Loved Dark Sun, especially when the players were new to it. The trick to running it was to show scant mercy and punish mistakes heavily. Force the players to unambitious with their goals by making even mundane survival a challenge. Logistics is important, make them feel water waste as a catastrophe, a shared meal a heavy investment, and the in party bickering common to most of D&D totally unacceptable waste.
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"Roll up characters, cheating on the stats is not only condoned but advisable, it wont do you any good anyway."
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"No, you cant have a longsword and banded mail, here have a sharp stick. Sharp stick and ignorance."
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"Yep, thats right, ignorance. You dont know zip about the world except sun, sand, hard work, rough bread, and not enough tepid water."
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"So you want to play a mage yes. Ok, I advised you to pick ignorance <shrug> ok we do it your way. You still only get a sharp stick and your spell glyphs are embroidered onto this rag. As you aren't ignorant you are a threat to others even less ignorant than you, knowledge sticks out like a tree in the wasteland, and attacts big and dangerous things."
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"All set, welcome to Athas. You will likely not survive and not be missed, but if you enter the crucible cautiously, be sparing with your trust, and observe carefully without asking questions, you might survive long enough to prosper, and thats as much advice as I am going to offer."
