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

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The Player's Handbook is just another book. The "If you don't include every option, you're not really playing D&D" gatekeeping here is weird af.

"Gatekeeping"? That's rich coming from the side saying "It's not actually Dragonlance if you include Orcs in it!"

And no one has said that strawman that you're attacking. What they're saying that people are making a mountain out of a molehill about the book before it's even released. We don't know that Orcs will be included and there are no previews that say they will.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What "makes sense for the setting" is a subjective judgement that will differ from person to person and table to table.

Yes. In this case I'm talking my table, if such a character doesn't make sense for the setting.

 

[Hussar]

I absolutely love watching people rail against WotC resetting the setting back to the original setting is somehow "watering down" the setting.

Hey folks, guess what? This is what Dragonlance was when it first came out. It wasn't "there are no orcs". That was never established. It was, "there don't happen to be any orcs in these adventures." There were no limitations on what classes you could play. It was just, "These are the classes of NPC's in these adventures".

Hell, you didn't even have a map of Ansalon until a third of the way through the series. You didn't KNOW the setting history until then. Heck, you wouldn't know the names of half of the gods until DL 5.

Like I said earlier, this new module is as close to being an authentic Dragonlance experience as you could possible get. All you folks kvetching about orcs or tiefling characters? You're the ones who are changing the setting and trying to change the experience, not WotC.

Now, if you insist on later (and not much later mind you) canon, then my group consisting of a minotaur, thanoi walrus man, kyrie bird man and irda ogre walk into the Inn of the Last Home and you should be absolutely groovy with it. After all, this is 100% canon for the setting. Has ties right back to the original modules (if you include DL 16) and predate virtually everything else in the setting.

No problems right?

Seems to me that someone wanting to play a half-orc (maybe skinned as a really big goblin or a really small ogre - either way an unbelievably easy thing to include) would be a lot less of an issue than the things that already exist in the setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I totally get the "say yes" thing. You dont want someone to not get to play the Catgirl theyve been thinking about BUT it also breeds lack of crerativity IMO.

I have 2 players that 9 times out of 10 play Dragonborn. And one those will ALWAYS play a Beast Master Ranger. Another player always plays the Thief/Rogue. Another most of the time will play a Druid.

It's like the are afraid to break out of their comfort zone. And stuff like DMs limiting certain races or classes either due to their reasons or the campaign world (like Dragonlance limiting Orcs) allows for creativity to bloom.

As somone else mention above, just allowing everything via kitchen sink just breeds sameness. Oh hey your playing a Catgirl Bard again... in Ravenloft. Neato. It's not unique, it's tired IMO.

I'm sorry about your anecdote about having unimaginative players, but I have an exact opposite experience.

The two players that have been in all of my campaigns are extremely imaginative when it comes to new character concepts. One of them occasionally takes inspiration from real-world peoples/archetypes (Hulk Hogan-inspired Monks, Mountain Men Rangers), but also has created a lot of unique characters for my campaigns (Kobold Draconic Sorcerery that grew up in an asteroid colony worshipped as a demigod, Dragonborn Squire that suffers memory loss from entering a Domain of Dread, Centaur Barbarian with crab legs instead of a horse's). He sometimes has difficulty using his imagination, but still creates characters that are different from the one he played in a previous campaign every time we start a new game.

My other player is even more imaginative and always comes up with the weirdest character concept in the campaign, having played a Warforged Artificer arms-dealer made in Cyre just before the Mourning, a justice-obsessed Half-Elf Divine Soul Sorcerer in the Boros Legion, Thri-Kreen Soulknife chef that cooks for Large Luigi on the Rock of Bral, and a Hobgoblin Necromancer that overthrew Zariel and became the Archduke of Avernus.

And both of these players have only played in "say yes"/Kitchen Sink-style campaigns, where I told them the world we were playing in, asked what they wanted to play, and always worked with them to incorporate their ideas (or the next best thing) into the campaign and world to have them make sense and fit the thematic tone of the game.

I don't think "say yes" makes players lazy and less creative. In my experience, it has only ever encouraged more creativity. I think that your two players just weren't imaginative.

Kitchen Sinks don't breed sameness. Lack of creativity/imagination breeds sameness. Some people are just less imaginative/creative than others.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, I do get it. I have had loads of players that could not give a rat's patoot about whatever setting we are playing and will come with character concepts that are whatever they want to play and have basically nothing to do with the setting. And, yeah, it bugs me. I remember one play who typically played what I called "anti-setting" characters. Characters that deliberately swam against any stream the DM placed down as a setting concept.

But, the thing is, I also realize that the books will not save me here. If you have players that literally do not care about what the setting suggests for character, then having the book "forbid" certain things will just be this giant sign for them that says, "I WANNNA PLAY THIS!!!" This is a table issue and not something the books can ever resolve for you.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I recall back in 3rd ed, my friends wanted to play a Legend of the 5 Rings game (Samuari etc setting for those who dont know) and I had zero desire to do that. And i wailed and complained until the DM finally let me play an Elf Ranger. And it wasn't until later that I realized I was being a huge A-hole and ruining not just for myself but the others as well and I regret every moment of my actions and really wish I could go back and change that, because those friends are/were far more important than what "I" wanted.

We are still friends (though one has died of cancer), but man I am just embarrassed for myself every time I think about what an A-hole I was being to make them let me not play to the themes. Luckily I'm older and wiser now.

Wait, you harassing the DM into giving you what you wanted is somehow a sign of . . . what? That DMs should never slightly change the setting to let the players play what they want? Or that you should have compromised with the DM instead of, in your own words, been "a huge A-hole".

How in the world did you get "the problem is the DM letting the players have the characters they want!" instead of "bad players ruin the game, not kitchen sinks".

 

[Remathilis]

To be fair, I do get it. I have had loads of players that could not give a rat's patoot about whatever setting we are playing and will come with character concepts that are whatever they want to play and have basically nothing to do with the setting. And, yeah, it bugs me. I remember one play who typically played what I called "anti-setting" characters. Characters that deliberately swam against any stream the DM placed down as a setting concept.

But, the thing is, I also realize that the books will not save me here. If you have players that literally do not care about what the setting suggests for character, then having the book "forbid" certain things will just be this giant sign for them that says, "I WANNNA PLAY THIS!!!" This is a table issue and not something the books can ever resolve for you.

Some players are either so enraptured by their own idea or seek to be the intentional Proud Nail. If you forced them to play a human fighter, they'd still find a way to make them not fit the prescribed campaign theme.

 

[mamba]

This only works if you ignore anything about the adventure other than it's name and a reductive tagline. You said that they "could have just made a "Dragon War!" campaign set in Faerun and had the exact same thing." That is patently false, because the circumstances are very different. It would be a different adventure. Just as it will be a different adventure from Tyranny of Dragons.

I obviously haven't seen the adventure yet, but I am pretty sure you could recreate it 95% or more in Faerun, if you really wanted to. It's not like you need to include Orcs in it if it were in Faerun. Not sure why you would want to though.

 

[mamba]

If people want a 5e setting book, Dragonlance Nexus released a PDF that was quite good. They removed it saying they're working on adding to it for a future republishing on DMs Guild so we'll see how that goes.

Google can still find the PDF, seems it is only badly hidden

I'm curious why they didn't go the DMs Guild route originally but I also have no idea how getting something sold there works either.

Because as of today DL is not a supported setting on DMsGuild, chances are that will change with the release of Shadow of the Dragon Queen.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I obviously haven't seen the adventure yet, but I am pretty sure you could recreate it 95% or more in Faerun, if you really wanted to. It's not like you need to include Orcs in it if it were in Faerun. Not sure why you would want to though.

Something of a personal passtime of mine is brainstorming/outlining conversions of various adventure paths and modules from D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, etc. to be set in Eberron, as well as a version of Dragon Heist set in Sigil.

If you're willing to put in the work, you can port any adventure to any setting.