A piece of news that interests the Dungeons & Dragons table-top Role Playing Game (RPG) fans. Dark Sun returns to D&D and gets an update for the 4th Edition in 2010. For those of you that have never heard of this world, Dark Sun was a 2nd Edition Campaign Setting where the political setting is similar to ancient Middle East, North Africa or Mesopotamia. Water and metals are extremely scarce. Survival against the elements has made it a harsh exotic world.
Created by popular demand, this requested setting was saved specifically for now in 4th Edition, and will also feature new novels set in the world of Athas. As a follow-up to the initial announcement, we spoke with R&D’s James Wyatt regarding the release of Dark Sun.
Wizards of the Coast: Let’s start with the basics. Can you tell us about the process for determining this next campaign setting? What niche were you looking to fill, how were various settings nominated and critiqued, and what ultimately led you to Dark Sun?
James Wyatt: With Bill Slavicsek as the head of the department and Rich Baker as one of our senior designers, there was really not a lot of question about whether we’d do Dark Sun, just a question of when. Both Bill and Rich worked on Dark Sun among their very first projects at TSR back in the days of 2nd Edition A D&D, and both of them have been eager to revive the setting for years.
I think what made 2010 the right time for Dark Sun was a combination of factors. First, it’s going to utterly rock under the 4th Edition rules. Under 2nd Edition, Dark Sun was all about a grittier, action-packed feeling in a dark and dangerous world, and that’s going to map really well to the new edition and the baseline assumptions about the world. Second, one of the factors we’ve looked at in planning our settings is the degree to which a setting strays from the standard D&D medieval fantasy feel. Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara — those are all pretty close to baseline fantasy. Eberron strays only a little farther afield, with its pseudo-technological elements (airships, warforged, lightning rail). Dark Sun is something very different, and we felt it was time to show the breadth of what’s possible in the game, just what a broad swathe D&D’s kind of fantasy can cover. – Source
It will be interesting to find out how the old characters will be depicted in this revision of the traditional Dark Sun campaign Setting.
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