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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[humble minion]

You get questions like, “Why didn’t Gandalf have the eagles fly the One Ring to Mt. Doom?”

One day I want to answer that question by writing up an alternate LotR timeline where he tried it, and Gwaihir dumped Gandalf off his back from 6000 feet and took the One Ring for his own, and now all the peoples of Middle Earth hide from the sky as the shadow of black wings spreads across the land.

Mordor meets The Birds.

 

[Scribe]

no one is 'approtiating' a reimagined restarted story can take new twists and be updated.

The only reason for doing so, with a property that is as you say very old, is to go for the nostalgia hook. I get it, you enjoy how comic books do it, I dont, thats all.

If I wanted my stuff 'reimagined' a dozen times, I would go see what Batman is up to, or Wolverine.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The only reason for doing so, with a property that is as you say very old, is to go for the nostalgia hook. I get it, you enjoy how comic books do it, I dont, thats all.

If I wanted my stuff 'reimagined' a dozen times, I would go see what Batman is up to, or Wolverine.

you see you can choose not to buy something that is made.
I can't choose to buy something that isn't.

So if just cause you don't want to see a new take on batman why argue someone that wants it shouldn't get it?

Back around if someone wants a new Dragonlance it doesn't do any harm to the DL from 1e 2e and 3e... you still have them

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Except that Thay is listed as an evil place. The FR Wiki puts its alignments down as Neutral, Neutral Evil, and Lawful Evil, which shows that D&D is not using a subjective alignment for them. A Lawful Good paladin wouldn't support their necromancy, if their necromancy was why Thay is an evil place.

(In Ravenloft, Hazlan is ruled by a Red Wizard but there was relatively little necromancy there--the evil came from the Apartheid-like set-up with the Mulan minority cruely ruling over the practically-enslaved Rashaman majority)

this is what I am saying... Thay is listed as evil not good, cause it is an out of game understanding of who team good and who team evil is

 

[Scribe]

you see you can choose not to buy something that is made.
I can't choose to buy something that isn't.

So if just cause you don't want to see a new take on batman why argue someone that wants it shouldn't get it?

Back around if someone wants a new Dragonlance it doesn't do any harm to the DL from 1e 2e and 3e... you still have them

Because if I want the DL as it was, just updated mechanically, I now have 0%, literally 0% chance of seeing that happen.

If Wizards decides 'Lets just use the name, we can change things here or there and the current player base will pick it up regardless, and we get some name recognition.' that is a net negative for me.

Now, at this point its water under the bridge. DL has been made, and its out there for consumption. Great.

I'll make a fuss over it because its not what I wanted, and I hope to naughty word GOD, they dont ruin Planescape for me.

 

[Faolyn]

One day I want to answer that question by writing up an alternate LotR timeline where he tried it, and Gwaihir dumped Gandalf off his back from 6000 feet and took the One Ring for his own, and now all the peoples of Middle Earth hide from the sky as the shadow of black wings spreads across the land.

Mordor meets The Birds.

"You brought the giant eagles! You're evil!"

 

[pemerton]

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

Some of it's silly. I don't think it's hurtful.

good and evil have menings in D&D, and are not subjective. They are in fact out of game OBJECTIVE

The fact that they are imagined to be objective in the fiction of the game doesn't mean that you and @Levistus's_Leviathan are authorities on what they mean. I think that the DL authors had reasonably clear notions in mind when they wrote their stories. Perhaps you would write a different story, but the DL one is not particularly hard to make sense of.

 

[pemerton]

fine if you don't want to look it up I will for you

Lawful Good. (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society. Gold dragons and paladins are typically lawful good.

Neutral Good. (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs. Many celestials are neutral good.

Chaotic Good. (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect. Copper dragons and unicorns are typically chaotic good.

That definition of LG does not yield a full-fledged theory of punishment. The DL authors clearly insert a well-known theory of punishment into their fiction. It might be one you disagree with, but when we look at the history of human literature and experience it's not mysterious what the authors were thinking.

The definition of NG doesn't tell us what a NG person does when they confront A trying to kill B. Does the NG person help A, who needs to kill B? Or help B, who needs to survive being killed by A? To answer, we would need a theory of justified needs, and when wrongful conduct renders "needs" unjustified. Theories of self-defence and of legitimate punishment are well-known devices for filling this space. The D&D definition of NG does nothing to set out or clarify such theories.

CG refers to "conscience". It clearly can't mean "whatever someone feels like", so it must mean something like "genuine conscience" or "morally-informed conscience". It still tells us nothing about the appropriate use of violence and punishment. Also, to my knowledge none of the Krynn gods are labelled CG so I'm not sure it's relevant.

The fact is that there are theories of right conduct that have been held, and are held, and don't agree. They produce different conclusions about violence and about punishment. Those differences exist in the contemporary world (compare the US, where you live, to Australia, where I live) and only get larger when we incorporate the sorts of historical and theological tropes and trappings that are found in a fantasy fiction like DL. The D&D definitions of "good" have never resolved, nor even set out to resolve, these difference, except in a few respects (D&D assumes that pacifism and vegetarianism are not obligatory; but it doesn't even tell us whether or not they are supererogatory!).

Reiterating that "good is objective" and quoting definitions that don't answer the questions that DL raises won't change any of the above.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Some of it's silly. I don't think it's hurtful.


The fact that they are imagined to be objective in the fiction of the game doesn't mean that you and @Levistus's_Leviathan are authorities on what they mean. I think that the DL authors had reasonably clear notions in mind when they wrote their stories. Perhaps you would write a different story, but the DL one is not particularly hard to make sense of.

That definition of LG does not yield a full-fledged theory of punishment. The DL authors clearly insert a well-known theory of punishment into their fiction. It might be one you disagree with, but when we look at the history of human literature and experience it's not mysterious what the authors were thinking.

The definition of NG doesn't tell us what a NG person does when they confront A trying to kill B. Does the NG person help A, who needs to kill B? Or help B, who needs to survive being killed by A? To answer, we would need a theory of justified needs, and when wrongful conduct renders "needs" unjustified. Theories of self-defence and of legitimate punishment are well-known devices for filling this space. The D&D definition of NG does nothing to set out or clarify such theories.

CG refers to "conscience". It clearly can't mean "whatever someone feels like", so it must mean something like "genuine conscience" or "morally-informed conscience". It still tells us nothing about the appropriate use of violence and punishment. Also, to my knowledge none of the Krynn gods are labelled CG so I'm not sure it's relevant.

The fact is that there are theories of right conduct that have been held, and are held, and don't agree. They produce different conclusions about violence and about punishment. Those differences exist in the contemporary world (compare the US, where you live, to Australia, where I live) and only get larger when we incorporate the sorts of historical and theological tropes and trappings that are found in a fantasy fiction like DL. The D&D definitions of "good" have never resolved, nor even set out to resolve, these difference, except in a few respects (D&D assumes that pacifism and vegetarianism are not obligatory; but it doesn't even tell us whether or not they are supererogatory!).

Reiterating that "good is objective" and quoting definitions that don't answer the questions that DL raises won't change any of the above.

genocide is evil not good. there ARE objective goods and evils... yes you can find shades of grey and corner cases... but like They no D&D good/evil is not by region

 

[Remathilis]

The only reason for doing so, with a property that is as you say very old, is to go for the nostalgia hook. I get it, you enjoy how comic books do it, I dont, thats all.

If I wanted my stuff 'reimagined' a dozen times, I would go see what Batman is up to, or Wolverine.

It's far older than that.

How many vampire movies use Dracula? Thousands. How many are faithful adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel? Zero. Yet Dracula still continues to appear in media unrelated to the novel, many even in direct contradiction with it. Ever watch those old Italian sword and sandal movies with Hercules? How about the latest Robin Hood or King Arthur or Sherlock Holmes project? How many are so far removed from the original sources it might as well be in-name-only? How many of them have added so much to the lore that people assumed they were always there ("elementary, my dear Watson", vampires explode in sunlight)

We've been revising old stories ever since we heard the first story and retold it to others. Nothing is set in stone. The concept of unchanging narratives is a fairly recent one. The notion of copyright stopping Mickey Mouse or Superman from being public domain is an aberration in our storytelling history. Stories change in the retelling. A story that doesn't change is one no longer retold.

Dracula has survived multiple revisions. So have Hercules, Robin Hood and King Arthur. Dragonlance will too.