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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[Burnside]

In D&D, the answer to all of those things is "yes," because D&D has absolute, objective morality in the form of alignments and the Outer Planes, which are literal exemplars of the alignments.

...in some settings and campaigns.

This conversation is going to bring this thread way off-topic and lead nowhere good (objectively, morally, or otherwise.)

 

[Velderan]

...in some settings and campaigns.

This conversation is going to bring this thread way off-topic and lead nowhere good (objectively, morally, or otherwise.)

Pretty much, there are fundamental flaws with even trying to have it as @DarkCrisis pointed out. It would be great if people could actually maybe discuss the stuff in the book considering that's what the topic was created for.

 

[ersatzphil]

In D&D, the answer to all of those things is "yes," because D&D has absolute, objective morality in the form of alignments and the Outer Planes, which are literal exemplars of the alignments. Which means there can in fact be Just Wars in D&D, if the actions of one side are Evil. You can have truly Good and truly Evil people and creatures.

If you actually want to have any sort of realism in the game, though, you can't use alignment, because it leads to people arguing that a creature that is listed as Lawful Good can commit Good genocide.

I mean, I agree with you - D&D essentially is a Manichean / Gnostic world, where Good and Evil have physical presences. If a devil has an AC of X and HP of Y, they physically exist and can be interacted with.

This is actually exactly why I low-key like the alignment system, but dislike it as a player-facing mechanic: the Kingpriest thought what he was doing was good - and for a long time, he probably was right - and I'm sure was quite shocked when he found himself as a petitioner on the grey wastes of Gehenna.

 

[Velderan]

Nah, the premise is not that there's no time to do the real one. This isn't the real one. It's like if the real Test is the SATs, this one is a PSAT for characters who are getting ready to take the real one down the road a bit.

My mistake, I meant no time to test now. I get what you're saying.

 

[Faolyn]

lets pretend for a moment I take your religion exemption (that you wont find in ANY d&d 5e book by wotc) into account... it STILL doesn't mean that a reimagining in 2022 should not consider 2022 zeitgeist of morality.

I just picked up Deadlands for the most recent edition of Savage Worlds. There's a sidebar on racism that says:

It’s now 1884. Bigotry, violence, and
racism remain, but they are the province
of villains and the shamefully ignorant.
Progress against such vile behavior has
been made, and more will come, albeit
slowly, as people of all backgrounds
begin to live and work together.

When depicting the worst parts of
history is central to the story, we won’t
shy away from it. But by and large,
Deadlands is about valiant heroes and
heroines from all backgrounds, cultures,
and walks of life fighting imaginary
monsters and corrupted villains.

There's another sidebar on sexism that talks about how women have made great strides, taking up the spaces left open by men who died in the war and now can take on any role that a man could.

In the late 19th century, racism and sexism were considered normal and even good. But this game is being written for a modern audience. It doesn't try to claim that that something that was good back then should be accepted in a game played now.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Which is why discussing DL gets one sided because one side is handicapped as a large part of what happens in the lore is based on a real world religions happenings.

it's not a handicap... just stick to the games and the books

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Speaking personally as someone who can trace a pretty straight line from "being really into D&D in Highschool in the 90s" to "spending six years in philosophy school in the '00s": D&D raises genuinely interesting philosophical questions.

I'm sure it does, but no one should be required to take philosophical classes to get into the game. In my own experience my degree came to me entirely because of the game as well... but I would never bring my degree into discussing the game.

Is there such a thing as capital G Good?
If there is, does that imply capital E Evil?
If there is, is it Right to fight Evil?
Is there such a thing as a Just War?

in D&D... the important part is for this to matter to enworld discussions of Dragonlance you need to limit it to in D&D/

These are extremely real questions that philosophers have been talking about for an awfully long time, and the conclusions that they have come to over the years have real relevance and usefulness in playing the game, at least in my mind. Certainly campaign settings take real positions on these questions, and their answers vary from campaign to campaign.

again this is WELL outside the discussion on enworld of D&D

edit: We're all clear that we're not allowed to talk about real-world politics and religion on these boards, but so far as I'm aware, there's no ban on talking about philosophy. Those waters obviously have some pretty muddy edge cases, of course - I legitimately don't know if it's within the rules to talk about the Kingpriest through the lens of Aristotle's models of governance in Politics - but I hope this post is well within the rules.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In D&D, the answer to all of those things is "yes," because D&D has absolute, objective morality in the form of alignments and the Outer Planes, which are literal exemplars of the alignments. Which means there can in fact be Just Wars in D&D, if the actions of one side are Evil. You can have truly Good and truly Evil people and creatures.

If you actually want to have any sort of realism in the game, though, you can't use alignment, because it leads to people arguing that a creature that is listed as Lawful Good can commit Good genocide.

this is why if and when I want to use this type of philosophical thought I just don't want alignment in the game

 

[GMforPowergamers]

...in some settings and campaigns.

This conversation is going to bring this thread way off-topic and lead nowhere good (objectively, morally, or otherwise.)

please show me a setting made by WotC for 5e (it can include but don't feel limited to DL) that this is true for.

 

[Umbran]

he seems to have a problem seperating real world from the frame work of a game for a fantasy one

Mod Note:
Very uncool. You are done in this disucssion.