Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Terrainosaur Jun 24, 2010 21:27:11	I'm reading the '91 and '96 versions before the 4E release. You can run it as a dystopia but almost any campaign setting could probably handle that kind of adventure.  In your opinion, as written, is Dark Sun a dystopia?
#2 Novacat Jun 24, 2010 21:57:23	I'm reading the '91 and '96 versions before the 4E release. You can run it as a dystopia but almost any campaign setting could probably handle that kind of adventure.  In your opinion, as written, is Dark Sun a dystopia? Post-Apocalyptic would be a better description of the genre. I wouldn't really describe Athas as being "dystopian", per se, but I suppose it could fit a loose definition of that term.
#3 Bly2729 Jun 24, 2010 21:58:10	No it's the bloody elemental plane of ice cream sandwiches. But seriously folks... A dystopia tends to be a society presented as ideal yet internally broken.  No matter how corrupt or false, its rulers made some promise of better things to come under their rule. The Sorcerer Kings made no such promise or have such delusions, they're just in charge.  Now, some may attempt to legitimize their rule through propaganda.  In that, individual city-states could be considered dystopic or presented as dystopias.  Or you could present them as simple despots that aren't marketing themselves as helping their people.
#4 xlorep_darkhelm Jun 24, 2010 22:06:41	The Last Sea is the definition of a dystopia.
#5 Terrainosaur Jun 25, 2010 14:10:19	That's what triggered me asking, Saragar in the Last Sea. In a way, all of the city-states with sorcerer-kings are dystopias. And if Athas is a dying world -- meaning everything there will die eventually -- it's more than post-apocalyptic.  If there is no hope, then it's very close to a dystopia.