Dungeons & Dragons News
Dragonlance: What's Up With That?
So what's going on with that whole "Dragonlance is alive" thing? Well, as it turns out, it was a response to a question at the
Tyranny of Dragons panel in the context of all of the camapign settings. Only
Forgotten Realms (the flagship setting) and
Eberron were specifically mentioned as being worked on*, but Chris Perkins indicated that
Dragonlance was "not dead". However, he did indicate that a specialist would be needed to "revive it", which strongly implies that there's plans for it at present. Certainly Margaret Weis (one of the co-creators) and Cam Banks (one of the
Dragonlance designers for 3E) are not currently part of any plan. Check out this Twitter conversation ("boymonster" is Cam Banks):
@boymonster <- Dragonlance specialist
@WeisMargaret I'm a dragonlance specialist!
@boymonster I think you out-specialize me by a wide margin.
@WeisMargaret who is Chris sims?
@boymonster That would be @ChrisSSims, an editor & designer at WotC. He seems like a reasonably fine gentleman.
@WeisMargaret I heard you were looking for Dragonlance specialists! I'm available!
@ChrisSSims Hi! Hmmm. I think you should talk to @mikemearls then. You too, @boymonster.
I'm fairly sure Mike Mearls already knows exactly who to contact should any Dragonlance plans arise. Cam Banks later went on to post publicly to Facebook the following:
Yesterday, Chris Perkins of WotC gave a presentation at PAX East about the future of D&D, including their new plans for the Forgotten Realms and other classic D&D settings. He said that Dragonlance wasn't dead, it just needed a specialist to work on it.
I believe that Dragonlance has a place in D&D's future. I believe there are many talented writers, editors, and developers with the enthusiasm and knowledge of the setting to help them make that a reality, not the least of which are Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I believe Dragonlance has a strong, vibrant, and dedicated fan base hungry for more novels, for more game books, for the very same transmedia experience that they're hoping to promote with their D&D brand.
And I believe that I would love to be a part of that.
For my part,
Dragonlance was the setting that brought me into D&D in a major way (I've never bought a
Forgotten Realms product in my life), and I still have a soft spot for it. That said, it was more the novels for me - the original trilogies at least, and the way the DL series of adventures was one of the first ever adventure paths, long before the term was invented. As an aside, key settings I'd personally most like to see brought back include
Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and
Ravenloft. For now, it seems clear that nothing's happening, although WotC are careful not to close the door on anything.
[63 comments]
*Update - thanks to
Charles Akins for reminding me that Ravenloft was mentioned in the
Forbes article published on Friday --
"The Forgotten Realms is our flagship setting for the new edition, however we are supporting, or will support, all of our key settings in the future.” That includes Ebberon, says Perkins, and “you are going to see more Ravenloft stuff very soon.”
Pathfinder RPG News
- City State of the Invincible Overlord is some way through its Kickstarter campaign. "City State of the Invincible Overlord, the first and one of the largest fantasy RPG city settings in gaming history, written by Judges Guild founders Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owen, defines sand-box roleplaying by giving information for over 350 shops, taverns, inns, palaces, barracks, temples, and the NPCs who inhabit them!"
What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. Updates
- The What's O.L.D. is N.E.W. Kickstarter passed £17,000 over the weekend, and is only about £500 away from the £18,000 Spires in the Sky stretch goal.
- Already being planned is another stretch goal, featuring Ryan Nock of War of the Burning Sky and ZEITGEIST: The Gears of Revolution fame. He's pitched seven awesome adventure ideas - some fantasy, some sci-fi - for the next stretch goal. Which would you enjoy most?
- There's now an official Errata Thread. This thread lists minor changes or corrections which you can apply immediately without waiting for a major playtest document update. It doesn't deal with typos and the like, but with actual changes or rules mistakes. I'll keep this updated up until the next playtest document release.
- I was interviewed in RPGnet's chat room on Friday; you can read that here (it's seems to be dark text on a dark background in my browser, but I don't know if that's universal).
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The Gen Con Industry Insider Guests of Honor list for this year was announced a while back. There's sometimes some negative commentary about this program - essentially, industry folks are invited to apply, and if accepted get a few perks and participate in a number of panels and other events. There are people who find that the idea of applying to be a guest of honor kinda takes away the "of honor" part of it - it's not so much of an honor if you have to ask; and it's intimidating given that Gen Con can simply say no. That's how I saw it for a long while; but Nicole Lindroos (General Manager of Green Ronin Publishing), who is one of the volunteers who help run the program, has recently been going out of her way to change that perception. The short version is this: you're not applying to have Gen Con validate your importance or value; you're submitting a suite of panel-based events, and Gen Con is using those applications to put together programming for the whole convention. So if they say "no", it's not because you're not awesome enough - it's because the programing you've submitted doesn't meet their needs that particular year. They're saying no to the programming proposal, not evaluating your worth. Perhaps they already have enough panels on that subject, and want to fill their limited slots with some other things, for example. Anyhow, here's what Nicole has to say on the subject:
Developer Mark Moreland previews some of the new character options found in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods. These include three new prestige classes - the evangelist, the exalted, and the sentinel, plus feats, traits, spells, and more. Spawn Calling allows the caster to summon one of Rovagug's mighty spawn, and comes with a mythic upgrade to bring about even more destruction.
We're closing in on the £19,000 stretch goal which will unlock the audio short - and my favourite - Muskets in the Rain. The Kickstarter is doing incredibly well, and I'm so pleased that people are enjoying the games.
The BBC has taken a look at the anti-D&D hysteria of the 1980s (a period which many of us remember well). "In an era of potent concern over internet pornography, cyber-bullying, and drugs, it is hard to imagine a game being controversial. But 30 years ago Dungeons & Dragons was the subject of a full-on moral panic..." (thanks to the many people who emailed me with this!) [16 comments]
Steve Kenson is the designer of Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds RPG, and also his own Icons superhero game. He was kind enough to answer a few questions about his new partnership with Green Ronin to distribute the latest Assembled version of the latter game.
You can now get Campaign Coins for Green Ronin's Freeport setting. I actually have a handful of them, and they really are quite lovely.
Favorite D&D Retroclone?
I never played old D&D. But from what lots of people seem to say, you're kind of supposed to make your own custom classes for every character concept
Yora Today, 01:05 PM