my arguments, but moreso when you decide to quit making subtle personal jibes because of a motivation/attitude you have ascribed to me and feel the need to defend fandom from, I will be more than happy to discuss what I've actually said and argued for and why.
Good day and take care.
Since you seem to be taking whatever I say very personally (the "you'll hate this sentence by now" line was simply stating that I repeated that quite a few times, and probably annoyed you with it - if that offends you, I'd better stop discussing because I'm at loss in finding an appropriate approach) I'll refrain to push the discussion further. I'd honestly have appreciated if you did actually answer the few questions I raised (on how much detail you're fine with on those specific points) because that's a lot more interesting than the lines and lines of nothing we're exchanging at the moment about who're right and who's wrong and who's the biggest idiot (an arms race that doesn't certainly benefit the discussion), but once again, if you feel you've gone through enough detail already, I'll try to re-read the previous posts and see if I actually missed something. I really don't wanna push you more at this point and I'm sorry you got so worked up about the discussion.
On the small bit you added at the end, I'm not too schooled on the metaplots of half the stuff you listed, but in my opinion, the FR metaplot isn't nearly as bad as the DS one. One thing is metaplots that propels stories further and kill characters and get in the way of your stories; they're still bad, but more bearable.
The DS metaplot did more than that; it developed the future in a way that wasn't coherent with the setting's premises, but it also changed the past of the setting in a way that was in direct contradiction with them. Which is one of the reasons I want more "past" this time around - because if they add something later on at least there will be some guidelines for them to respect too.
Which sort of explain why the DS was such a mess: part of the blame was on the exceedingly vague first edition background. ANY story added later on would have made a mess of thousands of players' games, because we were building stories on nothing and thus no common ground was possible. I'd rather have vague guidelines from the get go this time around, to avoid direct contradiction later on.
One of the peculiar aspects of a post-apocalyptic world is how story is built - generally speaking, you have fairly good details on the apocalypse itself and almost nothing about what was there before, because history begins at the doomsday.
Having a post apocalyptic world where the apocalypse is a complete mistery is already quite peculiar - and fairly illogic, no matter how you spin it, the "why the world went from meadows to desert" is EXACTLY the kind of story that is passed through generations. The "nobody talks about it because surviving is hard enough" approach works in a way but is certainly quite childish and hard to stomach. The people of Athas can't know exactly what happened, but there should be a solid (and possibly culturally diverse) set of mythos about the apocalypse.
More importantly, not having an "official" apocalypse WotC interpretation seriously undermines the development of the setting. Athas is much more than a dangerous desert where it's difficult to survive. The discovery and exploration of what's left of the pre-apocalyptic world is a very strong theme. Finding out the real deal behind the world is one of the most common plot devices, and will probably be touched by fundamentally all post-Paragon games.
Let's face it: Athas is lethal, but unless you're adventuring, surviving for a lvl 10+ character is trivial on Athas too. Once your game gets to the point where traveling isn't an issue unless you go looking for trouble, the survival theme won't sustain your games. If trade routes and caravans made of lvl 2 peons make it from A to B, your lvl 15 party will breeze on that trail. Yes, you can spice it up and have dangerous lvl 15+ encounters, pretending to ignore the irrationality of having your characters always stumble on monsters fitting for their level on routes people 12 levels lower manage to travel on, but how long will that hold?
High level characters will have adventures that are on the same line as standards D&D games. Paragon characters will have no issue surviving, and will go adventuring, and we should be ready for that. And having a premise where the past can't be outlined so WotC can't give us content based on that (such as ruins, dungeons, plots and adventures) risks empoverishing the setting.
however, some settings are better with, or without, backstory in detial
for example, "Thieves World" IMHO is much better knowing the complex stuff that goes on.
Athas, no.
bets to give Athas detials of what goes on today at a large scale: cities, groups and so on. mapping cities is also ok as they are complex/pain in the butt.
Some folk liek greatly detialed backgrounds of settings, some don't. each to his own :0
however, some settings are better with, or without, backstory in detial
for example, "Thieves World" IMHO is much better knowing the complex stuff that goes on.
Athas, no.
bets to give Athas detials of what goes on today at a large scale: cities, groups and so on. mapping cities is also ok as they are complex/pain in the butt.
Here, with you, Grayorm, et al, I must disagree. Some people don't want a detailed background of Athas. However, some do. Many people pick up a setting to get the feel for a living, breathing world. A living, breathing world requires a solid investment in a background story, even if the overwhelming majority of the denizens of said world don't actually know that story.
The best option (and by "best", I am using the metric of: "How can you satisfy the most people at once?") is to give the major plot points of the past of the setting, leaving enough details open-ended such that any GM who wishes to use the books as written still has quite a lot they can add (as opposed to, say, Forgotten Realms, where every villager has a detailed, established background; Obviously that's hyperbole, but only just). This provides a solid basis for a wider audience to absorb and appreciate the world in question.
Anyone who wishes to ignore parts of "canon" will do what they do with every other world/setting out there: They will simply ignore what they wish to ignore, and keep what they wish to keep. Random person X, however, picking up the setting for the first time, will have a much richer, deeper, complex and fundamentally grounded in reality (as much as a fantasy setting can, at least) world laid out before them.
To quite literally force any and all newcomers to Athas, a sizable number of which will want a solid background story and timeline, to jump in to the world with essentially zero information from the past, is setting Dark Sun up for failure by instantly alienating wide swathes of players. It is much, MUCH easier for someone to ignore and change existing information to suit their tastes than to make the less creative have to invest much more time writing out a background story.
Moreover, guess what those who want less background are going to do themselves anyhow? That's right. Write a background. Changing a background to something else is easily as simple as writing your own background. Now, guess what those who want more background aren't nearly as likely to do? Yup. Write a background. The former group's overall experience is little changed (except, perhaps, a perception bias leading to "annoyance") with or without more background explicitly presented to them. The latter group, however? Oh, what a different experience, especially in terms of immersion in the world.
Maybe I'm biased by the fact that in our experience, day to day survival gameplay couldn't push your game longer than a dozen sessions. As different as Athas is, in the end DS is D&D, and games don't differ THAT much from those you have in other settings. The thematic touchpoints really matter here, because they're dressing that completely alter the flavour of the dish, but you still have adventuring and power creep and political intrigue and drama and confrontations with huge monsters and undead hunting. Your games won't live on desert survival alone.
I think you misunderstood me then, because I didn't say it was only tied to desert survival, and if that's what you got from my statements, I apologize for the confusion. I still have, in my campaigns, all of those things you listed, and still don't need to deal with Rajaat, the Cleansing Wars, or anything else from the ancient past. Dealing with those things would be like a modern Dragonlance campaign (at the position that setting currently is), and having the players confronted with all the details of the first Kender wandering the world... intriguing? Probably. Relevant to the world as it is now? Not so much. The Cleansing Wars were set so far into the past, that they lose relevance to the current Dark Sun world -- beyond some greater, epic campaign, that is.
Don't worry, I'm sure they will be keeping Rajaat and the Cleansing Wars around. After all, at this point, it is the established history of the setting, and while the DS4 setting is a reboot, and won't be exactly like the old setting, I'm sure they will keep him around (since he was in the Creature Competition and all). Now, they might keep him as a human (as per DS1) rather than pyreen (as per DS2). They also might mask/remove the notion that halflings are the progenitor race.
Now you're right on how hard it was to write that stuff out, but I'd say it's more because of the way stuff was written in the first place. The real problem wasn't Rajaat or the genocide; it was killing half the SKs in a matter of a couple of years and having rain and forest and stupid lenses and a god in the setting. Having Kalak dead when the game starts isn't as bad as having him die while in your game the PCs were working for him and he was the "he's actually not that bad" SK.
True enough, that is the metaplot that Greyorm has decried for quite some time -- a story we're effectively "forced to follow".
There's something appreciable in the Rajaat storyline, because it's outlandish and often closer to sci fi than fantasy (which I'd say is a theme of Dark Sun - nothing was funnier than players' faces when you had them stumble into a skyscraper coming out of the sand) - it's all the was built around it that made it a mess. As long as they keep the story in the past, I'm more than fine with having some more story than the original boxed set had.
Good enough.
The best option (and by "best", I am using the metric of: "How can you satisfy the most people at once?") is to give the major plot points of the past of the setting, leaving enough details open-ended such that any GM who wishes to use the books as written still has quite a lot they can add...
Which I feel is already adequately done. Knowing more than "wizards destroyed the world with rampant use of defiling magic" actually isn't necessary. We don't need Champions and Cleansing Wars and Rajaat at all. Consider that most books you read -- besides Tolkien -- you don't get that sort of detail or information. Because you actually don't need it.
Similarly, that sort of detail is not necessary to achieve the necessary versimilitude for gamers and DMs to latch on to in order to play, get excited about play, and so forth. For example, there are any number of very popular traditional and indie games where the setting is even more sparsely detailed than Athas and yet achieve large, rabid fan bases.
One of the great things about Athas, one of the things that set it apart and made it original and appealing, was not having a detailed history and timeline, just hints and a brief introduction. That was one of the setting touchpoints, as important as "magic destroys plant-life" to the tone of the whole. Losing it makes Athas just that much less original and interesting.
Anyone who wishes to ignore parts of "canon" will do what they do with every other world/setting out there: They will simply ignore what they wish to ignore, and keep what they wish to keep.
You know, I've responded to that point repeatedly (not just now, but many times over the years), and it keeps being brought up as if the 90's never happened. "Ignoring it" doesn't work as well as its adherents like to believe it does. We have a whole decade of experience in that arena to draw on and the result is that it just doesn't work that well. If you're curious for the reasons why, I've laid them out before multiple times in multiple places on the boards, and I believe in this thread as well.
To quite literally force any and all newcomers to Athas, a sizable number of which will want a solid background story and timeline, to jump in to the world with essentially zero information from the past, is setting Dark Sun up for failure by instantly alienating wide swathes of players.
I doubt it. And I say that because wide swaths of players weren't instantly alienated by the first boxed set, and it was so popular that it spawned multiple novels and products, even a second boxed set. History just doesn't bear up that argument.
Since you seem to be taking whatever I say very personally...
I know, you get personal and I take it personally! Weird. Yet, despite your continued insistence such is merely my imagination, I notice the mods seem to think you were making it personal, too.
Something to think about.
Since you seem to be taking whatever I say very personally...
I know, you get personal and I take it personally! Weird. Yet, despite your continued insistence such is merely my imagination, I notice the mods seem to think you were making it personal, too.
Something to think about.
I have no way to make sure who was being monitored (I didn't report anyone, as it's not my habit, and I didn't receive any message from WotC; if there's any "marker" that helps spotting the person targeted by the ORC message, I'm unaware of it); however, considering the stuff I've said you've labeled as "personal" vs the amount of times you used the word "stupid" and its equivalent, and you addressing people as "these kids" and all that, I wouldn't be so adamant about the fact that the moderator was focusing on me.
That said, in your answer to Tec you once again go over your (legitimate) list of preferences and your argument that a detailed background isn't a strict necessity - which is what you did addressing most of the people who asked for more detailed backgrounds.
The point here, however, isn't needing. It's wanting. We (the people who ask for having an adequately vague but consistent and detailed "history of Athas") don't need said story, we simply want it.
Look at the re-imagining SK thread. The vast majority of entries still feature Rajaat, or SKs as part of some sort of order in the same way of the Dennings background, or "blue ages" or elements reminiscent of the rhulisti. The revised box background, with all its flaws, wasn't as strongly rejected from the community as you seem to hint, and how probably you and me felt it was necessary.
I'm persuaded Rajaat won't make it into the 4th edition manual, and despite my personal preference, I'm persuaded a majority of the fanbase will be disappointed by that.
Besides, it's very clear now that WotC is set on creating new canon. We already know an historical detail that makes the Athas 4ed background radically different from the 2nd ed background: in 4ed, gods existed on Athas, the Dawn War was fought and primordial won it. Not only does this sensibly impact the entire cosmology, but it also means that it's highly likely that there's still Primordials around lurking on the planet and possibly creating an entire range of post-SK threats. It's early to say, but I'm expecting the new Setting to introduce several similarly groundbreaking changes to the canon.
I think we're going to just disagree, Tec, but my thinking on your points is such:The best option (and by "best", I am using the metric of: "How can you satisfy the most people at once?") is to give the major plot points of the past of the setting, leaving enough details open-ended such that any GM who wishes to use the books as written still has quite a lot they can add...
Which I feel is already adequately done. Knowing more than "wizards destroyed the world with rampant use of defiling magic" actually isn't necessary. We don't need Champions and Cleansing Wars and Rajaat at all. Consider that most books you read -- besides Tolkien -- you don't get that sort of detail or information. Because you actually don't need it.
Similarly, that sort of detail is not necessary to achieve the necessary versimilitude for gamers and DMs to latch on to in order to play, get excited about play, and so forth. For example, there are any number of very popular traditional and indie games where the setting is even more sparsely detailed than Athas and yet achieve large, rabid fan bases.
One of the great things about Athas, one of the things that set it apart and made it original and appealing, was not having a detailed history and timeline, just hints and a brief introduction. That was one of the setting touchpoints, as important as "magic destroys plant-life" to the tone of the whole. Losing it makes Athas just that much less original and interesting.
Again, I think we mostly agree but a few . . . quibbles here on these points.
In my reading, I get a LOT of the background on the characters. Maybe not all at once but usually by the second or third book in a series, I know a lot about what happened before the books. For myself (and my wife) that makes the book a much richer experience. Knowing why the hero does this the heroics is good, imo. (For reference, I read Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Devon Monk, Jenna Black, Kelley Armstrong, Karen Miller, and various others as well as some DND books) So, while I agree that they aren't necessary, I do think it adds to the story, as I said.
(Oh, and for the record, I don't read Tolkien and don't like him. I tried to listen to him and couldn't do it, it just didn't pull me in. So, maybe that's an example of too much? I don't know. I also gave up on Jordan and Goodkind. Clancy as well for other reasons.)
On the flip side, I agree that too much detail can be bad. Do you read OotS? The creator of that said he had to be careful in giving the background of the bad guy because too much background leads to sympathy, and he didn't want that. Same for Cigarette Smoking Man back on X-Files. (And it was funny as the one that made him sympathetic really angered my wife who didn't want to feel sorry for him at all!)
As I have been thinking about this, and not posting, here is what I found.
I would like a little about the SKs themselves. I don't need it all the way to sympathy, I can probably find a way to do that if that's what I want in the the bad guy, but more than just them being powerful wizards and rulers.
What I do want a lot of explanation on, though, is the cities. How is Tyr different from the others? What does Gulg do different from Nibenay, as they are both on a forest. How is Altaruk different from another village? How do the templars differ from city to city? How are they treated in the other cities? What are the classes of citizens? Are they struggling? Is one on a verge of a slave revolt and another the merchants are the ones about to revolt?
Where it gets fuzzy for me is in the ruins and the history. Even if we don't get it, I would like to know that the designers have picked a history and that's what they use for Dark Sun. To me, that means that ruins will be consistent in how they are presented to us. If Ruin A has architecture style A and so does Ruin B, then I expect a few notes on how they are connected. If ruin C in an area shows evidence of having been flooded, I expect any ruins near it to have the same signs.
I guess what I am saying is that every Chekov's gun had better be fired in terms of facts and details about the setting. If they present rumors or ideas they had when doing it, anything goes.
Would that work for you? Or is it just me?
Thanks!
turlough
As I have been thinking about this, and not posting, here is what I found.
I would like a little about the SKs themselves. I don't need it all the way to sympathy, I can probably find a way to do that if that's what I want in the the bad guy, but more than just them being powerful wizards and rulers.
An interesting bit about this: I wonder how SKs will evolve in terms of, uhm, "class" in 4e.
In 2nd edition, SKs were wizards because the game care nothing for balance, and being a caster was always better than not being one. 4e is definitely different - not only noncasters are much more competitive, but also casters have a much higher compatibility rate with melee performance and aren't forced to be "whimps" at all.
In short, we will definitely see Controller or Artillery SKs, but what about Soldier SKs? Maybe even Brute SKs. The 4e system allows for a re-imagining of the iconic SK character that goes a bit beyond the "powerful wizard" imagery. I imagine they will still all be psionics, and they need to have arcane powers cause of their iconic background and the enfasis on defiling, but maybe we will see some SKs that are your proper, robed caster (like Nibenay seems to be) and others who wear armor and wage into battle wielding a couple of iron bastard swords. Could be a rather interesting spin.
As I have been thinking about this, and not posting, here is what I found.
I would like a little about the SKs themselves. I don't need it all the way to sympathy, I can probably find a way to do that if that's what I want in the the bad guy, but more than just them being powerful wizards and rulers.
An interesting bit about this: I wonder how SKs will evolve in terms of, uhm, "class" in 4e.
In 2nd edition, SKs were wizards because the game care nothing for balance, and being a caster was always better than not being one. 4e is definitely different - not only noncasters are much more competitive, but also casters have a much higher compatibility rate with melee performance and aren't forced to be "whimps" at all.
In short, we will definitely see Controller or Artillery SKs, but what about Soldier SKs? Maybe even Brute SKs. The 4e system allows for a re-imagining of the iconic SK character that goes a bit beyond the "powerful wizard" imagery. I imagine they will still all be psionics, and they need to have arcane powers cause of their iconic background and the enfasis on defiling, but maybe we will see some SKs that are your proper, robed caster (like Nibenay seems to be) and others who wear armor and wage into battle wielding a couple of iron bastard swords. Could be a rather interesting spin.
in DS3, I statted Hamanu as a sorcerer/psychic warrior multiclass. in 4E, I could easily see him as one of the ones who wear armor and wage into battle wielding a couple of iron bastard swords -- after all, he was given the Scorcher by Rajaat. So yeah, maybe more like a brute than controller.
In my reading, I get a LOT of the background on the characters. Maybe not all at once but usually by the second or third book in a series, I know a lot about what happened before the books. For myself (and my wife) that makes the book a much richer experience. Knowing why the hero does this the heroics is good, imo. So, while I agree that they aren't necessary, I do think it adds to the story, as I said.
I totally agree. Though in that case, we're talking about books advancing from the stasis/start-point of the first novel, so it has to happen because a story is being told and (at least in the sort we're most familiar with) requires rising action, twists, and a climax that changes things.
In a game setting, that's how metaplot works, but is exactly what breaks a game setting, as those functions should be restricted to the characters (who are...the characters of the "book" afterall), and whatever the DM decides the NPCs are doing wherever they are.
Of course, what the hero does is because of whatever the player said that hero's background is (or at least we hope so, and the player isn't just "whatever"). A player obviously needs some details to build on to create that background.
Surprisingly you don't usually need a whole bunch; mostly, you need day-to-day or big-recent-event-type details, rather than ancient (or even recent) historical details, and a personality.
I would like a little about the SKs themselves...What I do want a lot of explanation on, though, is the cities. How is Tyr different from the others? {...ETC...}
Fully on board with you there.
Where it gets fuzzy for me is in the ruins and the history. Even if we don't get it, I would like to know that the designers have picked a history and that's what they use for Dark Sun. To me, that means that ruins will be consistent in how they are presented to us. If Ruin A has architecture style A and so does Ruin B, then I expect a few notes on how they are connected. If ruin C in an area shows evidence of having been flooded, I expect any ruins near it to have the same signs.
Now, see, THAT is a very good argument for having such a background. It does help with the consistency.
My only thoughts on that are: First, I'm not sure, however, that the Rajaat storyline really helps with that kind of consistency, or that the "history" as exists for DS really helps along those lines, because it doesn't really give the kind of detail that would help out with that.
Second, weirdly enough, even when writers have access to all the historical details, and have editors to check on them, they make giant mistakes. Take DC comics as an example, they are constantly messing up despite having tons of background to work with/from.
I had a "third" thought, too, but I can't recall what it is (my head is killing me today -- sorry), so I'm going to leave it there and go whimper under a blanket or something.
BTW, turlough, I'd like to thank you for remaining civil this whole time. I still find it awesome that most of the people on this board are mature and capable of honest and heated-but-impersonal discussion. The great forum atmosphere is one of the reasons I've kept coming back here all these years.
Now, see, THAT is a very good argument for having such a background. It does help with the consistency.
My only thoughts on that are: First, I'm not sure, however, that the Rajaat storyline really helps with that kind of consistency, or that the "history" as exists for DS really helps along those lines, because it doesn't really give the kind of detail that would help out with that.
That was the point I was originally making a few pages ago.
Nothing would be more problematic to have a very "lightweight" campaign setting book that left historical details too foggy, and then 2 months later have an adventure pop in Dragon that has the players explore Rhulisti ruins (and maybe have a couple columns introducing the rhulisti lore).
Once again, that would break the consistency. DMs who scrapped the rhulisti story would be screwed; DMs who integrated it would still need to check for compatibility.
Having some "official" DS history isn't really needed from the perspective of having a "canon", or a plot, but simple consistency. Once again, look back at DS 2nd edition: the first boxed set had so little details that ANYTHING TSR added later on was devastating for most running games. This time around, I would like to have some stronger guidelines from the get go, and less world-changing "details" added on the run.
And you're perfectly right that the Rajaat storyline doesn't help in terms of consistency, but that has much to do with the nature of the story and the execution than the fact it is a story. The core problem with the Rajaat plot was that it made EVERYTHING about Rajaat. In 4e, I hope to see a more complex, less focused story that has several historical events to take inspiration from rather then ONE megaplot that determines everything.
Second, I think a lot of us would agree on various points so that we are arguing is too bad. I think it's a combination of our inability to be able to talk about all of our experiences that have brought us to this point in our gaming into a post. I will get to more on this later.
Third, after re-reading this thread, I can see where we all get confused on points. I know that I know my own responses well but not everyone else's and it's easy to lose a point that someone else said.
So, here is why I want history, as best as I can relate it.
My DND gaming, from 1E through a lot of 3E, was based on the fact that I had a rules lawyer in my group. Only the last third of my gaming has been without one. Further, if not rules lawyers, they were quite literal. However, this makes sense to me, looking back, especially when I was in my teens. Imo, being in your teens is about figuring out your place in the world based on what you know and that's the important part. We don't know that we don't know a lot then!
Not knowing anything about a game or a world, me and my group could only go by what we had been told in the books. So, when these books present something that sounds cool but then don't have good game rules to back up the "fluff" it lessens the gaming experience, imo. The first boxed set had a great setup but was still lacking for me. As someone with little experience with deserts, even though I could describe the difference between the salt flats or scrub plains, I didn't know what it meant. I couldn't bring that to the game in terms of mechanics. And making my own didn't work with my group usually because of that one rules lawyer.
I was still captivated with the world of Dark Sun, though, because in contrast to FR at the time, this was a much more consistent world in terms of religion, which for me at the time was important. I think FR was getting the three books on deities at this time and I was getting sick of all of these gods, as detailed in DND, and how to work them in and make them fit. It didn't work for me so to have a setting that had removed gods, for me, was awesome!
As a DM, while I didn't know it back then, I didn't like how inconsistent DND was as a game throughout the life of a character. Level 1-5 characters played very differently than levels 6-10 in DND (thru and including 3E). Most level one characters, even fighters with 18 CON, could die with one hit under 3E or earlier rules. So to have a game world that also gave characters a much better chance to live past one lucky shot also appealed to me a lot back then. I also liked that the characters felt like heroes, in starting at level 3, which they didn't as level one to me.
At the same time, though, I wasn't sure what to do for adventures. I tried to do it as the setting suggested, still being a bit literal and looking for direction from the game designers back then, and my players hated it. They hated being slaves. They hated being the lowest of the slaves. Freedom, as a module, ended up pushing my players away from Dark Sun for decades. (It's surprising that I kept getting and reading Dark Sun stuff when I never played it but there were parts of it that were so good, they kept me coming back even if I was only reading the books and not using it as a setting.)
Also back then, as a DM, I ad libbed everything. I would read up on a world, have an idea I wanted to run as an adventure, and then I tried to take good notes so I could be consistent. This is, in part, because in completely forgeting the relationship the PCs had with an NPC, I did something with that NPC so out of character, it pissed off the players, and therefore their characters, and I had to explain what happened. (You know, rather than admit I forgot what had happened with this NPC in the past and try and start over with who I wanted. That would have been too sensible!
) This ad-libbing style worked really well for FR because I could read about an area, know its history, or come up with other details as I read it, and then run an adventure. Therefore, at the time, Dark Sun underwhelmed me. It wasn't until more and more supplements came out, such as Elves of Athas, City State of Tyr, Ivory Triangle, et al, that I started to get a sense of things in Dark Sun. (And why does Veiled Alliance have more on the workings of the city states than the main boxed set?) And of course, by this point the world had changed. Just as these books started to give me a sense of the world, it was changed by the metaplot of the novels, which was made canon by the revised boxed set. But, for me, having a defined world with Rajaat and the Cleansing wars gave me what I personally needed. Most of my players wouldn't care but it gave me the tools to be consistent in my stories and adventures.
So, I don't know if that is yet enough background on me and my own wants and needs, but imagine you are gaming for people who want to know things right away. They learned not to be mages, so they wouldn't be hunted, but choose psionics, which are prevalent. Then, they find something that has power. They aren't sure what it is but they have to know. So, the use Object Reading on it. This doesn't identify the object, per se, but it does give the person the history of the object, usually the big things about it, such as creation or when it was used in violent acts, if it's a weapon.
Two second after I give an okay description of the item's history, including the names of a few of its previous owners and where it has been, it hits. They are going to do this with every item they come across. Suddenly, I need a cohesive history of who made items, who was the best, where they got the parts for it and the like. And this is exactly what I don't have for Athas. to be fair, I wouldn't have such information even in FR. They hardly detail the best smiths, tailors or cobblers. But FR did detail various times in its history and I can use those periods to create the person I need. It gives the creator more than just a name and an item he created.
(In my FR game, I ended up creating a weapon smith named Timoth, who had a circle T for a maker's mark. Thereafter, to say something was a superior item, I just had to say it had a circle T on it, and the player's, and the characters, knew what that meant. I still like that kind of detail today.)
Now, I can and do make up this stuff today. I have learned a lot in the years I have been gaming. But, for me, it starts with a rich history where ideas like this can happen, not a blank page. I lament that one of the last things to come out for FR, was the Grand History of the Realms. That should have been the first thing! Then, the designers could expore anything prior to the present year, whatever that was defined as, as much as they want. It would only hurt any games that I set in the past. But, they could set nothing beyond that point. (This is what Exalted has done for the most part. Return of the Scarlet Empress, for any who follow it, is an idea of what could happen but is not considered canon.) Everything from the present year forward is off limits to add or change from what was said in the first, main book.
Coming back to Dark Sun, these ideas at a high level are what I am looking for in the new release. They don't have to detail the SKs in detail but maybe they can detail ideas they have had over the millenia they have been ruling. Again, a timeline would be awesome, because I assume the designers have ideas of what happened prior to the present day. Maybe there was a period of kingdoms before the whole world was ravaged. Maybe there was a fight between a god and primordial on the world that resulted in a blasted and twisted plain of obsidian. Maybe the SKs trade cities every hundred years so that things stay interesting for themselves. All of these are points and stories in history that have no bearing on any present adventure and can be skipped for those who know what they will do. But for those who don't, it gives ideas of what happened in the past and helps adds details to ruins and items found.
Further, as I think about it, being illiterate doesn't mean you don't have a sense of history. A study was conducted to check how good people can remember 10k -15k word oral history. They went to scotland to a man who remembered a legend and recorded his telling of it. Fifteen years later they went back and he was only off by six words! (Yes, those could be important six words but out of 15k? That's a good percentage to have correct.) Now, throw in psionics with Object Reading (I know 4E doesn't have this but I do know of them and would bring things like this into my own 4E game.) or Identify or Legend Lore and there is no reason that a society that can't read or write could still easily remember history. We also have a group, the Veiled Alliance, which is dedicated to bringing down the SKs. (And about as effective as the Tok'ra.
) They would have even more reason for remembering what they had done before, what worked against SKs and what didn't, any weaknesses they found about the SKs, etc. and would find some way to record things that someone could find and use. At least, that's my take on them. So, if you read this far, thank you and I am awed and humbled. It was long but hopefully cohesive on why I think a high level of history is a good idea for a world and therefore what I want to see in the new Dark Sun setting.
turlough
Again, a timeline would be awesome, because I assume the designers have ideas of what happened prior to the present day.
You'd be surprised...
Most designers -- most writers, in fact -- are not Tolkiens.
Though, culturally and for a bunch of reasons they don't even realize for the most part, gamers want all designers to be Tolkiens. And when they think of fantasy, they think of D&D-style fantasy with elves and dwarves, epic heroes and wizards, and etc. That's what "fantasy" means.
I honestly think this is an unfortunate thing.
Most designers should be CA Smiths or Dunsanys.
The original Dark Sun really had that feeling, which made it very different from the commercialized stock-standard fantasy settings put out by WotC and everyone else.
(Hrm, you know, completely apart from the question of whether Athas should have a canonical history, at some point I'll probably write up why I think the Rajaat storyline for Athas was a bad choice of storyline for the setting.)
Anyways, that's an interesting point you raise about Object Reading. Such an ability directly contradicts the established nature of the setting: where history is mostly a series of myths and legends, or forgotten entirely. One would think that if an ability such as Object Reading was widely available or reliable, the situation described as the state of history in the setting wouldn't be the case for reasons you outline.
That creates an interesting all by itself: why? If this power is available, if it functions reliably, why is history comprised of fables and myth stories instead of accurate renditions of what happened?
//tangent alert!
Also, about that whole "oral history" thing (pet peeve coming up): while some few exceptional people's memories are reliable enough to repeat back 10-15k words after ten years, you'll find the vast majority don't have that ability, even with training. The brain is an easy thing to fool and foul up.
There's a reason police don't trust witness interviews, or need multiple interviews to confirm an event: witnesses are unreliable. People "remember" things as they think they happened, and often remember things that never actually happened!
The guy you mention is an outlier, and you only heard about him because: would it have been news if they'd gone to see this guy in Scotland, given him 15k words to memorize, come back ten years later and he screwed it all up completely? No. You'd never have heard about it. You heard about it because he's exceptional, not because he's normal.
Consider that most actors can't even remember all the lines in a script! Keeping an accurate oral history is one of those things you hear touted by people interested in proving how much better/smarter our ancestors were than us at things. Except the problem is we have no idea if they actually were accurate. How would we know if the oral history they told -- that we managed to get written down, that is -- was the same as the oral history their multiple-times-great-grandfathers told? We don't.
Undoubtedly they were somewhat better than we are at it, because they didn't have the same prompts and utilities available for record-keeping thus forced to rely wholly on memorization, but to the point that history didn't become muddled and confused as the generations passed? As old heroes and virtues fell out of favor, and new ones were embraced? All this especially under the sorts of social and evironmental pressures the civilizations of Athas are under?
I find it doubtful.
Anyways, that's really not about the question of whether Athas should have a canonical history attached to it beyond some vague bits and pieces,
//tangent end!
But yes, I understand why you want it, though I wonder why you didn't just come up with your own history to deal with the issue? (I suppose being a teen and looking for the designers to walk you through it was part of that -- I certainly recall feeling that way when I first got into gaming, and treating settings like I treated reading books or watching tv shows, which is one of those sort of quietly fetishized things alot of gamers do: buy gaming material to read instead of play. I was certainly guilty of that for ~twenty years.)
To share a little of my own specific history: I know that when similar questions started to arise for our group back in high school, when the set first came out, the DM threw together his own history for the setting without blinking.
Most designers -- most writers, in fact -- are not Tolkiens.
And thank the dragon for that!
And thank the dragon for that!
I can agree on designers, but god knows if the fantasy genre needs more Tolkiens. 99.99999% of the fantasy novel production is utter garbage.
So, let's look at a group in Athas and why they would record history, the Veiled Alliance. The VA certainly has its biases. It wants to get rid of the SKs with a seconardy of showing that not all arcane magic is bad. (And even if not the VA, I think we can agree that someone wants to over throw the SKs, whether for altruistic reasons for not.) To that end, it seems to me they would want to remember history and why they are doing it. The leaders in the VA accessory don't seem to think it will happen in their lifetime and would, assumably, want to pass on knowledge that they have.
Also, please note that of the eight defining characteristics of Dark Sun, in the exerpt, one is not that history is unknown. Certainly, each DM can decide to hide history, either by asking players not to read it or making up their own and therefore making it a mystery, but that isn't a current goal of the designers based on what they have shared.
The issue, then is whether or not an accurate oral history can be maintained. I agree in our world, it would be tough. But, this is a world with psionics and magic. Not only could disciplines and spells have been created to record history and repeat it but also to verify what was recorded was correct. Some have, in previous editions, with Legend Lore spells and Object Reading disciplines. So, the idea is there.
Now, maybe this turns into an adventure for the PCs and it could be a good one. I guess I am thinking the VA would have done this for their propoganda war. Tell me having images of an SK using defiling magic or the levy or any other atrocity wouldn't fan the fires of rebellion?
Unfortunately, I started this post and got interupted and so I don't remember my original point as clearly now. But, I don't think finding out about Athas past is as hard as we think it is.
turlough
And thank the dragon for that!
I can agree on designers, but god knows if the fantasy genre needs more Tolkiens. 99.99999% of the fantasy novel production is utter garbage.
I can't agree. I'v read very few D&D novels I didn't enjoy where as I could not finish a single tolkien book. I found them simply boring. I'd rather read diablo novels (the video game) and IMO, those suck.
If D&D novels were written like Tolkien novels or if the game was a reflection of Tolkien's style, I'd only read/play warhammer.
But, people enjoy different things. I find american idol, saturday night live and american dad to be complete garbage, while other people love them. So it's all about different tastes.
And thank the dragon for that!
I can agree on designers, but god knows if the fantasy genre needs more Tolkiens. 99.99999% of the fantasy novel production is utter garbage.
I can't agree. I'v read very few D&D novels I didn't enjoy where as I could not finish a single tolkien book. I found them simply boring. I'd rather read diablo novels (the video game) and IMO, those suck.
If D&D novels were written like Tolkien novels or if the game was a reflection of Tolkien's style, I'd only read/play warhammer.
But, people enjoy different things. I find american idol, saturday night live and american dad to be complete garbage, while other people love them. So it's all about different tastes.
I guess it really depends on what you look for in a book. I can barely go through 4 pages of most fantasy novels.
And thank the dragon for that!
I can agree on designers, but god knows if the fantasy genre needs more Tolkiens. 99.99999% of the fantasy novel production is utter garbage.
I can't agree. I'v read very few D&D novels I didn't enjoy where as I could not finish a single tolkien book. I found them simply boring. I'd rather read diablo novels (the video game) and IMO, those suck.
If D&D novels were written like Tolkien novels or if the game was a reflection of Tolkien's style, I'd only read/play warhammer.
But, people enjoy different things. I find american idol, saturday night live and american dad to be complete garbage, while other people love them. So it's all about different tastes.
In the off topic, for what it's worth category, I'm with you both on Tolkien and the TV shows you listed. I have been able to finish any DND novel I started but couldn't even listen to Tolkien in a three hour car ride with nothing else to do! I stared out the window rather than just listen to Tolkien. An extreme example, but there it is.
This is also why I think there needs to be more than one gaming system. I really like what 4E did for DND and came back to it because of that. Had it stayed more like the predecessors, I wouldn't be as involved with DND as I am now. (I run the weekly Encounters at the FLGS.)
turlough
In the off topic, for what it's worth category, I'm with you both on Tolkien and the TV shows you listed. I have been able to finish any DND novel I started but couldn't even listen to Tolkien in a three hour car ride with nothing else to do! I stared out the window rather than just listen to Tolkien. An extreme example, but there it is.
turlough
I'd say another important factor is the order in which you approach authors.
For example, Tolkien was the first fantasy author I read (I started reading him at 8). The next thing I picked up was Weis and Hickmann's Dragonlance, and I didn't manage to finish the saga because it felt like reading the essay of a barely literate teenager in comparison. It was like going from literature to shoddy comicbook writing.
Maybe if I read W&H first I would have foundt Tolkien boring and verbose and lamented the lack of action or cool characters and put down the books before being over with them.
The kind of experiences you go through within a genre shape your perspective on it. For most people in my generation, cyberpunk means Gibson and Blade Runner - the generation after mine considers Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed the paramount of cyberpunk and Gibson and Dick and Blade Runner boring, derivative stuff with no action.
There is inherent bias in history. I agree. A person usually has a reason for recording about an event which gives it bias.
So, let's look at a group in Athas and why they would record history, the Veiled Alliance. The VA certainly has its biases. It wants to get rid of the SKs with a seconardy of showing that not all arcane magic is bad. (And even if not the VA, I think we can agree that someone wants to over throw the SKs, whether for altruistic reasons for not.) To that end, it seems to me they would want to remember history and why they are doing it. The leaders in the VA accessory don't seem to think it will happen in their lifetime and would, assumably, want to pass on knowledge that they have.
Also, please note that of the eight defining characteristics of Dark Sun, in the exerpt, one is not that history is unknown. Certainly, each DM can decide to hide history, either by asking players not to read it or making up their own and therefore making it a mystery, but that isn't a current goal of the designers based on what they have shared.
The issue, then is whether or not an accurate oral history can be maintained. I agree in our world, it would be tough. But, this is a world with psionics and magic. Not only could disciplines and spells have been created to record history and repeat it but also to verify what was recorded was correct. Some have, in previous editions, with Legend Lore spells and Object Reading disciplines. So, the idea is there.
Now, maybe this turns into an adventure for the PCs and it could be a good one. I guess I am thinking the VA would have done this for their propoganda war. Tell me having images of an SK using defiling magic or the levy or any other atrocity wouldn't fan the fires of rebellion?
Unfortunately, I started this post and got interupted and so I don't remember my original point as clearly now. But, I don't think finding out about Athas past is as hard as we think it is.
turlough
Thanks for the post Turlough. It was informative.
I totally understand your frustration. I've spent countless hours sitting on the floor of my room, with Dark Sun books scattered around me, looking for another idea for a game. It doesn't happen easily, especially so in Dark Sun.
While I would also appreciate some history on Athas, what is seriously lacking (IMO) is good writing. There are painfully few novels from Dark Sun (which ones are good are a matter of opinion, but they are all short and nothing new has appeared in quite a while). There are no movies. The source books are disorganized (as you said, the best supplement for city-information happens to be the VA books) and full of facts. In short, some of the best sources of ideas and information are from the outside: I've heard you mention Exalted, but others used Dune, Barsoon, WoD, etc as influence for their games.
While FR is a little too dense, there is scantly little information on many aspects of Dark Sun. History is one area in Dark Sun that is seriously lacking, but the other is the depth of character of the City-States. There could, potentially, be an entire supplement on each of the City-States (like the City-State of Tyr)... one for each of the Races (Like the Elves of Athas and the Thri-Kreen)... and for each Class (like the Complete Gladiators handbook). At the end of the day, each supplement provides adventure hooks, neat ideas for character development, and character options. They add depth to the classes.
I tend to find everything not detailed to have an extremely shallow personality. For example: What about one of the most cool classes in all of Dark Sun: the Templar. This is one of the most sterotyped classes in all of DnD. Each City-State has a cookie-cutter mold for their Templars: want to play a Templar of the City-State of Nibenay? You have to be a stubborn woman and shadow-wife of Nibenay. All references to Nibenese Templars have essentially fit this mold, including the novels. What about Draj? You need to play a Jaguar Warrior of the Aztec ampire and your goal is to find sacrifice material for your king.
There should be an entire, thick book, supplement for the Templar class. It should be filled with ideas, spin-offs, classes, religions, beaurocratic practices, powers, rituals, feats, backgrounds, proficiencies, weapons, mounts, armors, magic items, psionic items, psionic wild talents, psionic powers, histories and hats... unique stuff that a [insert city-state] templar would NEED. Honestly, there is nothing to make a Nibenese Templar unique. What are the most famous Nibenese templars, otherwise who would you idolize? Has the Templarate ever researched a unique spell, what sort of Nibenese necromantic practices can a spell caster strive to learn? What about cooks, what would a typical campfire meal look like for a Templar on the road...? What kinds of weapons would a Nibenese warrior typically use... or do all elite warriors have to be lance-wielding Half-Giants?
No, not all of these questions should be answered. But I think, what I'm looking for, what Turlough would like, is more depth to the setting. If its a Point of Lights setting, the actual city-states, the lights of the setting, are incredibly dim and lack personality and uniqueness.
IMO, Dark Sun needs a Drizzt, a Merlin, an Aragorn, an Arthas or an Elminster. Rajaat, Sadira and Rikus are poor in comparison and lack enough details, background or uniqueness to be "truely" cool.
...my 2 cp.
I didn't read Dragonlance until fairly late, all things considered. For some reason, I didn't want to read or didn't want to like it but don't remember why.
I read Brooks (Elfstones of Shanara) and Zalazny (Changling, Madwand) as my first fantasy authors. I read a lot more science fiction than fantasy as a kid, even though I played DND. This was in the 80s but I still missed a lot of fantasy from the times. I read Piers Anthony but not Xanth. I didn't read Feist until later, McCaffrey or Lackey ever.
I liked Dragonslayer, Krull, Conan, Beastmaster, Wizards and Warriors (TV) and other shows and of course, the DND cartoon! Whatever we had back then. I remember watching a lot of older (1950s, 1960s) SciFi shows as a kid. I don't remember there being a lot of fantasy but maybe there is if I think about it.
Having said that, epic stuff can be good. I loved Jordan through book six (and read through book ten before giving up on it) and Goodkind through book three. (I thought it was a trilogy and by the time I saw he had more, had gotten rid of the first three.) Babylon 5, as a TV show, has been a very big influence on me on how a story/campaign can be done very well.
In any case, with regards to RPGs, while I used to take it seriously, as a DM I am there to entertain others. If the players want to do things, I'm all for it! Most of the time, though, I have to do it [the story and adventure] all and they just accept what I have created.
turlough
I would love to know how the city states are different from each other. Why the SKs choose the models they did for the city states. What the merchant houses are like. All of those things.
I even want little details, as I have said before, down to a daily life perspective, in terms of food they eat, what the clothes are made out of, what they grow and hunt, spices they use, and how they trade. These details are of NO help whatsoever in terms of an adventure. But they add a lot to the setting when I can throw them out when they stop at an Inn. If they know they can't get iron/wine/ale/broy or whatever except near a certain village or city, it's a bit of detail to use later. ("No, I don't get to Urik much." "That's funny. How did you cultivate a taste for Broy, which is mainly served there?")
I agree that they could easily do a book on each and it would be awesome! I would love more! But that's me!
turlough
The books are really about the Bridgeburners, a group of elite sappers. Each individual is unique - with different personalities, traits, specialties and goals. I love the Bridgeburners, because it has a hint of the Crimson Legion - and is completely unlike the armies of other city-states (example: Nibenay and his 1000 Elite wooden-spear wielding Half-Giants all named Frank).
I'm planning on running an mercenary campaign in August - a mercenary company that is 'serviced' into the Nibenese army. I'm going to try and come up with a hundred different soldiers for the Nibenese army: former Gladiators, patriots of Nibenay, shy psion Templars, Templar holy slayers, angry Dwarven ranger scouts that ride Elephant-sized Inixes, sorcerer/defiler generals... and of course, the 1000 extremely cocky and powerful "Elite Half-Giant Lancers" that receive all the attention and reknown from the king.
They'll have this gambling/card game that the PCs can try, and lose (because old veterens know how to cheat). Iron rations in the army will resemble cardboard - but is nutricious and tasty when combined with wine made from fermented cacti (made by the army while on foot in the Blackspine Gap).
..details, which take forever to write up.
(example: Nibenay and his 1000 Elite wooden-spear wielding Half-Giants all named Frank)
Roll-call would really suck for that group...
Frank: Is Frank here?
(All Franks): Yo!
Templar: "Frank, go destroy that army!"
(All Franks): Oka'!
...but necessary. We're talking about Half-Giants here.
Templar: "Frank, go destroy that army!"
(All Franks): Oka'!
Would the military genius behind all of this be the infamous Os'ka Maai'r?
Sorry...?
Os'ka Maai'r Franks.
