Mike Mearls is bringing back Dark Sun?

[Deathtongue]

So Mike Mearls is doing a Dark Sun thing (https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/919638124262596608). There's no guarantee or even hint that this will become a broader setting at large, but I think that it should. I really liked the 4E D&D Dark Sun Sourcebooks and the Dark Sun: Shattered Lands Duology. And to be blunt, the Dark Sun setting was the only real hype 4E D&D had, setting-wise.

However, if the game does come back, I really hope that the setting simultaneously:

A.) Change up some of the mechanics and setting elements to make adventuring extra-dangerous. People should be scared to go out in the wilderness without at least three people (and preferably everyone) having the Survival skill. Have guard and slave patrols running around while you're going through town. Stuff like that.
B.) Does not go punitive like 2E D&D did. To be blunt, it's been 25 years. There are a lot of new classes and races and people like playing them. While reworking the mechanics to be more lethal for adventuring, I would also appreciate it if they reworked the setting to be more inclusive of PC options. Instead of just saying that, say, sorcerers and orcs and monks don't exist, the setting should rework them.

[Nifft]

I disagree.

I don't like the idea of every setting becoming a homogeneous kitchen-sink repository.

Dark Sun has a different racial palette and the setting provides some darn good reasons why. Take away the orcs & gnomes, and give us muls & thri-kreen instead.

Dark Sun has different magical rules and the setting provides some darn good reasons why. That's fine. Make magic different, it should be different, just make it fun.

Desert survival horror is fun. If you signed up to play Dark Sun, expect your character to suffer a bit.

Backgrounds & character concepts are going to be Dark Sun specific, not generic Tolkien rip-offs. You are not a happy roly-poly hobbit who eats seven meals before supper. NOBODY eats seven meals before supper. You're a starving cannibal dino-rider hobbit and you need to catch your own meals, take their armor & weapons since yours keep breaking, and cure their faces for your shield.

Dark Sun is different, and that's a big part of why it's so fondly remembered.

Shoe-horning in Sorcerers is just not okay.

[Dappershire]

Wait, I can eat 7 meals before supper in -any- universe? Sign me up.

[napoleon_in_rag]

B.) Does not go punitive like 2E D&D did. To be blunt, it's been 25 years. There are a lot of new classes and races and people like playing them. While reworking the mechanics to be more lethal for adventuring, I would also appreciate it if they reworked the setting to be more inclusive of PC options. Instead of just saying that, say, sorcerers and orcs and monks don't exist, the setting should rework them.

Limiting character choice to fit a campaign setting is not punitive. Not every campaign has to to be a FR Cookie Cutter. And if something doesn't fit, it should be removed and perhaps replaced with something else.

I could see Monks existing but Psionic monks instead (makes sense that all that mediation leads to psionics).

Orcs? Just play a Mul.

Sorcerer - Magic and it's consequences is a big part of Dark Sun. If Sorcerers can get around the environmental impacts, why be a Preserver/ Defiler?

[Arkhios]

Dark Sun has a different racial palette and the setting provides some darn good reasons why. Take away the orcs & gnomes, and give us muls & thri-kreen instead.

Funny thing about (half-)orcs and gnomes vs muls and thri-kreen is that how easily those two races could be converted to one another.

Gnomes have strong will against magic. Thri-kreen could have the same with just a little different explanation.
Gnomes are small and slow, but you could take that and something else away and give thri-kreen speed 35 ft. (and medium).
Multiple arms shouldn't be more than a ribbon, or at most, provide only a minor boost to some very specific checks.

(Half-)orcs are fairly simple to use to depict muls.

[lunaticfringe]

A. Yes 100% agree.

B. No. Go do whatever you want in your game. I don't want the Saintly order of Lawful Stupid paladins shoe horned into my D&D Post Apocalypse. Arcane Sorcerers don't make sense, I made them Psions. Something like that I could live with or Maybe Pseudo Vampire Life Sucking Junkies. Dark Sun is weird, deal with it.

[Deathtongue]

Look, here's the thing with 'this doesn't fit, but this DOES' fit: it's all completely arbitrary. There was no particular telelogical reason why elves and halflings survived the apocalypse but orcs and gnomes did not. There's no literary or game-balance reason why monks didn't make the transition but bards made it in with massive changes, when the game just as easily could have kept both in as-is or got rid of both. It's not even a game design choice made to simplify the setting or gameplay, because Dark Sun also added a bunch of new races and classes. It was just a restriction to evoke the feeling of 'wow, we lost so much in the apocalypse'.

In that light, I'd prefer a Gritty And Edgy adaptation of options rather than a blanket ban. Twist the paladin oaths so that instead of defending goodness they're defending whiteknuckled survival at all costs. Make the monk classes Fist of the North Star-style. Grimdark up the gnome and orc races.

[Nifft]

Look, here's the thing with 'this doesn't fit, but this DOES' fit: it's all completely arbitrary. There was no particular telelogical reason why elves and halflings survived the apocalypse but orcs and gnomes did not. There's no literary or game-balance reason why monks didn't make the transition but bards made it in with massive changes, when the game just as easily could have kept both in as-is or got rid of both. It's not even a game design choice made to simplify the setting or gameplay, because Dark Sun also added a bunch of new races and classes. It was just a restriction to evoke the feeling of 'wow, we lost so much in the apocalypse'.

In that light, I'd prefer a Gritty And Edgy adaptation of options rather than a blanket ban. Twist the paladin oaths so that instead of defending goodness they're defending whiteknuckled survival at all costs. Make the monk classes Fist of the North Star-style. Grimdark up the gnome and orc races.

The teleological impetus behind the changes in all of the background / race / class / monster / terrain palettes is identical: to mechanically implement the setting's flavor by way of both addition and exclusion, to inform the roleplay of the players by way of both novelty and dearth, and tangentially as a signaling mechanism for people like you who don't know much about the setting yet: "THIS IS NOT GENERIC FANTASY."

Let me repeat that: Dark Sun is not generic fantasy.

You want generic fantasy? That's fine, D&D will take your money and support your preference -- but that's not Dark Sun.

You can get what you want, you just can't get it inside Dark Sun, because Dark Sun is different on purpose.

The setting's iconic elements might be arbitrary, but that's hardly relevant. All settings are a collection of elements which are at root arbitrary. Why do Tolkien's elves and dwarves exist as separate races? Why do Tolkien's hobbits exist at all?

All decisions can be framed as arbitrary. That's not a reason to dismiss those decisions.

[toapat]

Dark Sun is different, and that's a big part of why it's so fondly remembered.

Shoe-horning in Sorcerers is just not okay.

and this is kinda the problem with the non-Faerun settings

Dark Sun was developed back when the system itself was much more difficult to access and much less well developed for comprehensive inclusiveness. it sounds cool, looks cool, but its so technically distinct from what 5E is that it would bomb entirely, because to sell it as a 5E setting is to put it against thee very expectations that built 5E.

Keith Baker was not essentially bought out from Eberron so WotC has limited reason to support it, as well as having enough people that listen to him as creator of the setting that any changes they make wont just be taken as face value or given time to learn the merits/lack of merits they may have.

I presume Birthright has the same issues as Eberron, where socially WotC does not feel they have absolute control of the setting, and so have better reason to disappoint fans with a "maybe later" rather than dissatisfy fans with a "this is not my Birthright setting". This speculation however is definitely the case for Dragonlance, mostly because Dragonlance tends to be technically disappointing because of its adherence to the Grand Plot where if you arent the PCs youre just NPCs running around in the world.

Planescape hasnt gotten love because its more of an extension of the world of greyhawk and faerun. Most likely some adventure will show up for planescape in 5e eventually.

Spelljammer probably hasnt been seen for real since second edition to any serious degree because of the Sidelining problem, where unless you drop all pretense and let people have fightercraft, players suffer reduced personal agency in shipbattles which is frustrating in a way similar to dragonlance. However theres also the "lawsuit bait" nature of the setting where it rips off star wars, star trek, and several other Science Fiction stories with much higher IP value than the value of Dungeons and Dragons as a whole

[suplee215]

Look, here's the thing with 'this doesn't fit, but this DOES' fit: it's all completely arbitrary.
Ultimately any fluff is arbitrary though. If you are asking for a specific setting then you should be ready for the setting rules. The setting itself is arbitrary. Why not just say it is 5000 years in the future of Forgotten Realms where it is much darker and civilization is dead if you want it to have everything already in default?

[lebefrei]

Look, here's the thing with 'this doesn't fit, but this DOES' fit: it's all completely arbitrary.

No, it's the way the world is designed. It's the core concept of Dark Sun, a hard world where many died off, for various reasons, and a few still cling to survival. Not every PHB or MM creature has to exist in every world, then we might as well just always run FR. You can have a harsh desert experience in that world, too. Sorcerers, paladins and orcs can abound, along with cannibalism and grittiness.

If you really want to get into the idea of arbitrary choices, DM a game with someone that insists on "inventing" guns, explosives, airplanes or other modern weaponry in whatever setting you're playing in. Having to get it through that player's head that not every world needs to be open to every option really lets you appreciate limiting what is allowed. Frankly, you're just trying to arbitrarily push Tolkien into the Dark Sun setting. His version of fantasy doesn't need to be everywhere. We don't always need orcs and hobbits.

[Eric Diaz]

Dark Sun is already a mixture of Tolkien, Tékumel, Dune, Mad Max etc. No reason to make it "pure".

It is your game, add whatever you want. Limit options that would ruin your fun or your vision of DS. I'm all for ditching the sorcerer (and half-orcs), but that is just me.

Paladins of vengeance can make kickass templars.

Also, messing with the spell system would make the game unplayable. I think spells should work as intended, with a layer of "defiling" over it. If you are a spell-caster with this ability you will be hated by all, but you cast spells as if they were one level higher (for example). Otherwise, everything works normally.

TBH I don't even need psionics, spells-as-psionics in the MM is good enough for me.

[Temperjoke]

In a sense, a lot of the difference in settings is the fluff to explain how a class or race fits in each setting. So halflings in FR are cheerful, roly-poly characters who like their comfort, while in Dark Sun they are completely different. That's the fluff, but mechanically they use the same stats. Sorcerers/Wizards only exist in certain roles in Dark Sun, so if your player wants to play one of these classes in a Dark Sun game, then it needs to be in this way. That doesn't effect the mechanics of the class, or how combat works, it changes the social interactions, the group dynamic, and maybe the campaign story. Individual DMs are empowered to say yes or no to class and race options available; all the setting book needs to do is describe how each class and race exists. The only real exception to this would be if a race/class flat out doesn't exist. I'd imagine that a world setting without Gods would be unlikely to have Aasimar, or clerics in the setting, for example (I don't know Dark Sun well enough to give perfect examples).

So, both sides are right in this thread?

[Nifft]

The only real exception to this would be if a race/class flat out doesn't exist. I'd imagine that a world setting without Gods would be unlikely to have Aasimar, or clerics in the setting, for example (I don't know Dark Sun well enough to give perfect examples).

So, both sides are right in this thread?

One "side" is saying: just find a way to shoehorn in races and classes that flat-out don't exist.

Are you sure you think both sides are right?

[Klorox]

I loved Dark Sun in 2e. If this is happening I’m gonna buy it and play it.

[Temperjoke]

One "side" is saying: just find a way to shoehorn in races and classes that flat-out don't exist.

Are you sure you think both sides are right?

I do! Because the OP is right, 5e has creatures and concepts that didn't exist before, and the ones that did exist have changed from what they used to be when Dark Sun came out. Part of the job of a setting book is to account for these changes. I think I'm having trouble expressing what I mean. Just because something didn't exist previously, doesn't mean that in a new edition it could not exist. You're basing your argument on the idea that there should be absolutely no changes to the setting information from previous editions, even though lots of things have changed in D&D since Dark Sun came out. The OP is arguing that the setting should be updated to account for these changes. What I'm trying to say is maybe it can be as easy as saying "This <insert race/class> doesn't exist in this setting because of <insert reason>. If your DM chooses to allow it, it could potentially done <insert method>."

The PHB lists certain races as uncommon and unusual, yet this generally causes no problems for DMs to allow them. The PC races in Volo's are even more unusual, and yet I see more arguments surrounding the PC monster races in that book, as opposed to the regular ones. If a campaign setting allows for a class/race, the DM is still empowered to say "I don't think this should exist in Dark Sun, so it doesn't. Pick something else."

[Tanarii]

There is no particular reason Monks and Sorcerers and Paladins and Warlocks can't fit in Dark Sun.

For starters, Templars make a lot of sense as either Paladins or Warlocks, with an appropriate sub-class. Defilers can be a type Sorcerer while Preservers are Wizards.

Open Hand Monks with the Gladiator Background are definitely a fit.

The main reason to limit the classes is the Dark Sun theme and its balance: things aren't easy for Martial and Arcane classes. Templars serve a Sorcerer-King. Defilers destroy the terrain around them, and often serve a Sorcerer-King. Preservers are outlawed except in the free city of Tyr.

But the big one is Monks ... they're too good at fighting with sub-par or no weaponry and armor. That makes them an awesome mechanical choice compared to classes that rely on weapons or metal armor.

IMO the biggest class that can't fit without a major rework is Bards. In 5e, they're completely balanced around Arcana spellcasting. If you strip that away to make them assassin-bards, you've totally changed the class. Might as well be something new. Or just Assassin Rogues that are merely called Bards in-game.

[Arkhios]

IMO the biggest class that can't fit without a major rework is Bards. In 5e, they're completely balanced around Arcana spellcasting. If you strip that away to make them assassin-bards, you've totally changed the class. Might as well be something new. Or just Assassin Rogues that are merely called Bards in-game.

You could reflavor bard spellcasting as psionics and that would be it. If you want to add to the flavor, make bards use spell points. Bardic Inspiration is already quite close to mind-affecting ability; being called psionics wouldn't be too far flung.

[Tanarii]

You could reflavor bard spellcasting as psionics and that would be it. If you want to add to the flavor, make bards use spell points. Bardic Inspiration is already quite close to mind-affecting ability; being called psionics wouldn't be too far flung.
Good point. I was so focused on Acane Magic and existing 5e material, I forgot psionics. That also works with a Spell Point Sorcerer.

However I think it's far more likely WotC would release psionics before or in tandem with a Dark Sun setting. It's a key component of Dark Sun. Post Apocalypic, Psionics everywhere, Gods nowhere to be seen, and Arcane Magic is difficult to do without destroying the environment further.

[DanyBallon]

I for one, would prefer Darksun not to include every races and classes that exist in 5e. Darksun is a setting where many races were exterminate on purpose, and those left manage to avoid extinction because the champions failed to do so. While I don’t see any problem for some classes to not be available simply because the setting say so, I could see some classes being refluffed as well.
As long as one do not try to denaturate the nature of Darksun like allowing exterminated races be available because they are in the PHB, or making halfling hobbit like, like we often see them depicted in more traditionnal fantasy settings.

[Tetrasodium]

Limiting character choice to fit a campaign setting is not punitive. Not every campaign has to to be a FR Cookie Cutter. And if something doesn't fit, it should be removed and perhaps replaced with something else.
agreed. Not every option can be transplanted into every other setting, just as not everything from those settings can be transplanted into FR. The fact that the core books are FR all the time & nothing but FR meaning that in order to run a non-FR setting a GM needs to break wrongly encouraged stereotypes players were given the impression of always applying all the time.




The teleological impetus behind the changes in all of the background / race / class / monster / terrain palettes is identical: to mechanically implement the setting's flavor by way of both addition and exclusion, to inform the roleplay of the players by way of both novelty and dearth, and tangentially as a signaling mechanism for people like you who don't know much about the setting yet: "THIS IS NOT GENERIC FANTASY."

Let me repeat that: Dark Sun is not generic fantasy.

You want generic fantasy? That's fine, D&D will take your money and support your preference -- but that's not Dark Sun.

You can get what you want, you just can't get it inside Dark Sun, because Dark Sun is different on purpose.

The setting's iconic elements might be arbitrary, but that's hardly relevant. All settings are a collection of elements which are at root arbitrary. Why do Tolkien's elves and dwarves exist as separate races? Why do Tolkien's hobbits exist at all?

All decisions can be framed as arbitrary. That's not a reason to dismiss those decisions.

Eberron is the same way with the not FR's generic fantasy. While I'm not personally a big fan of darksun, anything that puts a crack in the "all faerun all the time & nothing but because faerun's generic fantasy applies to anything" tunnelvision focus that wotc has had through all of 5e would be nice

[SharkForce]

just gotta put this as bluntly as possible:

no, not everything needs to be jammed into dark sun just so that you can play whatever character you want without limitations. that's not the dark sun setting. you want a setting where you can throw any character in that you want? you've got lots of options. you don't like dark sun, well fine, but don't screw with the setting if you don't like it. some people do like it, this setting is for them, you already have your kitchen sink fantasy, you don't need to go shoving your crap into what other people like. not everything has to be made just for you.

as to why the other settings haven't gotten as much love, it's really very simple. WotC, as a corporation, exists to make money. they make money by selling products to their customers. the majority of their customers seem to like forgotten realms (certainly there are a very vocal group that do not, but they are probably not in the majority, or if they are, the FR fans are still more common than the rest, or at the very least WotC believes that to be the case).

and so, forgotten realms is what gets published. this is not a market where you make tons of money, or even a market where it is particularly easy to make *any* money, and so WotC produces the stuff that is most likely to keep them in the black. there is no mystery here. there is no "well people listen to keith baker so we can't make eberron", it is simply a matter of "most of the people we sell stuff to like forgotten realms". there is no "well, people might not like our version of birthright", there is simply "birthright has like 3% as many fans as forgotten realms".

there is no lack of agency for anyone in ship battles in spelljammer preventing it from being published; one spellcaster controls movement, and none of the attacks. i assure you, a fighter (especially one specialized in the appropriate ship weapon) is a devastatingly effective force in 2e spelljammer, and there is no particular reason they could not continue to be in 5e spelljammer... except that, again, spelljammer has like 3% as many fans as forgotten realms.

now, quite frankly, it costs pretty near the same amount of money to produce a spelljammer or birthright or eberron or dark sun book as it costs to produce a forgotten realms book before printing costs. but that forgotten realms book can probably be sold to 30 times as many people as a spelljammer or birghtright book, and to probably 5-10 times as many as an eberron or dark sun book.

so if it costs 100,000 bucks to produce the book, and then 5 bucks per copy to print, and you've got the ability to sell (and therefore print) 30,000 copies of an FR book, you have a cost per book of around $8.33 each, and if you sell that to a distributor for 20 bucks each (and they sell it to the book store, etc), you make something in the neighbourhood of 12 bucks each. in contrast, if you do that with a birthright book and publish 1000 copies (that being the amount the market is looking for), you're looking at a cost per book of 105 dollars per book. you can now sell that to a distributor for 20 bucks (because the customers aren't willing to pay a ton more, and therefore the distributors and book stores aren't willing to pay a ton more), for a loss of 84.67 dollars each. even at 1/5 the audience (so 6,000 customers), for the more-popular-than-birthright-but-less-popular-than-FR settings, you're going to be looking at a cost per book of $21.67, leading to a loss of 1.67 per book.

so, which do you think a for-profit company is going to choose?

there is no mystery. WotC doesn't ignore the other settings because it is mechanically impossible to produce them faithfully in most regards. they ignore the other settings because if they want to still have money to keep publishing books, they have one option that is far more likely to produce the desired result, and that is forgotten realms.

but that doesn't mean you should ram it full force into every other setting. the people who like those different settings like the differences. the people who don't, well, good news for you, you've got your setting, you're probably going to continue getting your setting, and anything that isn't specifically designed for your setting will probably have sections on how to adapt it for your setting if you feel like it, because you represent a much larger market than anyone else.

you're already enjoying a multi-course feast while the rest of us are stuck begging for kitchen scraps, demanding that you get to chew up our food and spit it back onto the plate before it is served to us is uncalled for.

[Tanarii]

If having a small fan base made for losing money that badly, TSR would have gone out of business long before it did. And no other publisher would be able to compete at all with WoTC and Piazo.

I'm sure there's a difference between making a small profit, making a medium profit, and making money hand over fist. But don't try to sell us that they'd actually lose money on Dark Sun or Eberron. That's ludicrous.

[toapat]

If having a small fan base made for losing money that badly, TSR would have gone out of business long before it did. And no other publisher would be able to compete at all with WoTC and Piazo.

I'm sure there's a difference between making a small profit, making a medium profit, and making money hand over fist. But don't try to sell us that they'd actually lose money on Dark Sun or Eberron. That's ludicrous.

At this point, DnD as a brand is so successful that it is more important to look at long term financial cost on the intellectual Property's intrinsic value than it is to actual bottom line to print "bad" books.

From a purely cynical point of view, 5E probably shouldnt see a Darksun supplement specifically because of the intrinsic damage to the property that would be dealt by a book that i guarantee cannot satisfy the majority of players.

I think it would be more productive for WotC and more acceptable for players as a whole if WotC spun out Darksun in order to develop a 5E D20 game around that, perhaps to eventually pull the IP back into the fold and see if any innovations can be pulled from it back into DnD to make it feel like more of a living breathing universe.

In fact, following my cynicism to its logical conclusion, The reason why WotC has been supporting primarily the world of Faerun is because, as a core product, it is the most well tested and generally acceptable portion of the IP of DnD, which is why even with the supplements that they have published for offworld campaigns (Curse of Strahd, one other i forget), those worlds are compatible mechanically to Faerun

[Tetrasodium]

If having a small fan base made for losing money that badly, TSR would have gone out of business long before it did. And no other publisher would be able to compete at all with WoTC and Piazo.

I'm sure there's a difference between making a small profit, making a medium profit, and making money hand over fist. But don't try to sell us that they'd actually lose money on Dark Sun or Eberron. That's ludicrous.

especially while dmsguild denies us the option to pickup the dropped balls they are going out of their way to ignore.
In the years 5e has been printing, we've had Hoard of the Dragon Queen (set in Faerun), the Rise of Tiamat (set in Faerun), Princes of the Apocalypse (set in Faerun), Out of the Abyss (set in Faerun), Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (a campaign sourcebook dedicated to Faerun), Curse of Strahd (set in the Demiplane of Dread), Storm King's Thunder (set in Faerun), Volo's Guide to Monsters (heavily Faerun flavored), and Tales From the Yawning Portal (setting neutral but mostly old faerun/greyhawk stuff). And ahead of us we have Tomb of Annihilation (set in Faerun) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (Named after a waterdeep crime boss but supposedly for "all settings"...

It's disingenuous to sugggest that FR makes more cash than the not in print for years now settings when 100% of their stuff is going towards FR. It's certainly not helped when asking in direct blunt terms if there was any reason for an eberron gm to purchase xge gets a statement (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/921921006612049921) about how it can be used in any d&d world instead of how it would benefit an eberron gm (look at the eberron section on PotA 248/249 where they suggest ways to change eberron to shoehorn faerun stuff into it then admit eberron lacks planes that line up very well with the default greyhawk/faerun ones & neglects to consider that those planes have basically never gotten a writeup until this month & that was on keith-baker.com to see why that "and d&d world" statement is so laughable). I
imagine the darksun adaptation section is equally bad as well but don't know darksun welll enough to say.

[DanyBallon]

If having a small fan base made for losing money that badly, TSR would have gone out of business long before it did. And no other publisher would be able to compete at all with WoTC and Piazo.

I'm sure there's a difference between making a small profit, making a medium profit, and making money hand over fist. But don't try to sell us that they'd actually lose money on Dark Sun or Eberron. That's ludicrous.

In fact TSR didn’t last that long after they went with full setting diversification.

And while the rpg industries wasn’t as big as it is nowadays, there wasn’t as much competition either, and options for piracy were fewer as well. Lastly, players from the TSR era didn’t have as many options for spending their hobby money.

As the smaller companies, many are focusing on pdf distribution over print. When they do have print, they go for small print run, black and white, cheaper paper quality, or print on demand, except for the pdf, I’m not sur any customers wouldn’t accept such compromise from WotC

[Tetrasodium]

In fact TSR didn’t last that long after they went with full setting diversification.

And while the rpg industries wasn’t as big as it is nowadays, there wasn’t as much competition either, and options for piracy were fewer as well. Lastly, players from the TSR era didn’t have as many options for spending their hobby money.

As the smaller companies, many are focusing on pdf distribution over print. When they do have print, they go for small print run, black and white, cheaper paper quality, or print on demand, except for the pdf, I’m not sur any customers wouldn’t accept such compromise from WotC


You think? I made a pdf adaptation to foster my players through the character creation process in an eberron game that forces players away from faerun tropes. I know it cost me less than 20$to bring to staples & print+spiral bind myself . On top of that I've been contacted by people from across the internet saying they did the same. The kicker is that I only released it to my players & a very small group of people who helped with some brainstorming. tsr was not just juggling multiple settings but was also releasing a redonculous number of random splatbooks. There are also the various well documented mismanagement issues

You are trying to liken roughly one hundred (97 if I counted right)suppliments between 1989 & 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_rulebooks#Advanced_Du ngeons_.26_Dragons_2nd_edition) as somehow being the same as releasing a book for something other than FR

[SharkForce]

If having a small fan base made for losing money that badly, TSR would have gone out of business long before it did. And no other publisher would be able to compete at all with WoTC and Piazo.

I'm sure there's a difference between making a small profit, making a medium profit, and making money hand over fist. But don't try to sell us that they'd actually lose money on Dark Sun or Eberron. That's ludicrous.

*shrug* change the costs (or numbers of customers) if you like, ultimately they will make a lot more money with forgotten realms. even if some of the other settings boil down to "probably won't lose much money" or "probably will make a very small amount of money" (and frankly, while i might believe dark sun or eberron have a chance of being in that second category, i very much doubt birthright or spelljammer would), it still doesn't make sense to produce for that when you have "make more money than anything else" available as an option. and frankly, i still have very serious doubts that D&D makes a huge amount of money. it is probably more profitable than most other RPGs, but still not a huge moneymaker.

in any event, TSR produced a lot more stuff in general... once you've saturated the market for FR stuff, then sure, it's time to start producing non-FR stuff. until you've reached that point, the smart decision is to keep producing FR stuff. WotC appear to have made the decision (or had it made for them) to never reach the saturation point, so, i'm not expecting them to spontaneously decide they don't like money any time soon. we'll get the occasional nod in the direction of other settings (for what it's worth), but ultimately, WotC exists to make money (which is perfectly acceptable, this doesn't somehow turn them into a cartoonish villain or anything like that). and since the best way to do that is to keep selling forgotten realms, with nothing more than the occasional offhand reference to the other settings with no real mechanical support (basically, nothing that costs major amounts of space in the book; mention raistlin as an example of a wizard? sure. actually publish high sorcery wizard subclasses? don't hold your breath on that), that's what i expect.

[toapat]

It's disingenuous to sugggest that FR makes more cash

that is NOT the comment i made. Faerun is Safe, it has the most numbers behind it being Safe, its being invested in in preferential decisions because it is Safe.

Does WotC have Unarguable control of Faerun?: Yes
Does WotC have a measurably existent fanbase for Faerun?: Yes
Does WotC have a fanbase which does not expect the holy grail in all products for Faerun?: Yes
Does WotC have an IP which allows the majority of published content to be effectively transfered into other settings?: Yes
Does WotC have an IP that allows the majority of players to participate in play to an acceptable degree of their expectations?: Yes
Does WotC have a marketable IP in Faerun?: Yes

There are many, many questions you can build from a purely analytical point of view which will tell you why WotC has been focusing on Faerun that have nothing to do with Trade Currency in the decision making. 4th Edition massively hurt DnD as an IP, to the point of almost non-viability. Focusing on a Safe subsection of the IP is purely logical

[Tetrasodium]

*shrug* change the costs (or numbers of customers) if you like, ultimately they will make a lot more money with forgotten realms. even if some of the other settings boil down to "probably won't lose much money" or "probably will make a very small amount of money" (and frankly, while i might believe dark sun or eberron have a chance of being in that second category, i very much doubt birthright or spelljammer would), it still doesn't make sense to produce for that when you have "make more money than anything else" available as an option. and frankly, i still have very serious doubts that D&D makes a huge amount of money. it is probably more profitable than most other RPGs, but still not a huge moneymaker.

in any event, TSR produced a lot more stuff in general... once you've saturated the market for FR stuff, then sure, it's time to start producing non-FR stuff. until you've reached that point, the smart decision is to keep producing FR stuff. WotC appear to have made the decision (or had it made for them) to never reach the saturation point, so, i'm not expecting them to spontaneously decide they don't like money any time soon. we'll get the occasional nod in the direction of other settings (for what it's worth), but ultimately, WotC exists to make money (which is perfectly acceptable, this doesn't somehow turn them into a cartoonish villain or anything like that). and since the best way to do that is to keep selling forgotten realms, with nothing more than the occasional offhand reference to the other settings with no real mechanical support (basically, nothing that costs major amounts of space in the book; mention raistlin as an example of a wizard? sure. actually publish high sorcery wizard subclasses? don't hold your breath on that), that's what i expect.

in the 3 years 5e has been out, wotc has published roughly 10-15% the umber of titles that TSR published between 89 & 98. at that rate, "saturation" will take something like another three decades

[Tanarii]

*shrug* change the costs (or numbers of customers) if you like, ultimately they will make a lot more money with forgotten realms. even if some of the other settings boil down to "probably won't lose much money" or "probably will make a very small amount of money" (and frankly, while i might believe dark sun or eberron have a chance of being in that second category, i very much doubt birthright or spelljammer would), it still doesn't make sense to produce for that when you have "make more money than anything else" available as an option. and frankly, i still have very serious doubts that D&D makes a huge amount of money. it is probably more profitable than most other RPGs, but still not a huge moneymaker.Sorry for my tone. I was just a little shocked that someone would suggest it would be a significant loss. As opposed to "not make nearly as much money for time and investment". That's entirely likely the primary motivation.

As far as I can see WoTC is sticking with its goals of making money by growing the market, not just market share, but rather actual number of people involved in gaming. And then selling existing books to that larger number of people. That's a profitable tactic.

Everything they did and are doing with 5e fits in that. The casual friendly rules designed for actually playing the game instead of character build pr0n. Slow releases of expansions to avoid making getting into the game difficult or overwhelming to new players, or invalidating the PHB classes (requiring another half edition).

Releasing a bunch of relatively niche campaign settings that they won't be supported in FR-centric official play doesn't fit with that. Even if it makes money, it might not be worth their staff time compared to focusing on growing the market.

[toapat]

As far as I can see WoTC is sticking with its goals of making money by growing the market, not just market share,

to be fair, i have been yelling at people on reddit who dont understand how that works in relation to game's workshop and WH40k, and plastic sisters of battle, where Sisters of battle is a more significant portion of the relative company evaluation when compared to WotC who will basically never reach a competitive slice of market share of DnD when compared against Uno, Monopoly, Transformers, My Little Pony, and MTG.

But, no matter how we get there, the conclusion is correct, theres too much risk in pushing out even the secondary popular settings because of too many factors

Ultra Edit: Cold Logic is not fun when you want to support something that makes no logical sense from a business point of view.

Do i want to be proven wrong about dark sun in 5E being able to make people happy? yes.

[Tetrasodium]

to be fair, i have been yelling at people on reddit who dont understand how that works in relation to game's workshop and WH40k, and plastic sisters of battle, where Sisters of battle is a more significant portion of the relative company evaluation when compared to WotC who will basically never reach a competitive slice of market share of DnD when compared against Uno, Monopoly, Transformers, My Little Pony, and MTG.

But, no matter how we get there, the conclusion is correct, theres too much risk in pushing out even the secondary popular settings because of too many factors

Ultra Edit: Cold Logic is not fun when you want to support something that makes no logical sense from a business point of view.

Do i want to be proven wrong about dark sun in 5E being able to make people happy? yes.



There is a factor you are omitting.... a big one.... GM burnout. I started running AL games at a local shop by request on the condition that I' be running in eberron & run whatever the bleep I wanted. I'm one of 4 gm's on that night (most of us with 6-8 player tables) & eventually picked up a second night when one of the GM's that normally ran on wednesdays bringing it back to 5 gms running 6-8 player tables with very little repeat between the two nights. I play on a third night. The reason I switched from gm'ing fate to running very much not AL legal AL games is because AL GMs were burning out & the same for why I picked up a second night.There is only one other GM that runs both nights (the total is currently around 10 or so of us across all three d&d nights at the shop). some of the others who burned out started running home & even AL games at home. at least two other GMs followed after me & started running whatever the heck they wanted to. WotC does not make one cent when a player copies my setting book even though it's adapted from the 3.5/4e books for an official WotC owned setting. I'd happily tell them to go buy that setting book off the shelf for 5e... but that setting lacks an official book. I'm seriously questioning if XgE will have anything useful to me in it & imagine that I too will eventually switch to home games as well given enough time needing to homebrew everything out of 3,5 & 4e books while rewriting 5e books from the ground up to remove the always & only faerun stuff that directly clashes...

[toapat]

There is a factor you are omitting.... a big one.... GM burnout.

DM burnout is not a factor involved in the analysis of product diversity development, its a factor in the overall Intellectual Property health/value, and primarily why we dont see books coming more frequently than once every other month.

As it is, the only necessary changes for XGE are banning Redemption paladin and a postit note denoting which planes are which planes for the settings for Eberron. Its not a particularly Integral Crunch book

[Honest Tiefling]

WotC does not make one cent when a player copies my setting book even though it's adapted from the 3.5/4e books for an official WotC owned setting.

Well, kinda they do. They don't directly benefit, but if you're running that and won't run an FR game, then your game exists to introduce people and to encourage them to buy the PHB at the very least. It's one more game to make players want to buy the existing books.

I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro is more cautious with books, given the mess of 4e (which had Darksun material, but I don't know if it did well), and the bloat of 3e. It's not a sure investment, even if every single member of this sub-forum wanted Eberron. Ever since the 4e PDFs were pirated almost at day one, I'm not surprised there are no PDF versions which would be cheaper to produce.

[Nifft]

Ever since the 4e PDFs were pirated almost at day one, I'm not surprised there are no PDF versions which would be cheaper to produce.

I remember the day the 4e PDF leak happened.

Online the community almost immediately stopped negative speculation about 4e and started building characters, with /tg/ finding two ways for a PC to break the game before the books were officially published.

I remember how the conversations went from discouraging & exhausting one day, to being interesting design criticism practically the next day.

It's my suspicion that Amazon's 4e pre-orders surged in the ~3 days following the 4e PDF leaks.


Did the leak cost WotC sales? Yes.

Did the leak generate sales for WotC? Yes.

Which number is larger, the generated sales or the lost sales? Why is nobody researching this?



As another data-point, the Eclipse Phase guys did a free release of that product -- the publisher even seeded the official PDF for the torrent they uploaded onto Pirate's Bay.

They did this on the same day they started selling the Eclipse Phase hardcover book. (Which is beautiful, BTW. Good design, content, and production values.)

Their book was profitable; seeding the PDF themselves did not kill their profits.

Piracy isn't killing publishers. PDFs aren't lost sales.

Reality is a bit more complex.

[Arkhios]

I agree on one thing in particular in this thread: Don't add new races to what already were.

Part of Dark Sun's appeal is that it's different in multiple ways. Don't try to assimilate Dark Sun with Generic Fantasy because it isn't.

Absence of halflings, elves, and gnomes as PC races is explained well enough.

Halflings were the originator race of the world of Athas; that is, they created all the other races long before the apocalypse.

Sometime after or before the apocalypse (I don't remember when) the sorcerer-kings committed genocide upon elves (and presumably on gnomes as well, if they ever existed, I don't know) for being god-awful racists and pure ***** (as they still are) and halflings have degenerated to cannibalistic savages.

Don't try to embellish something that isn't there. Dark Sun is a despicable setting, full of nasty things, both in environment and society. That's also one part of the setting's appeal. Dark Sun isn't trying to be nice.

[Honest Tiefling]

Which number is larger, the generated sales or the lost sales? Why is nobody researching this?

Well, I think for one, it'd be pretty hard to do so. In a way, the UA might be a way to test it, as they could perhaps see if releasing the UA impacts the sales of Xanathar's or not.


Piracy isn't killing publishers. PDFs aren't lost sales.

I know that Steam made money by not trying to fight the pirates, but fight DRM, so there is a case that PDFs might have intrigued more players and generated sales. But it isn't certain that it did. 4e was considered a flop by many. Losing out to Pathfinder revitalizing the d20 rules hasn't really helped, since the fan base is more fractured with plenty giving money to a competitor. There is also the case that while people will spend money to support a smaller company, they might not do so for a larger one. Many will feel more like supporting the underdog and getting free PDfs from the Man.

Not to mention the slight issue of stockholders, who have a good chance of not being a part of internet culture and realize that someone who gets a free thing might go back to support the company that made that nifty thing.

[Nifft]

(...) so there is a case that PDFs might have intrigued more players and generated sales. But it isn't certain that it did. That's exactly my point. We don't have anywhere near enough statistics to say what piracy costs publishers, nor say how much it benefits them.

What data does exist points to a story that isn't the simplistic one we keep hearing from media industries.

Tape decks didn't kill the music industry. Decades later, neither did MP3s.

VCRs didn't kill the movie industry. Decades later, neither did BitTorrent.

PDFs won't kill the publishing industry.



4e was considered a flop by many. Losing out to Pathfinder revitalizing the d20 rules hasn't really helped, since the fan base is more fractured with plenty giving money to a competitor. There is also the case that while people will spend money to support a smaller company, they might not do so for a larger one. Many will feel more like supporting the underdog and getting free PDfs from the Man.
4e failed in part because WotC's own digital subscription service gave away all the content that they sold in their books.

They printed books and expected people to pay for the content twice: once for the book, and then again through the monthly subscription.

People instead usually paid once, usually paid only for the cheapest option, and that meant the books didn't sell.

No PDFs were required for that bungle.

[SharkForce]

I agree on one thing in particular in this thread: Don't add new races to what already were.

Part of Dark Sun's appeal is that it's different in multiple ways. Don't try to assimilate Dark Sun with Generic Fantasy because it isn't.

Absence of halflings, elves, and gnomes as PC races is explained well enough.

Halflings were the originator race of the world of Athas; that is, they created all the other races long before the apocalypse.

Sometime after or before the apocalypse (I don't remember when) the sorcerer-kings committed genocide upon elves (and presumably on gnomes as well, if they ever existed, I don't know) for being god-awful racists and pure ***** (as they still are) and halflings have degenerated to cannibalistic savages.

Don't try to embellish something that isn't there. Dark Sun is a despicable setting, full of nasty things, both in environment and society. That's also one part of the setting's appeal. Dark Sun isn't trying to be nice.

well, close-ish :P

halflings are a playable PC race. they've fallen quite a bit from the original halflings, even the ones that still retain some of the living technology of those original halflings don't really have anywhere near the same level of knowledge and skill.

the halflings didn't so much create the other races as became (most of) the other races.

"after the apocalypse" is a bit vague. i was going to post a brief history, but that wound up being a long explanation that still left out a lot of stuff, so i'll just get to the point instead: "after the apocalypse" and "before the apocalypse" is a bit vague in dark sun. there have been *at least* 3 events that would be described as an apocalypse, and there's probably at least one more i don't know much about because i don't know *why* a huge amount of the planet is an obsidian-covered wasteland filled with undead, but i'm betting whatever made that happen is worthy of being called an apocalypse.

in any event, elves didn't get killed off. they're *very* different from non-athasian elves, but there are definitely elves on athas. no races were exterminated (or at least, attempts were made in that direction) for being racists or being arrogant, they were actually killed for being not human (or for being not halflings, depending on whether you look at it from the perspective of Rajaat's champions or Rajaat himself)... so basically, they were killed *by* racists.

[Arkhios]

They were killed *by* racists.

That's what I meant. Elves (and others) being killed because of their race, for the killers were racists. But, I admit, my knowledge of Athas is rusty at best, so I may have had several misunderstandings along the way; it's been over a decade since I played Dark Sun for the first - and (unfortunately) last - time.

Anyway, Dark Sun races should be left untouched. The article back in 3.5 Dragon Magazine is my point of focus where I would return to see which races are usable in Dark Sun (I, too, prefer to think that 4e didn't exist), and in all honesty, I don't remember seeing elves or halflings in there. Maybe they're not completely degenerate or exinct, but either way, I like the idea that not all standard races are available. Dark Sun isn't a standard setting.

[furby076]

One "side" is saying: just find a way to shoehorn in races and classes that flat-out don't exist.

Are you sure you think both sides are right?

What makes you think they can't come out with darksun that has all the current classes? Are we so dogmatic in our old ways that we cant change something as simple is this? You really think sorcerer class will break dark sun? Paladins can easily exist, and be reworked. Maybe they are based on some of the UA paladins. Those would fit well in dark sun.

I enjoyed playing the dark sun pc games, owning and playing dark sun campaign setting, and even reading some of the paperback novels.

They could allow all the phb races and classes and it will still be an awesome setting

[Nifft]

What makes you think they can't come out with darksun that has all the current classes? Are we so dogmatic in our old ways that we cant change something as simple is this? You really think sorcerer class will break dark sun? Paladins can easily exist, and be reworked. Maybe they are based on some of the UA paladins. Those would fit well in dark sun.

I enjoyed playing the dark sun pc games, owning and playing dark sun campaign setting, and even reading some of the paperback novels.

They could allow all the phb races and classes and it will still be an awesome setting

1 - No, retaining the setting's identity is not "dogmatic in our old ways", it's the setting's identity. There are certain conceits which are central to the setting. It's dishonest to use the name of a setting but throw away the things which that name means.

2 - Did someone actually say "sorcerer class will break dark sun"?

3 - It really sounds like you want a generic fantasy kitchen-sink pastiche. That's fine, we won't judge you, but please keep it away from our nice clean desert survival horror setting.

[Arkhios]

What makes you think they can't come out with darksun that has all the current classes? Are we so dogmatic in our old ways that we cant change something as simple is this? You really think sorcerer class will break dark sun? Paladins can easily exist, and be reworked. Maybe they are based on some of the UA paladins. Those would fit well in dark sun.

I enjoyed playing the dark sun pc games, owning and playing dark sun campaign setting, and even reading some of the paperback novels.

They could allow all the phb races and classes and it will still be an awesome setting

Some races simply won't make sense in Dark Sun. Some can be "reskinned" to match the existing races of Athas, but not all. Dark Sun exists in a bubble that's completely severed from the rest of the multiverse (hence no gods, for example) so it would be impossible to explain a Warforged or Tiefling, for example, in Dark Sun because they have not existed before and could not have been migrated from elsewhere since planar/multiversal access doesn't exist.

Unless you make your own houserules, but every addition to the core is a big step from the setting being Dark Sun any longer.

[War_lord]

Dark Sun is its own thing, and adding in noblebright Paladins and Dragonborn would undermine that.

[Tetrasodium]

What makes you think they can't come out with darksun that has all the current classes? Are we so dogmatic in our old ways that we cant change something as simple is this? You really think sorcerer class will break dark sun? Paladins can easily exist, and be reworked. Maybe they are based on some of the UA paladins. Those would fit well in dark sun.

I enjoyed playing the dark sun pc games, owning and playing dark sun campaign setting, and even reading some of the paperback novels.

They could allow all the phb races and classes and it will still be an awesome setting

it depends on how it is done, but wotc does not have a good track record with anything but faerun in 5e. I'm not familiar enough with darksun to speak to that; but I can point to a glaring "seriously what the holy bleep?" Specifically that beacon of wtf is the artificer (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/213032/Unearthed-Arcana-The-Artificer-Class-5e). a core part of the eberron setting is that rather than our technological development rooted in science eberron uses magic like science (in a very simplified wording for brevity & discussion). the recharging magic items in 5e are something that came from 3.5 eberron when it was first released. The idea that a firearm would be anything but a dangerous curiosity that might be in a museam or something as that & that alone is ludicrous when a Cannith heir or artificer has been able to churn out minor magic items like a wand of magic missile since the setting was first released. Now we have an artificer centered around a bleeping black powder rifle!...

Now sure, I can tell a player that it's a wand & le them do elemental damage to keep from injecting wtf into the setting... but then at 3 & 9 they get a class ability that lets them deal force & thunder damage meaning I need to rework the next two class abilities because I've pretty much already given them at level 1 in order to make it fit the setting.... but it doesn't stop there... at 14 it basically can channel a lightning bolt from this curiosity & at 19 a cone of fire... wtf was the gunpowder & musket even there for to begin with?!

Gunsmith is not the only wtf part of artificer though, the other artificer archtype is the alchemist who mixes alchemical siubstances to effectively gain the abilities of popfiz from effing spyro (http://spyro.wikia.com/wiki/Pop_Fizz). If you are not familiar with eberron, that too might seem very reasonable, except in eberron that artificer would be making single use trinkets that have the same effects.

Both artificer archtypes would probably be casting their spells via wands or trinkets too rather than just casting them.

Great... do I've gotta rewite the whole effing class in order for it to fit the setting it came from & was first appeared in (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificer_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons))created for. Lets see, is there a place in any d&d world that had artificers & alchemists that ould have used gins & mixed alchemical substances ala popfiz?.... oh wait... that describes lantan out of the forgotten realms campaign setting book.... unfortunately it was destroyed in forgotten realms self inflicted wounds of the spellplague & sundering so I guess now eberron needs to fit this totally alien & ridiculously bizarre class replacing something actually important to the setting with something someone misses from faerun...

So yes, I may be blunt about it, but I have very little faith in WotC's desire to not force greyhawk/faerun derived fecal matter into settings that do not share baseline assumptions to even fit such a thing. Nifft is right to worry because WotC already has a history in 5e of apologetically skull fsking faerun cruft into other settings where it does not belong even slightly due to the massive disruption it causes