Dark Sun confirmed for 5th edition

martinlochsen · May 16, 2018

It may be this is old news and I missed it, but I'll post it anyway, just in case.

In the last "Mike Mearls happy fun hour" on Twitch, Mearls confirmed that there will be Dark Sun material for 5e at some point. He was talking about psionics and how to handle it in 5e when he said that when making rules for psionics, it was important that they fit in with the Dark Sun setting, as psionics are so integral to that setting. This was so that when they released Dark Sun material for 5e, they wouldn't have problems. He stressed the "when" here, saying "when, not if".

If you want to see it, it's on the may 8th episode of Happy fun hour, about 1 hour into the video.

CapnZapp · May 16, 2018

I happen to believe that companies get credit for what they do produce, not what they promise they will or won't produce in the future.

Until there is official 5E support for Dark Sun, there isn't.

What baffles me is how some customers seem to accept a five year wait as something other than entirely unreasonable and scandalous.

Have a nice day,
Zapp

delericho · May 16, 2018

CapnZapp said:
I happen to believe that companies get credit for what they do produce, not what they promise they will or won't produce in the future.

Agreed. I'm now at the point that I'm not interested in vague hints or non-specific promises. If and when they announce an actual product (or the opening of the setting to DMsG) I'm interested; until then, I'm afraid not.

What baffles me is how some customers seem to accept a five year wait as something other than entirely unreasonable and scandalous.

Here I disagree, though. WotC don't owe us Dark Sun (or Spelljammer, Eberron, whatever) or Psionics (or Incarnum, or Warlord, or whatever) support. If they never support these things, that's their prerogative - just as it's our prerogative to buy their products or not (for any reason we choose, or even for no reason at all).

So that five year wait isn't unreasonable or scandalous. It's just a reality of business - their model is to produce a certain number of products, and until now Dark Sun just hasn't been the priority.

Jacob Lewis · May 16, 2018

As much as I would love to see Dark Sun return to the table, I don't think it would be a good fit for the current business model. It needs (deserves!) to be it's own product line that stands apart from what WoC has dictated to be the norm for D&D. It is not a place you visit mid-campaign or rules you can just mesh with your current scenario. It is a different world with different rules and different expectations. If they present it any way similar to how they handled Ravenloft-- which worked fine for Ravenloft--I...

Ok, just had a stupid thought! They will do it just like Ravenloft! Your heroes from FR are transported to an alien desert world where everything is different and they are super strong.... John Carter on Mars, folks! I am calling it now!

Tormyr · May 16, 2018

Jacob Lewis said:
As much as I would love to see Dark Sun return to the table, I don't think it would be a good fit for the current business model. It needs (deserves!) to be it's own product line that stands apart from what WoC has dictated to be the norm for D&D. It is not a place you visit mid-campaign or rules you can just mesh with your current scenario. It is a different world with different rules and different expectations. If they present it any way similar to how they handled Ravenloft-- which worked fine for Ravenloft--I...

Ok, just had a stupid thought! They will do it just like Ravenloft! Your heroes from FR are transported to an alien desert world where everything is different and they are super strong.... John Carter on Mars, folks! I am calling it now!

"Hey, there is a nice village of halflings up ahead. Maybe they can put us up for the night and have us for dinner while we adjust to this new place..."

DEFCON 1 · May 16, 2018

What baffles me is the fact that despite apparently being offended or disgusted by something that is supposedly unreasonable and scandalous... they still play the game and do absolutely nothing differently... thus rendering their complaints completely ignorable.

"Yeah, this four star restaurant is good and all... but their bathrooms didn't have motion sensor faucets and I had to turn the water on by hand. It's completely unreasonable and scandalous, and I'm going to write a scathing Yelp review once I finish my prime rib and then the tiramisu."

Sadras · May 16, 2018

CapnZapp said:
What baffles me is how some customers seem to accept a five year wait as something other than entirely unreasonable and scandalous.

I take it GRRM is still not replying to your emails?

TheSword · May 16, 2018

I’m a massive fan of Dark Sun, both the novels and the settings. However the adventures are the most railroady or railroads, even some of the bigger campaigns like Black spine. Or they are barely fleshed out like the City of the Silt Sea.

In 4e the hard cover adventure felt like a normal adventure that just happened to be set in Dark Sun which was very disappointing.

It may be a bit too much to ask but I would like to see Dark Sun get the Cubicle 7 treatment. With a rules variant that stays fun while being true to the setting with great campaigns. I can’t see it happening but at the least as Curse of Strahd quality campaign book would be preferable to just another setting guide.

OB1 · May 16, 2018

It definitely feels like they are getting ready to announce their plans for alternate material planes, though I would be shocked if the settings got their own books.

Instead, I see two potential releases, a Volo's/Xanthanar's/Mordenkanin's Player/DM supplement full of PC options, alternate rules and lore/genre fluff for 4-6 of the biggest settings (which will also unlock those for DM's Guild publishers) along with a Spelljammer style AP that will have the PCs traveling to each of those settings.

My guess for the settings would be

Eberron
Dark Sun
Greyhawk
Dragonlance
Spelljammer

And it wouldn't surprise me at all if they put a brand new setting in as well.

Dausuul · May 16, 2018

CapnZapp said:
I happen to believe that companies get credit for what they do produce, not what they promise they will or won't produce in the future.

Until there is official 5E support for Dark Sun, there isn't.

I absolutely agree with this. It's nice to hear that they have plans to do Dark Sun for 5E, eventually, at some point. But I don't regard that as "Dark Sun confirmed!" When they officially announce an actual product, that's confirmation. Until then, it's all speculative. Plans are all well and good, but plans change.

CapnZapp said:
What baffles me is how some customers seem to accept a five year wait as something other than entirely unreasonable and scandalous.

...Not agreeing so much with this.

If they had publicly promised to deliver Dark Sun in a shorter time frame, and kept pushing it back for 5 years, that would indeed be unreasonable and scandalous. Mentioning that they have plans in that direction, without specifying a delivery date? That's not scandalous, that's just Mike Mearls describing where they see things going at this time. The alternative is that they don't say anything at all, and then we all get up in arms about how WotC isn't being transparent with the fans.

I'm the first to criticize WotC when I think they're not handling something well (yeah, Sage Advice, lookin' at you), but I see nothing to criticize about what they're doing here.