WotC’s Dark Sun Launch: Marketing for Mature Players, Content for Emotional Children
If you were a hard-core Dungeons & Dragon player back in the 90s, chances are, your jam was Dark Sun. Part pulp sword and sorcery, part Dune, and part Mad Max, the brutish, gritty (in a literal sense) setting made D&D’s default faux Medieval setting look like a fiberglass theme park.
For decades, Dark Sun fans awaited their grimy, gory setting’s return. Wizards of the Coast technically made an attempt in 2010, but that was Fourth Edition, so it didn’t count.
Now, WotC has finally answered longstanding demand. The postapocalyptic wasteland of Athas is coming back in 2027.
Wizards even took the extra step of billing Dark Sun 3.0 as mature content. The prelaunch marketing campaign featuring shrink-wrapped books positions Dark Sun as the hardcore setting for grown-ups who can handle dark themes.
And it was working. Early buzz spread through the gaming scene like wildfire.
Then the game’s executive producer opened his mouth.
Greg Bilsland told TTRPG Insider that the new Dark Sun is being run through even more sensitivity readers than usual. It is ostensibly their input that led him to say that the setting will not need to “focus on elements such as slavery” to feel oppressive. “There are other forms of oppression out there,” he said.
Translated from Corporatese, the company that disowned the original setting as “problematic” is now bringing it back after sanding off (pun intended) the unapproved kinds of misery.
The problem is that Slavery was not window dressing in Dark Sun. Athas’ city-states ran on the peculiar institution. The economy, the social hierarchy; the whole texture of daily life was informed by it.
SOULDANCER RETURNS, THE CYCLE CONTINUES
Ten years after winning the first-ever Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel, Souldancer returns with the definitive anniversary edition and an all-new companion novella, The Other Side of Fear.
The Kickstarter launches September 1, featuring early bird rewards and a crowdfunder-exclusive hardcover of the new novella.
Follow the Kickstarter now to be notified the moment limited rewards go live!
Read the full post on Substack.