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

 

[Hussar]

Even of all of that about WotC and Dragonlance is true, what does any of it have to with your table?

That's the point though. None of it is true. You and others are insisting that this is somehow WotC taking a big steaming dump over older gamers and not being "true to the game" and "taking the game in a new direction".

The thing is, it's not a new direction. It's actually the OLDEST direction. This is resetting the setting back to the original form, which is exactly what people have asked for over and over and over again. WotC isn't changing a single thing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Personally I'm far more interested in if and how they explain clerics pre-Disks of Mishakal but we don't have the book yet and the info released so far hasn't touched on it so I guess I'll save the speculation for the day the book goes live on D&D Beyond and I can skim through it to decide if it looks interesting enough to buy the physical book in December.

My guess is that it will be that the gods weren’t gone, they were actually just silent and with Takhisis trying to take over the world the other gods took up their posts again and started poking at people like “hey…hey listen” and basically every cleric has been called by a specific god in a way similar to Goldmoon.

I see nothing in the 5e books to indicate that the Silver Flame itself talks to anyone. It's just a power source no different than if I created a Dark Rock and those that drew upon it got psionic power. "Divine" means godly in other settings, but it does not mean that in Eberron.

The Voice of The Flame is a long dead Paladin who sealed an overlord in the Flame and joined with the Silver Flame in the process. She can speak to people, though it’s rare and mostly she talks to Flame-Pope girl. (Can’t remember anyones names)

The Flame itself is the gestalt souls of basically all the coatls, and the most faithful mortal champions of the Flame.

 

[Dire Bare]

The degree of impact on the setting doesn't change, no matter what your opinion is . . .

Clearly, their is disagreement over the degree of impact. Some feel it is major. Others do not, and feel it is trivial.

. . . and it's pretty much ONLY old timers who can care at all, since the vast majority of new players never saw the original setting.

As covered upthread, this is not true at all. Some old-timers care about this narrow vision of setting, others to do not. And, some young bucks also care about canon as you do, others not so much. It's not an age thing.

 

[Dire Bare]

Here's an alternate hypothesis: since we have sales data from the TSR era and therefore know that many of their settings sold like naughty word, they know that writing in that way drives sales down because it appeals to too small a subset of players. So maybe assuming incompetence is unfair to the human beings you so easily deride?

The data Ryan Dancey studied and shared with the community didn't speak to the quality of TSR-era products. His conclusion was that having so many competing product lines cannibalized sales. It's got nothing to do with quality.

Quality is, of course, subjective. But there were TONS of quality, amazing stuff put by TSR back in the day. There was also a TON of really crappy stuff too. WotC tends to be more steady with quality releases, with very few duds. They certainly aren't hiring lower quality writers and designers than TSR did. Has WotC hit the highs that TSR sometimes did? Well, that's a discussion . . . I'd say "yes", but not as often.

 

[Hussar]

Sturgeon’s law in action.

 

[Azuresun]

Here it is, in all it's glory ... Level 7, room 9 of Dargaard Keep

Why does it smell of vinegar?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If you want in your game you play the original modules but with a totally different group, for example an artificer gnome and an aasimar crusader, even the character themself know the original story of the heroes of the lance, and there is a logical reason. Really those character aren't in the true "war of lance", but in a dark-domain within the Shadowfell-Krynnspace. The torment of the dark lord is a time-loop.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Well there have been several people telling me that WotC is ruining the setting, Dragonlance is only a money grab nostalgia hack, WotC is creatively bankrupt and I’m sure other bits as well.

Does seem to me there are lots of people who want to tell me what I should run at my table.

A certain group of old timers would like the setting to acknowledge a particular part of the fandom. WotC has done this offer of goodwill before with their core rule books and some APs by mentioning some of the major D&D settings while really only catering to FR (and later RL).

The debate, as I see it, is about representation. It has been done for a myriad other types of minority groups whether it be with NPCs or the artwork. This time it's about the setting. I'm not sure why there is so much pushback to have this included if most people on Enworld are all about being inclusive.
And we literally are talking about inserting just a sidebar stating the historical DL setting quirks (i.e. acknowledgement). It is not about mandating a set of rules for all tables.

@Fifth Element

Probably shouldn't speak for all us old timers like that.

When someone is offended by x in the RPG, we do not assume they are speaking about their entire demographic because maybe not everyone of their demographic is offended. But the community's general reaction is that is doesn't matter that the entire demographic is not offended. Someone is.

 

[Velderan]

The data Ryan Dancey studied and shared with the community didn't speak to the quality of TSR-era products. His conclusion was that having so many competing product lines cannibalized sales. It's got nothing to do with quality.

Quality is, of course, subjective. But there were TONS of quality, amazing stuff put by TSR back in the day. There was also a TON of really crappy stuff too. WotC tends to be more steady with quality releases, with very few duds. They certainly aren't hiring lower quality writers and designers than TSR did. Has WotC hit the highs that TSR sometimes did? Well, that's a discussion . . . I'd say "yes", but not as often.

Here's an alternate hypothesis: since we have sales data from the TSR era and therefore know that many of their settings sold like naughty word, they know that writing in that way drives sales down because it appeals to too small a subset of players. So maybe assuming incompetence is unfair to the human beings you so easily deride?

I didn't read what Fifth Element said as saying they were bad products; just not financially sustainable to approach product development the way they did. I'd generally agree with what they said that appealing to a smaller subset wasn't a good business strategy except I'd argue that far more applied to TSR in the late 80s/early 90s when the market was significantly smaller than it is now. They also did it to an extent that could not possibly have made business sense for their audience then, they had something like a dozen settings they were releasing multiple modules and boxed sets for at the peak? The Random House contract situation and hindsight paint a pretty good picture for why they were doing that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the point though. None of it is true. You and others are insisting that this is somehow WotC taking a big steaming dump over older gamers and not being "true to the game" and "taking the game in a new direction".

The thing is, it's not a new direction. It's actually the OLDEST direction. This is resetting the setting back to the original form, which is exactly what people have asked for over and over and over again. WotC isn't changing a single thing.

Actually what I care about the most is the integrity of the lore. The settings of D&D, particularly as they existed in 1st and 2nd edition, are what drew me to the game. Worldbuilding and the history that makes it up is my favorite part of the hobby; I enjoy and appreciate it more than gameplay, to be honest. What I want is for the setting, across it's history, to maintain as much internal consistency as possible. I don't want history to be re-written in such a way as to make events of the past not have happened (although I'm fine with minor changes or retcons to maintain a more coherent whole; stuff like updating naming conventions, providing new background and/or motivation for characters, or broad-stroking older material is fine). If you are going to "reboot" a setting, I want the text to acknowledge that they are creating a new version, distinct from the original, and allow for the original to still exist and be playable in the current edition.

This is why, as we discussed a while back, I hated the 5e Ravenloft so much. They fundamentally altered the setting in a way that is inconsistent with its past without explanation in the text or acknowledgment that they were doing so. I don't want the same to happen to Dragonlance, and I don't care if the changes increase playability or makes things even easier for new players if they change the world without acknowledging the original and allowing for it.

All of that being said, I don't think orcs belong in Dragonlance, but I have no problem with anyone playing whatever they want at their own tables. I don't even object to their making a new version of the setting, although it's not to my taste. But erasing the original without allowing for that version in the text is a problem for me. A sidebar explaining that this is a different Dragonlance from what was originally published and a broad review of what is and isn't different would be enough.

I don't like it when companies pretend that the current version of their IP is the only one that exists, and the previous material doesn't matter, even though its existence is the reason they can trade on the name now. They did that with Ravenloft. They did that with Spelljammer. I don't want them to do that with Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Planescape, or any of the others.