D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

[Micah Sweet]

Some companies create products with different versions for different game systems. It's not uncommon for RPG books to have a "5E" version and an "OSR" version. Free League offers a 5E version of each title in the "One Ring" product line. I've seen "D&D" and "not-D&D" versions of other games in the past also . . .

But yeah, expecting a companies to publish "5E" and a "6E" versions as the norm . . . other than the OSR stuff, that hasn't really happened on any sort of scale ever. Nor would it currently.

My hope would be that they stick with 5e. Level Up did after all

 

[Echohawk]

The issue isn't "eventually", its that it is now. There isn't a lot of continuity amongst settings, but Eye of Ruin seems to be set in the settings as they are now in the current books, all at the same time.

What do you mean by "now in the current books, all at the same time"? Do we even have a "current" date for most settings in 5e?

Forgotten Realms 5e sources are set (vaguely) in the 1490s. Eberron is forever stuck in 998. Shadow of the Dragon Queen is set before the original Dragonlance Chronicles. Greyhawk has reset to the time of the original folio. Ravenloft was rebooted to an earlier point in time. Planescape's 5e timeline is impossible to reconcile entirely with Faction War. Spelljammer 5e ignores the 2e Spelljammer timeline almost entirely, so is impossible to place.

None of that would make me feel that the destruction of Athas has to take place "now" rather than "far enough in the future to be irrelevant to the current setting".

 

[mamba]

What do you mean by "now in the current books, all at the same time"?

Eve of Ruin is one adventure in which the heroes travel to multiple worlds, presumably without time travel. So if Krynn is in the middle of its War of the Lance, FR is current with the 5e adventures and Athas is a dead planet being sucked into a black hole, then all three of these are occurring at the same time. At least that is my take on the post

In any case, it would be the end of Athas and Dark Sun would not get unlocked on DMsGuild. If WotC releases some DS product it hopefully eventually will.

 

[Remathilis]

My hope would be that they stick with 5e. Level Up did after all

How many 3e/3.5/Pathfinder 1e publishers are left these days?

 

[Imaro]

Huh?

It could be done unofficially, as homebrew, sure. It could also be done officially. Shrug. Folks are only saying, "Hey, I think that's a neat idea!" That's all.

And I'm asking why is ending a campaign setting permanently in an official capacity preferred to leaving it up to the individual tables? It creates a situation where you have a setting that is "dead" but has fans who want to play it... but the available pool of players slowly shrinks as time goes on because it's worse than no longer supported... its a dead setting with an official forgone ending.

 

[Echohawk]

Eve of Ruin is one adventure in which the heroes travel to multiple worlds, presumably without time travel. So if Krynn is in the middle of its War of the Lance, FR is current with the 5e adventures and Athas is a dead planet being sucked into a black hole, then all three of these are occurring at the same time. At least that is my take on the post

But that tells us nothing about when in the Dark Sun timeline the sun turns into a black hole, it could still be in the far future of the setting as presented in 2e or 4e.

The concurrent time periods of the various setting as presented in Eve of Ruin cannot be reconciled with the concurrency of those settings' timelines as presented in various 2e/3e sources, so if you want to make a single D&D continuity from 2e through to Eve of Ruin then you have to make some serious assumptions about the flexibility of timelines or the involvement of time travel.

In any case, it would be the end of Athas and Dark Sun would not get unlocked on DMsGuild. If WotC releases some DS product it hopefully eventually will.

Why would making Athas's sun canonically doomed prevent WotC from ever opening up Dark Sun on DMsGuild? Those things don't seem particularly connected to me.

 

[Imaro]

Why would making Athas's sun canonically doomed prevent WotC from ever opening up Dark Sun on DMsGuild? Those things don't seem particularly connected to me.

Well hopefully no adventures that could spell the doom of Athas since we already know how that hsppens.

 

[mamba]

But that tells us nothing about when in the Dark Sun timeline the sun turns into a black hole, it could still be in the far future of the setting as presented in 2e or 4e.

I'd say that has to be the case, not sure how that is contradicted by what was written though

The concurrent time periods of the various setting as presented in Eve of Ruin cannot be reconciled with the concurrency of those settings' timeline as presented in various 2e/3e sources, so if you want to make a single D&D continuity from 2e through to Eve of Ruin then you have to make some serious assumptions about the flexibility of timelines or the involvement of time travel.

that assumes the timelines in 2e were concurrent and that WotC cares about staying in lockstep with their timelines, which they clearly are not given that DL went back in time and DS / Doomspace jumped forward, probably considerably, from 2e

The more likely scenario is that no one cares about the 2e/3e timelines when deciding what time the setting should be in in 5e.

Why would making Athas's sun canonically doomed prevent WotC from ever opening up Dark Sun on DMsGuild? Those things don't seem particularly connected to me.

In the past a setting was being made available once there was a book using it, the most recent instance was opening GH with the 2024 DMG. If Dark Sun is canonically dead, then there will be no book for it to open it up on DMsG

 

[Dire Bare]

And I'm asking why is ending a campaign setting permanently in an official capacity preferred to leaving it up to the individual tables? It creates a situation where you have a setting that is "dead" but has fans who want to play it... but the available pool of players slowly shrinks as time goes on because it's worse than no longer supported... its a dead setting with an official forgone ending.

Okay.

Still think it's would be a neat idea if WotC had included a doomed Athas in the Spelljammer adventure. Shrug.

I don't need it there, I'm not upset or disappointed they didn't go that direction. I just think it's a neat idea.

I'm totally okay with you not feeling it. But I am confused over your pushback. Dark Sun is a setting with no support right now. Is that preventing fans from picking up the older material and playing anyway? How would that change if WotC had written a "canon" apocalypse for Dark Sun? It wouldn't, really. At all.

It wouldn't even prevent WotC from revisiting the classic setting if they wanted to. If WotC eventually does publish a new Dark Sun campaign book . . . and gasp changes canon . . . maybe resetting the campaign to before Kalak's death in Prism Pentad . . . could you ignore that if you wanted to in your home games? How is that different from a possible doomed future for Athas?

And you know, it's all academic anyway, as none of us here in the thread have any control over Dark Sun's future. So, you're good.

 

[Echohawk]

Well hopefully no adventures that could spell the doom of Athas since we already know how that hsppens.​

Many D&D settings have played with timelines previously (Greyhawk 2000, the Arcane Age line for the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance Legends, Ravenloft's Castles Forlorn, the time-loop book-ending Planescape's Faction War, ).

Knowing the future (or one possible future) of a setting hasn't prevented anyone from creating world-threatening adventures previously. I don't think it would particularly inhibit future Dark Sun adventure designers.​