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 2027āand Wizards Isn't Pulling Its Punches
Iām 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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Iām never satisfied with any rule set. Iām a syncretist, pulling ideas from different lore and rule sets to approximate what feels ārightā to me. (Iām 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 donāt completely flub the lore (e.g., the two latest books from Forgotten Realms), Iāll buy it. If it turns out to be a fluster cluck, then Iām probably done.
Iām not expecting the lore to āwowā me. Itās likely going to be dropped back to before the Prism Pentad or after the first book. Itās going to retread the same material that three prior editions have already done. If we get any areas outside of the Tyr region covered, Iāll be surprised.
So Iām 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 ātemplarā 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 didnāt like.
Two that Iāve 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 wouldnāt 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 donāt know anything about the Unearthed Arcana (book? stuff on their subscription website?).
Whatās 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 havenāt really checked them out yet.
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I havenāt 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.
Iām far more interested in the Shadowsun books from chubby funster. He understands what dark sun is.
Thereās 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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Thatās not accurate. Thereās 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 Publishingā¦hmmā¦looks like itās been removed from DriveThruRPG for some reason
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I agree with @raddu - Iām happy to see Dark Sun get more exposure and am looking forward to new fans.
Iām sure WotC will screw up in some way or another, but I donāt 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 youād prefer.
Says someone who has never showed up at a party to find a Pineapple, black olive, mushroom, tomato, broccoli, and anchovy pizza.
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I have. I picked the anchovies off and ate it - pineapple and broccoli pizza is the bomb. 
Iām fairly sure if anyone reads this thread, we just started a war. 
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Well, it wasnāt my intention. I just wanted to ask if Wizardsā Dark Sun is too dark for some.
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I like the resurgence of interest in Dark Sun and the support for the system. I do not, however, like their approach to the world at all and will likely not use any 5e lore. As much as I love Raddu, I also have to strongly disagree with his ānot pulling any punchesā statement. WOTC is pulling all the punches that matter. Theyāre trying to pass it off as mature, but really all theyāre doing is adding nudity and blood as a distraction from the fact that theyāre removing all the hardcore elements of the game: slavery, cannibalism, genocide, etc. Thereās no way we could have expected anything else, but anyone trying to convince themselves that weāre getting a hardcore product is not understanding what theyāre saying.
I also donāt like the art style. Itās noisy with no refinement. Itās gore for the sake of gore. Iām not expecting Brom, but it would be nice to have a mature art style. Iām sure theyāre also going to lean into rebranding Psionics as another style of magic, with more shitty reskins of spells and abilities borrowed from other classes. So much of the identify of the world is wrapped around Psionics and having bland systems in place for this system detracts from the draw.
Overall, I expect good impact on the community and systems support, but bad impact for the lore and the world weāve all come to love. As always, itās up to each DM to choose what materials they use.
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