I’ll have to agree with you; the way spells are cast, as per the AD&D 2e PHB, states that they have to move a certain way / say the right words / have the right spell-components in order to work and mages have to spend years learning the right way to cast spells; magic-on Athas seems to using a more powerful-source.
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Dark Sun’s a little strange with it’s magic; using the power to turn a Type O star (Blue into a type G and then into a Type MIII, (red-giant), it enough energy to vaporize Athas, like a million times over.
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Magic varies from world to world; I actually know little about AD&D’s magic-system, as I just recently read up on the Magic-Users in the AD&D 2e PHB (I’ve had the book for like thirty-years and never really read up on that section). There are a lot of gaming-systems out there with their own take on magic such as Mage: the Ascension, where magic-users have their own innate magical-ability where they can bend reality to Second Sight, which may or may not have magic akin to religions-belief to Cyberpunk 2020, that had magic as belief with a skill, a very, very, very difficult skills to A Song of Ice and Fire, which has magic cannot take from nothing and game-wise, it takes a lot, and I mean a lot out of your character to cast a spell.
I agree almost completely wit this statement. Of course a normal mage would try to reach out to their power source and find nothing but the Grey blocking him. I do believe that a magic user from Athas would still be able to draw some power from nature as they are trained to do. This may or not work as intended due to the gods of nature and magic seeing this disgusting defilement of their power. I think any who continued to do this would learn to harness it better over time and attract many enemies. It’s something that could go any way the DM feels but this is my opinion.
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Random thought… if an Athasian arcanist could connect to another source of power other than life energy, wouldn’t they still “rip” the power away from said source due to the nature of defiling?
Might have interesting story effects if said sources objected and considered Athasian arcanists a plague and a menace.
Mystra have control on Weave. Weave is a “thing”, that makes magic work correctly on whole Toril. And can be used to imposing the rules of magic on the entire world of Toril. “Mystra’s Ban” work also in Toril and in Kara-Tur.
So power of Mystra isnt limited only to one region of Toril.
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I think the best practice is to allow the setting rules of any given world take precedence on that world. Otherwise it turns into one-upmanship in favour of any person’s favoured setting.
“My man Mordenkainen doesn’t need to defile. He brings his magic with him!”.
“Oh, yeah? My bro Nibenay turns forests it ash in Faerun using his defiling magic!”.
It makes sense that each world has its own rules. Whether a character from another world is immediately able to use magic or needs a bit of practice to get up to speed is a different question. My preferred version is that the magic is all the same, just the source of the magical energy is different. That means that anyone trying to defile in the Forgotten Realms is answered by the weave instead. And anyone trying to draw on the weave on Athas instead finds the life energy of plants drawn instead of the weave.
Each setting having the primacy of its own rules of magic offers the highest level of verisimilitude. It doesn’t really make sense that interlopers would be able to make their own rules just by being there.
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General principles of magic are determined by connections with a the other planes in specific crystal sphere. Athas haven’t normal connections.
We can look, why spell “detect magic” don’t show many magical effects like a “druidic shapeshift”. Because we have something in style “background noise”, by whole world we have many “magical streams” so not every magical effect can be detected by “detec magic”. Something similar to problem “why in big cities we cant see stars in night sky” - too big “light pollution” to noted light of stars.
Similar concept can be used to interpretation, why athasian wizards shouldn’t use defiling in rest of world. In rest of world a “magical streams” lead too big pollution for detected energy from plains to defiling.
But general any magic users should learn to spell again in other conditions, if specific world have specific rules and/or individual connections with rest of planes. Normal wizards use own knowledge and skills to “how drain energy from streams and transformed this to spells”. Even spellcasting in Toril and in Abeir show works a little differently, because Toril have Weave and Abeir havent. Maybe not too great to general lock, but still some adaptation is needed.
So if some wizard from Neverwinter would be kicked to Tyr and will be try cast fireball - no effects. He should learn how defiling, and next would have a option to spellcasting. If some defiler would be kicked to Neverwinter and in forest will be try cast fireball - also no effects, trees are happy. He should learn basic rules of magic in this world.
By analogy. Fish have skills to breathe underwater, but in other world - no.
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Unless they have access to one of at least two spells (off the top of my head, possibly more) which literally does exactly that. (it creates a bubble effect of a dimension of your choice around you. one only affects you, the other I’m thinking of literally swaps out the region and thus affects everyone in the area of effect.)