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]

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.

except no one said EVERY class race... as we KEEP saying... it's a phb race and EVEN then we would understand if a reason why was given...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

except no one said EVERY class race... as we KEEP saying... it's a phb race and EVEN then we would understand if a reason why was given...

Dude.

You yourself dismissed all reasons everyone has presented, including reasons that DMG itself allows to be the case as "not reasons", before admitting they were reasons, but not good enough reasons. So you have pushed very strongly for every race, ever class (presumably every subclass too).

So what possible reason would you ever accept given "this race doesn't exist in the setting" is for you, not a good enough reason? Does the DM need to X-card orcs or something?

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

It's tough to expect DMs to do the majority of the work while simultaneously telling them they're just, "one of the players". Certainly other games handle the work load differently, but those games are generally quite far from D&D mechanically, and not to everyone's taste.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

At which point, to be fair, you then have to create a people with a culture (probably more than one), determine their history and relationships with other cultures, and then find a place to put them on a world map not designed with a place for them to exist.

 

[Faolyn]

Nope.



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).

It's literally contradicted the following sentence, describing those races as being the most common ones.

Also? Theros is an MtG setting ported to D&D. Dragonlance was built for D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's literally contradicted the following sentence, describing those races as being the most common ones.

Also? Theros is an MtG setting ported to D&D. Dragonlance was built for D&D.

People keep telling me that shouldn't make a difference, but even if it does, 5e WotC has endorsed setting restrictions.

 

[Faolyn]

At which point, to be fair, you then have to create a people with a culture (probably more than one), determine their history and relationships with other cultures, and then find a place to put them on a world map not designed with a place for them to exist.

It's a huge map. There's plenty of places to stick them. And a player who really wants to play an orc can help come up with their culture.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's literally contradicted the following sentence, describing those races as being the most common ones.

Also? Theros is an MtG setting ported to D&D. Dragonlance was built for D&D.

ROFL wow damn.

Really? I mean come on. You can't be like "Well it's okay for Theros because it's MtG-originated, but it's totally wrong for any D&D-originated setting, even though in every edition of D&D except 4E, we've had clear restrictions on what races/classes are in each setting!", surely? I am misunderstanding here? Is that what you're going with?

Also, you're seemingly claiming I'm being misleading by not having context, well, let's have the whole entire quote then, it's only one more sentence:

A diverse assortment of peoples dwell among the lands of Theros. Aside from humans, the races in the Player’s Handbook are unknown on Theros, unless they’re visiting from other worlds.

This chapter provides information about the following common playable races of Theros, as well as racial traits for all of them except humans:

I mean pretty sure that "common" is just being used as a bit of language, not to make some kind "official designation" lol. Again, the entire concept of Common/Uncommon races as an actual rules thing was in the 5E playtest, but omitted from the final books, instead there's this short bit which mentions it in the DMG.

Not every intelligent race of the multiverse is appropriate for a player-controlled adventurer. Dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans are the most common races to produce the sort of adventurers who make up typical parties. Dragonborn, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and tieflings are less common as adventurers. Drow, a subrace of elves, are also uncommon.

That's the first and last time "common vs uncommon races" is ever mentioned in 5E post-release, AFAICT.

I brought the receipts, as people say.

 

[Faolyn]

People keep telling me that shouldn't make a difference, but even if it does, 5e WotC has endorsed setting restrictions.

Sure--although again, if you can come up with a sufficiently Greco-Roman flavored group of elves, dwarfs, or orcs, then why not use them? The 3pp Arkadia and Odyssey of the Dragonlords have those races fit in just fine.

Really? I mean come on. You can't be like "Well it's okay for Theros because it's MtG-oriented, but it's totally wrong for any D&D-originated setting, even though in every edition of D&D except 4E, we've had clear restrictions on what races/classes are in each setting!". I am misunderstanding here? Is that what you're going with?

OK, I will admit I was wrong about them being allowed. But as I have said above, I doubt that most people would really care. Two of the three Greco-Roman 5e-based settings I know of allow them in just fine, and the only reason the third one doesn't is because it wasn't a world intended to be a D&D setting in the first place.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Dude.

You yourself dismissed all reasons everyone has presented, including reasons that DMG itself allows to be the case as "not reasons", before admitting they were reasons, but not good enough reasons. So you have pushed very strongly for every race, ever class (presumably every subclass too).

So what possible reason would you ever accept given "this race doesn't exist in the setting" is for you, not a good enough reason? Does the DM need to X-card orcs or something?

lets try this again... you just have to answer...

no my argument has and forever will be... the why matters.

2 whys to be presise.

why are they not here?
and
why would it hurt the setting/story if there were?

In Dark Sun I can answer both. In Dragon Lance the best answer ANYONE has come up with is the creators said so, and/or tradition.