Well, any of you looking forward for this? Do you hope that Wizards would do a good job at reviving the setting? Or are you skeptical that they can do a good job?
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Definitely looking forward to this. I will be keeping the things I like and jettisoning the rest. I wrote a short article about it here: Burnt World of Athas - Dark Sun Is Finally Back in 2027—and Wizards Isn't Pulling Its Punches
I’m actually most excited about the bigger footprint Dark Sun will have in the D&D community, looking forward to new players. There have already been big surges in the various Dark Sun communities online such as Facebook, Reddit, and Discord.
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I’m never satisfied with any rule set. I’m a syncretist, pulling ideas from different lore and rule sets to approximate what feels “right” to me. (I’m also more of a collector than a gamer, so the stuff I buy is more for sparking my imagination than in actually putting into use.)
I like some aspects of 5e (simplicity), but wish it was more like 3.5e (flexibility). And vice versa. And I like parts of 2e and 4e, but mostly for the lore.
As long as they don’t completely flub the lore (e.g., the two latest books from Forgotten Realms), I’ll buy it. If it turns out to be a fluster cluck, then I’m probably done.
I’m not expecting the lore to “wow” me. It’s likely going to be dropped back to before the Prism Pentad or after the first book. It’s going to retread the same material that three prior editions have already done. If we get any areas outside of the Tyr region covered, I’ll be surprised.
So I’m mostly interested in how they adapt the subclasses to the lore.
And I still say that gladiator and dune trader should be jobs, not classes on their own, and that spellcasters getting their spells directly from a patron should be a type of warlock, with “templar” being a job, too. And I think the divine power source has no place in Dark Sun, but the primal power source (introduced in 4e) should be used by elemental clerics, druids, and rangers.
Offtopic, but curious what lore you didn’t like.
Two that I’ve heard (there might be more if I read the books).
They created a Dragonlance style mounted dragon force for Cormyr. I could deal with that, but the dragons are amethysts, notoriously neutral (and maybe solitary). Then they called it the Purple Dragon knights. The armed forces of Cormyr are called Purple Dragons because, way way way back, a black dragon so old that its scales appeared purple ruled the land. They took lore that was at least four editions old, shoehorned some nonsense into it and came up with ridiculous new lore. (I wouldn’t be as upset if they were copper dragons and they left out the word purple.)
The second piece that annoyed me is that, during the Spellplague, parts of Abeir replaced parts of Toril. I mostly ignore the Spellplague, but there are bits that interest me (and I would handwave them as "always been that way). I liked Tyrmanther, the dragonborn realm that replaced Unther. With the Second Sundering, most of Unther returned, along with the return of the rest of their pantheon. The head of the pantheon took up the cause of the dragonborn, and another goddess was reborn as a dragon turtle guarding their last port. So we get both Unther (with a revived pantheon) and Tyrmanther (much reduced, but still there). Then the new books just wiped out Tyrmanther.
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Ah, I thought you were talking about the new Arcana Unleashed books specifically.
I was familiar with the two things you mentioned and agree that ignoring prior lore is annoying.
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I don’t know anything about the Unearthed Arcana (book? stuff on their subscription website?).
What’s in it?
Edit: Arcana Unleashed. Looking at the Amazon entry. I see they brought back the Binder warlock, is it only one patron, or can you bind two or more like in 3.5e?
Arcana Unleashed are the 2 new books they just came out with. I haven’t really checked them out yet.
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I haven’t seen anything that tells me they will do this setting justice. From the art to the interviews there are way too many red flags for me.
I’m far more interested in the Shadowsun books from chubby funster. He understands what dark sun is.
There’s also a Kickstarter for the new edition of Dragon Kings (?), a Dark Sun esque setting. Hopefully this time, less actual overlap with Dark Sun. (I read the first Kickstarter got cancelled because of that.)
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That’s not accurate. There’s been 2 Dragon Kings Kickstarters. The first one was system agnostic and the second one was 5e. Both were successful and published, you can find both on DriveThruRPG.
Dragon Kings System Agnostic on DriveThruRPG
Dragon Kings 5e by Mindscape Publishing…hmm…looks like it’s been removed from DriveThruRPG for some reason
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I agree with @raddu - I’m happy to see Dark Sun get more exposure and am looking forward to new fans.
I’m sure WotC will screw up in some way or another, but I don’t care, Athas.og and the Pristine Tower team will be there to pick up the pieces and weave something beautiful out of them.
Like with pizza, more Dark Sun is always good IMO, even if its not the kind you’d prefer.