Dark Sun Hopes & Dreams & Fears & Nightmares

[I'm A Banana]

So, I'm forking from the other thread, to talk about how you feel in general about the new setting.

Feel free to cross-post or whatever.
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Since it's been said that the Feywild will exist on Athas, it makes sense that Eladrin will too. And like the Athasian Feywild, they will probably be beautiful, terrible, savage, and unforgiving.

See, this is part of why the optimism is cautious for me. I don't grok why a world that was supposed to be cut off from everything, inescapable, godless, and hopeless, where arcane magic is destructive and dangerous, where the ravages of nature are on full display, needs any sort of next-door nature-run-wild reality of teleporting arch-wizards who thrive on arcane magic.

I trust the designers, but I can't see, sitting from here, how that is anything other than very lame. It seems poised to catastrophically beat the evocative flavor and uniqueness of Dark Sun to a pulp. It's a world where nature is dead and magic takes life, having a place the PC's can go where nature is alive and magic is in the very air is absolutely counter to the feel.

But I do still trust the designers, so they may have some way of making something work. Perhaps this trust is misplaced, and this hope is ill-founded.

(1) I don't ever forsee a 4e book saying outright, "You may not use this class or race." What I do forsee is something like the off-race Dragonmarks in Eberron... That is, "Your DM can make the call, but you're probably the only one... Please think this through!" With that said, since I made this prediction, they've said the Divine power source will be "missing"...

(2) I'm good with the new-to-4e races if they're Dark-Sun'd up. The box set made us see Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings in a different light. I don't see why they couldn't do similar with Eladrin or Tieflings. I think there's a big difference between an appropriate adaptation and a shoe-horning, and I trust that Mr. Baker knows it.

I'm broadly okay with both of those as operating ideas, but the devil's in the details. If you can separate the blink elves from magic and nature, are they really worth keeping? Since that's basically what they're about?

I dunno. Maybe they'll do something like a badass'd-up Bralani. Instead of teleporting, they turn into a whirlwind of sand and dust, vaguely the same effect. Disconnecting them from magic will be harder. And making them a default PC race in any case probably makes things like "magic" and "nature" too common in the game. I could easily see a "no, unless the DM says yes" track being taken.

But, again, I have trust in the designers. I just have the same concerns I had back when we were still speculating about what the next setting would be: to do Dark Sun right involves fluff trumping rules, something that 4e, for the most part, does in exactly the opposite way. If these guys can't do it, nobody in an official capacity will ever be able to. If they can, I have renewed hope for the settings under 4e.

Because the track record has been mixed. FR was, in my mind, a debacle. Eberron was fine, but it was easier, and they still messed up the cosmology (gaining nothing by doing that). DS is a ballsy choice, and I hope they live up to it, because I love settings, and I'm quite fond of 4e, and I'd like to remain optimistic about what they have in store for 2011 and beyond.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I think the question WotC needs to ask themselves isn't "why not" but rather "why" when it comes to Dark Sun.

Eberron is the "why not" setting. The whole idea behind it was that everything in D&D could have a place in Eberron.

Dark Sun is the opposite of this.

4e has had two major problems. They keep asking "why not," and that's not always right question. Secondly, for all their whinging about needless symmetry, they've been adamant about forcing every setting into their cosmology and their races. Why did they mess with Eberron's cosmology? Because that's the 4e cosmology. But why does all of 4e have the same cosmology - that's the exact reason they blasted having the various elemental planes, for crying out loud. Of course, the big worry is, both of these are the exact opposite of what you want to do with Dark Sun.

With Forgotten Realms, they changed everything because they could. With Eberron, they eased up on the trigger. Will the learn not to fire at all on Dark Sun?

 

[Pbartender]

I don't grok why a world that was supposed to be cut off from everything, inescapable, godless, and hopeless, where arcane magic is destructive and dangerous, where the ravages of nature are on full display, needs any sort of next-door nature-run-wild reality of teleporting arch-wizards who thrive on arcane magic.

I trust the designers, but I can't see, sitting from here, how that is anything other than very lame.

We need to remember that A) the Feywild is supposed to mirror the Natural World, but vividly, and that B) the Feywild is meant to be dangerous beyond anything you might find in the mortal worlds.

If the designers remember those two points, it could turn out exceptional.

What they need to be doing is asking themselves, "What would a Feywild desert look like?"

The Athasian Feywild, if properly done, could be something exceedingly beautiful and fantastic, but at this same time more dangerous and desolate than Athas itself.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

We need to remember that A) the Feywild is supposed to mirror the Natural World, but vividly, and that B) the Feywild is meant to be dangerous beyond anything you might find in the mortal worlds.

If the designers remember those two points, it could turn out exceptional.

What they need to be doing is asking themselves, "What would a Feywild desert look like?"

The Athasian Feywild, if properly done, could be something exceedingly beautiful and fantastic, but at this same time more dangerous and desolate than Athas itself.

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.

 

[Pbartender]

There is zero reasons to have a Feywild in Athas other then to have it for the sake of having it.

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.



There is, also, another option... That the Feywild is there, and lush, but has been purposefully cut off from Athas by the Eladrin to protect it from the ravashings of Athasian Wizards. After all, what other place could provide more power for their spells? So, it could be there, but nigh on impossible to get there, and should you ever do so, the Eladrin there are terribly, terribly hostile.

In that way, it could be used as a pie-in-the-sky campaign hook and plot point for reconnecting Athas to the Feywild and re-invigorating the world... Or perhaps to be used as a part of an evil scheme by some Sorcerer King to super-charge his spells and conquer Athas.

 

[avin]

The Feywild of Arthas can very well be a desert, with a few lethal oasis...

 

[Wik]

You know, when 4e DS was first announced, I got very worried about all of this stuff. However, now that time has gone by a bit, I've come to the conclusion that:

1) The Designers are going to make decisions that I don't like, or that, hell, I'll even hate, and;

2) That I can very easily ignore them.

After I came to that conclusion, things became much easier.

 

[Shemeska]

Will the learn not to fire at all on Dark Sun?

If they start invoking Primordials and the 4e PoL Feywild et al on Athas, start to lose hope.

They truly need to just make 4e PoL an actual developed setting rather than forcing it into every other established setting where its elements, assumed history, cosmology, and races make little or no sense. If they needlessly force Athas into being an awkward hybrid of Athas and PoLand it's going to be a trainwreck. The setting deserves better.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

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.

No, that's the pre-established setting. There's a difference between making something on your own, and taking something else and adding to it.

There is, also, another option... That the Feywild is there, and lush, but has been purposefully cut off from Athas by the Eladrin to protect it from the ravashings of Athasian Wizards. After all, what other place could provide more power for their spells? So, it could be there, but nigh on impossible to get there, and should you ever do so, the Eladrin there are terribly, terribly hostile.

Except that, again, this doesn't fit in with Dark Sun. Dark Sun isn't about dangerous jungles in another world that you need to adventure through.

In that way, it could be used as a pie-in-the-sky campaign hook and plot point for reconnecting Athas to the Feywild and re-invigorating the world... Or perhaps to be used as a part of an evil scheme by some Sorcerer King to super-charge his spells and conquer Athas.

So the Sorcerer Kings - who are near gods - haven't connected to Feywild, while bog standard level 1 eladrin adventurers did.

This is the problem - what you're doing now isn't starting with the idea and then connecting the mechanics, it's the opposite. You're saying "We need to put the Feywild here. Now, let's make an excuse to do so."

Here's a better idea - don't add it there to begin with.

 

[TarionzCousin]

If they just begin with cannibal halflings, everything else will fall smoothly into place.

Athas needs to be harsh. The original 2E Dark Sun campaign suggested beginning characters start at Level 3. This is not your grandmother's campaign world.