Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 9531949" data-attributes="member: 7635">which brings me right back to my original complaint about Dark Sun; it's not a D&D setting. It's a different RPG that was forced to use AD&D's rules. Dragonlance doesn't have orcs of halfling, but it fills those niches with Draconians and kender respectively. It might have had some weird character generation rules in 2e (when every setting was defined by how far it could run away from the PHB) but it operates just fine in 3e and 5e using all the available classes and such. In fact, no 5e setting has restricted anything but species that are native to the setting. And you know what? Every one of those settings managed to capture the tone of the setting. Because Dragonlance isn't defined by its lack of werewolves, it's defined by the ongoing war of dragons. But Dark Sun? It's only about what ISN'T in it. And that's a lot, the more I hear about it. I've always felt that Dark Sun could be done one of two ways: As a lore-perfect standalone game that has its own dedicated Player Book and Monster Book, or a setting that hews closer to 4e's take as a slightly modified D&D world. Because a lore accurate 5e Dark Sun would probably use 1/5th (if you're lucky) of the current Core books. And you aren't going to sell that to anyone who isn't already a fan of DS from the 90's. I honestly don't think you could sell a D&D setting that basically says, "most of your other 5e books are not available". You COULD probably get away with a "Dark Sun Player's Guide" that doesn't bother to cross-reference the PHB and instead only includes the relevant reprints and new options as a separate PHB-type book. That way there is no expectation that things like Paladin, Eldritch Knight, or any of the other non-lore friendly options are there (psychologically, it's much easier to present a complete list of what is allowed than to provide a ban list). I don't know if such a book would sell well, but I can guaran-damn-tee that a massive list of barred options is going to turn off any gamer who started in 2000 or later. Ultimately, I would far rather see a product that focuses on what Steampunkette addressed in her opening post: saving the world from the edge of extinction because you are the only ones who can do it. Thewy barbarians, gladiators, psionics, weird magic, surviving the harsh wild lands. THAT interests me about Dark Sun. What keeps killing my interest is the weird ban lists that would restrict your choices to a handful of options that the original designers allowed back in 1995 because they were making Anti-D&D. It's not the lack of cows that makes Athas interesting.</blockquote>

Verification