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.

 

[humble minion]

4e Dark Sun was amazing in its own right and arguably better.

It did not have art by Brom.

It would have been better if it DID have art from Brom though!

(The blandly generic-lizardy look that the 4e Dark Sun art gave to inixes and mekillots in place of their iconic and distinctive 2e appearance was one of the few things that really annoyed me about that book)

 

[James Gasik]

I'll accept DiTerlizzi Dark Sun art.

 

[Dragonhelm]

What happened with Dreamscarred Press? They published the Ultimate Psionic for Pathfinder, and they had got some good ideas for Starfinder. I am afraid something has happened because they are no news about them in the last years. Maybe WotC could hire them as outsiders.

Dreamscarred Press last updated their Facebook page in 2019. It appears that their website's last blog post was 2015.

They were the undisputed kings of third party psionic content in the day. This was based on the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Their crowning achievement was Ultimate Psionics, their psionic sourcebook for Pathfinder 1st edition.

I wonder if they had logistics issues, or didn't feel like going on with D&D 5e and PF 2e out, or if it's something else. I'd love to see them do a psionics book for 5e.

Edit: I just realized that I don't think they ever finished their Starfinder psionics book.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I feat the worst for the publisher Dreamscarred Press.

I read Brom didn't want to work more with TSR because always it was only Dark Sun.

If Paramount CEOs believed they could make money with Dark Sun merchandising, you could bet WotC had got to relaunch.

The "crunch" can be updated, but even if a sourcebook was published and it was unlocked in DMGuild, the metaplot would keep "frozen". I see the most possible action is a sourcebook style "Sandstorm" mixing elements from different sources.

Other option could be to start from zero a new franchise with a tribal-punk style. Here the risk would be the possible complains about cultural appropiation. The adventage would be total creative freedom to add all the elements you wanted.

* How would be the social, technologic and cultural impact in the Athaspace and nearest wildspaces when halflings created the lifeshifter technology?

How would be the impact of the Brown Tide in the Feywild and the Shadowfell?

* What if Athas suffered again the Abyssal Plague?

What if the Brown Tide wasn't really an accident, but a sabotage within a conspirancy against "Patriarch Ocean" by the rest of Athasian deities?

What if the new species appeared in the Green Age because lifeshaper technology invented an effect like "reincarnation" spell?

What if the souls of the Athasian sentient beings are reincarnated into a different world? They could start from zero recreating their previous culture, and maybe searching a way to return to the original Athas, even knowing they wouldn't be wellcome at all.

 

[DorkForge]

I think realistically if they go down the Darksun route there will be a taster product most likely. We didn't get Eberron until they sold an entire book as a test bed, then resold that book again as a finished product with some bolt ons.
When they feel more confident releasing a Dark Sun 'Wayfarers Guide' would be a cheap option for them, letting them reuse old art. They've already published some aspects they'd need for it, like the Thri-kreen.

 

[jagrhunter]

No one wants to acknowledge slavery exists/exsisted except as benefits a certain demographic. People would rather put thier heads into the sand and ignore it exsisted and in some places still exsists. However, you can worship a world destroying evil being and have no ramifications. Go fig.

 

[Laurefindel]

4e Dark Sun was amazing in its own right and arguably better.

It did not have art by Brom.

I love di’Terlizzi and there cannot be a planescape that I’d like without his artistic signature, but the di’Terlizzi-like modrons in the MM would satisfy me.

I think a few pieces from Brom (even if it’s reused) and art by other artists creating pieces in his style would be ok by me.

There’s a line between copying an artist’s style and creating your own in the same artistic direction, but it’s been done respectfully before and it can be done again.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Now I am thinking maybe there is some marketing reason. Its artistic style is very, very, very special. This means if DS was adapted to a Hollywood production or a videogame, the artistic designers should spend a lot of time working. Then here Hasbro could await the artistic design to be created by the staff from the studio than doing it themself.

Let's remember the radical change of look of the transformers in the first action-live movie.

If Paramount wanted to produce an animated miniserie for the streaming service, the canon and the continuity could suffer serious changes, for example most of characters would show no-Caucasian traits. (It is a zone with a very hot weather, then the darker skin is logical). And the Pentad Prims could be retold radically.

Or cosmology of the Athaspace could be rewritten to explain the reasons because a group of fugitive slaves could survive in a wild zone avoiding the raids by slave-hunters.

 

[Laurefindel]

Now I am thinking maybe there is some marketing reason. Its artistic style is very, very, very special. This means if DS was adapted to a Hollywood production or a videogame, the artistic designers should spend a lot of time working. Then here Hasbro could await the artistic design to be created by the staff from the studio than doing it themself.

Let's remember the radical change of look of the transformers in the first action-live movie.

If Paramount wanted to produce an animated miniserie for the streaming service, the canon and the continuity could suffer serious changes, for example most of characters would show no-Caucasian traits. (It is a zone with a very hot weather, then the darker skin is logical). And the Pentad Prims could be retold radically.

Or cosmology of the Athaspace could be rewritten to explain the reasons because a group of fugitive slaves could survive in a wild zone avoiding the raids by slave-hunters.

I think, on the contrary, if DS ever was to be made into other media, it would be Brom’s art or artistic direction that would sell the setting to producers. Otherwise it’s just another barbarian flic.

 

[James Gasik]

I don't think that it's impossible for another artist to tackle Dark Sun. Brom's work is very good, but the idea that only they could capture the vision of the setting is just nostalgia talking.

Now would WotC go out of their way to get the right artists for the job? Ehhh...

This does open up a fascinating side discussion though, about how different fantasy worlds would be if drawn in another artists style. Just thinking about Dragonlance without Elmore, or classic pulp fantasy without Frazetta. Or weird super science without Kirby.