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

[bedir than]

The last three settings that I've looked at are Spelljammer, Planescape, and the new Forgotten Realms stuff. On a scale of 1 to 10, Spelljammer rated a 1. It was worthless. Planescape was handled decently, so I rate it around a 6. Not as good as I had hoped, but far better than spelljammer. The new Forgotten Realms stuff was in my opinion very good, so I rate it an 8. A 9 being fantastic and a 10 being perfect, and it wasn't either of those.

Your ratings are for someone who already owned a lot of material in those settings, right?

 

[mamba]

There is not a single person who wants and prefers 2E Dark Sun that should be following or concerning themselves with any information regarding a Dark Sun book for 5E24.

until the 5e version is out, I do not really know if it is better, good enough, or a failure. Even if I end up preferring the 2e version that doesn’t mean there is nothing in the 5e book worth adopting. So getting some actual information would be nice, pure speculation does not help however

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I suppose what he'll do is not mention anything, except for those who have been sentenced to forced labor for not paying taxes or something like that.

I suspect there will be a new Ravenloft sourcebook but this will arrive before 2026 Halloween.

I miss more antagonist factions and I don't mean the "monster of the week" but interesting organized groups, for example the "city of spires" from "the black Spine" adventure.

I feel DS is like a MMORPG and the zones around the region of Tyr would work like videogame expansions where the PCs have to be a higher level.

That future sourcebook will be mainly crunch and player options, and maybe a monster compedium with the title "The Traveler's Guide of the Tablelands".

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The vibe I often get is that a lot of people feel pressure to conform to the latest books. Maybe they're not the DM making that call, maybe the rest of the group doesn't share their opinions, maybe they don't have a stable group and aren't good at selling their ideas to whatever floaters are available. But they definitely seem to have the belief that the choices are to play with the latest official books or don't play at all.

How well founded that belief is, is hard to say. Everyone has their own circumstances and we don't know them all. But I've certainly seen a lot of different dynamics with different play groups over the years.

That's kind of my point though - I use the latest books when I run games. But if there's something I like from an older book (story-wise) I just use it. I've never had anyone notice, far or less complain that it's not current "cannon". The only cannon at the table is the cannon at the table.

 

[Zardnaar]

Their concerns are not entirely unfounded. We have seen, even in 5.5e, changes that indicate that sensitive topics are still something they are willing to change. Altering the pictures and text of some creatures regarding gender, comments in the past about slavery, etc. Enough change to these topics is still present to give us pause and concern over how they will hander Dark Sun, which has the topic of slavery front and center, pervasive in Dark Sun society. I don't think we will see slavery handled in the same way, or to the degree that it was present in 2e. I also don't think it will be gone. How well they handle it, though, is a mystery.

The last three settings that I've looked at are Spelljammer, Planescape, and the new Forgotten Realms stuff. On a scale of 1 to 10, Spelljammer rated a 1. It was worthless. Planescape was handled decently, so I rate it around a 6. Not as good as I had hoped, but far better than spelljammer. The new Forgotten Realms stuff was in my opinion very good, so I rate it an 8. A 9 being fantastic and a 10 being perfect, and it wasn't either of those. So we have one crappy setting, one middle of the road setting, and one good setting. That makes predicting Dark Sun very hard. The only good "pattern"(in quotes since 2 isn't enough to establish a pattern) is that the settings seem to be going in the right direction.

Think I agree with you. Ravenloft wasnt great either about a 5 or 6.

Haven't seen Dragonlance. I dont think its well regarded.

 

[bergec]

Haven't seen Dragonlance. I dont think its well regarded.

It wasn't a setting book, it was a campaign adventure with just enough material on the world to run it. Kind of how Ghosts of Saltmarsh had just enough Greyhawk material in it to run the adventures included.

 

[Maxperson]

Your ratings are for someone who already owned a lot of material in those settings, right?

Yes, buuuut... I rated them based on 1) how much I would have to refer back to my other stuff, and 2) the changes made to the settings. The less I would have to refer to my older materials and the more changes were made to the core of the settings, the lower the rating.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Think I agree with you. Ravenloft wasnt great either about a 5 or 6.

But the original 2nd edition boxed set was a 2.

Haven't seen Dragonlance. I dont think its well regarded.

Dragonlance is an odd IP anyway. It's main shtick is "you can play out the novel". It put the starch into hard railroad. There wasn't much "setting" as such, it was all escribed in the modules (so 160 pages to describe both the adventure and the setting) and novels. The setting book (which made major changes to the core rules with unique classes and stuff) and boxed set came later.

And I think the latest Dragonlance ran into problems connected to the legal dispute with Weis and Hickman, as well as attempting to tie it into a boardgame which was itself too specific to appeal to anyone not running the adventure. I believe when they started work on it they hoped to tie it into a new novel series, which would have made sense. But with the new novels taking a different direction*, the IP didn't really offer anything to the modern audience.

*PCs time travelling into the original story and messing it up could have been pretty good, actually.

 

[Zardnaar]

But the original 2nd edition boxed set was a 2.

Dragonlance is an odd IP anyway. It's main shtick is "you can play out the novel". It put the starch into hard railroad. There wasn't much "setting" as such, it was all escribed in the modules (so 160 pages to describe both the adventure and the setting) and novels. The setting book (which made major changes to the core rules with unique classes and stuff) and boxed set came later.

And I think the latest Dragonlance ran into problems connected to the legal dispute with Weis and Hickman, as well as attempting to tie it into a boardgame which was itself too specific to appeal to anyone not running the adventure. I believe when they started work on it they hoped to tie it into a new novel series, which would have made sense. But with the new novels taking a different direction*, the IP didn't really offer anything to the modern audience.

*PCs time travelling into the original story and messing it up could have been pretty good, actually.

You don't like the original anything and just glaze the new slop.

It essentially means your opinions biased to the point of being useless.

5E Eberron and FR are good. Hopefully the new DS is more like them. Less Ravenloft or Spelljammer quality

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You don't like the original anything and just glaze the new slop

The Original setting, as described in Ravenloft and House on Gryphon Hill, was excellent. It was the boxed set that messed it up with its unhorrific trade between domains, hit list of dark lords and boring point-missing pastiches of much better stories. VGR, far from being slop, was a well thought out book on how to do horror in D&D, that wisely ignored the 2nd edition box, which really was slop.