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

 

[Velderan]

Except that is not what happened. Paladine wasn’t speaking theoretically about past Kingpriests. He was speaking about the Kingpriest who got that mountain dropped on him and using him as a lesson about it is dangerous when Good dominates.

What are you quoting here? I'm not sure what you're referencing exactly.

 

[Velderan]

this comes down to how your group feels... we long ago (end stage 3.5) realized we needed to use words first. We do what (We think) is a good way to handle it with 'excused for defense of self or defense of other'
we have not had a retributive death by a PC in a few years and you have to go back 15 years for it to be even more then once or twice a campagin.

We've been doing that for awhile too and I argue it makes for a more interesting game. Sometimes you learn story you otherwise wouldn't have by talking to the goblins. My last campaign I ran, the party ended up befriending a goblin when they realized he was just being forced to fight them by the bugbear that led his group. He told them about the bugbear's plans, showed them a shortcut into his lair, and they ended up keeping him as a NPC companion for awhile. Sadly he met his end when a white dragon hit the entire party with breath, but they buried him and it was kinda sad. It helps made the world seem more alive imo.

 

[FrozenNorth]

We did it over taxes and unfair laws. You can overthrow the leadership for whatever reason you come up with if you win.

Sure, and history is littered with people who tried and failed.

Asking me to accept that everyone loved the Kingpriest and therefore dropping a mountain on Ishtar only killed evil people breaks my suspension of disbelief more than asking me to believe that dropping the mountain in the first place wasn’t genocide and an evil act.

 

[Maxperson]

this comes down to how your group feels... we long ago (end stage 3.5) realized we needed to use words first. We do what (We think) is a good way to handle it with 'excused for defense of self or defense of other'
we have not had a retributive death by a PC in a few years and you have to go back 15 years for it to be even more then once or twice a campagin.

How do you go up levels then, if the PCs in your game don't kill monsters that have done evil?

 

[FrozenNorth]

What are you quoting here? I'm not sure what you're referencing exactly.

@pemerton quoted the exact passage.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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

I'm not going back for the quote it has been put in this thread before the platinum dragon said it was 'last time too much good'

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, and history is littered with people who tried and failed.

So since the Kingpriest was evil and doing many evil things, where were the good people that tried and failed?

Asking me to accept that everyone loved the Kingpriest and therefore dropping a mountain on Ishtar only killed evil people breaks my suspension of disbelief more than asking me to believe that dropping the mountain in the first place wasn’t genocide and an evil act.

I haven't seen anyone ask that. The evil and neutral gods dropped the mountain. The good gods tried to stop it via Lord Soth. Once Soth failed and the punishment was going to happen, the good gods had no choice but to withdraw with all the other gods.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In the books it is very clear that the Kingpriest was not very good at all. He might have been a good man, but with very misguided ideas of what good is.

we are told he was a good man then only shown evil he does... this does not line up

I believe I read somewhere at one point that either of the authors said something along the line of ‘if you believe the Kingpriest did good, you were not paying attention’, and that is very much true.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't agree. I think many people can recognise when a fiction that invites them to entertain a moral framework that is different from their own, especially one that they can see has a basis in tradition or well-understood tropes.

Modern westerns, for instance, drop the racism - no one is going to entertain the absurd proposition that racist violence is permissible - but they don't drop the casual attitude towards lethal violence, both defensive and retributive.

Superhero stories have probably never been more popular, and like westerns they are incredibly casual in their attitude towards violence, although it is perhaps less often lethal.

To suppose that someone who enjoys JRRT's fiction must therefore, in their actual political views, be an utter reactionary, would be a pretty flawed inference!

again all the violance either is defense of self/other or not good but best a of a bad...

none of it is seen as 'god of goodness'

 

[Maxperson]

we are told he was a good man then only shown evil he does... this does not line up

We are told he WAS(past tense) a good man. Then we are told that later on in life he started killing innocents, invading the minds of others(mind rape), acting out of fear, pride, wrath and envy, etc. Those are not the acts of a good man. So while he WAS good at first, he was very evil when the cataclysm happened.