Dragonlance Dragonlance or Mystara?

[el-remmen]

I've always been a fan of Mystara from my Basic/Expert, etc. .. D&D days (though I never checked out the 2E port over), but some of the Krynn hype sparked by comments about 5e Draconians had me nostalgically looking over old Dragonlance stuff (though I have never run a game or played a character in that setting).

If I were to run a DL game it'd be the War of the Lance with whatever PCs my players made in place of the original characters and going in whatever direction the game goes in (without concern for canon or what happened historically). Mystara would be more of an open kitchen-sink kind of game.

Of course, this is all speculative, as I don't think my current game(s) will be ending any time soon. I am just curious about people's feelings about the settings relative to each other.

The question above is specifically geared to 5E b/c those are the rules I'd use (though I could break out the Rules Cyclopedia for use with Mystara). For the sake of the poll, ignore the availability (or lack thereof) of 5E materials for these settings.

 

[darjr]

Dragonlance. I have never before and am curious

 

[zarionofarabel]

Dragonlance! Kender!!! Yay!!!!!

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Both great.
First difference is in mood: Dragonlance is heroic fantasy, in which the heroes fight against overwhelmingly powerful evil villains; Mystara is high fantasy, where goodness usually wins; you can also play silly adventures or political adventures.
Personally, I find difficult to play in Dragonlance outside of the War of the Lance. So I overall prefer Mystara, there are much more possibilities.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Plus, Mystara is yet another kitchen sink fantasy setting. Sure it's a little bit different from the other kitchen sink settings, but still way more like them then not. Dragonlance is something different.

 

[ccs]

If I had to choose between the two? I'd use Mystara.
Its generic D&D (even more so than FR/GH) with no real grand plot/story involved. I can easily run anything in it & ignore/alter whatever bits I please.
And no players in my circles are at all familiar with it.

DL? Sure, I can run just about anything there too.. I can change whatever. But, given the vast amount of detail built up in the setting pre/during/post War of Lance, its more work.
And my player thats stuck on FR? He's also very familiar with DL. So any game set there would result in him: endlessly talking about out-of-character knowledge, using ooc knowledge, spoiling surprises for the others, and being difficult concerning any changes.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'm not super familiar with Mystara, but I do know there are a lot of genres available, as opposed to Dragonlance. Dragonlance is pretty hard to run, because it's based around books, not as a campaign setting. You've basically got a handful of ways to run DL, and while the setting is really cool I don't find a lot of replayability to it.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not super familiar with Mystara, but I do know there are a lot of genres available, as opposed to Dragonlance. Dragonlance is pretty hard to run, because it's based around books, not as a campaign setting. You've basically got a handful of ways to run DL, and while the setting is really cool I don't find a lot of replayability to it.

I's basically D&D's Star Wars. You can find corners to adventure in, but the central plot overshadows everything.

 

[RobJN]

Using just 5e's Basic Rules makes for a game that feels very much like BECMI/RC D&D.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Using just 5e's Basic Rules makes for a game that feels very much like BECMI/RC D&D.

You can use 5e rules and play Dragonlance and Mystara modules converting on the fly