What's so special about Dragonlance?

[nightwyrm]

Since it seems like we're taking a grand tour through D&D settings, I'll start the thread dedicated to Krynn.

[Nymrohd]

The War of the Lance Era! Epic classic fantasy. No other WotC setting did epic classic fantasy as well as Dragonlance in its first era.

[Moniker]

I always loved the fact that wizardry is almost treated as a Masonic, elemental old boy's club and changes with the phases of the moon(s).

Age of Mortals is awesome, too!

[vagabundo]

From my limited experience with the setting I'd say Epic Romance.

[Hammerhead]

A set of badly written adventures where you play through as characters from a novel? Poorly thought-out morality? SAGA? As a campaign setting for a roleplaying game, I have very little respect for Dragonlance.

About the only cool thing about it is that the bad guys get to ride around on dragons.

[Vorput]

Enemies that explode or turn into boiling acid when you kill them.

[aurance]

Great setting for stories, but perhaps not for a game of D&D.

[Obryn]

The 1e Dragonlance Adventures hardcover was pure, powergamey munchkin-ness at its finest! Irda and Minotaurs FTW!

...actually, I haven't cared for the setting since around then, and I think it's more or less responsible for the worst things in any fantasy setting, ever. Primarily kender, gully dwarves, kender again, silly tinker gnomes, and kender.

Looking for something nice to say about it... Well, it's the only D&D setting that had humor (or, if you prefer, "humor") written into the setting. It's the most light-hearted of D&D settings.

-O

[pawsplay]

Chivalry! Actually, knights and arcane casters both seem to offer a level of professional respect even to those they consider moral scum. There are plenty of characters in Krynn who literally value their dignity or knowledge over their life.

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

I think most of the nostalgia for Dragonlance comes from the timing of the release of a novel line that directly related to the RPG product line. The Dragonlance series of adventures were a connected storyline that put the PCs in the position of determining the course of the War of the Lance, even if the affect on the war was already scripted by the railroad-y modules. These modules were released before the first three novels I believe, so the first players running through them didn't know what was coming next in the adventure path. Now I admit I'm not sure of that, I haven't gone back to check publication dates. But the novels were written based on the playtesting of these adventures in Weis and Hickman's homegame.
For me, Dragonlance is special because the novels were the first fantasy series I read when I was first starting to play D&D around the age of 9 or 10. So I think them being my introduction into novelized fantasy colours my opinion of them to an extent. They aren't the best the genre has to offer, but as far as epic fantasy goes, I think the first 6 novels stand up among the average, considering the massive amount of titles in the genre that have been published in recent years.

As a campaign, I compare running Dragonlance as being comparable to running a Star Wars game. If the players have read the books they can all have a common background of the basics of the setting, and can participate at the edge of major events, or make up their own epic journey throught the setting.
Selling points as I see them:
• The PCs can participate in the major conflicts throughout the different ages, either replacing the characters of the novels or in events that don't involve them, or these conflicts can act as bookends to define a common starting point similar to Ebberron's Last War. These conflicts can include The War of the Lance, The War of Souls, the two Cataclysms, etc.
• Good versus Evil world-wars.
• More Dragons. I like having dragons as main antagonists, and the fact that they ally with lesser races gives more oportunities to use them in adventures and dungeon building.
• Different Races - There's three subraces of elves (not including aquatic), many more dwarves, plus the wackier ones like Tinker Gnomes, Kender, and Minotaurs. I like a bit of humour in some parts of my rpgs so the comic relief races don't bother me.
• The first continent detailed, Ansalon, is in the southern hemisphere of the planet, so the icy cold part is at the bottom of the map rather than the top for once.
• No Orcs. Fight different humanoids at low levels for once.
• No Drow or larger Underdark societies. With no great underdark cities or cave systems the adventure design is a little different. But there's plenty of adventure locations scattered throughout the campaign guides, usually the remainders of pre-cataclysm civilization.
• It can be points of light-ish in the post-cataclysm setting as civilization is largely fragmented, and there are few empires or monarchies left. Lots of space for adventuring in between.
• Order of knights whose defining features apart from their honour code are their mustaches.
• As stated above, Draconians. The original dragon-men in D&D, and one of the great gotcha-monsters.

[amethal]

Originally Posted by obryn

looking for something nice to say about it... Well, it's the only d&d setting that had humor (or, if you prefer, "humour") written into the setting. It's the most light-hearted of d&d settings.

-o

fifuk

[C_M2008]

The best of the 3 bland generic fantasy settings, still not a fan though. Rules wise I kind of liked the SAGA (5th age) rules although not the setting.

[roguerouge]

I'll be the brave one: I like Kender. I like Gully Dwarves.

And I got all teary when Tasselhoff saved Setsun the Gully Dwarf, because he decided he was going to do the small thing, because the big heroes were there to fight dragons and rescue slaves. I got teary at Raistlin's love for Bupu, the gully dwarf he cast Friends on.

There, I said it.

[Hobo]

The original novel trilogy is the best thing Dragonlance brought us, IMO. That set a bar that game fiction still struggles to reach most of the time. The only game fiction I'd put above Weis and Hickman's original novels are Ray Feist's Riftwar books, which aren't technically game fiction. Even though they really are.

It's not necessarily great compared to non-game fantasy fiction, but it still holds its own. Plus, it focused in on dragons again, at a time when the game Dungeons & Dragons wasn't really. I'm a little over dragons now, but it was cool at the time.

Also, Dragonlance was the vehicle for the so-called "Hickman Revolution." Which I didn't think was necessarily revolutionary, because I was already doing things that way (and in fact had become quite disenchanted with D&D for not), but it changed gaming culture I think, and for the better.

[Felon]

Originally Posted by aurance

Great setting for stories, but perhaps not for a game of D&D.

Bingo.

[Bumbles]

Draconians. Kender. Minotaurs. Gully Dwarves. Tinker Gnomes. The Orders of High Sorcery. Knights. Flying castles.

Oh, and a fiery mountain being thrown at the place!

[mach1.9pants]

2 words:
Raistlin Majere

[Hjorimir]

Dragonlance was the first setting to really push the idea of a campaign story and I will always love it for that.

[Klaus]

This:



This:



And this:



Rarely have story, rules and art worked together as well. While the novels did a lot to bring the setting to life, the illustrated calendars really set the bar for fantasy art very high.

[Galeros]

Dragonlance brought so much awesome into the world, that all of the extra awesome lingered around and formed me four years after it debuted.