I'm kind of annoyed with the way Wizards of the Coast has treated Dark Sun

Honestly, I can go for some hopecore/hopepunk. Does seem a lot more interesting than just everything sucks so you have to fold into what the world wants/says.

My biggest issue is more that the Dark Sun setting seems to be completely forgotten. I always had fondness for the setting myself, but it seemed like a flash in the pan type of deal.

Quote from BalefulBeanie >>

My biggest issue is more that the Dark Sun settings is that it seems to be completely forgotten. I always had fondness for the setting myself, but it seemed like a flash in the pan type of deal.

That's usually how it goes with something that breaks so far from the main dynamics. Setting aside the myriad dystopian social issues the setting entailed, there's still punishing wizard builds, outright nixing clerics and paladins, and scrapping metal weapons and armor in favor of far inferior improvised ones. Makes for an interesting and engaging change of pace for some, but for a lot of others it's just "D&D with some of the fun stuff removed and new hard stuff added". Doesn't really lend itself to mass market appeal, which is D&D's bread and butter.

I recall it selling pretty well when it was released. It wasn't exactly unpopular or niche. I also recall that it was stated that  the darker themes that were present in the world that got in the way of any sort of reintroduction. 

If it aint your thing it aint, that's fine, but I'm pretty confident if it were picked up again, it'd be pretty popular. It's a pretty compelling world. 

Some of the themes in there are politically toxic in today's environment.  WOTC isn't going to touch something with slavery for example, with a 10 foot pole.  I don't see anything resembling the original darksun to fly.

Don't the drow have slaves still or was it retconned or something?

The presence of slavery somewhere in the setting isn’t a breaking point, provided it’s clearly categorized as as an antagonist/villain flag. Which could be an issue for Dark Sun, as it seems likely the setting would make it more normalized to play into the grimdark post-apocalypse vibe.

I think maybe the Dark Sun setting's failure to thrive was not so much a result of the content of that setting, but of the time in which it was presented. Dark Sun was first introduced in 1991, when TSR was in the middle of a transition from AD&D to AD&D 2nd Edition. The new edition was an attempt to clean up the image of the game, which a drastic reduction in the use of demonic or sexually suggestive artwork and narrative. But those are the very themes that the Dark Sun setting would thrive upon. The 90's also experienced D&D's first lull in business. The game had grown swiftly in the 70's, exploded in the 80's, but by the 90's it was starting to settle in to a pace. It was still growing, but not at the explosive rates of earlier years. So the company saw revenue leveling out, while still trying to increase output. Something had to give. And that's when the legal battles between several of the founders began, then the bankruptcy scare and the buyout by WotC. And the copyright battles continued even after 3rd edition and 3.5 came out. So the new company made the wise business decision to focus their efforts on only those game properties that could most reasonably be expected to guarantee a return on their investment, and sadly the Dark Sun setting was not that. 

Dark Sun is a niche within a niche. I loved it. I still love it. But I harbor no illusions that WotC or now Hasbro will ever dare to invest in it further. So instead, I've been working on developing my own homebrew version to stick into a remote part of my own campaign world. It's "D&D meets Mad Max". I think that's the most sensible path forward for now.

The finger on the monkeys' paw curls. 

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Quote from BalefulBeanie >>

My biggest issue is more that the Dark Sun settings is that it seems to be completely forgotten. I always had fondness for the setting myself, but it seemed like a flash in the pan type of deal.

 

That's usually how it goes with something that breaks so far from the main dynamics. Setting aside the myriad dystopian social issues the setting entailed, there's still punishing wizard builds, outright nixing clerics and paladins, and scrapping metal weapons and armor in favor of far inferior improvised ones. Makes for an interesting and engaging change of pace for some, but for a lot of others it's just "D&D with some of the fun stuff removed and new hard stuff added". Doesn't really lend itself to mass market appeal, which is D&D's bread and butter.

 Well, since this thread got necroed anyway, the other issue was that TSR was just bad when it came to supporting campaign worlds not named "Forgotten Realms."  There was a real problem in the late 80s and throughout the 90s with them releasing a setting, maybe but not always printing some supplements for it, and then deciding that it wasn't selling well enough and dropping support for it entirely.  This eventually reached the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, as gamers lost faith in TSR supporting new campaign settings and consequently ignoring them when they were released, resulting in TSR losing money and immediately pivoting to a new campaign setting only for the same thing to happen.  It was one of the many forms of mismanagement that plagued the company and eventually led to it failing and being acquired by WotC.

And that problem was further compounded when WotC was acquired by Hasbro.  Hasbro is a toy company that has historically thought in very two-dimensional terms. "Make toy, sell toy, get money", is their business model. Why did people buy Hasbro toys? Because that's what their kids saw in commercials. And because half the toys in the toy store were Hasbro. I grew up on Hasbro toys. Play-Doh, Mr. Potato Head, Lincoln Logs, Tonka, Nerf, G.I. Joe! 

But D&D is not a toy. It's a commitment. It requires a 4-dimensional marketing strategy that includes everything from the physical and digital game, to social events, live streams, community outreach, and most importantly responsiveness to player feedback. Unfortunately, Hasbro is still stuck in a very 20th century mindset. They're accustomed to just pushing units off the shelves and then regearing the assembly lines for the next season's toys. Once you bought a Mr. Potato Head for your kid, Hasbro didn't care what you liked about it. They didn't ask what kind of toy you wanted next.

Hasbro needs to fundamentally reassess their entire R&D, production, and promotion strategies for D&D. We're not kids playing with a toy. We're a community (most of whom are adults) sharing stories and forging memories and friendships along the way. And that's not something you can easily extract a revenue stream from. 

Well I imagine alot of people are same boat as I am. Initial excitement, followed by regret. Dark sun is back! And has lost most of it's grit as a setting now. Hence the monkey paw reference. It's easier to be a pessimist these days, I swear. 

Quote from BalefulBeanie >>

Well I imagine alot of people are same boat as I am. Initial excitement, followed by regret. Dark sun is back! And has lost most of it's grit as a setting now. Hence the monkey paw reference. It's easier to be a pessimist these days, I swear.

The interview with Greg Bilsland said "the grittiness of the setting will still exist, but it won’t rely on narratives of mass slavery" so they are explicitly making it gritty still. Do you think that gritty relies entirely on slavery being a element in the setting?

Really isn't the only thing that's been stripped out. The setting itself, going by the new adventure modules they're releasing seem to depart from "the world is ****ed and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it." To more of this theme of, "well, we could still save the world." Though, yes I think removing slavery is kind of against the idea of desperate people with no hope doing or accepting absolutely horrid things in a doomed world is just another aspect of toning down the setting. Honestly the whole premise of the setting was pretty similar to Mad Max. The world is irrecoverably ****ed, and what your seeing is what desperate hopeless people do or accept in that sort of bleak world. Granted I've not played any of the new modules, so I could be eating crow when they come out and they'll stick to a particularly grim narrative but I don't think it's likely. I don't deny that Dark Sun is in fact a very grim and awful setting, that said, I don't think the answer is to remove the entire theme of living in a largely doomed world, cause optimism is a little more friendly and marketable. 

I have to wonder how much of the original themes are going to survive in it's modern incarnation.

Quote from BalefulBeanie >>

Really isn't the only thing that's been stripped out. The setting itself, going by the new adventure modules they're releasing seem to depart from "the world is ****ed and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it." To more of this theme of, "well, we could still save the world." Though, yes I think removing slavery is kind of against the idea of desperate people with no hope doing or accepting absolutely horrid things in a doomed world is just another aspect of toning down the setting. Honestly the whole premise of the setting was pretty similar to Mad Max. The world is irrecoverably ****ed, and what your seeing is what desperate hopeless people do or accept in that sort of bleak world. Granted I've not played any of the new modules, so I could be eating crow when they come out and they'll stick to a particularly grim narrative but I don't think it's likely. I don't deny that Dark Sun is in fact a very grim and awful setting, that said, I don't think the answer is to remove the entire theme of living in a largely doomed world, cause optimism is a little more friendly and marketable. 

I have to wonder how much of the original themes are going to survive in it's modern incarnation.

We won't know til we see it, will we? I think you're getting ahead of yourself to say, sight unseen, that it has "lost most of its grit" but of course "most" could be doing a lot of your work for you there if you wanted to make it a self fulfilling prophecy.

They got rid of the slavery?!

That's not what the quote said.

Quote from AnzioFaro >>

It requires a 4-dimensional marketing strategy that includes everything from the physical and digital game, to social events, live streams, community outreach, and most importantly responsiveness to player feedback. 

So, exactly what they're doing then?

Quote from Samueltheslayer >>

They got rid of the slavery?!

We don't know, but it certainly seems like they're not resting the entire premise of the grittiness on it. And also, so what if they did?

I mean, frankly from a worldbuilding perspective it's pretty hard to do "bleak wasteland dystopia" without some form of slavery, whether the word gets specifically used or not. Particularly when power-mad psychotic despots represent one of the major power blocs. "Slave", "serf", and "worker caste" get pretty interchangeable in that context. If they don't want to rub our noses in it that's fine, but really even the Disney version of such a setting premise is basically just not having anyone use the word out loud. Given that this is specifically going to be 18+, I rather doubt they'll shy away from the degree to which fantastic tyrants in a dystopian setting will oppress pretty much anyone they can. They're pretty much certain to drop some language I've heard was in earlier iterations along the lines of "being a slave at least brings X race/people/etc. into civilized society" though, as that's obviously a really flawed and screwed up justification.

What's probably up in the air is if they'll be blunt that- while obviously screwed up and a textbook example of What Not to Do for a Society- some or all of such places presently exist in a state where such labor is what keeps the infrastructure and such moving and is the norm to the point that simply being involved in the institution isn't a guaranteed Evil brand because it's too all-pervasive to the region and the system squashes attempts to move away from it. It'd certainly sell and explore the bleak setting, but also opens up the door to accusations of trying to promote/normalize slavery and to individuals leveraging it to backdoor such elements into tables where they aren't welcome.

I'm also curious if they'll play the "doing the classic hero thing isn't always the same as doing the right thing/actually helping" card with regards to such- if they write out an adventure path have a segment where representatives of the local authority are stomping on someone because they can, party's warned not to get involved because it'd just bring the hammer down harder later, and if the players do there's a note to inform them that there were indeed escalated retaliations afterwards or that an attempt to free some slaves ended in the escapees being rounded up and executed as an example. Shouldn't be the only possible outcome for such across the entire adventure, but it's the kind of thing we already see in games like Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, and would fit Dark Sun pretty well.