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

 

[FrozenNorth]

98% of players are smart and reasonable. If you tell the players "Here are the choices" or "Here are the limitations", they go with them, unless they're particularly weird limitations (like "only martial classes"), but even then I'd say most players, if they trust the DM, go with them.

The sort of player who refuses to play at all, because they cannot play a specific single race or class is usually not a fun player to play with. They're a typically a juvenile and picky individual, who is going have problems with a lot more than just that. Often they will be extremely bad, ironically, at improv.

I think that the same could be said of DMs. Most are reasonable and flexible. Then there are those who think their word is law, their extreme railroading and GMPCs are brilliant, and the problems is “all the bad players out there” rather then their own actions.

Where I think the difference lies is that a lot of both official and unofficial advice tends to encourage DMs to think of themselves as justified in taking unilateral decisions, rather than being just one of the players.

 

[Faolyn]

May be my bias, but for me the DM saying "Can't play X race because they don't exist in this campaign world" is sufficient enough reason for me. Someone running a Star Wars game and refusing someone to play a Klingon, for example, wouldn't seem out of place.

Right. But, here's the thing.

Star Trek and Star Wars are two very separate things. They have different types of characters (quasi-military explorers and scientists versus freedom fighters against a monolithic enemy), are different genres (science fiction versus fantasy), have different story types (finding common ground and overcoming obstacles through peace whenever possible versus Space Opera-style action), and have different lists of aliens you can encounter (lumpy-faced humans versus muppets). The only thing they have in common is that they both take place in space and have FTL ships. A group of PCs in a Trek game are going to have very different goals and outlooks than a group of PCs in a Wars game. I've played in both Star Trek and Star Wars games, and my PCs would not have functioned in each others settings. Perhaps the only way that the settings would be similar is if you compared the Rebel Alliance to the Maquis... and if you assumed that Star Fleet and the Cardassians combined were as planet-destroyingly evil as the Empire. Which they're not.

Dragonlance and, say, the Forgotten Realms are two settings for the same game. They use mostly the same monsters, have mostly the same non-human races, have mostly the same goals (defeating the bad guys and taking their stuff), and use the same technology and magic (do any Dragonlance or Realms fans refuse to allow spells named for Greyhawk characters?). There's differences, of course, in genre (gritty romance fantasy vesrus heroic fantasy) and in some of the small details (steel coins versus gold), but since it's D&D, it barely matters and tends to boil down to defeating the bad guys and taking their stuff.

So it's far more reasonable to think "it's D&D, I can play an orc" than it is to think "it's Star Wars, I can play a Klingon."

 

[Faolyn]

what work... again if you give a reason, if you say "here is why this doen't fit" I don't see the problem but so far no one has given a (IMO) good reason why orcs can't be there... and as has been pointed out for the first 2 years people ran this setting no one thought orcs were NOT in it.

The only potentially "good" reason I can think of is that draconians take the role of the violent, Always Evil marauders, so there's no need for orcs.

Of course, if you decide that orcs aren't Always Evil marauders and are, instead, people with a culture, that reasoning fails.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think that the same could be said of DMs. Most are reasonable and flexible. Then there are those who think their word is law, their extreme railroading and GMPCs are brilliant, and the problems is “all the bad players out there” rather then their own actions.

Where I think the difference lies is that a lot of both official and unofficial advice tends to encourage DMs to think of themselves as justified in taking unilateral decisions, rather than being just one of the players.

Oh definitely.

With DMs though many RPGs, absolutely hard-including D&D 5E are specifically designed on the principle that the DM is not "one of the players" in sense of having only equal input. 5E's DM-centric decision-making-based design couldn't function if the DM was merely "one of the players". Even most games which significantly increase player agency still give the DM more agency or a different role, I note. It's not really until you get to games which can run literally solo, like Ironsworn where you can really have true equality.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So it's far more reasonable to think "it's D&D, I can play an orc" than it is to think "it's Star Wars, I can play a Klingon."

I don't think that's true in any way that matters.

That's specifically an artifact of 4E, that's somewhat transferred to 5E, but not entirely. 5E is pretty clear that the DM can have specific races/classes etc. allowed in their settings. At least one official setting even encourages it - Theros does!

4E, yeah, could make an argument due to the wording of stuff that D&D was taking more of a "Nothing is true; everything is permitted" kind of approach. It wasn't a good argument, but it was an argument.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Agreed. The DM shouldn't be forced to accommodate everything, nor should the players be arbitrarily restricted. That is a conversation between ALL the players at the table, DM being one of them.

I object to Official Dungeons & Dragons[emoji769] settings having that conversation for me. That settings designed to support the current game would arbitrarily ban options from the game and that DMs can use it as the WORD OF GOD to shield themselves from having to have that conversation. ("Orcs don't appear in Dragonlance. Book says so. Not my fault. Take it up with WotC")

Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a book being made in 2022 for the 5th edition of the D&D ruleset. It needs to reflect what game is now, not what it was 30 years ago. As such, it should honor the rules as they stand now. Not "sorcerer doesn't exist because it wasn't a class in 1980" or "any race can be any class, except for these restrictions based on what was described in this one novel..."

If the DM wants to ban orcs and sorcerers and only allow gnomes to be artificers, they can have that conversation with their table. They can explain why they feel such changes are appropriate and if the other players agree, go ahead and do that. They can't and shouldn't be able to hide behind a sidebar and deflect the blame to WotC.

So you object to Theros suggesting that you should by default use only specific races?

The trouble is that this isn't a rational argument on your part, it's just an impassioned speech with an explicit demand, which is nice and all, but doesn't actually get us anywhere. There's no logic to what you're saying, it's just "I'm right, you're wrong!" or rather "I'm right and WotC is not allowed to release a setting that doesn't contain every single race/class and carefully avoids any suggestion any might not be present!!!!!".

 

[Faolyn]

I don't think that's true in any way that matters.

That's specifically an artifact of 4E, that's somewhat transferred to 5E, but not entirely. 5E is pretty clear that the DM can have specific races/classes etc. allowed in their settings. At least one official setting even encourages it - Theros does!

4E, yeah, could make an argument due to the wording of stuff that D&D was taking more of a "Nothing is true; everything is permitted" kind of approach. It wasn't a good argument, but it was an argument.

Theros specifically says that the races in the book (centaur, leonin, etc.) are simply the most common races, therefore allowing other races as uncommon ones.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't think that's true in any way that matters.

That's specifically an artifact of 4E, that's somewhat transferred to 5E, but not entirely.

I'm not sure if you are pointlessly trying to start an edition war, if you are trying to just lump stuff you don't like to something to dismiss it or if this is a joke.

4e everything was core has nothing to do with weather WotC is going to publish setting with restrictions for no reason other then to have restrictions.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not sure if you are pointlessly trying to start an edition war, if you are trying to just lump stuff you don't like to something to dismiss it or if this is a joke.

4e everything was core has nothing to do with weather WotC is going to publish setting with restrictions for no reason other then to have restrictions.

Given I liked 4E, obviously it's none of the above.

4E is the only D&D edition where you could even make an argument that it was reasonable to expect any class/race in all settings. 5E is not. That's my point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Theros specifically says that the races in the book (centaur, leonin, etc.) are simply the most common races, therefore allowing other races as uncommon ones.

Nope.

Aside from humans, the races in the Player’s Handbook are unknown on Theros, unless they’re visiting from other worlds.

That was easier to find than I expected.

EDIT - Also the common/uncommon thing is from the 5E playtest, and only made it into the game as a vague reference in a single sentence in the 5E PHB AFAICT (correct me if I'm wrong please).