Dragonlance Dragonlance Adventure & Prelude Details Revealed

Over on DND Beyond Amy Dallen and Eugenio Vargas discuss the beginning of Shadow of ther Dragon Queen and provide some advice on running it.

Running a Session Zero for Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

When starting a new adventure, it's a good idea to get on the same page as your party. Here's how to run a session zero for the upcoming Dragonlance adv...

www.dndbeyond.com

This epic war story begins with an invitation to a friend's funeral and three optional prelude encounters that guide you into the world of Krynn. Amy Dallen is joined by Eugenio Vargas to share some details about how these opening preludes work and some advice on using them in your own D&D games.

There is also information on the three short 'prelude' adventures which introduce players to the world of Krynn:

• Eye in the Sky -- ideal for sorcerers, warlocks, wizards, or others seeking to become members of the Mages of High Sorcery.
• Broken Silence -- ideal for clerics, druids, paladins, and other characters with god-given powers.
• Scales of War -- ideal for any character and reveals the mysterious draconians.

The article discusses Session Zero for the campaign and outlines what to expect in a Dragonlance game -- war, death, refugees, and so on.

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[Remathilis]

Nothing personal, but 90% of all D&D backstory is crap. Mostly because it's designed backwards; you have an outcome you want to create, so you force events towards that outcome regardless of logic. So you get these CinemaSins level deconstructs where of course it makes sense the Gods would send avatars to the kingpriest, or the elves would be wary of the Three Rings of Power, or why the Emperor would bother with Starkiller base then he had a legion of star destroyers with superweapons hiding in Exogol, etc.

 

[Velderan]

Nothing personal, but 90% of all D&D backstory is crap. Mostly because it's designed backwards; you have an outcome you want to create, so you force events towards that outcome regardless of logic. So you get these CinemaSins level deconstructs where of course it makes sense the Gods would send avatars to the kingpriest, or the elves would be wary of the Three Rings of Power, or why the Emperor would bother with Starkiller base then he had a legion of star destroyers with superweapons hiding in Exogol, etc.

Not sure if you're familiar with the YouTube channel Pitch Meeting, but the line he frequently uses "so the movie can happen" in response to why a character didn't do something smarter applies a lot in storytelling. In the case of Dragonlance, either the basic lore works to setup a campaign you'd like to run or it doesn't. If you get your info from places other than cherry picked wiki articles on specific topics, the gaming material presents enough vaguely worded explanations and general concept world rules that provide enough info on why things happened. For example, there's a lot of "why didn't the gods do X" questions that ignores the gift the neutral gods gave humanity at creation of free will. Most of the gods of good have Lawful as part of their alignment, so they're going to try to follow that aside from the occasional nudge like Paladine appearing as Fizban after Takhisis had already began rallying her forces. Personally, that's enough for me and I don't need more explained because I have not ran a pre-Cataclysm campaign where the players may have had a chance to avert the Kingpriest's downfall. As @Remathilis said, it's backstory that without a ton of extra detail explaining why things didn't happen may have holes in it. If it doesn't work for you, either borrow the bits you like for a campaign you actually want to run or just say "this isn't for me" and find something that works for you. The only thing that tends to confuse me about these whole debates are the constant need for the usual cast of characters to come into DL threads to remind us how stupid you find the whole thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not sure if you're familiar with the YouTube channel Pitch Meeting, but the line he frequently uses "so the movie can happen" in response to why a character didn't do something smarter applies a lot in storytelling. In the case of Dragonlance, either the basic lore works to setup a campaign you'd like to run or it doesn't. If you get your info from places other than cherry picked wiki articles on specific topics, the gaming material presents enough vaguely worded explanations and general concept world rules that provide enough info on why things happened. For example, there's a lot of "why didn't the gods do X" questions that ignores the gift the neutral gods gave humanity at creation of free will. Most of the gods of good have Lawful as part of their alignment, so they're going to try to follow that aside from the occasional nudge like Paladine appearing as Fizban after Takhisis had already began rallying her forces. Personally, that's enough for me and I don't need more explained because I have not ran a pre-Cataclysm campaign where the players may have had a chance to avert the Kingpriest's downfall. As @Remathilis said, it's backstory that without a ton of extra detail explaining why things didn't happen may have holes in it. If it doesn't work for you, either borrow the bits you like for a campaign you actually want to run or just say "this isn't for me" and find something that works for you. The only thing that tends to confuse me about these whole debates are the constant need for the usual cast of characters to come into DL threads to remind us how stupid you find the whole thing.

Yeah, at this point the DL bashing seems a bit hurtful. Just don't use the setting if these issues bother you that much.

 

[overgeeked]

Not sure if you're familiar with the YouTube channel Pitch Meeting, but the line he frequently uses "so the movie can happen" in response to why a character didn't do something smarter applies a lot in storytelling. In the case of Dragonlance, either the basic lore works to setup a campaign you'd like to run or it doesn't. If you get your info from places other than cherry picked wiki articles on specific topics, the gaming material presents enough vaguely worded explanations and general concept world rules that provide enough info on why things happened. For example, there's a lot of "why didn't the gods do X" questions that ignores the gift the neutral gods gave humanity at creation of free will. Most of the gods of good have Lawful as part of their alignment, so they're going to try to follow that aside from the occasional nudge like Paladine appearing as Fizban after Takhisis had already began rallying her forces. Personally, that's enough for me and I don't need more explained because I have not ran a pre-Cataclysm campaign where the players may have had a chance to avert the Kingpriest's downfall. As @Remathilis said, it's backstory that without a ton of extra detail explaining why things didn't happen may have holes in it. If it doesn't work for you, either borrow the bits you like for a campaign you actually want to run or just say "this isn't for me" and find something that works for you. The only thing that tends to confuse me about these whole debates are the constant need for the usual cast of characters to come into DL threads to remind us how stupid you find the whole thing.

Exactly. This is where a lot of trouble occurs when gamers start talking about story. You get questions like, “Why didn’t Gandalf have the eagles fly the One Ring to Mt. Doom?” Most gamers’ version of a good story is the shortest possible route with the least complications and drama and fuss. Which makes for boring stories. Good, interesting stories have all those complications and drama and fuss gamers try like mad to avoid.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Indeed they can. Because once you accept that good and evil are subjective and personal, you can accept that other people can hold different beliefs without being evil.

You could also argue against a blancmange tyrant being custard if that's what floats your boat. It has just as much meaning.

good and evil have menings in D&D, and are not subjective. They are in fact out of game OBJECTIVE. now you can either remove those words or change those words, but krynn to make sense would have to say "in this world good is really XXXX"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah, at this point the DL bashing seems a bit hurtful. Just don't use the setting if these issues bother you that much.

the funny part is that it is people who WANT to play Dragonlance asking for it to be tweeked to make more sense. No one is BASHING the setting, we are saying "Hey this has some good concepts but also some bad ones, and we would like the bad ones fixed"

If anything I would say the people insisting DL doesn't work if fixed are basing it by saying it falls apart.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

good and evil have menings in D&D, and are not subjective. They are in fact out of game OBJECTIVE. now you can either remove those words or change those words, but krynn to make sense would have to say "in this world good is really XXXX"

Not in 5e they aren't. The PHB describes them as "character traits" and there is no "Know Alignment" spell in 5e. If something is not detectable or measurable it has no objective existence.

Now, the only way for good and evil to have any objective meaning is if there are gods who define them. In which case the gods get to define them any way they like, and if you don't agree with the gods, then don't be surprised when they drop an asteroid on your head.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, at this point the DL bashing seems a bit hurtful. Just don't use the setting if these issues bother you that much.

Indeed. Ideas of good and evil in Krynn stem from the core beliefs of the setting's creators. I may not agree with them, but I respect their right to hold different views.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not in 5e they aren't. The PHB describes them as "character traits" and there is no "Know Alignment" spell in 5e. If something is not detectable or measurable it has no objective existence.

go back I quoted rules text on what the three good alingments mean (or go to D&D beyond it is free info)

Now, the only way for good and evil to have any objective meaning is if there are gods who define them. In which case the gods get to define them any way they like, and if you don't agree with the gods, then don't be surprised when they drop an asteroid on your head.

if they drop asteroids on peopl who do not agree with them they are not good by D&D rules

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

the funny part is that it is people who WANT to play Dragonlance asking for it to be tweeked to make more sense. No one is BASHING the setting, we are saying "Hey this has some good concepts but also some bad ones, and we would like the bad ones fixed"

If anything I would say the people insisting DL doesn't work if fixed are basing it by saying it falls apart.

Pretty much this.

As someone who sees enough potential in Dragonlance to be interested while still having numerous issues with its internal logic and lack of depth, being told to just fix it myself or play in a different setting is distinctly unhelpful.