What's your problem with Dark Sun?
Why do you hate Dark Sun?
Is it because of that MST3k episode of "Outlaw of Gor" that you refuse to run a campaign of Dark Sun?
Never heard of it.
Spoony likes it.
It can't be good.
The name's boring
>>44108627
>"Outlaw of Gor"
Gorean shit is awful in general.
>>44108627
nobody gives a shit about mst3k. rifftrax was awful, their new shit is going to be the cringiest shit on par with the nostalgia critic because of how out of touch the original cast is.
>>44108696
> rifftrax was awful
Are you joking? Those 10 minute "Best of" videos on youtube are fantastic. Even the full movies are still more hit than miss, as long as its just the main three guys.
But, yeah, MST3k wasn't that great, and the new thing is going to be unbearable to watch.
>>44108627
I'm somewhat surprised about the lack of Sorcerer-Kings in other fiction, yes. Who does not wish to be an all powerful dragon god?
>Regardless of their origins, all humans are given to unusual traits - such as odd skin or eye color, exaggerated features, or lack of body hair - that might be the effects of the magic that brought ruin to the land. Such traits are common and rarely elicit more than a glance.
Daily reminder that 4e Dark Sun turned the setting into a place where there are pink-haired catboy/catgirl humanswith deliciously smooth, hairless, white skinrunning around everywhere.
>>44108733
Rifftrax, and their style in particular, only works on movies that are legitimately bad. The vast majority of their rifftrax commentaries were for movies that weren't bad, most of the time. So the jokes are hamfisted and poorly thought out.
Like i said, if you already liked the nostalgia critic you probably like rifftrax.
>>44108648
Never heard of what? Gor or Dark Sun?
You don't want to research Gor.
Dark Sun was a published setting for AD&D2 and 4e. Low water, low metal setting. Mad Max, Barsoom, and maybe a little Gor in composition (probably because of the Thri-kreen).
>>44108765
RiffTrax are the only way to watch the Twilight movies and not automatically want to murder half the "actors" within ten minutes.
>>44108627
Only complaints I hear about Dark Sun are the novels.
Gor is pretty much hated everywhere beyond Gor fans.
>>44108798
Oh yes, because i was really itching to watch those movies.
>"This is the life..."
"Maybe for you, but what about the women!"
>>44108738
Sorcerer Kings are as old a trope as Conan and Tarzan, if not Solomon, but the Tolkien copycats and their ageless evils wore it out.
>>44108765
I like rifftrax, but the nostalgia critic is a hack
>>44108820
They almost work as inadvertent comedy. Almost.
>>44108846
His GF (Nostalgia Chick) did a review of Labyrinth that is hilarious, but he is unwatchable.
>>44108836
Conan, Tarzan, Solomon, AND Tolkien never did Desert Sorcerer Kings.
That's what I'm looking for.
Unless I can run a "Massacre of Bethlehem Baby-Boys" session, it doesn't fucking matter to me.
>>44108765
I really disagree. I find them lampooning popular movies to be much better than them making fun of bad ones.
https://youtu.be/PXs1x1r_Xtc
It might not be your style of humor, but please don't compare them to the nostalgia critic. That's just a low blow.
>>44108920
>that first joke
Yeah, that right there is what makes it unwatchable. If they don't have a joke for a scene, they should just let it go by. Unfortunately that would make most of the tape dead air, so they have to shoehorn in shit that would never have passed on the television show.
It is nostalgia critic tier. The jokes are forced and just cringe worthy.
>>44108738
I had used Nibenay as an NPC in my animu Planescape campaign at one point. You can see his token as #081 in the image to your left. Observe how I was keen to ensure that he was a purple dragon-king.
Planescape has been connected to Athas ever since the original Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set, which included rules for bringing Athasian characters over to the Outer Planes.
Likewise, dragon-kings in the middle of their transformation are ofttimes running around the planes performing missions for archomentals, genie sultans/caliphs/padishahs/khans, and deities who call the Inner Planes home, as per page 91 of the pre-revised-setting book Dragon Kings:
>Middle (24th, 25th, and 26th levels): At the middle levels, the process is similar. The preparation time extends to two years per casting, during which time the caster must befriend and visit a powerful creature from an elemental plane. The caster must visit the planar creature three days of every fifteen for the entire preparation period. The DM must create and role-play the elemental creature - it is likely that it will force the defiler to perform difficult missions, more often than not for its own amusement, all through the preparation period.
Nibenay is one of the more benevolent sorcerer-kings (alongside Hamanu, for example) and is arguably LN/LE.
The party personally meets Nibenay and his literally naked early-teens Rei-clone-consort Siemhouk in the 2e adventure Marauders of Nibenay. The dragon-king is quite rational, reasonable, and invested in his people's well-being (even if it is for selfish ends).
>>44108920
Let me guess, you thought guardians of the galaxy had more than one decent joke?
>>44108859
The first 2 Twilight films are prime comedy. Edward following Bella around going "I'm serious, you should stay away from me" was priceless, and the werewolf kid was such a dork.
>>44108978
>Nibenay sits motionless on his throne and listens carefully as Siemhouk tells him of your actions on behalf of his subjects. When she finishes, the towering dragon tilts his head down to look at your party.
>"I foresaw that a time of great change was coming," he begins. "I was shown a time in which the internal struggles of the city were diminished. I assumed that this meant the destruction of my enemies and the cleansing of the rebels from my city. I see now that I was wrong. Throughout the city, I sense great suffering and torment. Truly, this is the darkest day of my long reign."
>For a time, the dragon king is silent. Then he speaks again. "I sense, however, that it is also one of the brightest. Throughout Nibenay, people who should be battling each other work together to heal the wounded and rebuild that which has been destroyed. Perhaps this is the way of the future."
There is no indication in the adventure that Nibenay is being insincere here.
In fact, one of the possible (if mildly improbable) endings of that adventure is the PCs genuinely making Nibenay a much nicer place to live:
>Everyone Lives Happily Ever After . . .
>If the DM wishes, the attempts at coexistence in Nibenay can prove to be more successful than anyone could have hoped. After all, the city has always been known as a center of humanitarian thought, ideals, and liberal thinking. If the DM opts to follow this path, Nibenay can become a shining example of all that is good on Athas. Of course, the other city-states are likely to look upon such a culture as weak and ripe for the picking, so Nibenay will be frequently called upon to defend itself from outside aggressors.
>This ending is a pretty good curve-ball to throw to the players. They won't know what's up and may spend months looking for a hidden conspiracy that isn't there. It's also especially good if the player characters have devoted themselves to making Athas a better place to live.
>>44108666
And the sun isn't even that dark.
>>44108897
Deserts are the god-tier of settings
Pueblo-dwellers are the god-tier of people
>>44108741
>turned
Nice try bub.
>>44108983
>"NOTHING goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast! I would catch it."
This better be the decent joke you're talking about.
>>44109018
No, the one where rocket didn't need the guy's leg. Only decent joke, and they ruined it by reusing it later in the film.
The rest of it was dogshit that's about as funny as that series of clips from ROTK.
>>44108681
Is Gor that setting where women are property? And Gor is a planet on the other side of Earth?
>>44108969
I think you just have to appreciate their sense of humor a little, and recognize that it's almost entirely unscripted and unplanned.
For off the cuff jokes, they go from decent to great.
>>44109036
nah bruv, every other line Drax spoke was golden.
>>44109068
They're property in the sense that SLAVES are property and that most slaves are women.
>>44109073
Nobody can make jokes without good material to base it on. Joking on a 3 hour movie with as many awards as the lord of the rings is just a stupid idea.
I appreciate their original work. But they're beating a dead horse.
>>44109096
>"you are strange peter quill"
>le chris pratt face
>audience laughs
Yeah, that's not comedy. That's idiocy.
I want to do a campaign where some classic high fantasy PC's get stranded in dark sun and have to struggle to adapt.
Banana hammocks and bikinis for everyone!
>>44109115
I think you're missing the point, really.
They're not making fun of it as a bad movie, they're just making jokes. And there's a lot of material for jokes, which you'd realize if you actually watched that clip.
>>44109259
You're missing the point of riffing. Only an autist riffs on good material just to riff. Satire isn't meant to be that banal. They just throw shit at the wall and every half hour or so one of them sticks for a second or two.
That clip is horrible. If you thought any of it was funny, you're probably on the spectrum.
>>44108991
Some might consider Nibenay to be "living the dream." He is an all-powerful hikikomori-king who never needs to perform administrative duties, since his all-female team of government templars handles everything, as per the 2e Ivory Triangle supplement:
>Of all the rulers of Athas, the sorcerer-king Nibenay (who gave his name to his city) is perhaps the least involved in the day-to-day management of his empire. He has, over the centuries, established an amazingly competent bureaucracy that allows him to focus his attention on the study of dark magic instead of the mundane matters of government. Nibenay's reclusiveness has earned him the title of Shadow King from his people. He spends virtually all of his time in his walled sub-city, called the Naggaramakam, which lies at the center of Nibenay. From here, his templar-wives manage the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom.
Those wives are also progressively less clothed the higher-ranking they are:
>Beyond its practical value, clothing is considered the refuge of people who are ashamed. The highest ranking of the king's templars often wear no clothing at all, while middle-level officials wear only skirts. Only the lowest-ranking templars and those serving in the military go around fully dressed.
>This tradition carries into the noble houses as well. The patriarch or matriarch of a clan often wears little or nothing at all, but this honor does not extend to other members of a noble family.
His main consort:
>The highest ranking templar in Nibenay's court is the thin, spectrally quiet 1 CC-year-old girl named Siemhouk. Born within the Naggaramakam to a high templar who died in childbirth, Siemhouk was raised by the Shadow King. Since infancy, the child has shown extraordinary psionic and magical abilities. Under Nibenay's tutelage, the girl has traveled across the Tablelands and into other planes as she gained mastery over her talents. She has shown a greater command of templar magic than any of Nibenay's wives.
>>44109323
Whoa, it seems like we've stumbled upon a rare Master of Comedy, willing to preach to us about the highest forms of humor.
I get it, you don't like M3T4kSq so much that you hate everything associated with it, but Rifftrax isn't as bad as you're hoping to convince people it is.
The "point" of riffing is just to make quips, to try and make people laugh. It doesn't matter if the movie is bad or great. Hell, they did a riffrax on Cassablanca.
https://youtu.be/heQe5ggCd6A
You might not like all the jokes, but for improvisational comedy, these guys do have some serious talent.
>>44109454
I love MST3K. I've seen nearly every episode. I watched it on comedy central as a kid.
A person cannot be creative forever. It's as simple as that. They had their run, but now they're too disconnected from popular culture, and they have run out of movies that people will buy a tape for. Nobody is going to spend money to watch some obscure bad film. They want to buy the tape to have their opinions confirmed.
Whereas joel and the bots making fun of godzilla comes off as completely natural because everyone makes fun of those movies and they don't have to try and shoehorn their bit around popular material to make sales.
Keep spreading the tapes, anon.
>>44109355
That 15-year-old girl is also, as per page 16 of the pre-revised-setting 2e book Will and the Way, the head of the Temple of Thought, which instructs all of Nibenay's templar-wives in psionics:
>The city also maintains a psionic school within the walls of the Naggaramakam. The academy is part of the Chamber of Air, one of hierarchies that make up the Nibenese government. The Chamber of Air is based in the group of buildings known as the Temple of Thought. The head of the Temple of Thought is Siemhouk, the High Priestess to the Shadow King.
>Siemhouk is a young girl who stands at the right hand of Nibenay himself. Despite her youth (she is only 14), she is a 15th-level templar and 14th-level psionicist. Since her duties often require her presence in the Shadow King's court, she leaves the day-to-day administration of the psionic academy to a skilled master named Chagrama.
4e Dark Sun kept this, as per page 167 of the 4e Dark Sun Campaign Setting:
>Temple of Thought: Templars who wish to hone their mystical prowess subject themselves to schooling in this temple. Under the harsh tutelage of the psionic prodigy Siemhouk—a human girl of only fifteen, said to be a special protégée of the sorcerer-king—students learn deadly arcane and psionic secrets.
To be clear, the main consort of the sorcerer-king Nibenay is a timid and naked 15-year-old girl who is, in 2e, a templar 15/psionicist 14. She is also the head of a psionic academy, the students of which are Nibenay's other magical templar-wives, who are in various states of undress.
Nibenay seems to be running his government officials as if they were all in a hentai manga. That academy alone is practically a hentai premise.
>>44108627
I fucking loved Dark Sun. Good old Conan, desperate survival in a world where everything fucking hates you. I can see how being on the back foot and very light on loot and shinyshit means it's not for everyone, but any setting that turns elves and halflings into insane cannibal tribe-things is a-ok in my book.
>>44109570
Is this trying to endear me to the setting? It's not working.
>>44109596
What book did Conan have to deal with a pure desert?
Conan NEVER had to deal with a pure desert.
>>44109892
Conan the Raider. Shem IS a desert, you know.
>>44108627
I have no idea what you're talking about. We love 4e Dark Sun here. In fact that's the only DnD thing we run with other editions being broken/unbalanced and the main 4e points of light setting being kinda barebones. Not only that but wasn't 4e Dark Sun very well received by critics, too?
![conan__in_desert_by_marcgosselin[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LoX9Klf.jpg "conan__in_desert_by_marcgosselin[1].jpg")
>>44109892
The Slithering Shadow? The Black Colossus?
Come on, man.
>>44110038
It was, especially becuase it rebooted the setting cutting out a lot of retarded shit that was added in late 2e.
>>44108627
>Is it because of that MST3k episode of "Outlaw of Gor" that you refuse to run a campaign of Dark Sun?
Haha, what?
Okay, first of all, the Outlaw movie is barely even related to the Gor setting, much less to Dark Sun, which also is not related to the Gor setting.
Second, that movie is hilarious, and it's one of the better episodes of MST3K, and I think it would be awesome to run or play a game in that kind of setting, which is, again, not like Dark Sun.
So what the hell kind of leap of logic are you making here?
>>44108771
>You don't want to research Gor.
The first book is actually pretty good. Just don't ever read any of the 35 sequels.
>>44110342
It's only around book 7 (book 8, I'd argue, but many call me a misogynist) that "women as property" takes over "Desert Fantasy"
>>44108627
Thinking about being hot and thirsty makes me uncomfortable
>>44110896
Perhaps you should man the fuck up?
Only thing I liked about Dark Sun is that it had actual gladiatorial rules
>>44109621
That's only one city-state.
Others have monarchs like a 9 foot tall war mongering thundercats, an Aztec god who sits on a pyramid eating hearts all day and night, some crazy bitch who thinks she is Poison Ivy, some equally crazy bitch who invented a god and rolls the fucking wheel of fortune to see what random shit that God says today. Then there's the Dictator, he was elected. The position was for life. Mind you, originally the position of Dictator merely took dictation for the Senate of the city, but over the centuries he changed laws until he was absolute Monarch.
The hard on for the Shadow King is because, if most of /tg/ ever had super sorcery, they would do exactly what he does, sit in his private city filled with his hundred wives playing video games or scrying (read:surfing the net) all day. Fucker even sometimes starts a rumour that he has died so he has an excuse to crush a rebellion, you know, cause he hasn't come out of base!ent land in 3 centuries and he's bored with his thousand wives.
>>44111612
Geryhawk 4e technically did as well
>>44112076
It's not the same without the sand
>>44112271
Athas isn't that green OR blue
>>44111615
>>44109570
>>44109355
>>44108991
>>44108978
Fuck outta here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnI4-LCQA1o&list=PLHiZ5aYSREotqh2mr0B-XeQBdddaCG4iK
Fuck I really want to play a Dark Sun game, looks rad.
Question about the 4e version, is the Dark Sun Creature Catalog running off of MM1 Math or Monster Vault math?
>>44109621
>Is this trying to endear me to the setting? It's not working.
Who are you again?
>>44113661
It's running off base 4e
>>44108882
Nostalgia chick also made a review of Dune that was so shit she had to take it down because of backlash.
>>44111615
>>44109570
>>44109355
>>44108991
>>44108978
Colette plz go and take your all-powerful hikkikomori king fantasies with you.
>>44112809
>>44114769
>Spergs from some IRC fagroom come to ruin an otherwise decent thread because they don't like some other sperg in the IRC fagroom
Nice
>>44108627
2nd edition had a bunch of cool settings.
I guess it ran for so long they needed to make some new content.
>>44108627
>What's your problem with Dark Sun?
Too depressing. It's all "oppressive this" or "bone-dry that". Can you liven it up a bit with more positiveness?
>>44115420
See >>44108991
>Everyone Lives Happily Ever After . . .
>If the DM wishes, the attempts at coexistence in Nibenay can prove to be more successful than anyone could have hoped. After all, the city has always been known as a center of humanitarian thought, ideals, and liberal thinking. If the DM opts to follow this path, Nibenay can become a shining example of all that is good on Athas. Of course, the other city-states are likely to look upon such a culture as weak and ripe for the picking, so Nibenay will be frequently called upon to defend itself from outside aggressors.
>This ending is a pretty good curve-ball to throw to the players. They won't know what's up and may spend months looking for a hidden conspiracy that isn't there. It's also especially good if the player characters have devoted themselves to making Athas a better place to live.
>>44115420
How satisfying happy endings are is directly related to how much you have to overcome to earn it.
I hate Dark Sun because you like it OP.
>>44108627
I like dark sun... i just hate d&d.
Give me dark sun adapted to dungeon world, warhammer or something else and we can talk.
I don't like Darksun because it's a half-assed attempt at grimdarkness whose mechanics clash with the setting.
The lore goes on and on about how there's no water and everything is made of bone and life is cruel and hard and blah blah blah but then you get into combat and it's like "oh hey, are things going poorly for you? Have some healing surges!"
Everything it tries to do, WFRP did in a more compelling manner. Any grimdark fantasy setting without a proper disease table is just phoning it in.
>>44118294
Personally, after reading the book, I really wanted to play it in Burning Wheel.
Would take a few hacks to get it working right but it shouldn't be too hard (unless you wanted ALL THE RACES which would take some decent homebrew)
But the setting seems perfect for it.
>>44108696
>>44108733
The new MST3K stuff will have nothing to do with the Rifftrax guys. The Rifftrax guys, Mike, Bill, and Kevin, are going to still be doing those. The MST3K guys are Joel, the guy who played Dr. Forrester, and the woman who played Pearl.
Mike was one of the original writers for MST3K, but otherwise the new MST3K is just using the original people... along with a whole bunch of new guest writers, including the guys who do Rick and Morty.
>>44118553
never played burning wheel.
Care to give me a brief summary?
I enjoy homebrewing
Opinions on Dragon Kings?
>>44118564
This. And Cinematic Titanic at times is just as great as MST3k was. Love the live riffs of East Meets Watts and others.
>>44110056
>>44109892
>The Slithering Shadow
>The Black Colossus
Loved those stories.
>>44118594
Fantasy system, uses d6 dice pools.
I really like it because its core mechanics all tie really well into character belief/goal driven gameplay, and just is generally full of good advice and ideas for how to play games in general.
Has a lifepath-driven character creation system, so your backstory determines your character skills and such.
Overall I would at least recommend a read
>>44119227
It's a great system, but be aware, it is VERY pretentious in it's presentation. I LIKE Burning Wheel, but I would never hang out with the guy who wrote it.
Like, failing dice rolls are specifically not referred to as failed rolls. They're "Betrayals."
>>44118511
>healing surges
4th ed. Dark Sun isn't Dark Sun. Brom not Wayne Reynolds. Ok, praise Dregoth.
>>44119227
Sounds really good as I like to tie goals and prelude to skills and mechanics.
Using d6 pools also...
>They're "Betrayals."
>>44119365
Holy fuck that's pretentious garbage.
I'll still give it a read, but FUCK, that's one of the worst names I heard for a gaming term.
>>44120064
>>44119365
It's actually "traitors", which isn't really much better, but still.
Never bothered me, but other systems have bothered me for their writing style, so I get where you are coming from.
>>44111612
"My modesty requires that I unmask and disarm myself so that this horribly contrived illo may be drawn."
>>44118511
>Have some healing surges!"
>4e mechanic
Well there's your fucking problem right there, mister!
As my dear, old, departed papa used to say: "Don't evar play that 4E thang, son. It's jus' plain ol' retarded." And right he was.
>>44121964
>>44118511
I'm someone who LIKES 4e, and I was just reading the 4e Darksun and realized that 4e just doesn't work for it. They go into way too much detail on how hard it is to survive in it, and then survival days are 5 fucking GP, which is a wonderful price for the common folk, but not for even low level characters wealth levels . And surviving in the desert is fucking trivial to a character with almost any training and a few levels on them.
I love 4e for some gold old heroic fantasy, but reading the setting, it's not a heroic fantasy setting.
>>44108627
>What's your problem with Dark Sun?
Settings like Dark Sun and Ravenloft only work in 2e because the rules to 2e are less forgiving than later editions.
This isn't really a big problem, though. It just means we're playing 2e if you want to do Dark Sun (or Ravenloft).
>>44122367
Yep. 4e does heroic high fantasy really, really well. It doesn't do "you're a nobody with a sword and the world hates you" at all.
>>44122367
Yeah, it had the same problem with its attempt at post-apocalypse FRCS.
>"This is a grim, broken world. Magic has been destroyed or irrevocably altered, the countrysides are dangerous, the land full of monsters. Areas of civilization are small, flickering lights in a sea of blackness."
>"Now here, have three or more magic items that give you the requisite plusses. Don't worry too much about damage because even a level 1 wizard can take three sword hits to the face before he needs to spend a healing surge."
>>44114057
>>44113661
Dark Sun Creature Catalog uses the same format and math as MM3.
>>44118511
>Have some healing surges
Do you even know what healing surges are?
>>44118615
Really cool idea, would love to be one, though it's never explained why people who WILL be around for the destruction of the sun aren't looking for ways to prevent it.
>>44108627
That was a good episode.
>My name is Cabot.
>Cabot?
>CABET
>CABIN
>KEBET
>Nope doesn't ring a bell.
