D&D 4E What chances are there for a 4e DARKSUN to be published?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If Forgotten Realms is rebooted a hundred years into the future then Darksun can have a similiar reboot.

Heck, jump forward 500 years in the future, and WotC would have a big blank slate to include anything they liked from previous eras and would be free to do whatever they wanted in the place of stuff that sucked.

 

[glass]

Heck, jump forward 500 years in the future, and WotC would have a big blank slate to include anything they liked from previous eras and would be free to do whatever they wanted in the place of stuff that sucked.

Given a straight choice, I'd wind it back. Not quite to the original boxed set, but instead to the end of The Verdant Passage. Kalak is defeated and Tyr is liberated (there's our PoL ) but the other Dragon Kings are still around.


glass.

 

[Dausuul]

Much as I'd love to see the Dark Sun world resurrected per the original boxed set, I don't really think it's going to happen. I do, however, think there's a possibility that a Dark Sun-inspired setting might get made.

To me, the essential elements of Dark Sun are:

--Desolate, blasted world that has been laid waste by reckless use of magic
--Tyrannical, nearly godlike rulers, reigning over corrupt states
--Struggle for bare survival, without the luxury of ideals
--The environment itself is a deadly threat
--Vast empty spaces and wilderness

I would be very interested to see what WotC could come up with along these lines. In fact, I think a Dark Sun-type setting could much more easily accommodate races like tieflings and dragonborn than the standard PoL...

 

[KoshPWNZYou]

I'd guess the order to be FR-Eberron-Dragonlance-Greyhawk-Planescape-Ravenloft before they ever got to Dark Sun. And by that time, you'd be hearing whispers about 5e. I just think PS and RL have more widespread recognizability.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

WHile I'd like to see Dark Sun reprinted and revised, I'm not banking on it anytime soon. (THough they are reprinting the Dark SUn novels, so, as the saying goes, "Never Say Never".)

However, there are some logisitical problems to overcome, needless to say.

One of the biggies is the "Defiler vs. Preserver" magic. How would this tie in to the revamped 4E magic system?

New races can always be shoehorned in, though how Warforged would fit in (given the harsh climate), and Dragonborn [given the status of Dragons on Athas] is somehting to consider.

Then, there's the Paizo update from "Dungeon" and "Dragon" magazines a few years ago; is that going to be thrown by the wayside? (I'd actually be OK with that, as I honestly wasn't a fan of those articles.)

The Cosmology. While recognizable to D+D fans, Athas really had it's own Cosmology, and was widely seperated from other Prime Material worlds. (IIRC, you couldn't even Spelljam to Athas!!)

The twist on the PC races.... Seems like 4E is trying for some uniformity

 

[Greenfaun]

And it would be best to completely ignore ALL the rubbish with the time line after the first boxed set, sigh.

Oh hell yes. Original Flavor Darksun is the only Darksun, in my book.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ideally, they would just make one-shot books of all the old settings, maybe with a mini-MM for each that can be applied to any setting, ala the Ravenloft book in 3E.

Just put down the basic ideas, the changes in stats, the different time periods from past boxed sets, and then let the popularity of the thing determine future support.

It would be pretty nice to have one book for every old setting for 4E, if only for nostalgic purposes, lined up on the shelf.

 

[Lackhand]

WHile I'd like to see Dark Sun reprinted and revised, I'm not banking on it anytime soon. (THough they are reprinting the Dark SUn novels, so, as the saying goes, "Never Say Never".)

However, there are some logisitical problems to overcome, needless to say.

One of the biggies is the "Defiler vs. Preserver" magic. How would this tie in to the revamped 4E magic system?

New races can always be shoehorned in, though how Warforged would fit in (given the harsh climate), and Dragonborn [given the status of Dragons on Athas] is somehting to consider.

Then, there's the Paizo update from "Dungeon" and "Dragon" magazines a few years ago; is that going to be thrown by the wayside? (I'd actually be OK with that, as I honestly wasn't a fan of those articles.)

The Cosmology. While recognizable to D+D fans, Athas really had it's own Cosmology, and was widely seperated from other Prime Material worlds. (IIRC, you couldn't even Spelljam to Athas!!)

The twist on the PC races.... Seems like 4E is trying for some uniformity

I like to think of these as logistical advantages to translating Dark Sun into 4th edition.

The revamped magic system handles the divide between defiling and preserving magic as well as any other system; it's the split between the two that's problematic, not the vancian casting nature of't.

New Races: "Don't". There might well be Tieflings and Dragonborn, because I feel like they fit (alongside Thri Keen and everything else), but Dark Sun has its own races. That's fine; don't shoehorn the others in. Still, recasting Dragonborn as desert lizards or tieflings as children born in defiled land wouldn't be crazy, would it?

Paizo Update: Meh, throw all, what, sixty pages total (costing $25 at most?) by the wayside. Not a problem.

Cosmology: Yup. It gets its own.

PC races: Slightly buffed PC races means that now they can have monstrous PCs more easily. Yay!

So I guess we agree, but I see the upsides of everything, and you see the downsides -- or at least, it sounds like you do.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think it's a good concept, but if they do a new version I would like to see a complete re-build from the ground up. Keep the idea of the dying world, the savage aspect of life, the psionics and the Sorcerer Kings. Chuck everything else and re-do it.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

So I guess we agree, but I see the upsides of everything, and you see the downsides -- or at least, it sounds like you do.

Sometimes.
(I'm still straddling the fence on 4E overall.)

I do think the presumed higher starting power of 4E suits Athas; it always was a "killer" setting.

But the more important thing to me is to capture the FEEL of Athas, and (from what I can see) it seems that 4E is focusing on a more "High Fantasy" feel than Athas' "Grim n' Gritty" style.