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

[LuisCarlos17f]

I see the option to publish two DS, one would be the classic/vintage version, and the second would be more like a sandbox spin-off, allowing to add newest elements. The idea would be for the cleasing wars lots of people and some defilers used planar gates towards other places. For lots of suvivors was an opportunity to start again.... but the troubles with the natives. For others was a moral dilemme about helping innocent refugees when someones of them were dangerous defilers who could destroy the local ecosystem. Even this "new world" could be introduced as a new plane for Magic: the Gathering.

 

[Haldrik]

cater to those people who cannot distinguish between a game and real life?

The above insult against "those people" (ethnic minorities?) as if they "cannot distinguish real life" (cognitively impaired?) ... seriously?

WotC has officially announced they want ethnic minorities to feel comfortable with the rules and descriptions of D&D.

Any who are hostile against ethnic minorities, are unwelcome.

 

[GreenTengu]

To me-- the biggest flaw of Dark Sun is similar to the flaw with Ravenloft.

"I want to play a ___________"
"Yeah, that doesn't exist in this universe. But you can play a gypsy, which aren't considered humans, or a big bug monster with incredibly broken stats."

But-- that aside-- Dark Sun does serve the purpose of bringing some elements that other settings take for granted, like ensuring you have enough food and water to make journeys and you don't spend too much time in the sun, to the forefront.

 

[toucanbuzz]

...I think there is room for a third option where there is a campaign guide that explains x, y, and z are not options available (or typically available) in a Dark Sun campaign and here are some new things you need for a Dark Sun characters. The rest is lore and new monsters (possibly a template to make monsters tougher). That could allow you to play a faithful to 2e campaign and not have to through out the PHB or DMG or MM.

That's what my homebrew conversion aims to do: stay as true to AD&D roots as possible (e.g. goliaths are not half-giants) while reskinning as much as possible (e.g. rename barbarian totem animals to DS equivalents). There's 3 pillars to DS that I wasn't willing to compromise half-assed on because they were so integral to the setting: psionics, unique races, and defiling.

As to survival/magic, that's mostly a sidebar, but I went ahead and made a page for them. 5E's rules on food/water (once the starvation loophole is fixed) are pretty nasty when you run out of food and water compared to prior editions. Exhaustion adds up quick.

 

[Eltab]

I read a lot of interest from people. I would be interested in a Dark Sun book definitely. I read a lot of, 'I hope they don't ruin it with x.' Most of that can be easily resolved with 'don't use that part in your game.' Your players just never happen to encounter the thing that bothers you. Some though is harder. People want psionics. There are ki points and sorcerer points, so why not psionic points? It may not be perfect but it could work in general. For my part, I want psionics done in a way that is fun to play and I want defiling/preserving to work well. That that it's abuse could believably destroy the world or restore it respectively but not easily. For me, a good indicator that something works well is that some people but not all will want to play with it and find it useful. i.e in between Eldritch Blast and Master of the 5 Elements.

My initial read of the DMG was that Spell Points (instead of slots) plus a Bard-ish spell list was supposed to be a "rough-draft Psionicist".

 

[Haldrik]

As to survival/magic, that's mostly a sidebar, but I went ahead and made a page for them. 5E's rules on food/water (once the starvation loophole is fixed) are pretty nasty when you run out of food and water compared to prior editions. Exhaustion adds up quick.

Exhaustion is a great way for 5e to handle Undead "energy drain" in a way that is truly frightening to players.

 

[Eltab]

The above insult against "those people" (ethnic minorities?) as if they "cannot distinguish real life" (cognitively impaired?) ... seriously?

WotC has officially announced they want ethnic minorities to feel comfortable with the rules and descriptions of D&D.

Any who are hostile against ethnic minorities, are unwelcome.

Wrong "those people".
Mis-identifying the advocates of various positions, and their motivations, is one reason these disagreements keep turning into mutual upcast-Fireball contests.

 

[Azuresun]

To me-- the biggest flaw of Dark Sun is similar to the flaw with Ravenloft.

"I want to play a ___________"

This is why you talk to the players before the start of the game, and establish what sort of setting and premise you're going with, so they're guided to make fitting characters for the game.

 

[Remathilis]

The core can easily be setting neutral enough.

It already is.

Using just the PHB, I can play Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara*, Ravenloft, and Exandria. With a handful of additional options, I can play Eberron, Ravnica, Theros, Dragonlance*, and Birthright**. The elf fighter I roll up in the PHB currently is 90% flavor compatible and 100% rule compatible with all of these setting. There is only one official setting which bucks that rule: guess which one it is.

* Going by the 3e version of the setting, with a few exclusions on race.
** Since these settings haven't seen a single item since 2e, there is more guesswork here, but its safe to assume there is no conflict with the post-2000 races and classes.

Core rules do well to avoid any cosmological assumptions.

Especially, religions need to be more diverse and customizable in D&D, more like Eberron - so reallife religious minorities can feel more welcome.

And religious diversity makes it more convenient to world-build homebrew settings that have special assumptions.

The DMG has a whole chapter on different belief systems. The gist is spelled out again in Xanathar in a sidebar, as well as a the druid sidebar in the PHB.

D&D is built around fantasy polytheism, with some allowances for other forces, philosophies, or beliefs like animism or ancestor/spirit worship. Several different pantheons are presented in the back of the PHB (and another in the DMG). There is no single religious belief, no universal source of power, no All-knowing/All-Powerful Monothestic God unless you want there to be. This is a literally what you want: a set of options that the setting determines use on, with multiple examples for the DM to choose which fits. You want something where Gods are mysterious and unknowable? Go Eberron. Want something where Gods come to your house for tea? Go Theros. Want the Gods to be dead? Welcome to Athas.

I can't see how this can be any more inclusive.

With regard to classes, setting-neutral classes and archetypes make it easy to cut-and-paste the concepts that are relevant and to leave out the ones that are less relevant.

Especially the basic classes - Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard - need setting-neutral mechanics, to plug-and-play into a diversity of homebrew settings.

First off, I fail to see what is not setting neutral about the Iconic Four: they are as dull as dishwater when it comes to flavor. Second, where is the bard, druid, ranger, paladin, sorcerer, warlock, barbarian, and monk all going? As I stated early, they are known and playable in ALL official D&D settings save one. Are you going to reprint them in every campaign guide? Make people shell out for a 4th (5th?) book of options? (which puts us back in the same boat as them all in the PHB, except now it costs $100). Maybe put one or two per campaign guide and make people buy the Greyhawk book for Druid and Paladin, the Forgotten Realm book for Sorcerer and Barbarian, the Ravenloft book for Bard and... you get the point (cue the riots at buying dozens of sourcebooks to get the full set of classes, 4e was bad enough with 3 PHBs to get all 3.5 classes).

In sum, setting-neutral class descriptions for the core rules makes it easier to plug and play into Dark Sun flavor, ... and also into any homebrew setting flavors.

No it doesn't, it just disperses the work to other books and raises the buy-in cost buy adding more books to get the complete game. Further, it does nothing to help homebrewing because by definition homebrewing is an infinite variety of changes. A setting-neutral PHB isn't setting neutral if it still assumes...

• There are other races beyond human
• Technology resembles late-medieval Europe (Rapiers, full plate, crossbows, spyglasses, galleons)
• Magic is something that can be wielded by mortals safely
• Magical effects like raising the dead, scrying, teleporting, mind-reading, summoning, necromancy, and healing are even possible

just to name a few core assumptions that are frequently changed to fit the settings of homebrewers. There is no PHB that can be reductive enough to support Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones.

Setting neutral core rules helps ME! world build.

Good for you. A lightly flavored core (such as that which existed in 2e and 3e) helped me. I didn't need the core rules to tell me it was ok to make my elves different or remove orcs or add ninjas, I just did it and told my players "the stuff in the PHB is wrong, read this".

Not sure how I did it all those years ago. Heck, not sure how I do it now when a player asked to be a drow in my Eberron game and had to go "actually..."

Races/species need to be far more customizable anyway. The customizability helps a player feel more comfortable about reallife concerns about ethnicity. The same customizability makes it easy for the DM to tweak it to make it more resonant for a different setting.

Rule 0. If you don't like it, change it.

But don't couch your desire for bland, flavorless SRD-like core rules to help say no to your players while creating your homebrew with any sort of concern for inclusiveness. People need better representations, not none-at-all. This isn't Generic Fantasy Simulator d20. Its D&D. And most of D&D works fine with lore attached to it. Some of the lore might need updating, but don't use that as an excuse to get rid of it all in the name of "inclusiveness". Nothing will drive people away faster than a game that says nothing and stands for nothing. Even Paizo wisely uses lore to define its game, and it is one of the most inclusive variants of D&D today. (Mostly; about those ability score perks/flaws).

The goal should be to make better elves, not strip elves of all meaning and reduce them to a visual skin a few mechanical perks.

 

[Haldrik]

Wrong "those people".
Mis-identifying the advocates of various positions, and their motivations, is one reason these disagreements keep turning into mutual upcast-Fireball contests.

WotC is doing the right thing to help D&D players from any ethnic groups to feel welcome and comfortable.

In the US, "ethnic minorities" include diverse groups of Muslims. There are secular Muslims who dont care about religion. But there are Muslims who do care about religion and practice the religion intentionally and actively during normal daily life. I want religious Muslims to enjoy playing D&D too.

What is true for religious Muslims, is also true for religious Jews, religious Christians, and other ethnic groups with sacred ancestral traditions. D&D is a game. It is abusive for seculars to try use D&D as some kind of ideological culture war to bully reallife Muslims, Jews, Christians, or other kinds of religious players.

It is a high priority for the Players Handbook itself − the core rules of D&D − to be inclusive and assume religious diversity. It helps when PLAYERS from diverse ethnic minorities find tropes they can relate to and feel comfortable with.

A religious Muslim is less likely to purchase or play the polytheistic Theros setting. That is ok. That said, I am impressed how Theros handles polytheism in a nuanced way, where the gods can also be villains, and to be an "iconoclast" who refuses to worship the gods is a prominent option within this setting. So, I sincerely recommend that Muslims check out Theros. It might be a setting that they can work with and find interesting. But if Theros is a setting that makes Muslims uncomfortable so they dont want to play it, then that is fine too.

I still want Muslims to find other D&D settings enjoyable.

It is important for the core rules of D&D to assume religious diversity and to welcome religious tropes in a way that is positive toward reallife ethnic groups.