Dragonlance Did you play Dragonlance using the pregens?

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm interested in how many people who played (some or all of) the original Dragonlance modules (DL series) used the pregens (Heroes of the Lance), and how may used their own characters.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I came into D&D partly though the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends, though I had no idea what D&D was or that it had anything to do with those books when I first read them. By the time I started playing it was the mid-90s and while I picked up whichever of those modules were at my FLGS nobody in my group wanted to rehash the novels so I never ran them.

 

[Burnside]

With pre-gens, but didn’t get through them all (they’re not very good & require a ton of work from the DM to make playable).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

With pre-gens, but didn’t get through them all (they’re not very good & require a ton of work from the DM to make playable).

I found most of them where stronger than typical 1st edition PCs.

 

[Burnside]

I found most of them where stronger than typical 1st edition PCs.

Sorry, I was not clear - I thought the pre-gens were fine, but the ADVENTURES were not very good.

 

[humble minion]

And for those who did play with pregens, did you stick with the same PCs all the way through, or switch from PC to PC depending on the module, as the 3rd Ed iteration of these modules at least suggested?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

We used the pregens, but I think the adventures would've had longer legs if we hadn't. We only made it so far before giving up on that campaign and returning to our own regular characters.

We did, however, have a fairly successful campaign using Dragonlance Adventures and our own characters.

 

[Velderan]

We ran the DL modules when they were compiled as the Classics set of books using our own characters. The DM heavily modified them to make it so we didn't feel like he was reading us Dragons of Autumn Twilight with us occasionally rolling to see what page he reads next.

And for those who did play with pregens, did you stick with the same PCs all the way through, or switch from PC to PC depending on the module, as the 3rd Ed iteration of these modules at least suggested?

We actually had 1 player want to play Raistlin, but when he finally figured out we weren't sticking closely to the module's path, he rerolled a new character of his own.

 

[ECMO3]

I'm interested in how many people who played (some or all of) the original Dragonlance modules (DL series) used the pregens (Heroes of the Lance), and how may used their own characters.

I played it several times, once as a player and then three times as a DM mostly with but one module (DL2) played without.

 

[Ancalagon]

I don't know if the voting is a representative sample, but it's remarkable that 50% of people have played and 75% have read the book...

 

[Azzy]

Back in high school, my group had planned to play the modules, but we never actually got around to it (probably because we didn't have all of the modules). We would have definitely used the pregens, though.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Sure did. Only played the first module though.

Was funny having the iconic characters with different personalities. Like the Raistlin player played him as geeky instead of power hungry and rude.

Good times.

 

[Libertad]

When I ran the Dragonlance Chronicles several years ago, everyone chose to make their own characters. Our party was a grim paladin who was the "blue crystal staff prophet," a wizard who primarily used his spells to blast and punch people, a renegade Silvanesti elf fighter and former Dragonarmy officer, and a goblin necromancer who secretly worshiped Chaos.

We were using the 13th Age rules, which allowed for more unconventional character concepts and easier reskinning of abilities.

I did DM the Chronicles for a group back in high school, and while my memories are blurry I do know everyone chose to use their own characters as well.

In both instances only one player was familiar with the novels, so the original Heroes of the Lance as pre-gens didn't hold great significance to them like they would for fans of the setting.

Sorry, I was not clear - I thought the pre-gens were fine, but the ADVENTURES were not very good.

They did punch above their weight class, but the party was a bit imbalanced in that the majority were Fighters. They did have an obligatory Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief, but other than DMPCs joining later on about half of the original Heroes were pretty interchangeable as "fight with sword, fight with bow" types. This was mollified a bit in 3rd Edition, with Riverwind being a multi-classed Barbarian/Ranger and Flint being a multi-classed Fighter/Master (expert craftsman), but even then it wasn't a very role-diverse group.

That may have also played a factor in people not sticking with the pre-gens besides the fact almost every gaming group prefers their original characters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't know if the voting is a representative sample, but it's remarkable that 50% of people have played and 75% have read the book...

I anticipated a selection effect when I created the poll. I expect option four is massively under-represented by the way I phrased the question. But that doesn't matter, since I'm only really interested in options one and two.

And the result - pretty much an even split - is interesting.

 

[Delazar]

We played through all of it, used the pregen, and even decided to have two PCs die when they died in the books. Not sure if this is spoiler material at this point.

We were all teenagers deeply in love with DL and the novels, and we wanted to re-enact those wonderful adventures as faithfully as possible.

Probably the only time we stirred away from the books was when selecting equipment. Like I remember Tanis wearing plate armor pretty early in the scenarios, since there was no reason for him to keep in leathers.

And Tika had a Vorpal sword. Good times.

 

[amethal]

Played a couple of modules as the pregens, although the DM kept Raistlin as a DMPC. He told me I was playing Caramon wrong, since I saw my "big brother" role as getting Rasitlin to shape up and stop being such a whinger. Apparently I should have been more "supportive".

Only the DM had read any of the books, and I don't think we started with the first module, but we were young and it was a chance to play D&D. (It was clear there was a wider story behind what we were doing, but we had only a vague idea as to what it was.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I seem to recall there was a suggestion that the same player played both Caramon and Raistlin, thus incentivising close cooperative play.

I might be imagining that out of the fog of memory though.

Raistlin had about 3 spells and 10 hp in DL1 though, so I don't think playing just him would be much fun in that adventure.

 

[jgsugden]

I seem to recall there was a suggestion that the same player played both Caramon and Raistlin, thus incentivising close cooperative play.

I might be imagining that out of the fog of memory though.

Raistlin had about 3 spells and 10 hp in DL1 though, so I don't think playing just him would be much fun in that adventure.

A lot of us had a blast playing low level wizards in AD&D. It was more fun when we achieved 5th level and above and started to have the resources to be capable of casting spells in each round in most combats, but even low level was fun. It was a different time.

 

[Demetrios1453]

We played through all of it, used the pregen, and even decided to have two PCs die when they died in the books. Not sure if this is spoiler material at this point.

We were all teenagers deeply in love with DL and the novels, and we wanted to re-enact those wonderful adventures as faithfully as possible.

Probably the only time we stirred away from the books was when selecting equipment. Like I remember Tanis wearing plate armor pretty early in the scenarios, since there was no reason for him to keep in leathers.

And Tika had a Vorpal sword. Good times.

Should have been a vorpal frying pan lol...

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I remember buying DL1. I remember reading DL1. I remember thinking about how cool DL1 would be to run.

I remember running DL1 with my friends using pregens. I remember that it sucked. No one had a good time. The things that worked when I was reading it ... didn't work in play.

I bought DL2. I read it, saw the same issues, and didn't buy another DL module.

Fundamentally, the modules don't work, because they are antithetical to the idea of D&D (at least, for me and the people I was playing with at the time). You can't tell a story through D&D.