Over the years Ive played several table top RPG's. But there have been two that have settled in my heart. But Ive often felt torn between the two. So I decided to take it to Dumpshock.
So folks, what'll it be? DarkSun, Or Earthdawn?

Is someone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to choose one or the other?

Haha no, Im just tryin to get a freindly debate goin.

Earthdawn all the way! It has the superior setting, rules, and flavor. Though it's kind of biased asking here.

(Dibs on a windling nethermancer.)

Windling Nethermancer? Ugh, you and Mrs Fisty would be interesting to play together.

No, they're terrifying.

Darksun, clearly.

Dragon eats world. Halflings eat people. Nobody likes elves because they're dirty sneaky thieves. People stone witches, and the bad guys already won.

Clear win.

This is true.

Maybe they should make a sequal to Darksun, one where the good guys are a little closer to looking like what theyre doing actually matters.

If Dark Sun at least made sense, I'd be more okay with it. But it doesn't. Where exactly did all the water go? Sure, Defilers eat up all the plant life, but there should still be water. At worst, it might be gathered at the poles like on Mars. At which point people would either move to be closer to those poles or come up with psionic if not engineering methods to gather and harness it.

And then there's the whole psionics thing. How or why are people able to tell the difference between psionics and magic? How is there any difference between the two? Nevermind that in the real world, "psionics" was simply an attempt to put science to magic; it's still magic, it's just magic with scientific names and principles used to explain it. I get that fantasy and sci-fi fiction both see some huge difference between the two, but it's pretty damn nonsensical to hate one but not the other within a given setting. Oh no, that guy is casting Charm Person instead of Psionic Charm! Or he's using Levitate instead of... uh... Levitate? Whatever, we can tell the difference! Somehow! BURN HIM! It's even more ridiculous that Preservers seem to be hated more than Defilers.

???

Say what you will about Earthdawn, but at least it's internally consistent and most of it makes sense within its own context.

Ill give you that. The idea of why magic is hated but psionics is not confused me as well. I think Fisty and I had a very long converstation about this a few years back in his living room.

I love both games, but Im gonna have to say, controdictions aside, Darksun is my favorite.

Oh and Doc, to awnser your question, (atleast the best to my knowledge) when magic is used in Athas, it doesnt kill just plant life, but all life around it, with the exception of people around them. What I mean, is that it draws the energies around the caster. Water is a huge source of that. Why do you think you cant look through water on the astral via Shadowrun? I know that makes little sense, but give it a thought.

And even if Im wrong about this, with no plants, theres also no water. Once the world is one big desert. all the water goes to attempting to water the land. As we all learned in grade school, the water is evaporated into the sky, but when the remaining water on the planet has been used up, there isnt enough to start a rainstorm. So, therefore, water disappears. Plants and water life, sorta go hand in hand.

But honestly I think the authors were just trying to create a hopeless, desolate world.

Uh, you're way off on the water thing.

And yeah, I know life is affected by defiling magic. But water certainly isn't. And even if it was, there must have been a lot of seafaring defilers out there who did nothing but cast spells while afloat. Lots and lots and lots of spells. Like, orders of magnitude more than on land.

I also know the designers were after that. I remember reading articles about the process they used. Their main goal was to come up with a harsh setting where they could let players create truly crazy characters and simultaneously showcase the new psionics system. While they did put a lot of thought into it as a whole, they clearly didn't care enough to make it a very believable setting. Which is, honestly, what I love most about Earthdawn. It's full of all kinds of crazy things, but I can actually believe that it could have existed.

This is saying all kinds of things about the way youre mind works So you beleive in dragons, and windlings, and lizard people and all that eh?

Just givin ya shit doc

Believable != Realistic.

I'm going to counter with what actually happened.

In good ol' darksun history, the planet was originally a blue planet, covered with water. What was basically a biological weapon began converting it into all borwn sludge. The dominant race at the time used a massive life shaped artifact (ie: NOT magic) to change the sun (what power it actually used is never said). The sun changed from a sapphire blue to a yellow sun, burned out the sludge, and presumably the temperature change and the sweeping changes to the landscape wrought by the prisinte tower changed it from an ocean world to the more common "green" most people are familiar with a fantasy setting.

When Rajaat came in and used the Pristine Tower a secnod time to create his champions, the sun changed again to crimson. It got hotter. An Athasian day isn't 140+ degrees because of lack of water, it's because it's sun is fucking hot! The defilers destroying plantlife contributed to the ecological collapse.

Now, bear in mind that the only are that shows complete desert is the Tablelands. You never get the complete picture of the world. There is at least one are, the Crimson Savanna, to the West of the Tyr Region (and down thousands of feet of cliffs, perhaps more to see level? Hmm?) that is very green, with 6 foot tall grass.

So don't hate when you don't have all the information.
If you still don't like it now, well that's ok. At least you're informed.

While we're ont he subject of "internally consistent", how did the kaers continue to supply air and remove carbon dioxide for 500 years without ventilation?

If your answer is "True Air and Elementalists", I'll point out that you're assuming, since it's never addressed. just like the detailed explanation of the loss of oceans is never addressed. Same goes for airships operating at cloud level and beyond, where the air pressure is too thin for people to function, especially while doing things like working a ship.

Oh, there is one remaining sea on Athas as well btw. You know this stuff. Why the hate Doc?

Even a really hot planet wouldn't cause the water to disappear. It doesn't just evaporate into outer space. Also, some things don't have to be explained (and who said the kaers didn't have a form of ventilation; I'm sure that would have been a major concern during the initial construction). But when those unexplained things would explain a lot (ie, little to no water on Athas) -- it's a pretty big gap! You also didn't address the <3 psionics / </3 magic paradigm that makes even less sense. So there.

And who said I hate it? I just don't like certain aspects of the Dark Sun setting and prefer Earthdawn greatly in comparison. Which, you know, is what the thread is about. I still enjoy both immensely for what they are. But if I had to choose one over the other, Earthdawn wins. No contest. Cooler, more diverse setting with more interesting antagonists, environments, and objectives. It's a real, fully functional world. Dark Sun... only if you rationalize every single little thing, and ignore the rationalizes you used for everything else.

Usually when you hermetically seal something (Punny), it doesn't leave big ol' holes demons can crawl in through.

And the water obviously doesn't just evaporate, or you wouldn't have the Last Sea. Or the crimson Savannah. But the primary place of play is a desert. Think Utah. Higher elevation for one, crappy soil, the water gets abosrbed into the sand. There is an underground water table. That's how the city states survive.

Psionics - 1- A lot of people have psionic wild talents. It's more familiar. 2 - Magic has very obvious effects. When a spell is cast, there is an obvious transfer of energy, as this nifty green energy curls up through the air to the caster's palm. It's in the novels, and in the crunch. There's also all that black ash for defilers. And yeah, there are ways to trick that. In the book, it directly says that if some average citizen sees an affect that might be contributed to psionics (the example was levitation IIRC), they're going to assume psionics and ignore it. it's not the metaphysical change that they don't like, it's the desctrucion of life to power spells.

Desolation!

But I would go with Earthdawn over Dark Sun in both mechanics and setting.

Wait, what? Red stars are cooler than yellow stars, not hotter. Yellow stars, in turn, are cooler than blue stars. How did the world get hotter if the primary was suddenly putting out a fuckton less energy?

Red is for n00bs. The sun was CRIMSON. Red cars go faster, crimson suns burn hotter. What's so tough to understand?

...I got nothin'.

Damn!

Two possible answers: A red star is actually less dense than a yellow one as its outer layers billow outwards, increasing it's radius and would typically consume any rocky planets in orbit so perhaps Athas is at a convenient orbital distance to avoid such a fate, but is considerably hotter because of this fact; or stars in a D&D setting are just straight up magical furnaces and epic spells can tweak the thermostat settings. A bit hand-wavey and chock full of phlebotnium but Dark Sun is accessible in Spelljammer.

It is? I thought it was expressly stated that it wasn't. It was even difficult to get to via the Planescape setting.

IIRC, it's technically accessible, but way the hell out there. It's actually harder to get to from Planescape/The Planes because of the Gray. Rules wise, using any form of planar travel only allowed for a 5% chance of actually making it through. The exception of course was the Planar Gate, an artifact in the possession of ... Dregoth. Pretty much the baddest of the bad.

Spelljammer on Darksun... *shudders*

Hmm know tech it's unrelated, but would take Midnight over Darksun if you guys are going for the evil won situation (at least in regards to the world we are talking about).....

But Earthdawn is just awsome from a story prespective so have to go with that one comparably.

I do like Midnight, especially the magic system. It's very interesting. There are some nit pick things I don't really like though. There seems to be a little pocket/role for each race. Comes off a little cheesy, although some of the new takes, like the nomadic halfings, are kinda cool. I don't like that they got rid of the Ranger, which would be perfect for the setting, on both sides.

I'd still put the Dragon up against a punk like Izrador.

I'll have to go with Earthdawn on this one, but then, I don't know very much about Dark Sun, so I think I'm kind of biased

Maybe just a bit.

I do love Earthdawn, but Darksun will always be the best for me. For one, it's the only game setting I know of where it's suggested that you make a group of four characters for each player to play, because of the mortality rate. It's also:
The only game I had one player go through 6 characters.
The only game I had one player go through three characters in one session.

It's harsh, it's unforgiving, and it's a hell of a sense of accomplishment to survive in it, much less thrive.

Earthdawn for me. Had a bad experience on my first and only Dark Sun game. Overpowered dwarves + min/max player = crash and burn campaign.

I'm going to see how D&D 4E handles Darksun before I make a judgement call. My last experience was D&D 2E and THAC0 is stupid. But Earthdawn is the bees knees daddio.

To be fair, Dark Sun was originally designed to cater to those types of players.

I love both settings (Dark Sun a bit more), but I agree with Wesley that I'd wait and see how 4E handles Dark Sun before I make any call on the mechanics.

It's 4th edition, what are you really expecting? The system it self is completey mechanical with very minor discription changes for different options. Sorry but, it won't be able to hold a candle to the awsome sauce of having a dragon being a 30th level psion AND wizard. It just isn't versitile enough to pick up danger and horror envolved in Darksun.

edit: Thaco wasn't that bad. It just put an extra step in that wasn't needed.

I don't have high hopes for the rules, as I'm not a fan of D&D4th. However, I would love to see what they do with the setting, and maybe adventures . I can convert backwards<

It's that extra step that makes it extra bad because those extra steps begin to add up over time. Death by 1000 paper cuts. Paper cuts of third grade math but paper cuts still.

But if the argument here is pure setting I like them both equally but for different reasons. That's all a matter of taste.

Agree would be morbidly interested to see what they do to the setting. Considering what they did to FR. Reminds me of a old joke back from junior high "what's black, white, and red all over?".

Answer: "a skunk in a blender"


Sorry if distracting from the orginal question.

Setting-wise I prefer Dark Sun, rules-wise I prefer Earthdawn. So I say: Run Dark Sun using modified Earthdawn rules.

Dark sun has less water (at least on the surface) than it once did, because that is the story. Plus, it's a world with magic and stuff, so don't get to literal and scientificy (he he) about it. Holes can be poked in the Earthdawn/SR magic stuff as well; just because they try to explain it doesn't mean it actually makes sense. (How do you cast your spirit from your body again? Explain to me the exact physics behind a spell. Oricalcum is what?!?)

All of these games/settings are predicated upon one basic ideal: FICTION. As in false, not real, a lie. That said, it does have to make some "sense" - at least enough to not trip over every few minutes. Dark Sun fulfills that just fine, in my book. Plus, do you really have to know everything behind a setting to like it? Can't there be mystery? You don't know where all the water went. Maybe the search for the water would make a fun campaign.

Magic is disliked simply because it can be extremely distructive and has been so. (Plus, the sorcer-kings don't want anyone gaining enough power to threaten them and keeping the general populous afraid of magic limits that as an option.) Psionics is possessed by just about everyone, so persecuting those with it would be futile at best, outright stupid basically, and self-genocidal, at worst.

I will purchase the books only because they are Dark Sun and I love Dark Sun. (Love it!) Plus they should have some pretty-good art which is the only thing I like about the current version of DnD.

The problem is how everyone seems to be able to tell it all apart. Cast a spell as a preserver? A death sentence. Cast one as a cleric? Indifferent. Cast one as a templar? Fear of imprisonment or slavery at most. Cast one as a psionicist? People shrug. Be ruled over by the very defilers that actually did destroy the world? Just how it is.

But how are they telling these things apart?! And even if there was some means of discerning it, why can't the preservers just mimic the psionicists or anyone else? It's pure metagame nonsense.

At least the examples you mention from Earthdawn are all based on internal logic (and real world mythology for that matter; hell, people today think they can astrally project). In Dark Sun, huge swathes of the setting have to be outright ignored for them to make any sense. Which is a pretty common occurrence in most D&D settings, admittedly.

Magic is noticably different than psionics in DS, it generally has visual, audio, gestural, and other components that just aren't there in psionics. Not to mention that when a defiler casts a spell local plant life dies. But can some be cast stealthily? Sure. the effect of the people's revulsion is dependant upon them believing they witnessed actual magic. if they don't, then they don't freak out. But they could also freak out when confronted by psionics and clerical magic too (which is the real weak link of the setting, if you ask me). The terms described are general and don't mean everyone at every time, as you seem to believe.

I agree that the vast majority of DnD settings didn't have as much wishy-washy science to back them up (Forgotten Realms anyone? So how did these cultures evolve in that shotgun-esquepattern again?), but I have never needed there to be too much of that (they are generally settings based upon the existence of magic, anyway). I can do that myself.

You should be playing Rolemaster, their slogan is (or, at least, was): "Get Real, Get Rolemaster." Just sit in on some of their threads! They go into calculus and doctorate level (yes, actual doctorate level, as some of them have PhDs, and others are getting theirs) sociology concepts to explain things. Crazy. I like RM, but I don't know calculus and I don't think I will be learning it any time soon....

Like I said: Play Dark Sun using modified Earthdawn rules.