D&D 5E Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Faolyn]

P

Presumably these well remunerated workers are happy going to be consumed by the Dragon as well.

If that actually happens, if they even know about it... there are lots of options.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I wonder if really WotC fears the toxic players and the toxic publishers in DMGuild.

A DS is possible, but it would be one where almost all is crunch, and only a little number of pages about the Tablelands, the city-states and the sorcerer-kings. Really the adventures wouldn't be in the Tablelands but mainly in the rest of the "Athaspace" and other wildspaces around this.

Other point is by gamers with enough experience in economic strategy videogames. They know a lot of population living in a big city needs a lot of space to farm. If Hasbro wants videogames based in DS the previous continuity would have to be sacrificed.

What if the "Blue Age" didn't end in the way you imagine? The "Brown Tide" never was destroyed, but the rest of life evacuated to other planet. Maybe there is an alternate timeline where special sentient constructs created by the "rushtili" could survive the brown tide, and later to rebuild the civilitation.

And traveling to the past to kill Rajaat would be useless becuase this was only a "puppet", and the puppeter who moved the strings would choose other for its plan.

Or there is an alternate timeline where the cleasing war didn't start in the same way, because the most of no-halflings could be evacuated to not suffer the genocide. Rajaat allowed this if those didn't return again. The cleasing war ended sooner because somebody warned about the mutual betray, and the champions were sent to a new demiplane, but nor a dread domain in the Shadowfeel neither a domain of delight in the Feywild, but in other place.

 

[Lanefan]

Does anyone know the artist for these images?

The second one is Rodney Matthews. The first one isn't familiar to me.

EDIT: well and truly ninja'ed by @LuisCarlos17f and with better info too.

 

[Cergorach]

Beyond that, as I’ve asked before, how far does that standard go? When is it okay to portray slavery again in fiction? When does it become not okay to portray things like self harm or war in fiction because they may not be handled well by the audience or may remind impacted people of their trauma? I fully respect and recognize the latter’s reality, but I cannot see how it is sensible to expect others to limit their creative outlets - as long as they are not intentionally seeking to cause harm - to meet the possible concerns of individuals who can choose to not be part of the audience.

It's 'ok' now, there is no one stopping you from writing fiction like that and there are loads of writers that do. There are whole fan groups writing, playtesting and actually playing Dark Sun for example. They are just not doing it for the money. And even if they are asking money for something, they do not expect it to maximize profit, like a WotC does...

Let me give you an example, if you develop a computer game, your best bet is to not make it for a 37 year old OS, that hardly anyone uses anymore. But in 2022, a whole 36 games were released for AmigaOS:

Amiga Games from 2022 - Lemon Amiga Game Database

Amiga games database with information about every Amiga game ever released!

www.lemonamiga.com

When you're not part of a multinational, have investors, need to pay the bills, etc. You suddenly have a lot of choice in which pool of creativity to play in!

But... People have tried:

• Timothy Brown (co-creator of DS) did a Dragon Kings kickstarter as a spiritual successor of DS. The KS funded, but it's the only product they made (besides the music CD), the company is pretty much defunct. Timothy Brown has since authored a few RPG books for different publishers (from what I could quickly find).
• Another company did a KS for a Dragon Kings 5E version (that requires the book from the previous KS). It funded, the company did three English products (on DTRPG), two of which were for Dragon Kings (5E). The company is defunct.
• A different company did a KS for Red Dawn (DS clone), it funded, but was cancelled by the author. Many people (even on here) speculated that they received a C&D notice from WotC due to it being a ripoff, but no one ever got to the truth of it. The company is defunct.
• Others have announced similar projects that still have to show up or never materialized...

Do you see a trend here? Can someone make something like this? Of course! Can someone make a living of this? Doesn't look like it. Sure the big name author raised $41,217 via KS. But from that a 12 track CD needed to be recorded, artists needed to be paid, books needed to be printed, etc. For a 176 page book, I suspect very little money was left after all the other costs were paid for...

Also keep in mind that back in 1991-1997 TSR sold maybe 120,000 units of core boxes. More then Spelljammer, Planescape, Birthright, but less then Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms. While the D&D consumer group has increased drastically, that does not mean that a specific settings popularity would grow in a similar way. I'm kinda curious how well 4E DS did in sales numbers, keep in mind that everything for DS 4E was made around the same time, so the small pile of products does not indicate whether it was selling well or not.

Source:

From Forgotten Realms to Red Steel: Here's That Full D&D Setting Sales Chart

Whether this will end a thousand internet arguments or fuel another thousand, Ben Riggs, author of Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons, has finally published the combined chart of cumulative sales for every AD&D setting from 1979 to 1999. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk...

www.enworld.org

 

[AnotherGuy]

To answer your question no, I'm not. Right now I believe there is nuance and context to issues so I am not claiming every instance of slavery in D&D can be equated to black trauma. As it sits now the references to slavery are so small and scattered they can easilly be overlooked and ignored for any particular game and are not in and of themselves a necessity to play D&D.

That said... My argument from the beginning of this has been that I can understand and I empathize with WotC finding Dark Sun problematic and choosing not ot publish it (as opposed to those who can't seem to see what the problem is or think WotC is somehow wrong for the choice)... and not just for slavery, but that's been one of the things that instantly stood out to me as a black American. Why? Because by publishing Dark Sun WotC is by necessity putting the trappings of slavery and all that entails (as well as many other problematic setting elements) front and center for 12+ year olds to utilize in their games. I don't care how well the treatment of said issues are, you put them in the hands of pre-teens... hell even some teens and up and you should expect a lack of maturity in dealing with said issues.

Now in America (not sure about other places) antebellum slavery has been so intrinsically made a part of black people's identity (especially through it's constant focus by American media) that when the said pre-teen or whoever decides slavery is funny, a joke should be made about it, let's act it out, etc. it will...

1. Inevitably fall first on the black kid or kids sitting at the table as that will be the most natural target for a slavery joke... or the most obvious person that should be a slave vs. a templar will be the black kid playing and so on.

2. Black people are already a rarity in this hobby and basically non-present in parts of it. I enjoy Worlds Without Number & OSE but there are nearly no black people in the OSR scene, even among those who have stepped into gaming the OSR is found distasteful for the most part because of the reputation of many of it's players and creators...and this is something WotC doesn't want for their brand... something I don't want for their brand and Dark Sun has a real chance of being the product that can cause some to view D&D with the same distaste.

Also I know I am talking about slavery in Dark Sun from the PoV of a black American man... because I am one but these sme concerns apply to black women, daughters as well as just girls and women who play. I just don't have the faith that some do in all gamers treating the setting elements of the game, as well as the people they are gaming with, with the respect and gravity necessary for this not to become a cluster.... for WotC at some point.

As to whether slavery would exist or not in a fantasy culture... it's fantasy, whatever you want to exist is in it. You can justify it however you want but it's all made up.

Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed reply.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

New suggestions:

- An event where planar-travelers from Kaladesh and Amonketh(Magic: the Gathering) discover and explored a new world, this is in a wildspace next to the Athaspace, and here the defilers from Athas have arrived also, and started to cause damage against the ecosystem.

- Hasbro talking with Burning Star Games to buy the IP of "Red Dawn: into the Dawnlands". The same action with Dragon Kings by Timothy Brian Brown. Why? Some times is easier and faster to buy a business created by other before than starting everything from zero.

These IPs could be unlocked in DMGuild. Hasbro still could use the DS franchise for a future videogame or cinema production.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Does Dark Sun have slave armies, or slaves being used as guards or security? Like, would PCs be expected to have to kill some slaves to take out their masters?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In the real History there were slave armies, for example the Janissaries and Mamluks.

How could I explain what I mean with any example? Let's imagine a movie or a teleserie where the FBI agents have to stop a terrorist group who wants to use a biological weapon. Years ago this could be normal in TV or in the cinemas, but after the Covid epidemic, this now is not wellcome, almost taboo. Maybe they fear the defense of the Nature could become soon an unconfortable treat by fault of "ecocidal terrorism" (ecocide is an accepted word in the English languange) and the hypocirte "false prophets" whose jets spent a lot of oil to go to conferences where they tell us we have to reject our cars. Or the stories about Nature destroyed by industrial pollution are censored in Russia and China because they are alluded to.

My new suggestion is to create, or update, the prestige class "Blighter" from 3.5 the complete divine. This should work like a playtesting of the future defilers.

And other point is if in the end WotC update the psionic powers... somebody could say this or that 3PP had got better ideas..(and he may be right). If we want a DS with psionic powers we should await a years since an UA playtest about psionic powers.

* Even if living constructs PCs don't need water or food maybe they suffer some psychological need, for example positive social interactions. You can't imagine the emotional damage when you suffer a depression. It is as if your sould couldn't recover the lost energy.

* Now I am imagining the end of the blue age wasn't in the way we were told. Maybe accidentally a group of strange creatures appeared from the sea, something like Junji Ito's horror manga "Gyo" or the sheens, the biomechanical horrors from Dragon Magazine #258 and #270. To stop this menace the "Brown Tide" was caused like a weapon of massive destructive destruction, a desperate last resort, and or it worked too well, causing too much collateral damage, or it was sabogated by agents of the elder elemental eye.

And Athas in the blue age was used as secret lair for several factions of chronomancers, time dragons and time-travelers.

* How would be the impact of the end of the Blue Age in the Feywild and Shadowfell around Athas? Maybe there is an alternate Athas where the Green age couldn't start because the Brown Tide wasn't stopped. If this wasn't enough, this Athas was invaded by sentient constructs and infernal outsiders who used this Athas as new batlefield in the Blood War. Several centuries after this Athas became a demiplane next to the infernal planes. Later genies arrived and created "settles". Members of the cult of Tharizdum tried to collect samples of the Brown Tide to pollute all the marine ecosystems in the rest of worlds, but the deities with prophetic visions warned before they could cause too much damage.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Does Dark Sun have slave armies, or slaves being used as guards or security? Like, would PCs be expected to have to kill some slaves to take out their masters?

Yes to both.

 

[Cergorach]

Also I know I am talking about slavery in Dark Sun from the PoV of a black American man... because I am one but these sme concerns apply to black women, daughters as well as just girls and women who play. I just don't have the faith that some do in all gamers treating the setting elements of the game, as well as the people they are gaming with, with the respect and gravity necessary for this not to become a cluster.... for WotC at some point.

This is an issue that won't be solved by sanitizing something like DS (or just not publishing it). I have utter faith in humanity's ability to be absolute f-ups! They don't need a setting like DS to be total a-holes to black people, women, or anyone else for that matter. Even if you have a properly sanitized D&D setting/adventure, assuming that people won't lash out towards others, be inappropriate, offensive, or whatever else we can think of you wouldn't want at your D&D game, is imho naive. 'Fixing' a game doesn't do anything for the underlying issue, namely people. And that issue is not restricted to people of a particular color (or lack of color).

If you feel uncomfortable with playing in a setting with slavery, that is imho a perfectly acceptable reason why you or your group won't buy or play in such a setting. But I would also say that if other people/groups don't feel the same, is there a reason why you would want to deny them their setting/game? I don't think that slavery by itself is particularly racist, but I understand why it is thought of this way (the US and European colonies). In the case of DS slavery also isn't particularly racist, DS slavers are equal opportunity bastards.

I was reading some DS wiki last night on a bunch of DS subjects and other things besides the slavery issue start showing up when you're looking for it. Things like Eugenics, racial hatred, genocide, experimentation on intelligent beings, cannibalism, etc.

As to whether slavery would exist or not in a fantasy culture... it's fantasy, whatever you want to exist is in it. You can justify it however you want but it's all made up.

I think this is a cop-out, sure we could sanitize everything in a D&D fantasy game, but where do you stop? At the point that we all fight with foam bats instead of actual weapons and if the Beholder defeats you, it only demands more hugs? In D&D we generally fight the 'bad guys', but those 'bad guys' tend to be the exception instead of the rule. In DS the 'bad guys' are the rule, the 'bad guys' won, people try to survive after the 'bad guys' won, by any means necessary.

I was also brainstorming a bit last night on how to make a DS like setting, without it being DS. My concept was that the inner worlds of a system were swallowed up by it's sun, and the many peoples living on those planets fled their worlds to a more remote (red/hot) planet. Almost no metals (for reasons) on that planet, I was imagining a Mars. Like our Mars the planet was not yet ready to be lived on, so besides having to flee their planet for another, they also needed to terraform the planet and create portals to the future for when the planet was terraformed (or survive in small enclaves). So what kind of creatures would survive on a planet without air? Mostly constructs and undead. Spellcasters would use constructs to start the process of terraforming the planet. Maybe some groups could create domed or underground cities and provide those with air and food, but certainly not a whole planet. The powerful undead things would be able to live on the planet without air, building their own realms, fighting wars, etc. But the issue with that, they need bodies to create new undead with. They sure could take large stocks with them, but eventually those would run out. So I imagined undead to act like vampires, that need humanoids to keep creating their undead soldiers and workers. If a powerful undead could gate to another planet, it could also create a small city sized refuge for living creatures (air+food).

But as the Undead lords would only need healthy adult bodies... Being very evil, intelligent and usually efficient, they would force breed humanoids and kill them when they could no longer breed and have reached adulthood. Effectively humanoid livestock. I have many other ideas for how different creatures escaped to this planet. But the thing is, the (powerful) Evil beings (in all their forms, including evil humanoids), will do evil things to get ahead and stay ahead. Sure, I could hand-wave that aspect away, but what other evil aspects do I wave away? Do all the D&D fantasy worlds not have slavery, rape, murder, (racial) hatred, drugs, stealing, cursing. What kind of Evil(tm) things do the (human) monsters get up to in such a D&D setting? We don't really discuss those thing, we treat it like fight-club, but we don't really expect it not to be there, we just don't think about it.

I could of course have gone the way: The Gods terraformed the planet in six days... But that does not a post-apocalyptic world make (without deities).

Now I'm brainstorming further, I'm thinking that this humanoid breeding is indeed what happened, but... The living enclaves, being small made some sort of barrier that the undead cannot cross, thus the enclaves stay small and/or grow only very slowly. Meanwhile the undead lords would fight against each other for dominance, but as with any war without rules (Evil undead after all), each went after the others supply lines. The humanoid livestock enclaves run by the undead lords were annihilated while the living enclaves were pretty safe. Some nasty people in those enclaves started selling dead bodies to the undead lords, eventually resorting to kidnapping, this eventually led to the situation that on one side the enclaves cracked down on this behavior because it threatened the survivability of the whole enclave (after a few fell) and on the other hand bodies became too expensive to buy, resulting in more constructs being used by the undead. Or in a trade in just the dead between the enclaves and the undead...

Would it be acceptable if slavery/humanoid-trade once existed, but now no longer because it was deemed too dangerous and not viable?

If I just wanted to drop the whole DS-like setting... I could of course also go with the anime trope of in a perfect world, 'Dungeons' are a natural phenomenon, a living entity that creates monsters (that only exist in the dungeon). They are not born, they have no children, the just come into existence and when they are destroyed (not killed!), they drop resources. Adventurers are like farmers of dungeons...

I think there is room in D&D for settings/adventures with adult/mature subjects, that are not for everyone. I just do not think that WotC is #1 capable of doing that well, #2 has the breathing room to try that, #3 the will to do it, #4 the ability to make it profitable (enough) for them.

Everyone loves Beholder hugs!