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

 

[Maxperson]

Think of it like this.

Some players are going to be angry if there aren't sufficient ban lists. For some, it's the three PHB races canonically not in DL (halfling, drow, orc). Others will want far more extended lists (no warlocks or artificers or tieflings or any race from MotM). Other players will be mad that there are ban lists at all. The very creation of such a list is going to anger players on both ends. So why bother? They can shadow-ban things like orcs by not featuring them in the module and let the DM decide if that means they are present but not appearing or if they are banned per the old lore. WotC loses nothing by engaging in silence, except to the people who want explicit lists of banned things to justify why they won't be allowed in that DMs campaign.

They have little to gain and more to lose by spelling it out rather than implying what isn't there. So why do it?

Because as you point out, the older players are in a small minority. At worst they annoy a small portion of a small portion, while at the same time informing the vast majority and letting them make an informed decision. It's a losing proposition to screw the vast majority out of being able to make an informed decision so as not to annoy a small fraction of players.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Not "for some reason," but because a failure to mention means that the inclusion of those races is assumed. By not using Theros language you are denying the new players, many of whom probably won't think of not including those races, the chance of saying, "Wow! That's cool! Let's not have those races in this setting." Most D&D players started with 5e and probably don't know the limitations of the older Krynn setting.

And that is a problem why? Purists still get to play without orcs, newer players gets to play all the races in the PHB. Win-win.

 

[Maxperson]

Going by this thread, not having a list is not fixing this…

Which is just more reason to hold true to the setting in a way similar to Theros and enable people to make an informed decision.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Some players are going to be angry if there aren't sufficient ban lists.

Not a meaningful number. Nobody in this thread even has asked for comprehensive ban lists, that's just shenanigans.

Other players will be mad that there are ban lists at all.

Not a meaningful number. Particularly not because this is, as you seem to have forgotten, branded as Dragonlance.

People aren't idiots. People who haven't played Dragonlance still know stuff about it, and they expect there to be some changes/restrictions.

People, as a whole, don't hate restrictions to races/class in settings. This is not some debatable point, this has been shown time, and time, and time again across countless RPGs and videogames (however, restricting classes BY race is definitely unpopular and I think has been since at least 1990).

They have little to gain and more to lose by spelling it out rather than implying what isn't there. So why do it?

Because it's goddamn weird not to, and enough people know it that it looks like WotC tacitly saying, "We've changed the lore", and it's also going to catch out DMs whose players know, but they don't, and it's also going to vex DMs, who know, but whose players don't, who have to explain it, but don't even has a "traditionally" or "in past editions" blurb in the book they can point to.

You haven't proposed any real upside to the bizarrely ideological position you're pushing here.

 

[Maxperson]

Basically we are now at the point where one side wants the newer players to be able to make an informed decision and the other side doesn't want to allow that for some reason.

I'm not worried about what decision the newer DMs will make. They can allow an orc, some orcs, have orcs be present from the creation of Krynn, or allow no orcs at all and I don't care.

 

[Maxperson]

People aren't idiots. People who haven't played Dragonlance still know stuff about it, and they expect there to be some changes/restrictions.

I don't think that's an assumption that we can make. Those of us here on the forums tend to be the people who research old D&D history. I think that the majority of new players just buy the books and go play the game, not worrying about errata or old history.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Basically we are now at the point where one side wants the newer players to be able to make an informed decision and the other side doesn't want to allow that for some reason.

I'm not worried about what decision the newer DMs will make. They can allow an orc, some orcs, have orcs be present from the creation of Krynn, or allow no orcs at all and I don't care.

The information-denial thing here is utterly bizarre.

There's no coherent rationale for it. @Remathilis explanation does not make logical sense, nor add up.

I'd be against it if the setting was trying to "hard-ban" orcs, that's the funny thing, but I'm also against just trying to pretend that Dragonlance isn't traditionally a specific way. It's just like with Dark Sun - if they had nothing on the traditional DS races, I'd be pissed off, but equally if the book (or worse D&D Beyond) was trying to lock out other races, I'd be pissed off.

Just tell people, and move on.

 

[Faolyn]

There is a war on.

That's not really unique, or all that interesting, especially without mass battle rules.

To an extent, this is built into the setting. It's always been a hard railroad built around a single narrative.

And yet it was hugely popular and successful.

Try this: people actually LIKE that kind of thing.

Do they still like that kind of thing? Or was that just hugely popular back in the 80s when gaming was very young and players didn't know there were non-railroady options?

That's like saying everyone in the Star Wars universe spends all their time doing trench runs against Death Stars. It builds up to that gradually, over around a dozen modules and a couple of thick novels, and that is at the climax.

You very neatly avoided by question here. You claim it's not a world of dragon battles or good versus evil, but actually one of the American frontier, plus a war. I have literally never seen anyone else describe Krynn like that, nor did I ever get that impression from the games I played in it or from the game books or novels I read.

So my question again is: why should I believe your interpretation over literally everyone else's.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not really unique, or all that interesting, especially without mass battle rules.


Do they still like that kind of thing? Or was that just hugely popular back in the 80s when gaming was very young and players didn't know there were non-railroady options?


You very neatly avoided by question here. You claim it's not a world of dragon battles or good versus evil, but actually one of the American frontier, plus a war. I have literally never seen anyone else describe Krynn like that, nor did I ever get that impression from the games I played in it or from the game books or novels I read.

So my question again is: why should I believe your interpretation over literally everyone else's.

If people prefer non-railroady games, how does WotC keep selling those 5e adventures?

 

[Velderan]

You very neatly avoided by question here. You claim it's not a world of dragon battles or good versus evil, but actually one of the American frontier, plus a war. I have literally never seen anyone else describe Krynn like that, nor did I ever get that impression from the games I played in it or from the game books or novels I read.

Not so much the story, but I've heard people describe the scenery in the art as being very Kentucky-ish which makes sense since that's where Elmore was raised. Margaret Weis has also commented that a British critich reviewing one of the books deemed it "too American", though no examples were discussed so who knows.