Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!

I feel that this revised Dark Sun Campaign Setting is a pale shadow of its former self. Some things that made the original Dark Sun so great was its amazingly well thought out reworking of the conventional genre of high fantasy or sword and sorcery fantasy. It stood the usual assumptions (assumptions carried forward by such settings as FR, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk, among others -- which is not to say they're bad) about how fantasy worlds operate on their head. In Dark Sun 1, the designers explored what it would mean for a world if, instead of situating it firmly in a medieval climate and giving it all the trappings of a predictable narrative that was balanced precariously between the various designs that both Good and Evil had on it (with Good almost always emerging as victor), the forces of Good ultimately lost the archetypal Battle for the Soul of Humanity (or Humanoids, in this case). In Athas (the world of the DS setting), Judgment Day has come and gone, and the world is certainly not the better for it. It is a battered post-apocalyptic wasteland, literally dying under a red sun, where seven tyrannical sorcerer-kings (or dragon-kings) rule virtually unopposed. Gnomes, Orcs, Ogres, and many other races were destroyed long ago in a great race purge conducted by the sorcerer-kings. In order to survive, elves have become nomadic rogues and halflings savagely feast on human flesh. The green fields, tall castles, noble knights clad in impressive armor, and universal ideas of honor and virtue are no more, crushed under the weight of time and war. Even gods don't exist. These former times have been mostly forgotten without even the benefit of a nostalgic sigh.

But the revised setting changes much of the mood (and the mood is what separates Dark Sun from everything else), at least for me. With Dark Sun 2 (and this is largely a result of all the novels and their damn metaplot imposing itself on the setting), only five of the nine sorcerer-kings survive (two more sorcerer-kings have been introduced since DS 1). Three have been killed, and one has been imprisoned on another plane (all this happened in the novels, ugh). Of the five remaining, one has actually become a representative of Good, so scratch him; two refuse to open up their cities to outsiders, or let insiders out, making them almost non-entities; another, though not converting to goodness, has "rethought" her former ways and now seeks to revivify the dying world; only the sorcerer-king from Nibenay retains the fascinating godking model introduced in DS 1. So really, only one, maybe three, out of the remaining five sorcerer-kings is still a villainous enough presence for the PCs.

Furthermore, Tyr is a free city-state, the Dragon of Tyr is dead (an iconic force more powerful and interesting than the tarrasque), and other lands have been opened up to exploration. This third element essentially erases and negates the mental state of constantly being under siege by the sorceror-kings, the Dragon, or the harsh environmental conditions of the Tyr region. If you're familiar with FR, then what you got is the rough equivalent of living in Thay or Zhentil Keep: players starting out here know that this isn't the norm, that other lands exist, and so on, and thus they aren't as pulled by the special, Dark Sun-patented mood of nigh-hopelessness (mind you, this is hardly an exact analogy, but it gestures toward the broad idea I'm trying to convey). Tyr being free doesn't annoy me very much, since it adds just a tiny bit of room for the PCs to actually breathe in. Desperation can get mundane.

Anyways, to sum up, it looks like the novel writers (one of which, I think, was an actual designer of the original Dark Sun) and designers of the revised DS couldn't stand how extreme Athas was. They just had to move it slightly more towards mainstream DnD, with two city-states that now represent goodness or at least freedom, the Dragon and many sorcerer-kings killed or otherwise nonfactors on the side of evil (yay! good really does win guys, woot!), and other lands being explored (there's green pasture to the west, and an actual freaking sea to the north, giving the setting only a dim aura of its original "doom laden vision" (to use the words of another commentator).

Actually, I don't mind the good guys winning, but the original Dark Sun setting left it up to the PCs and DM to blaze that trail. In this product, the setting has already done that for you. I mean, one of the things I looked forward to when playing Dark Sun was managing to kill a sorcerer-king, which no one else had reportedly done (as far as most Athasians knew), and going up against the Dragon. Maybe free a city-state or two. Discover a way to relieve the blasted conditions of the land. All this has been done in one more or less one way or another by the novels.

And there's nothing wrong with mainstream DnD. I play it all the time. But Dark Sun represented something different, which attracted me just as powerfully as other, more traditional settings. Now what's left? Might as well play a typical DnD game but in the desert. Luckily there is a Paizo DM's Guide to Dark Sun published by Dungeon magazine #110, which restores the original flavor. It sets the timeline forward three hundred years, and keeps most of the oppressive and desperate atmosphere of the original setting. I will definitely be using that over this setting. (However, don't buy the Paizo Player's Guide to Dark Sun, which is in Dragon magazine. That one is just plain badly designed, with hairy dwarves, weak half-giants, and paladins--which don't belong in a world where the official forces of good have been destroyed).

I probably have more to say, but this is more than enough. Keep in mind, this is only my opinion, albeit a very strong opinion, of what Dark Sun is about. If that's not your cup of tea, by all means go ahead and buy this setting.

EDITED: Made a mistake. The green pastures to the west of the Jagged Cliffs are actually very deadly to creatures without carapaces, so the environmental conditions are still pretty harsh. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br><BR>[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]<BR>

I was always interested in this campaign setting, but never got a chance to play in it. I was interested to see what it would look like, and how different it would be from the d20 stuff I've become familiar with. Also, I wanted to see how the pdf version of this old TSR product might look. Well...I realized quickly the depth of my being spoiled with the modern layouts and art-heavy formats. This isn't the flashy, glossy, art on most every page product that you'll see from Wizards. Yes, there's a nice swirl pattern of sand on the borders, but if you're looking for a big storehouse art to throw down on the gaming table, look elsewhere. I've only scratched the surface of reading through the text, but it seems as if this edition is as much a "here's what's been happening in all our products and novels" product as a simple introduction to the Dark Sun world. I can't comment on that too closely as of yet, but I don't quite think that I'll be able to get what I was looking for out of this product.

In terms of the transfer, it's well set-up and bookmarked. I found it easy to go from topic to topic.

Overall, I think this product was likely a very good one for its time, but it seems dated to me now. I doubt that it'll be worth my time to adapt this product for a new 3.5 game. Still and all, it makes me appreciate the fact that even the smallest pdf publishers are putting out products that have more "chrome" than the stuff we used to be amazed by. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Well transferred, pdf fully bookmarked<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: No art to speak of, no good maps that I could find. Did I miss them? Are they even included? <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

I was extremely dissapointed when TSR/WotC stopped printing Darksun products. Thankfully, I've now found a place to complete my collection at a great price.

Less cool than the original Dark Sun setting, since they basically had the backplot run rampant over the world. Still, good to mine for various ideas.