@dave2008 has it right... the assumption is that you can take 5E as it currently stands... and make a DS setting book the exact same way they've made Eberron, Ravenloft, Theros, Ravnica etc.-- by adding in specific subclasses, ancestries, and extra rules to fill in the missing gaps. So of course there would be a player thri-kreen ancestry, and either all-new or adapted half-dwarf and half-giant ancestries. There would probably be preserver and defiler Wizard subclasses. Maybe they might add in a Sorcerer-King warlock patron, and maybe an additional psionic sub-class (beyond the fighter / rogue / sorcerer ones already in the game.)
You add that stuff and your standard continent area map with details on the major areas, some of the big NPCs, and a whole bunch of monsters and WotC will produce a book that's basically as top-level as all the other books they have done. Good for a taste of the setting, some ideas for how adventures and campaigns could be run there... but little to no deep details that come from most of the DS material from editions past. That can all easily be done.
Will it be what the Dark Sun purists want? Of course not. But the DS purists don't need anything deeper, because they probably already own all the old stuff that they can just re-purpose it for a new game. The only thing this campaign book would do is highlight this setting into the minds of new players who don't know anything about it. And thus when a DS purest says "I'd love to run a game of Dark Sun for you"... all these new players that have started D&D with 5E have at least a foot to stand on as far as understanding what they are getting into.
But there is absolutely no reason for a purist to think that any new DS book WotC publishes is going to give them everything they believe is necessary to run effective campaigns there. It is numerically impossible just based upon page count alone.
You add that stuff and your standard continent area map with details on the major areas, some of the big NPCs, and a whole bunch of monsters and WotC will produce a book that's basically as top-level as all the other books they have done. Good for a taste of the setting, some ideas for how adventures and campaigns could be run there... but little to no deep details that come from most of the DS material from editions past. That can all easily be done.
Will it be what the Dark Sun purists want? Of course not. But the DS purists don't need anything deeper, because they probably already own all the old stuff that they can just re-purpose it for a new game. The only thing this campaign book would do is highlight this setting into the minds of new players who don't know anything about it. And thus when a DS purest says "I'd love to run a game of Dark Sun for you"... all these new players that have started D&D with 5E have at least a foot to stand on as far as understanding what they are getting into.
But there is absolutely no reason for a purist to think that any new DS book WotC publishes is going to give them everything they believe is necessary to run effective campaigns there. It is numerically impossible just based upon page count alone.
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