D&D 5E Updating Dark Sun to 5th Ed

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

VAN RICHTEN'S GUIDE TO RAVENLOFT has given us an idea of how Wizards of the Coast will be updating old campaigns to 5th Ed
With that template in mind I started musing about Dark Sun
I imagine it will look a lot like it did in 4th Ed but continue to evolve

Lineages
All the races / lineages in the PH need to be in the campaign. That means including tieflings, gnomes and half-orcs. Each could get a paragraph on his they fit into the world, like in EBERRON: RISING FROM THE LAST WAR
Thri-kreen will likely be the sole new race
Half-giants will likely remain goliaths. Muls are the ugly product of forced mating, so they're just gone. They could also reprint aarakocra

Player Options
WizCo isn't going to do a psionicist for 5th Ed. Instead, a Wild Talent system allowing PCs to have psychic powers would replace that. Like Dark Gifts or the Supernatural Gifts of Theros. Everyone is psionic
They won't get rid of paladins and clerics because players need to be able to make whatever characters they want. Just having an Elemental Domain would limit options too much. Clerics would instead worship the Primordials. Just provide a table of flavor suggestions on how spells could look elemental
But a templar domain could work. Or warlock pact like in 4th Ed
Getting inspiration from 4th Ed, Defiling and obsidian and bone weapons could work roughly the same. When you roll a natural 1 on an attack you can re-roll. With a spell you defoliate and area based on the level and with a weapon it breaks if the re-roll misses. Make it the player's choice. Defiling could also be a method of gaining additional spell slots. When you're high enough level you can kill an area of land to get an extra 1st level spell

Setting
VGR showed us WizCo is willing to change campaigns to fit modern tastes
Based on past convos here a controversial element is slavery. That needs to be gone
The sorcerer-kings can be dictators who rule their lands and hold sway over the life 'n' death of all their subjects without using the loaded term "slaves." Folk in the city-states can just have mistreated servants and not buy or sell people

Survival Adventures
Like VGR focused on "horror adventures" this product should focus on "wilderness survival." Person v. nature
Lottsa charts of random encounters and adventure sites encountered on the road. Advice on how to run adventures focused on travel and natural hazards. How to make it work at various levels. Reprinted and expanded rules on surviving in hot environments and foraging for food

City States
Each City-State should have a completely different tone and style of adventure. Focus on what dungeons are nearby and what the PCs need to do to survive there. There should also be some new city-states ruled by non-humans. An elf or tiefling city-state
Like Ravenloft's domains, these should be isolated. We don't need a full map of the Tablelands. DMs can choose how far away settlements are and rearrange the map based on what's best for their adventure
It's harder to survive if you're uncertain of the distance between city-states and oases. It also works with the shifting nature of deserts. There could be a watering hole or it could have dried out. There could be a pass or it could have been erased by the sands. You could have enough food and water to make it to the next settlement, but you might not
Each journey is new and travel is never routine

Sorcerer-Kings
There are seven major city-states ruled by sorcerer-kings. There's only two sorcerer-queen so a couple need to be gender flipped for better representation
They also need a new name. They're not all kings. And they're wizards, not sorcerers. Wizard-Monarchs? Spell-Tyrants? Archdefilers?
The ruler of Tyr should also still be alive. If anyone kills them it should be the PCs. And having a "safe" city-state populated by free folk not ruled by a tyrant makes Dark Sun less dangerous and hostile

What ya'll think?
Anything else that needs changed?

 

[Rikka66]

I think they'll keep half-orcs and gnomes out of the default setting, and include a sidebar mentioned you can change this or find reasons to include them if you wish, just like 4e did.

I think they'll be willing to call Paladins out, at least, as not allowed by default.

Mearls mentioned he wanted defiling to be a more consequential system than it was in 4e, so we'll see if that train of thought is picked by whoever would be in charge of the book.

 

[humble minion]

All the races / lineages in the PH need to be in the campaign. That means including tieflings, gnomes and half-orcs.

Nah, they can just do what they did with Theros and say 'lineages X, Y, and Z no longer exist in Athas and are not playable in a traditional Dark Sun game. Should you want to play one of these lineages, ask your DM'

Muls are the ugly product of forced mating, so they're just gone.

Even in 2e canon this wasn't necessarily true. There are canonical examples of muls who were born from love matches and whose mother survived the birth. They often WERE born from forced breeding programs, but it wasn't 100% necessary. Just de-emphasise that, and they're perfectly usable. They may get a namechange though, perhaps to 'half-dwarves'...

WizCo isn't going to do a psionicist for 5th Ed. Instead, a Wild Talent system allowing PCs to have psychic powers would replace that. Like Dark Gifts or the Supernatural Gifts of Theros. Everyone is psionic

They'll bite the bullet and do a psionicist class eventually. I do like your idea for how to do wild talents though.

There are seven major city-states ruled by sorcerer-kings. There's only two sorcerer-queen so a couple need to be gender flipped for better representation

No need to gender-flip the existing Sorcerer-kings, just add some new ones. I don't think we've ever heard about the sorcerer-king who was tasked with the genocide of gnolls, for instance. Or aaracokra. Or hobgoblins.

The ruler of Tyr should also still be alive. If anyone kills them it should be the PCs. And having a "safe" city-state populated by free folk not ruled by a tyrant makes Dark Sun less dangerous and hostile

I actually like 'free' Tyr as a setting. It adds a a point of difference, and by making it also a pretty scummy place to be, full of corrupt nobles and uncontrolled criminal gangs and petty warlords, while the armies of Urik peer at it with interest, then you make it clear that not EVERYTHING that's bad about Athas can be fixed by kicking a sorcerer-king in the teeth.

 

[Eltab]

I like the section on surviving the desert wastes.

The sociology changes, however, water down the theme that Athas is 'the world where Evil has almost completely won'.

 

[Charlaquin]

This whole post comes off like pretense for a passive-aggressive critique of Van Richten’s guide rather than an earnest attempt at discussing what changes we might see in a hypothetical 5e Dark Sun book, but I’ll go ahead and engage with the premise as it was presented anyway.

Lineages
All the races / lineages in the PH need to be in the campaign. That means including tieflings, gnomes and half-orcs. Each could get a paragraph on his they fit into the world, like in EBERRON: RISING FROM THE LAST WAR
Thri-kreen will likely be the sole new race
Half-giants will likely remain goliaths. Muls are the ugly product of forced mating, so they're just gone. They could also reprint aarakocra

There have already been new settings in 5e that don’t include all the PHB races, so it seems very unlikely to me that they would add gnomes or half-orcs to 5e Dark Sun. Tieflings and Dragonborn seem likely to be included, in their 4e Dark Sun forms. Dragonborn may get a new Dray Draconic Ancestry option though. Half-giants will almost certainly be Goliaths again. No way they cut Mul, though I could see them saying to use the half-orc stats to represent them rather than presenting a new race statblock. Aarakocra seem like obvious inclusions, and Genasi seem like a reasonable possibility since they were in 4e Dark Sun. Thri-Kreen seem like they should be there as a new option, but they do seem tricky to balance. I also anticipate a sidebar of suggestions of how you might incorporate individual characters of races that aren’t normally a part of the setting at large.

Player Options
WizCo isn't going to do a psionicist for 5th Ed. Instead, a Wild Talent system allowing PCs to have psychic powers would replace that. Like Dark Gifts or the Supernatural Gifts of Theros. Everyone is psionic

Seems like a solid prediction.

They won't get rid of paladins and clerics because players need to be able to make whatever characters they want. Just having an Elemental Domain would limit options too much. Clerics would instead worship the Primordials. Just provide a table of flavor suggestions on how spells could look elemental

This one I’m not so sure about. I could really see it going either way.

But a templar domain could work. Or warlock pact like in 4th Ed

Oh, yeah, The Sorcerer King as a Warlock Patron seems like a no-brainer. Oath of the Templar for Paladins too.

Getting inspiration from 4th Ed, Defiling and obsidian and bone weapons could work roughly the same. When you roll a natural 1 on an attack you can re-roll. With a spell you defoliate and area based on the level and with a weapon it breaks if the re-roll misses. Make it the player's choice. Defiling could also be a method of gaining additional spell slots. When you're high enough level you can kill an area of land to get an extra 1st level spell

Seems plausible.

Setting
VGR showed us WizCo is willing to change campaigns to fit modern tastes
Based on past convos here a controversial element is slavery. That needs to be gone. The sorcerer-kings can be dictators who rule their lands and hold sway over the life 'n' death of all their subjects without using the loaded term "slaves." Folk in the city-states can just have mistreated servants and not buy or sell people

No way. It’ll just be presented in a negative light.

Survival Adventures
Like VGR focused on "horror adventures" this product should focus on "wilderness survival." Person v. nature
Lottsa charts of random encounters and adventure sites encountered on the road. Advice on how to run adventures focused on travel and natural hazards. How to make it work at various levels. Reprinted and expanded rules on surviving in hot environments and foraging for food

This one I agree with. Sounds pretty cool to me!

City States
Each City-State should have a completely different tone and style of adventure. Focus on what dungeons are nearby and what the PCs need to do to survive there.

I definitely think each city-state will have a distinct tone. Not so sure about a focus on nearby dungeons.

There should also be some new city-states ruled by non-humans. An elf or tiefling city-state
Like Ravenloft's domains, these should be isolated.

Mmmmm... Maybe. I could see like a new “free” city-state, but I doubt we’d see a lot of new ones, and certainly not ones ruled by non-sorcerer-kings.

We don't need a full map of the Tablelands. DMs can choose how far away settlements are and rearrange the map based on what's best for their adventure
It's harder to survive if you're uncertain of the distance between city-states and oases. It also works with the shifting nature of deserts. There could be a watering hole or it could have dried out. There could be a pass or it could have been erased by the sands. You could have enough food and water to make it to the next settlement, but you might not
Each journey is new and travel is never routine

Not a chance.

Sorcerer-Kings
There are seven major city-states ruled by sorcerer-kings. There's only two sorcerer-queen so a couple need to be gender flipped for better representation
They also need a new name. They're not all kings. And they're wizards, not sorcerers. Wizard-Monarchs? Spell-Tyrants? Archdefilers?

This just comes off as out-of-touch yelling at clouds. None of this will happen.

The ruler of Tyr should also still be alive. If anyone kills them it should be the PCs.

I mean, probably. He was alive in the 4e version, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same here.

And having a "safe" city-state populated by free folk not ruled by a tyrant makes Dark Sun less dangerous and hostile

Actually now that you mention it, Tyr could serve the “new” free city role I alluded to above. Yeah, I could see this going either way.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I really like the established lore of the old 3E and prior Dark Sun, so I'd prefer if they advance the timeline by 5 years to explain some of the changes you suggest.

On races, I would like them to make Half-Giants distinct from Goliaths, and Dray distinct from Dragonborn. I like the look of Joe Manganiello's half-giant character, although they need to be sized down somewhat for 5E size reasons.


And then on the Sorcerer Kings, keep that name. Ravenloft uses Darklords (not Darkladies ever), I don't think people are offended by King when applied to a woman. The name "Sorcerer Kings" is iconic, needs no change.

Not sure if any of the kings need to be gender-flipped, but seeing some killed off and replaced is fine to me, a couple like Andropinis are kind of boring.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Oh yeah, don't force all the PHB races to work in Dark Sun. Ravnica and Theros don't do that, Dark Sun shouldn't either.

 

[Parmandur]

Seems mostly plausible. Probably ot would hew pretty close to a combination of the 4E take with something like the Magic Setting books in format.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"There are seven major city-states ruled by sorcerer-kings. There's only two sorcerer-queen so a couple need to be gender flipped for better representation
They also need a new name. They're not all kings. And they're wizards, not sorcerers. Wizard-Monarchs? Spell-Tyrants? Archdefilers?"

Based on VRGTR, I think the first prediction is right and the second is wrong. They did gender flip a number of the Domain Baddies, but the term "Darklord" is still used in every case and not "Darklady".

 

[Sithlord]

Right now I favor settings that are not kitchen sinks. They have their place in the realms, planescape, spelljammer, Eberron, but not in dark sun or ravenloft.