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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[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is not the only treatment, and probably not the standard one. I don't think any of the mainstream theorists of punishment - Von Hirsch, Hampton, Duff, etc - take the view that physical detention of a person takes away their free will. Nor does US criminal law, which does not treat being imprisoned as sufficient evidence of a lack of voluntariness in conduct.

The existentialists, whose account of free will is quite different from the contemporary mainstream punishment theorists, also don't hold that physical detention removes free will.

Off the top of my head I can't think of a philosopher who has defended the view you set out in your post.

You are clearly much more versed in philosophy than I am, so I won't even try to refute what you're saying. But, clearly, imprisoning or killing someone at least restricts/removes some of their free will.

 

[Eubani]

You are clearly much more versed in philosophy than I am, so I won't even try to refute what you're saying. But, clearly, imprisoning or killing someone obviously at least restricts/removes some of their free will.

Free will does not negate the consequences for actions taken by said will and it only complicates matters further when said action impact on another's free will. Any consequence can be said to go against the free will of the acting being, but things would get ugly quickly without consequence. Such a damn sticky topic isn't it.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The Gods of Good very well could have mostly opposed the Cataclysm. They are still outvoted.

 

[pemerton]

@AbdulAlhazred

The following seems meaningful: He was a tall fellow, suave but evil to the core!

Now imagine Cugel in the Dying Earth saying "I'm yet to meet a tall fellow who was not of good heart."

It seems pretty natural to think that the meaningful statement He was a tall fellow, suave but evil to the core! contradicts Cugel's contention that All tall fellows are of good heart. But this all seems to depend on but being able to take statements of value as one of its arguments, and on the logical relation of contradiction obtaining between statements of value.

There has been a lot of ink spilled on these topics. (The relevant Google search terms are Frege Geach problem and metaethics expressivism). I think some of the technical moves are more successful than others. But it's not trivial to sort out, for the anti-objectivist. (I'm not denying that the objectivist also has some problems, like finding a persuasive account of the metaphysical grounding of value claims - that's the core of Hume's argument against them.)

 

[pemerton]

You are clearly much more versed in philosophy than I am, so I won't even try to refute what you're saying. But, clearly, imprisoning or killing someone at least restricts/removes some of their free will.

I don't think that's clear at all. It takes away their freedom to act, but not their freedom to choose.

I mean, not being 8' tall means that there are things I can't do that I might hope to do. But it's not a burden on my free will. (Contrast, say, brainwashing or hypnotism, at least as they are typically portrayed - I don't know much about them as real phenomena.)

EDIT to add: free will is about choosing (at least in conventional treatments of the topic). Whereas freedom is generally a broader notion, that might include the range of options. Detention clearly affects freedom - it reduces options - but it doesn't obviously put a burden on the capacity to exercise choice. (It might in ways that are not obvious - eg the psychological damage it inflicts might be comparable to brainwashing or similar. But a clearer case is Geneva Convention-compliant treatment of prisoners of war: they are not to be brainwashed, have their spirits broken etc - and so clearly retain their free will and their human dignity more generally - although their freedom is much reduced.)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't think that's clear at all. It takes away their freedom to act, but not their freedom to choose.

I mean, not being 8' tall means that there are things I can't do that I might hope to do. But it's not a burden on my free will. (Contrast, say, brainwashing or hypnotism, at least as they are typically portrayed - I don't know much about them as real phenomena.)

I'd argue that humans don't have "perfect" free will. Your physical limitations do restrict your free will. Being free to act is an inherent part of free will. So some people inherently have less free will than others because they have more limitations and we're able to restrict the free will of others through imprisoning, maiming, or killing them.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Off the top of my head I can't think of a philosopher who has defended the view you set out in your post.

This is an "appeal to authority" argument, and is, therefore, spurious. There is no reason to suppose that someone who writes "philosopher" in their job description has any more insight than anyone else.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Contrast, say, brainwashing or hypnotism, at least as they are typically portrayed - I don't know much about them as real phenomena.

These alter the target's perception of reality. You have talked about physical limitations on free will, but these impose mental ones. One can only interreact with what you perceive to be real. If, maybe a consequence of hypnosis, someone's reality is altered so that they believe they have no legs, it has exactly the same effect on their free will as if they actually had no legs.

Consider the idea of a constructed reality (as in the Matrix). Someone inside the constructed reality can act exercise their free will, as constrained by what they perceive to be real. However, someone outside the constructed reality could change what they perceive and thus control their actions. So their free will is actually an illusion. Now, if you consider that there is no way to prove we are not inside a constructed reality, the implication is that free will is an illusion, dictated by what we believe to be real.

 

[Demetrios1453]

You know, maybe we need a dedicated Dragonlance philosophy debate thread? Especially with the book having its general release next week, I'd rather not see every thread concerning it getting cluttered up with the same, repetitive conversation....

 

[Carlsen Chris]

You know, maybe we need a dedicated Dragonlance philosophy debate thread? Especially with the book having its general release next week, I'd rather not see every thread concerning it getting cluttered up with the same, repetitive conversation....

Same, repetitive, amateur attempts at philosophy.