Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[Demetrios1453]

A schmancy fancy version of whatever WotC has in the pipeline, no doubt. Exciting times.

I'm very much wondering if we're getting a 5e update to the classic Dragonlance modules as a compilation, and Beadle and Grimm will be creating the deluxe version...

 

[Parmandur]

I'm very much wondering if we're getting a 5e update to the classic Dragonlance modules as a compilation, and Beadle and Grimm will be creating the deluxe version...

I mean, I gather the modules were pretty decent? They were reprinted in a combine format in 1E, and then in 2E twice, and for 3.x. I think a remaining of the DL series would be most welcome.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean, I gather the modules were pretty decent? They were reprinted in a combine format in 1E, and then in 2E twice, and for 3.x. I think a remaining of the DL series would be most welcome.

They where highly variable, and suffered from a serious case of railroad-itis, in that they where not allowed to contradict events in the novels.

The first one, Dragons of Despair, had a brilliantly designed vertical dungeon, and made good use of it's climactic dragon battle (spoiled on the cover). But they went down-hill from there.

The thing is the modules and novels where designed in such a way that you needed to buy both to get the whole story. A lot of copies of modules where probably bought and read but never played.

 

[Eubani]

They where highly variable, and suffered from a serious case of railroad-itis, in that they where not allowed to contradict events in the novels.

The first one, Dragons of Despair, had a brilliantly designed vertical dungeon, and made good use of it's climactic dragon battle (spoiled on the cover). But they went down-hill from there.

The thing is the modules and novels where designed in such a way that you needed to buy both to get the whole story. A lot of copies of modules where probably bought and read but never played.

Yeah the modules were extremely railroady but the Dragonlance Atlas was a thing of beauty.

 

[humble minion]

They where highly variable, and suffered from a serious case of railroad-itis, in that they where not allowed to contradict events in the novels.

I never played through them, but i read the 3e versions (which were basically system ports, i don't believe there was much in the way of plot cleanup done).

Yeah, big huuuge railroads. If you were doing it today you'd probably have a structure something like Storm King's Thunder, where there's X places you have to go to proceed but you have a bit of scope to choose the order, and maybe skip some depending on PC choices.

Other weird thing was that you were not expected to play the same characters all the way through. Each module at the start have you a list of canon characters who'd be appropriate for the module, and players chose their PCs for that module from that list. This would lead to a LOT of PC switching if you played the campaign through (and possibly some confusion if player 1 had played canon character A in module 1, and canon character B in module 5, but then in module 9 they both appear - what happens then? Does a different player play the PC that player A played earlier in the campaign? That's straaaange to my D&D sensibilities, though of course there's nothing actually wrong with doing it that way) There was a real sense of walking through the novels rather than actually playing a character.

I did like the various notes on inserting character drama into the plot though. My guess is that this will be Dragonlance's 'schtick' in its 5e incarnation. More recent 5e setting books have tended to be how-to guides for certain game styles as much as they've been old-school campaign books. VRGtR was all about 'how to run a horror game', Witchlight was all about non-combat solutions and how to run fey, Strixhaven was all about interpersonal relations etc. Dragonlance is all about epic romantic melodrama and high destiny. Sturm's destiny, Laurana's, Raistlin's. If i was writing 5e dragonlance, that's the schtick i'd emphasise. Maybe a more cooperative storytelling approach to D&D rather than a strict let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may one. GM and players working together to make the PCs narrative arcs work, pre-planning them even, and advice on how/when to ignore the dice and cheat to make your destiny/story play out rather than having Tanis get accidentally blatted by a crit from some randomly encountered otyugh and the disgruntled player having to roll up his hitherto-unknown twin brother Ranis to keep playing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

When Dragonlance was first published we where used to having a selection of "pregens" in the back of a module, so it wasn't a huge step to make to having those pregens be novel characters. Indeed, similar things had been done before, in Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, where the tournament rules where designed around a specific party of three characters, and the Conan modules, where you played as Conan and his pals from the REH novels.

These days, I think players have grown to assume "first create your character" is pretty central to the D&D experience. I'm not sure how they would react to taking that away.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If there is a future videogame based in Dragonlance, I guess it will be an adaptation of the original modules, but some changes will be necessary. One of the reasons to avoid to be too railroad, but mainly because the old stories are too "spoilered". It is necessary to show new things for players who may be read the stories in the fandom wikis, or read the 2nd Ed modules. And to avoid the "Skywalker effect", too the action too linked with a little group of heroes. If there is a war we should see space for lots of different squads. A good strategy can't bet all to only one card. The last module of Curse of Strand added a lot of new things, and this helped it to become the best module of all editions.

If the kenders were too fearless then Absalon would be full of horror or funny stories about reckless kenders who went to the wrong place in the wrong moment. They can't feel the shock, the anguish like the rest of sentient beings, but they can feel a relutance or disliking about risking or dangerous actions. And they are relatively peaceable, they are the last ones would see starting intentionally a fight in a tavern, and if this starts they would rather to go away as soon as possible. If they enjoys fear inmmunity is when this may caused by some spell-like abilitie or other supernatural mind-affecting effect. Kenders are frensh, but nor scoundrel neither suicide.

Other point is there is a webcomic isekai subgenre where people from real life who are reincarnated within a novel or otome videogame. The "akasha-realm" visited by Tanis the half-elf in "Tanis the shadow years" offers the possibilities of freak or mash-up crossovers but without changes in the original canon. Even if "Chronicles of Dragolance" were written in Krynn, Spelljammer traders could pay a lot of money for the story to print it in other worlds. The Aesthetics could have allowed some copies of the great at library of Palathas to save that knownledge about the past. These copies may be more valious than gold or steel, even more if somebody could travel to our world to sell the copyright to Hollywood producers.

* Fistandantilus (spirit) could be a future villain. Maybe Vecna could find some purpose for his own goals.

 

[Marandahir]

Sorry, slight thread hijack here.

You are way off on your timing @Marandahir

JRR Tolkien died in 1973, MERP was published in 1982. Tolkien saw no royalties from any RPGs in his lifetime. The Tolkien Estate is the group that has been involved in the vast majority of licensing deals (movies, RPGs, etc.).

So, perhaps not the best example for this thread as aside from book royalties, Tolkien really did not hit the jackpot in any other areas until after the author's death.

Cheers

Tolkien saw $ in his life time from selling the adaptation rights, and even weighed in on some film scripts on how to make them better (but was disgusted with the 1950s "film" adaptation of The Hobbit. This is well known. I wasn't suggesting that he saw royalties in his lifetime from MERP - just speaking to how creators often relate ambivalently to adaptations of their works.

They may appreciate the money from the sale of the rights or the licensing or the royalties (if any), as well as the positive attention on their brand which may drive sales of their own books (or other source-creations), while still being upset and frustrated with the changes made in the adaptations.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

One of the reasons to avoid to be too railroad, but mainly because the old stories are too "spoilered".

I'm not sure that matters, the plot was extremely predictable right from the start!

 

[humble minion]

I'm not sure that matters, the plot was extremely predictable right from the start!

And it's not like the very well-known 'Strahd is a vampire!' spoiler has been a big drag on CoS sales...