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

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry, but jumping ahead 500 years (Cataclysm) to several thousand (Huma and last dragon war) to avoid jumping back 1 year, or maybe 30 if you want to keep the rest, is ridiculous in itself.

What about technological progress ? Look at where we got since 1400… What about dragons and draconians being new to the setting ? How often do you have gods appear and disappear ? That was already too much in the 30 years of history we have (as adventures)

Going back to the start makes a lot more sense

Nah. Firstly the exact number of years is immaterial. Second, look at the amount of progress from 800CE to 1100CE, not to mention that very few D&D settings feature any technological advancement, and indeed tech hasn’t advanced in the setting since the cataclysm.

That’s all small beans, though. What matters is that moving forward allows the last 30 IRL years to be bundled into a couple paragraphs of history, and to bring the setting full circle without simply repeating the same story.

 

[mamba]

What matters is that moving forward allows the last 30 IRL years to be bundled into a couple paragraphs of history, and to bring the setting full circle without simply repeating the same story.

I guess we simply disagree on this I see no particular value in that, esp. given most of the years you want to save (i.e. anything after the end of the war). Going back to the war is much better than inventing a replica war 300 years or whatever later.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess we simply disagree on this I see no particular value in that, esp. given most of the years you want to save (i.e. anything after the end of the war). Going back to the war is much better than inventing a replica war 300 years or whatever later.

I'm not sure what part of "without telling the same story again" is slipping past, but...that is literally a thing i said in the post you quoted from. Going back has all the problems people are complaining about in this thread and the other DL thread, whereas moving forward lets them change the setting without retconning anything, and simply tell a story where the events of the War of The Lance matter and are honored, but the setting isn't beholden to just retell them again.

 

[Stormonu]

WotC just opening the doors and walking away does sort of exemplify their attitude toward settings, though, so at least they are consistent.

Unless it's Forgotten Realms, which seems to have a revolving door.

I know they want to avoid splitting $'s they get for product like back in the 2E's heyday of a zillion campaigns, but it wouldn't kill them to return to non-Faerun worlds about once a year or so, especially as some 32-page adventure or somesuch.

 

[Hussar]

Unless it's Forgotten Realms, which seems to have a revolving door.

I know they want to avoid splitting $'s they get for product like back in the 2E's heyday of a zillion campaigns, but it wouldn't kill them to return to non-Faerun worlds about once a year or so, especially as some 32-page adventure or somesuch.

Huh?

Isn't that pretty much exactly what they have done for like the past five years or so?

In the past 5 years, we've gotten the following adventures/books: Ravnica, Theros, Wildemount, Strixhaven, Radiant Citadel, Eberron, Saltmarsh.

Looks like they've hit seven non-FR worlds in the last five years.

To me, this looks a lot like the perennial complaint that WotC isn't publishing fast enough. Before it was "There aren't enough 5e adventures", ignoring the couple of thousand adventures on DM's Guild, now it's "WotC isn't doing enough setting material" again, ignoring the couple of thousand setting supplements and/or original settings on DM's Guild.

How much material do people actually want?

 

[Reynard]

How much material do people actually want?

I can't speak for anyone else but I want WotC to.support those one off setting books with adventures, splats and deeper more focused setting books. They won't, of course, but that's what I want.

The DMsGuild isn't sufficient, at least not in its current form. If it was curated so that it was a replacement for Dragon and Dungeon magazines, that might be different. But it is a free for all with literally no way for a consumer to find quality material on specific subjects.

WotC off loading the work to unregulated indies is not a useful alternative to actual setting support.

 

[Velderan]

Huh?

Isn't that pretty much exactly what they have done for like the past five years or so?

In the past 5 years, we've gotten the following adventures/books: Ravnica, Theros, Wildemount, Strixhaven, Radiant Citadel, Eberron, Saltmarsh.

Looks like they've hit seven non-FR worlds in the last five years.

I think they meant revisit each setting once a year or so with a short 32 page release.

 

[Hussar]

I can't speak for anyone else but I want WotC to.support those one off setting books with adventures, splats and deeper more focused setting books. They won't, of course, but that's what I want.

The DMsGuild isn't sufficient, at least not in its current form. If it was curated so that it was a replacement for Dragon and Dungeon magazines, that might be different. But it is a free for all with literally no way for a consumer to find quality material on specific subjects.

WotC off loading the work to unregulated indies is not a useful alternative to actual setting support.

I dunno. I'm not really seeing that much of a problem here. The search engines on the site seem pretty decent for narrowing down finding related stuff. You generally get a 4-10 page preview of the product before you buy it and there's very often reviews of the better selling stuff out and about somewhere.

I'd say that pretty much anything other than free stuff that I've gotten from DM's Guild has easily been on par with the quality of Dungeon or Dragon magazine. And there's lots of stuff out there that is considerably higher quality.

 

[Hussar]

I think they meant revisit each setting once a year or so with a short 32 page release.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

But, that's also exactly what you get from DM's Guild.

Look, a sub to Dungeon and Dragon back in the day would have been twenty bucks (give or take) a month. If you spent twenty bucks a month on DM's Guild material, you'd have far, far more material than you could ever use, and a lot of it at very high production values. I mean, good grief, the Elminster's Candlekeep Companion was in part written by Ed Greenwood. Co-written by @M.T. Black. That's some pretty serious writing chops right there.

It's not like DM's Guild stuff is just some guy poking away by himself on a laptop.

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure what part of "without telling the same story again" is slipping past, but...that is literally a thing i said in the post you quoted from.

I assume we are still talking about a scenario where WotC publishes this adventure, not a different one. So while you are not retelling the events we know from War of the Lance, you still need to end up in a very similar scenario.

If that is not your intent, then I agree, I missed that, as I assumed we are talking about the adventure WotC is publishing in a month, not some undefined alternative that could also play in the DL setting.

At that point this discussion is moot. Why even bring back DL then, you might as well place it in FR.

Going back has all the problems people are complaining about in this thread and the other DL thread, whereas moving forward lets them change the setting without retconning anything, and simply tell a story where the events of the War of The Lance matter and are honored, but the setting isn't beholden to just retell them again.

Assuming we agree that this discussion is about SotDQ, not some adventure that does not exist, then they are not retelling them either way. They also are not changing the existing events either, as far as we know.

The changes we discuss here are essentially making the setting compatible with 5e. I am pretty sure you have the same / similar discussions either way.

As I said, I find jumping back much more sensible than jumping forward. That does not require me to not understand you, it simply means I do not agree with you.