A Do-over for Dark Sun

Unless something very significant changes, WotC are never going to touch Dark Sun again. Indeed, until someone stepped in and ordered a change, the "Spelljammer" adventure was intended to drop the entire setting into a black hole, ending it definitively. On the one hand, I understand that position, as Dark Sun has some seriously problematic areas and I can see why WotC don't want to wade into that (especially after the controversies of the last couple of years). On the other hand, it's rather disappointing. Or maybe not, given what they did with Ravenloft and Spelljammer...

Anyway, this has given a certain license to the fans of the setting: if it's never going to be revisited, there's now a freedom to do what you want with it. And, indeed, the door is presumably open for someone to do a "Faded Star" setting (or whatever) being a near-clone of the setting. And, indeed, that's one of the things I've been gradually noodling over in the back of my mind.

If I were redoing Dark Sun, how would I start?

First up, I'd keep the basic premises: it's a post-apocalyptic setting, and the damage is unequivocably caused by the actions of man. The survivors are left ekeing out difficult lives, with the few remaining cities being ruled by vicious, magically-infused tyrants and their servants.

I would, however, get rid of outright slavery from the setting. There's no need for it - the tyrants can rule by fear, their servants can demand a monopoly on the use of force (and magic), and there can be all manner of secret police and other informants making it extremely difficult for the regular folk to revolt effectively.

I would include a Free City, but that's also in dire straits - the recent death of the tyrant has left them without a vast amount of their magical protection, the nearby cities are all determined to wipe them out to show an example, there's vast civil unrest... basically, it's free but might be better off if it were not.

I would probably remove psionics from the setting. It was a nice idea in 2nd Ed, but it's probably a complication the setting can do without.

I would also, without a doubt, remove all of the classic Tolkien-esque species from the setting. No "new takes" on elves, dwarves, and halflings. I would instead enhance the roles played by the more exotic species, the tieflings and dragonborn, and then include a number of species specific to the setting: some sort of insect-folk (thri-kreen and maybe scorpionfolk), lizardfolk, goliaths, and so on. It's a very different setting, so enforce a range of different options.

I think defiling and preserving is probably the most important aspect of the setting, but it wasn't terribly well handled in the 2nd Ed rules. Instead, defiling should be an option available to all casters at the time of casting that will make their spells more powerful, but which will taint the user and blight the world. And at least some magic items would make use of defiling magic, with the more powerful the item the more likely this is.

Of course, the survival aspect is extremely important to the setting. That's relatively easy to address with two house rules: firstly, no magic can create potable water or edible food; secondly, any extra-planar magical storage will destroy any potable water or edible food placed inside. (There are a few more details than this, but those are the most important fixes.)

And the final aspect that is extremely important is the absence of gods. That means no Clerics or Paladins or other users of divine magic. (Druids and Rangers are fine, as users of Primal magic, and the servants of the tyrants are now best modelled as Warlocks.) There may or may not (probably not) be other classes to fill in some of the resulting gaps.

And that, more or less, is it. There is then a lot of working out the details required, but that's a topic for other posts (or not).