Dragonlance What do you want from a Dragonlance 5e?

[Eltab]

I read the original DL trilogy all those years ago, but what I remember was the "time travel" trilogy (despite - or because - I read the books out of order).

• Somewhere in L10+, a properly-trained PC can use a Dragonlance in real combat. (After L15, he is good at it.). The adventure brings together the ingredients that will allow a combat, one-on-one duel (duels?) at first but the L20 climax battle is between a dozen each, properly equipped and supported.
• Getting a fully equipped, supported, and trained DragonLance unit ready for use is kinda like the Manhattan Project without that famous name.
• Lord Soth makes an appearance, or perhaps the "prototypes" of what he would become.
• The Knights of Solamnia are more than a distant memory; they are a legendary ideal people are encouraged to aspire and attain.
• The restrictions on Divine and Arcane magic come up from time to time, and the reasons behind them.
• That funny old man with the dozen chirping canaries offers you good advice at a critical time.
• Game and campaign both work just fine without the presence of any reckless irresponsible careless Plot Mover NPC.

 

[Dire Bare]

Dunno if that would work. I6 Ravenloft was one single adventure module. The DL series was a 13 part adventure path. Its an order of magnitude larger.

I know! A 13-volume expanded adventure path! Each volume getting the page count of the current adventure hardcovers!

 

[Dire Bare]

I mean, okay, I just don’t see how that translates to the setting only having 1 story?

It's like Star Wars. Sure, Lucasfilm has told other stories, but they largely seem to orbit the original story.

 

[Dire Bare]

What we need to go along with a 5E Dragonlance . . . .

Take the original novels, the "lost chronicles" novels, the original modules, and other random bits and have Weis and Hickman produce a "revised and expanded" Dragonlance Chronicles novel series. Take the entire story and put it in order, plus, they are both way better writers now then they were back in the 80s.

Adapt that "revised and expanded" novel series into a multi-season TV show on HBO as a "Game of Thrones for families". Top-notch production values.

Then, we get a system-agnostic "world book" that centers on the War of the Lance, but with chapters for the major story arcs that came later. This book has a high page count and brand new art that evokes the classic Elmore paintings.

An alternate, stand-alone PHB for Dragonlance! This would include a DMG and even an MM section.

1. Draconians as a replacement race for dragonborn, not subraces (similar design, but without trying to shoehorn the various subraces into the PHB dragonborn)
2. Tinkers and kender could be unique subraces, not mapped to existing subraces
3. The elves and dwarves already map well to the subraces in the PHB, perhaps some mechanical distinction between Qualinesti and Silvanesti?
4. Irda
5. I love the moon magic, clerical magic, and knightly orders being factions rather than subclasses. Warlocks and sorcerers are simply "renegades" (which would be a background).
6. Yeah, mass-battle rules that are PC-focused and cinematic!
7. DM guidelines on running campaigns in different eras.
8. Bestiary section that focuses on truly iconic Dragonlance creatures and NPCs. Dragons! Draconians! Save the weird monsters that came later for the DM's Guild creators.

A three-volume slip-cased set adapting the original modules. It's been done for 2E, 3E, why not 5E? But, also a new adventure hardcover with a totally brand new story set just after the War of the Lance.

And, I would like all of this to debut this fall please . . . . Joe M? Are you listening?

 

[PabloM]

I agree with the idea that re-editing all the original modules would not be productive, but if we think of a book similar to "rising of the last war", I would include the first one, DL1, as an initial adventure to the setting, not including the original premade PCs.

In addition to that, a possible table of contents would be something like:
-Introduction to the setting
-Characters options (races, classes, backgrounds, factions, etc.).
-A Krynn gazetteer
-Running a game in Krynn (optional rules, tone, etc)
-An adventure (may be DL1, but a new one would be great)
-New magic items
-New monsters and NPCs

 

[Paul Farquhar]

• Kender, minotaur etc playable races.
• Subclasses for the three wizard types, solamnic knights etc.
• Krynn gazetteer
• Monsters, magic items etc

* The toe-curlingly silly aspects of the setting toned down (gully dwarfs, gnomes and anything else from the Jar Jar Binks School of Comedy)

* No reprints of the original adventures, or any other adventure where you play someone else's character through a railroaded plot.

 

[PabloM]

I really doubt that doing subclasses for magic schools or knighthood orders will contribute to the game.

The influence of the moons in magic has to be tho, maybe with a feat. Cam Banks had thrown some ideas at some point

 

[PabloM]

Another thing that I would like very much if a book like this comes out is a complete list of the Krynn regions.
There is no book of any edition, not even those of 3e that are the most orderly and consistent, that includes something like that. At most there are partial lists.

 

[Eltab]

And, I would like all of this to debut this fall please . . . . Joe M? Are you listening?

Joe M: -thud-
Me:

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If you're referring to the Legends trilogy, as iconic as the first trilogy was, Legends was better-written. The smaller cast of characters absolutely worked in Weis and Hickman's favor the second time around.

I read the original DL trilogy all those years ago, but what I remember was the "time travel" trilogy (despite - or because - I read the books out of order).