Dragonlance 4e in 2010?

[Coalcrystal]

What kind of gamer are you?

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.


Storyteller92%Power Gamer67%Method Actor58%Tactician58%Butt-Kicker58%Specialist50%Casual Gamer25%


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oops- i think I posted to the wrong thread...

Sterm will be sorely missed.

Edit: OMG! these things are riddled throughout theses posts! It's like a incurable plague...I just took another one. I'm a Chaotic Good Elf Bard! http://twinrose.net/dandchar.php

 

[teitan]

Okey, then what FR lore would you propose to use as comparisation?

mod edit: We have a no-politics rule around here.

It wasn't political, it was satire...

 

[Urza]

Just compare the first books with some FR books, like the ones about Drizzt.
While Drizzt goes around slaying dragons *snip snip snip snip snip*

Wow do you not know what you're talking about. 1986... Drizzt kills a white dragon... go look at how many hit points white dragons had in 1e.

 

[carmachu]

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.

Its like FR all over again.

 

[Monkey Boy]

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.

Also I am with you Obryn, Kender ruin games.

 

[Scribble]

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.

I wonder if the same thing happens in gaming?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

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).

 

[Cam Banks]

Folks,

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.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[JeffB]

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:

 

[The Little Raven]

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?

"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.