Official OGL Discussion Thread

[Dr.Samurai]

Sure - but in FR, it's each DM's choice if they want to set their entire campaign in Menzoberranzan or the Underdark. And brand new players/DMs are highly unlikely to start out in such disconcerting places; the ones who don't, have plenty else to do in places like the Sword Coast, at least until they get settled in to this whole D&D thing. Dark Sun is not nearly so variegated - it's a grimdark setting and everywhere is terrible.

Again, we're hopping around to... which point? I don't know.

Because Kyle didn't say that Dark Sun was too disconcerting for newbies and they needed to settle in first before they were exposed to grimdark. He didn't mention anything about class restrictions. He said it's "problematic". He also said "we know it has a huge fan following", as opposed to "it's just a bunch of grumpy grognards that we should ignore right out".

You're right, I don't definitively know that it would be less successful - but I do know it's kneecapped right at the starting line. The very nature of the setting meaning that people will expect it to dump a number of the existing classes as player options and come up with new ones before it can even start to feel authentic. That was easy in 4e when there were really only 4 classes (Defender, Leader, Controller, Striker) with various permutations that largely boiled down to fluff/power source, so adding a few new ones and calling them "psionic" was not a lot of design work, but that's not really the case with 5e.

5E is designed so that you literally don't need any class. You can't be a cleric, and you can't be a paladin. That's it. Artificer is probably out as well, but it sort of has that distinction already.

Bard? Yes.
Barbarian? Yes.
Druid? Yes.
Fighter? Yes.
Monk? Yes.
Ranger? Yes.
Rogue? Yes.
Sorcerer? Yes.
Warlock? I'd say this is probably a good analogue for templars with Sorcerer King Pacts (maybe turn them into divine casters).
Wizard? Yes.

The groups I play with wouldn't bat a single eyelash if someone wanted to run Dark Sun and said "no artificers, clerics, or paladins". Because this type of stuff happens in home games too. I really don't know where you're getting these expectations from.

Got it. Some of those I get meet the standard definition I expect, I think its the "family" part that is particularly throwing me. So far as DS vs. Eberron, I can't say whether the people who might be offended by DS would also be offended by Eberron, but I do suspect there's difference in so far as DS's motivation was that certain races' existence was deemed by Rajaat to be...polluting? Is that that the word? the world, and that to make things better they all need to be exterminated. (wasn't the lycanthropic purge a result of them basically attacking people all over the place, and vol for being a bunch of necromantic generally evil people? Don't recall any details about the rest)

Ok so it sounds like you do in fact see some sort of distinction here worth mentioning. Apparently, Rajaat wanting to cleanse the world and return it to the halflings is more concerning than any lich king that wants to wipe everyone out, or every archdevil that wants to enslave everyone's soul, or every other generic D&D supervillain that wants to do very evil things to everyone in the world. I guess we will have to disagree on this. I don't think this is a particularly strong exception to take with Dark Sun. The motive appears to be the issue here I guess, which seems very... nitpicky to me.

Its a real question for you about whether you think some of the aspects could be perceived as problematic, and which. No need to be coy on my part, I've already listed a handful of things which I could understand being perceived as problematic (as an additional example, all jungle dwelling primitives being cannibals). I can only guess on my part, and would like to hear your guesses.

But it's something I would really have trouble answering. It would have never occurred to meet that the halflings would be considered problematic. These things strike me as arbitrary associations to arrive a predetermined conclusion.

Not sure anyone's vacillating so much as there are multiple conversations going on (I mean, my original point was that people weren't going to suddenly become morally bankrupt people who forget genocide and slavery are bad if DS isn't published, and now here we are). I'm sure WoTC is afraid of backlash, that concern makes them look at the ROI, they look for the biggest ROI they can get, determine that involves minimizing problematic content, so it makes more sense for them to produce content that is less likely to be perceived as problematic so they can enjoy the biggest ROI. The points are related. As to whether D&D has certain problematic issues in other settings, goes back to what/how you run your games and the extent such context exists within a setting I expect. I don't know anything about Theros and Strixhaven, but I'm guessing that an opportunity to bring people into D&D from MTG (Strix is MTG, right? Is Theros?) offers a higher ROI than marketing to people who only play D&D.

I'm not disagreeing. I understand that problematic content would be a risk (in theory). I'm not arguing that they should publish it regardless of the risk.

I find the argument against Dark Sun on economic or popularity grounds an odd one, given WotC just released Spelljammer, which was even more niche than Dark Sun back in the 2e days. And Dark Sun had a 4e release as well, which Spelljammer never did, one that was both well received and one of their best sellers for 4e.

It seems like that's the argument they're making, but apparently they're just pointing out that, so long as WotC considers Dark Sun problematic on behalf of concern-mongers, it would be risky for them to publish it.

Am I skeptical that WotC can survive this OGL nonsense but publishing Dark Sun would destroy them? No, actually, not really. Vocal people online have taken up some very interesting perspectives since Dark Sun was last published 12 years ago.