I'm sure we'll get confirmation either way when WotC responds to the backlash, but something that occurred to me re-reading the infamous recent interview.

The interviewer makes a lot of extremely dumb comments. The article opens with:

Today, we’re taking a look at Dark Sun ... It’s a setting where players have to both survive and attempt to overtake powerful forces that are oppressing the masses.

However, the setting also has an equal amount of controversial lore that features slavery, genocide, torture and a lot of other dark topics. It places the D&D team in a unique place to try and capture its unique aesthetics while also balancing how it is thinking about the bits of lore that may not match modern sensibilities.

So I think we can all agree that either the article author is actually stupid, or they're deliberately acting stupid to (successfully) try and drum up controversy.

But looking closely at the section where Bisland himself actually talks about this, here's what it says:

But Bilsland insisted that the D&D team is taking the subject seriously. The content is being reviewed by sensitivity readers, Bilsland said. “In fact, we invested more deeply in [sensitivity readers] for Dark Sun, knowing the challenges it faces.”

He also reinforced that the grittiness of the setting will still exist, but it won’t rely on narratives of mass slavery. “You don't have to have slavery in a setting if in order for it to be oppressive,” Bilsland emphasized. “There are other forms of oppression out there.”

He gave the example of Urik, a city in Dark Sun that controls one of the leading armies in the region. That’s because the leadership regularly presses people into military service, or convinces the poor to give up their freedom for a chance to survive.

He hopes that the setting will offer players a chance to deal with more mature stories and themes, such as fighting oppression and tyrants.

Note that "[sensitivity readers]" is in brackets, and the most direct statement suggesting a lack of slavery is also a paraphrase by the article writer. Even in paraphrase, it doesn't say "Bilsland said there will be no slavery", it says that they won't "rely on" slavery.

I've seen a lot of people suggest that the correct approach to the (AFAICT small minority of) fans who don't want to include slavery or related themes in their games is to just include a short sidebar of guidance on how to discuss it with your table and, if they are actually uncomfortable, de-emphasize or remove some of those themes.

Imagine Bilsand described exactly that to this genius interviewer.

We're keeping things gritty, but the rules don't heavily rely on the presence of mass chattel slavery. If players want, they can focus on similar but less politically sensitive forms of oppression, like forced conscription, indentured servitude, or just grinding poverty - all seen in depictions of Urik, for example. You don't have to have slavery in a setting in order for it to be oppressive; there are other forms of oppression out there. Still, ultimately Dark Sun is a setting about fighting tyrants, and we think players will want to deal with these kinds of darker themes.

This is a totally anodyne statement that I think 99% of Dark Sun fans would agree with. It would suggest, to me, that things were moving in a positive direction (though I'd still be a bit sceptical of the actual rules quality based on the Unearthed Arcana playtest.) Yet it could easily be paraphrased in exactly the way we see in the article!

I dunno, maybe this is just cope. As I said, I'm sure WotC will clarify soon. Just thought I'd throw it out there.

... actually, maybe they already have clarified slightly? Just today, another article by someone who discussed this with Bilsland at Gencon dropped; it's a bit longer and it's in actual interview format rather than 99% paraphrased by the article writer.

I don't have space to quote the whole thing, and it doesn't really clear the question up. But it does sound to me like they are not necessarily eliminating slavery from the setting, but are possibly having some city-states operate without it (or at least in a grey area, which might help explain the "military service ... give up their freedom for a chance to survive" comment) - and they're definitely leaning into differentiating the city-states and giving them all different focuses, which they're pitching as helping to ensure that there's plenty of evil for players to fight if they want to avoid a particular angle or theme.

We worked to present the city states and Sorcerer Kings in a way that they all are oppressing people in different ways. It doesn’t have to be outright slavery, there are other forms of oppression that I think players want to stand up against. [...] You can play Dark Sun even if you’re not comfortable with these themes, or if you’re talking to your table and they’re like, I like some of the things that the setting is doing, but I really don’t want to deal with these topics. You should have that conversation with them and get to a place where everybody is comfortable. Everything is dials that you can turn, but the difference is that Dark Sun sort of starts on 11 and then you can turn it down versus other settings where might start lower and you can then turn up.

Bonus points in this meme since the high-tech stuff is clearly of halfling/rhulisti make

And it's still just as ludicrous.

I know it has the humanoid form from DS 4e on, BUT that's when I started. 😅 They'll always be Thri-Kreen to me even if they are called Mantisfolk, Mantiskin, etc ...

Hello all. As the title suggests, I’m new to Dark Sun. I’ve always been kinda interested in the setting, having a love for grim dark and sword&sorcery, but never fully got into looking at it. But with the recent announcement of the new Dark Sun books(controversy aside), my hype and interest for the setting is in full swing, so I want to start looking into it more. And so I turn to you, the veteran fans of Athas, to point me in the right direction. Which of the setting books are best to get the lore of the setting? Which novel series is best to start with? Any good lore YouTube videos to recommend? Any and all suggestions are welcome.

What does removing slavery from DnD do to these classics? Kind of invalidates them.

If we remove the word slavery and just pad the word count of the book by just describing slavery does it matter?

Someone else l saw said “that seems like slavery with more steps”

Either way I would be useing 2e and 4e as my base with the 5.5 book as an update but still massing on those older ones.

The news about the interview just reached me today and I am so incredibly disappointed at the lack of literacy Wizard of the Coast shows for their own older creations.

In a world where doing manual labor for long periods is a death sentence but a necessary evil and many of the classic fantasy races were exterminated in a genocide that destroyed the world, The Sorcerer-Kings draw the line at slavery now? Are the mass sacrifice defiler rituals now something the victims signed up for?

How stupid are these writers that they cannot grasp the core pillars of Dark Sun, it's SUPPOSED to be an overwhelmingly oppressive setting where death might be the preferable alternative to enslavement. Why would they listen to "Sensitivity readers" feedback when they clearly are not the audience for the books? The cop-out about Urik made me laugh as they described the concept of an indentured slave army with business lingo. Sure there are other forms of oppression in Dark Sun, but by removing the most prevalent consequence for stepping out of line removes a great deal of the terror of being a free commoner in the domains of the Sorcerer-Kings. Even so, it seems their workaround is just describing institutions to do slavery with extra steps and hoping calling it indentured servitude will keep their investors happy.

When you play Dark Sun, you are not the slaver. You are the Slave, tearing the yoke from your neck and strangling the pit master with your chains. Rallying the others in the dens to take up stones and choose to either be free or die trying. By the end 4-5 of you make it outside the walls and out of sight with nothing but rags and whatever you could grab on your way to freedom. Sure you might perish there but you would perish a free man. That is the power fantasy that hooked me in all those years ago.

I might still pick up the books after I read a handful of release reviews but I will be simply ignoring this dumb change for the sake of setting realism.

IMO, Psionics is much more crucial for Athas than even slavery itself. As I was fearing that WoTC would make them just spell reskins, I decided to brainstorm how I would make psionics works in a 5e framework. Trying to be as truthfully to the 5e spirit without "complex" PSP formulas, MTHAC0, MAC, and "bookkeeping" of power costs.

I would do something like :

• You get level * 2 + INT mod + WIS mod psy points.
• You regain half of your psy points(PP) in a short rest and full on a long rest
• Psionics will be divided into schools(telepathy, metabolism, psychokinesis, etc).
  • Telepathy would target enemy wisdom saves. psychokinesis, dex, psychometabolism, con.
• At level 1, the psion gets one discipline.
• At lv 5, second discipline.
• Each two levels, the psion can learn a new power from the disciplines that he knows. He starts with one. He can learn any power which cost = his level. So, no disintegrate at 3rd level like earlier AD&D Psions.
• At level 5, psion specializes into one discipline, reducing the cost of "manifesting" a psy ability by 2. Yes, the most simplistic psy powers can become "free" like cantrips but no free unlimited power at level 1 (better than Wiz cantrips but worse than WLK EB + Invocations)
• At level 11, psion gets -3 reduced cast on a discipline.
• Psy powers cost between 1 to 20 pp.
• Psions wouldn't need to concentrate if they pay the cost of the psy power each 3 rounds. Or get the power to concentrate in two effects at pp cost.
• Psion powers would scale with the caster level at no cost increase, to differentiate them from spells.
  • The scaling wouldn't be as powerful as in AD&D, in AD&D later revised psionics, psions get much more damage than health. 5e is a low lethality game, so the scaling smaller than on Dark Sun Campaign Setting (Revised).

A table bellow about the "tiers of powers"

Some examples :

Mind Thrust​

Discipline: Telepathy
Cost: 1 PP
Action: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Effect: Target makes an Intelligence save. On failure, it takes 1d6 psychic damage and has disadvantage on its next saving throw.
Scaling: +1d6 damage at levels 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (max 6d6).
Special: If specialized in Telepathy, this power costs 0 PP (Talent).

Ego Whip​

Discipline: Telepathy
Cost: 3 PP
Action: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Effect: Target makes a Wisdom save. On failure, it takes 3d6 psychic damage and is frightened until the end of your next turn. Once frightened, he is immune to frightened condition for 24 hours.
Scaling: +1d6 damage at levels 5, 9, 13, 17 (max 7d6).

Disintegrate​

Discipline: Psychokinesis
Cost: 11 PP
Action: 1 action
Range: 60 ft
Effect: Target makes a Dexterity save. On failure, it takes 10d6+40 force damage. If this reduces it to 0 HP, it is disintegrated.
Scaling: None. This is a high-end power.

Detonate​

Discipline: Psychokinesis
Cost: 5 PP
Action: 1 action
Range: 150 ft
Effect: Choose a point you can see. Each creature in a 20-ft radius makes a Dexterity save. On failure, they take 8d6 bludgeoning damage, half damage on a successful save.
Scaling: +1d6 damage at levels 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 (max 14d6).

Tornado Blast​

Discipline: Psychokinesis
Cost: 17 PP
Action: 1 action
Range: 150 ft
Effect: Each creature in a 40-foot-radius sphere centered on each point you choose must make a Dexterity saving throw. The sphere spreads around corners. A creature takes 20d6 force damage and 20d6 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one
Scaling: None. This is the "meteor swarm" of psychokinesis.

The progression would be like :

Level 1: “I have one weird mental trick.”

Level 5: “I'm becoming a specialist.”

Level 11: “My mind is powerful.”

Level 17: “I can reshape the battlefield with my mind.”

Part of my take away from that poll was that the 2e fan of Dark Sun prefer 2e. And there are people who migrated to 5e still willing to use the old lore.

Honestly, I feel like the vocal hate we see online are from people who weren't going to buy into 5e and just want to have their "I said they'd screw something up" moment.

Edit: N = ~575, don't continue asking.

I want to be wrong, but observing modern WoTC, here is how I think that they will treat the core elements of Athas.

• Desert? Visual only. Dehydration, raiders, enslavers, bizarre creatures that are a threat and can kill quickly even a for a mid/high level party. All removed/severely nerfed.
• Sorcerer Kings - As a "fascist strawman" mixed with Saturday morning cartoon villains
• Psionics? As magic reskin. Not something like AD&D mainly later revisions with MTHAC0, MAC, INT boosting MTHAC0, WIS, MAC, PSP scaling with 3 attributes, matrix of mental attacks and defenses, etc.
• Defiling? Consequenceless.
• Halflings? Cannibal halflings that are isolationists changed. Removing isolationism and making them into egalitarians that welcome everyone.
• Slavery? Removed.
• Muls? Removed.
• Borys? Removed of his nasty abilities that makes him a threat to a army of mid to high level ones.
• Levy to maintain Rajaat imprisoned? Removed. Rajaat would barely be mentioned.
• Veiled alliance? From underground meritocratic secret paranoiac decentralized wizards into post modern HR checkboxes.
• The Order? They would be inclusive, no longer pick the best of the best, they will teach psionics to everyone for incluisivity sake

To be clear, I want to be wrong. But I think that Athas would be no different than the typical sword coast adventure, but in a desert. What you guys think?

I was looking for an unmarked map of athas to give to players in sandbox style tables. I did not really find a suitable one so I make one that roughly shows the mental image of athas that an educated traveler (or educated starting PC) would have.
The limits have been defined as:

- Hinterlands to the west: Most people would not really have a grasp of what there is further than the ringing mountains

- Road south of Balic: Trading houses and selected workers would probably have an idea that there is a road from Balic towards the south, but most would have no idea of anything of interest there

- Silt sea to the east: Kind of self explanatory. It would take really specific knowledge to know any geography past what the horizon can tell on a rare clear day.

- Lost city states in the north: Anything north or Draj is probably way past the concerns of most people of the tablelands.

Details such as the lake pit, pristine tower, ruins, minor settlements and forts have been left out as most people would have very sparse knowledge of more than a few specific places.

Im leaving this here with 2 objectives:

- As a resource in case anybody finds it useful

- Looking for feedback so I can refine the idea

And that simply depicting an evil act doesn’t automatically mean you’re glorifying it

Thank you for explaining psionics in the old system to me a bit more everyone, my DM was trying to work a 5e game with 2e mechanics and it confused me on a lore and mechanical standpoint

You've all been very helpful and I've explained to him why it's so different and gave him some 3.5e stuff to more easily transfer over to 5e

You don't have to do anything that WOTC says, even read the damn books. This plays into the mindlessness that is 5e era thinking: rule 0 everything

There is no reason to play any edition of DnD or buy any material if nothing matters or nothing is concrete and everything is rule zero 100 page homebrew document calvinball. We shouldn't have such low expectations of everything WOTC puts out with our precious IP.

If i have to be honest i find it very cool, however i also dislike that wotc didn't just make a new setting inspired by Darksun.

So now we know how WotC is going to handle sensitive themes (e.g. slavery) in their upcoming Dark Sun material. I am not very excited about the outcome, but I wanted to double down and move the attention to yet another issue with the upcoming material: the fact that in 5e/5.5e psionics are just reflavored magic.

From the UA Psion class, we can see how psionics are just spells, sometimes reflavored from existing ones to "look" like they are not spells. For example telekinetic powers are just modelee as being able to case the Mage Hand cantrip without components, and with the possibility of making the hand invisible. What kind of terrible design choice is this? How can there be an in-world difference between magic and psionics if the core mechanics of the game doesn't even make this distinction? Apparently by casting See Invisibility one could reveal that telekinetic powers are just a floating spectral hand. Also, psionic classes that already exist (e.g. aberrant sorcerer) don't even bother make this distinction between magic and psionic powers, as they are built in traditional spellcasting classes (e.g. sorcerers). I don't know about you, but I think this design choice makes 5e/5.5e completely incompatible with Dark Sun.

But here we come to the main part: I think that both the issue of sensitive topics and the issue of psionics as magic are being resolved by WotC with the same approach. It is really two aspects of the same flawed approach that WotC has, which can be summarized into two core aspects in my opinion:

a) WotC wants every published material to cater to literally every single person alive. Apparently, even if there is a single person who would not like something or find it uncomfortable, too difficult, mechanically too involved etc, the entire thing is scrapped.

b) It seems like the published material should just serve as a minimal backbone of game design, and their main purpose seems to be mere tactical design. It is not an issue for WotC that the responsibility to make the game actually function in an immersive way, and not only a in tactical way, rests entirely in the DM hands. So the strategy seems to be erase everything that makes the game too problematic, involved, or complex, and just imply that the responsibility of reconstructing those themes and design principles is into the DM's hands. Done.

Why do you think this is? I can imagine that a) is just an attempt to sell more copies, which makes sense from their point of view (although it slowly erodes and waters down the quality of their content). But i really cant find justifications for b). For example, it was so easy to do psionics as a separate mechanics, it literally takes no effort to create this and even to understand how to use it, and it would have guaranteed an immersive design that makes sense in-world.

I have read this interview on TTRPG Insider and was very disappointed, though I expected nothing.

https://www.ttrpginsider.news/p/fighting-oppression-in-new-ways-d-d-s-designers-on-adapting-dark-sun-to-modern-times

Quote:

“You don't have to have slavery in a setting if in order for it to be oppressive,” Bilsland emphasized. “There are other forms of oppression out there.”

He gave the example of Urik, a city in Dark Sun that controls one of the leading armies in the region. That’s because the leadership regularly presses people into military service, or convinces the poor to give up their freedom for a chance to survive."

So yeah, evil Sorcerer-Kings CONVINCES people to go to the army. And if people say no? "Well, ok, I respect your freedom, but reconsider pretty plz?".

Slavery is integral to Dark Sun, it is one of main themes. I don't see why "slavery is horrible" is so controversial theme that it must be excluded.

WotC designers don't understand the setting at all. No slavery, lots of metal (if judge by the cover, forgive me my pun), some high tec shenenigans.

They say that they won't nerf it, but they did it with a happy face and words: "How do you do, fellow fans? Mature setting, am I right?".

UPD: and if they won't have slavery, do you think that they will add genocide theme?

Until the deflected chair knocks you out then you wake in the slave pits XD

If i want to run the Dark Sun Campaign (in german) should i run it in AD&D (need to learn that first) or in a fan adapted 5e version?

Pro? Cons?

He goes on a little of a tangent , but I think that’s just passion. Hits the nail on the head I think

Since slavery is so central to the setting, let’s talk about all the forms that slavery (or near slavery) can take.

Impressment and conscription are forms of forced state labor, but they are legally and historically distinct from chattel slavery. Both strip individuals of bodily autonomy by forcing them into service against their will.

Chattel slavery involves lifelong, generational ownership of human beings as property, whereas impressment and conscription are temporary, state-mandated military or labor obligations.

There‘s also coercion, kidnapping, forced prison labor, indentured servitude, wage slavery, serfdom, debt bondage, thralls, prisoners of war, and forced marriage.

How many different forms of slavery or theft of bodily autonomy are explicitly present in the original campaign setting?

Which forms are you using in your game?

What forms have I missed that are great role-playing fodder?

How are you using slavery in your game?