Dragonlance's "Dragons of Despair" Wikiedpia article

BOZ · Jan 3, 2009

Yep, it's the premiere Dragonlance module this time up, Dragons of Despair! We are trying to get it up to "Good Article" status. If you see anything on the review page that you can help with, let us know.

It looks like this one is just about to pass, and we need help from someone with a copy of White Dwarf #60 for a review of the module. Anything else you can do to help with this one, let us know or just do it.

hopeless · Jan 3, 2009

Whoa!

BOZ said:
Yep, it's the premiere Dragonlance module this time up, Dragons of Despair! We are trying to get it up to "Good Article" status. If you see anything on the review page that you can help with, let us know.

It looks like this one is just about to pass, and we need help from someone with a copy of White Dwarf #60 for a review of the module. Anything else you can do to help with this one, let us know or just do it.

Gods I actually remember playing the start of that adventure don't believe I finished it since there was a problem with all of the players around that table, I wonder if they've thought of revisiting it even with 4e in mind?

Olgar Shiverstone · Jan 4, 2009

Let me get this straight ... you want to promote a good article about a crappy railroad of a series, that doesn't mention the real issues with it? Though in fairness, DL1 didn't quite descend into the craptasticness that was some of the later DL series modules.

I call shenanigans.

BOZ · Jan 4, 2009

nope, no joke. you can have a good article about a bad module.

Do you know of any reviews that are critical of it which we can cite?

Cam Banks · Jan 4, 2009

BOZ said:
nope, no joke. you can have a good article about a bad module. Do you know of any reviews that are critical of it which we can cite?

It's actually a groundbreaking adventure. People have trouble with it because they think there's a railroad, but it's because the adventure assumes the heroes are going to take the magic widget to the dungeon. If you decide that you don't want to take the magic widget to the dungeon, it doesn't really work.

One thing people like to point out is that if you choose to head north, you'll keep running into encounters with army units of draconians until you give up and head east again. That's because there's a freaking army coming down from the north, overrunning all of the land, and the adventure isn't about going up to take on the Red Dragonarmy head-on.

DL1 is still one of my favorite adventures. I have converted it dozens of times, including (professionally) as part of Dragons of Autumn, the 3.5 version published by Margaret Weis Productions (Sovereign Press at the time) under license from Wizards of the Coast. I put it far ahead on the ratings scale against other modules of its time, especially such monstrosities as To Find A King.

Cheers,
Cam

Cam Banks · Jan 4, 2009

Just a note, Boz: Dragons of Autumn corresponds to DL1-4. Chapter 1 of Dragons of Autumn is DL1. Chapter 2 is DL2, and so forth. You should amend this in the Reprints and Revisions chapter, as well as probably note who published it. You have this reference down under "further reading" but it would make sense to mention it in the text.

Cheers,
Cam

BOZ · Jan 5, 2009

thanks, Cam! Anything else?

Edena_of_Neith · Jan 5, 2009

If you take all 15 of the DL modules together, and add in the vast amount of additional material now available, you can begin your own Tale of the Lance, and it can head in *any* direction the players could imagine (or dare) to go. : )

Long Live the Lance!

Edena_of_Neith

Vocenoctum · Jan 5, 2009

Cam Banks said:
DL1 is still one of my favorite adventures.

DL10, Dragons of Dreams, was probably our favorite adventure, ever. It was a cluster to run at times, and in no way was it not railroady since you were on tracks and such, but there's nothing else like it, IMO.

Sometimes adventures are about telling a story, and we never had any problem with fun railroads. Freeform is generally a lie anyway, and it's more about motivation to follow that path than anything else. Railroady modules that amounted to "follow the NPC around as he does everything", those were a different story.

That's not to say that all the DL modules were great, but sometimes it's just fun to ride the rails.

(See, in first person shooters, it's "Linear" vs "Open World" or whatnot. It's again, more about maintaining the illusion that you WANT to go forward, rather than "well, you can't go back". Nothing I hate more than a FPS with doors that won't open because there's a padlock, or a "authorized personnel only" sign.... I've got a shotgun!)

Vocenoctum · Jan 5, 2009

Edena_of_Neith said:
If you take all 15 of the DL modules together, and add in the vast amount of additional material now available, you can begin your own Tale of the Lance, and it can head in *any* direction the players could imagine (or dare) to go. : )

Long Live the Lance!

Edena_of_Neith

Oddly enough, around the time of the "1.5 edition" hard covers (the Dragonlance Adventures book, survival guides, Greyhawk hc, et cetera) we had a group of overpowered adventurers from Krynn head into Temple of Elemental Evil in Greyhawk, we then returned to Krynn and got more involved in the after-war stuff.

DL was a favorite of mine, but there were too many changes. When we tried to get into it after the 3e material (which was generally of high quality), the novels just shaped the world into something unrecognizable to me. (Solamnia vs ogre army while a knight looks to "invent" gunpowder with 3 gnomes of horrendous names... some white robe sorcerer, blah I say!)

Also, Key of Destiny had it's faults (missing a section on "how the hell do you get disparate player types to this remote corner of Ansalon" for instance...), it was generally the release schedule that messed up the game. A lesson I then had to relearn when Age of Worms went oddball on me after I started it in good faith.