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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 4947724" data-attributes="member: 1288">Okay, folks, here's the thing...As I said before, people are creating a dichotomy where none exists. People are saying that the options are either A) 100% identical to what came before, or B) it's not Dark Sun except in name.But this isn't accurate. Frankly, there's a huge amount of middle ground.As someone said, elves and dwarves were changed from 2E core to 2E Dark Sun. And that's true, and I would definitely want a 4E DS to keep those changes. But why, then, assume that there wouldn't be similar flavor tweaks to dragonborn and tieflings? That particular argument is a non-starter.As to the question of "Why?"As Nifft said, this is 4E Dark Sun. It has to appeal to two markets: Dark Sun fans, and 4E fans. There's overlap between those groups--more, I think, than Cirno suggests--but to be a successful product, the setting has to go beyond that overlap in its appeal, regardless of whether it's large or small. It has to bring 4E players to Dark Sun, and it has to bring Dark Sun fans to 4E.The only way to do that--on a creative level, not just a marketing one--is to include elements that are recognizably 4E in a way that allows them to fit relatively seamlessly into the Dark Sun aesthetic.Yes, there's a danger of diluting the feel of DS with 4E stuff. There's also a danger of making DS too inaccessible to portions of the 4E market by not including them.And the solution to that is exactly what I said before: Include much of it, but find a way to do so that's faithful to the moods and themes of the setting. It may not be an easy tightrope to walk, but it's doable.Does that mean that everything must be included? Of course not. I'm right there with the folks who don't want to see the gods introduced to Athas, and I was gratified at the GenCon seminar to hear them say that divine characters are either unheard of, or at least astonishingly rare (at the DM's option).But it does mean that if something can be included without diluting the themes and feel of the setting, it's at least worth considering.So I say again... If dragonborn are reflavored to dray, if they can find a way to bring in tieflings that jives with DS history/cosmology, why not?And then there's the purely creative aspect. As both a designer and a game, I find it much more interesting to say "How can X be made to work with Y?" than simply to say "X doesn't exist." It doesn't always work--I'll be the first to admit that--but if/when it does, it's a much more intriguing option.</blockquote>

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