The Psionic Handbook 2nd Edition For Running Dark Sun With Castles & Crusades Rpg

This blog post is going to pick right up from here on the blog  The psionic handbook is an artifact from 1991 but has some very solid uses with running Castles & Crusades with the Dark Sun setting. The Psionic Handbook wiki entry has the history of this innovative 2nd edition;"The Complete Psionics Handbook is a supplemental rulebook for the 2nd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published in 1991 by TSR, Inc."

Why is "The Complete Psionics Handbook" so important to running the Dark Sun setting?! Because of how it's set up from the ground up. Once again we refer back to the Complete Psionic Handbook Wiki entry; "The use of psionic powers involves a variant of the proficiencies system developed in the 2nd Edition rules. Each power has a score rated in terms of a particular attribute. When attempting to use a power, the player makes a Power Check by rolling 1d20 and comparing the result to the Power Score. A roll less than or equal to the Power Score means success. Additionally, each power description includes a specific penalty suffered by the psionicist if a 20 is rolled.^[1] A psionicist has a fixed number of Psionic Strength Points, derived from his wisdom score, to expend on psionic powers. A psionicist expends the number of PSPs required by a particular power, then attempts a Power Check. If the check fails and the power doesn't work, he forfeits half the PSP cost but is free to try again later. If he passes the check and the power is successful, the psionicist has the option of expending additional PSPs to maintain the power in subsequent rounds.^[1] Psionicists recover lost PSPs every hour in which no additional PSPs are expended. The less physical exertion, the more PSPs recovered; a walking PC recovers 3 PSPs per hour, and a resting PC recovers twice as many" 
Couple this with the 150 psionic powers that are listed in 'The Complete Psionic Handbook" we begin to see the tip of the iceberg for running Dark Sun with Castles & Crusades. 

The actual use of 'The Complete Psionic Handbook" is actually contained within the review of the product by Rick Swan from  Dragon magazine #180 (April 1992).  This review actually contains the clue needed to bring the entire operation into focus. Once more from the 'Complete Psionic Handbook' entry"Rick Swan reviewed The Complete Psionics Handbook for Dragon magazine #180 (April 1992).^[1] Swan gave the book a positive review, stating that while the large increase in the complexity of psionics from the 1st edition was intimidating, the system itself was straightforward and highly playable. Swan felt that the new book offered a number of elegant improvements over the previous system. He noted that the system's use of "power points" was similar to the magic systems used in a number of other role-playing games, and that for the most part it offered a distinct alternative to D&D's magic options. Swan felt that although the book was comprehensive for players, it lacked adequate advice for game masters to integrate the system into a game, and that some of the details of the system were a hassle for game masters to keep track of."  The use of the point system is going to be the way to go to adjust the many facetted foundation of psionics into something usable in Castles & Crusades.  More to Come! 

'From Here I Can See Athas' - OSR Thoughts on Running Dark Sun With Castles & Crusades and Why.

 Today is one of those days that while nothings happening it still manages to test your metal. While we've got currently a Warriors of the Red Planet/Hyperborea rpg campaign on going. My attention has been shifting toward the next campaign horizon. And reading through this entry on the Grumpy Wizard blog has me really thinking about Dark Sun again. 

There's something really special about the Dark Sun setting. And it has several things going for it among Rpg's especially the second edition fan crowd: 

1. There's an established fan base for it. And this makes getting players easier. 
2. Wizards of the Coast isn't going to touch it and that means the setting isn't going to turn to crap. 
3. There are ton of lore & setting books to pull from. 
4. Just surviving on Athas is an adventure unto itself. 
5. Dark Sun lends itself easily into short mini campaigns. 
6. The setting has baked in villains in the form of the Dragon Kings. 

I wouldn't even think of running Athas with anything resembling fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. And perhaps instead we'd start looking into our OSR roots. And yes, Cha'alt would work fantastic if mixed with Dark Sun. To start a group of players out we'd do an OSR rpg system  that the players are familiar with. 
And in this case the first thing that pops into my mind is going to be Castles & Crusades. Hear me out before you go running off. All of the parts & pieces to run Athas are already within C&C. Survival rules, lower tier character classes, and more. 

Now we've got quite a bit of experience running with post apocalpytic D&D style settings with our Castles & Crusades Zothique game. That game hasn't gone anywhere because of work & scheduling conflicts. That game is techically still in play but on hiatus for the momen. 
Now, Athas may be more then a hop, skip, and jump away from Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. There are several threads that cross over between these settings. 

The differences are expansive between the settings. There are far more dangers on Athas then Zothique by an order of magnitude. 
This is more at the moment a 'thought excercise' then an actual plan. There are enough basics here for me to consider running such a campaign in the near future.