D&D 5E (2024) Unconfirmed Dark Sun World Book

[Misanthrope Prime]

"Spelljammer confirmed?" was a meme for a year or so before Spelljammer was, in fact, confirmed; fans were clamoring for it for a short while before being pretty disappointed.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

....That's a distinction without much of a difference.

I think that it's an important difference. In a lot of ways, it's worse.

Obligatory plug for Limithron's Guide to Naval Combat for 5E.

You've shared these with me before, and I thank you for it! For anyone watching this exchange - what Whiz posts here is a good example of how to do it right. Not complicated, not fiddly. Easy to use, makes logical and intuitive sense. Great stuff.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

People want the good original material updated for the new edition and for future material to be based off the good original material.

It's why 5E Spelljammer bombed while more of 5E Forgotten Realms got viewed favorably (aside from stuff like the Purple Dragon Knights now being dragon riders).

I don’t feel like that many people actually cared in a negative way about the Purple Dragon Knights getting Dragon mounts

 

[MonsterEnvy]

But you're not going to get it. That's the point. As is the case with every updated setting, some things will get changed, they won't match what came before, and it'll piss (general) you off.

It's not that hard. If (general) you love the setting in its original setting glory... there is nothing this new 5E version would give you that you wouldn't already have by just using the original material-- except for some mechanical updates, but which you could probably find already done by people online right now (or just update them yourself.)

I don’t agree with this, the update could easily be something that older fans and new ones like. Some of course won’t like it no matter what, but there is a good chance that old fans will also be fans.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe with the VTT we could see better rules for ship battles o mass battles because the computer will help to calculate faster the stats.

Maybe Spelljammer was not a so good product but some players could feel inspired to create their own stories. It is a setting that allows to you to "borrow" a lot from sci-fi franchises.

Birthright could be perfect for European-style board games of economic strategy.

Maybe the flaw of DS is a bad worldbuilding in the sense to be a horrible sandbox. The zones around the region of Tyr were too hard for low-level PCs. They were like MMO expansions for PCs what are in top-level.

* Maybe paraelemental pockets could be the place of a planar gate toward an astral realm, in the past maybe ruled by the forgotten deities but now inhabited by their loyal worshippers. Maybe the "holy grial" of the elemental clerics could be the elemental planes of metal and wood.

What if there is a metal elemental pocket but this was conquered by a fraal rougue faction who wanted to mine exotic minerals?

Or Athas could be the "prison" of the titans, half-blood of deities and divine powers. They could be cursed because they chose to be neutral in the divine-primal war, and they were

* I like the idea of cerulean, an arcane spellcaster subclase who use the Tyr-storms as power-source. And how would be the shadow wizard kit in 5e as subclass?

* WotC should offer idea of possible spin-off for DS at least to give a reason we can add more player options, for example the dromites as PC species.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don’t agree with this, the update could easily be something that older fans and new ones like. Some of course won’t like it no matter what, but there is a good chance that old fans will also be fans.

Hey, you might be right. We won't know until the book happens. But I personally think there's no way in hell that our vocal DS fans will enjoy whatever amended setting book for Dark Sun that WotC puts out because all the edgy stuff those folks think has to remain in the setting will instead get stripped out and thus piss them all off.

You have more faith in their reasonable acceptance of the reality of the situation. I do not. I think they will freak.

 

[Remathilis]

Hey, you might be right. We won't know until the book happens. But I personally think there's no way in hell that our vocal DS fans will enjoy whatever amended setting book for Dark Sun that WotC puts out because all the edgy stuff those folks think has to remain in the setting will instead get stripped out and thus piss them all off.

You have more faith in their reasonable acceptance of the reality of the situation. I do not. I think they will freak.

It's also worth noting that a lot of "fans" of a given property don't actually like any specific version, but a Platonic Ideal of it.

Topic at hand: if the Dark Sun 5e book was literally word for word the 2e version reprinted, there would still be fans who complained they weren't getting anything new or fixed their specific grievances with it. Obviously, every change you make is going to enrage someone else who either doesn't feel it needs fixing or doesn't like how it was fixed.

There is a deep irony in catering to fans: every action (including No Action) pisses someone off. Thus you have to weigh all actions in terms of how many people you are willing to lose vs how many you hope to capture or retain.

 

[humble minion]

Agreed with the above from @Remathilis . There's so much even from the old Dark Sun lore (or lore from any setting you care to name) that was nonsensical or bad and which people just glossed over or ignored at the time. It's easy to look back with rose-coloured glasses on this stuff. I don't want to see surfing druids or biotech halflings in 5e DS, I'd very much like the events of the later Prism Pentad books to be ignored. Kalidnay should never have gone to Ravenloft. Muls being the result of a breeding program that inevitably killed their human mothers is ick. The original explanation of what the Black and the Grey were, or how exactly sorcerer-kings granted spells to the templars, etc etc - they were a mess. But all this is classic original 2e stuff.

When doing a remake or reinvention you always want to take the gems from a setting, preserve its essence, remove the dross and the stuff which makes modern-day audiences cringe, and polish it up with some quality new material. Unfortunately, all of these aims are subjective, and on top of that, how you achieve those aims is also going to be subject to equally subjective judgement from an audience of widely varying opinions. I know lots of people who like the VRGtR reinvention of Ravenloft, and I can acknowledge that it is both true to some of the very oldest original Ravenloft lore, and that it succeeds very well in achieving what the developers aimed to do. But I still deeply loathe it, and think it took the setting in the entirely wrong direction.

You're not gonna win them all. Someone out there has probably played an awesome memorable Dark Sun game as a surfing druid and would be gutted if 5e DS cuts out the Last Sea.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I'm currently running a spelljammer game that features the bastion system, and I think that WotC could use bastions as a second attempt to get ship-to-ship combat right, in either a spelljammer game or something nautical like another GoS. Forge of the Artificer already gave us a little taste of flying bastions but I think they could make the bastion defender and hireling system a bit more robust and tie that into ships.

 

[Superchunk77]

I don’t feel like that many people actually cared in a negative way about the Purple Dragon Knights getting Dragon mounts

I don't even play FR and I facepalmed when I read about that.