Hello. As the title says, what happened to the setting? I would love to know. It was one of my favorite settings. It seems to be the only setting I can think of that didn't make it past 2E. I didn't see any material for it in 3 or 3.5. Would love to get my hands on the material or maybe revive it. Thank you for your time in advance.
Not sure what other editions it was available, but the consensus I’ve heard (and it was a favorite setting of mine as well) is that it was too problematic in this day and age. And too much would have to be changed to keep from causing another issue or backlash for WotC. Either way it would change too much and offend fans of the original or not far enough and offend others.
I wouldn't count on seeing it any time soon for 5e, as the setting is pretty problematic. The slavery and genocide and forced breeding are all kinds of squicky. Publishing it would just generate a lot of negative attention, and WotC is averse to that kind of focus
It got a campaign setting book for 4E. But it hasn't and won't get ported over to 5E just because it's a low magic setting and 5E is very high magic and hasn't really done much with psyonics, which was a core part of Dark Sun.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, the whole deal with Arcane magic damaging the land is a major hurdle on its own since that takes 1/3 of the classes out of play or at least severely handicaps them, and it’s a bit too much of an aggressively transgressive and edgy dystopian premise to fit with their model. They want to keep their core products marketable to teens, but Dark Sun is more in the M/R rating area. Which of course would only make it more attractive to a lot of teens, but would hurt the brand image overall.
Hello. As the title says, what happened to the setting? I would love to know. It was one of my favorite settings. It seems to be the only setting I can think of that didn't make it past 2E. I didn't see any material for it in 3 or 3.5. Would love to get my hands on the material or maybe revive it. Thank you for your time in advance.
There were 3.5 updates, and a 4.0 book, the current team at WotC however is unable to deal with the Dark storyline that is on Arthas. As they refuse to deal with many taboo words that are interictal to the nature of Dark Sun. And if they did make a new book they would remove all those Taboos, as such I feel it would diminish what makes that setting unique.
At the same time, it would be very easy to port the Dark Sun setting to 5e/5.5 and I would love for a blurb in the new DMG with a few pointers how to do this, without having to go into the setting itself.
The feel of dark sun doesn't really fit with 5th ed. Its not the problematic issues like Mules which could be cleaned up. Its more that the system recommended you make 2 characters right away (at level 3), because at least character should die in the first game.
5th ed is very much the story of how your character wins. Dark Sun was supposed to be the most deadly setting possible. Expecting character death practically every game just goes against how 5th ed is meant to be played. 5th ed is designed to make it hard to kill players.
The feel of dark sun doesn't really fit with 5th ed. Its not the problematic issues like Mules which could be cleaned up. Its more that the system recommended you make 2 characters right away (at level 3), because at least character should die in the first game.
5th ed is very much the story of how your character wins. Dark Sun was supposed to be the most deadly setting possible. Expecting character death practically every game just goes against how 5th ed is meant to be played. 5th ed is designed to make it hard to kill players.
While that does provide a solution for PC death, and thus allows the DM fairly free reign about using excessive force, there's no DM advice saying "kill the PCs regularly".
It is not only about the lore. For the current standars the Athasian tablelands are practically a straightjacket about the number of PC species and classes to be used. Could a "monk" to fight as gladiator in the arenas? Should be banned the psionic ardents and the dromites, xephs, maenads, elans..? What if a player asked to play a totemist shaman, a class from "Magic of Incarnum"? Could a templar to be a "crusader", a martial adept class? Could a psi-artificer PC be allowed? or a psiforged, a warforged created by means of psionic powers.
And today there is no ultimate choice about the return of psionic powers, an important key in the setting.
I wouldn't reject the idea of a future Dark Sun videogame, more focused into survival, because we know Baldurs Gate 3 is not for children.
Other option could be start from zero with a spiritual succesor, and this should allow freedom to add new crunch from older editions.
And also WotC should choose about the design of the rest of the wildspace.
Hello. As the title says, what happened to the setting? I would love to know. It was one of my favorite settings. It seems to be the only setting I can think of that didn't make it past 2E. I didn't see any material for it in 3 or 3.5. Would love to get my hands on the material or maybe revive it. Thank you for your time in advance.
It is an awesome setting. If you have the materials, you can do one of two things:
1. Uou can play an older edition, that totally supports that setting.(what I would recommend)
2. If your table has its collective heart on playing the new edition, you can spend time and energy porting Dark Sun over, but you will have to be draconian in what you cut out of the new mechanics to make it work.
5th ed is very much the story of how your character wins. Dark Sun was supposed to be the most deadly setting possible. Expecting character death practically every game just goes against how 5th ed is meant to be played. 5th ed is designed to make it hard to kill players.
I take it you've never played Tomb of Annihilation.
So, imma be myself and say my usual contrary stuff...
First, porting Dark Sun to 5e is fairly easy and straightforward, and could be done without the "problematic" aspects by simply shifting a few elements around.
As someone noted, DS is not going to be a place where "every class and every race" are going to be available. I would expect them to expand on the number slightly -- perhaps add three species or so to the basis of Athas -- but the real key becomes in regards magic. THere, they would have to do specialized subclasses particular to the world and setting, and it would not be a significant majority of what is present at this time.
I know it could be done fairly easily because I've done it, and anyone who's known me for longer than a few weeks will be aware I am one of those people who does stuff like make sure things work for minority populations, etc.
The real issue with Athas isn't the "problematic" or "limited" stuff -- it is that over the last decade, the majority of new folks have come to the game thinking and believing that there is only one D&D word, and then a few minor little things that are only different in flavor, and flavor is free, and besides, they are just the same thing because you can use all the species and classes. Also, that 5e is a combat game, only good for a narrow range of genre.
This is false, of course, but woe be to those who dare remind folks that D&D has always been used in multiple specialized settings, and that the classes and species are not what defines the game, nor is the narrow genre they like to focus on.
But most of them don't know any better and follow the lead of influencers who don't know any better, and so you end up with people who have no clue that D&D has done Space Fantasy, Gothic Gaslamp (1890's) Fantasy, Wild West Fantasy, low magic fantasy (Hyborian Age, specifically), and a few dozen more (many with completely original classes and species that are unique to those worlds and settings).
So, there is actually a problem creating a market for it, and also there's the whole "art style" thing for it -- Brom is unlikely to return, and the DS has a very peculiar style. WHile one might think it would appeal to the gritty realism rule users, the truth is, they just want to use a standard generic "any species, any class" world as well.
Do I thin it likely? Eh, call it 50/50. I suspect there is going to be a shift overall in product mix, and that there may be a chance for it. Do I think it will prove even half as popular as it was when it came out? No.
If you ask folks today to create a Wu-Jen or Shukenja, they will suggest all manner of things that could never be used to make the class, because they don't understand how different those two things are in their function and structure from any of the classes. Yet these were classes in D&D. You will be told "flavor" and "pretend" and use one of the existing archetypes, without bothering to realize that the existing archetypes do not have one that combines both aspects into a single blended set that is necessary in order to do the class.
In the same way, they will be hard pressed to navigate and understand DS, which has a much, much greater emphasis on Survival and role playing than they would be prepared for. It has unique qualities to it, and they don't like unique, they like generic.
Not that it couldn't be sold to them, mind you -- marketing is the art of selling people a reason to need something, after all. But that is a difficult task to achieve. And to achieve it here would require them to sell D&D to a bunch of folks who are having a hard time letting go as something other than "just a game about combat because it came out of wargaming".
As for the sidebar about 5e not being lethal, that's almost s hilarious as saying that it is harder to kill someone in 5e than 1e.
In 1e, you lost 1 hp per round. Per minute, in AD&D terms. you had to reach -10 before you died. No rolling. You just slowly bleed out while unconscious.
in 5e, two bad rolls and you are dead. Maybe three. And that's without massive damage rules -- which 1e didn't have. Long before that 10 minutes. Hell, yo have to make a save every six seconds -- you'll be lucky to make it a minute (10 rounds in 5e).
But, I'm an old and cranky lady, so whatever.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
5e is dangerous in T1. After that, it's unlucky for a party to get someone knocked down without it being obvious that the DM is out to defeat them (rather than dice). The number of times that I've had to modify a combat encounter from official adventures to make it an actual challenge...well, it's most of them.
As for Death Saves, they favour the player, if there is not intervention. You have to be unlucky to die (although it doesn't take much unluckiness, admittedly). On each roll, you get 50% chance of a simple success, 40% chance of it being a simple failure, 5% chance of a crit failure which nets you two failures, and a 5% chance of a crit success that is not only the equivalent of three successes (further tilting the odds in your favour), but gives you 1HP and restoring you to consciousness.
Off the top of my head, that roughly works out to be around 60/40 in favour of the player. That's without the fact that the Party has a little under three rounds (so around 13 turns) to cast a healing spell or otherwise stabilise them and they're pretty much safe.
There is the massive damage aspect, it's true. However, even a CR30 Tarrasque would have to get lucky to use that to kill a Wizard that was already at 1HP past L9, while being intended for L20 parties (Tarrasque gets 36 average damage on its most powerful attack, a L9 +0Con Wiz gets (8×4)+6=38 Max HP). At lower levels, yes, the game can be quite dangerous, but after T1, maybe T2, death stops becoming a major threat in 5e - unless the DM makes a point of killing them, at which point, that's about the DM rather than the game.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
The psionic powers are't ready yet, and this may be the main obstacle.
It has got a very unique visual style, and this is a great enticement but this is not so easy to be imitated.
The irony is DS could be very interesting for teenages precisely because it seems a thing for "older" players.
The crunch part can be updated relatively easy.
I wonder if the true fear is to unlock DS in DMGuild, and then 3PPs to create a D&D version of "world of Gor" (a fantasy saga for adults, like mixing Conan the barbarian and 50 gray shadows).
A comic miniserie was published, but I don't remember the sales were so good.
Other point is the importance of the metaplot and the canon of the novels. This means no sorcerer-king could be killed by the PCs because it has to happen like the books. It is the same handicap than Dragonlance setting. We need space for "spin-off" groups.
If the books are going to be continued, the fandom community wouldn't like the loved heroes from the previous novels suffered some bad fate.
Any suggestion? Mine is there was some cosmic conflict between Vecna and Tharizdun, the elder elemental eye, and the world of Athas was chosen as battlefield because the risk of collateral damage was lower and Vecna hates to attrack attention when he is too busy with his wicked machinations. And as if it was not enough, the Athaspace had been chosen as secret lair of an order or rogue chronomancers who face a group of time dragons. In the end the Athaspace suffered an event like the Sundering in Forgotten Realms. Now the Athaspace is working like a cosmic firewall to stop some planar taint spread about the rest of the D&D multiverse.
This has caused the Athansian Tablelands we know are within a demiplane, like a dark domain, and this demiplane is within the Athaspace that has suffered some radical changes linked to next wildspaces.
Maybe WotC has to choose if the Athaspace will be redesigned to allow "spin-off" focused into alternate classes: incarnum, martial adepts, vestige binders..
Dark Sun is pretty dark. It's bread and butter is racism, slavery, genocide, climate destruction, and an entirely unwholesome brand of magic. I'd have to say ... it's just not coming back. I'd wager there's been a meeting among ranking officials somewhere, where they had long discussion about making a desert setting sorta like Dark Sun, but without all the dark. It's my profound hope they didn't decide to make some lily-flavored version of it, but just tossed it all on the fire.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Wizbro can barely push the peas around in the mess that is on their plate right now and that isn't gonna change anytime soon, so bringing back a setting as controversial as DS is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.
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CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I think one of the bigger issues with Dark Sun is the resource tracking. Equipment is fragile and weapons and armor break fairly frequently. But food and water is the bigger deal. In 5e, yes, technically you can track rations, but I’ve gotten a sense that few groups do so. And if you don’t track food and water and just assume you have enough, you’ve really taken out one of the big factors that gives the setting its feel. The concept of always being on the verge of starving is an huge part. And along with tracking food and water, you need to track encumbrance. You need to be forced to make decisions about if you should try and carry some loot back from the place you raided or water, because you can’t do both.
That kind of bookkeeping, while certainly possible, really is a drastic shift from current 5e, where it basically says you can carry whatever you need, and only worry about it in exceptional circumstances. I think that, and as others have said, banning a huge number of classes and subclasses, which leads to a complete lack of magical healing, is what makes it hard. The social issues, are way more easily fixable than the practical ones — lore changes just require some new lore, but new mechanics are very tricky.
Hello. As the title says, what happened to the setting? I would love to know. It was one of my favorite settings. It seems to be the only setting I can think of that didn't make it past 2E. I didn't see any material for it in 3 or 3.5. Would love to get my hands on the material or maybe revive it. Thank you for your time in advance.
Even the smallest things can have big impacts
Not sure what other editions it was available, but the consensus I’ve heard (and it was a favorite setting of mine as well) is that it was too problematic in this day and age. And too much would have to be changed to keep from causing another issue or backlash for WotC. Either way it would change too much and offend fans of the original or not far enough and offend others.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
There was a 4e version with a player's/ world guide and a monster book plus an adventure. And it was revisited in Dragon magazine for 3e.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/129293/Dark-Sun-Campaign-Setting-4e?affiliate_id=369234
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/133464/Dark-Sun-Creature-Catalog-4e?affiliate_id=369234
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/120836/Dark-Sun-Fury-of-the-Wastewalker-4e?affiliate_id=369234
I wouldn't count on seeing it any time soon for 5e, as the setting is pretty problematic. The slavery and genocide and forced breeding are all kinds of squicky. Publishing it would just generate a lot of negative attention, and WotC is averse to that kind of focus
It got a campaign setting book for 4E. But it hasn't and won't get ported over to 5E just because it's a low magic setting and 5E is very high magic and hasn't really done much with psyonics, which was a core part of Dark Sun.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, the whole deal with Arcane magic damaging the land is a major hurdle on its own since that takes 1/3 of the classes out of play or at least severely handicaps them, and it’s a bit too much of an aggressively transgressive and edgy dystopian premise to fit with their model. They want to keep their core products marketable to teens, but Dark Sun is more in the M/R rating area. Which of course would only make it more attractive to a lot of teens, but would hurt the brand image overall.
There were 3.5 updates, and a 4.0 book, the current team at WotC however is unable to deal with the Dark storyline that is on Arthas. As they refuse to deal with many taboo words that are interictal to the nature of Dark Sun. And if they did make a new book they would remove all those Taboos, as such I feel it would diminish what makes that setting unique.
At the same time, it would be very easy to port the Dark Sun setting to 5e/5.5 and I would love for a blurb in the new DMG with a few pointers how to do this, without having to go into the setting itself.
The feel of dark sun doesn't really fit with 5th ed. Its not the problematic issues like Mules which could be cleaned up. Its more that the system recommended you make 2 characters right away (at level 3), because at least character should die in the first game.
5th ed is very much the story of how your character wins. Dark Sun was supposed to be the most deadly setting possible. Expecting character death practically every game just goes against how 5th ed is meant to be played. 5th ed is designed to make it hard to kill players.
that would be true, if that wasn't exactly how they want you to do Planescape. See: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/paitm/tofw/beginning-of-the-end#GlitchCharacters
While that does provide a solution for PC death, and thus allows the DM fairly free reign about using excessive force, there's no DM advice saying "kill the PCs regularly".
It is not only about the lore. For the current standars the Athasian tablelands are practically a straightjacket about the number of PC species and classes to be used. Could a "monk" to fight as gladiator in the arenas? Should be banned the psionic ardents and the dromites, xephs, maenads, elans..? What if a player asked to play a totemist shaman, a class from "Magic of Incarnum"? Could a templar to be a "crusader", a martial adept class? Could a psi-artificer PC be allowed? or a psiforged, a warforged created by means of psionic powers.
And today there is no ultimate choice about the return of psionic powers, an important key in the setting.
I wouldn't reject the idea of a future Dark Sun videogame, more focused into survival, because we know Baldurs Gate 3 is not for children.
Other option could be start from zero with a spiritual succesor, and this should allow freedom to add new crunch from older editions.
And also WotC should choose about the design of the rest of the wildspace.
It is an awesome setting. If you have the materials, you can do one of two things:
1. Uou can play an older edition, that totally supports that setting.(what I would recommend)
2. If your table has its collective heart on playing the new edition, you can spend time and energy porting Dark Sun over, but you will have to be draconian in what you cut out of the new mechanics to make it work.
I take it you've never played Tomb of Annihilation.
So, imma be myself and say my usual contrary stuff...
First, porting Dark Sun to 5e is fairly easy and straightforward, and could be done without the "problematic" aspects by simply shifting a few elements around.
As someone noted, DS is not going to be a place where "every class and every race" are going to be available. I would expect them to expand on the number slightly -- perhaps add three species or so to the basis of Athas -- but the real key becomes in regards magic. THere, they would have to do specialized subclasses particular to the world and setting, and it would not be a significant majority of what is present at this time.
I know it could be done fairly easily because I've done it, and anyone who's known me for longer than a few weeks will be aware I am one of those people who does stuff like make sure things work for minority populations, etc.
The real issue with Athas isn't the "problematic" or "limited" stuff -- it is that over the last decade, the majority of new folks have come to the game thinking and believing that there is only one D&D word, and then a few minor little things that are only different in flavor, and flavor is free, and besides, they are just the same thing because you can use all the species and classes. Also, that 5e is a combat game, only good for a narrow range of genre.
This is false, of course, but woe be to those who dare remind folks that D&D has always been used in multiple specialized settings, and that the classes and species are not what defines the game, nor is the narrow genre they like to focus on.
But most of them don't know any better and follow the lead of influencers who don't know any better, and so you end up with people who have no clue that D&D has done Space Fantasy, Gothic Gaslamp (1890's) Fantasy, Wild West Fantasy, low magic fantasy (Hyborian Age, specifically), and a few dozen more (many with completely original classes and species that are unique to those worlds and settings).
So, there is actually a problem creating a market for it, and also there's the whole "art style" thing for it -- Brom is unlikely to return, and the DS has a very peculiar style. WHile one might think it would appeal to the gritty realism rule users, the truth is, they just want to use a standard generic "any species, any class" world as well.
Do I thin it likely? Eh, call it 50/50. I suspect there is going to be a shift overall in product mix, and that there may be a chance for it. Do I think it will prove even half as popular as it was when it came out? No.
If you ask folks today to create a Wu-Jen or Shukenja, they will suggest all manner of things that could never be used to make the class, because they don't understand how different those two things are in their function and structure from any of the classes. Yet these were classes in D&D. You will be told "flavor" and "pretend" and use one of the existing archetypes, without bothering to realize that the existing archetypes do not have one that combines both aspects into a single blended set that is necessary in order to do the class.
In the same way, they will be hard pressed to navigate and understand DS, which has a much, much greater emphasis on Survival and role playing than they would be prepared for. It has unique qualities to it, and they don't like unique, they like generic.
Not that it couldn't be sold to them, mind you -- marketing is the art of selling people a reason to need something, after all. But that is a difficult task to achieve. And to achieve it here would require them to sell D&D to a bunch of folks who are having a hard time letting go as something other than "just a game about combat because it came out of wargaming".
As for the sidebar about 5e not being lethal, that's almost s hilarious as saying that it is harder to kill someone in 5e than 1e.
In 1e, you lost 1 hp per round. Per minute, in AD&D terms. you had to reach -10 before you died. No rolling. You just slowly bleed out while unconscious.
in 5e, two bad rolls and you are dead. Maybe three. And that's without massive damage rules -- which 1e didn't have. Long before that 10 minutes. Hell, yo have to make a save every six seconds -- you'll be lucky to make it a minute (10 rounds in 5e).
But, I'm an old and cranky lady, so whatever.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
5e is dangerous in T1. After that, it's unlucky for a party to get someone knocked down without it being obvious that the DM is out to defeat them (rather than dice). The number of times that I've had to modify a combat encounter from official adventures to make it an actual challenge...well, it's most of them.
As for Death Saves, they favour the player, if there is not intervention. You have to be unlucky to die (although it doesn't take much unluckiness, admittedly). On each roll, you get 50% chance of a simple success, 40% chance of it being a simple failure, 5% chance of a crit failure which nets you two failures, and a 5% chance of a crit success that is not only the equivalent of three successes (further tilting the odds in your favour), but gives you 1HP and restoring you to consciousness.
Off the top of my head, that roughly works out to be around 60/40 in favour of the player. That's without the fact that the Party has a little under three rounds (so around 13 turns) to cast a healing spell or otherwise stabilise them and they're pretty much safe.
There is the massive damage aspect, it's true. However, even a CR30 Tarrasque would have to get lucky to use that to kill a Wizard that was already at 1HP past L9, while being intended for L20 parties (Tarrasque gets 36 average damage on its most powerful attack, a L9 +0Con Wiz gets (8×4)+6=38 Max HP). At lower levels, yes, the game can be quite dangerous, but after T1, maybe T2, death stops becoming a major threat in 5e - unless the DM makes a point of killing them, at which point, that's about the DM rather than the game.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nothing. Go ahead and use it for your campaign. You will have to convert it to 5e yourself, but that's pretty easy.
Have fun in that setting! Let me know how it goes... If you want. I'm curious to see what modern 5e players think of it.
The psionic powers are't ready yet, and this may be the main obstacle.
It has got a very unique visual style, and this is a great enticement but this is not so easy to be imitated.
The irony is DS could be very interesting for teenages precisely because it seems a thing for "older" players.
The crunch part can be updated relatively easy.
I wonder if the true fear is to unlock DS in DMGuild, and then 3PPs to create a D&D version of "world of Gor" (a fantasy saga for adults, like mixing Conan the barbarian and 50 gray shadows).
A comic miniserie was published, but I don't remember the sales were so good.
Other point is the importance of the metaplot and the canon of the novels. This means no sorcerer-king could be killed by the PCs because it has to happen like the books. It is the same handicap than Dragonlance setting. We need space for "spin-off" groups.
If the books are going to be continued, the fandom community wouldn't like the loved heroes from the previous novels suffered some bad fate.
Any suggestion? Mine is there was some cosmic conflict between Vecna and Tharizdun, the elder elemental eye, and the world of Athas was chosen as battlefield because the risk of collateral damage was lower and Vecna hates to attrack attention when he is too busy with his wicked machinations. And as if it was not enough, the Athaspace had been chosen as secret lair of an order or rogue chronomancers who face a group of time dragons. In the end the Athaspace suffered an event like the Sundering in Forgotten Realms. Now the Athaspace is working like a cosmic firewall to stop some planar taint spread about the rest of the D&D multiverse.
This has caused the Athansian Tablelands we know are within a demiplane, like a dark domain, and this demiplane is within the Athaspace that has suffered some radical changes linked to next wildspaces.
Maybe WotC has to choose if the Athaspace will be redesigned to allow "spin-off" focused into alternate classes: incarnum, martial adepts, vestige binders..
Dark Sun is pretty dark. It's bread and butter is racism, slavery, genocide, climate destruction, and an entirely unwholesome brand of magic. I'd have to say ... it's just not coming back. I'd wager there's been a meeting among ranking officials somewhere, where they had long discussion about making a desert setting sorta like Dark Sun, but without all the dark. It's my profound hope they didn't decide to make some lily-flavored version of it, but just tossed it all on the fire.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Wizbro can barely push the peas around in the mess that is on their plate right now and that isn't gonna change anytime soon, so bringing back a setting as controversial as DS is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I think one of the bigger issues with Dark Sun is the resource tracking. Equipment is fragile and weapons and armor break fairly frequently. But food and water is the bigger deal. In 5e, yes, technically you can track rations, but I’ve gotten a sense that few groups do so. And if you don’t track food and water and just assume you have enough, you’ve really taken out one of the big factors that gives the setting its feel. The concept of always being on the verge of starving is an huge part.
And along with tracking food and water, you need to track encumbrance. You need to be forced to make decisions about if you should try and carry some loot back from the place you raided or water, because you can’t do both.
That kind of bookkeeping, while certainly possible, really is a drastic shift from current 5e, where it basically says you can carry whatever you need, and only worry about it in exceptional circumstances.
I think that, and as others have said, banning a huge number of classes and subclasses, which leads to a complete lack of magical healing, is what makes it hard. The social issues, are way more easily fixable than the practical ones — lore changes just require some new lore, but new mechanics are very tricky.
Unpopular opinion: let the past die. Kill it if you have to.
Dark Sun was fun, but resources spent on a DS reboot would be at the expense of something new and potentially better.