As if to prove my point, last week's Dark Sun posts have generated a lot of interest, not to mention comments, which I appreciate. Here's another ad for the setting, this time from issue #173 of Dragon (September 1991), the same issue as the Brom cover I previously highlighted.
Looking at this advertisement, I have several thoughts:
- It's important to remember TSR's D&D novels were very successful for the company, so it's no surprise that the release of the Dark Sun boxed set would also see the release of a novel at the same time, in this case Verdant Passage by Troy Denning. Though I never read any of them, there would eventually be thirteen novels published for Dark Sun during the TSR era.
- Speaking of TSR, is that not the logo at the bottom right the ugliest the company ever had?
- Once again, we see this ad emphasizes that Dark Sun is "the toughest AD&D game campaign ever published." I can't help but wonder what this is about. Was there a perception at the time that TSR's other settings, like Dragonlance or the Forgotten Realms, were "easy" or otherwise inadequate to the tastes of AD&D fans? My recollection, albeit from more than three decades ago, was that the 2e era was concerned far more with "story" and similar things, so I wouldn't have expected much clamor for a "challenging" setting. Perhaps that's the explanation? Could it have been that there some segment of the game's fans who felt the game had strayed too much from its roots and wanted a setting where death was ever-present? I wish I knew.
I had that first novel, Verdant Passage. It was, I think, a pretty good introduction to the setting. Cannibal halflings, psionics, king-priests turned dragon, magic drawing life force to power itself... it did all seem pretty grim to my high school aged self. We never got the box set or anything, though. We just kept on with our ongoing BECMI Known World campaign.
ReplyDeleteThis was tied with Planescape for my favourite 2e setting, in part because of what a departure it was. It was so weird and it entirely owned that, even if the meta plot and mechanics were broken at times. Very much enjoying your retrospective and hope you'll have a dive into some of the Suppliments material. If you were to do similar for Planescape and spelljammer I wouldn't be mad.
ReplyDeletePoor Birthright, it hardly ever makes it on to the lists of "2e settings I'd like to see more posts on" when the subject comes up. Too late in TSR's lifecycle, maybe? Didn't have time to build the fan base even Planescape did, much less the earlier ones.
DeleteOf all the 2e era AD&D settings, Birthright is the one about which I know the least. I owned the boxed set and that's it. I never had the chance to play it.
DeleteAs a weird aside, a friend and I acquired a large collection of someone’s D&D stuff that he just didn’t want anymore. All of it was from 2nd Edition, and very little of it looked like it saw much use. Except, the Birthright boxed set was full of modules and character sheets and notes. So, at least for that person, Birthright was like all they cared about. I therefore have an oddly big collection of it now, despite not even knowing much about it prior.
DeleteBirthright is fantastic! But i think it's very different from the usual D&D experience for most players.
DeleteMy group of friends played Risk a lot and played Birthright just like it, cooperation only lasted a few turns.
The link to the interview provided in a previous post answers that partially, and there are other interviews from the other creators that further flesh out that perspective of deadliness.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the emphasis on challenge stems from a desire to seem hard-edged and "extreme" (Dark Sun feels very edge-lordy to me) -- that is very apropos of the 1990s and a reasonable attempt to appeal to the WoD crowd who might have turned up their noses at kender and elves.
ReplyDeleteThe extensive metaplot and drip-feed of setting history is also very typical of 90s RPG trends - for better or worse.
DeleteThe release schedule is not great, box comes in October but first adventure in February.
ReplyDeleteI get that 2e era adventures were railroad garbage, but you think you would want to sell the box and then immediately have a adventure ready for folks out of the gate.
The boxed set came with an adventure, and info on running/creating advetures, so DM's were not at a total loss.
DeleteDark Marriage? Dark Parenting? Dark Saving for University in 20 years? Twice. Challenging?
ReplyDeleteI think the "toughest challenge" comment was designed to lean into the grimdark setting. Early 90's saw a rise in cynical, dark settings such as Cyberpunk and RIFTS, among others, and it's not surprising that TSR would want a piece of that pie.
ReplyDeleteThis would be my guess. Along with WHFRP.
DeleteAnd the SF/F entertainment industry.
And comics.
And the music industry- younger people were gravitating toward grunge and nu metal. Rap was getting darker. etc.
At this point TSR was still mainly peddling "vanilla heroic" fantasy in FR,DL,GH and The Known World/Mystara. They were trying to tap into the WOD/Horror thing with Ravenloft knowing that original module had been a hit.
DS seems to be tapping into a grim dark outlook that was prevalent everywhere. With a completely different look and feel of play.
WFRP is a comedy setting. The grimdark thing is a terrible misunderstanding.
Delete@thekelvingreen Exactly! It was Spinal Tap for AD&D, and nobody seemed to get it...Toon, now *that* is where the real GrimDark lives!
DeleteRe: "the toughest AD&D game campaign ever published."
ReplyDeleteI was a preteen/teen during the Dark Sun era and this marketing totally worked on me, so I can speak about the hype. (Unfortunately for TSR, even though I was hyped, I never actually purchased any Dark Sun material.*)
My friends and I had the perception that, unlike 1e, 2e was easy and characters never died. I am not sure where this came from, through local gaming culture, modules, or Dragon magazine articles, but somehow we thought that 1e was like an advanced board game whereas in 2e the DM was making an epic story. Therefore, in 2e your character played an intrinsic part of said epic story and couldn't be killed off (lest the DM's plans be ruined). In retrospect, this seems bizarre, given that the 1e and 2e rules are practically identical. But, when you consider this perception, it sort of makes sense that a setting which explicitly told the DM it was OK to kill characters (through the presence of character trees, etc.) would be the "toughest yet." (This is, of course, somewhat in contrast to those characters starting at a higher level with psionics and overpowered races/classes/kits out the wazoo.)
Another factor I remember was that (at least according to Dragon articles) Dark Sun seemed to emphasize outdoor survival, needing water and food, etc. Maybe it was a way for DMs to kill off your character even if they are utterly OP in combat.
* My memory is that the Dark Sun boxed set was especially expensive? Maybe this is wrong though? In any case, I couldn't afford it and my plan was just to see if my parents could find it at any garage sale/swap meet (as they had found Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc.). Since this never happened and we got into other games later I don't think I've actually read any Dark Sun material.
Regarding cost, the original boxed set was marked at $20. The inferior second edition was $30.
DeleteHi James thanks so much for writing about Dark Sun. Just looking at the picture above what stands out to me is how interesting the colours are, not just the drawings itself. The way it goes from lilac to salmon pink to orangy red at the top. Dark Sun for me was an amazing setting and series of novels (the first four) that then suffered a dramatic decline in quality with its 2nd edition (the mind sea and so on). They seemed to lose their sense of what the setting was about.
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you mentioned it: the “Toughest Setting Yet” claim… I never played in the setting, but yeah… Like how? Why? Exactly?
ReplyDeleteI mean, you have bad guys to fight, treasure to win…. Is it necessarily unbalanced? Just because you’re playing in a ‘blasted wasteland’, as opposed to The Shire, matters little. It’s a backdrop.
Now, if the DM is steadily offing PC’s due to starvation and dehydration, maybe a bit of heatstroke, okay. But man, that sounds lame, not challenging.
“Damnit! That’s the fourth character I’ve had starve to death in this arid shit hole! And this last one just hit third level!”
No thanks, I’ll just as soon pop in to the Welcome Wench, in Hommlet, and grab me a pint. Mebbe go checkout a moathouse later. I hope no giant frogs swallow me whole…
I played in the Gencon RPGA tournament for this and for Spelljammer at the time as a 5th and 6th grader with my oldest brother (around 21-22 at the time)... and his even OLDER friends from work who were Vietnam vets, etc. We also did a weekly Dark Sun campaign with the same guys (about 7 of us + DM).
DeleteWe never thought about any of this marketing crapola ever. It was just new AD&D stuff / mechanics to play and have a good time. I remember we went to get the Psionics splat book specifically for it.
I think sometimes in retrospect people like to find too much "cause" and "reason" behind everything... maybe TSR had some ulterior motive... but the stupid ads didn't mean shit to us lol
That said, looking at it now the setting and mechanics are pretty cool in a Frazetta, Robert E. Howard type vibe but amped up. I can appreciate that more now.
I honestly never played something from D&D from the 77-96 that I didn't enjoy. And I think 2e did an exceptional job at creating settings with really solid research behind them. Some people call it bloat but I'd take that era of gaming over everything WOTC did after that.
From what I remember it was due to the lack of metal and magic. Starting fighters had like ac 7 or at best ac 5. So you would get hit a lot more in combat. And there wasn't a plethora of +1 arms and armor to find. I remember when four bandits armed with daggers jumped our group. We were panicking. The bard got dropped and my fighter had under 25% hps at the end. The bandits were 1st or so and we were all 3rd. In a typical 2e campaign my 3rd lvl fighter would have a 3 or 2 ac and could fight all 4 of bandits on his own with some luck. Especially if they were dumb enough to use daggers.
ReplyDeleteThe setting is supposed to be grimmer. The ruling government is corrupt as all hell. Basically it pretty much revolves around the whole dying earth concept. Athas, the world setting used to be a world like Forgotten Realms and so forth but it was destroyed by magic so much most of the world is wasteland. Magic is dangerous to use mainly because people will accuse you of despoiling the world and burn you at the stake.
ReplyDeleteAlso the races are very different. There are no Orcs, or races like that. Dwarves are still short but completely hairless, Elves are tall and slim and steal water and halflings are savage cannibals.