I ask because although I technically played in a Dark Sun campaign back in college, it was a homebrew game that bore almost no resemblance to the original.

I love the setting and hope it will make an appearance in 5e.

The original seems to have meant different things to different people, and I believe that's what you get from any homebrew.

I made a one-shot adventure for 5e that is Dark Sun inspired (my version of it), and I browsed a lot of conversions that are out on the internet. None of them felt right (to me), so I had to come up with my own take (which probably isn't feeling 'true' to others).

Nostalgia is tricky, you remember things differently than what they were, and forget parts that you didn't like.

Give it a try and search on your favorite engine 'Dark Sun 5e conversion'. There is material out there, maybe some of it is right for you.

I've only recently started reading about Dark Sun and it might be one of my favorite settings now. All I need is a group willing to play a nitty gritty post apocalypse campaign 

Have a dark sun. Campaign5e now...converted from. 3.5. Players love it, but as a DM the hyper realism and nitty gritty of every action, and i do mean EVERY ACTION( weapons break, water runs out,  weather changes, towns turn on you due to dark sun world politics in seconds, underground  police everywhere listening in to turn you in, instant death sentences and mobs that are battleship sized with over 500 hp at a CR 13 appearing because the characters went left instead of right) is incredibly exhausting as a DM. I get as a DM I control it all and since it's homebrew it's my world but the expectation  of Dark Sun from my well read players is hard-core survival mode, as the books read.  Yah it's hard and real and players should die alot...unless you step in ad a DM( as a DM I don't like when my players die to randomness). We've played for over a year in the campaign and as a DM, it got boring for me, so I added some planescape elements to make it chaotic and punish the landscape that's been punishing my players. 

I honestly would never run Dark Sun as it was originally conceived, nor would I play in a long term campaign, but I might send my players on a short trip to visit Athas. I do find it a fascinating setting, but much the same way I found 50 Shades of Grey a good movie: nice to look at, but I wouldn’t wanna live there full time.

I loved DarkSun, it was one of my favorite settings. I would totally play in an OP style Dark Sun campaign. I would love to campaign on Barsoom Athas again.

Quote from IamSposta >>

I loved DarkSun, it was one of my favorite settings. I would totally play in an OV style Dark Sun campaign. I would love to campaign on Barsoom Athas again.

 What did you like best about it?

I've owned the Dark Sun campaign setting since 2e, played in it once in 4e, and in about two weeks I'll be running my first Dark Sun campaign - the last major D&D campaign setting I haven't run yet.  Will use hybrid of 2e/4e/5e homebrew/DDB homebrew to capture the spirit of Dark Sun in gameplay.  

I like the uniqueness of the setting among D&D settings - sure, it's gritty sword-and-sorcery fantasy (e.g. Conan the Barbarian, Lankhmar or similar, early fantasy), but many of the races, classes and monsters are almost nothing like typical D&D - several don't even exist.

Finally, I love that all this is then set against a backdrop of a somewhat alien, mind-bending, post-apocalyptic ancient/pre-medieval desert world where survival is everything - both surviving the natural world and the everyday brutality and oppression of the sorcerer-kings and their city-states.  Nevermind all the gladiatorial combat, unearthing all the true ancient history and buried treasures of the world - and of course, the extremely rare Dragons of Athas.

Those are the stories, themes and feel I'm going for and I can't wait - only thing that would make it better would be the announcement of official Dark Sun 5e content!

Another way to look at it: I told my group if they like the Gladiator, Conan the Barbarian, Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Mad Max: Fury Road movies/series (I know I do!), they'll love Dark Sun. 

Some great ideas about what makes Dark Sun cool here, including some practical ideas on how to run it to capture its unique feel.  Now go run or play it!

Quote from Xezzerbrande >>

I've owned the Dark Sun campaign setting since 2e, played in it once in 4e, and in about two weeks I'll be running my first Dark Sun campaign - the last major D&D campaign setting I haven't run yet.  Will use hybrid of 2e/4e/5e homebrew/DDB homebrew to capture the spirit of Dark Sun in gameplay.  

I like the uniqueness of the setting among D&D settings - sure, it's gritty sword-and-sorcery fantasy (e.g. Conan the Barbarian, Lankhmar or similar, early fantasy), but many of the races, classes and monsters are almost nothing like typical D&D - several don't even exist.

Finally, I love that all this is then set against a backdrop of a somewhat alien, mind-bending, post-apocalyptic ancient/pre-medieval desert world where survival is everything - both surviving the natural world and the everyday brutality and oppression of the sorcerer-kings and their city-states.  Nevermind all the gladiatorial combat, unearthing all the true ancient history and buried treasures of the world - and of course, the extremely rare Dragons of Athas.

Those are the stories, themes and feel I'm going for and I can't wait - only thing that would make it better would be the announcement of official Dark Sun 5e content!

Another way to look at it: I told my group if they like the Gladiator, Conan the Barbarian, Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Mad Max: Fury Road movies/series (I know I do!), they'll love Dark Sun. 

Some great ideas about what makes Dark Sun cool here, including some practical ideas on how to run it to capture its unique feel.  Now go run or play it!

 

 Thanks 😊

I loved it when it first came out. IIRC, it was the first published campaign world that just kind of threw Tolkien overboard and just went nuts with new ideas. It was so completely fresh, the races were re-imagined, no divine magic, everyone has those mental powers from the back of the PHB. Plus the idea of starting at 3rd level was kind of mind bending. And the developers saying, you should make multiple characters, because this setting is super lethal, which in those days, it was already a pretty lethal game. 
But playing it, I remember it being a hassle. As DMDuo said, tracking water and everything else got boring real fast, but then if you didn’t, it’s really at odds with the point of the setting. It’s a tough balance to find between gritty and bookkeeping. It might be easier now, though, using a computer to tick boxes as you drink water, instead of a piece of paper and an eraser. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

I loved it when it first came out. IIRC, it was the first published campaign world that just kind of threw Tolkien overboard and just went nuts with new ideas. It was so completely fresh, the races were re-imagined, no divine magic, everyone has those mental powers from the back of the PHB. Plus the idea of starting at 3rd level was kind of mind bending. And the developers saying, you should make multiple characters, because this setting is super lethal, which in those days, it was already a pretty lethal game. 
But playing it, I remember it being a hassle. As DMDuo said, tracking water and everything else got boring real fast, but then if you didn’t, it’s really at odds with the point of the setting. It’s a tough balance to find between gritty and bookkeeping. It might be easier now, though, using a computer to tick boxes as you drink water, instead of a piece of paper and an eraser. 

 That part sounds boring but I like the grittiness as a change of pace.

I think it's sort of on the DM to make the box checking not just box checking but make it more integral to the game in some ways.  I haven't played them and since it's relatively new third party I don't know if this would be great reference, but I've been poking around The Survivalists Guide to Spelunking and looking at various ways it can be adapted to survival in a variety of environments.  There's a "stock unit" system for food and water (and in the under dark light source fuel) that ties in the ability to burn hit dice to avoid exhaustion if your stock is short, plus some pretty cool hunting/foraging rules with lots of potential complications that I think make the world more part of the game than you're regular random encounter table.  My skim reading thinks these would be easily adapted to a Dark Sun sort of landscape. 

It is my one favorite setting!!! I like that it a post apocalyptical setting. It makes for a different type of RP.  I'm hoping WOTC redoes it for 5e. 

I've always wanted to play it.  It has so many unique ideas, a unique magic flavor, unique races, and psionics built into the world.

I do think that the two key Dark Sun classes (Defilers and Preservers) could be approximated pretty well by adding some flavor text to two existing 5E class choices:

- defilers:  warlock (undead patron)
- preservers:  druid (circle of the land: anything other than desert or underdark)

Dragon Kings could be approximated with True Polymorph (dracolich), and Avangion could be approximated with Shapechange.  When played outside of Athas, the condition that a character must have previously seen the creature could be gotten around with a vision from an appropriate deity (although most characters will probably never be high enough to cast those spells anyway).

I absolutely love Dark Sun. It was my favorite setting for a few years until Planescape came out. At the time it was a radical departure from other settings. The gods were dead. The world was devastated by magic users draining the life energy from everything around them. Psionics was brand new and in this world everybody had psychic powers. The characters you made were stronger than normal because Athas was so harsh and unforgiving. Survival was everything, resources were limited, and you had to scavenge and repurpose whatever could be useful. Metal was very rare so weapons and armor had to be made from other materials. You could play as a thri-kreen. Oh, and the halflings were cannibals. The boxed set came with two spiralbound booklets with awesome art you could show players. Seeing the thri-kreen in the last UA makes me really hopeful that this will be one of the returning classic settings this year.

I've never played it and from all accounts I've heard of it I have absolutely no desire to. "Everything sucks and if you're lucky you'll survive in misery for a while before dying painfully" is not a premise that I want to base my leisure time around. Post apocalyptic is one thing, but grimdark dipped in psychological masochism is not my idea of a fun fantasy world to explore. I want my game worlds to have at least a glimmer of hope to aim for, not just trying to survive one day to suffer again the next. Heck, these descriptions here make me think of having watched an old movie version of Space Pirate Harlock where the entire plot is basically humanity is screwed and nothing that this badass noble hero does stands a chance of changing our steadily worsening descent to inevitable oblivion but he's a glorious hero because he endures! Which is, to me, a load of BS. The moral of the story is still "everything sucks, nothing you do matters in the big picture, and then you die." To me that is not something fun to spend my time fantasizing about. 

I'll pass.

Quote from Flushmaster >>

I've never played it and from all accounts I've heard of it I have absolutely no desire to. "Everything sucks and if you're lucky you'll survive in misery for a while before dying painfully" is not a premise that I want to base my leisure time around. Post apocalyptic is one thing, but grimdark dipped in psychological masochism is not my idea of a fun fantasy world to explore. I want my game worlds to have at least a glimmer of hope to aim for, not just trying to survive one day to suffer again the next. Heck, these descriptions here make me think of having watched an old movie version of Space Pirate Harlock where the entire plot is basically humanity is screwed and nothing that this badass noble hero does stands a chance of changing our steadily worsening descent to inevitable oblivion but he's a glorious hero because he endures! Which is, to me, a load of BS. The moral of the story is still "everything sucks, nothing you do matters in the big picture, and then you die." To me that is not something fun to spend my time fantasizing about. 

I'll pass.

 You raise a very good point.

I was hoping that the Dune remake would spur WotC to give the Dark Sun world another go.  But thinking about it some more, I think the theme and mood is a bit too "real" and brutal for most players at this time.  D&D 5e is a game tilted to favor the players most of the time.  That's what people have come to expect.  Dark Sun is a very flavorful and interesting campaign setting, but the brutality of it has a hard time fitting in with 2022 escapist fantasy desires.  

Quote from PenelopeTheWeaver >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

I loved DarkSun, it was one of my favorite settings. I would totally play in an OV style Dark Sun campaign. I would love to campaign on Barsoom Athas again.

 What did you like best about it?

 So sorry!! I missed this forever ago, my bad.

I loved that it was such a daily struggle for survival in a D&D adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs famous setting from Princess of Mars. It was so much fun..

(The following account is from my recollections of AD&D2e.)

You know how ⅔ of Earth is covered with oceans? About ⅘ of Athas is covered in desert.

It’s a world so harsh that “non-monstrous humanoids” (PCs and NPCs) started at 3rd level instead of 1st because the ones that weren’t already that bad-ass died as children. Even the children NPCs were at least 1st-2nd level. In most other settings, town guards were “0 level fighters.” Life on Athas was so hard that your average tween was tougher and more skilled than most grown-ass men in Grayhawk, Mystara, Toril (FR), Krynn (Dragonlance), or Aebrynis (Birthright). If the oppressive heat, or the constant threat of starvation didn’t kill them, the Elven slavers or Halfling cannibals did. It was the setting that introduced Thri-kreen,* Aaracokra, Dragonborn, Genasi, Eladrin, Half-Giants, and a number of others as playable races for the very first time. (Thri-kreen,* Aaracokra, Dragonborn, and Half-Giants being examples of “Monstrous Humanoids.”)
*(My favorite race. Their favorite food? Elf flesh. 😋😉)

Life was so harsh, only one dragon existed in the entire world. The others… they didn’t make it…. But that one… let’s put it this way, if Tiamat and Bahamut teamed up, they would still rather avoid it… with all possible haste. And creatures like Ogres and Trolls… extinct. Those were species nature deemed not fit enough to survive on that world.

Metal was very scarce, so weapons were made from bone, obsidian, or other substitute materials, and when they broke new materials had to be found, and new weapons created. (Remember, even magic items could be destroyed back then.) Not just iron however, all metal. For currency they used clay coins. And as precious as gold was, water was worth more than gold, because it only rained about once every ten years. And the resources to make a bound book… fo’getabout’i. Wizards used cordage with complicated knotwork as spell “books.” (like the Navajo used for recorded language.)

Imagine a world with no gods, but unlike Mystara and it’s immortals, Athas had nothing resembling “divinity” at all. Well, other than that one dragon. (And the Sorcerer-Kings….) Clerics received their spells from demons and elementals that roamed the wastes, and Druids (what few there were) venerated the last remaining nature spirits of the world. And nobody on Athas had any clue what a Paladin was, Chivalry? Who can afford chivalry when the decision of whether or not to eat the person next to you was made almost daily. Few were “good,” fewer still “lawful.” The lawful/good were among those not mean enough to survive childhood.

Remember those Sorcerer-Kings I mentioned? They were the few Wizards powerful enough, and mad (legit crazed) enough to rule the few remaining pockets that remained of what once had been referred to as “civilization” on Athas. Who would argue with them when they chose to establish cults to themselves? No one. Who wanted to be tortured until they died… or until the mad king lost interest and they died from neglect.

 And how did Athas get to that state? Arcane magic. Since there were no gods, Wizards ruled. Without the weave, their magic was fueld by pulling life from everything around them. There were a few who intentionally stopped their draw before they blasted the world around them. They were called “Preservers.” Preservers often died at the hands of those with no compunctions against drawing as much as they needed to achieve their ends. The “Defilers” left the world a blasted husk. Casting a single fireball could leave the area around the caster as damaged (or more) as the area they targeted. That’s why arcane casters, especially Wizards were universally despised. Remember those knotted cords I mentioned them using for Spellbooks? Being discovered with one of those could get someone killed. Being discovered with several as trophies could get someone called a hero.

 Welcome to Dark Sun. A setting so harsh that it makes Mordor of Middle Earth look like a vacation resort destination.