Dark Sun Hopes & Dreams & Fears & Nightmares

[filthgrinder]

Is adding Primodials, and a dark sun version of the feywild any different, or more blasphemous to the setting, than the REVISED box set that came out? Or more "trashing the setting" than the line of novels did?

By my count, the "setting" that everyone clings to as this holy magical place was simply the original box set, and it was great. However, this great setting isn't the virginal, clean as the driven snow, canon perfect place that people are remembering with their rose colored glasses. "Mucking it up" is what happened to the setting under the care of TSR and almost immediately.

Let's see, before WotC even approached the setting, we had tons of SKs killed off. Varying descriptions of how they even worked (and a confusing list of who is and is not an SK). We had one get sucked into Ravenloft, even though Athas was supposedly walled off from everything. How about the expansion of the Tablelands in the revised set with new city-states. How about those awful psionic artifacts?

So, honestly, this isn't some undefiled setting that WotC is posing to ruin. The setting has already been tampered with and messed up. So if you don't like the changes WotC is making... then you probably didn't like the changes TSR made. So as you ignored those changes ignore the new ones.

I was a big fan of Dark Sun back in the day (until the release of the revised box set). I'm a fan of 4E, and I'm looking forward to Dark Sun 4E. I'm looking at it more as the Dark Sun-ification of 4E rather than the 4e-ification of Dark Sun.

 

[KidSnide]

And we already know Primordials are involved in the backstory- so if that's a dealbreaker, it's already done.

I understand why the story folks at WotC like the PoL story. It's a good story. But the whole point of having multiple campaign worlds is that you can use different stories with the same mechanics.

I mean, I understand the drive for internally consistency and completionism, but it doesn't belong here. It seems like the WotC story folks have Feywild, Shadowfell and Primordials in their tool belts, and everything else just looks like a nail.

-KS

 

[Dausuul]

Is adding Primodials, and a dark sun version of the feywild any different, or more blasphemous to the setting, than the REVISED box set that came out? Or more "trashing the setting" than the line of novels did?

Certainly not, but a lot of us despise the Revised boxed set and the novels (at least, the novels as metaplot). We think TSR made an awesome setting and then trashed the place, we're glad WotC is going back to the original conception, we don't want it trashed again.

And it's easier to ignore changes when you can fall back on the original boxed set and use it as written (though copies of that set were tougher to get your hands on in the days before eBay). Falling back on the original set won't be nearly as easy to do when there's an edition change involved. If I'm going to have do all that conversion work, I'll just make my own setting.

For my money, actually, a lot of 4E concepts map quite well to Dark Sun, primordials among them. For the Feywild, it's going to depend on implementation.

 

[WanderingMonster]

Anyone can think of why X shouldn't be included in Dark Sun. I thinkit's far more interesting to think of how X can be included.

Face it. It's too late. Everything is written and there's not likely much that can be changed. Complaining won't help, but hey! Welcome to the internet!

I suggest channeling the nerd-rage into something productive and fun. If you *had* to shoehorn things into Dark Sun (Gnomes, the Feywild, Dragonborn boobs...), what would the naysayers find most palatable?

Here's my short suggestion for the Feywild:

Where are the sacred groves of the legendary druids of Athas? the Feywild. Here, the spirits of nature slumber lightly and the guardians of the natural world keep a close eye on all who would wreak havoc on it. In Athas, the sorceror kings are the rulers. Cross them at your peril. In the Feywild, Nature is the most supreme, cruel, and hateful force. You cannot bargain with her unless you have a dedicated arbiter: a druid*

*I suspect that a druid with her own sacred grove would end up being a paragon path, and not be restricted to the druid class, but to several of the primal classes.

 

[WanderingMonster]

The problem is, everything that could be in the Athasian Feywild could just be in Athas itself.

There is zero reasons to have a Feywild in Athas other then to have it for the sake of having it. The whole point of Athas is that it's dangerous and, often, unsurvivable. Having an alternate mirror of that is flat out unneccesary - everything there should be in Athas to begin with.

There isn't supposed to be somewhere more dangerous and desolate then Athas itself. That's why Athas is there to begin with. When you have something that just Athas but "worse," it cheapens Athas itself.

The distinction is where the power is. In the Feywild, maybe the sorcerer kings aren't the most powerful. In fact, maybe they're the only thing keeping the spirits of the Feywild from taking over Athas. Maybe the reason you have City States and not countries with borders is as much due to protecting yourself from the wrath of the Feywild as it is about being near natural resources and a well fortified location.

Heck, I like this idea more and more. It might even make me like Avangions more if they were allied with the Feywild and as dangerous to the PCs as Sorcerer Kings.

 

[Dausuul]

The distinction is where the power is. In the Feywild, maybe the sorcerer kings aren't the most powerful. In fact, maybe they're the only thing keeping the spirits of the Feywild from taking over Athas. Maybe the reason you have City States and not countries with borders is as much due to protecting yourself from the wrath of the Feywild as it is about being near natural resources and a well fortified location.

Heck, I like this idea more and more. It might even make me like Avangions more if they were allied with the Feywild and as dangerous to the PCs as Sorcerer Kings.

I'm not really seeing it. It's not a bad idea for a setting, but it dramatically changes the nature of Dark Sun... it destroys the "doomed world sucked dry by sorcery" theme if there's this whole parallel world full of life. You end up with more of a "war of the worlds" theme, sorceror-kings versus fey spirits. At that point, I'd rather they made an original setting built around that concept from the start.

We shouldn't sweat the small stuff - it's not a disaster if they incorporate Dark Sun-ified eladrin, or even tieflings - but the implications of this change are too far-reaching for my taste.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Is adding Primodials, and a dark sun version of the feywild any different, or more blasphemous to the setting, than the REVISED box set that came out? Or more "trashing the setting" than the line of novels did?

By my count, the "setting" that everyone clings to as this holy magical place was simply the original box set, and it was great. However, this great setting isn't the virginal, clean as the driven snow, canon perfect place that people are remembering with their rose colored glasses. "Mucking it up" is what happened to the setting under the care of TSR and almost immediately.

Let's see, before WotC even approached the setting, we had tons of SKs killed off. Varying descriptions of how they even worked (and a confusing list of who is and is not an SK). We had one get sucked into Ravenloft, even though Athas was supposedly walled off from everything. How about the expansion of the Tablelands in the revised set with new city-states. How about those awful psionic artifacts?

So, honestly, this isn't some undefiled setting that WotC is posing to ruin. The setting has already been tampered with and messed up. So if you don't like the changes WotC is making... then you probably didn't like the changes TSR made. So as you ignored those changes ignore the new ones.

I was a big fan of Dark Sun back in the day (until the release of the revised box set). I'm a fan of 4E, and I'm looking forward to Dark Sun 4E. I'm looking at it more as the Dark Sun-ification of 4E rather than the 4e-ification of Dark Sun.

And just look at all the love and support the revised Dark Sun got. I can sure understand why WotC would want to channel those same thoughts!



The problem with adding the Feywild is that there's not supposed to be anything outside of Athas. Athas is it. Like Banana said, there is no lush wonderland that's just barely out of reach. There's no other planes to visit and tromp through. Athas is cut off completely.

As soon as you're seriously mucking about in another plane, you're already straying. The whole idea of Athas is that you have no escape, you have no "other land" to eventually reach or try to live in. You've got Athas, and whatever you can pull off while living there.

"Why not" is a bad question in some settings. Athas is one of them. You can't just ask why not, you also have to ask why. "Will this add more then it takes away?" When it comes to many aspects of Athas, the answer is no. Having a bunch of magical fey eladrin and gnomes takes away far more then it gives back. The ideas and feel of the setting is far more important then adding the "needless symmetry" of forcing everything into the 4e cosmology.

Quite frankly, if you want "Just, you know, this like desert place to have our D&D adventures in," then you don't want Dark Sun.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Dark Sun really needs some interesting planes. What did we have? THE GRAY, THE BLACK, THE HOLLOW. Also, elemental planes (remember, in old DS, sorcerer kings somehow "got living conduits" into the elemental planes that allowed them to grant spells - which was pretty stupid).

It can only get better.

Quite frankly, if you want "Just, you know, this like desert place to have our D&D adventures in," then you don't want Dark Sun.

The mindreaders are back, it seems.

 

[WanderingMonster]

The problem with adding the Feywild is that there's not supposed to be anything outside of Athas. Athas is it. Like Banana said, there is no lush wonderland that's just barely out of reach. There's no other planes to visit and tromp through. Athas is cut off completely.

As soon as you're seriously mucking about in another plane, you're already straying. The whole idea of Athas is that you have no escape, you have no "other land" to eventually reach or try to live in. You've got Athas, and whatever you can pull off while living there.

I don't think having other planes goes against the Dark Sun "feel" that people love. In fact, I would argue that Athas isn't completely cut off at all. Sure, maybe the gods have abandon it (if they ever existed), but even the original box set alluded to elemental planes, spirits of the land, and all this "other worldly" type of stuff.

If you don't want to call it Feywild, Shadowfell, or Elemental Chaos, fine. Still, it's there. Always has been.

 

[Windjammer]

I was a big fan of Dark Sun back in the day (until the release of the revised box set). I'm a fan of 4E, and I'm looking forward to Dark Sun 4E.

So am I, and I expect the setting to receive a major overhaul due to the implied level bandwidth of 4E which frankly wasn't there in 2E and certainly not in the original Dark Sun. My own Dark Sun campaigns in the 90s never had the PCs hit more than level 8. It was a gritty fight for survival for them, trying to cut out their own nîche in a forbidding, unforgiving world. The setting started them out at the lowest of possible corners, with the fewest of possible resources - recall that short story in the original box, which has the protagonist not only tricked to a miserable fate but (before that) glorify something as mundane as a piece of glas bereft of actual magical properties? Recall the starting adventure which had the PCs starting out as slaves on a vessel? That's it, lowest social point of entry, little hope to advance.

Now I'm not saying that 4E can't give you any of that; in fact, one of the plot lines in Draconomicon 2's suggested campaign arcs has the PCs start out as slaves in a vessel. But that arc quickly progresses them beyond that, and that's what I'm talking about. Dark Sun 4E will be about a 30 level experience, and thereby of necessity it needs to address and include stuff that the original setting never did (or at least, not out of the box). 3E Dark Sun - in the Paizo magazines - had Dave Noonan highly hesitant about including stats for the Athas Dragon Kings, the implication being that that'd be way out of what the PCs can take on, ought to take on.

4E will be different. 4E Dark Sun will be a setting where the PCs can be the heroes... of the whole world... changing the whole setting, from start to finish, and basically be the big names everyone's talking about and will be talking about in the next 500 years. That's quite a change of pace. Instead of no-names "will die by level 8" it's "yeah, you gonna be the gods of this world... level 30, baby".

It's exactly what happened in Eberron 4E. Eberron 3E had a presumed level cap around level 15, what with few antagonists, NPC organizations etc., statted up in that area - literally, PCs hit level 15 and there were perhaps the Dusk Lords in the setting but nothing else. So 4E Eberron comes up with this major plot line... the PCs are going to be the ones fulfilling DA PROPHECY... as in... THE MAJOR PROPHECY OF THIS WORLD...! 11 !!

Yeah, because seriously, you can't take a previous edition setting with a low-level cap like that and simply assume it will cater to 4E's 30 levels of play. You just can't.

So there, that's Dark Sun 4E for you. We'll get it all - high level foes, intergalactic mayhem, fey gods vs. primordial titans, and what not.

I suggest to not be too shocked by it. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the change of pace, the change of premise. Ask yourself... how would YOU expand Dark Sun to make it a level 1-30 setting? Think hard. And then give the dev's some credit for coming up with apparently interesting stuff that may even merit consideration. And you know what? If you don't like it, as in: not any of it, just level cap your 4E Dark Sun campaigns at level 15 (or earlier) as we always did.