D&D 5E WotC: Why Dark Sun Hasn't Been Revived

In an interview with YouTuber 'Bob the Worldbuilder', WotC's Kyle Brink explained why the classic Dark Sun setting has not yet seen light of day in the D&D 5E era.

I’ll be frank here, the Dark Sun setting is problematic in a lot of ways. And that’s the main reason we haven’t come back to it. We know it’s got a huge fan following and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards... We know there’s love out there for it and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we gotta be responsible.

You can listen to the clip here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That being said, I find it hard to believe people are concerned about fantasy climate change and fantasy sorcerer lords.

So there's a different between honest concern, and bad faith concern/concern trolling.

I'm pretty sure WotC is afraid of the latter, here. No-one sane or sensible is going to be mad about fantasy climate change or overthrowing fantasy dictators. But could Fox News or similar stir some nonsense about how "D&D has gone woke" (which, again, silly - it's like saying "Star Trek went woke", when it's like the original "woke" show lol)? Absolutely they could. Would be honestly meant or based on real concerns? Of course not! It would be based on trying to get viewers/clicks/"controversy".

Realistically I think the odds of that happening are extremely low. And even if it did, it'd be easily weathered. But WotC are terrified of any kind of controversy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you think someone should tell him that slavery is mentioned like a dozen times or more in the core books and various settings?

How many times since they shifted design direction with Tasha's? WotC seems like they'd really like us to forget everything before then.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, true, but I think something much more interesting could have been done here.

Instead we'll no doubt get 5E sent off with a horrifically dull take on Planescape and 1D&D introduced with some kind of ultra-safe remake or MtG setting (they could be saving Dominiaria for it for example).

WotC has had almost 9 years to do some interesting things with 5e, I'm not holding my breath.

At this point, WotC has to be terrified of social media. They don't want anything even approaching "interesting". This whole "Orcs of Thar" thing means they'll never touch Mystara, too dangerous no matter how minor it was. Dark Sun has slavery, so it's essentially radioactive. With the movie coming out, I have to imagine the next plan is to put Forgotten Realms front and center again. I doubt we'll see any new settings for 1D&D besides maybe a MtG setting or two.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can remove a hint and yes, bad guys are bad. That's the point. It's what makes them bad guys.

Bad guys who can in any way be related to real world bad actions are a rapidly dying breed in WotC D&D.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

With the movie coming out, I have to imagine the next plan is to put Forgotten Realms front and center again.

Indeed I imagine so.

WotC has had almost 9 years to do some interesting things with 5e

I feel like, had they kept Winninger, we might have seen something in the next year or three - he was at least causing new settings to be actively developed, even if they weren't making it to production.

But it seems like part of why he went was that he had a less purely commercial vision of D&D.

 

[TwoSix]

But it seems like part of why he went was that he had a less purely commercial vision of D&D.

I can only imagine the corporate shenanigans that are going on there and be glad I'm not a part of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think its more they themselves don't know how to do itwithout either ruining the setting, causing an uproar, or having not enough meat in the book to make money.

And quite frankly, I doubt most 3PP or fans could.

I mean we can't even get psionics done and that is the easy part.

Plenty of good psionics rules out there for 5e. If WotC had just made their own without insisting on super high buy-in from the fans, they could have released Dark Sun years ago, before Tasha's and the shift into terror of public opinion they've had for the last few years.

Too late now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Bad guys who can in any way be related to real world bad actions are a rapidly dying breed in WotC D&D.

It's interestingly a direct inverse of White Wolf/WoD in the 1990s, where part of their success was down to the fact that you could absolutely draw extremely straight lines from the fictional bad guys in their settings to real world bad guys. The same was true of Shadowrun during that era, too - another very commercially successful game for the period and given their level of marketing etc.

It seems like, unfortunately, SF/fantasy media (esp. bigger budget stuff) in general is becoming more and more cowardly about this, and increasingly going with something people used to complain about in World of Warcraft a lot in the '00s, which is that instead of any bad guys being motivated by, like being bad in any recognisable way, most of the major bad guys were just "tainted by dark magic". The MCU is going in a similar direction (especially with the continuing absence of the X-Men, who despite their fantastical premise, had the most "relevant" villains and anti-heroes and grey-area characters and so on).

 

[Reynard]

It's strange that people are expecting WotC to do anything other than what is most profitable. They are the Disney of TTRPGs. You will never see anything with more philosophical, intellectual or ethical depth than what you would see in an MCU or Star Wars film. Given that, if you love Dark Sun or Planescape or even Dragonlance, why in the world would you want to see the modern WotC versions of those things?

Plus, let's be honest, even if all you cared about was 5E compatible DS specific mechanics, WotC isn't going to pull that off either.

Buy some old covered-in-warning-tape PDFs, grab a 3PP book that does psionics and plant killing magic, and go. Or make up your own rules for those things and share it.

WotC isn't going to give you Dark Sun and even if it did, would you really want that version?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think they are correct. Not the right time to publish it. Currently the outrage generated by small missteps is too big.
See the hadozee problem. I can see, why it can be seen as offending, and i think removing that content (picture + backstory = too close to derogatory stereotypes of the real world) was correct, there are still people who put them on the pillory like already happened in this thread once again.
So the benefit/risk ratio is just too low.

So you can do so much right, and have one oversight (which was totally obvious AFTER it was pointed out) and you get very bad press and still hear of it years later...