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

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Double post

 

[lkj]

I mean, they are fairly soft limits. That species limit basically equates to "talk to your DM before picking tiefling" and the campaign limit is "your probably going to have to refluff this if you are using it outside it's home campaign." It's a far cry from the deep ban lists of 2e when whole classes were deleted from settings and half the PHB was removed or overwritten. But to me they are far more sensible limits for published settings being sold to a wide variety of people.

But are hard limits actually meaningful in this context? Or even desirable? D&d is so often about homebrewing and modification, the ability to do whatever you want at your table. WotC has been supporting that idea for years. And I think that's good. So identifying that the default setting doesn't support certain things and talking to your DM if you want to go outside those limits seems like a good solution. At most, I might add some verbiage to explain why keeping those limits might be fun and what the consequences are of removing them.

AD

 

[Silam]

Dark Sun was such a great setting for pushing players (and DMs!) out of their comfort zone. Equal opportunity slavery, weird new half-races including the famously sterile Mul, having a Medium-size insect in your party, climate change-provoking magic, a ruling class made up of 10000 years old genocidal sociopaths completely out of touch with the people they ruled over, a corrupt bureaucracy of priests actually running things, cannibalism, a tendency for suicide when said cannibals were enslaved, crushing poverty, thirst... this setting really had it all. It seems almost impossible for WotC to somehow revive all of that.

 

[Necropolitan]

Dark Sun was such a great setting for pushing players (and DMs!) out of their comfort zone. Equal opportunity slavery, weird new half-races including the famously sterile Mul, having a Medium-size insect in your party, climate change-provoking magic, a ruling class made up of 10000 years old genocidal sociopaths completely out of touch with the people they ruled over, a corrupt bureaucracy of priests actually running things, cannibalism, a tendency for suicide when said cannibals were enslaved, crushing poverty, thirst... this setting really had it all. It seems almost impossible for WotC to somehow revive all of that.

And for those who were comfortable with that level of edge it was great.

At most you'd need to alter a few details to avoid racist stereotypes to modernize it, but otherwise people who can't handle Dark Sun being dark should pick a different setting to play in. Most settings have deserts after all.

 

[Phantom_Miria]

And for those who were comfortable with that level of edge it was great.

At most you'd need to alter a few details to avoid racist stereotypes to modernize it, but otherwise people who can't handle Dark Sun being dark should pick a different setting to play in. Most settings have deserts after all.

And even the "racist stereotypes" are only an issue because some people are utterly determined to see racist stereotypes where there's absolutely nothing, so you might as well skip that part since you can't help people from seeing the ghosts they want to chase.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I want to mention the franchise "Fallout" to explain a thing.

In the second season of the action-live of the teleserie some secrets about the lore are revealed, and nobody who played all the videogames could to know it.

My suspect is Hasbro wants a similar strategy with Dark Sun and other possible IPs, the metaplot will keep untouched until to hire a good team of writters for a cinematographic production or an AAA videogame.

Today to publish a spin-off set in a near wildspace would be a better choice because this could allow all the new possible player options about PC species and subclasses.

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

And even the "racist stereotypes" are only an issue because some people are utterly determined to see racist stereotypes where there's absolutely nothing, so you might as well skip that part since you can't help people from seeing the ghosts they want to chase.

Or alternatively the "racist stereotypes" are not an issue for some people are utterly determined to ignore racism where there's actually a serious problem, so you might as well skip that part since you can't help people to see serious social problems if they are bound and determined to be ignorant.

 

[Necropolitan]

And even the "racist stereotypes" are only an issue because some people are utterly determined to see racist stereotypes where there's absolutely nothing, so you might as well skip that part since you can't help people from seeing the ghosts they want to chase.

The cannibal tribes in Dark Sun were based on racist depictions of real life human beings.

 

[GungHo]

The cannibal tribes in Dark Sun were based on racist depictions of real life human beings.

This is before you even get to all the connotations behind the Muls.

 

[plisnithus8]

Dark Sun was such a great setting for pushing players (and DMs!) out of their comfort zone. Equal opportunity slavery..."

What does "equal opportunity slavery" mean?