D&D 5E DnDBeyond leaks Dark Sun?

[Charlaquin]

@Yaarel also, I think for Dark Sun to work, the sorcerer-kings need to be unambiguously the ones to blame for the state of things. They were willing to burn the world down so they could be the undisputed god-emperors of its ashes. That theme is undermined if they have egalitarian neighbors.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I see a lot of “slavery will have to be reimagined.”

Did old Dark Sun material depict slavery as a good thing or something? From what I’ve read of it, no.

Slavery had always been depicted as bad. So what is there to reimagine?

The issue isn't whether slavery is good or bad.

That's an overly simplistic understanding.

The issue was that Dark Sun treated slavery largely as chattel slavery, a particularly bizarre and hideous form of slavery that is not actually that common in human history, but was practiced until quite recently by colonial civilizations in the Americas (particularly the USA and Brazil). In the US countless people have known ancestors (some with pictures and stories and so on!) who literally were slaves. I mean, the last person to die who came to the US on a slave ship died in 1940! She could have lived into the 1960s, she was only 75! This is pretty recent history and it's messed-up.

So the issue is, probably we shouldn't use chattel slavery particularly, and we shouldn't use "slave breeding" and the like as a concept. This is bizarre creepy stuff that's really from the US and from relatively recent history. If you look around the world, slavery has been common - serfdom and indentured servitude are, essentially, forms of slavery, they're just "limited" forms. Even the Spartans, horrible monsters that they were, practiced something which seems closer to serfdom with the Helots (just with bonus murder) than chattel slavery. The Romans also didn't really do chattel slavery, they did their own weird take on slavery which often ended up closer to long-term indentured servitude. Indentured servitude, as I noted, has been extremely common and perhaps most people, if they trace back far enough, will have people who were indentured servitude of some variety.

So it behooves Dark Sun to not use a weird, modern-ish American kind of slavery, when they could have something more apt, more historical, and less grotesque, and also less using the horror of people's great-great-grandparents and the like for entertainment value. That's kind of justifiable if you actually want to talk about US slavery, but it's a lot less justifiable if you just want to use slavery as a setting element.

And given how clunky WotC have been, and how tone deaf, it would be good if they could take some care here.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is kinda like reallife now.

The globe is morphing into city-center metropolises.

Some important resources are starting to deplete.

Worth exploring alternatives.

Sure, but the point of Dark Sun is exploring what happens if we don’t find alternatives.

Opposite to anarcho-capitalist (which ironically often defacto means a fascist police state where the wealthy elite hire the police),

Right, that’s why it’s a fantasy.

there can be collectivist-communes,

democracies,

covenant communities,

Moonhaven,

and various strategies in between, and outofthebox.

Not while they have fascistic authoritarian neighbors with tremendous power concentrated almost entirely in the hands of their rulers.

 

[Yaarel]

Not while they have fascistic authoritarian neighbors with tremendous power concentrated almost entirely in the hands of their rulers.

Also like reallife, where autocratic neighbors with advanced technology are part of the mix.

 

[Yaarel]

The issue isn't whether slavery is good or bad.

That's an overly simplistic understanding.

The issue was that Dark Sun treated slavery largely as chattel slavery, a particularly bizarre and hideous form of slavery that is not actually that common in human history, but was practiced until quite recently by colonial civilizations in the Americas (particularly the USA and Brazil). In the US countless people have known ancestors (some with pictures and stories and so on!) who literally were slaves. I mean, the last person to die who came to the US on a slave ship died in 1940! She could have lived into the 1960s, she was only 75! This is pretty recent history and it's messed-up.

So the issue is, probably we shouldn't use chattel slavery particularly, and we shouldn't use "slave breeding" and the like as a concept. This is bizarre creepy stuff that's really from the US and from relatively recent history. If you look around the world, slavery has been common - serfdom and indentured servitude are, essentially, forms of slavery, they're just "limited" forms. Even the Spartans, horrible monsters that they were, practiced something which seems closer to serfdom with the Helots (just with bonus murder) than chattel slavery. The Romans also didn't really do chattel slavery, they did their own weird take on slavery which often ended up closer to long-term indentured servitude. Indentured servitude, as I noted, has been extremely common and perhaps most people, if they trace back far enough, will have people who were indentured servitude of some variety.

So it behooves Dark Sun to not use a weird, modern-ish American kind of slavery, when they could have something more apt, more historical, and less grotesque, and also less using the horror of people's great-great-grandparents and the like for entertainment value. That's kind of justifiable if you actually want to talk about US slavery, but it's a lot less justifiable if you just want to use slavery as a setting element.

And given how clunky WotC have been, and how tone deaf, it would be good if they could take some care here.

I agree with the concerns about chattel slavery.

And with Dark Sun best avoiding it.

But bowdlerizing 2e Dark Sun slavery is also a way of making the Sorcerer Kings less horrible, and making the setting as a whole brighter and more hopeful.

Which I also agree with!

 

[Yaarel]

Meanwhile.

Dark Sun slavery no longer exists − because − advanced city-states have engineered governments that obsolete slavery!

Meanwhile the slavery states, if any, end up with the slaves dying if they obey the self-proclaimed "gods", or else dying if they rebel against the gods. There is nothing to lose.

 

[Charlaquin]

Also like reallife, where autocratic neighbors with advanced technology are part of the mix.

And in real life, those autocrats are hurtling down a path that can lead nowhere but to the near-complete destruction of the environment and subsequent concentration of any remaining natural resources in their hands, and they’re dragging the rest of us along with them. Dark Sun, like a lot of other post-apocalyptic fiction, is about facing what we’ll be left with if we don’t turn from that path.

 

[overgeeked]

"I know how to make 5E Dark Sun...fundamentally change everything about Dark Sun. Make an entirely new setting where only the proper nouns are same."

Yeah that won't fly with older fans. Not that we matter anymore.

 

[Yaarel]

And in real life, those autocrats are hurtling down a path that can lead nowhere but to the near-complete destruction of the environment and subsequent concentration of any remaining natural resources in their hands, and they’re dragging the rest of us along with them. Dark Sun, like a lot of other post-apocalyptic fiction, is about facing what we’ll be left with if we don’t turn from that path.

I agree with player agency.

I agree with planetary scarcity.

At the same time, there needs to be real hope, that effort matters, to restore Athas − in order for me to find the setting interesting.

The setting needs to make available tools that can restore the magnitude of the entire planet.

Part of that is certain localities are working on this and have some tools to some degree.

 

[Charlaquin]

"I know how to make 5E Dark Sun...fundamentally change everything about Dark Sun. Make an entirely new setting where only the proper nouns are same."

Yeah that won't fly with older fans. Not that we matter anymore.

At least we still seem to have enough influence to have convinced WotC to change their minds about doing exactly that with the mini-setting now known as Doomspace.