D&D 5E WotC: Why Dark Sun Hasn't Been Revived

In an interview with YouTuber 'Bob the Worldbuilder', WotC's Kyle Brink explained why the classic Dark Sun setting has not yet seen light of day in the D&D 5E era.

I’ll be frank here, the Dark Sun setting is problematic in a lot of ways. And that’s the main reason we haven’t come back to it. We know it’s got a huge fan following and we have standards today that make it extraordinarily hard to be true to the source material and also meet our ethical and inclusion standards... We know there’s love out there for it and god we would love to make those people happy, and also we gotta be responsible.

You can listen to the clip here.

 

[Gradine]

I'll give my own two cents on the subject. That is that there are two Dark Sun settings. I'll call them the 2e setting and 4e setting. Yes, that's incredibly reductive and not entirely accurate, but it's close enough to use as a shorthand.

Both settings share some common elements. Psionics and destructive magic. Massive climate change. New and changed races. Deserts and silt seas and tyrannical, oppressive city-states. Templars and elementals. You, know all the things that make Dark Sun, Dark Sun. Does that include gladiatorial slaves? Yeah, i think it does.

The difference is largely in the tone. The "2e" setting is bleak, classic S&S genre drapery, Brom art. Players as templars, agents of the state, slaves, etc. You know, that really edgelord nonsense. Now, that might sound judgemental, but that's only because it is. Do I think that this style of setting had a place in the TTRPG world? Believe it or not, yes. Do I think that style of setting had a place in the broadly popular D&D universe? No, not really. It's not a particularly inclusive, welcoming setting; and inclusion and welcoming are a large part of D&D's incredibly massive success.

Then there's the "4e" setting. As mentioned above, it has all the same trappings as the other stuff. The rougher edges might be sanded down (ie, removing even the implication of forced eugenics), but it's got largely all the same stuff. The difference, again, is the tone. The tyrants and templars and slavers are still there, but they are there specifically as opposition. The players are unequivocally the heroes, scrappy rebels fighting against oppression. This needs to be explicit. This is what makes freeing of Tyr such a significant change; it proves that the forces of good can prevail. I think, if sold in this way, you could get a WotC Dark Sun.

But it is completely understandable why this difficult task wouldn't seem to be worth it.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It's a distinction without a difference, one which I think you're artificially propping up in an attempt to defend the indefensible. Quite simply, there is no justified criticism to be made of the hobby as a whole because one thousand people choose to buy a CoC game, and anyone who feels to the contrary has no right to expect that their position be validated by others as reasonable.

No, it's different and whining about how it isn't misses it.

They're not, and you need to find it within yourself to accept that. They're demanding that you validate their feelings of persecution (i.e. they're being gatekept out of the entire hobby) because a mere one thousand people are paying for something that one person thinks is immoral. One might wonder why that person isn't capable of sufficient empathy as to realize that liking something problematic doesn't make you a bad person. But to them it does make you a bad person, and even one thousand such people taints the entire hobby enough to drive them away from it.

Yes, totally, minority players are asking me to validate their feelings of persecution and that's totally less valid than your own feelings of persecution. Totally.

Yes, you did, and that's completely obvious from reading what you wrote. When you make a declarative statement about "bad tropes," which no definition and no presentation of "in my opinion" or "to me" (which are not assumed), then you are positioning yourself as the sole keeper of those virtues. I'm just pointing out that you're not.

Can you point to the post? Because I suspect you can't.

Again, you overlook that the quoted post was one person ranting "everyone else is selfish because they won't think about my feelings!" Which of course ignores the fact that such a sentiment is far and away more selfish than anyone else. Why you keep ignoring that is beyond me, but it's not painting your points in a good light at all.

It's literally trying to describe how a minority feels. I'm sorry that hurts you feelings, but that's what it is. Again, this whole thing lacks empathy for what it is to be a minority in the hobby.

It's not worth listening to carefully; exclusionary rhetoric never is. Saying "everyone needs to do what I want" isn't virtuous, even if it's falsely framed in a context of "you're paying for a game I don't like, which means you're either evil or ignorant, and so I don't feel welcome." It ignores the self-evident truth that you can like problematic content without being problematic. There's no painting that as a statement asking for empathy when the statement itself contains none.

No one is being excluded, though. No one has been shunned, no one has been persecuted. We're talking about fiction. This is why this argument is so dumb: there's no risk for people like you being kicked out of the community. None. There is risk of minority players feeling uncomfortable about this stuff because we've literally had minority players remark on it.

What's desperate it acknowledging that you got caught in a "gotcha" (to use your words) and then trying to say "but not really" the way you are here. To repeat, no one is saying there's nothing problematic about slavery, which is what you falsely accused them of, as though the people arguing against you were longing to go back to the antebellum American South. They're saying it's not problematic in the context of a role-playing game; and even then they're actually presenting it with far more qualifiers than that, noting the context and presentation, as well as how it's only in certain games, etc.

I didn't? Trying to address your points is not concern trolling. I didn't bring up the topic, you did.

But you characterized it all as people saying "there's nothing problematic about slavery." I don't need to set a gotcha for you; you're doing just fine on your own.

There are literally people debating how problematic slavery is. That doesn't mean they think slavery is good.

Leaving aside that you're one again deliberately misrepresenting my argument, presumably because you have no substantive counterpoint to it, you're once again concern-trolling here. Knock it off.

lol

Dude, you took this entire thing off-topic to go to a post you misread so that it hurt your feelings. This is the most concern-trolling you could possible get.

Again, you're literally presenting your own bad arguments as mine, and then responding to them. It's a tired old technique for refusing to engage with the actual substance of the debate, and isn't something that people do in good faith. They said that one thousand people paying for a game they don't like makes the entire hobby unwelcoming to them; it's self-evident that their reason for that is because they think those one thousand people are bad people paying for bad content, and so impugns the entire hobby. That kind of anti-inclusive thinking needs to be called out wherever it's encountered, along with the people defending it.

You're really locked into a battle of words against yourself, man. I'm not presenting my arguments as yours, your arguments are just really bad. Maybe you should take a break.

A story element's role in history absolutely does matter when you're using historical elements in your fantasy world. It certainly doesn't have to be, but historical verisimilitude is a perfectly valid reason for it to be there. All those other elements you mentioned are also valid. I use them at least as often as I would use something like slavery. My favorite RPGs make a strong point of including those kind of historical elements as much as the gameplay itself makes practically possible.

The interaction argument may be valid for some individuals, but I do not buy into it as a universal issue.

But Athas doesn't really reflect any sort of history. You talk of "historical verisimilitude", but not all ancient societies had slavery or used them in the same way, and Athas is more based on Sword and Sorcery fantasy, which is distinctly not historical.

And you say that those elements are valid, those aren't ones that you are pitching for in Athas. Those are way more important, yet they do not break "historical verisimilitude". This argument would be more honest if we were just trying to compare it to Howard, because that's where it really comes from, with a bit of Hollywood.

It depends. Do we all agree on what the problematic parts are?

Do we all need to, or is there a consensus? In the last thread we had someone trying to pitch Lovecraft as not really racist before they got banned. Do we need to consult them on the matter?

At the end of the day, it will fall to side arguing and convincing. To me, it feels a bit like one side already thinks it has lost that.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Then... can't children play a RPG based in Lovecraft's myths?

Tiny Cthulhu - Gallant Knight Games | TinyD6 | DriveThruRPG.com

Tiny Cthulhu - Can You Withstand the Onslaught of Cosmic Horror? The classic TinyD6 minimalist ruleset delves into the unknowable and h

www.drivethrurpg.com

---

Fantastic Racism - TV Tropes

"Fantastic" as in "fantasy" or fictional, not as in "awesome", obviously. Now that we got that out of the way, Fantastic Racism is a subset of the old trick of dealing with thorny issues through metaphor. Instead of having The Hero encounter …

tvtropes.org

Final Solution - TV Tropes

If the enemy race is Always Chaotic Evil (as far as your side's viewpoint is concerned, at least) or you simply don't want to get trapped in a Cycle of Revenge, why not simply exterminate them all? Including the children especially the …

tvtropes.org

OK, DS is not family-friendly, but the morbid of the forbidden can cause teenages to be more interested.



---

Now I am thinking... if time travel in canon in DS, then Rajaat could be killed before he caused the cleasing war.

Or maybe there are two Athas, the original in the material plane, and the "copy" sent to a isolated demiplane created by Rajaat. This demiplane is next to the infernal planes. The Athasian deities allowe this to avoid the return or revival of the "Dark-God". Then the original Athas didn't suffered the cleasing war, but defiler magic has caused a lot of damage against the ecosystem. The "clone" world is placed by the gods to act like a cosmic firewall, a barrier between the Far-Realm and/or certain layer of an infernal plane. A poisoned gift. Now that demiplane is a prison for the Dark-God and the rest of the multiverse will be safer.

Other point if Athasian gods lost contact with the Athasians, but there is some way, for example through the Astral Sea, then they will recluit agents to Athas to search some way to recover it. Some times the souls born in Athas are reincarnations of sinners who accepted in the afterlife a "second opportunity" instead the ultimate fate in the infernal planes.

 

[Parmandur]

It depends. Do we all agree on what the problematic parts are?

Any part that makes a significant market segment uncomfortable is problematic for WotC, and that's not really just a matter of opinion: that's a cold, hard business factor that needs to be accounted for.

 

[Alzrius]

No, it's different and whining about how it isn't misses it.

No, it's the same and pretending otherwise undercuts your point that much more.

Yes, totally, minority players are asking me to validate their feelings of persecution and that's totally less valid than your own feelings of persecution. Totally.

False equivalence. My pointing out that someone else is claiming they're persecuted because one thousand other people want to pay for a game they don't like is not myself claiming persecution. So what you're saying here really doesn't hold water.

Can you point to the post? Because I suspect you can't.

You mean this post? The one where you literally say, "I'm referring to getting rid of bad tropes and such." Which, as I noted previously, is you offering no definition of bad and making no statement about "to me" or "in my opinion," and so can be genuinely read as you mistaking your opinion for an objective declaration.

It's literally trying to describe how a minority feels. I'm sorry that hurts you feelings, but that's what it is. Again, this whole thing lacks empathy for what it is to be a minority in the hobby.

It's literally one person saying that one thousand other people playing a game they don't like makes them feel persecuted. I'm sorry you can't accept that, but that doesn't change the facts. A declaration of "you're not welcoming me if you accept that other people are allowed to play a game I don't like," isn't a statement of empathy, and defending it isn't something which can be morally justified.

No one is being excluded, though. No one has been shunned, no one has been persecuted. We're talking about fiction. This is why this argument is so dumb: there's no risk for people like you being kicked out of the community. None. There is risk of minority players feeling uncomfortable about this stuff because we've literally had minority players remark on it.

You do realize that you just validated my argument, right? Someone can say "I'm not welcome in the hobby because one thousand other people are playing a game I don't like," and we can point out how that's not true, because no one is being excluded, no one is being persecuted. It's just that they feel like they are, and we don't need to validate that feeling. There's no risk that someone will be kicked out of the community because someone else wants to buy a Cthulhu game.

I didn't? Trying to address your points is not concern trolling. I didn't bring up the topic, you did.

You literally accused other people of saying that slavery isn't problematic, misrepresenting their position, which makes it hard to assign you any credibility in this regard.

There are literally people debating how problematic slavery is. That doesn't mean they think slavery is good.

Ah, no. They're debating how problematic slavery is in the context of an RPG. Leaving that aside, the way you did, makes it sound like they're wondering if maybe slavery is okay. It's a disingenuous misrepresentation of the issue, and you should know better.

lol

Dude, you took this entire thing off-topic to go to a post you misread so that it hurt your feelings. This is the most concern-trolling you could possible get.

Roflmao! Pal, you've gotten yourself so worked up that you misrepresented people in an effort to paint yourself as a moral figure. And you think you have standing to lecture other people on concern trolling?

You're really locked into a battle of words against yourself, man. I'm not presenting my arguments as yours, your arguments are just really bad. Maybe you should take a break.

You've undercut yourself again here, dude. You're once again literally misrepresenting your own bad arguments as mine, and then arguing against them. May I recommend that you take some time off from this thread to collect yourself?

 

[Justice and Rule]

No, it's the same and pretending otherwise undercuts your point that much more.

Saying it more doesn't make it true. Saying someone feeling unwelcome doesn't mean are saying they are being persecuted. It means they don't feel welcome. Persecution is something active, being made to feel unwelcome is not always as such. It can be a passive thing, which you clearly do not understand.

False equivalence. My pointing out that someone else is claiming they're persecuted because one thousand other people want to pay for a game they don't like is not myself claiming persecution. So what you're saying here really doesn't hold water.

No, it'd be reductio ad absurdum, but I think your view was basically already that so forgive me for indulging a bit.

And again, very funny that the idea of minorities feeling uncomfortable is being pitched as them feeling persecuted. Meanwhile, you and others are complaining about things like shaming and shunning.

You meanthis post? The one where you literally say, "I'm referring to getting rid of bad tropes and such." Which, as I noted previously, is you offering no definition of bad and making no statement about "to me" or "in my opinion," and so can be genuinely read as mistaking your opinion for an objective declaration.

Yes, that doesn't mean I'm putting myself as sole arbiter of things. Holy crap, how can you misinterpret something so badly?!

It's literally one person saying that one thousand other people playing a game they don't like makes them feel persecuted. I'm sorry you can't accept that, but that doesn't change the facts. A declaration of "you're not welcoming me if you accept that other people are allowed to play a game I don't like," isn't a statement of empathy, and defending it isn't something which can be morally justified.

Again, "unwelcome" is not "persecuted". One can be passive, the other is always active. There's a difference that you don't want to acknowledge because it basically makes all this argument meaningless.

You do realize that you just validated my argument, right? Someone can say "I'm not welcome in the hobby because one thousand other people are playing a game I don't like," and we can point out how that's not true, because no one is being excluded, no one is being persecuted. It's just that they feel like they are, and we don't need to validate that feeling. There's no risk that someone will be kicked out of the community because someone else wants to buy a Cthulhu game.

No, because I'm talking about no one being shunned for liking Dark Sun, no one being kicked out for liking something. That's different than being made to feel unwelcome and not belong, because, again, one is active and the other does not need to be.

You literally accused other people of saying that slavery isn't problematic, misrepresenting their position, which makes it hard to assign you any credibility in this regard.

I'm not misrepresenting their position.

I am out and not able to give a full reply but I have discussed both. I have talked about how slavery in Dark Sun isn’t a problem and why. But censorship and shaming came up, they are also relevant to the overall discussion , so I addressed them (importantly because there have been posters defending those kinds of tactics)

There you go! Easy as pie.

Ah, no. They're debating how problematic slavery is in the context of an RPG.

No s***, who said any differently? You're so trapped in word games that you can't recognize that I already am talking in the context of the thread. What else would I be talking about, movies?

Leaving that aside, the way you did, makes it sound like they're wondering if maybe slavery is okay. It's a disingenuous misrepresentation of the issue, and you should know better.

I didn't, but

Roflmao! Pal, you've gotten yourself so worked up that you misrepresented people in an effort to paint yourself as a moral figure. And you think you have standing to lecture other people on concern trolling?

At this point, I don't even know what you are even talking about. You're so concerned with trying to get me that you're basically making up points to try and tag me on. You should really leave it to the others.

You've undercut yourself again here, dude. You're once again literally misrepresenting your own bad arguments as mine, and then arguing against them. May I recommend that you take some time off from this thread to collect yourself?

I can't misrepresent my bad arguments as yours when those arguments are yours alone.

 

[MGibster]

Oh, man. You know a thread is in a good place when we start arguing about the argument.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Oh, man. You know a thread is in a good place when we start arguing about the argument.

10 pages until it gets closed, typically.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The absolute worst part of this thread is Dark Sun fans pretending they're being oppressed because WotC won't update the setting in 5e. I like Dark Sun. It's disappointing that the setting won't get updated to 5e. But no one is being repressed or excluded because of this decision. If you want to play Dark Sun, play a previous editions' version of the setting. That's what I'm going to do if my group wants to play it (albeit, altered a bit to fit my tastes and sensibilities).

You all are making a mountain out of a molehill. And a lot of you that grew up with older fantasy and sci-fi writings are either blind to the biases and problems in the media you grew up with, or absolutely refuse to try and see them. And, yes, society was more outright sexist and racist back then, so you also are more likely to have in-built biases and blindness to the problems than people that grew up experiencing or learning about the bigotry built into the media you grew up with.

If your first reaction the majority of the time someone says something is problematic is to argue against them and say that it isn't, and you actually care about engaging in good faith, you might want to ask yourself why you do that. Everyone has racist and sexist biases. That's an unfortunate part of existing in a post-colonialist, male-dominated world. And the more privilege you have experienced, the less likely you are to be aware/critical of your own biases.

So, yeah, some of you are racist and sexist. All of us are in some way. But some of us are trying to recognize this fact and change media so society and media becomes less bigoted in the future, and historically marginalized people feel more welcome in the hobby. And the rest of you are either complacent with the bigoted status quo, or want to preserve it because you benefit from it.

If you actually care about equity and justice for the marginalized, it's not enough to be not actively racist or sexist. You have to be anti-racist and anti-sexist, and take actions to rectify society's mistakes. And that involves making changes or abandoning past media that has problematic elements in them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Any part that makes a significant market segment uncomfortable is problematic for WotC, and that's not really just a matter of opinion: that's a cold, hard business factor that needs to be accounted for.

Bolded emphasis mine. How do we know this?

 

[AnotherGuy]

Edit: I mentioned this earlier but want to reiterate: Dark Suns was a money loser for TSR. It got as many books as it did because TSR was basically surviving through a book publishing scheme that allowed them to kick the financial can down the road until it they eventually collapsed into bankruptcy with warehouses full of unsold books from Dark Suns and other settings. So we are not talking about reviving a successful sub-franchise.

True. The counter would be that the market then is not the market that exists now.

 

[Scribe]

10 pages until it gets closed, typically.

5 at this rate, tops.

 

[Justice and Rule]

5 at this rate, tops.

But seriously, read that Red Sonja run. Gail Simone does excellent stuff.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Bolded emphasis mine. How do we know this?

Significant is very nebulous, but if your platform is high profile enough, it apparently doesn't matter how many or how few of you there are. And everybody has access to the high profile platform.

 

[Scribe]

But seriously, read that Red Sonja run. Gail Simone does excellent stuff.

Yeah I'll add it to the backlog. Trying to finish some of my own writing, games that need playing, the hobby wheel keeps turning.

And 40K 10th is coming soon...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I'll add it to the backlog. Trying to finish some of my own writing, games that need playing, the hobby wheel keeps turning.

And 40K 10th is coming soon...

View attachment 279862

Sometimes I miss 40K.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yeah I'll add it to the backlog. Trying to finish some of my own writing, games that need playing, the hobby wheel keeps turning.

And 40K 10th is coming soon...

View attachment 279862

God, I've been off the 40K train for like 10 years now. Now that I have money, I want to collect me some Blood Angels. Though their new Dante should have damn well had wings.

But as far as comic books go, I think you can speed through it pretty quickly. Then again, I really speedread well when it comes to comics and manga. But I just recommend Gail Simone to anyone I can because she's great.

 

[Alzrius]

Saying it more doesn't make it true. Saying someone feeling unwelcome doesn't mean are saying they are being persecuted. It means they don't feel welcome. Persecution is something active, being made to feel unwelcome is not always as such. It can be a passive thing, which you clearly do not understand.

Someone saying that "one thousand people buying a game I don't like makes me feel unwelcome in the entire hobby" is very clearly them feeling persecuted, and your denying it doesn't make that false. It's self-evident to anyone that a hobby with tens of millions, all playing distinct games, mostly in isolated groups, means that no single group, much less a fraction of a percent, can be used to indict the entire hobby. Anyone who does so is therefore claiming persecution, which you clearly don't understand.

No, it'd be reductio ad absurdum, but I think your view was basically already that so forgive me for indulging a bit.

And again, very funny that the idea of minorities feeling uncomfortable is being pitched as them feeling persecuted. Meanwhile, you and others are complaining about things like shaming and shunning.

It's not reductio ad absurdum, though it is absurd, since there's no attempt to show how an opposing claim is absurd; first you get concern trolling wrong and now this. The statement in question was very clearly one of a sincere belief, and so can be indicted on its lack of merits. Meanwhile, you and others are complaining about other people claiming persecution while ignoring people who are actually claiming that.

Yes, that doesn't mean I'm putting myself as sole arbiter of things. Holy crap, how can you misinterpret something so badly?!

Except, as I quoted above, you very clearly did just that. lol! So are you claiming to have been in error, or are you just ceding the entire argument now? Because those are really your only choices at this point.

Again, "unwelcome" is not "persecuted". One can be passive, the other is always active. There's a difference that you don't want to acknowledge because it basically makes all this argument meaningless.

Again, saying that "one thousand people are paying for a CoC game" means "I'm not welcome in this hobby" is very clearly a statement of persecution. In fact, it's the most clear statement to that effect in this entire thread. That's a truism that you can't seem to acknowledge because it'd mean admitting that you're arguing against that which you claim to want to champion. So which is it?

No, because I'm talking about no one being shunned for liking Dark Sun, no one being kicked out for liking something. That's different than being made to feel unwelcome and not belong, because, again, one is active and the other does not need to be.

Again, distinction without a difference. If one thousand people out of a hobby of tens of millions are playing a single game (out of thousands or even tens of thousands), and that alone is enough to make someone feel that the entire hobby is unwelcome, you can't really say that's not persecution. But I have no doubt you'll continue to do so, despite how wrong that self-evidently is.

I'm not misrepresenting their position.

Yes, you are. No one is saying that slavery isn't problematic; they're saying it's not problematic in the context of Dark Sun and certain other fantasy games. Stop acting like you're arguing against people who want to go back to plantations.

There you go! Easy as pie.

Kudos to you for admitting that you misrepresented them by not including the "in Dark Sun" part. You're making progress!

No s***, who said any differently?

That would be you. Here, I'll quote your post: "Instead of discussing slavery in Dark Suns they are talking about shunning and persecution of RPGers who don't agree with the idea that slavery is problematic."

And that's the mic-drop moment. You present the people who disagree with you as disagreeing with the idea that slavery is problematic, not only eschewing the RPG context but deliberately so. Talk about disingenuous!

You're so trapped in word games that you can't recognize that I already am talking in the context of the thread. What else would I be talking about, movies?

Except, of course, your own post proves that you were deliberately painting the people who disagreed with you as thinking that slavery [no mention of the context of an RPG] is problematic.

I didn't, but

You did, so just

At this point, I don't even know what you are even talking about. You're so concerned with trying to get me that you're basically making up points to try and tag me on. You should really leave it to the others.

Aaand we're back to you presenting your "points" as mine. I suppose that's not surprising, since it's all you can do. At this point, I'm just waiting for you to remember that you were "done" several posts ago. Or are you going to say how that's also a misrepresentation of what you "really" meant? lol!

I can't misrepresent my bad arguments as yours when those arguments are yours alone.

Which of course is itself a misrepresentation, so at least you're consistent.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The absolute worst part of this thread is Dark Sun fans pretending they're being oppressed because WotC won't update the setting in 5e.

Please don't do this reductionist nonsense. It feels great emotionally, I'm sure, but restricts the rest of your post to entertainment for an echo chamber.

 

[Micah Sweet]

God, I've been off the 40K train for like 10 years now. Now that I have money, I want to collect me some Blood Angels. Though their new Dante should have damn well had wings.

But as far as comic books go, I think you can speed through it pretty quickly. Then again, I really speedread well when it comes to comics and manga. But I just recommend Gail Simone to anyone I can because she's great.

I wonder how you feel about 40K. Awful lot of problematic tropes there...