souran wrote:See I agree that you shouldn't have things that are just not fun. That doesn't mean that you can't have grit. The fighter won't be perpetually lower ac than the wizard. Nor does being lower ac than the wizard mean that he can't do his role. (defenders often do not have the highest reflex or will defenses and yet still seem to function). Again, look at fallout like you mention. That game makes you start with crap (but effective) equipment and is still fun. It manages to show how harsh the wasteland is without making you seem totatlly powerless against it.
The thing is that settings like Dark Sun are created in such a way that Not Fun things happen to the characters. It's just how things are in a post-apocalyptic setting where there's a war for resources. The very setting expects characters to get backstabbed and screwed over many, many times. Why? Because humans tend to revert to savagery when deprived of resources. Oh, certainly, there are some who rise above their situation and work to make the world a better place, but there are also slavers, thieves, murderers, and the like who have the perfect opportunity to ply their trade: swaths of land where lawlessness and chaos reign.
In short, the NPCs in a realistic post-apocalyptic setting are often going to try to take advantage of or kill the PCs (even the "good" NPCs). While the PCs might survive, that doesn't change the fact that they're going to get stabbed in the back, stolen from, and possibly eaten by other "civilized" races.
Actually, I think that by scrapping the "great wheel of stupidity" alignment system and going with a system that actually makes neutral "I look out for my own self interest, neither out of pure selfishness nor selflessness."
instead of "I try to balance cosmic forces because Richard Nixon told me that evil is just as important as good. So becuase I helped an old lady cross the street I have to murder some orphans" means that characters can reasonably be neutral in d&d and therefore more than willing to do the sort of things that the anti-heros do in those post apocolypse stories.
I have absolutely no idea what you're going on about here. By having both the lawful-chaos and good-evil axises, the PCs are encouraged to murder some orphans after helping the elderly? Your logic does not follow.
Remember anti-hero does not mean antagonist. Conan is an anti-hero because he is a thief and a treasure hunter even though he ways fights evil and the horrors of his world.
Indiana Jones is an anti-hero because he is motivated by his desire to find historical artifacts. He isn't out to rescue everybody. He wants to get things for the measuem.
Evil characters on the other hand, even in dark sun, are still likely to create problems rather than interest. The proscription against evil characters is really 4e's giant "don't be a dick at the game table" provision. So again, I don't see a problem with 4e being able to represent the world we know as dark sun.
Being evil has only a little to do with "being a dick." That's a player problem, not an alignment problem. It's quite possible to play an evil character maturely, just like it's possible to play a good character immaturely. The problem is that many people who want to be jerks see having an evil alignment as a license to do so.
As far as anti-heroes go, you're dealing with relatively "good" anti-heroes. Now, let's compare Dexter Morgan to those characters--how would 4e look upon the "serial killer who kills serial killers" archetype? Let's be honest here: it wouldn't. Not in the least. That would be dismissed as something that shouldn't be encouraged by the system, and it would possibly be too "mature" for the target audience to handle.
I totally disagree. I don't see why 2e could somehow do these things that 4e can't. I also that statements like "dark sun isn't for 4e's target audience" is a kind of strange derogatory elitism. Who was dark sun for then? The target audience for D&D has not changed over the years. The game has always been targeted at the 15-20 (and possibly 25) year old market. The game could be played by those people and they had the time to play. They also had the expendible cash to want to allocate to the hobby.
Its still going to be D&D with dune as its basis more than tolkien. Its not going to have shopping malls and amusement park rides. 4E is just as robust for game world modeling as 3e, or 2e or gurps.
2e could do things like Dark Sun better than 4e because 2e had the "Not Fun things happen to characters" mindset incorporated into the rules. Level drain, permanent character death, system shock, that sort of thing. 4e has specifically targeted the demographic of D&D players who were the most vocal about voicing their displeasure over things like paladins falling, save-or-dies, and the like. I am thoroughly doubtful that any of those people would enjoy a post-apocalyptic setting where arcane magic does bad things to the environment (and thus arcane casters are liable to be killed by a lynch mob).
That sort of thing is Not Fun. At least, to the 4e target demographic.
EDIT: Let me give you another example of "target audience." Poison'd is a game about pirates where you do bad things to get power. It received heavy criticism because one GenCon game had a player kill a cabin boy and rape his esophagus. (I'm not making this up.) Now, for that game, I am not the target audience. There are some people who would enjoy narrating such depraved things, but I am the sort of person who questions the moral standing of such individuals. Just as I am not the target audience for Poison'd, 4e does not attract a target audience that would appreciate Dark Sun.
