Dragon 338: Returning to Athas, part1

[MrMyth]

A note regarding "world turned to 11" and all that:

Anything and, indeed, everything that would exist in the Athasian Feywilde should exist in Athas itself instead.

There shouldn't be someplace worse, because Athas is already supposed to be "Deathplanet."

Whenever people say "Well, how about this idea for what the Feywilde is like..." my first thought is "Why not just have that in Athas proper and not shunt good ideas to the other planes?

What's the difference between a terrible environment being directly on Athas vs being on the Athasian Feywild, which exists as scattered pockets throughout the world?

It sounds as though, by this argument, you would be perfectly happy with the same exact scenario, as long as they said, "The feywild isn't a plane anymore, just a bunch of mirages in the desert." Functionally, it is the same thing. The complaint, here, seems almost entirely grounded in abstract theoreticals rather than any genuine impact on how people will be playing the game.

Look, I can accept reasons for not liking the idea of a Feywild in Athas - it sounds like a large part of the complaint is from those who want the threat of the desert to be purely natural, rather than having even worse magical desert threats. And that's fine.

What I don't get is the unwillingness to even acknowledge that others can find those magical desert threats fascinating, and even find them something that enhances the game. This insistence that the only reason the Feywild is showing up in Dark Sun is because the designers insist on shoving in all 4E elements, or because 4E fans need excuses to not think outside the box, or for any number of other reasons, all of which, frankly, are somewhat insulting to the people on the other side of the argument. (I'm particularly disappointed in Wik, here, since I gave him xp earlier in the thread before his posts deteriorated into this sort of activity.)

Redesigning Dark Sun as a 4E setting that is accessible to 4E fans while retaining the flavor of the original setting is exactly what I am looking for. And I can totally understand if that isn't true for others, who truly wanted a perfect remake of the original setting. But you need to accept that there are people who want what WotC is doing now, and not out of blind loyalty or a need to always play Eladrin, but because we genuinely feel that the setting they are producing will be exciting to play in, and that the very elements you dislike will only enhance the brutality of the setting in our games.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But accept that a rewrite of a setting for a new edition and by new writers will include their vision of the setting, and that's a good thing. It means that the setting will be breathing new life, after laying dormant for 15 years.

I think I was abundantly clear, at least from my end, that this was a fairly minor issue, and that it wasn't in the slightest bit about remaining pure to a 15 year old setting (and more about the effects on player engagement that planar travel and discontinuity of the world will have).

But I see the whole "yer just haters! it's new so you must be against it!" strawman has legs, so I'll just leave with a hopefully useful central analogy: the feywild in Athas is like a cell phone in a horror movie.

And I don't want to have to do this at my Dark Sun games:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0&feature=player_embedded"]Failwild[/ame]

 

[Pseudopsyche]

But I see the whole "yer just haters! it's new so you must be against it!" strawman has legs, so I'll just leave with a hopefully useful central analogy: the feywild in Athas is like a cell phone in a horror movie.

Straw man? Isn't that when you misrepresent an opposing viewpoint in a simplistic and exaggerated way?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

How can Feywild be a place to run away to? When the Belgoi also come from there, as mentioned in a previous blog post.

 

[Obryn]

But I see the whole "yer just haters! it's new so you must be against it!" strawman has legs, so I'll just leave with a hopefully useful central analogy: the feywild in Athas is like a cell phone in a horror movie.

I'm still wondering. What makes you think the Athasian Feywild will be...

* A sidebar world
* A known quantity
* Usable by the PCs, and
* Available for escape from Athas?

Or, for that matter, a device as useful as a cell phone in a horror movie?

-O

 

[Kingreaper]

I think I was abundantly clear, at least from my end, that this was a fairly minor issue, and that it wasn't in the slightest bit about remaining pure to a 15 year old setting (and more about the effects on player engagement that planar travel and discontinuity of the world will have).

But I see the whole "yer just haters! it's new so you must be against it!" strawman has legs, so I'll just leave with a hopefully useful central analogy: the feywild in Athas is like a cell phone in a horror movie.

It's like a cell phone, in a horror movie, set in 1965.

Of course you don't have a signal, less than 0.1% of places on the planet HAVE a signal.

 

[Herschel]

My question here is this: why did 4e Dark Sun need a feywild? Or planes? Or tieflings?

Yeah, I think it does. It makes sense to me.

Heck, I normally dislike Tieflings and Dragonborn, but to me they fit much better in Athas than in the "normal" world. I'm also not a huge fan of teh Feywild, but this imagining seems really great to me.

 

[Raunalyn]

I am unable to agree with the assumption that allowing the Feywild/Eladrin into Athas somehow detracts from the feel of Dark Sun. On the contrary, I feel that the Athasian Eladrin can easily add quite a bit to the experience.

Let's take for example a party of adventurers travelling from Tyr to Urik. As they cross desert, a freak sandstorm erupts, forcing them to take shelter. Once the storm clears, they find themselves hopelessly lost, but decide to move on, hoping that their destination lies in the direction they are going. However, after several days of travel, they are unable to determine where they are, and none of the landmarks seem to be familiar, and all of them get the impression that they are being watched. So, the wizard in the party attempts a ritual (keep in mind, this is just a scenario) to see if they can determine where they are, but with no success. That night, the party is suddenly surrounded by a band of strange creatures with glowing eyes that seem to appear from the sands of the desert itself. The leader steps forth and whispers that the party can go, but only if they leave the wizard behind.

As you can see, this easily fits within the Dark Sun paradigm, and even adds to the mystery and survivalist aspects.

 

[keterys]

It's like a cell phone, in a horror movie, set in 1965.

See, now I'm visualizing someone using a big clunky phone to smash in a zombie's skull, and is staggering around with it in their hand in shock. Then the phone rings - not connected to anything, mind you - and they answer it, to talk to the big bad that is orchestrating the whole horror.

 

[Kingreaper]

See, now I'm visualizing someone using a big clunky phone to smash in a zombie's skull, and is staggering around with it in their hand in shock. Then the phone rings - not connected to anything, mind you - and they answer it, to talk to the big bad that is orchestrating the whole horror.

I had a very similar image myself, but didn't want to muddy the metaphor