D&D 5E Assuming Dark Sun is on the horizon, what are your worries?

[Giltonio_Santos]

I’m worried they’ll just put a desert skin over vanilla PHB D&D.

Curse of Strahd, for example, is a great campaign, but what’s the point of having all those rules about corruption, fear, horror, and madness in the DMG, when it cannot use a few words to say “if you’re using the madness rules, something happens” in any of its encounters/scenes?

So, that’s my fear: because the guys there are afraid of even putting out a product that people will not immediately recognize and love, they’ll just put a desert skin over vanilla PHB and call it a day.

Also, bad psionic rules.

 

[cmad1977]

None. What I simply can’t wait for is cacophony of whinging when it is released.

 

[EthanSental]

Late to the conversation and sorry for bringing it back to the top.

I never replayed DS in 2e or read many of the novels, same with the 4e version. Our DM just took us to Athas and it’s been fun so far and a change. No Endure elements spells so warriors are taking off armor, my Druid in a loin cloth and head wrap, etc.

I’m more curious how they handles slaves in 4e as 2e it was a big part of the setting with the gladiators and slaves. Even the novels now that I’m reading the 1st book in the Verdant passage series and enjoying it, has slaves as part of the setting. I don’t see how slaves can even be mentioned nowadays without it being torn apart in the social media platforms. Was it mentioned in 4e?

 

[Eltab]

I’m more curious how they handles slaves in 4e as 2e it was a big part of the setting with the gladiators and slaves.

The sourcebook mentions slavery is there and is prevalent in the cities - less so, or absent, in villages or the wilderness. It it also describes ways for slaves (a talented select few) to climb out of that condition. "Free the Slaves" is offered as a potential campaign theme. It is possible to run an Athas campaign and explore the theme, or pass it over lightly to concentrate on some other theme. It is also possible to look at the similarities / differences between chattel slavery, debt slavery, wage slavery, addiction, and other phenomena that negate one's will via an overmastering compulsion.

Twitter, Facebook, &c were all a thing when 4e Dark Sun came out, and the setting survived. I expect a new release will be able to weather the social media flamethrower also.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I expect a new release will be able to weather the social media flamethrower also.

As the recent mis-step with the Love domain just illustrated, D&D is under more scrutiny, now, than it has since the original fad years. It just comes with the mainstream penetration and resugent sales of the come-back.
More people are buying D&D, watching D&D - and objecting when it violates their social norms.
At least, it not about Satanism, this time.

 

[Gradine]

IIRC the slavery presented in Dark Sun follows closer to the Greco-Roman model than the chattel slavery practiced in the Americas. That's a pretty important distinction for the type of person who would care enough to raise a stink about it.

In any case, as long as slavery is presented as unambiguously morally evil I don't see there being a huge issue. Again, there was no outcry over 4e Dark Sun, and it's not like 4e was immune from criticism; see also 4e's presentation of Chult.

 

[ccs]

IIRC the slavery presented in Dark Sun follows closer to the Greco-Roman model than the chattel slavery practiced in the Americas. That's a pretty important distinction for the type of person who would care enough to raise a stink about it.

Don't count on that.

 

[DND_Reborn]

My biggest worry is that they will make it at all.

Never played it, never cared to, won't in 5E. There are many other settings I would rather see developed first.

 

[Gradine]

Don't count on that.

Dark Sun's slavery is not built upon racial supremacy, nor does it feature any of the other worst excesses of chattel slavery. Believe me, that's a very important set of differences to those for whom it matters.

 

[LordEntrails]

Dark Sun's slavery is not built upon racial supremacy, nor does it feature any of the other worst excesses of chattel slavery. Believe me, that's a very important set of differences to those for whom it matters.

Yes, but many who complain about a thing (such as depictions of slavery) don't do so fully informed. The object based upon conceptions they have based upon labels (such as 'slavery') and not based upon actual knowledge of the subject or it's finer differences.