WotC Dragonlance: Everything You Need For Shadow of the Dragon Queen

WotC has shared a video explaining the Dragonlance setting, and what to expect when it is released in December.

World at War: Introduces war as a genre of play to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Dragonlance: Introduces the Dragonlance setting with a focus on the War of the Lance and an overview of what players and DMs need to run adventures during this world spanning conflict.

Heroes of War: Provides character creation rules highlighting core elements of the Dragonlance setting, including the kender race and new backgrounds for the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery magic-users. Also introduces the Lunar Sorcery sorcerer subclass with new spells that bind your character to Krynn's three mystical moons and imbues you with lunar magic.

Villains: Pits heroes against the infamous death knight Lord Soth and his army of draconians.

Notes --

• 224 page hardcover adventure
• D&D's setting for war
• Set in eastern Solamnia
• War is represented by context -- it's not goblins attacking the village, but evil forces; refugees, rumours
• You can play anything from D&D - clerics included, although many classic D&D elements have been forgotten
• Introductory scenarios bring you up to speed on the world so no prior research needed

 

[bedir than]

They're pastiches of real-world cultures, most of which have appeared in D&D in some form or another over the years.

True, but what the old guard wouldn't understand is that these weren't cultures to be mocked and ridiculed but to be featured as genuine places where people live lives.

They didn't understand that. I still own the books that were a bizarre pastiche that may have been inspired by other cultures but they were exoticized in a fashion that showed a lack of honor, education and understanding.

That's massively, hugely different. Pretending otherwise is odd.

 

[Alzrius]

True, but what the old guard wouldn't understand is that these weren't cultures to be mocked and ridiculed but to be featured as genuine places where people live lives.

And I think this attributes deliberate intent to show disrespect where there was none. Saying that you think that they thought those cultures should/deserved to be mocked and ridiculed is, quite frankly, not only disingenuous, but flat-out wrong. Could they have done better? Sure. Are there some old products which have aged very badly? Absolutely. But suggesting that all of the old guard (since you're not differentiating between any of them) should be painted as having gone out of their way to treat other cultures with disrespect isn't an opinion that deserves to be taken seriously.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They hired virtually all-new writers, and came out with a cool, creative product. Where was that in the last couple years? Where are they going now with 6e? Nothing particularly creative about that, even if you (general you) like it.

???

WotC has hired new writers for a ton of their 5e books, all the way back to the beginning of 5e.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat were written by Kobold Press (which explains why I don't like the adventures or art style in those books)

James Wyatt worked for M:tG until the Planeshift articles that he made, which caused the following books to be published:

1. Mythic Odysseys of Theros
2. Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica
3. Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

Matt Mercer has been involved in a few official 5e books as well, starting with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and eventually having his own world and adventures in his world getting published officially in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Call of the Netherdeep.

F. Wesley Schneider left Paizo to work for Wizard of the Coast, being involved in several products (Ravenloft, Theros)

Writers from previous settings have been consulted and involved in 5e (Curse of Strahd, Eberron: Rising from the Last War)

The entire reason why Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel even exists is because they brought in Ajit A. George to write a Domain of Dread for Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and he pitched them the idea for the Radiant Citadel, which they turned into an entirely new book.

Both Candlekeep Mysteries and Radiant Citadel were written almost entirely by freelance authors.

And Chris Perkins mentioned in the interview videos for Rime of the Frostmaiden that they regularly hire freelancers for their Summer Adventures, and that the starter locations/adventures in that book were written by freelancers.

They've regularly brought in people from the M:tG team (Ari Levitch, James Wyatt), brought back people that wrote for previous editions (Weiss and Hickman, Keith Baker), consulted "D&D celebrities" for adventures (Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Descent into Avernus), hired dozens of freelancers for different books, and even outsourced books to 3rd party creators (Kobold Press, Critical Role).

Almost all of their newer books have something "cool, new, and creative" in it. Even the 5e books that I don't like (Strixhaven, Princes of the Apocalypse, Dragon Heist) have plenty of cool and creative things in them. And they clearly are not overly restrictive about hiring newer authors. They don't completely reinvent their entire writing team every other book because that would be insane and wouldn't work, but they bring in new people all of the time.

How many D&D 5e books do you own and have you read? Because I own and have read all of them. And there is plenty of creativity and no shortage of newer writers.

 

[Maxperson]

So a setting that has kender, draconians, Towers of High Sorcery, Knighthoods of Solomnia, moon magic, etc is just a Forgotten Realms clone because WotC refuses to remove half the Players Handbook options from the game? Lmao. That's like saying "why do we have Eberron? It's just forgotten realms plus robots."

Eberron has unique mechanics and magic assumptions that don't exist in the Realms. Dragonlance does not.

I see no reason to give WotC money for another kitchen sink setting, especially when they are gimping us on pages. I made that mistake with Spelljammer and I'm not paying them for another substandard setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You mean the type where there are actual setting details, and the world feels like real place and not a playground for any given group of PCs? That type?

. . . You know that the game is supposed to be a "playground for the PCs", right? That's the entire reason why we play this game. For the players to build characters that explore the world and have fun in it. The setting being a "playground" for the players in a game we play is the correct way to design the setting.

And . . . how do 5e setting books not have details? Eberron has details. Ravnica has details. Exandria has details. Theros has details. What in the world are you talking about?

 

[Maxperson]

Everything about Dragonlance? It’s not the player options that make a setting unique.

Lore isn't enough to make a setting. Every option + lore = every option + lore. The only way to make a setting unique is to remove options/mechanics, add options/mechanics, or both. Lore doesn't cut it.

 

[Dragonhelm]

As I recall (from one of the books across several interpretations), there weren't druids technically, but priests of Chislev came very close. Similarly no paladins, though some Knights of Solamnia came very close.

It always annoyed me, though, that the game mechanics differed so greatly from the fiction in many ways. It doesn't bother me anymore, but when I was 12 or 13 the major differences between how the rules said what, say, Knights of the Sword could do and what Knights of the Sword actually did in the books drove me up the wall.

I used to get annoyed by that as well. Part of that was due to the book and game departments not talking as closely as they should have.

When we (the MWP Dragonlance team) were working on Knightly Orders of Ansalon, we tried to make the rules compromise some between novels and games. For example, Sword Knights had the option of being divine spellcasters or just being normal fighters (give or take a prestige class).

There actually is a druid in the original modules. I forget his name. The character did not appear in the novels.

I believe you're thinking of Waylorn Wyvernsbane.

 

[Alzrius]

WotC has hired new writers for a ton of their 5e books, all the way back to the beginning of 5e.

I'm not sure what you mean by "new" writers here, because several of the writers you highlighted have very deep histories where writing D&D products are concerned.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat were written by Kobold Press (which explains why I don't like the adventures or art style in those books)

Hoard of the Dragon Queen was, if I recall correctly, written by Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter, both of whom were writing D&D products back during the days of Second Edition. Admittedly, for Rise of Tiamat, Steve Winter wrote it together with Alexander Winter, who from what I can tell was a newcomer.

James Wyatt worked for M:tG until the Planeshift articles that he made

James Wyatt also has numerous 3E and 4E books, published by WotC, to his name.

F. Wesley Schneider left Paizo to work for Wizard of the Coast, being involved in several products (Ravenloft, Theros,

He'd also written several books for WotC in previous editions, such as 3.5's Complete Scoundrel and the Magic Item Compendium.

 

[Maxperson]

It is an extremely generic world compared to D&D's more exotic settings (Dark Sun, Eberron, Planescape, Spelljammer, etc). It's already basically "as generic as possible".

That's objectively false. It lacks orcs, many PC races, most D&D monsters(per the Unified Ansalon Monster Chart which lists monsters that can be encountered), some classes and at least 1 rogue subclass. It's not as generic as possible.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I was hesitant about Radiant Citadel at first, mostly because I didn't care about it, but I've come around.

You admitted in a previous thread that you weren't just "hesitant" about Radiant Citadel, you "opposed" it. You opposed a book that was yet to be released because of your own internal biases. You even mentioned that you were getting annoyed at people being excited for the book.

You were wrong to judge the book before it came out, you've even admitted that twice now, but you're doing the exact same thing again with this book. You're assuming the worst about a book that hasn't come out yet when you've admitted that doing that before was wrong.