D&D 5E How would you wish WOTC to do Dark Sun

[Horacio]

DS is too good to fall in the oblivion. It was too special, exotic, different and original, a blow of air fresh, the right update of planetary romance.

WotC could publish a "spiritual succesor", and later this becomes a "spin-off".

If I mention the videogame "Prince of Persia" you are imagining the titles by Ubisoft, not from the 90's years by Brøderbund Software. If this franchise has could be a cash-cow for Ubisoft thanks the righ title, Dark Sun may become very popular if there is a good videogame. The videogames may be fabulous hooks to revive old and less famous D&D lines

Will, I guess I am not the target public, for me Prince of Persia will always be that:

But I'm really happy they have done some remakes and a movie, even if I still think the original was better.

 

[Horacio]

If they can't do a somewhat faithful adaption then yeah let it die fan work is often good enough.

Doesn't have to be exact fire example light domain is good enough for a fire cleric. Less is more though only 4 domains, maybe a 5th for Templars.

Well, I guess that then we must agree to disagree

 

[Zardnaar]

A book the size of Eberron would have roughly twice the material of the two original books in the boxed set.

Less us more though I would have the 2E races, maybe add genasi and not every archetype or class needs to be present.

 

[Horacio]

I do not feel attacked, the old stuff is available still, and good DMs know that and will use it, and convert it. The regular player of a newer generation will not realize, where the fuzz some of us old grognards make about some setting comes from, unless they do an in depth comparison using the older game editions.

I would not call it "let it die", and you might have noticed, in the general material (DMG, PHB) they still refer to "outdated " setting material like GHK DL and DS.

It is rather the following (and I admit that motivation is a bit personal): My current players are an in between generation, they started wit ha bit of 1e 2e did loads of 3e and some 4e but never did Darksun. So if there is an official material available which throws over board all the good assumptions and restrictions and old school style, then it gets much harder for me to introduce my well thought out homebrew solutions for this topic.

As for the story continuation, DS never had this intense story line that other settings had, other than the main thing with Kalak and Draegoth etc.

So you have to wing story a bit anyway, so even for that I do not need new stuff because I think some of the old stuff is great, and my players do not
know it.

So my reasons a re selfish to a point and "idealistic" to another

Woah, thanks for taking your time to explain your point!

As I told you, I can really understand and relate, specially when thinking about Planescape.
Yet I would love to see Planescape 5e and Darksun 5e books in my FLGS someday...

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The folks saying that they'd rather not have DS published at all because WotC won't do it the "right way" (which is completely subjective) are being spoil-sports. Why shouldn't a 5E book be published? If you don't like it, don't use it, but it would be a great way to introduce an awesome setting for a new generation of players.

I largely believe an Eberron-sized book can do DS justice. Here's a couple things I'd like to see;

• Alternative magic rules. Lots of folks point out that magic is extremely limited, and it is, however Defiling and Preserving are both available. Having rules that establish some additional cost by using magic would be great.
• Clear establishment that some classes/races are not the default for DS. I really don't need a lore justification for why genasi or tieflings are playable like DS 4E tried; it felt hamfisted and it's not necessary. Keep the retro feel of old DS where they are limited, but feel free to provide alternative rules (in those handy green boxes) for how some classes/races that are default not available may be used in odd circumstances.
• Making Dray and Half-Giants different than Dragonborn and Goliath. This is again a criticism of 4E; they took two races that were distinct to DS and made them the more familiar standard version. I like the gangly warped look of the Dray, and the brutish wide bulk of the half-giant, and think they should be distinct. They can be entirely new races, or subraces of the Dragonborn/Goliath, but should feel different.

Those are my thoughts. Largely, avoid the 4E path as I feel it tried to make DS a little too much like the rest of D&D; it should go back to the roots of DS instead, but provide options so that DMs can plug-in the other class/race options if they feel they need it.

 

[Raduin711]

I think Dark Sun is a lot more interesting if the Sorcerer Kings are still around. The metaplot killed off most of them, so I think either set the game after Kalak's death, or contrive a new plot element to bring the Sorcerer Kings back to life. I mean, supposedly they have ruled for thousands of years, surely it would take more than that to finish them off?

 

[Zardnaar]

I think Dark Sun is a lot more interesting if the Sorcerer Kings are still around. The metaplot killed off most of them, so I think either set the game after Kalak's death, or contrive a new plot element to bring the Sorcerer Kings back to life. I mean, supposedly they have ruled for thousands of years, surely it would take more than that to finish them off?

I wrote my own and advanced the timeline. Replaced the dead ones with some new ones and Andropinis was back.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If somebody in Athas know a means to come back to the life, at least with a resleeving into new bodies like in "Altered Carbon" (or Eclipse Phase) are the Sorcerer-Kings, but Kalak, he shouldn't be allowed to resurect because he was a menace for the rest. Maybe the souls of the killed sorcerer-kings are in the grey, but they are too powerful and they can become lord feys (losing the incorporeal undead monster type) of the black/shadowfell.

Maybe Andropinis found something about time travels... and now he knows some new tricks. His plan is to allow the heroes to defeat the rest of enemies, and later to agree a truce. Why? maybe because he still loves that women and he misses her.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If somebody in Athas know a means to come back to the life, at least with a resleeving into new bodies like in "Altered Carbon" (or Eclipse Phase) are the Sorcerer-Kings, but Kalak, he shouldn't be allowed to resurect because he was a menace for the rest. Maybe the souls of the killed sorcerer-kings are in the grey, but they are too powerful and they can become lord feys (losing the incorporeal undead monster type) of the black/shadowfell.

Maybe Andropinis found something about time travels... and now he knows some new tricks. His plan is to allow the heroes to defeat the rest of enemies, and later to agree a truce. Why? maybe because he still loves that women and he misses her.

Maybe just ignore the terrible metaplot and pretend it never happened?

 

[humble minion]

Maybe just ignore the terrible metaplot and pretend it never happened?

That'd be my preferred option.

If you're running a DS campaign that isn't the Great Big Epic one where the PCs find out the history of Athas/Rajaat/the Sorcerer-Kings etc, and do Big Epic Stuff like replay the Prism Pentad and kill Borys or whatever, then why overcomplicate matters? Run your game in the world of the original boxed set when Kalak is still alive, or else run it in the world of the 4e book where he's dead but the rest of the metaplot hasn't happened yet. My personal preference would be the latter, just because it adds a bit of variety - Tyr under Kalak isn't really that much different to, say, Balic under Androponis or Urik under Hamanu. The dysfunctional squabbling Free City slowly falling apart as its own factions claw at each other is a very different kettle of fish. One horrible tyranny is very like another, from a setting point of view, it's nice to have one city that's a leaderless seething mess of internal hatred and nascent riots, just to change things up a bit. There's plots and storylines you can run in a post-Kalak Tyr (powerful crime organisations, the political rise of fanatical demagogues, pogroms and riots in the street resulting in the looting of the granaries, the Veiled Alliance going public, infiltration of your city by templars of a rival sorcerer-king who gain allies by their willingness to use healing magic etc for free, etc etc etc) that simply won't work in a city with a live sorcerer-king in charge who won't tolerate that sort of disorder in their domain.