D&D 5E How would you wish WOTC to do Dark Sun

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah. A setting shouldn't have a 'metaplot.' The setting is not a story, it is tool for creating your own stories.

 

[Azuresun]

Do what 4e did, and keep the timeline just after Kalak's death. No icky metaplot where cool NPC's are running around killing all the sorcerer kings, please and thank you.

More detailed survival rules, as well as certain spells like Create Water, Tiny Hut or Goodberry being bumped up a few levels or eliminated entirely.

A psion class that feels different from magic, even if it's not that different in play.

Rules for defiling that make it a meaningful sacrifice to refrain--but also don't make it OP if a character is willing and able to just defile all day long (say, if they're in the middle of the wilderness and the other PC's don't care about it). This will probably be the hardest bit.

 

[TheSword]

Dark Sun is my favourite 2E setting and I'd love to see it in 5E, but I think it would be considered too problematic nowadays.

It's literally based on mature themes that would make a contemporary political correctness consultant jump on his chair. Slavery. Abuse. Racism.

Plus, mechanically, is by design quite divergent from the classic tolkienesque fanyasy.

Any attempt to make it more inclusive, both mechanically (where are my paladins?and my tieflings?) or palatable (cannibal halflings?? slave half-giants? that's racism!) would ruin it.

If it would be done, personally I'd keep the timeline well before the Prism Pentad. With all the Sorcerer-Kings in their thrones. And possibly on the background, you don't need them to pop up every module, you could even write a whole adventure path where a single SK is the main villain, like Stradh is in Ravenloft.

The time before the PP after all an undiscovered part of the setting. All of the published material starts with the fall of Kalak, which is, on hindsight, the fall of Dark Sun as a whole.

There is nothing wrong with exploring ideas of slavery, racism and abuse if it’s done well. PCs confronting these things and overcoming them.

There are plenty of films about said things too, and books.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Athas is dead.

5e Dark Sun takes place on a different dying world.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think what I'd like to see here remains the same:

1) Needs full Psion class.

2) Needs a way to do Wild Talents etc. properly, probably by just giving people that Feat.

3) Needs to have some races/classes/subclasses excluded by default and not described as part of the setting. Theros lays the groundwork for this. It has the Theros races and humans, that's it. No reason Dark Sun couldn't do the same, and extend it to classes/subclasses. You could probably do a Paladin subclass that worked and let them in that way if people really wanted to.

4) Timeline just after Kalak's death as many have suggested.

5) Do a good job on Half-Giants, Muls, and Thri-Kreen.

Personally I think they're not going to work out a way to do it before 6E.

Athas is dead.

5e Dark Sun takes place on a different dying world.

This isn't a terrible idea, but I think it would establish a troubling precedent, and the issue WotC face here is that Dark Sun is perhaps the most well-liked and well-known world that's not currently being published for. I know that may seem unlikely here, with us oldies, but most of us are in the 11% who are over 40, not the 89% who are younger, and DS is the only setting from 4E that got material. Looking at every marker I can find, it's more popular than Planescape or Spelljammer, and vastly more popular than things like Dragonlance or Greyhawk.

So re-using the name of one of the more popular settings for a different but thematically similar setting might not go down great, even with people outside the 11%.

Personally I could live with it, if the new setting was fantastic. My suspicion would be that the new setting would probably be less cool, less daring, and less exciting than Dark Sun, though, which would be irksome. This isn't just "kids today" talk - kids today would be fine with Dark Sun and if they got 20-somethings with ideas to make a new DS, it would probably be fantastic - but I suspect they'd get late 30s-50s game designers on it, and they'd make something a lot safer, and a lot more "designed by committee", than DS was.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Personally I think they're not going to work out a way to do it before 6E.

This.

 

[Danzauker]

There is nothing exploring ideas of slavery, racism and abuse if it’s done well. PCs confronting these things and overcoming them.

There are plenty of films about said things too, and books.

And I agree, but since the current feelings I'm afraid WotC would much rather avoid the issues altogether.

 

[Danzauker]

I think what I'd like to see here remains the same:

1) Needs full Psion class.

2) Needs a way to do Wild Talents etc. properly, probably by just giving people that Feat.

3) Needs to have some races/classes/subclasses excluded by default and not described as part of the setting. Theros lays the groundwork for this. It has the Theros races and humans, that's it. No reason Dark Sun couldn't do the same, and extend it to classes/subclasses. You could probably do a Paladin subclass that worked and let them in that way if people really wanted to.

4) Timeline just after Kalak's death as many have suggested.

5) Do a good job on Half-Giants, Muls, and Thri-Kreen.

Personally I think they're not going to work out a way to do it before 6E.



This isn't a terrible idea, but I think it would establish a troubling precedent, and the issue WotC face here is that Dark Sun is perhaps the most well-liked and well-known world that's not currently being published for. I know that may seem unlikely here, with us oldies, but most of us are in the 11% who are over 40, not the 89% who are younger, and DS is the only setting from 4E that got material. Looking at every marker I can find, it's more popular than Planescape or Spelljammer, and vastly more popular than things like Dragonlance or Greyhawk.

So re-using the name of one of the more popular settings for a different but thematically similar setting might not go down great, even with people outside the 11%.

Personally I could live with it, if the new setting was fantastic. My suspicion would be that the new setting would probably be less cool, less daring, and less exciting than Dark Sun, though, which would be irksome. This isn't just "kids today" talk - kids today would be fine with Dark Sun and if they got 20-somethings with ideas to make a new DS, it would probably be fantastic - but I suspect they'd get late 30s-50s game designers on it, and they'd make something a lot safer, and a lot more "designed by committee", than DS was.

More or less agree with everything.

While I'd still prefer the setting to be based on pre Kalak's death status quo, while the whole Prism Penthad could be adapted in an adventure path or something.

I think what I'd like to see here remains the same:

1) Needs full Psion class.

2) Needs a way to do Wild Talents etc. properly, probably by just giving people that Feat.

3) Needs to have some races/classes/subclasses excluded by default and not described as part of the setting. Theros lays the groundwork for this. It has the Theros races and humans, that's it. No reason Dark Sun couldn't do the same, and extend it to classes/subclasses. You could probably do a Paladin subclass that worked and let them in that way if people really wanted to.

4) Timeline just after Kalak's death as many have suggested.

5) Do a good job on Half-Giants, Muls, and Thri-Kreen.

Personally I think they're not going to work out a way to do it before 6E.

More or less agree with everything.

While I'd still prefer the setting to be based on pre Kalak's death status quo, while the whole Prism Penthad could be adapted in an adventure path or something.

And I'd like for half-giants to be large, even if it means getting back something like level adjustments.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

While I'd still prefer the setting to be based on pre Kalak's death status quo, while the whole Prism Penthad could be adapted in an adventure path or something.

Sorry mate, the Prism Pentad was truly terrible as a book series (I read it because a friend bought it and insisted I read it) and it's not going to be much better as an adventure path. Just start in the right place - I say after Kalak's death so you don't have this weird thing where basically all PCs in Dark Sun were involved in Kalak's death, which you kind of did in 2E, but the fires of rebellion have started burning.

Agree re: Half-Giants though. I think the best way to handle it would be to continue the tradition of starting at level 3 (which I guarantee modern players will get a kick out of), and make it so either Half-Giants have a "class" they take two levels of, which gives them various Half-Giant abilities, or just straight up bring back LA and give them an LA of +2. So they can start at level 1 in some other class - either way they should count in all ways as an L3 character.

 

[Zardnaar]

Heck no. Do a 4E and drag it back in time before NPCs took did your job

But yeah, I'd just follow 4E's lead on it. Grab the Draconblood stats to use for the Dray, Half Giants are a psionic Goliath-part one (like they've been ever since 3E), add psionics, dis-incentive magic, stir until ready

Bleah real half giants not Goliath's. No Dray they were a bad idea in 2E and don't fit the 4E timeline anyway.