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

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don't want to hear any more complaints about agency then! Agency(informed consent since that's what you are equating it to) is a thing for medicine, financial planning and similarly weighty areas of human life. Not a thing for RPGs!

Agreed. This is just a game even if we disagree on some things about it.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I mean, I would expect any setting in any system to call out what does and doesn't exist in the setting. Sure, you can have dragonborn and clerics and paladins and gods and consequence-free magic in Dark Sun, but then it's not really Dark Sun anymore. At least, not in any appreciable sense.A well crafted world both excluded and includes things with purpose. Yes as a GM/player we can change those as we want, but that kind of requires knowing what the default IS. If the setting is just "generic base setting with a different coat of paint but all the same options", then what's the point of buying it?

Having said that, I wouldn't bother mentioning orcs in the DL book. I WOULD explicitly list what ancestries exist "in-canon", and let the gm/players make the conscious decision to add/remove what they wanted from that list. If you're explicitly noting that orcs don't exist, then you'd need to explicitly note every OTHER ancestry that doesn't exist as well to stay consistent, which just gets unwieldy in a hurry.

Granted, D&D does have a "kitchen sink" mentality where everything is assumed allowed by default.

 

[pemerton]

only if they are aware. Why do you need to trick players instead of giving them the option to make an informed choice?

no one is talking about an obligation, merely a wish / preference.

Why is giving the choice to the players such a bad thing to you that you rather lie to them by omitting this?

It is not a "trick" to sell a book that doesn't say anything about Orcs. Nor is it a lie (by omission or otherwise).

To the best of my knowledge, WotC own the trademark "Dragonlance" and all the copyrights to the prior work. They can publish whatever they like under the trademark, and can do whatever they want with the copyrighted material.

When they publish a new book they will put into it whatever they think makes sense for its intended audience. That may or may not include saying things about the contents of old books they published under the same trademark. But if they don't, they're not lying to anyone.

It's not like there is an objective "truth" about Dragonlance and Krynn which WotC is obliged to respect and disclose!

 

[pemerton]

I don't want to hear any more complaints about agency then! Agency(informed consent since that's what you are equating it to) is a thing for medicine, financial planning and similarly weighty areas of human life. Not a thing for RPGs!

Huh? The concept of informed consent has no work to do in the analysis of the playing of tabletop RPGs. The relevant notions of agency, in the RPG context, pertain to authorship and decisions about what moves to make. And the relationships in question obtain between participants in the game. They have nothing to do with WotC's role as a commercial publisher of stories about imaginary places.

 

[Maxperson]

It is not a "trick" to sell a book that doesn't say anything about Orcs. Nor is it a lie (by omission or otherwise).

For the typical person, not saying anything = is included. We've seen that here in this thread. When I pointed out the Unified Ansalon Monster chart a bunch of people started responding with all kinds of things not on the charts that are in the world, like wolves and such.

To the best of my knowledge, WotC own the trademark "Dragonlance" and all the copyrights to the prior work. They can publish whatever they like under the trademark, and can do whatever they want with the copyrighted material.

Not unless they want to make a ton of people upset they can't. Their options are limited if they want to do that, because a lot of Krynn is long established. The more people they upset, the less money they make on the product.

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't bother mentioning orcs in the DL book. I WOULD explicitly list what ancestries exist "in-canon", and let the gm/players make the conscious decision to add/remove what they wanted from that list. If you're explicitly noting that orcs don't exist, then you'd need to explicitly note every OTHER ancestry that doesn't exist as well to stay consistent, which just gets unwieldy in a hurry.

This seems sensible to me.

I mean, I would expect any setting in any system to call out what does and doesn't exist in the setting. Sure, you can have dragonborn and clerics and paladins and gods and consequence-free magic in Dark Sun, but then it's not really Dark Sun anymore. At least, not in any appreciable sense.A well crafted world both excluded and includes things with purpose. Yes as a GM/player we can change those as we want, but that kind of requires knowing what the default IS.

But this I don't agree with. We're talking about imaginary places. The notion of "default" has no real work to do. Like, a default setting on a machine is a manufacturer's suggestion as to how to obtain a base level of successful performance; but the concept of "successful performance" doesn't apply to imaginary places. Dragonlance won't stop working as an imaginary place if someone also imagines an Orc in it.

If the setting is just "generic base setting with a different coat of paint but all the same options", then what's the point of buying it?

Dunno, but plenty of people buy FR, and some buy GH, and presumably WotC anticipates that some will buy DL. I doubt that it will increase sales of DL to have a long list of standard D&D PC build options that players are not expected to use with the setting.

 

[pemerton]

For the typical person, not saying anything = is included. We've seen that here in this thread. When I pointed out the Unified Ansalon Monster chart a bunch of people started responding with all kinds of things not on the charts that are in the world, like wolves and such.

Suppose someone makes such an assumption - what harm does it do? It doesn't hurt them. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt WotC. So who is being adversely affected?

They can publish whatever they like under the trademark, and can do whatever they want with the copyrighted material.

Not unless they want to make a ton of people upset they can't. Their options are limited if they want to do that, because a lot of Krynn is long established. The more people they upset, the less money they make on the product.

It seems to me that the number of people who might buy a new DL book, but will decline to do so because it doesn't explicitly mention that DL has no Orcs, is very small. I very much doubt that it is "a ton of people".

How many people who might otherwise buy the book would decline to do so if it expressly included a range of standard D&D PC build options I don't know, but WotC probably has some sense of that number. I would not be at all surprised if it is larger than the group mentioned in the previous paragraph.

 

[mamba]

To the best of my knowledge, WotC own the trademark "Dragonlance" and all the copyrights to the prior work. They can publish whatever they like under the trademark, and can do whatever they want with the copyrighted material.

of course they can, I am not aware of anyone saying otherwise

When they publish a new book they will put into it whatever they think makes sense for its intended audience. That may or may not include saying things about the contents of old books they published under the same trademark. But if they don't, they're not lying to anyone.

No, they would not be lying, but they would be changing the setting. Since it is their setting (see above) they can do so.

Anyone who cares about the Orcs in Krynn issue can do there thing regardless of words used. Anyone who doesn't care doesn't need any words. So why worry about the words?

This is a dishonest argument, I am calling you out, not WotC.

You are basically saying 'let everyone decide for themselves' but you are not giving them the information to base that decision on. You instead want to imply that they should be in (the default for 5e) rather than presenting how DL used to be and then telling the players to decide whether to allow them.

If you want them to decide, then tell them. Not telling them at that point does become a lie by omission. And just to be clear: you can tell them by listing what is explicitly in, or by focusing on the PHB races that are explicitly out, either is perfectly fine. It's not saying anything that I object to.

 

[mamba]

I wouldn't bother mentioning orcs in the DL book. I WOULD explicitly list what ancestries exist "in-canon", and let the gm/players make the conscious decision to add/remove what they wanted from that list.

that is fine too, does essentially the same thing.

 

[Maxperson]

Suppose someone makes such an assumption - what harm does it do? It doesn't hurt them. It doesn't hurt you. It doesn't hurt WotC. So who is being adversely affected?

People should be able to decide for themselves if they want to stay true to the original setting lore or add in orcs. You can say it's only for super important things, but that's not a call you get to make for anyone but yourself. I'm not into robbing people of the ability to make an informed decision.