Dark Sun Campaign Development: Storyboarding and Story Arcs

I can't properly describe my excitement at finally having a true Dark Sun home campaign again. My last one ended somewhere in early 1994, so it has been a long time coming. I am blessed with some excellent players, so the task of building a compelling campaign is much easier. Nonetheless, I want to share thoughts on how I am setting up the campaign (without spoiling things for the players, some of whom may read this).

In my last Dark Sun blog I wrote about choosing a campaign and suggested some campaign types (such as a Free Tyr campaign or merchant house campaign). Because I have a good amount of experience with the setting, I chose a different starting point and I will be mixing in some of those themes in over time.

Additionally,

Before I jump in, some of you might ask "What is happening? Why aren't you writing about Dark Sun?" I fully intend to do that. The ravages of convention season plus some work helping other authors has taken a toll, as have family pressures. Further, my Dark Sun campaign is in a very great phase of players making PCs. That ends this coming Wednesday, and at that time I hope to share a lot more about my campaign. I am also comparing Obsidian Portal and Epic Words and hope to share that when I next post.

Changing Adventure and Encounter Design

If you read just one blog this month, it should be what Robert J. Schwalb (the guy that writes every other Dragon article) wrote in Reexamining the Dungeon. He brillaintly analyzes the way that 4E's formula for encounter design ends up producing fantastic

Bringing the Heat - Starting a Dark Sun Campaign

Like a druid, DMs bring life to Athas

This week I am writing for the DMs that are taking the intrepid step to create and run their own Dark Sun campaign. My hope is to provide a few ideas on the process that can be used to prepare for a campaign and then some ideas for the type of the campaign. Feedback on how whether this is useful is appreciated. I am starting my own campaign and my current plan is to share ideas as it progresses. I could instead focus less on the campaign side and more on the pure DM side or to some extent on the player side.

You need players

It is very easy to want to write a campaign and then go find players. Don't. If you don't have players, your campaign is a creative writing exercise and nothing more.

After some time off and a lot of fun at Gen Con, we take a look at the new 4E version of Dark Sun and explore ideas for getting a campaign started.

Another Age Begins!
Athas Returns!

I could have really missed out on Dark Sun. When I first heard about it, back in 1991, it sounded like a munchkin product that would be all about too-powerful PCs. "No thanks", I thought. When the players in my game bought the set for me I had little recourse but to take a closer look. I was blown away by the incredibly interesting setting. Everything was so different from anything I had played or run before! The years shot by and it became like an old friend. When support for Dark Sun ended, it was a complete surprise. As luck would have it, the Internet was developing and fans found each other on listservers.

We return to lore and take a look at some of the major organizations on Athas. Some are secret organizations, while others are just ones where you might lose your head if you say the wrong things about them. You didn't get this information from my PC!

Shh... Unspeakable Organizations in Dark Sun

As you might expect in a world ruled by incredibly powerful and cruel Sorcerer-Kings, it is very difficult to get away with creating a secret organization in Athas. Without question, the most successful one and the most likely to be mentioned in a campaign is the Veiled Alliance. And yet, it is a fairly small and fragile organization. The Order is even smaller and more focused. There are a few others detailed in Dark Sun supplements, but they are small enough to not deserve mention at a broad

This post takes a departure from describing the world and instead focuses on what it is like to DM this world. This is a huge topic, so I will concentrate on two aspects that can be particularly important for the campaign world: maintaining the sense of Athasian uniqueness and achieving an appropriate challenge level.

Running the Sands - Tips for Surviving as a Dark Sun DM

Keeping Athas Interesting and Unique

One of the hardest aspects of DMing a unique campaign world is that everyone wants it to feel unique. The DM wants it unique, the players want it unique. And yet, when you play past a few sessions, it is surprisingly easy to have it feel like the PCs are just crossing terrain, just speaking to an NPC, or just fighting in some place. How can you keep the Athasian feel without

Dark Sun's unique flavor extends to equipment. From the materials used to the differences in construction to paying with clay pieces (cp), Athas is very different when it comes to weapons.

Bone, Wood, Stone, and Obsidian - Fighting in Athas

Athasian weapons are shaped by the materials available and the difficulty with which to find skilled craftsmen. Metal weapons are extremely rare. Expert gladiators might spend their whole lives without so much as a rusty dagger. Weapons are crude and lashed together from materials scavenged from the desert. Knowledge of weaponsmithing is lost, replaced by ingenuity borne from the gladiatorial arenas of the city-states or the slave tribes and raiders of the wastes.

Materials and Weapon Breakage

While the full rules have not been released, we do know

As with previous posts, this information is based on previous editions. It is possible that the 4E version of Dark Sun will remove or modify the current terrain types. However, this discussion is probably useful because it underscores the incredible diversity found on Athas. Even on Earth, deserts vary greatly in topographical features, micro-climates, temperature ranges, ground composition, flora, and fauna. Athas is a fantasy campaign and one transformed by powerful forces - it should have even more variation.

Varied Threats - Understanding Athasian Terrain

The Common Terrain Types Are A Starting Point

In previous editions, Athasian geography was broken down into six types: Sandy Wastes, Stony Barrens, Rocky Badlands, Salt Flats, Scrub Plains, and Silt. In addition,

One of the great aspects of Dark Sun is that it turns typical campaign aspects on their head. In traditional campaigns, any large city can serve as a safe "home base" for the PCs, acting as a civilized "point of light" amidst dangerous things in the wilds outside. While the outside is incredibly dangerous in Dark Sun, the cities can be just as dangerous. It is as if evil has won, each city ruled by an incredibly evil dictator with godlike powers and an army of corrupt and vile people enforcing their will. The PCs are generally a threat to the established order. This is your home base. Welcome to the city-state.

Life and Death in an Athasian City-State

It remains to be seen how 4E will treat each city-state, but one of the neat aspects in previous Dark Sun editions was that each city-state