Slavery will reportedly not be a part of the Dark Sun setting.
This feels oddball, because slavery is part of the Forgotten Realms setting. We seem to have circular logic happening, where Dark Sun is “problematic”, so it cannot have slavery while the other settings which are not problematic can have slavery because they are not problematic.
Instead, “sensitivity readers” will introduce us to “other forms of oppression” like “Urik’s military draft”. I’ve been in South Korea for a last couple of months, a country with a male military draft.
What is the point of the 18+ shrink wrap if it’s going to be deconstructed by sensitivity readers? The 18+ designation looks like marketing.
I’m mostly interested in the 5e take on the classes and stuff.
If there’s no slavery, big deal.
Edit: as I posted on Reddit, ending up in a slave caravan is the tavern of Dark Sun adventures.
Having to fight for freedom (probably fighting the guards AND raiders) with what improvised weapons that are found, escaping into the wilderness, struggling to survive against nature and trying not to have the party fall apart when there’s not enough water.
Yup. And this will easily be the worst dark sun edition ever produced because of it.
When they announced the setting using excessive gore and nudity, I immediately suspected they were hiding something. And in the words of Jeff Goldblum, “well, there it is”
To think WotC will ever change their stance on this stuff is a recipe for eternal disappointment.
I guess the reason is because one disagreeing with this retcon will lead to accusations from anons online that one is "angry’, followed by “you are not the intended audience for this publication”.
The abolishing of slavery in Dark Sun is often framed as the audience not being able to handle it. The other side is this: the designers cannot handle it and sincerely believe that producing content including slavery is the actual promotion of slavery. I have lived in non Western countries for a good part of my life now and from the outside looking in, I can see the slide of the Western countries into barbarism, while the people in the West believe they are actually in a new enlightened age.
Some of the earliest D&D adventure modules had themes of slavery.
I don’t know if I’ll even look at what WotC is doing to Dark Sun in Current Year. It’s almost as if I don’t need to. I can just feel it now…
This encourages me to complete my supplement Slavery in the Tablelands. I’ll create elaborate tables on slave costs, including child slaves, sex slaves, and rules on creating eunuchs. Maybe I can write it with a pro-slavery tone, and open sections with useful quotes from antiquity.
I’ll have to come up with some Dark Sun appropriate anecdotes on slavery, like the little short stories in Dragon Kings. Something like Vedius feeding disappointing slaves to the lampreys… Maybe I can use AI to render Baxa- and Brom-esque black and white sketches.
I’ll be sure to send WotC a copy, with a considerable bill for services rendered…
It’s worth considering Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard. The fight against slavery, which was an actual thing involving military forces and naval interdictions, has become a simulacrum, the real thing being replaced with the simulation. So the paperwork abolition of slavery in Dark Sun and apologies represent a sign of moral progress, at least to the people doing it. The thing is replaced with the hyperreality of opponents of slavery vs advocates of slavery, the latter being people that refuse to hold up the sign of moral progress. The advocates of slavery must exist to validate the opponents of slavery. And none of this is real, it’s simulacra and simulation. It is hyperreality
I have heard this work discussed at some length, but have not read this work. Upon your recommendation, it sounds worthy of a useful perusal. Thanks redking. I’ll take a look.
If only role-playing were a pastime where GMs and players could do whatever they wanted and weren’t confined to the canonical lore provided by the publisher. That would be really great, wouldn’t it?
If you want slavery… you include slavery; it’s as simple as that.
In my view, this is a false problem. The real problem lies in WotC’s decisions that directly impact gameplay and are difficult for role-players to get round, such as the removal of psionic classes in 5th edition, for example.
Anything to do with lore… it’s just lore. You can do whatever you like with it.
Your take is along the same as ‘They’re not banning the old books, you can still play with them’ 5E Dark Sun introduces the world to a new crop of players, for most of them, this is the only version of DS they will know.
There was only a single psionic class in 2E. In the upcoming books there will be a 5.5E version of the Psion with 4 subclasses. In addition, the PHB has several psionic subclasses. So not sure where you are getting your info from.
The sensitivity readers are not limiting themselves to slavery either. Every sentence in the publication will be vetted by sensitivity readers, and people unfamiliar with the work of sensitivity readers may be surprised at what they deem to be offensive (almost everything).
Will there even be cannibal halflings in Nu Dark Sun? I expect there will be but we are one sensitivity reader away from halflings being “real world ethnicity coded” and cannibal halflings being abolished too..
Do you know what are the names of the four subclasses? And I thought that the PHB was going to bea duplicate of the 2024 book with new artwork; they’re including a psion class?
My thoughts: I can see some classes having a psionic subclass. For example, fighter or monk having psychic warrior subclasses.
