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

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And that would be fine, for that game. It doesn't put orcs in the books though, because they're aren't any.

I don't think (I may be wrong) anyone wants orcs and half orcs put in. Simply not mentioning them is enough. If a player wants to play an orc or half orc that doesn't get in the way, and if no one does no one even notices

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Your world also doesn’t come with a settings guide that specifically says ‘X does not exist’, so you cannot just say ‘X does not exist because I have never seen it’…

nether did the first 2 years of the canon

 

[RuinousPowers]

General question: what’s your favourite thing about Dragonlance?

Probably Sturm's death.

There are a lot more DMs than players.

I'm not sure that is true.

The Lady of Pain is just a way to enforce certain rules in Planescape. It's why the Gods don't meddle with Sigil and why no group can just take it over with military force.

It really feels like older campaign settings felt the need to hand DMs overpowered NPCs to reign in high level PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

this is the perfect analogy of this argument I have ever seen (not sarcastic) and @Micah Sweet just won this thread...

imagine 5 players sit down to play star wars. (In this scenario SW isn't like a part of pop culture owned by Disney mega corp I guess, so lets say in 1980)

DM having seen all the movies knows that luke is vader's son, 2 players have never seen the movies but have heard about laser swords and psychic knights, 1 player has seen only return of the jedi, and 1 player has only seen the first one (now retconed to be named a new hope)

the player that has only seen the first one says "I have an idea, I want to play an alien jedi who was the son of Vader back when he was apprentice to obiwan, I will be Teial Vader. I have the same type of environmental suit since I come from the same planet but not black mine is red and grey... and even though I am his son I hate him."

the player that has only seen return of the jedi is like "I want to play an ewak"

the 2 players that never saw any of it are like "Those sound cool but I want to be ______"

the DM knowing that luke is vader's son and that under that helmet is a human

if that game was run in 1978 before empire only the ewok wouldn't work.

And if the DM liked and respected Star Wars and wanted to play in that universe, he'd probably have issues with a lot of that. Of course, if the players have that little experience with the setting, I either wouldn't run it or I would, but I wouldn't see it as a Star Wars game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think (I may be wrong) anyone wants orcs and half orcs put in. Simply not mentioning them is enough. If a player wants to play an orc or half orc that doesn't get in the way, and if no one does no one even notices

As I've said, while I would prefer a sidebar, I will accept that compromise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

nether did the first 2 years of the canon

To be fair, this isn't 1986. All of that stuff is out there, it's all part of Dragonlance, no less than the original modules are. If later material contradicted the modules, then we'd have a discussion. But it pretty much doesn't.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And if the DM liked and respected Star Wars and wanted to play in that universe, he'd probably have issues with a lot of that. Of course, if the players have that little experience with the setting, I either wouldn't run it or I would, but I wouldn't see it as a Star Wars game.

this is why I don't often run premade settings (I have tried but if I am not the most knowledgeable I get arguments, and if someone is completely out of the loop I get arguments... its a hard thing to balance)

most times the arguments are in good faith, witch is why, as a player, as a DM and as a reader "cause I said so" (or cause this old book says so) isn't a good argument. There needs to be a reason...

I ran a superhero game about 15 or 16 years ago... I called it "Titans Beyond" and I took everything I knew about the DC comics from 89-99 and the batman beyond cartoon and a few things I had seen in between and mashed them together... I set the game in a batman beyond future but in NYC... game 1 we were 20 or so minutes in I got the teen heroes together and mentioned that the titan tower was empty in the harbor... and a player blew up.

"Titan tower is in CA" he said, and I'm like "No dude it's always been in NY"... we both could 100% prove it... cause when I was reading it was in NY and when he started reading it was in CA.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

To be fair, this isn't 1986. All of that stuff is out there, it's all part of Dragonlance, no less than the original modules are. If later material contradicted the modules, then we'd have a discussion. But it pretty much doesn't.

yes, but if the argument (that I still have seen in last 5 pages) that "It's always been that way" has to hold up, then it needs to hold up for before the campaign guide.

 

[Velderan]

yes, but if the argument (that I still have seen in last 5 pages) that "It's always been that way" has to hold up, then it needs to hold up for before the campaign guide.

Where's the logic in that?

It's not like anything in DLA that I can think of directly contradicts anything printed in DL1-14. They simply added clarifying language that it's entirely reasonable to think a player in 1987 may have already noticed ("gee, we haven't encountered a single orc in this 3 year campaign. I wonder why.."). You're acting like DL1 specifically says "create any character you want, it's all good" and then they later backpedaled from that statement. 2E Tales of the Lance in 1993 (I think, too lazy to check the year) kept pretty consistent without having any glaring contradictions. 3E Dragonlance Campaign setting again added new mechanics for things introduced in 3E without any huge shifts in previous concepts.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Where's the logic in that?

It's not like anything in DLA that I can think of directly contradicts anything printed in DL1-14. They simply added clarifying language that it's entirely reasonable to think a player in 1987 may have already noticed ("gee, we haven't encountered a single orc in this 3 year campaign. I wonder why..").+

where it is possible, I am pretty sure they didn't. Infact as I stated they not only MIGHT have encountered them one of them might have been a PC half orc.

You're acting like DL1 specifically says "create any character you want, it's all good"

again if in 198X you sat down to play D&D with a 1e PHB in hand you assumed unless stated otherwise half orc was an A OKAY character...