Dark Sun Campaign Setting (4th Edition)

AD&D 2nd edition is largely a forgotten edition - the rules were sufficiently similar to 1st edition that lots of people never bothered to convert over, and there's no great groundswell of nostalgia associated with that edition. However, where 2nd edition did excel is in the provision of interesting campaign settings: Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Birthright, Planescape. One of my favourites, although it was one that absolutely bombed with my players at that time, was Dark Sun.

However, the 2nd edition version of Dark Sun suffered from the terrible disease known as metaplot - TSR produced the first boxed set and then published a quintet of novels (the "Prism Pentad") that immediately hit the world with massive changes, and mostly not for the better. Later products then assumed that these changes were canon, which meant that the DM was fighting a losing battle against incorporating them. It all became a big mess, and wasn't helped when TSR issued a revised boxed set that expanded the world... but which just wasn't as good as the original version.

With 4e, WotC had a notion that they would produce a setting a year, and that each setting would be covered with three books (one of which was an adventure). This strategy lasted for three years before being changed, giving us FR (which I skipped), Eberron, and Dark Sun. I've talked about the Eberron books previously - I found the adventure largely forgettable and the Player's book to be poor, but found the DM's book to the exceptionally good, possibly the best one-book summary of the setting then in existence.

Not being a fan of 4e, I skipped the Dark Sun books, but recently picked them up in PDF from the DM's Guild.

I must say, the 4e take on Dark Sun is interesting, and indeed has impressed me significantly - they've rebooted the setting back to the status quo as at the end of the first novel. This has the big advantage that it throws quite a lot of chaos into the world (in a good way), and leaves a precarious "free city" for PCs to intrigue around, while ignoring the bulk of the metaplot and the fundamental changes to the nature of the setting that those implied. The result is probably the truest expression of the setting since the very first boxed set.

The 4e "Dark Sun Campaign Setting" was a 224-page hardback book containing a double-sided poster map. The version I have is, of course, a PDF. The book is roughly 40% mechanics (which are of limited use - I'm no fan of 4e) and about 60% setting materials (which are very good indeed). As with the 4e Eberron book, it is a great one-book summary of the setting - giving enough detail to run the setting while also giving plenty of space for the DM to make it his own.

All in all, I'm very impressed, and would recommend this book to someone looking to get into the setting... with one caveat: at present, 5e is lacking in key bits of mechanical support for Dark Sun, which would make running the setting exceptionally difficult (notably psionics, but that's not the only thing). I would therefore be inclined to hold off until such time as that support was added - at which point it is entirely possible that a 5e "Wanderer's Guide to Athas" may make this book redundant. (Of course, if you're looking to use the setting for 4e, or just don't care about 5e, that caveat doesn't apply!)