D&D 5E (2014) Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[humble minion]

I'm basically a DS originalist. That being the early boxed set prec prism Pentad.

Which basically destroyed the setting. If you redid Darksun you couldn't fit the metaphlot stuff in a new book anyway.

I actually like the DS backstory a lot, although it has a few weird bits and I understand why people don’t like it.

The problem was metaplot, not backstory - the Prism Pentad should have been something that the PCs got to play through, not something rushed through in a careful or fairly formulaic (well, except for the main-character polygamy, which was a daring choice for early-90s TSR…) novels. But instead, in the early DS modules you got to follow the Prism Pentax characters around and clean up the unimportant bits of the plot they couldn’t be bothered with.

And now you’re stuck with the DS backstory dilemma. If you cover all the Rajaat stuff in a new DS release, you’re spoiling the whole thing for players who might want to experience it for the first time. If you don’t, you’re chucking out vast chicks of the setting which many (not all) people love.

Which I why I keep waging my lonely ‘5e DS should be a 900 page mega campaign that redoes the Prism Pentad with PC heroes’ lobbying effort. Fighting the good fight here…

 

[GrimCo]

In what way is Dark Sun 18+? I may be forgetting details, but I don't remember anything in Dark Sun that is significantly--if at all--more for "mature audiences" than, say, a typical high school history class in which you learn all sorts of horrible things, and about the real world, no less.

It isn't. But, when you put 18+ label, you have more creative freedom to delve deeper into more controversial themes, more nuances and less clear good/evil. Also, you don't get parents bitching about what kind of materials companies "sell to kids". It's more about companies covering their posteriors first and foremost.

Or to put it another way, if you learn about colonialism, exploitation, slavery, abuse of power, genocide etc etc, in high school, what is within Dark Sun that is more mature than that? I can see 15+, but 18? (And don't D&D books say for 14+ or 15+? Isn't the intended audience high school or older?).

D&D books are 12+, so for kids in higher grades of elementary school. History presents those topics in clear cut way from current morality standpoint - those things are evil. DS doesn't really do that. It just presents some stuff as the fact of life, that's how things work in that setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have got three parts, the crunch (here we are going to include the monsters), the fluff/lore/background and the metaplot.

The metaplot isn't going to be touched in a long time. Maybe even we could see a reboot. The crunch only needs the ordinary work to update stats and changes acordings the feedback. We shouldn't worry more than with other settings. And the fluff or lore hasn't to be totally cancelled, only omiting certain details in the future update. Was there any complain in the 4th Ed?

The new idea I am suggesting is a little retouch in the cosmology. If the psionic powers allow time travel then we could say Athas has got different "astral realms" working like "afterlife". A domain would be like "videogame when you reachs the happy end", like a time-loop but where everything was fixed. Other astral domain would be the "bad ending" working like a "hell on earth". If sorcerer-kings and defilers weren't enough now add fiends (and infernal dragons).

Maybe the "brown-tide" couldn't be avoided because it was not an accident but sabotage, by evil elemental cultists (let's blame Tharizdum) allied with the "nature-benders"(the evil twins of the life-shapers).

If you worry Dark Sun could become the "pornstar" of Rule34 web or like this, that risk also happens with Baldurs Gate 3 or even cartoon shows for children.

My theory is we will see a new Dark Sun but without the region of Tyr. This could appear but this wouldn't be the main scenary. If WotC is going to design a "Athas-spin-off" then they will have to choose what to do with "new" elements like PC species or updated classes with special mechanics, for example the totemist shaman with incarnum soulmelds, or crusaders working like templars. But then this could happen in the end of the 5e when they can allow themself higher risks with experimental ideas.

If WotC wants to release a spiritual succesor then this may appear before as a new plane of Magic: the Gathering.

Would you wellcome a future sourcebook about "Hyrborean-punk" crunch but with almost nothing about the region of Tyr?