So the big news from Wizards of the Coast at GenCon was that the next setting they will be producing will be Dark Sun. Timetabled for the tail end of 2010 the first book to come out will of course be the Campaign Guide.

I’m torn on this one. On one hand I’m not a fan of fourth edition D&D but on the other hand I was a huge fan of the original version of Dark Sun for second edition. So much so it was all we played for several years until I joined a new group that only ran Forgotten Realms.

From the information that WotC gave out at the con it seems like we might actually get a faithful attempt at bringing Dark Sun into the current system. I was joking about on Twitter this morning about how they could mess it up but after looking again at the press release and the blogs of those that were there I’m quietly hopeful. So hopeful in fact that I might actually give up my card carrying hatred of the system and give it another go when it gets released.

So what is it that’s making think this is a good idea? Well aside from originally wanting Dragonlance to be the next setting I can completely understand their reasoning behind it all. They have a system that currently has a couple of settings on the bookshelves of stores but everything they have out there is very similar. They are being compared to computer games like World of Warcraft with the style as well as the game play. So they now want to push the boat out and show us just what the system can do with you give it something like Dark Sun to play with.

They have a couple of the original writing team on board who really want to get this project going and seem to want to keep it’s history and style rooted in the original books. I’m slightly worried about the comment they made about making sure that the re-release of the Prism Pentad novels fit in with the back story in a way that allows it to ‘one possible way things turn out’. But that aside going on their interview in Dragon 378. I’m quietly optamistic.

I also think that 4e’s reliance on mini’s and battlemaps may be able to improve on the one thing about Dark Sun that I really didn’t like. Structured one on one fights in a normal roleplay you can get away with but when it comes to gladiators and the games I think the 4e combat system will work fantastically well. I’m still not a fan of it for most settings but I think arena combat will really benefit from it.

Considering the changes brought in for the revised edition that made it’s way onto the shelves not long after the original setting was published I’m really curious to see where they are going to take this. It’s not a setting where you can just shove everything 100 years into the future as everything will be almost the same. Unless there were major uprisings the bad guys will still be there and if they are beaten then it changes both the feel of the game but also the earth itself will change as the amount of defilers on the planet drop dramatically with the Templars out of the equation.

Suffice it to say I’m looking forward to it and August next year can’t come soon enough!

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I’ve been going over past games and remembering the old systems I used to play and I’ve came to realise that I really miss playing some of them. It could be the rose tinted spectacles but I do really miss them.

• Runequest
  This was the second system I bought. It took me about 2 years to actually work out how to run a game and it took a good 6 months for me to understand how to draw up a character. I loved the look and style of the system though. In fact any game that has giant ducks as a monster becomes a must buy! To this day I have no idea what actually happened to my rule books as all have left is the Griffin Island adventure.
• Ars Majica
  This was a game that I’ve never actually owned. One of our regular group and my brother split the buying of the books to ease the cost but they have long since parted way as best friends. This has left me to inherit half of the books needed to run the system which other than giving me something to read doesn’t actually let me run any games. I really enjoyed the medieval style of the world and gameplay but we never played it for long enough to explore much further that our initial starting areas.

  Mechwarrior
  I’ve played this game a grand total of once. I’ve never been much of a mech fan but when I got my hands on a Battletech game for my computer many moons ago I loved it. In fact I think I have a copy for one of my emulators kicking about. I think it’s because of the fascination I had with that game that I loved Mechwarrior so much. I could take or leave Battletech though.

• Cyberpunk 2020
  Now heres a game I was facinated with throughout my teenage years. I still think I’ve only ever racked up two or three games mind you with the system. It hasn’t stopped me trying to merge the setting with WOD against my groups will for the last seven or eight years though. I love tech stuff and combining that with my favourite hobby means even when I’m playing a D&D game I’m wondering how I can get a gnome inventor to come up with a decent robotic arm or to fit a targetter to my bow. to this day it’s my favourite setting.
• Rolemaster
  This one is sort of a cheat. I ran this one not that long ago but I get the feeling my players really did begin to appreciate why it ended up being called Rollmaster by it’s critics. I loved the level of detail you could get with your characters and coming from computer geek stock the fact you have so many charts and tables made my heart all fluttery.

I think it’s time to fire up the ebay-mobile and see just how many of my missing books I can track down.

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Do you ever get that way where your so full of ideas you don’t know where to start?

A few RPG bloggers are getting together as part of a world building exercise and we are at the stage of dividing up the land and getting to work on our own wee corner.

I know exactly how I want my area to look and I know exactly how I want it populated. Now ask me where I’m going to start. I honestly haven’t a clue.

Someone mentioned that as we come from all over the world it would be a good idea to take ideas from our own history and locations. Living in Scotland though means I have such a huge amount of history and such different geography that I’m struggling to pick just one area and stick with it.

So far we have a Lord of the Isles style geography for my kingdom and I’ll be stealing much of my style from the Celts that populated the UK back in those times. I’ll be stealing the vikings in one way or another to add a little spice to the mix but other than that it’s looking very good for back story.

I’ll be keeping the sea-going population with access to towns and villages only by sea and having sea forts for protection. No main roads and highly specialised trading posts and skills spread out amongst the nation. I just need to work out how I’m going to arrange their navy and I’ll have most of the basics sorted. So where do I start with getting it down on ‘paper’? I’d usually right a short piece of fiction to get me started and to get a feel for the setting but with this it’s all about taking the history and working it into setting. Very little of it will be completely original. Maybe that’s my problem? No complete control over what I produce so I’m finding it hard to get started.

Either way I get the feeling it’s going to be a labour of love. Hell I’ve even started drawing maps for it and my regular readers will know how much I detest the work that needs to go into a fully functional and playable map these days.

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