D&D 5E (2014) How would you wish WOTC to do Dark Sun

[Micah Sweet]

I'd wish they would leave alone the old TSR settings, WOTC has already done too much damage to the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft.

I can see that perspective. I used to love Ravenloft.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'd wish they would leave alone the old TSR settings, WOTC has already done too much damage to the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft.

I know nothing of Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms has always been terrible. But it is not like your old books will vanish if they make a new version. Maybe it will be good, maybe not. But you will lose nothing, if you don't like the new version you don't have to use it and nothing has changed for you.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Take the First Printing Boxed Set. Then pay me lots of money to convert it all into 5e "Stats n' Whatnot". Then re-release it all as a Box Set, like the 1st one...but with the cloth map from the 2nd boxed set...stinky map, but it just 'felt cool'.

But, if they aren't going to pay ME to do it...yeah, just leave it alone and let the fans write the conversion stuff.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Mercurius]

Gonzo and deadly. Full agathion and dragon king rules for 20+ level play.

Expand the world significanly beyond Tyr region, even a new region altogether.

Keep Dark Sun, Dark Sun.

Oh yeah, hire cultural consultants for thri-kreen.

 

[Don Durito]

I think Dark Sun in 5E feels like a stretch for me. I'd want to give it the full Adventures of Middle Earth treatment. Basically give it a new alternative players handbook based on the core rules. A different way of doing arcane magic based on defiling/preserving rather than spell slots, a better system of combat manouvres to make things like gladiatorial combat feel interesting, psionics rules, reworked and not just reskinned races.

They'd never do it of coure, but I'd prefer to see it licensed to Modiphius to be used with the 2d20 system.

 

[humble minion]

They'll probably mess it up.

Look, I looove Dark Sun, and I own a bunch of the original run, and if i had my way WotC would release a 300p hardback 5e Dark Sun players' guide, then another 300 page GMs guide, then a 900 page megacampaign book that would be a sandbox that let the PCs re-enact the prism pentad in their own way, with them as the protagonists. But there's a hell of a lot of hindsight romanticism about how good the original run was. Even purely from a lore point of view, disregarding game mechanics. Even in the 2e source material, the sorcerer-kings whenever they appear (which is arguably too often - and people complained that FR had too much interference from high-level NPCs, these guys are in damn near every module and somehow avoid ever just crushing the PCs like bugs) are the cartooniest of moustache-twirling villains, simultaneously enormously powerful and utter idiots. The whole world is desert - except the amazingly fertile forests in the ringing mountains and the vast expanse of grasslands out west, which for some reason the most powerful beings in the setting never bother to move into and take over, preferring to build cities in the middle of the harshest desert on the planet. Why?

And that's not even mentioning the old sore points like how the very first novel series in the setting had NPC heroes solve all the big mysteries and kill all the big bad guys and generally blow the place up, and how the first tranche of modules were your PCs following along in their footsteps watching them do it. Or the biotech halflings. Or the surfing druids. Or the ... mixed messages about how easy/possible planar travel was or wasn't, or Athas' relationship to the 'default' planes in general (with implications for stuff like summoning spells etc)

What I'm trying to say .. is that Dark Sun was messed up already but it was still awesome. We all have our own mental image of the setting that edits out all the dumb stuff and is pure unalloyed headbanging fist-in-the-air brilliance. I certainly do. Mine is a mix of the original box, the 4e book, Lynn Abbey's RaFoaDK, and a bunch of other stuff that only exists in my head, like the other unknown sorcerer-kings on other continents, and with stuff like the Kreen grasslands and the githyanki invasion edited quietly out. But we have to remember our personal versions exist because they correct the messed-up bits in TSR's DS. Did anyone REALLY use all of the original 2e DS as written without editing to taste? And is there any reason we can't do the same again in 5e? A 5e DS would also have its inevitable derp moments, because every rpg product in the history of the world does. But ... a bit of faith, i think. Just cos it's old doesn't mean it's always great, and just cos it's new doesn't mean it'll automatically suck.

 

[Zardnaar]

Look, I looove Dark Sun, and I own a bunch of the original run, and if i had my way WotC would release a 300p hardback 5e Dark Sun players' guide, then another 300 page GMs guide, then a 900 page megacampaign book that would be a sandbox that let the PCs re-enact the prism pentad in their own way, with them as the protagonists. But there's a hell of a lot of hindsight romanticism about how good the original run was. Even purely from a lore point of view, disregarding game mechanics. Even in the 2e source material, the sorcerer-kings whenever they appear (which is arguably too often - and people complained that FR had too much interference from high-level NPCs, these guys are in damn near every module and somehow avoid ever just crushing the PCs like bugs) are the cartooniest of moustache-twirling villains, simultaneously enormously powerful and utter idiots. The whole world is desert - except the amazingly fertile forests in the ringing mountains and the vast expanse of grasslands out west, which for some reason the most powerful beings in the setting never bother to move into and take over, preferring to build cities in the middle of the harshest desert on the planet. Why?

And that's not even mentioning the old sore points like how the very first novel series in the setting had NPC heroes solve all the big mysteries and kill all the big bad guys and generally blow the place up, and how the first tranche of modules were your PCs following along in their footsteps watching them do it. Or the biotech halflings. Or the surfing druids. Or the ... mixed messages about how easy/possible planar travel was or wasn't, or Athas' relationship to the 'default' planes in general (with implications for stuff like summoning spells etc)

What I'm trying to say .. is that Dark Sun was messed up already but it was still awesome. We all have our own mental image of the setting that edits out all the dumb stuff and is pure unalloyed headbanging fist-in-the-air brilliance. I certainly do. Mine is a mix of the original box, the 4e book, Lynn Abbey's RaFoaDK, and a bunch of other stuff that only exists in my head, like the other unknown sorcerer-kings on other continents, and with stuff like the Kreen grasslands and the githyanki invasion edited quietly out. But we have to remember our personal versions exist because they correct the messed-up bits in TSR's DS. Did anyone REALLY use all of the original 2e DS as written without editing to taste? And is there any reason we can't do the same again in 5e? A 5e DS would also have its inevitable derp moments, because every rpg product in the history of the world does. But ... a bit of faith, i think. Just cos it's old doesn't mean it's always great, and just cos it's new doesn't mean it'll automatically suck.

Original/Early Darksun. PP and later products lolbad.

 

[Danzauker]

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.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would like to know how the metaplot will continue after the Prism Pentad. and about the lands beyond Tyr, and not only the deathlands with its civilitation of undeads.

I want to know if the spinewyrms are true dragons (even with age categories in Dungeon Magazine) or not.

I would like open space to add later martial adept classes and maybe incarnum totemist-shaman, and the new PC races from 3.5 Expanded Psionic Handbook.

Why not sorcerers as primal spellcasters?

Would you allow a open door for a crossover with Jakandor? (or Hollow World, the Mystara spin-off).

 

[Mecheon]

I would like to know how the metaplot will continue after the Prism Pentad. and about the lands beyond Tyr, and not only the deathlands with its civilitation of undeads.

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