Dark Sun Hopes & Dreams & Fears & Nightmares

Think everyone is forgetting something important.
Fluff transcends all editions. :)

There is nothing at all no matter what is written in any book that prevents a DM from altering it to his own prespectives.

Those that have a problem with the Feywild, alter how it connects. I believe it was covered within the Original Box Set how even the Elemental Planes were altered and you couldn't travel beyond them to other planes bypassing the 'closed world' policy of Darksun.
See it was already thought of during the 1E days. Even Spelljammer during 2E touched on the closed world nature of Athas and it's Crystal Sphere.
Other solutions.
Perhaps use a time imbalance for the Feywild. What is a few seconds there, is in actuality a near lifetime here. That's why few who ever travel there ever make it back. If you make it obscene like 100 years prime = 1 round Feywild. It quickly explains why few ever 'return' and it could also explain how every now & than a random gnome/eladrin/etc might appear that survived the purges of the Sorceror Kings of old.
It also makes the Fey Step / Teleport nearly impossibly fast on the Feywild side to have a true effect on them.

See it's what you make of it. The book is nothing but a guideline. I think you yungin's have all forgotten that fact. <shakes my old man cane>
 

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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).

I have absolutely no problem with junking Revised Dark Sun's lame-ass attempt at a cosmology. I see little reason why Athas needs a cosmology at all beyond, "Yeah, there's this world. It's not a very nice world. But it's the world you've got, so deal."

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?

I wouldn't do anything, because Dark Sun already is a 1-30 setting. That was the whole point of "Dragon Kings." Athas has had epic-level monsters since the days of 2E... plenty of challenges for characters at levels 21+, from sorceror-kings to the really nasty wilderness beasts to the Dragon itself.

Heck, "Dragon Kings" even has epic destinies! Of course they didn't call 'em that back then, but that's what they were; clerics becoming elementals, preservers becoming avangions, defilers becoming dragons, and so forth. I would bet a large sum of money that we see some if not all of those concepts translated directly into Dark Sun-specific epic destinies for 4E.
 
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It's a fictional fantasy world full of vegetatively vampiric wizards, anthropomorphic bugs, and man-eating pygmies.

There is zero reason to have any of it, other than to have it for the sake of having it.
That's not true. It's a fictional fantasy world full of vegetatively vampiric wizards, anthropomorphic bugs and man-eating pygmies with a distinct theme and tone that sets it apart from other fantasy worlds with similar elements.

That's the reason to have or not have something, other than purely the sake of having it.

Anyway, as to my hopes, dreams, fears and nightmares, I don't really have any. As much as the concept of Dark Sun seems exactly up my alley, some of the execution didn't seem right, starting with the fact that it was fundamentally a D&D setting that didn't really want to be a D&D setting, but a setting for some other game entirely. So, all I really know about Dark Sun I got from the 3e era Dragon and Dungeon articles and Wikipedia. My only hopes and dreams for Dark Sun is that it be cool enough that I buy it, even though I don't play 4e. If its not, that's not exactly a fear or nightmare for me. I'll just pass and not think twice about it.

:shrug:
 

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 !!

Not quite. In addition to the Lords of Dust, there were the dragons, the Dreaming Dark, Vol, the Daelkyr, just about the entirety of Xen'drik... in fact, the majority of Eberronian villains are epic-level threats. The Prophecy was just as important in 3e as in 4e. The biggest changes between editions were Eladrin and Dragonborn, and those were really drops in the bucket, relatively speaking.

Back to DS, I imagine they'll do something similar. They've already noted the timeline rollback; they're doing the "these don't exist, but ask your DM" race / divine power source thing; And DS has a storied tradition of taking standard D&D material and twisting it to its own ends. Why not a Feywild? A fitting and compelling conversion would be better than a simple "this doesn't exist".
 
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Meh. I have to go with Cirno on this one - Athas really doesn't need planes. It doesn't have devils or demons (and shouldn't!) and really, fey don't often work either. Really, the only reason planes existed in DARK SUN was to explain how certain powers worked - they weren't really places your characters went to for any length of time.

Oh, and wild talents were confirmed - they're one of the PC backgrounds included in the setting (along with Gladiator, Templar, Veiled Alliance Wizard, and about six more I can't remember right now).
 

Man, don't go to the Athasian Feywild. You think the normal desert is harsh? In the Feywild the wind is so fierce and the sand so sharp it strips living flesh from bones. The heat is enough to make the toughest mul pass out after exertion. And there's no water. None. What's there? Predators. They're all hungry because there's no prey for them to eat. Good thing the plane keeps them alive.

Why is it so bad? If the Feywild mirrors nature, think of how devastating defiling must be there. Some say ancient defiles developed a way to drain energy from the Feywild instead of Athas. Others say it's where preservers get their energy. Druids will tell you that the Feywild mirrors and amplifies the harsh natural world. Whatever the reason, don't go there. At least on the prime Nature is harsh but impartial. In the Feywild she's out to get you.

Well, I've heard that the Feywild of the forests in the Ringing Mountains isn't as bad, but who knows. I can tell you that the Ringing Mountains are ten times steeper, taller, and more dangerous in the Feywild than in the prime. You'll find no succor there if you're stuck in the Feywild. And if you're in the forests on the prime, well, you're somewhere water's supposed to fall from the sky every day, and fruits grow in abundance. Why leave?
 
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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!

Hmmm, you got figures to back that up? I've certainly heard "the faithful" dogging the later Dark Sun RPG and novel products, but I hear that for every setting produced for D&D (and for other properties as well). Seems like a loud minority of fans who assume they are the majority because who could possibly disagree with them?

I liked the entirety of the Dark Sun line, both novel and RPG products. I'm eagerly looking forward to the new take this summer, regardless of how the setting might be reimagined. I had no problems with the older changes (or rather, I ignored the few things that didn't work for me), and I doubt I'm alone, or even in the minority. I trust WotC to know their own properties and do a great job!

I can understand if you will end up not caring for the new version released soon, and the disappointment that it might not meet your personal preferences . . . . but, sheesh, enough with the hyperbole and the veiled claims of WotC pissing on the "true fans" . . .

Admin here. This is an excellent opportunity to remind people that we have no interest in an edition war. It stops here, please. ~ PCat
 
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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 !!
IMO, the real campaign-altering epic destiny in the Eberron Player's Guide is the Mourning Savior. In your post-game Immortality flavor text, you actually get to reverse the effects of the Day of Mourning on Cyre. So, I'm pretty hopeful that the Avangion epic destiny (they gotta have one, right? ;)) will similarly be able to repair or reverse some (if not all) of the ecological damage on Athas.
 


That's not true. It's a fictional fantasy world... ...with a distinct theme and tone that sets it apart from other fantasy worlds with similar elements.

I dunno... I never really saw that.

Now, I like Dark Sun. I like it a lot. The concepts behind it are fascinating. I played in some truly fun Dark Sun campaigns years and years ago back when I was in high school...

But for me (and the other guys I played with) at that time, there were already dangerous desolate deserts, anti-magic zones, places where psionics trumped magic, places where the gods couldn't intervene, places where the normal gamut of creatures were replaced by the new and extraordinary, places where metal was rare and so stone and bone weaponry were all that was available -- These were already included in most other standard D&D campaigns to one degree or another, so Dark Sun was really nothing new. It was simply a microcosm expanded and embellished, Star Wars fashion, into an entire world.

The inability to escape Athas didn't make it any more unique or interesting for us. It only made the setting a one-trick pony that wore out its welcome after a campaign or two, and all the players had decided that they were bored with deserts and psionics and the frustrations of having high-level characters ignominiously die from thirst, and wanted to play something else.

Like Ravenloft and Spelljammer, for us Dark Sun became a fun place to visit, but no place we wanted to play in for more than a short campaign.

So, while I really like the idea of Dark Sun, I think there's quite some room for improvement if they want to make it a longer lasting campaign setting.

I think adding in things like the Feywild or the Shadowfell would be a wild card, though... Whether or not they improve the setting or ruin it, depends entirely on how they're handled.

Considering it, I think another good option might simply be to leave them out by default, but have a short Appendix about how to safely add in extra standard D&D elements, should you choose to... Much like how they've had side bars in Adventure modules with guidelines for inserting the adventure into the different standard settings.
 

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