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.

​

 

[Scribe]

Whether you consider there to be a meaningful distinction between 5e and whatever OneD&D eventually gets branded as or not, I think it's pretty clear that WotC intends it to be primarily a mechanical update, and that their approach to settings and lore will probably remain the same as it has in 5e.

Which part of 5e?

5e Core books?
Volo's and MM?
MToF?

Tashas?

MotM, and post errata Spelljammer?

If I was a betting man, it wouldnt be 5e Core to MToF, it wouldnt even be Tashas. The approach to settings and especially lore, will be as seen in MotM which is wildly different from what came before.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

How would you change the lore, to continue to reflect the importance of balance between Good and Evil, and the fact the pantheons act more like the God's who flooded the world, our world, killing the majority of life.

Simple I did it before (maybe it was another thread) but I will say my answer is a quick one that would pass at my table and totally needs a few more eyes on it...

BALANCE:

The gods divided up good, evil, and neutral long ago.
neutral gods wanted balance, good gods wanted good, evil gods wanted evil.
a few times in history evil almost won... BUT there were always some great hero around...
THEN CAME THE ISSUE... a LG king empowered and helped everyone and good was winning. In fact it was almost a forgone conclusion that everyone was going to get there 'happy ever after' in a few elven generations... BUT EVIL WAS PISSED. So the evil gods started super empowering there few followers, and when that wasn't enough there avatar's started directly interfering and leading armies
The good gods could not stand this, and they sent super power to there worshipers, and there own avatars...
it was no longer a mortal war, the gods themselves were going to war... and all 3 groups came to the conculsion of MAD... there would be no winners, krynn would be destroyed. but evil would not backdown (good still held too much) so the neutral gods made a deal.
The neutral gods caused the catyclsm to restore the balance (aka the worst hard reset ever) and the evil and good gods agreed to back down and leave... let there mortals work it out... and as such no gods were there for a while... until evil cheats.
evil very blatantly breaks the deal, but good wants to counter balance in a fair and measured way (in modern day we call it a proportional responce... not my favorite idea but it is) through out the war the agreement is redefined as clerics CAN use divine power and avatars can advise but not directly interfer... everytime 1 side directly take action the other side gets to do something proportional to rebalance...
The evil gods can't kill the good gods alone without whiping out reality
The good gods can't kill the evil gods alone without whiping out reality
The netural gods are always the tie breaker... and they will side with balance, so keep both sides in check.

Team Good only wants good
Team Evil only wants evil
Team Neutral (the true winners here) want the balance.

the most evil team evil can get is minor victories that always rebalance
the most good team good can get is minor victories that always rebalance.

Team evil is always cheating (and as such giving team good a chance to counter balance) but Team good beleives given infinite time even with the current god MAD agreement, mortals will make a good world (the gods have faith in us) so they are biding there time until the good is so overwhelming that the neutral gods can not stop it even with the hard reset they already tried...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think I've been pretty clear about that. I don't want the changes you want, and the new book fell more on my side than yours, so I'm reasonably happy (enough to buy a book I wasn't going to buy). The changes you're advocating for are the same kind of stuff that VRGtR did, and all of ENWorld knows how I feel about that book.

And I also have to ask: who are you trying to convince? Are you hoping WotC will see this and change Dragonlance for you? We've all made out positions clear, and I don't see what else can be done from this platform. It's all just expressing personal opinions anyway.

I am doing the same thing you are... look in a mirror. Advocating (and not just on enworld) for my POV.

and with kenders not getting the jerk treatment, no alignment restrictions on robe color, and nothing about who brought the gods back (so the PC priest can be the one) I got most of what I wanted

 

[Faolyn]

Now that would hardly be a good story, now would it?

Better than what they put out.

But that's the point. They ignored logic and characterization in favor of the plot, even when it makes no sense, and that's just poor writing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I am doing the same thing you are... look in a mirror. Advocating (and not just on enworld) for my POV.

and with kenders not getting the jerk treatment, no alignment restrictions on robe color, and nothing about who brought the gods back (so the PC priest can be the one) I got most of what I wanted

And none of those things actually change the setting as established (unless your table wants them to), I got most of what I wanted. Everyone wins!

Why are we still talking about this?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Better than what they put out.

But that's the point. They ignored logic and characterization in favor of the plot, even when it makes no sense, and that's just poor writing.

At this point I think I have to fall on, "Oh well, that's Dragonlance". I understand not liking the story. Change it in your game, or find/write a new story.

 

[Velderan]

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.

Perhaps you're overlooking it on purpose, but these are the kinds of posts I'm referring to when I say the usual cast of characters are here to just remind us how stupid they find the whole thing. I also noticed you loved that post, so you don't seem to find it to be a problem.

Personally, I found Spelljammer back in 2e to be incredibly stupid and the 5e presentation didn't do anything to change that impression. But you know what? I'm happy WotC gave it a try and sad people were disappointed with it. It clearly wasn't the product for me, but I'm not going to dump on it over and over again because people like it a lot and I recognize it was never meant to be something I'd like. That's why I can't understand the need to constantly dump on something if you don't like it or demand a bunch of changes to make it something it was never meant to be.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Perhaps you're overlooking it on purpose, but these are the kinds of posts I'm referring to when I say the usual cast of characters are here to just remind us how stupid they find the whole thing. I also noticed you loved that post, so you don't seem to find it to be a problem.

I loved it because the entire argument is about how to improve the setting... and as he said "yes that would have improved this"

Personally, I found Spelljammer back in 2e to be incredibly stupid and the 5e presentation didn't do anything to change that impression.

I kind of agree... spelljammer is dumb. It's fun dumb though (IMO) I like the new one okay I just wish we got more rules.

But you know what? I'm happy WotC gave it a try and sad people were disappointed with it. It clearly wasn't the product for me, but I'm not going to dump on it over and over again because people like it a lot and I recognize it was never meant to be something I'd like. That's why I can't understand the need to constantly dump on something if you don't like it or demand a bunch of changes to make it something it was never meant to be.

again... you misunderstand...

if you don't like it or demand a bunch of changes to make it something it was never meant to be.

even stories I LOVE that are 20,30,50, over 100 years old if remade today I would HOPE they would fix.

There is a book I read in HS called "Killing Mr Griffin" and one part about it ages perfectly. The teacher Mr Griffin assigns what his students (and I at the time) thought was impossible. basicly it is to improve on Shakespeare... (add to it but make it work to be exact) and now I realize. Like every writer every story there are flaws... things that years of reading and rereading you can find and even a lesser writer CAN fix.

This then turns into a problem some of the writers I know run into... they don't want to hand in a script/manuscript/story because if they let it sit a week then reread it they will find things to fix. They need to learn 'good enough' and that it will never be perfect.

I promise my favorite story, your favorite story, and any other story ever put to print if given decades of readers taking it apart and putting it back together you will find things that can be fixed.

 

[Scribe]

I promise my favorite story, your favorite story, and any other story ever put to print if given decades of readers taking it apart and putting it back together you will find things that can be fixed.

And I'm positive, that this overly analyzed piece of work, will lose something of itself in the process.

Han shot first.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

And I'm positive, that this overly analyzed piece of work, will lose something of itself in the process.

maybe but maybe not

Han shot first.

I do think that was a bad change