D&D 5E (2024) Unconfirmed Dark Sun World Book

[Maxperson]

PCs are adventurers - "nearby people" are generally the monsters they are fighting, and a death penalty is a badge of honour.

As a general rule, you can't balance mechanics against social consequences - it simply doesn't work. A mechanical effect can only be balanced by a mechanical drawback.

I guess that really depends on the DM. When I ran Dark Sun there were plenty of social encounters and threats.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I guess that really depends on the DM.

That's why is a bad idea (and was established as such back in 3rd edition days, when they tried social balances for prestige classes). It's like trying to balance 17.265 kg of mechanics against [RNG] social consequences.

 

[Yaarel]

If Dark Sun is ever redone by the current writers at WotC, this is likely what we'd get. But considering WotC can't even get defiling/preserving right, and you can't make a faithful Dark Sun setting book without slavery, well, I don't see it happening.

The e24 Forgotten Realms books seem well received. For Dark Sun to use this format seems a nobrainer.

I want the hope theme, but feel it should be an option. The old school despair should define the setting premise, then the options can expand and modify it depending on session zero.

The UA made the Defiler a Sorcerer subclass. In light of the "Sorcerer Kings", the design decision seems reasonable. In 2e, the Magic-User was every kind of spellcaster including "sorcerer". But since 3e, the spellcasters have radiated into separate classes. For e24 Dark Sun to go with Sorcerer instead of Wizard feels like a solid decision. As far as I can tell, Sorcerer seems the only arcane caster that can derive a benefit from defiling. The other arcanes appear to defile the environment without additional benefit.

Dark Sun does fine without slavery. The poverty and scarcity are as present as ever. This economic desperation and exploitation might be an even more resonant theme than slavery is, like the way environmental mismanagement is resonant.

 

[Yaarel]

A mechanical effect can only be balanced by a mechanical drawback.

Even then, a mechanical benefit cannot be balanced by a mechanical drawback. Various kinds of flaws are too easy to minmax around.

The only way to balance is, every player character has roughly equal amounts of benefits.

 

[Yaarel]

why would players care about imaginary environmental damage to a world that does not exist?

Plus in 2e, players didnt even see the environmental damage by a spell happen. The concept would be more vivid if arcane spells always failed unless there is a visible body of water within 30 feet. Then casting the spell annihilates the water in front of the eyes of everyone there. It makes the defiler more clearly villainous.

 

[mamba]

Neither could the original. It’s an interesting idea in concept, but in practice, why would players care about imaginary environmental damage to a world that does not exist?

why not, ultimately they care about something in an imaginary world already or they would not be playing D&D…

2e defiling / preserving worked, the UA preserver does not actually preserve anything however

 

[Necropolitan]

There's no reason to remove slavery from the setting.

Plus it's used to demonstrate the massive class divide, a point is made of how poor commoners are closer to the slaves in living conditions but the existence of slavery is used to keep them down because the commoners can justify to themselves that at least they have it better than the slaves.

 

[Yaarel]

There's no reason to remove slavery from the setting.

Plus it's used to demonstrate the massive class divide, a point is made of how poor commoners are closer to the slaves in living conditions but the existence of slavery is used to keep them down because the commoners can justify to themselves that at least they have it better than the slaves.

The immersion in slavery is the problem.

Similarly, D&D has violence, but immersion in extreme graphic violence changes the rating.

 

[Maxperson]

That's why is a bad idea (and was established as such back in 3rd edition days, when they tried social balances for prestige classes). It's like trying to balance 17.265 kg of mechanics against [RNG] social consequences.

I don't agree with that. "It depends on the DM" applies to just about everything. Are combat encounters fun? It depends on the DM. Will you get a lot of magic items or very few? It depends on the DM. Will Charm Person be treated as a god spell, or will the DM play it as written and treat it like the 1st level spell it is? It depends on the DM.

 

[aco175]

The immersion in slavery is the problem.

Similarly, D&D has violence, but immersion in extreme graphic violence changes the rating.

We can have happy slaves. Not the rated R slaves being beaten with whips in the Moses movie and forced to make bricks with no straw. Rated PG slaves are more like shanghaied pirates in that they get 3 hots and a cot- and a purpose in life, even if it is not their chosen purpose.