D&D 5E DnDBeyond leaks Dark Sun?

[Paul Farquhar]

The 5e Players Handbook only has two "kinds" of magic, Arcane and Divine.

They didn't mean anything. The source of power is deliberately left vague in 5e, and refluffing is encouraged. I don't see that changing in ODD.

In an informal context since then, designers have mentioned the phrase, "power sources", specifically referring to Arcane, Divine, Primal, Psionic, and "others".

The 1DD playtest makes a point to now introduce "Primal" alongside "Arcane" and "Divine", but omits "Psionic".

As spell lists, not power sources.

"Not yet added" is not the same as "ruled out".

It seems obvious, the current plans for 2024 core lack Psionic.

So far.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

NO. Keep your metaplot 100% away from my game. That is the single most likely thing to make me stop purchasing material. It did it for the old World of Darkness, it largely did it for 2e for me, just no. No metaplot at all.

I would basically start laughing like The Joker if, in 2022, WotC decided the way forward for D&D was a 1990s World of Darkness-style metaplot.

I mean, good god.

Sadly it's not outside the bounds of possibility but good god. I definitely concur that it would be a truly wild bad decision. Especially as a metaplot necessitates protagonists, and if you don't specify those protagonists, they essentially become whatever major NPCs are tied up in the metaplot.

It seems obvious, the current plans for 2024 core lack Psionic.

Which is probably smart. If you want to do psionics in a way that works, you don't want to force it into every game as a default, and you don't want to do it in a way that's more oriented towards making people hate or dislike psionics go "UGH OKAY I GUESS", rather than making people who are neutral or like psionics go "whoa cool!".

Even if WotC intend there to be a "Psionic spell list" (which, I personally hope not, it's 2022 and the game has been out eight years, people can cope with a new system, they really can), WotC would be smart to contain that to a future book on Psionics (possibly as part of Dark Sun, possibly something else).

If WotC were brave rather than smart, sure, drop Psionics into the PHB and have Mystic proudly sitting there as another full caster (with spell points not slots, I absolutely beg you, WotC lol - it's easy! Your system does it well!), but WotC aren't that brave.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That’s assuming a lot. That everyone who cares will be involved (they won’t), that this is a proper playtest (it isn’t), and that WotC actually cares about feedback (they very likely don’t). They will filter out “bad” info the same way they have since D&D Next. WotC has a design in mind that they like, they put it out for “playtest” and the options are: 1) people like it so it’s tweaked and moves ahead, or; 2) people don’t like it and it’s left behind. The one time there was anything like actual revisions was the psionics UA, which was ultimately stripped for parts.

WotC explicitly didn't filter out "bad" info in UAs prior to like 2019.

Explicitly. Mearls was extremely clear. They went on a simple 70% approval threshold basis. That's actively avoiding filtering "bad" info. It's the opposite of filtering lol. Maybe they filtered more for more nuanced information, but I'm skeptical, because if you were going to do that, why would you ever go with such a ludicrous metric in the first place?

It's not clear what they did in D&D Next playtest, but Mearls was in charge then too. After Mearls was quietly gone, the 70% threshold thing seems to have quietly disappeared too. We haven't heard it mentioned, even by vague implication, since, and indeed it seems now more like unless something is roundly hated, it's left unchanged.

 

[John R Davis]

Dark Sun:
Given the now "locked thread elsewhere" they really shouldn't bother.
Really too much tricksy stuff that either the oldies or the newbies will be offended by something.
Perhaps only new settings in the future, and people can play with the DS they have.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

WotC realises very well if they don't publish a sourcebook about psionic powers then this will be by more one 3PP.

We know the psionic mystic needs a lot of work, more than the artificier. It is not only the crunch part, and to create a list of powers, but how to create an interesting concept. What can this class offer instead the cleric, wizard, sorcerer or warlock? They have to choose if the psionic ardent or the wilder are going to be only subclasses.

 

[Ibrandul]

Doomspace was supposed to be Athaspace until late in the development process. That much is clear.

I can see only two plausible reasons for this:

(1) WotC has plans for Dark Sun, and someone at WotC decided that the presentation of Athaspace in the Spelljammer set doesn’t match the vision they have for the updated setting.

(2) Someone at WotC decided Dark Sun is too problematic to resurrect, even in this limited form.

These seem roughly equally likely to me.

A year ago I would have cared a lot which one of these turned out to be true. But the total misfire that is 5e Spelljammer (my take: what’s there isn’t all that bad, but everything important is missing; it’s the definition of a half-baked product) makes me trepidatious when I think about future books from WotC. Spelljammer might not be the worst official 5e book, but if not, it’s awfully close—and it definitely feels like the laziest one.

 

[bedir than]

The ODD playtest removes psionic from the power sources.

ODD only supplies spell lists for Arcane, Divine, and Primal.

We've only seen one of about 16 playtest docs. We do not have complete information.

We also don't need a Psionics spell list mentioned yet because zero current classes would need access to it

 

[Parmandur]

I watched the Nerd Immersion youtube. He explained well, the context of DnDBeyond reference.

It seems to me. 5e originally intended for Spelljammer to have Athasspace, namely a "cameo" of Dark Sun. DnDBeyond already had Dark Sun setting content encoded into its databases. 5e nixed Dark Sun and changed Athaspace to Doomspace and the planet of Athas to Fyreen. So, DnDBeyond changed all of the Dark Sun references in its databases to Doomspace references instead. But by mistake, when changing the name from "Athasian Dune Trader" to "Astral Drifter", forgot to change the warning message that happened to mention it.

We all already deduced this. But. The planet Fyreen is originally Athas, and Doomspace is Dark Sun.

There are no more plans for Dark Sun.

Well, no plans for the next year or so. Eventually, matbe.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, no plans for the next year or so. Eventually, matbe.

Personally I can't wait for the people who never actually played Dark Sun in 2E (or even 4E) to see Dark Sun and go "OMG DARK SUN WENT WOKE!!!" because it's about climate change and how slavery sucks and slavers are totally okay to kill, and like oppressive societies and enforced scarcity are bad things. I'm still giggling about the "STAR TREK WENT WOKE!!!" stuff, like, next up "WATER WENT WET!!!" "FIRE WENT HOT!!!".

To be totally realistic I think they might replace the actual-slavery with general oppression and indentured servitude (which is a form of slavery, and much more widespread than chattel slavery, which is pretty weird and historically has been limited to being inflicted on a few peoples), but still, the climate-change stuff alone...

I do hope they do Dark Sun though, and didn't veer off just because they thought it was "too hard". It + psionics (possibly in the same book) in 2024 or 2025 would be a totally awesome start to One D&D, if done with enough commitment.

 

[Parmandur]

Personally I can't wait for the people who never actually played Dark Sun in 2E (or even 4E) to see Dark Sun and go "OMG DARK SUN WENT WOKE!!!" because it's about climate change and how slavery sucks and slavers are totally okay to kill, and like oppressive societies and enforced scarcity are bad things. I'm still giggling about the "STAR TREK WENT WOKE!!!" stuff, like, next up "WATER WENT WET!!!" "FIRE WENT HOT!!!".

To be totally realistic I think they might replace the actual-slavery with general oppression and indentured servitude (which is a form of slavery, and much more widespread than chattel slavery, which is pretty weird and historically has been limited to being inflicted on a few peoples), but still, the climate-change stuff alone...

I do hope they do Dark Sun though, and didn't veer off just because they thought it was "too hard". It + psionics (possibly in the same book) in 2024 or 2025 would be a totally awesome start to One D&D, if done with enough commitment.

Clearly anyone who says that about current Star Trek never watched old Star Trek.

So, assuming that Doomspace was Athaspace, it isnqorth noting that the planet that seems to be Athas with the serial numbers fixed off is not where the action takes place. The actual Adventure goes to a moon around a Gas Giant in the outer solar system where some Mercane have brought refugees from not-Athas for fun and profit. It has a strong Planetary Romance vibe. It's possible that getting so creative with the environment around Athas did not play well in testing, while as a "new" Setting Doomspace played fine.