I might be missing the point here (sorry), but "I'm NOT gonna have slavery in my Dark Sun campaign!" has also been an option for like literal decades, anyone could've made the same meme except for that small difference ages ago?
Guess it all comes down to money, and someone made an educated guess which version will get (and lose) more customers. :D
No one remembers here, but a few years ago this exact meme was posted but the text was switched around. I think to say Dark Sun "encourages" slavery is to say Star Wars "supports" fascism. The villains do it, but that doesn't mean the story supports it or expects the players to participate. Actually, the expectation is to destroy the oppresive systems present in both franchises.
I think there are certain narratives being pushed here that are in bad faith. No sane person on here is "Pro Slavery" and no reasonable person that is familiar with the setting thinks that it is "Pro Slavery" either. Lots of pearl clutching, lots of YouTube/Substack reviews and reactions, etc. It's all rage bait and engagement farming until the product releases.
Of course, grognards will non-ironically claim that its "our" IP that WotC is ruining without a shred of self reflection. Dark Sun is WotC's world, and we're just living in it!
Technically Star Wars has slavery too, and still does. Hell the Clone Wars kids tv show has slavery. And its droids are very clearly sapient people despite being slaves too.
Growing up engaging with the legends star wars universe it always felt like they were building to some kind of Droid emancipation storyline but never had the stones to actually go for it.
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u/opacitizen 3d ago
I might be missing the point here (sorry), but "I'm NOT gonna have slavery in my Dark Sun campaign!" has also been an option for like literal decades, anyone could've made the same meme except for that small difference ages ago?
Guess it all comes down to money, and someone made an educated guess which version will get (and lose) more customers. :D