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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[Steel_Wind]

...
That's very, very easy.

Treat it as if it has no connection to anything in real life, as if Weiss and Hickman made it up whole cloth.

Don't compare it to anything involving the Abrahamic religions, just like you wouldn't compare the actions of, say, the Forgotten Realms gods to anything in the real world.

And then judge it that way.

I think the implicit judgment throughout is that is exactly what they are doing. And they can't see such actions as "good"; they can't get there from here.

I understand that view very well. I happen to mostly share it.

Look, it's a problem for some people; perhaps many people. I'm not sure what the answer to that problem is - but it is unlikely that we are going to solve that here.

Can we at least agree on that - and move on?

 

[Scribe]

...
That's very, very easy.

Treat it as if it has no connection to anything in real life, as if Weiss and Hickman made it up whole cloth.

Don't compare it to anything involving the Abrahamic religions, just like you wouldn't compare the actions of, say, the Forgotten Realms gods to anything in the real world.

And then judge it that way.

OK, so you want us to, in the face of the clear connections, clear influence, and clear parallels, just ignore those and...then judge it without the relevance, nuance, history and context?

I think not, as it robs the work of...well quite a bit of what makes it what it is.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's the thing. Because Dragonlance morality is based so closely on a real world religion, an attack on Dragonlance looks like a proxy attack on a real world religion (or religions, many groups share similar beliefs with the Mormons). We have seen the "it's just a game, it has to be separated from reality" mantra used to justify racism and sexism. It's not true for that, and it's not true for religious intolerance either. Fiction exists within the context of the real world.

Now, I always thought "liberal values" included tolerance of people and groups with different beliefs. That's certainly something in my personal subjective concept of "good and "evil". Tolerance = good, intolerance = evil.

 

[pemerton]

I think not, as it robs the work of...well quite a bit of what makes it what it is.

This is why I've described it as shallow criticism.

 

[pemerton]

And reactionary and vicious to who? This isn't the real world and it doesn't have real history.

Reactionary and vicious in the sentiments you express, by pretending that a feudal order can be a just one.

It is unrealistic to make a fantasy world, include fantasy elements, and assume that it works exactly the same way that the real world worked.

Do you extend this view to the nature of legitimate punishment?

 

[pemerton]

Because Dragonlance morality is based so closely on a real world religion, an attack on Dragonlance looks like a proxy attack on a real world religion (or religions, many groups share similar beliefs with the Mormons).

To me it's more simple than this.

First, DL is no different from JRRT's work, with has a more-or-less identical cataclysmic event in the Downfall of Numenor. But none of these critics of DL are out there attacking The One Ring, Adventures in Middle Earth, etc, or saying that people who enjoy the LotR films are endorsing genocide. There's a fixation on DL that (to me) is quite unexplained.

Second, DL is a work of fiction (as is JRRT's work). It doesn't depend for it's narrative power on believing that there was an actual Flood decreed by an actual God. It depends, rather, on the reader being familiar with that story as a cultural artefact. Someone can be an atheist and yet understand a story that uses the tropes of the Flood to present the question of the relationship of human action, and political power, to self-destructive and self-defeating hubris. Not everyone will find the story compelling - they might think it's silly, or think that concerns about power and hubris are essentially obscurantist (eg a certain sort of Marxist might think that). But for anyone familiar with the story of the Flood, the story should be comprehensible.

Attacking it as a tale about genocide is just a bizarre misreading.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Y'all need to separate the fantasy religion from the real-world one.

Says the individual struggling to separate fantasy sensibilities from modern sensibilities.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Attacking it as a tale about genocide is just a bizarre misreading.

But is the misreading just bizarre, or is it deliberate? There is no way to tell the difference, since it would be denied either way.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Says the individual struggling to separate fantasy sensibilities from modern sensibilities.

Mod Note:

Says the individual struggling to separate being civil from getting personal.

(IOW, knock it off.)

 

[Remathilis]

Says the individual struggling to separate fantasy sensibilities from modern sensibilities.

Lord Soth did nothing wrong.