So, recognizing that it has some very questionable aspects (tho I do think some of them are there specifically to give PCs tangible things to fight against), Dark Sun is one of the most compelling dnd settings in my opinion. Like, it is a world that is essentially post-apocalyptic and has been through a Fuck Ton of Shit, is cut off from the rest of the multiverse, and rife with social strife (namely intense classism, slavery, and totalitarian/autocratic city-states) as well as strife from the environment of the planet itself caused by arcane magic (which like…a lot of classes are arcane, so it definitely causes interesting character selections).
But
You tell heroic stories there. You tell the stories of people surviving, and possibly changing things for the better (depending on how you play, like many sourcebooks say “surviving is often the adventure itself”). Dnd PCs are meant to be the good guys, unless you’re going for an explicitly evil campaign, but I don’t think most are, and being a good guy in Athas is a Feat and just telling the story of doing good in that environment. So fucking compelling to me.
I understand wotc not wanting to play with it too much bc it’s very dark as far as dnd setting goes, but it is kind of sad imo that the only mentions of it I’ve seen in 5e have been in the DMG (where it talks about various dnd worlds and mentions some that i don’t think have been supported since 2e) and Princes of the Apocalypse (there’s an appendix that gives suggestions for running the adventure in settings other than the Forgotten Realms and the first one it mentions is Dark Sun). I’ve seriously considered trying to convert 3.5 Psionic classes into 5e (I’m…not good at it) so i can run a dark sun one shot/mini adventure without having to limit my players too much bc there’s so no purely psionic classes in 5e only subclasses (Psi Warrior, Soulknife, and Aberrant Mind my beloveds). I already made species traits for Muls for 5e (those being the only one that isn’t currently in 5e).
Just, reading through the Dark Sun sourcebooks is fascinating to me, and I wanna dig my fingers in so much deeper.
Wotc give us more psionic classes please
(Side Note: Athas a metaphor for climate change and fascism. I think it would be too heavy handed for an actual metaphor tho)
