Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 johndoe Feb 17, 2012 9:29:54	Hi there, I’m finally going to be setting up a Dark Sun campaign in my gaming group, in which some (including our current DM) have been asking me to for like 10+ years to do so. It’s going to be using a timeline set 15 years before Kalak’s death (of which I’m not sure I’m going to include just yet, but hey I postponed all that for 10+ years in game time) and I’m barring quite a few things from the setout for the players. They start play all as humans, and the only available classes are fighter, thief, trader, psionicist. I want to let other races and classes become available in game, as the PC’s encounter them so to say. This is both to make it easier for me as a DM to concentrate on getting the setting’s mood right, and not to involve too many obviously different rules / game mechanics / flavour all at the same time, to a gaming group who is so used to playing ‘regular campaign worlds’ and/or Planescape things. What I am asking for is what you guys think I should make available for starting info, both about Athas as a world (flavour) and about Dark Sun being different than other campaign settings (more about mechanics), without giving too much away at the start. (like that all SK’s are evil defiler/psionicists transformed partly to full dragonhood) The idea is to get the party involved in the campaign and let them ‘gel’ as a group in the first few session by making their experience together in the desert a unifying one and making sure they are a party instead of a bunch of individuals.  Any tips are welcome! (oh I might have just used 2nd edition terminology because that's what I'm most familiar with)
#2 JabbaVonHutt Feb 17, 2012 14:53:11	It sounds like your planning to run it in 1e/2e, if you have access to 4e material I would strongly suggest that you run it in 4e with the 4e Dark Sun Campaign book. Because of Dark Sun's perculiarities (i.e no gods therefore no Divine magic) 4es other leader classes such as the warlord fill out the healing role nicely. Character themes can also add allot of flavour to PCs since they are made for Dark Sun. In any case this : www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DarkSunPlayTra... can be used as a players primer for Athas.
#3 johndoe Feb 18, 2012 9:03:49	I did buy the 4e Dark Sun books and like some bits of it. Of most things I'm honestly less fond, but that's just because I am an old grumpy hardcore oldskool DS fan... Mechanics-wise my group is just so used to 2e (most players having played it for 20 years now) that we have never tried 3, 3.5 nor 4. There are talks now that they/we would be willing to try out 5e. Heck in the end I don't really care I just wanna let them finally have a go at Athas after having been bugged about it for years now haha. Your link is quite good, only thing I would edit is the part where they know the SKs are immortal defilers or that the primordials (who?!) are responsible for there being no gods on Athas. In that respect I feel 4e adds far fetched things just to make divine healing more available. In our older games, we always worked with psionicist or elemental cleric or druid pcs that had minor abillities in healing. We never really had problems in that regard, but it might be a playing difference in editions. In the end as I said, I don't really mind nor care which mechanics we would use. I have my own house rules and campaign ideas already in place, and everything else adapts. I care about the flavour, and for that I'm looking for DM tips and player info handout stuff. Thanks again for your link!