Hi there,
I am curious how many people are able to run years or decades long campaigns in Dark Sun. Is it suitable for such play. This is easy to do in Greyhawk, the setting I am most familiar with, but Dark Sun seems like eventually the world is either saved or ends, or people might just get sick of the desert after 4 years of play.
Its just like any other setting - player investment in the world is going to drive long campaigns, random encounters in the desert.
I have been running an AD&D2e Dark Sun game for six years. It is very easy to do so. The biggest problem we have had is real life, not the setting
My 2E play-by-posts have daily contributions and long term plots and hooks. I can post links if you want examples of extended non-module play.
Gameplay:
PCs, NPCs, Items, Home Rules
One of the things that can help the longevity of a Dark Sun campaign (or other game worlds) is changing the theme as the campaign and players progress.
Your campaign would likely start out as a survival campaign for the players. As they get stronger and more established, they gain all new goals. Do they want to create a village or merchant house? Become warlords or raiders? Seek after lost knowledge and power?
After their choices, as a DM you decide what direction your campaign goes next. If they create a village some others may want to conquer it or enslave its people. If they create a merchant house, other merchant houses will likely try to destroy them. If they become warlords, they could fight other tribes or even armies of the city states. If the players start amassing psionic or magic power, other jealous and covetous beings will want to slay them and take it.
If the players survive these trials, then take the next logical step for their choices. Your campaign will keep evolving, and that change can keep players interested. They will also feel they have more of an impact in the world which will get them more involved.
Good luck!
With the Dragon-King’s Book, the players have an incentive to have a long-term campaign and advance their characters, which is ironic considering the lethality of the game even with character-trees.
Hey, I got something to add about this.
Played Road to Urik in 2015, then I started developing a campaign that starts 2-years before Kalak’s death. I named the first story ‘The Old Outpost’, which was an argosy turned into a small village since it had a well and one of the characters, Old Lenn, was a water-cleric that purified the muddy water. The characters met at the Old Outpost and helped settle a murder dispute, then defended the place from a dune reaper attack. I ran this story for 4 sessions.
After that the second arc began, I called it ‘Unknown Predator’, it started when they travelled to Farrek’s Arena, a slavers town, and yes it is a den of evil. There one slaver hired the pc’s to look for a creature that was attacking small traders and caravans, and this affected the commerce. The players were ambushed by House Tsalaxa agents while fighting the predator, a Crystal Spider, after that they returned to the village only to find a revolt from the merchant houses and the slavers, they were fighting for the control of the town. The pc’s joined a nobleman of House Varil and tried to help the merchants, but the slavers won in the end and the pc’s talked their way out of being executed. I ran this arc for 8 sessions.
The third act began a year later, (one year before the death of Kalak and the Freedom module), the pc’s now work for the small noble House Varil of Tyr. Their patriarc summoned them because one of the player’s character, a defiler from Draj, had found ancient ruins and asked the pc’s for their help. The story focuses on the travel through the sands, they have an inix and supplies, so far they’ve faced a templar patrol, a band of halflings that are on a hunting pilgrimage, a sand cactus, and some more creatures and of course the merciless dark sun. The last session (session #6) left the pc’s at the defiler’s camp, but were ambushed by a pack of rasclinn’s…
I plan to run around 4 more sessiones. After that I’ll take the surviving pc’s to the Freedom module.
If you read all of this, thank you!
Hope this adds some flavor to this thread hehe
Great anecodate, very inspiring, thank you. Is this all in 2e, 3.5 or another edition?
Hey fellow survivor of the wastes. This storyline was played using 5e adapted to Dark Sun.
Luckily the player of the defiler of Draj couldn’t play much and I haven’t found a good 5e defiling conversion.
Suggestions about this are always welcome.
If you need more details let me know.
The Pristine Tower team (we here at Athas.org) are currently using June’s (@Xelu ) Athascon 5e rules, which definitely has defiling rules. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Bli2DII7UGvJXwa8NiTC9iAV4rIdS2sr/view?usp=drive_link
A set of 5e24 DS rules are currently in progress.
Great! Just read the defiling rules, they look promising, I will give them a try next session. (This Friday hehe)