When most people think about Dungeons and Dragons, their minds turn towards epic fantasy. Elves, dwarves, dragons – it’s part and parcel of the role playing game package. However, those who are most familiar with D&D know that there’s far more to the game than just that. In the 1980s and 1990s, a number of alternative settings flourished. Some of these settings took Dungeons and Dragons in strange, often unique directions. In fact, some of them abandoned the trappings of the original settings to create something truly strange. One of the best known of these settings was Dark Sun, a game of post-apocalyptic fantasy. Dark Sun began life as a setting intimately tied to Battlesystem, a rather less-than-successful miniatures supplement to Dungeons and Dragons. Instead of creating yet another feudalistic fantasy world, the creators of this game decided upon a post-apocalyptic desert, a dying world that had been ravaged by magic. The game felt different than anything that had come before, full of strange races and stranger adventures. While Battlesystem may not have been the success that TSR had hoped for, Dark Sun managed not only to persist but to become an important part of the role playing world. Examining how it complemented and eventually deviated from D&D is a study in how a role playing setting can evolve. https://litrpgreads.com/blog/rpg-legends-dark-sun
I know you can't see it, but apparantly I used to play Darksun back in High School a couple times. I don't even remember how to play D&D lol. Pretty sure the DM held my hand figuratively throughout the whole process.
I had the Dark Sun campaign, but, other than stealing some ideas from it, never really ran it. I thought years later it would make a good setting for Rolemaster, but, I didn't want to do a huge translation and was working on cyberpunk 2020. Now, what I did use for D&D was an adaption of another one of their gaming campaigns.
I've never played anything other than PC games. There is a hobby shop by the house here where the guys have model terrain set up. Complete with forts, castles, trees and rivers. Ive even seen figureines all painted up. It's a pretty intense and elaborate setup. I've been in a few times for various things and occasionally there are folks playing around it. I can't begin to explain how, it's all out of my element. I did see I kid go on a complete nerd rage though. No idea what it was over but he was huffing and puffing. The 1 big guy in their group had to restrain him. That was amusing. The kid was maybe 100# soaking wet and couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack. That was all pretty amusing. Then of course you had the kids in school with their card games they would play at lunch. Oh... the torment those guys got. Lol
Well call me a D&D newb, but I'd never even heard of the cross-over realms between D&D titles... just looked them up and I think I actually have that Planescape Torment game somewhere and never played it. The Death Gate Cycle series by Margareit Weis & Tracy Hickman seems like a middle ground between the Dark Sun post-apocalyptic world and Planescape/Spelljammer worlds with travel. I think I gave up after book 4 of that series when it got either depressing, or predictably depressing. Can't remember which. Also can't remember how they traveled between realms at all... but I think a flying ship might have been involved.
For Spelljammer, I was running my own campaign that was based on an old fantasy novel, the shattered world. The ships could be built by people, however, they were very limited in what they could do compared to a full Spelljammer ship. The sun was surrounded by a giant cloud of atmosphere that had the shattered remains of the planets of the system orbiting the sun.
I usually played forgotten realms or dragonlance. I know of this one but I don't know much about it. But I love learning new things
I could never get enough other people interested in Dark Sun to run it, but I stole a bunch of ideas for the regular games, like cannibal halflings and some of the creepy biological weapons.
