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Great question! My answer is that we’re past the point where "the method to not ruining the environment exists, but it's gate-kept by the powerful elite class who benefit from the status quo” is the message that needs to be heard. People have throughly absorbed that message, and in fact many use...

I mean, my design goal isn’t to encourage players to use preserving. It’s to encourage them to use defiling. I want defiling to be the easy path. I want it to be tempting not because it gives you a huge boost, but because taking the moral high ground is painfully inconvenient. If that makes it...

The narrative landed on a conceptual level. I’m suggesting making the mechanics reflect the narrative so as to make it land on a visceral level. Make players feel it as well as read about it.

Not necessarily. Players would have access to the power the combat math expects them to. It just comes at a cost. Some cosmetic damage to the surrounding environment is all it would take to be at the expected power level. The difference is what the combat math expects. $800 dollars a month vs...

Oh my god, this is so whimsical and charming! I had never heard of this before, but I adore the general vibe. I kinda get the feeling that too much more detail would spoil it. To paraphrase Fernald as quoted in the Arlas article, in an ideal world a VHS tape with a single episode of some old...

For my next hot take: Druidic casting (which in 5e I would count Ranger magic under the umbrella of) should also be more limited due to the destruction that defiling has wrought on the land. If you draw you power from a connection to nature, then in a world where nature is in its death throes...

I mean, I’ll gladly admit that my take is both quite radical and decidedly non-canon. But I think it’s the right answer to how to update Dark Sun for modern sensibilities, without watering down its fundamental character. It’s not really the hopepunk angle others have advocated for, though I do...

I’m aware. But, if all we’re trying to do here is recreate what TSR already did, I don’t see the point. 2e Dark Sun still exists for those who want it, 3e Dark Sun still exists for those who want it but don’t want to give up having a unified action resolution mechanic, and 4e Dark Sun still...

Correct. Well, yes, but actually no. Because if the game math was adjusted to account for preserving being weaker than baseline 5e magic, then preserving wouldn’t be a real sacrifice. It would just be a generally lower-power game. I’m sure this is an unpopular take, but I think preserving...

And there’s also passivity in the face of evil, not born of apathy, but out of shortsighted self-preservation. When the world is falling apart around you, yet still expects you to carry on like normal, the temptation to just check out can be incredibly powerful. It’s exhausting just to stay...

But that wouldn’t create the same visceral feeling that walking the responsible path requires real, meaningful sacrifice. If giving up defiling just brings you to the normal, expected level of power, then it fails as an allegory. It’s just “the dark side is a path to many abilities some consider...

Yeah, it’s the Star Wars brain poison talking. Arcane magic in Dark Sun is a very on-the-nose allegory for fossil fuels, and fossil fuels aren’t a temptation to ultimate power, they’re a basic everyday convenience we take for granted and will very much feel like tying one hand behind our back to...

It seems like maybe you’re responding to someone whose posts I can’t see, but I agree strongly with your half of the conversation, this is absolutely how it should work thematically. In fact, if it were up to me, casting spells normally would cause incidental cosmetic damage to the surrounding...

If I had my druthers? Athasian variants for dwarves, elves, halflings, and goliaths; full species writeups for Thri-Kreen and Mul; Dray generations as new Draconic Ancestry options for Dragonborn; Aaracokra as-is; sidebar for suggestions of other thematically-suitable PC options, like Genasi as...

Do I lose my nerd credentials if I say I’ve never watched Stargate? 😅

Eh, I wouldn’t say a soldier “just following orders” or a civilian passively accepting a rapidly worsening status quo because it hasn’t directly impacted them (yet) is ignorant.

Well, that’s because art reflects life, and in life the real bad guys are a tiny handful of legitimately bad actors. But I wouldn’t characterize the masses those tiny handful use to enact their will as misunderstood. They’re most often just taking the path of least resistance.

I guess you could make the Elder Brains a future evolution of human brains, and the Illithids a separate species that the future-humans enslaved… But I agree it’s a really lame “twist.” I prefer the Elder Brains to be future Aboleth brains.

Well, in the take on them I described, they can’t survive on the material plane without a cerromorphed sapient being to wear like a space suit. So, nonviolent immigration is impractical for them. Maybe you could arrange some sort of… volunteer host system? But even that would be pretty ethically...

I mean, yeah, in that setup I don’t think peaceful coexistence with Illithids is possible, at least not on the material plane. An Illithid trying to be good would be an Illithid not participating in the colonization of the material plane. I also like the idea that it’s really the Elder Brains...