D&D 5E What do you want in a Dark Sun book (sans psionics)?

[TwoSix]

It might still be worth it to steal the city-states and sorcerer-kings and so on, though, because you could probably re-work all that easily enough. I wouldn't go around representing it as a "Dark Sun" game though, not that you necessarily would, but some people would.

<raises hand> I would. I'd just call it alt-Dark Sun though.

I'm curious, though...what aspects of the setting would be invalidated without psionics? I feel like a lot of it could be replicated by having some subtle arcane practices (like divinations and enchantments) just not require life energy to cast, and they could fill in the "secret police" aspect. Wild talents could just be physical mutations.

 

[Jester David]

I’m still curious about what side setting agnostic mechanic or subsystem they could add to the book, as an additional selling feature.
Like factions in Ravnica, patrons in Eberron, heroic chronicle in Wildemount, and the books of Theros.

Maybe something related to multiple characters, like what 2nd Edition did. Advice on how to manage it and when you can switch and how treasure/ magic is handled.

Or an alternate resource tracking system, to use for food/ water, which gives variant rules for gathering food.

Dark Sun was also planned as a world of warfare with the Battle System rules being used. It might be the place to add the mass combat rules.

 

[Fenris-77]

<raises hand> I would. I'd just call it alt-Dark Sun though.

I'm curious, though...what aspects of the setting would be invalidated without psionics? I feel like a lot of it could be replicated by having some subtle arcane practices (like divinations and enchantments) just not require life energy to cast, and they could fill in the "secret police" aspect. Wild talents could just be physical mutations.

Ayup. I might be tempted to steal some of the ritualist mechanics from Midgard (the High Elven stuff) to fill that void too. The model I'm thinking of is the Vlad Taltos novels. It's not an impossible task anyway.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

<raises hand> I would. I'd just call it alt-Dark Sun though.

I'm curious, though...what aspects of the setting would be invalidated without psionics? I feel like a lot of it could be replicated by having some subtle arcane practices (like divinations and enchantments) just not require life energy to cast, and they could fill in the "secret police" aspect. Wild talents could just be physical mutations.

I mean, you're just re-titling psionics at that point. If the sole problem with psionics is the name, then yes obviously that's easy to deal with. But it can't be Arcane magic unless you're also making everyone a Preserver, which would be a significant change and really change the whole tone of the setting and make the general distaste for Arcane casters a lot less plausible. So you'd need to call it "the subtle magic" or something, and have it be neither Arcane (which necessarily Preserves or Defiles, as an absolutely core concept of the setting), and is something most people are disgusted by, nor Divine (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and we're back to just re-naming psionics!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I’m still curious about what side setting agnostic mechanic or subsystem they could add to the book, as an additional selling feature.
Like factions in Ravnica, patrons in Eberron, heroic chronicle in Wildemount, and the books of Theros.

Maybe something related to multiple characters, like what 2nd Edition did. Advice on how to manage it and when you can switch and how treasure/ magic is handled.

Or an alternate resource tracking system, to use for food/ water, which gives variant rules for gathering food.

Dark Sun was also planned as a world of warfare with the Battle System rules being used. It might be the place to add the mass combat rules.

I think it'd be a terrible place for mass warfare rules, because it never really made sense in the context of the setting, and they'd necessarily be pretty different from the mass warfare rules other settings would use (given the totally different beasts, materials, approach to magic, peoples and cultures and so on - most of D&D is far more similar to each other than Dark Sun).

Resource-tracking, materials-use and so on might be a good one.

"Heroic play" or something could also work, with PCs starting at 3rd level with higher stats, but the DM being told to use harder encounters and the like.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, you're just re-titling psionics at that point. If the sole problem with psionics is the name, then yes obviously that's easy to deal with. But it can't be Arcane magic unless you're also making everyone a Preserver, which would be a significant change and really change the whole tone of the setting and make the general distaste for Arcane casters a lot less plausible. So you'd need to call it "the subtle magic" or something, and have it be neither Arcane (which necessarily Preserves or Defiles, as an absolutely core concept of the setting), and is something most people are disgusted by, nor Divine (for what I hope are obvious reasons), and we're back to just re-naming psionics!

I don't see an issue with not calling it psionics and just having it be something else. Or just dropping it entirely and having magic in general be much more rare. Going lower magic in a setting predicated on gritty survival doesn't seem problematic to me.

I agree that Preserving and Defiling are fundamental to the setting, but I'm starting to wonder if having an alternative way of gaining powerful magical effects actually backgrounds the ecological trope more than is necessary. If there is no other way to do magic, that makes the Veiled Alliance's efforts to maintain humane magic all the more heroic.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m still curious about what side setting agnostic mechanic or subsystem they could add to the book, as an additional selling feature.
Like factions in Ravnica, patrons in Eberron, heroic chronicle in Wildemount, and the books of Theros.

Maybe something related to multiple characters, like what 2nd Edition did. Advice on how to manage it and when you can switch and how treasure/ magic is handled.

Or an alternate resource tracking system, to use for food/ water, which gives variant rules for gathering food.

Dark Sun was also planned as a world of warfare with the Battle System rules being used. It might be the place to add the mass combat rules.

Small tangent: the heroic chronicle is cool, but it is not really a full rule subsystem the way those others are: it's just like the Xanathars Guide background tables, but with local flavor.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't see an issue with not calling it psionics and just having it be something else. Or just dropping it entirely and having magic in general be much more rare. Going lower magic in a setting predicated on gritty survival doesn't seem problematic to me.

I agree that Preserving and Defiling are fundamental to the setting, but I'm starting to wonder if having an alternative way of gaining powerful magical effects actually backgrounds the ecological trope more than is necessary. If there is no other way to do magic, that makes the Veiled Alliance's efforts to maintain humane magic all the more heroic.

I don't think it's "problematic", I just don't think it leaves you with something that's even particularly close to Dark Sun.

The Veiled Alliance as is doesn't even make sense without psionics being out there as the main, day-to-day form of magic, really. Without psionics to like "get in the middle", and to be the dominant form of day-to-day magic, the shape of the setting would be very different. The battle lines more clearly drawn. The Veiled Alliance would be vastly more powerful and harder to hide, and they'd be even more in-demand.

The Elemental Priests and Druids would also be significantly more in-demand, and likely significantly more powerful. It makes far less sense for them to be these weird outsiders only, if there's no psionics. So you'd expect them to be more powerful and organised, and likely inside the cities, much as the Templars might not like it.

Templars would have a harder task dealing with Preservers and Defilers, and with trying to keep out the followers of Elemental Priests and so on.

People's day-to-day lives are very different when they can't all call upon minor psionic abilities. Even if you replace that with physical mutations (as you suggest) you end up with a rather different vibe (one that is somehow "more '90s" I'd say, weirdly enough).

I'm not saying it wouldn't be "cool", but it would be a pretty drastic re-envisioning of Dark Sun and would be missing a lot of the heart of Dark Sun. I think the FR with the god having suddenly an inexplicably vanished would be a cool setting, but I just wouldn't say "This is the FR", but yeah "alt-FR" or something. Except not that because people might think you mean "alternative far right"... so er um, "Modified FR" I guess.

 

[Jester David]

Small tangent: the heroic chronicle is cool, but it is not really a full rule subsystem the way those others are: it's just like the Xanathars Guide background tables, but with local flavor.

Yeah, but also choosing your race and providing new mechanical options like a magic item or bonus feat.
I think it was planned as bigger than it ended up being.

But it was a selling feature. And it’s not like the Eberron patron system is mechanically heavy,

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not saying it wouldn't be "cool", but it would be a pretty drastic re-envisioning of Dark Sun and would be missing a lot of the heart of Dark Sun. I think the FR with the god having suddenly an inexplicably vanished would be a cool setting, but I just wouldn't say "This is the FR", but yeah "alt-FR" or something. Except not that because people might think you mean "alternative far right"... so er um, "Modified FR" I guess.

I guess I see the core of the setting as:

1) Desert wasteland as the core environment and adventures having a strong "struggle to survive the elements" aspect.
2) Magic as environmental metaphor. Greedy and irresponsible use devastate the planet, careful and thoughtful use allow for safe use, rejection of civilization and retreat to nature can grant its own power.
3) The bulk of the population live in 7 distinct urban areas, under despotic rule by powerful magic-users and their coteries of empowered servants.
4) None of the core D&D races are the same. Many races don't exist, and there are several distinct new races. (The three I think are most important for the Dark Sun feel are thri-kreen, muls, and half-giants, in that order.)

Psionics being common would probably be 5th on that list. Meaningful, something I would expect from an official release, but certainly something that could be changed in a home game with relatively little impact on the core of the setting.