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

 

[Xamnam]

Only if you're insecure in enjoying the things you like. If you just like them as they are and don't pay attention to what other people are doing, this isn't a problem.

With all due respect, it's truly about what I said, the conversation, the shared experience of the hobby at large. Obviously people like different things than me, why would I be upset about that? But my ability to share my perspective, when it is shaped by things that are no longer present, is greatly diminished when that's no longer likely the shared experience. Sure, I can describe it, I can literally share it. But that's different than knowing someone is on common ground with you. And when the ground feels unique, that is a loss, to me.

I'm a fan of the philosophy that all things are flawed and change is necessary for improvement. I'm not saying that all or even most changes are good . . . just that they're necessary, especially for older things that haven't aged well (original Ravenloft and Dragonlance).

Sure, but people can reasonably disagree on what's a necessary change, and that's very separate from whether any given change is an improvement. That was my point upthread.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There is literally no such thing as narrative fidelity in an RPG. All there is is background lore which may or may not have any actual meaning to the players, and the player's actions can and often should change that lore. Demanding that the game follow the novels or a set path is railroading to the extreme.

Fully agreed. I'm going to add onto what you say a bit.

And before someone says "so you're saying liking metaplots is badwrongfun" the reason that isn't a valid complaint is because metaplots aren't a playstyle. "Badwrongfun" applies to play styles (optimizing, social interaction, tactical combat, horror, etc). "Liking metaplots" isn't a "playstyle" any more than "liking the Drizzt novels" is. So saying the concept of metaplots and "narrative fidelity" are bad things for a TTRPG isn't saying your way of playing the game is wrong. It's saying that designing setting products around metaplots that change the setting and make getting into the world harder is a bad way to design a TTRPG that should try to be welcoming to newer players. It's not just hostile to newer players, but it encourages gatekeepers to say "You're not a true fan of X if you haven't played through Y metaplot".

 

[mamba]

Faction War is the offending module in the case of Planescape. I led a long and happy D&D life before @Ruin Explorer informed me what that adventure introduced.

The description does not go into much details, but this "tracks the war from its nefarious origins through its bitter battles to its ultimate resolution and beyond" is always bad if you want to continue playing in the setting. It invariably introduces a lot of changes to things you've come to like, and from past experience those changes are rarely for the better. Whether that is defeating Takhisis on Krynn (Dragons of Summer Flame anyone, I hate that) or the Dragon on Athas.

"It shook up the political structure of the city of Sigil by setting factions against one another, wiping some out and dramatically changing others. The adventure ended with the philosophical and political landscape of Sigil dramatically changed. Many Planescape fans didn't feel this change was necessarily for the better." yep, par for the course then, same as what happen in DL and DS. Funny how often TSR managed to ruin their own settings.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't think anyone really argued much about whether orcs should be added, I certainly do not really care either way. The discussion was about 95% on whether they existed in canon all along.

@DarkCrisis was complaining about the possibility of Orcs/Half-Orcs being added on page 4. The "are they canon" is a tangent of this tangent that @Hussar was arguing.

You can, DL and DS simply didn't

And that was a bad decision.

 

[mamba]

@DarkCrisis[/USER] was complaining about the possibility of Orcs/Half-Orcs being added on page 4. The "are they canon" is a tangent of this tangent that @Hussar was arguing.

It may have been a tangent, I still believe it took up the majority of this thread

And that was a bad decision.

I fully agree

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

With all due respect, it's truly about what I said, the conversation, the shared experience of the hobby at large. Obviously people like different things than me, why would I be upset about that? But my ability to share my perspective, when it is shaped by things that are no longer present, is greatly diminished when that's no longer likely the shared experience. Sure, I can describe it, I can literally share it. But that's different than knowing someone is on common ground with you. And when the ground feels unique, that is a loss, to me.

The only shared experience that matters in my campaigns is that of my table. If I and my players have inside jokes and memories made together, that is more than good enough. I don't need some rando on the internet to be able to know what I'm talking about when I say "space druid breaks a magic crystal that causes a time paradox", the fact that my players can remember and laugh at that situation is enough. I don't need validation of the experiences from the games I run on the internet.

Sure, but people can reasonably disagree on what's a necessary change, and that's very separate from whether any given change is an improvement. That was my point upthread.

Sure, but there are people like @Micah Sweet that no changes should be made whatsoever. Their argument for the past few months is "if they're not going to update the settings exactly as they were, they need to not update them at all".

 

[Xamnam]

The only shared experience that matters in my campaigns is that of my table.
I don't need validation of the experiences from the games I run on the internet.

You seem to be misunderstanding / I seem to be miscommunicating my points in this conversation to the degree that I don't think me continuing on is going to be productive

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You seem to be misunderstanding / I seem to be miscommunicating my points in this conversation to the degree that I don't think me continuing on is going to be productive

Maybe I did misunderstand you. Can you explain again in other words?

 

[DarkCrisis]

The Knights not having mustaches is a fantastic example of changes just for changes sake.

As part of their traditions and sign of nobility and rank every male Solomnic Knight has a big ok mustache. Like today modern soldier getting a regulation haircut.

WotC changed it why? Orcs, Gully Dwarves, Kender sure I get it. But facial hair? A small but unique touch to the Knights and to Krynn? Why?

 

[ersatzphil]

Ahh. So you would rather something never be updated over it being rebooted.

I mean - I'll be the first to admit I'm not a big enough Dragonlance fan to discuss the changes to the setting over the years, but to use Ravenloft as an example - introduced in I6, Ravenloft was just Barovia. The black box, the red box, and eventually the 'Domains of Dread' book in 2e added more and more to the world, and the 3e gazetteer series added yet more. I don't recall* much in the way of dissent to any of that, but these were all additive changes - 3e added the town of Immol to Barovia? Sure, we can roll with that. Reductive changes - Ravenloft no longer having a Core, naming a Dark Power, removing the mustaches from the Knights of Solamnia - tend to be received far more poorly.

* I have more recently heard people say things to the effect of "everything after I6 was a mistake", but that appears to be more of an OSR part of the fandom, who want an extremely specific style of play.