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Heh, I always thought 4e would be a good fit for Dragonlance...
Draconians (Dragonborn)? Check.
Three mechanically distinct fey races (elves)? Check.
Wizards with staves? Check.
Kender (halflings)? Check.
Civilized Minotaurs? Check.
The Abyss as something more than the CE plane? Check!
All that Dragonlance would really need to do is explain away tieflings (not hard) and the PHB is good out the door!
As a bonus: DL would bring Wizard of High Sorcery Paragon Paths, Knight of Solomnia Paragon, Handler Paragon Path, and a bunch of cool stuff.
While I'd have gone either Ravenloft (which appears to be worming itself into the core) or Planescape (ditto, see MotP), Dragonlance works.
Bring on Dark Sun 2011!
Or completely ruin knights of solomnia, and High Sorceror and such.God no, tieflings do NOT belong in DL. At all. The races and such are well defined, even as Minotaurs and Ogres have docieties. Tieflings dont belong.Dragonborn are.....iffy. Draconians are already well defined, unless dragon born are just draconians in disguise. There arent any good ones after all.Thats what some of us mean by butchered. Among other things.Your trying to shoehorn in 4e items that just dont belong.
Yes; in 4E we call them "Halflings." (+5 save vs. fear?) Any changes would be purely cosmetic and RP-based, which is better enforced by table rules.
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Originally Posted by Obryn
(2) Will there be Tinker Gnomes?
Yes, but in 4E Gnomes are Monsters ("Raaawr!"), so you can kill them and take their stuff. That's not so bad.
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Originally Posted by Obryn
(3) Will there be Gully Dwarves?
Were there ever? I mean, as a seriously offered PC race? I think the answer to that question must be "No".
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
Both cities are not really points of light ... All not so dangerous as to make it a PoL setting. Rather those are points of darkness in a sea of grey.
That's a bogus distinction. There isn't only one kind of PoL, with all others are incapable of being a 4E setting. For one, PoL captures a wide range of possibilities (of which Krynn certainly is one), and for two, PoL is merely the default setting, not the only kind of setting you can use 4E rules in.
Krynn is PoL "enough" for anyone who doesn't have fixed preconceptions of "only one 'amount' of safety qualifies", and even if it were peaceful fields of happy daisies from Ergoth to Icewall you could still use 4E rules.
And the existence of one or two "monster" nations does not make all of Krynn free of darkness any more than Wulgar makes Icewind Dale a land full to the brim of peaceful & friendly barbarians.
__________________ I don't "tell stories" when I play D&D. I adventure. Afterward, when the gold is counted and the bodies piled high, we may tell stories about how it all went down. Or not.
Yes; in 4E we call them "Halflings." (+5 save vs. fear?) Any changes would be purely cosmetic and RP-based, which is better enforced by table rules.
I agree that D&D halflings have been somewhat kenderized, but thankfully the ridiculous kleptomania was removed. And really, it's the stealing stuff shtick and resultant spotlight-hogging that caused them to be banned from many a table, not their fearlessness.
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Yes, but in 4E Gnomes are Monsters ("Raaawr!"), so you can kill them and take their stuff. That's not so bad.
Kill tinker gnomes and take their Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions? How's this an improvement?
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Were there ever? I mean, as a seriously offered PC race? I think the answer to that question must be "No".
Well, I remember them clearly in the Dragonlance Adventures hardcover...
I think what I'm saying is, "Any race which was provided in a novel for comic relief probably makes a bad PC race at my table."
I am not saying it will be a bad setting - it may be a perfectly good setting that i just don't happen to enjoy. (This is an option that ENWorld seems to forget all too often.)
If I were in charge of this project, I would do a complete reboot of the setting, similar to how Marvel's Ultimate line reboots the continuity of Marvel's traditional comics. I would try to capture the essense of the setting (immense and epic threats, the clash of vast armies and titanic personalities, soaring romances and bitter betrayals, honor and duty, etc.) and just rewrite everything going with that. I would reset things to about where they were at the beginning of first DL book.
In terms of scope and tone, my DL would have strong resonances with the various Gundam animes. The Gundam series all are set in a backdrop of a huge war, neither side has a monopoly on good or evil, and the focus is on the characters as they struggle to understand their places in the world and with each other. That is DL to me.
Many setting elements would change, some greatly, some slightly. Kender would basically be 4e halflings (I'd lose the racial kleptomania). Indeed, I feel that "kender" should have been the official name for 4e halflings. The draconians would be reconcepted into the dragonborn, who return to the world with the dragons. Some would fight on the side of evil while others would turn to good. Paladine and Takhisis would be called Bahamut and Tiamat, respectively. There's probably a lot more out there.
I'm not familiar with DL outside of the Preludes and the Chronicles, but I would try to bring in all the cool elements from the extended continuity inside. I like DL minotaurs and the irda. There's probably more that I would like as well.
Unfortunately, this will never happen, because it would invalidate the novels completely.
I want a book like the Eartdawn "Prelude to War" for Dragonlance: describing major events in a complicated conflict which is - from beginning to end - linked to the player characters, their background and culture. A book where the future isnīt set, where Dragonarmies are on the move, where major events are decided by the players. I want a "this is where it begins" description, followed by a "this is how you make the game work" section, followed by awesome encounter packages that happen while the PCs are on fire. On a flying citadel. Attacked by dragons.
I donīt want a book full of "and this is Solamnia, dontchernow, we wear plate here." This = boooring.
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I'd say the ham-handed half-ass way FR was thrown through stupid and pointless vaguely apocalyptic changes for no cohoerent reason makes them the PERFECT candidates for Dragonlance, and I honestly say that without any sarcasm. And I find that both hilarious and depressing at the same time.
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I sure hope they do a better job than they did with the 3E DLCS- that was the most uninspiring campaign setting book Ive ever owned.
I don't know about that. The text was excellently written but the book certainly had some major flaws from substandard and inconsistent artwork to the poor geographical section and the lack of a single scale map. I wrote a review of it.
Here is my pasted face outta the candle-lit Mirror! Woo spooky , thats Spooky,...
You Scored as Storyteller
You're more inclined toward the role playing side of the equation and less interested in numbers or experience points. You're quick to compromise if you can help move the story forward, and get bored when the game slows down for a long planning session. You want to play out a story that moves like it's orchestrated by a skilled novelist or film director.
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Last edited by Coalcrystal; 18th September 2008 at 02:11 AM..
If I were in charge of this project, I would do a complete reboot of the setting, similar to how Marvel's Ultimate line reboots the continuity of Marvel's traditional comics. I would try to capture the essense of the setting (immense and epic threats, the clash of vast armies and titanic personalities, soaring romances and bitter betrayals, honor and duty, etc.) and just rewrite everything going with that. I would reset things to about where they were at the beginning of first DL book.
In terms of scope and tone, my DL would have strong resonances with the various Gundam animes. The Gundam series all are set in a backdrop of a huge war, neither side has a monopoly on good or evil, and the focus is on the characters as they struggle to understand their places in the world and with each other. That is DL to me.
Many setting elements would change, some greatly, some slightly. Kender would basically be 4e halflings (I'd lose the racial kleptomania). Indeed, I feel that "kender" should have been the official name for 4e halflings. The draconians would be reconcepted into the dragonborn, who return to the world with the dragons. Some would fight on the side of evil while others would turn to good. Paladine and Takhisis would be called Bahamut and Tiamat, respectively. There's probably a lot more out there.
I'm not familiar with DL outside of the Preludes and the Chronicles, but I would try to bring in all the cool elements from the extended continuity inside. I like DL minotaurs and the irda. There's probably more that I would like as well.
Unfortunately, this will never happen, because it would invalidate the novels completely.
If your going to do all that, why not make a whole new world instead of destroying the things that make DL unquie among itself?
Draconian are not dragonborn. They were something unique to DL that the dark queen twisted good dragon eggs to evil....there are no good evquivilants. Nor should there be.
What the various proposals sound like is...."just make kender halflings. Just make draconians dragonborn" and just ruins some special and make it....boring.
Hammering Tieflings, Dragonborn etc into DL would be the wrong approach if they chose to do 4e DL. A Marvel style reset could work - who cares if it invalidates the novels. Does Marvel care if it invalidates prior comics. Hell No!
I am not excited by the news of a new DL. I agree with a number of posters in this thread that what 4e needs is new worlds, new races and new settings. Bring on the new WOTC! This is not the creatively bankrupt movie industry this is roleplaying, use your imagination WOTC.
I know in the movie industry you'll see a lot of remakes and sequels in times of economic stress. Less money to risk means less money for things that aren't tried and true.
Another rendition of a tired campaign setting? Yawn. I'm with Thundershot on this one. I want to see something different, even if it is a retread of an old setting that isn't the same Tolkien-ish fantasy.
The irony being, of course, that Dragonlance was different from the "same Tolkien-ish fantasy" by Eighties standards. I mean, no orcs? Lithe, kleptomaniac kender instead of homey, rotund hobbits^Whalflings? Dragon-men as common opponents and dragonriders serving both Good and Evil? Tinker gnomes with their advanced (if wholly unreliable) technology?
Yeah, looking back now it seems a thin distinction in the light of Spelljammer, Dark Sun, and Planescape, but back when it came out they deliberately tried not to take too much from Tolkien (explicitly, if the stories of the world-design sessions told in The Art of Dragonlance are to be believed).
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Dragonlance is definitely going to go forward. The novel line is going to be supported, but they're not sure what exactly is going to happen with the gaming side of things.
As to whether it will work under 4e? Absolutely. I have every confidence that it will, and in fact in many ways it will work better with the current rules set than it did under 3.5. And I say that as one of MWP's 3.5 DL design team.
I can also pretty much be sure that they're not going to reboot it. That would annoy more people than you know.
I don't know about that. The text was excellently written but the book certainly had some major flaws from substandard and inconsistent artwork to the poor geographical section and the lack of a single scale map. I wrote a review of it.
See I thought the book (3E DLCS)looked decent enough (barring the map issue) , but I found it extremely bland.
Now mind you, I've ONLY read the original trilogy of books around the late 1990s, but I liked them alot. When I was a teen and DL modules first came came out someone ran one, and we quit halfway through because of the blatant railroad-hence the reason it took me 15 years or so to finally get around to reading the books.
After reading that original DL trilogy I immediately went out and bought the Dragonlance SAGA game (since it was the only current DL setting stuff) frankly I loved that SAGA box- In particular I thought the smallish campaign booklet was very inspiring to read and extremely well done (you have to remember, -I'm not a hardcore DL fan and don't know all the history, so the changes didn't seem all that big of a deal to me). The SAGA DL Bestiary was hands down the best "monster manual" I've come across. Brilliant and Beautiful book. Unfortunately never could get a game going.
Wanting to get all things DL, I then bought the Tales of the Lance boxed set (2E) and it was "OK". Not horrible, not brilliant. So, I was hoping for a big improvement in the 3E DLCS and was looking fwd to it- and the book just did not get me excited to run a DL campaign like the SAGA material did-not even close. Diferent strokes and all :shrug:
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They were something unique to DL that the dark queen twisted good dragon eggs to evil....there are no good evquivilants. Nor should there be.
So, you're saying that the Noble Draconians entry in the Bestiary of Krynn (pages 16-24) doesn't exist?
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"just make kender halflings.
4e halflings are basically just kender. All they need is a racial power to taunt, some of their racial weapons thrown in, and viola, the mechanics are done.
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