[Dark Sun / Savage Worlds] Sacrifices of War

[Jocelyn Robitaille]

Okay, so I've pretty much hit the ground running with this one.

I did the custom character sheet tonight, and I've got a good idea of how I want to adapt the setting and old school AD&D feel to Savage Worlds.

I'm gonna run the game at least once when Doc Holaday comes to tonight, but I might very well run it a second time if the demand is high enough. I'd be especially thrill if I can manage to find someone who played Dark Sun back in the days to play in my one-shot... just to see if I've managed to recapture the feel or not.

Since there are a lot of Savage Worlds fans on the board, I'm gonna use this thread to post info about the scenario and/or how I'm managing to kit-bash Savage Worlds into Dark Sun. I'm gonna twist the system around a bit, that's for sure.

[Doc H]

Look out. I got a ray gun and I'm not afraid to use it. (How do you like my new avatar?)

I have read two of the novels, one sourcebook on the Thri-Kreen, and the "recent" Dungeon/Dragon articles when they basically rewrote Dark Sun for 3.0. So I know something about it. However, I never played in the setting. I think it will be easier to do in SW than it was in D&D, oddly enough. I assume the "backlash" on arcane magic users will cause ecological devastation (I mean, more than the whole dying sun thing already has). As I recall, in the books magic draws on nature, so abuse of it means literally despoiling the earth.

[USER1]

Originally Posted by Doc Holaday

As I recall, in the books magic draws on nature, so abuse of it means literally despoiling the earth.

I used to play Dark Sun, and yeah, they had two magic-using classes, preservers and uh, something else (I want to say ravagers, but that wasn't it, despoilers?). Preserver magic was safe, the other magic destroyed the environment.

Of course, none of that mattered, because Psionicists were broken in AD&D, even more so in Dark Sun, and quite frankly you'd have to be foolish to play a magic-user.

Quite frankly, looking back at it, I mean, I can't see much reason to have played something other than a Mul Gladiator or a Psionicist (although oddly enough I had played an Elf ranger, but when he bit it, I remember moving onto a Halfling Psionicist).

That was the coolest thing, I thought, about Dark Sun, how they handled the races. They all had bite. Halflings ate the other races, Elves were nomadic, super tall, and arrogant without being pretentious. And then the whole Clerics worship an element and eventually become an Elemental, that was pretty cool.

[Jocelyn Robitaille]

Boy, you two went to the core of the matter, didn't you?

Here's a rough draft of what's I'll do on the issues you raised. I haven't done the work, but I had the concepts pretty much figured out like five minutes after I bought the boxed-sets.

Bringing back the races and classes.

My current plan is to attribute edges and hindrances to each class and to each race, with some overlap. That way, it's gonna be easy to re-create all the distinctive parameters of each. I'll do the same things with the spells, with Priests being elemental + support, and the wizards being mostly offensive, in true D&D style. I'll address the psionicists further down.

Preservers and Defilers.

Yep, the game had two classes of wizards, underlining Dark Sun's ecological theme. The one thing you have to remember, however, is that defilers and preservers aren't actually two classes of wizards. They do the exact same thing, it's just that the defilers fuel their spells by using the surrounding lifeforce, whereas the preservers use a tiny quantity of their lifeforce, and an even tinier one of the lifeforce arround them. Consequently, the preservers are much less powerful because they're not willing to sacrifice the environment in the name of personal power.

Mechanically, clunky D&D never managed to do this one right. With Savage Worlds, it's fairly easy:

• Wizards will be able to dump backlash onto the land.
• Wizards will be able to spend the lifeforce from their surroundings to derive a certain power points value, therefore not spending their own basic power points (or supplementing the fact that they don't have any left.)
• For a fairly high power points cost, wizards will be able to amp up their spellcasting (a second wild die, maybe?). Of course, the surrounding lifeforce can be used for this as well.

So there you have it. With those rules, there's no difference between defilers and preservers except for the choices they make. I'd say that underlines the heroic and highly disciplined nature of the preservers. It also raises the issue of "does the end justifies the means?", where a preserver might decide to defile the land in order to achieve an objective. This is an issue that was raised fairly often in the Dark Sun novels, but was pretty much inexistent in the clunky AD&D mechanics.

Psionics.

There will be none. When Dark Sun came out, the psionics handbook had just been released, and TSR was looking for a vehicle to push their products. It's the only reason it's included as much as it is in Dark Sun. As a matter of fact, the psionicists actually weaken the themes and the dramatic tension of Dark Sun, as they provide a safe alternative to wizardly magic, and they lack the whole "devotion to nature" aspect of the elemental clerics and the druids. So there, no more psionics.

[Jocelyn Robitaille]

Originally Posted by Doc Holaday

I assume the "backlash" on arcane magic users will cause ecological devastation (I mean, more than the whole dying sun thing already has).

A note: The ecological devastation (and the dying sun) were caused by a massive magical war in Dark Sun's past, where much of the planet's lifeforce was spent on powerful magics. The victors of this war each took a city to be their own, thus becoming the Sorcerer-Kings - the big baddies of Dark Sun.

[Walkerp]

Originally Posted by Jocelyn Robitaille

My current plan is to attribute edges and hindrances to each class and to each race, with some overlap. That way, it's gonna be easy to re-create all the distinctive parameters of each.

One of the things missing from the SWEX is Race templates. In the original edition, they have 3 pages of them, including elves, dwarves, half-elves. As you suggested, they are basically Edges and Hindrances. I'll pass the book to you as it could be helpful as a guideline.

[Jocelyn Robitaille]

Originally Posted by Walkerp

One of the things missing from the SWEX is Race templates. In the original edition, they have 3 pages of them, including elves, dwarves, half-elves. As you suggested, they are basically Edges and Hindrances. I'll pass the book to you as it could be helpful as a guideline.

Thanks for the offer, but it's gonna be too late by the next time we meet, since I'm probably be working on this tonight or tomorrow. Besides, it probably wouldn't have been much help anyway. As Chearns pointed out, part of the appeal of Dark Sun as a campaign setting comes from how different the races are.

It's not like it's gonna be much work anyway.

[sicnaxyz]

I never had the chance to play with Dark Sun as AD&D but I loved the computer game done a few years ago. It was a nice setting but psionics were a bit of a hassle. Glad to know you flushed them.

It's cool to see that people are resurrecting old AD&D settings to use with other systems. They were not perfect but they had potential and lots of cool things.

[Doc H]

"All the races had bite"
... especially the halflings, they were cannibalistic, weren't they?

"I'll address psionicists further down"
I wouldn't worry too much about these. In SW all magic users are created equal (literally). It doesn't have the mind-to-mind attack and block stuff that D&D did (does), unless you plan on bolting it on.

"Wizards will be able to spend the lifeforce from their surroundings to derive a certain power points value, therefore not spending their own basic power points (or supplementing the fact that they don't have any left.)"
You could give any magic user the power surge edge for free, as long as he or she is willing to wither every living thing within a hundred yards. Preserver would be a major Hindrance (you can't use the power surge edge that other mu's can, and you have to be eco-friendly at all times).

MAN! SW is so easy to kit-bash!

"There will be none" (Psionics)
I see your point. That's probably a great choice. I will miss that bit of the flavor, but you are exactly right. It weakened the whole point of the setting.

[Doc H]

Have you decided yet whether we will get to make our own characters or whether we will use pre-gens? Can we see the character sheet you designed? Are these questions getting annoying?