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

[Laurefindel]

automatic upcast maybe

That’s the way I would go, and is it not how it was presented in the classes of the apocalypse Unearthed Arcana?

While I can see the parallel between defiling and slavery, I don’t think they are (or should be) equal taboos. Both are unethical forms or abuse, but I really don’t see presenting rules for defiling and rules for owning slaves (or rules for summoning undead/demons, or rules for charming/dominating someone, or rules for killing in general) being on the same level.

If only as a world-building tool, I really don’t think they’d need to elaborate on how slavery empowered the rich and made the world into what it is, but they’d need to give a minimum of information on what is defiling and why it is an easier/quicker tool to achieve power, what are the consequences of defiling, and what are the differences when facing a defiler in combat, if any.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

What makes Defiling evil/unethical in Dark Sun is there is so little life left on Athas in the first place. Every time a Defiler casts a spell it undermines the world's capacity to support life and civilization.

On a more typical D&D world with abundant nature the ecosystem would be strong enough to quickly recover from defiling. Druids wouldn't like it but it wouldn't be super destructive compared to the other ways in which humanoids exploit the environment.

 

[mamba]

That’s the way I would go, and is it not how it was presented in the classes of the apocalypse Unearthed Arcana?

not sure how it was presented there, did not take much of a look.

What stuck with me is that preserver / defiler should not be subclasses and that the preserver was not actually preserving anything. Doing literally anything else to help the planet would be time better spent than what the preserver did (basically a temporary illusion rather than a longterm improvement, however small)

 

[Staffan]

What makes Defiling evil/unethical in Dark Sun is there is so little life left on Athas in the first place. Every time a Defiler casts a spell it undermines the world's capacity to support life and civilization.

On a more typical D&D world with abundant nature the ecosystem would be strong enough to quickly recover from defiling. Druids wouldn't like it but it wouldn't be super destructive compared to the other ways in which humanoids exploit the environment.

Athas started out being as green and verdant as any other setting (well, there was the Blue Age before that when it was almost entirely covered in water, but after that). Rampant defiling, particularly in the course of a series of genocidal wars, was what turned Athas into what it is today.

What you are saying is essentially the same as "Well, me driving a gasoline-powered car has such a small effect on the eco-system that it isn't noticeable, and the forests and algae should be able to absorb that CO2 and perhaps even grow stronger from it." And that might on one level be true, but it doesn't work when you have hundreds of millions, or possibly billions, of people dependent on fossil fuels for transportation as well as for generation of power for all sorts of other purposes.

In the old lore, defiling killed the affected area dead for a year, before any sort of recovery could even begin – and such recovery would take many years, because the area would be leached of any nutrients of any sort or anything else necessary for life. It would basically be like watching life develop on Surtsey. More abundant life meant you defiled a smaller area, but the area got killed just as dead either way. Being careful and not taking more than the ecosystem can recover from is what's called Preserving.

 

[Staffan]

not sure how it was presented there, did not take much of a look.

What stuck with me is that preserver / defiler should not be subclasses and that the preserver was not actually preserving anything. Doing literally anything else to help the planet would be time better spent than what the preserver did (basically a temporary illusion rather than a longterm improvement, however small)

Preservers in the old lore were not necessarily eco-warriors (those were the druids and, to a lesser extent, clerics). Rather, they were pragmatists who see value in managing the extraction of resources (life energy). Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, as it were.

 

[SableWyvern]

Which is why my general opinion on defiling is that should an option for any arcane-using PC to access at any time. Defiling should be easy and powerful.

I ran a few session of Dark Sun using Worlds without Number; I had defiling as the default for any high-magic spell. Not defiling required a check, a failed check either defiled or inflicted Stress on the caster. Defiled spells also had stronger effects (more damage, targets, range, etc.) depending on the amount of environmental damage done.

Mages could take "Preserver's Gift" as a class Art, making the check no longer required, but defiling spells were still more powerful.

I agree 100%. In my Mythras version of Dark Sun, defiling is easier and more powerful by far. A preserver who sticks with it gets some payoff way down the track but, for the most part, you preserve because it's the right thing to do, not because it's easy.

 

[SableWyvern]

These two things are in tension with each other.

If Dark Sun is really about embodying a heroic character who doesn't do the Clearly Evil Villain Stuff, then we don't need player-facing rules for defiling. PC's are exceptional, every PC spellcaster is a preserver, because defiling is Clearly Evil Villain Stuff and PCs are meant to be heroes. Defiling isn't something heroes do -- it's Clearly Evil Villain Stuff. NPC's can defile, and it's the PC's job to stop them.

If Dark Sun is in part about fighting against the lure of how easy and effective the Clearly Evil Villain Stuff is, then there's room for defiling PC's, at least as a kind of fail state for those who succumb to the lure of the Clearly Evil Villain Stuff. That's an appealing conflict, but harder to make a game for if your audience is millions of people, including a lot of kids. Not impossible, but challenging, because the possibility of BEING an evil villain (even as a fail state) means including the possibility of your magical elf fantasy game characters doing nasty things, which isn't something every table is able to handle.

There is absolutely nothing notable or morally upstanding in doing the only thing you could possibly do.

Edit: to be clear, you're entitled to want a simple, black and white game where being less than perfectly heroic is not an option. I may feel that turning Dark Sun into that game would be a terrible thing to do but, at the end of the day, that's all just my opinion.

Where I believe you're just objectively wrong is this notion that a game where PCs have the capacity to do wrong is in conflict with them being heroes. In my experience, the exact opposite is true.

If it would be easier, and possibly even beneficial, to accept the status quo, to be cruel or pragmatic or selfish or take shortcuts, but you consistently choose not to, then you're showing us you really are the good guy and your actions carry much more moral weight.

If that's not the game you want, that's fine, but this whole argument that giving PCs any possibility of being able to defile immediately undermines heroic play is demonstrably false.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

There is absolutely nothing notable or morally upstanding in doing the only thing you could possibly do.

Tell that to Max Stirner!

 

[mamba]

Preservers in the old lore were not necessarily eco-warriors (those were the druids and, to a lesser extent, clerics). Rather, they were pragmatists who see value in managing the extraction of resources (life energy). Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, as it were.

correct, that still makes the UA one a failure

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, but it's the good kind of "narrative conflict" tension.

The conflict is mostly for WotC's designers: do you include the moral conflict angle in your new version of Dark Sun or not?

I don't think of defiling as "Clearly Evil Villain Stuff", any more than the Dark Side of the Force. It's obviously evil and corrupting, but definitely falls into the "I can do this bad thing for the greater good/to save my friends" kind of power. That kind of narrative is common enough in fantasy that it borders on cliche.

What is important is to make defiling an option that can freely be opted into and out of, not something that defines a character build.

Besides, we're also talking about a game where the core rules let you raise the dead, and stick someone's soul in a jar so you can puppet their body. Wiping out some crops is really just a drop in the bucket.

Core D&D is pretty explicit that it's only interested in non-Evil characters. The idea of a Dark Side-style "temptation" isn't really a conflict that standard D&D is interested in. Raising the dead and soul jarring aren't Clearly Evil Villain Stuff, as far as the current design of D&D is concerned. You can be neutral and make zombies.

If Dark Sun continues in that vein, there's no reason to allow for defilers to be PC's. There's no neutral way to defile. Every act of defiling is canonically making the world a worse place for your own benefit. If you were never meant to become a dragon, then this is probably fine for a lot of tables.

If you are designing Dark Sun and you want that to be a valid temptation for PC's, then you enter a world where you are offering an incentive to do awful things to the millions of tables of all ages and inclinations that will potentially play Dark Sun. Not a cause for panic, but definitely a place where you'd want to be very careful, as a designer/publisher, considering the diversity of your audience.

There is absolutely nothing notable or morally upstanding in doing the only thing you could possibly do.

Edit: to be clear, you're entitled to want a simple, black and white game where being less than perfectly heroic is not an option. I may feel that turning Dark Sun into that game would be a terrible thing to do but, at the end of the day, that's all just my opinion.

Where I believe you're just objectively wrong is this notion that a game where PCs have the capacity to do wrong is in conflict with them being heroes. In my experience, the exact opposite is true.

If it would be easier, and possibly even beneficial, to accept the status quo, to be cruel or pragmatic or selfish or take shortcuts, but you consistently choose not to, then you're showing us you really are the good guy and your actions carry much more moral weight.

If that's not the game you want, that's fine, but this whole argument that giving PCs any possibility of being able to defile immediately undermines heroic play is demonstrably false.

You aren't paying attention to what I'm actually writing, and you're strawmanning some "notions" I've never actually articulated and do not hold. So I'll try to clarify once more:

What's in tension is a design consideration for WotC: Do you want a game that encourages PC's to engage with the question of: "Do I do evil for benefit here?"

Standard D&D as of this moment isn't interested in that. It's built assuming your characters won't be evil.

Dark Sun could be interested in that, and I think it's more fun if it is, but if it is, and it is built without that assumption that standard D&D has, it has a bit of a problem: not every table is going to be asking that question in a way that's fun for the players. Encouraging characters to do Clearly Evil Villain Stuff opens the door to some really awful player experiences. You can deal with that problem in various ways, but that problem is real, and is difficult to solve for.

Of course, the new DS game could just throw defiling in as an option and pretend like it doesn't matter. Basically what 4e did, honestly. And IMXP that led to it not mattering - it failed to be an interesting moral question. So I think that would be some bad design.