D&D 5E Revising Classic Settings

[overgeeked]

I think the issue with slavery in Dark Sun (and I say this as someone who absolutely loves Dark Sun) is that it's absolutely integral to the setting. Lack of water, gods, and metal, magic draining life, despotic sorcerer-kings ruling city-states, psionics, slavery and gladiatorial combat. Those are basically the pillars of Dark Sun right there.

I have loved and played in Dark Sun since it dropped 30 years ago. I honestly cannot imagine a Dark Sun game that didn't at least partially touch on the topic of slavery. But yeah, I agree. Those absolutely are the pillars of Dark Sun. You couldn't just remove slavery and it remain recognizably Dark Sun.

I think that WotC would include the slavery issue if they revamp DS, although I also think they would turn half-dwarfs and half-giants into full-fledged lineages instead of having them be the product of ongoing rape. Heck, I can see them retconning their origins to having been entirely the creation of psionics.

They could also simply change the backstory on those. Just make them as natural as half-elves on other worlds. Though half-giants haven't really existed as player character options since the introduction of goliaths. Goliath replaces half-giants as a PC option. Half-giants as monsters to fight can remain and their origins don't have to be dealt with. Muls are rewritten as a natural, non-magical, and non-rape produced lineage.

I want Dark Sun to come back. I want it to address slavery. But then I'd also want the entire or overwhelming majority of the writers working on it to be writers of color. I'd want the setting to be post-Kalak's fall with a Free Tyr as the home base of the PCs. And I'd want the adventure path to focus on bringing down another sorcerer-king, preferably Urik's King Hamanu. I'd want the writers to take Dark Sun and make it the slavery setting. Do all the research and put in all the history and real-world atrocities of slavery. Not literal real-world history in the game, but facts and ideas taken from history and used in the game. Show how brutal, inhumane, and atrocious it was. Don't treat it with kid gloves. I'd want things like escape maps in hair styles. The Underground Railroad. Make one of the main focuses of the setting on escaping slavery, freeing slaves, and abolishing slavery. Do the same with environmental collapse. The people who don't care about or the defilers who actively destroy the environment are utterly and irredeemable evil and have to be taken out with extreme prejudice. The only hope for saving the dying world of Athas is to put an end to defilers, the sorcerer-kings, the Dragon, and slavery. Luckily the two themes merge perfectly in the sorcerer-kings. They are the biggest defilers and they are responsible for slavery on Athas. Make bringing them down the focus of the setting. The only thing you can really do with such a dark setting as that is make it about hope.

 

[overgeeked]

To illustrate my point, here is a Tweet by Kristina Arielle (a more famous D&D player and POC) announcing her role in a live-play of a Dark Sun campaign.

Sweet. I'll have to start watching that. I love me some Dark Sun.

 

[humble minion]

I'd want the setting to be post-Kalak's fall with a Free Tyr as the home base of the PCs.

I'd be along that idea too. In fact a few times on here I've pushed the idea of modelling post-Kalak Tyr on the Reconstruction-era US south - the slaves nominally freed, but the Kalak-era nobility and the leftovers of the templarate enforcing something close to the status quo ante through use of nighttime terror tactics, incumbent wealth, and political influence.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We have to remember Dark Setting had got a special look, the design of the clothing and all about that. When the comic was published, it was the spirit, but the images hadn't got the right hook to atrack new followers.

And DS is relativelly low-level magic. Not only heavy metalic armors aren't used very much, but metal are expensive and special items as healing potions, used with magic fruit juices, aren't easy to be got. A monster from other setting could become too powerful in DS because PCs aren't ready for the standard conditions.

 

[dave2008]

Where specifically did they say that? Because the last info I heard about it was as the poster you're replying to said, they announced three classic settings returning. They did not announce all of them will return. Only three. There absolutely could be more in the offing. But that's not the announcement they made.

Sorry I have no desire to search for you. However, it was long before the announcement that they were actively working on 3 classic settings. It was originally before the announcement of Eberron, but they may have mentioned again then. I believe it came from Mike Mearls at one point, so you know it was a long time ago!

 

[overgeeked]

Be careful when talking down about nostalgia. It’s the direct cause of a lot of what we’re all doing here. It’s also the reason D&D lived through the trough between peaks in general public popularity.

What’s interesting is that WOTC hasn’t actually created any settings for D&D.

They held a contest for other people to create a setting, then picked one and published Eberron.

They did points-of-light for 4E, but that was more the idea of or an outline for a setting than a proper fleshed out setting.

They did Ravnica and Theros, but those are adapted MtG settings.

Wildemount was created by Matt Mercer, WOTC just published the book.

So WOTC hasn’t actually created any original settings for D&D. They are riding on other peoples’ work and nostalgia. I know this is a classic setting thread, i.e. nostalgia central, but I’d honestly like to see them come up with an original setting. Or flesh out and publish the one original setting they did. A Nentir Vale campaign guide, complete with the World Axis cosmology, would be great. Though I’m not sure it qualifies as classic.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I want Dark Sun to come back. I want it to address slavery. But then I'd also want the entire or overwhelming majority of the writers working on it to be writers of color.

I think it would be interesting to re-imagine Dark Sun in those terms. But ... that would be controversial, no matter how deftly done. "Look, here's an RPG that lets you play a fictionalized version of America's chattel slavery system .... " would go over ... not so well.

That said, I did want to say that Dark Sun has traditionally been viewed in terms of the classic Roman slavery system- which is to say, not chattel slavery, but instead something that was more an issue of conquest and money- slavery was something that anyone (including nobility) could fall into because of debt, and that a slave could free themselves of upon payment. This Roman influence is echoed both by the nature of the setting (Gladiators to entertain the free people and other slaves) as well as in the writing (stating that a person can be born to slavery, captured into slavery, or become a slave by judgment or debt).

TLDR; I wouldn't change the nature of the Dark Sun setting vis-a-vis slavery to make it reflect American, instead of Roman, antecedents. All slavery is bad, but American race-based chattel slavery is, you know, really bad and doesn't make for a fun & diverse game. IMO.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Where specifically did they say that? Because the last info I heard about it was as the poster you're replying to said, they announced three classic settings returning. They did not announce all of them will return. Only three. There absolutely could be more in the offing. But that's not the announcement they made.

EDIT: This is the Head of D&D for those unaware.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I'd be along that idea too. In fact a few times on here I've pushed the idea of modelling post-Kalak Tyr on the Reconstruction-era US south - the slaves nominally freed, but the Kalak-era nobility and the leftovers of the templarate enforcing something close to the status quo ante through use of nighttime terror tactics, incumbent wealth, and political influence.

I'd actually prefer a different analogy; that of post-monarchy France, with constant instability and counter-revolutionary activity.

 

[overgeeked]

I think it would be interesting to re-imagine Dark Sun in those terms. But ... that would be controversial, no matter how deftly done. "Look, here's an RPG that lets you play a fictionalized version of America's chattel slavery system .... " would go over ... not so well.

That said, I did want to say that Dark Sun has traditionally been viewed in terms of the classic Roman slavery system- which is to say, not chattel slavery, but instead something that was more an issue of conquest and money- slavery was something that anyone (including nobility) could fall into because of debt, and that a slave could free themselves of upon payment. This Roman influence is echoed both by the nature of the setting (Gladiators to entertain the free people and other slaves) as well as in the writing (stating that a person can be born to slavery, captured into slavery, or become a slave by judgment or debt).

TLDR; I wouldn't change the nature of the Dark Sun setting vis-a-vis slavery to make it reflect American, instead of Roman, antecedents. All slavery is bad, but American race-based chattel slavery is, you know, really bad and doesn't make for a fun & diverse game. IMO.

Respectfully, you’re wrong about how slavery is presented in Dark Sun. It is very much chattel slavery. Though it is not based on race...except when it is...muls and half-giants...cough. Slaves are treated as nothing more than property and the children of slaves are also slaves, two of the key markers for chattel slavery.

To quote: “A person can become a slave in one of three ways: by being born a slave, by being captured during a war or other armed conflict, or by being sold into slavery for committing some crime or failing to pay one's debts.”

Further, the text repeatedly refers to slaves as being owned by and the property of their masters.

So the version I was talking about would not be a change to how Dark Sun presented slavery. It would be a continuation.