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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 8950343" data-attributes="member: 907">This is probably the most important part of this discussion, at least from Wizards' perspective.There are a lot of people for whom slavery is an issue that hits a lot closer to home than it does to someone like me (a white dude who lives in Sweden). The last person born into slavery in the US died in 1972, only 51 years ago. The after-effects of slavery are still felt today in the US, both economic and political (and I think that's about as far as the forum rules would let me go). Some of the people affected would feel very uncomfortable playing in a setting where slavery is a central focus. These would not buy the setting, and many of them would be very vocal about why, creating bad publicity. This makes Dark Sun a losing proposition for Wizards, and that means that it makes little sense for Wizards to spend resources developing a 5e version of the setting when they could instead spend those resources on something else. This is not an issue of morality, but of business. No-one is owed a new version of Dark Sun.But, I hear you say (not you, [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER], the generic you), there's slavery all over the place in D&amp;D. You have places like Thay, or monstrous races like mind flayers or duergar! But to that I say that here's a difference between &quot;This evil country over there keeps slaves and that's one of the reasons they are the villains&quot; and &quot;Slavery is a central focus of the setting.&quot; Thay is the former, Dark Sun is the latter. The intro adventure in the original Dark Sun boxed set has the PCs start out as slaves. When they are freed by a tribe of elves out for vengeance against the slave traders, the elves do not care one whit about the PCs, but instead leave them to fend for themselves in the desert, so the PCs go from slavery to possible starvation. That's harsh, but that's how Dark Sun is. And I wouldn't have it any other way, which means it's not a commercially viable product today.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 8950343, member: 907"] This is probably the most important part of this discussion, at least from Wizards' perspective. There are a lot of people for whom slavery is an issue that hits a lot closer to home than it does to someone like me (a white dude who lives in Sweden). The last person born into slavery in the US died in 1972, only 51 years ago. The after-effects of slavery are still felt today in the US, both economic and political (and I think that's about as far as the forum rules would let me go). Some of the people affected would feel very uncomfortable playing in a setting where slavery is a central focus. These would not buy the setting, and many of them would be very vocal about why, creating bad publicity. This makes Dark Sun a losing proposition for Wizards, and that means that it makes little sense for Wizards to spend resources developing a 5e version of the setting when they could instead spend those resources on something else. This is not an issue of morality, but of business. No-one is [B]owed[/B] a new version of Dark Sun. But, I hear you say (not you, [USER=22779]@Hussar[/USER], the generic you), there's slavery all over the place in D&D. You have places like Thay, or monstrous races like mind flayers or duergar! But to that I say that here's a difference between "This evil country over there keeps slaves and that's one of the reasons they are the villains" and "Slavery is a central focus of the setting." Thay is the former, Dark Sun is the latter. The intro adventure in the original Dark Sun boxed set has the PCs start out as slaves. When they are freed by a tribe of elves out for vengeance against the slave traders, the elves do not care one whit about the PCs, but instead leave them to fend for themselves in the desert, so the PCs go from slavery to possible starvation. That's [B]harsh[/B], but that's how Dark Sun is. And I wouldn't have it any other way, which means it's not a commercially viable product today. [/QUOTE]

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