Arik is a fine DM and i would love to play a Dark Sun campaign under his Mastership

i have never played in a game run by Jelte.  i've heard a lot about his DMing and would love to one day be in a group for which he GMs, DMs or STs   the opportunity to get to know Jelte, 20th level Dungeon Master, within the Dark Sun setting is a tantalizing one!

Dark Sun is coming out on 17 August next, and i very much want to be involved with this setting in some way.  Everything i've read about it, all the art i've seen for it sets a little voice in the back of my head off screaming akin to a fangirl at the height of Beatlemania.  something must be done in response to this very emotional reaction to the DS campaign and setting. thus, i am formally applying for the position of DM in the up-coming Dark Sun campaign

By way of resume:

i have been involved in GMing since i was introduced to the World of Darkness as a young teenager.  (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons was introduced to me several years later and i had the infinite luck and pleasure to have had such an excellent DM to introduce the game to me. i became involved in Vampire LARP around the same time, an activity which eventually introduced me to my first friends here in the Netherlands.

For a while, Vampire LARP was my only RPG activity.  Slowly but surely though, table-top RPGs came back into my life and i played under several different GMs, most of whom GMed with a mentality of "story first, rules later".  Eventually, i became a part of the group i'm still a part of now; Arik's (Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/tried Friday but that didn't work even a little bit) campaign.

Since that time, i've had opportunity to run a couple of my own games, to varying success.  I GMed Wraith: The Oblivion for a time, with Arik, Robin and Jelte as players.  I tried my hand at a Mutants and Masterminds-based game which was set in a world modeled as a parody of RPGs and they're realized on gaming consoles. The group, however, had been too large and my preparation too shoddy to really make this work and i don't think we got past the first session.  For several years now, i have been running a D&D game "every" Wednesday night, also with varying levels of success. 

The group consists of Arik, Jelte and Marcia and we began playing Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms setting for D&D 3.5.  We ran the Witchfire Trilogy with a group of awesome characters and pursued their lives and adventures through the gauntlet of levels from 1 up to 20.  The Witchfire Trilogy (Privateer Press' published adventure for this setting) formed an excellent basis upon which to build the rest of the campaign, providing recurring and spin-off characters for me to vex my players with. Despite the solid foundations upon which this campaign was built, i will be the first to admit that i could have executed several of my adventures a bit better; a certain amount of unfamiliarity with the rules on my part made this campaign hard on both my players and me and that sweet character background material went unutilized, are two examples which spring to mind of what i would consider points for improvement.

Since my Iron Kingdoms campaign has come to a close, i have been running a D&D 4e campaign with the same group.  At its foundation lies a less linear method of campaigning than i have previously attempted to use; adventures take place more as episodes in the group's lives than as a series of interconnected events.  i consider this campaign to be more like a television series than a novel; there are common elements that tie everything together (the characters, their backgrounds), but each adventure is generally a standalone story which could be carried further than the "scripted" end of the adventure, or left for what it is.  This campaign too is not free from issues; i think it's safe to say that in each adventure so far, all of us have been plagued by the question "where is this going?", and since September of last year there's been quite a strict limit on the length of time we can play per session.  i've been working full time since then and Marica's been involved in some pretty intense schooling, both of which force us to have to cut our evenings short at 22:30ish.  Some leeway is allowed, but generally between 22:30 and 23:00 the game has to come to an end because the working day waits for no man.  We've been trying to work with/around this issue of limited game time, but a fully satisfying solution has yet to be found.

As far as my motivations to want to run this Dark Sun campaign are concerned, i feel that my most successful DMing to date has been within the context of a well-defined setting.  This gives me a handle which i can hold onto while i create the game's adventures.  Additionally, it seems that it's the darker themes encapsulated within a setting or RPG which speak to me the most and fire up my imagination; Wraith, despite some utterly hilarious shit, was not a happy game, and the Iron Kingdoms were the setting for war with both the living and the dead.  My impression, as i have never played Dark Sun, is that it's a harsh setting, a place where hardship is rife and life is cheap. What i've read on the Wizards site about the setting and all the art i've seen so far speaks to me incredibly and i would just love to do something with this.  it's grabbed me to such an extent i've even gone so far as to pen a quick story loosely set in the Dark Sun world in my time to and from work.  i think i could put something fun together.

If i were to run a Dark Sun campaign, it would replace the game i'm currently running on Wednesday.  i'm unfortunately full as far as games are concerned and i wouldn't be able to run a new game as an addition to what i already run and play, despite this campaign being intended as a bi-weekly event.  Were i to run this game, it wouldn't really matter whether i did it on a Tuesday or a Wednesday.  Either one works equally well (or is equally inconvenient) for me.

My current group consists of 3 players.  Were i to run this DS game, i would like to expand the group to 5 players. i would also like to do character generation together as a group with the interests of a) balancing the party composition and b) discussing with the players how their PCs either know each other or will come to know each other. i feel that i've made it hard on myself in the past by trying to make a random group of people stick together and i'd like to avoid that issue this time.  it would also be interesting to try to form the adventures/campaign around direct player/PC goals and interests.

To my application for the position of Dark Sun Dungeon Master i now bring an end.  i can't think of anything else to add   please feel free to ask any questions and make any comments.  i will do my best to respond satisfactorily.

*clicks jaw back into place*

a well-phrased rebuttal sir!  i shall see that your wife and children suffer very little at the hands of my Slave Master.

as i said at the beginning of my post, i would love to play DS under your Dungeon Mastery!  i do not withdraw my application, but if you run this game, i want in

that said, as we discussed last week my participation in another campaign would involve me having to make changes to (one of) my current campaigns.  as it seems that changes may be inevitable regardless of who DMs or participates in Dark Sun, may is suggest that we move further discussion along these lines here?

this phase of the DS-related discussion should of course continue here

if i am not the party chosen to run this campaign, i certainly will want at some time to run something set in DS myself   definitely nothing regular, possibly confined to a (long) one-off, probably involving the DS adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea (assuming it turns out to be a fun jaunt across the sandy wastes of Athas).  but that's a subject to deal with at a later date

jelte, where's your application to this position?

Zijn er nog anderen voor de positie van DS DM?

Hoe zullen we beslissen?

Ik wil de meningen van de (mogelijke) spelers wel weten ?

En Ben ook waarom is hij niet meer in de running dan?

maar hoe moeten we beslissen wie het gaat doen? daarom dacht ik; plead your case, let the others decide

CV was meer n geintje ^_^

daar komt t idd min of meer op neer.  PLUS! ik wil m'n huidige campagne toch voortzetten   er zit echt veel goeds in dat ik eruit wil halen en ik denk dat met een flinke schop onder mijn kont en die van mn campagne we een positieve verbetering zullen zien

i will run something in Dark Sun though.  O_O

alleen nog niet en t zal niet ten koste gaan van wat ik nu doe

as far as the position of DM is concerned, i'm not sure i can be very much help.  you'll both run an awesome game.  any reason i have to choose the one of you over the other is balanced by a reason in the other's favour.

we're spoiled for choice, that's what we are.

Arik en hij kwamen hier nog op terug.

Huidig plan is een Salomon's Oordeel (maar dan wél goed voor de twee partijen). Als Endier in huidig formaat toch geen toekomst heeft, kan Jelte een DS en doen en op de andere dag kan ik ook een DS doen. Dan kunnen we allebij zowel runnen als spelen. Bovendien kunnen we dan samenwerken om een groots plot te verzinnen dat dan van meerdere kanten belicht wordt.

Dat betekent dus twee DS games, ipv een.

I think it has huge potential

Nog niet dood, er is alleen een chronisch gebrek aan spelers Ik zat te denken dat hij niet zo zeer dood is, maar gewoon eindigt op 10 augustus... Tenzij jij geen DS wil en heel graag Endier wil blijven doen?

@belph have you preordered the books? how many versions do we need? ^_^

Oh my. For those with about 25 minutes of spare time, I offer this video that previews a new zone in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RldaQq4 … r_embedded

An odd thing perhaps in a DS topic, but the zone in question is called Uldum and has a very high fantasy-Egypt/Arabia theme to it. The City-State of Raam and its surroundings would look something like this I'd imagine, and the ancient-yet-more-advanced ruins very nicely capture the sort of Green Age ruins feel that Athas also has.

Don't mind the WoW backstory and terminology being discussed. It's not important and there's not a lot of it either. Most of the video is just show and tell.

looks cool so far ^^

as far as stats are concerned, i think i will be making use of option 1: point buy.  if i use option 2: roll 'em, that hypothetical PC with a score of 3 in every ability will become a reality.

Another interesting detail of the setting came out today in an excerpt on WotC's site.

While in traditional D&D you amass wealth, and eventually you'll likely have hundreds of thousands of gold coins, Dark Sun doesn't quite work that way. There's money but not millions upon millions of coins loitering around waiting to be claimed. So a lot of handed out "treasure" is instead favors.

Favors can also have a value expressed in equivalent coinage worth. So you'll gather a large amount of debts, promises, and influence over time. Naturally not all favors can be spent all the time - a merchant in Tyr doesn't care if some elven tribe owes you a debt of gratitude. But if you ever run into those elves again on your travels you'll be guaranteed water and shelter.