D&D (2024) Where to next, WotC?

[DEFCON 1]

I hope it's not reimagined for modern audiences, that rarely goes well, you end up angrying the OG audience, and sometimes you offend the new audience too.

Of course it will be. We are like a quarter-century removed from its original release. They are not going to just cut and paste the book together from everything written back then.

If original Dark Sun fans can't handle that... they should stop reading anything new about it and just use the old material on their shelves.

 

[dave2008]

On top of everything else, the art of the dark-skinned guy with white hair using psionic powers to fight gnolls in a desert while holding an obsidian knife always screamed Dark Sun to me.
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The gnolls bone weapon also speaks to a DS theme. But like others have said, I believe this is likely to be recycled art.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

The gnolls bone weapon also speaks to a DS theme. But like others have said, I believe this is likely to be recycled art.

It's recycled art from the 2024 PHB, but I think it was drawn deliberately to throw a bone to Dark Sun fans.

 

[dave2008]

It's recycled art from the 2024 PHB, but I think it was drawn deliberately to throw a bone to Dark Sun fans.

Just the fact that it was in the 2024 PHB is also throwing that bone

 

[bedir than]

If original Dark Sun fans can't handle that... they should stop reading anything new about it and just use the old material on their shelves.

True!

Plus they all have the experience playing the game that they should be able to convert things on the fly. They've played for decades. They don't need official guidance.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sounds good to me. I hope they get around to updating and re-issuing all of the old TSR settings...they own the IP, they might as well make money with them.

I know that some of them will need major rewriting in order to bring them up to modern sensibilities--Oriental Adventures, Al-Qadim, and Dark Sun chief among them--but that's not impossible. Wizards of the Coast has the most resources. They have the largest fan base. They have the largest market volume. They have the best chance to pull it off.

Of course they won't be able to please everyone, because different people have different sensitivities to change. And it is never easy to walk the line between the Old Guard who want to relive their memories of 30 years ago, and the New Generation who want to make new memories of their own. I don't envy them.

My hope is that they prioritize the New Generation. The old books are still there, and I can still play them whenever I want...but they are dated, tone-deaf, and generally off-putting for my teenage nieces and nephews who see the world very differently from the way I did. I want them to make their own memories on Athas, and that isn't going to happen if they can't get past the first chapter.