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

 

[pemerton]

I agree, but would add that it is therefore inconsistent with objective notions of good and evil.

Or to put it another way, don’t label certain characters “good” if they are going to engage in genocide.

I don't agree.

To explain why:

First, a softening up example: many D&D games involve duels, including duels to the death, and these are not treated as murders. No one thinks that a LG knight or samurai PC is doing an evil thing by fighting in a duel against a willing opponent. Now, in the real world, duelling has been banned in many places since the eighteenth century or thereabouts, and killing someone in a duel would be murder (perhaps manslaughter in jurisdictions with very permissive provocation or similar doctrines). But D&D does not ask us to entertain the absurd proposition that a LG knight or samurai can permissibly commit murder. Rather, it asks us to suspend our actual moral judgement about duelling, and to entertain the proposition that it is not murder to kill someone who voluntarily stakes their life on a duel.

Now the core argument:

Many D&D settings involve capital punishment - and in fact part of the logic of much "adventuring" in the classic vein of D&D is that it is retributive violence inflicted on the perpetrators of wrongdoing (bandits, Goblins, whomever).

As is well known, many people regard capital punishment as murder. But that needn't stop them playing D&D - because when they play D&D they suspend their real-world moral valuation and accept the fiction that capital punishment is sometimes permissible, and hence is not murder.

Strictly analogously, many people regard collective punishment - where people are punished for the wrongdoing of other members of their community - as wrong. Indeed, as I posted upthread, part of the point of a human rights framework is to transform collectivist social and political forms into individualist ones. But that needn't stop them playing RPGs set in Krynn (the Cataclysm) or Middle Earth (the Downfall of Numenor) - when they play D&D they suspend their real-world moral valuation and accept the fiction that collective punishment inflicted in the form of divine retribution is sometimes permissible, and hence not murder and a fortiori therefore not genocide.

In other words, a D&D setting with capital punishment carried out by LG paladins doesn't ask anyone to entertain the absurd proposition that murder is good. Rather, it asks us to entertain the proposition that capital punishment is sometimes permissible.

And DL/Krynn does not ask anyone to entertain the absurd proposition that genocide is good. Rather, it asks us to entertain the proposition that divine retribution carried out on a whole people is sometimes permissible.

Some people don't want to bracket their real-world moral judgements in this way, and entertain these propositions that the fiction treats as true. That's their prerogative. What I'm objecting to is the misdescription of what those who are prepared to entertain these propositions are doing.

In order to make it clear, I'll reiterate: someone who plays a DL game while accepting the conceit of the Cataclysm is not positing that genocide is good. Rather, the are entertaining, in the context of the fiction, the idea that the Cataclysm is not genocide because permissible collective punishment.

I also remain puzzled that anyone who can't stomach that could nevertheless stomach entertaining the idea of LG paladins upholding the feudal order. Feudalism is an expression of exactly the same value framework as underlies collective punishment. There's a reason why the French Revolution did away with both.

 

[Velderan]

agreed, to me it always was a better LotR rpg (not the better trilogy mind you). Same themes, more classes / skills / magic items for the players

Considering Tolkien was just writing a book to tell a story while Hickman and Weis were writing a story that was also meant to be a game, that seems like a fair assessment imo.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

in the monarchy the future ruler will get a lot of weird ideas indoctrinated before the time he becomes kin

Weird ideas like duty, responsibility and self-sacrifice you mean?

You are very much in value judgment territory there.

The ideas a hereditary monarch might be indoctrinated with are not necessarily better or worse than the ideas anyone else gets indoctrinated with. The vast majority of democratically elected leaders come from very privileged backgrounds.

 

[mamba]

Here is the thing, it starts off by a good god (THE good god overgod of all) telling something that A- we assume he isn't lying and B- we assume no one can be withholding information from him. What does he say "Hey the king was a really good guy, in fact it was an example of who things go wrong when there is too much good in the world"

nope, not ‘too much good’, good intentions, being mistaken about what it actually means to be good, and a lot of hybris

This good god then goes on to describe actions that (I think) would have been at least neutral if not out right evil.

as I said, takes suspension of disbelief for that part too. If it takes too much, oh well.

They clearly based their story on earlier stories on Earth that have this morality. You think that was not a good idea, that is your prerogative.
I can choose to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story for what it is, that is mine.

That does not mean we actually disagree about the actions of the gods, esp. since I already ‘conceded’ (never disagreed quite frankly) that

 

[mamba]

The Kingpriest as a position probably was filled by a good man at one point. Keep in mind, this wasn't 1 singular being but rather a position that was filled by different people who probably had their own interpretations of what Paladine's teachings were.

no, he was talking about the one they dropped the mountain on, not just the role in general

But yes, that particular one very much misunderstood the teachings, thus the mountain

 

[Maxperson]

Wrong.

So buying books that condone murder, rape, assault etc, is moral, but buying one that condones genocide(a lot of murder) isn't. Got it. Exactly how much murder can a book condone before it becomes immoral?

NPCs are NPCs by the way. Here's what you are missing. It's okay for a good person to commit an evil act and not be evil alignment. A single act contrary to your alignment is meaningless. If it wasn't, a mass murderer who did a single act of good would be good. Not that the good gods are known to have condoned the attack. You are assuming that they did and engaged in evil.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

TL;DR: if you don't like stories/settings/worlds with a premodern point of view, don't engage with them. Trying to tear them down by forcing an adherence to a modern standard they have no desire to use to me feels more like giving fans grief about something they enjoy rather than honest discussion.

I would say if you want to write non modern views of good and evil you need to accept the the people reading will not see it as good. AsoIaf has many action by protagonist that in the middle ages would have been fine, but in modern view is evil. We have people cheer for those (in many cases) villains. Part of how they do so is not trying to sell it as good vs evil but bad vs slightly less bad

 

[Velderan]

no, he was talking about the one they dropped the mountain on, not just the role in general

I know, sorry I wasn't clear. Since Paladine had granted the Kingpriest position in general divine magic, it's safe to argue Paladine endorsed him as being good. I'm fuzzy on whether the last Kingpriest ever was said to have divine magic, the books definitely said he began learning arcane magic when he seized the Tower of High Sorcery in Istar. I'm not so sure the books ever implied Paladine gave the final Kingpriest his stamp of approval so to speak.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am emphatically not buying into the philosophy. That's the point.

I'm not saying the philosophy can't be present, but I want conflicting views in-universe - people who see the Cataclysm as rightful divine punishment for hubris and those who view it as an unjustified cosmic temper tantrum, debating the matter without necessarily having a clear "correct" answer.

again it doesn't even need to just be in universe... take all the gods the 'good' ones the 'evil' ones and the 'neutral' ones and give them all "Unaligned" alignment with a sidebar saying "Most see the good gods as good and evil as evil but really they are all just forces of nature not withholding to a mortal alignment" could do it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried." - Winston Churchill.

Democracy is heavily flawed. But it's better to have the option of voting bad people out of office than it is to have to wait until they die.

Indeed. I haven't said democracy is worse, only that I have no more trouble accepting that a hereditary monarch is "good" than an elected president is "good".

Churchill is hardly a shining example of democracy in action anyway. When he was first elected to parliament no women and only 60% of men had a vote. He got his position through privilege and patronage, as the grandson of a duke. He didn't actually get democratically elected as the leader of his country until 1951.