Awesome Adam
First Post
It's been a long time since I played Dragonlance, but can't it pretty much be summed up as steel pieces instead of gold, no priests, and Dragonmen ?
Not sure if troll, but it sounds to me like you don't get Dragonlance *at all*.I guess if you wanted to use it as some sort of beginner, introductory setting that could appeal to young players or those who don't want to deal with any real serious drama or consequences, it could be used in such a way.
I'd welcome a Dragonlance (DL) book (similar to Sword Coast Adventurers Guide...but preferably a little more comprehensive in terms of character options)
Someone's a Judgy McJudgerson.What would be the benefit of using Dragonlance as a setting?
I mean, most of the differences between it and Forgotten Realms/GreyHawk/Mystara are well... aside from things that seem different by shades just to be different without any of it really leading to any sort of unifying theme, concept or mood... well, its kind of Saturday Morning Cartoonish.
It is the only setting I can recall where there is a single unified evil army and all evil in the setting arises from that singular source and has numerous entire races that exist just to be broadly comedic and tend to be abused when put into the hands of actual players rather than being written into a book-- kender, gully dwarves, tinker gnomes....
It was the setting within the novels in which it seemed the writers felt they could explore just how over-the-top and silly the AD&D rules as written could allow things to be. Like having a minor, ineffectual villain reincarnated over and over again and rubbing elbows with the most powerful forces in the universe while also repeatedly dying in goofy, humiliating ways or having a wizard become a god because he just learned that much magic.
Even if you want to argue that it wasn't always as insane as it well... was at its worst or best depending on how you view it, if you made it any less silly... what exactly unique would it be offering? When you compare it to Ravenloft, Eberron, Planescape, Darksun, Spelljammer, Al-Qadim and Kur-Tara... are there really enough unique elements aside from its goofiness to make it feel like a worthwhile departure from the "norm"?
I guess if you wanted to use it as some sort of beginner, introductory setting that could appeal to young players or those who don't want to deal with any real serious drama or consequences, it could be used in such a way. Even then, you would kind of have to ignore the fact that the setting was designed to tell an overarching story and that story played out, concluding with the ultimate villain and all evil being vanquished from the world and at least one of the heroes ascending to god-hood... It might be a good example of what one can do with a D&D setting, but I don't know that there is any value in actually using the setting
I mean, there might be value in having a broad, silly, ridiculous setting where nothing is meant to be dramatic or taken too seriously like Dragonlance, but is there any particular reason to use that setting simply because it once existed rather than create a new one that has similar themes but needn't carry with it the baggage of having had everything resolved for it like Dragonlance does? Instead of a world where pretty much everything important to do has already been written as having been done in a particular canonical way, I would think a world where no one really knows where it is going or how it is going to turn out would be preferable.
Not sure if troll, but it sounds to me like you don't get Dragonlance *at all*.
Oh do spell it correctly.And if you still aren't convinced, go look up the story of Lord Toade (and, yes, that sort of childish naming being canon was standard for the setting) and tell me that it isn't the bumbling minion from a He-Man level maturity cartoon whose death led to even goofier antics.
My post-War of the Lance campaign is in real trouble, then.If the game needs a bad juvenile humor setting, then I suppose it works.. but, really, why use the one where all events in its timeline are pretty much set in stone in novelizations and ends in such a way that there really wouldn't be anything meaningful for any future adventurers to do in the setting.