D&D 5E Revising Classic Settings

[humble minion]

2. Muls are a crossbread between human and dwarves, a thing normally not possible in other settings, and muls are sterile like the namegiving horse/donkey crossbreed, so even if possible, there is no point in it.
With halfgiants it is even stated that their origins are because of magical help, since it would not work out the normal way.
But every race is stronger in DS so evolution parallel to the breeding of special slave races already did what you propagated. It is just muls not only are stronger, they also need less water than other races so in many circumstances they are more optimized. Being a bit dull they also do not tend to rebell as easy, as long as the basic needs are covered.

Could muls be created by means of reincarnation? In the real life the male mules are steriles, but the females can breed, but only with one of the two species.

I think Dark Sun would lose absolutely nothing of its essential character if the sterility and forced-breeding aspect of muls (and the name) was retconned out of existence, and they just became half-dwarves.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Today the politically correct and cancel culture is very hard today. When you don't notice you may be in serious troubles because (a no Catholic) somebody has been offended.

There are half-dwarf races mixed with no-humans published as PC races by 3PPs, even mixture dwarf-orc and dwarf-elf.

If there are roleplayers of Gor in SL you can imagine what they could do with DS if they find the ways to...

* Are half-giants retconened/recastered as goliaths?

* Dark Sun not only was tribal-punk but its look was too special and unique.

* What happens with the characters from the novels if these were enoughly popular? The iconic characters are an important hook to promote the franchise as multimedia project.

* Do you think the reboot will add the races from the expanded psionic powers? the dromites, for example. And what about the athasian genasis from 4th Ed?

* What if a player wants a life-shaper Rhul-taun (halfling subrace) using a homebreed variant of the biohacker class from Starfinder? She could craft a crossbow with a little motor to reload itself, using muscles by a pistol shrimp.

* What if there is a game-live podcast where darkskin players are in DS kicking-ass those dammed slaver-trafficers?

* I feel a lot of curiosity because the metaplot of DS because something was insinuated because there was a menace worse than the Dragon Tyr himself, but it was not Rajaat, I suposse.

 

[Coroc]

I think Dark Sun would lose absolutely nothing of its essential character if the sterility and forced-breeding aspect of muls (and the name) was retconned out of existence, and they just became half-dwarves.

To cater to whom?

I think FR would loose nothing if they left out the dragonborn.

I think PHB would loose nothing if they did leave out drow as a playable race.

What itches you? Darksun is partially a very evil world so "force-breeding" would be one of the lesser acts of violence.

 

[Faolyn]

To cater to whom?

Well, to people who don't like the idea of rape farms as a canon setting element?

I mean, with slavery, we can at least pretend that it doesn't involve rape.

Half-dwarfs and half-giants are decent things to have. Having them all be the product of rape isn't cool. Even at D&D's worst, it was never assumed all half-orcs were the product of rape.

 

[MGibster]

I think we can all agree that the only people who have ever thought about the Gor novels in the last decade are probably Second Life roleplayers.

The first GOR book was the subject of my paper for my Gender and Science Fiction course when I was an undergraduate.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The first GOR book was the subject of my paper for my Gender and Science Fiction course when I was an undergraduate.

that is most wild, I only know what you're talking about because the strange books had some cult get busted once.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The first GOR book was the subject of my paper for my Gender and Science Fiction course when I was an undergraduate.

That should make for a pretty good subject honestly.

 

[MGibster]

I think about the only classic setting I'd work on is maybe Forgotten Realms. As much as I liked some of the smaller niche settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, and some of the others I'm not really sure bringing them back is a great idea. Instead of looking backwards maybe we'd all be better off looking forward and creating new settings instead that reflect what the majority of modern customers want.

 

[Coroc]

... .I mean, with slavery, we can at least pretend that it doesn't involve rape. ....

Yea? Really? Is this the Cindarella version of slavery then? Slavery in general means people are property of other people. It means that those other people can do with their slaves what they want, be it torture, rape or kill - just when they feel like it, that is. There might have been historic examples where some rules prevented the worst (most of the time), but still that is my definition of slavery.

Within Darksun, slaves of the sorcerer king get to slaughter each other in the arena, or be sacrificed for the glory and power of the sorcerer king, but ok thats not as ugly as rape, is it?

With Half Giants it is they are not rape bred at all, the first were created magically, like e.g. owlbears in other settings.
They afaik can breed with each other (free willed), and that is the method to get more of them.

And just because those two races are highly in demand, e.g. for manual labor, guard and army tasks, free or enslaved, this does not mean that every other classic DS race cannot be enslaved also (or the product of forcebreeding born into slavery , just born to two similar species as enslaved parents eventiually).

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think about the only classic setting I'd work on is maybe Forgotten Realms. As much as I liked some of the smaller niche settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, and some of the others I'm not really sure bringing them back is a great idea. Instead of looking backwards maybe we'd all be better off looking forward and creating new settings instead that reflect what the majority of modern customers want.

reworking FR would be near impossible unless you want to make a new default setting first.

Within Darksun, slaves of the sorcerer king get to slaughter each other in the arena, or be sacrificed for the glory and power of the sorcerer king, but ok thats not as ugly as rape, is it?

I get the sneaking suspicion that people generally think that it is less ugly, most likely because those are not things we hear about happening.