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

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Let me ask you a question. If I feel that the VRG version of Ravenloft is inferior to earlier work for that setting, what reaction should I have? Agree with the majority or stay quiet about it seems wrong to me here.

Edit: I'm not trying to be rude. I seriously don't know what I'm supposed to do if I see a new D&D product that I don't like anymore.

Everything must be reborn into generic bland goop. There is no other option, otherwise we will turn off new players it seems.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Not everyone likes facial hair, even if they can grow it without issue.

Heaven forfend.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Can people in your fantasy make believe world not grow mostaches?

Some can't. Especially not multiple somehow like Sturm.

Also, maybe I don't like the aesthetic of having a soup strainer and still want to play a knight.

Again, was this really one of the core things to DL alongside wonky morality and dragonmen who explode when you ill them? Lip caterpillars?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Everything must be reborn into generic bland goop. There is no other option, otherwise we will turn off new players it seems.

Aren't you arguing against people choosing not to play the same bland goop that's been warmed over the past thirty years?

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Heaven forfend.

My mother: "Please keep your beard."

Me: Shaves out of raw contrarianism

 

[mamba]

I can understand not being interested in the story after that, but the story itself has continued. We all have a line where we'd prefer they'd stop.

Here is a little tidbit for you

Margareth Weis: 'Dragonlance: Fifth Age' was very controversial at the time

D&D Sage Advice · Lorraine took over TSR, she declared there would be no “stars”. She wanted to take DL away from me and Tracy and bring it

www.sageadvice.eu

We would not have gotten Summer Flame and the drastic shift in DL if it weren't for Lorraine Williams. That in itself was already a reboot of DL. So me rejecting it is more consistent with DL than you accepting it

Whatever we get from WotC in a month, it cannot do more damage to DL than TSR did back then.

 

[mamba]

Hickman and Weis had to literally sue WotC to be able to finish the latest trilogy.

I seriously doubt that there will be more novels forthcoming after that love fest.

They only published one so far, so there should be at least two more

 

[Dire Bare]

And not all men can grow mustaches, either. I'm just saying "they all have the same mustache" is a pretty dumb way to visually differentiate the Knights of Solamnia from other knightly orders.

Long, flowing mustaches ARE a visual theme for the Knights of Solamnia. But having it be a requirement? That all knights must sport such staches? That's dumb world-building. I'm not even sure it's actually canon, that all knights in the Dragonlance canon have had those twirlers.

 

[Stormonu]

PCs actions can't change the past outside of time travel.

Funny you should mention that regarding Dragonlance...

There's a couple setting breaking points for me over the years that have made me stop following continuity:

• Forgotten Realms after the Time of Troubles (I use the gray box and will never use the Time of Troubles)
• Ravenloft and the Grand Conjunction (and don't get me started about Vecna...)
• Greyhawk after the Greyhawk Wars (just didn't see the point - another case of TSR pushing the metaplot to ruffle feathers)
• Dragonlance from Dragons of Summer Flame onward (Just never got into it and what came after)
• Dark Sun's second boxed set (it just went in a direction that trivialized the Tyr region)
• Planescape's Faction War (what a way to destroy the whole campaign)
• L5R's Rokugan after the Scorpion Coup (things just started getting weird with the disappearing emperor and all)
• Battlestar Galactica, the whole reboot (I got sick of watching people being unable to make good decisions even if they got slapped in the face with one)
• Star Trek Deep Space Nine (based on a space station rip-off of Babylon 5? Just ugh)
• Bablylon 5 season five (yeah, it should have stopped with 4, and forget Crusade)
• and many, many others

What did I do each time? I went back to what I liked and enjoyed that. I'd occasionally pop up my head when something new came up and might give it a look. Sometimes (Enterprise, Strange New Worlds), I'd find stuff I like. If I didn't, I've learned to just avoid it. Kvetch about it for a while until I reached acceptance. In a few rare cases, years later I'd come around and actually like it (Deep Space 9).

There's plenty of other things - new and old - to happily spend my time on rather than wrestling with those who enjoy what I don't like. Would I like to see something I like from those worlds? Hell, yes - and sometimes I do, even if it's just a smaller part of the whole.

But, you can't have everything your way all the time - sometimes its time to either move on, or reverse gears and go back to what you do enjoy and not worry if you'll get some official support. You just make up your own stuff, which is always better than what someone else does their way anyways. At some point, someone will pick up the torch and change something you like as it is - and they'll ruin it. But don't let it ruin your enjoyment; you already have what came before and they can't take it away from you. For "you", that product is finished. You have no compunction to take it farther than you enjoy it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Long, flowing mustaches ARE a visual theme for the Knights of Solamnia. But having it be a requirement? That all knights must sport such staches? That's dumb world-building. I'm not even sure it's actually canon, that all knights in the Dragonlance canon have had those twirlers.

Yeah, I think it's a dumb theme. And if it's required, it's beyond idiotic.

Can people in your fantasy make believe world not grow mostaches?

Maybe this is just a game and ever make Knight can grow facial hair with no issues.

Again it’s a unique staple of the world that has to be ruined because “Well what if my pretend power fantasy can’t grow a beard?”

Now wonder games are getting more shades of grey.

Not that it's ever mattered before, but I generally assume that humans function more or less in D&D worlds as they do in the real world. So occasionally there would be people that can't grow facial hair.

And the "unique staple" is dumb. It's a dumb-looking mustache that makes it impossible for the armies to appear intimidating with their helmets off. And with their helmets on, there's no reason to have a mustache. And getting rid of the Solamnic sexism just makes it even more unnecessary. "Shades of grey" has nothing to do with it. It just wasn't a very good concept in the first place.

Let me ask you a question. If I feel that the VRG version of Ravenloft is inferior to earlier work for that setting, what reaction should I have? Agree with the majority or stay quiet about it seems wrong to me here.

Edit: I'm not trying to be rude. I seriously don't know what I'm supposed to do if I see a new D&D product that I don't like anymore.

Do you think it's inferior because anything about the product is of inherently lower quality, or do you just not like the changes made to the setting?

In other words, if none of the previous Ravenloft books ever came out and your first introduction to the setting was Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, do you think you would still think poorly of it. Because I believe that if I was introduced to the idea of the Core before Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft came out that I would still prefer the newer version because I believe it makes for a better horror setting, which I think is the point of Ravenloft (it is, a Halloween one-shot is the reason the setting exists in the first place). I thought that the Phlogiston was dumb and un-fun before 5e removed it, so I believe I would think the same of the Core if I knew that it existed before Van Richten's came out.