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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[Faolyn]

Either:
1) God exists and make the rules, in which case they get to say what "good" and "evil" are, and can do whatever they like to anyone who gives them the brush off; or

2) God does not exist. No one makes the rules, and no one defines an objective measure of "good " and "evil".

Either way, you are wrong.

Please show where, in D&D, gods can make up what's considered good or evil.

No, they can't, because some entity has to define and police them.

Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are defined by the Outer Planes (e.g., Great Wheel).

 

[DarkCrisis]

That part was pretty funny, but I assume it was an errant comment.

They seem to make a few of those here and there. I know they only care a minimum amount about the lore, but at least they seem to try to not contradict things.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This, a total disregard of other people's opinions, I would consider evil. Why do people commit genocide? Because they give no weight to the opinions of those who disagree with them.

I thought it was 'too much good', or 'there was a cult leader'.

 

[Velderan]

Adding Fuel to the fire

Logical additive change that contributes directly to the adventure the PCs are on. I don't see an issue.

 

[Velderan]

They seem to make a few of those here and there. I know they only care a minimum amount about the lore, but at least they seem to try to not contradict things.

I don't look at it that way. I think they're explaining it from the perspective of a Solamnian in late 351 AC who has not heard of Elistan or the return of the gods so the new PC cleric appearing is the first to them. The intent is to make the players realize their characters are important and doing big things.

 

[Velderan]

Yep, just a shame they didnt have the sense to keep even the most minor of restrictions on the Orders, otherwise this is a slam dunk to me.

They kinda do imo. The gods are clearly described as good, evil, or neutral so while a LG character mechanically could be a black robe, that's not really keeping consistent with the character's good ethos to worship an evil god. I mean there's not a mechanical requirement to be good to be a Knight of Solamnia but the description of the knighthood should weed out characters who are openly evil imo.

 

[Scribe]

They kinda do imo. The gods are clearly described as good, evil, or neutral so while a LG character mechanically could be a black robe, that's not really keeping consistent with the character's good ethos to worship an evil god. I mean there's not a mechanical requirement to be good to be a Knight of Solamnia but the description of the knighthood should weed out characters who are openly evil imo.

Yeah I know, I just want them to give a tiny, inconsequential nod to Alignment.

But that was all hammered on pages ago.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't look at it that way. I think they're explaining it from the perspective of a Solamnian in late 351 AC who has not heard of Elistan or the return of the gods so the new PC cleric appearing is the first to them. The intent is to make the players realize their characters are important and doing big things.

That works too. I'm all for a little ambiguity as far as the PCs are concerned.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Does "problematic" in this context mean, "someone has a problem with it"? If so, i agree, but that's a wide net.

It means "good gods should not torture innocent people, especially not for eternity, and gods that do that should not be labeled Good with D&D's alignment system".

When people asky why I have such a burning hatred for alignment, this is a big part of the reason why. D&D royally screws up morality do goddamn often that it frequently includes utter BS in their books like "oopsy, the good gods killed a ton of innocent people, took away healing magic and abandoned the world when people were asking for their help, and acted like it was the layman's fault when people stopped worshipping them, and the books still have the audacity to pretend like these gods are good and should be worshipped" and "oopsy, the good gods are complicit in the eternal torment of innocent people, because they're such big egomaniacs that they would prefer someone to worship one of the setting's EVIL gods to them not worshipping any god at all, and the setting still pretends that they're good". And, of course, let's not forget Gary "nits make lice" Gygax and all of his messed up stances on alignment.

D&D has misused alignment since the very beginning. The dude that created it couldn't figure out how to use it correctly, so it's no wonder that D&D keeps fumbling over itself with it.

And this is a huge reason why I've got major problems with Dragonlance. It screws up alignment in worse and in dumber ways than D&D is usually prone to do, and makes the books accidentally seem like they condone a huge array of terrible acts by having Good characters do these terrible things, do absolutely nothing to try and atone or repent, the setting pretends like those things never happened and it's still an epic fantasy conflict between Good and Evil, and the devout fans of the setting get upset with you when you suggest that maybe, just maybe, the Good guys of the setting should actually have to do good things in order to be given that label, especially if the books want your characters to worship them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It means "good gods should not torture innocent people, especially not for eternity, and gods that do that should not be labeled Good with D&D's alignment system".

When people asky why I have such a burning hatred for alignment, this is a big part of the reason why. D&D royally screws up morality do goddamn often that it frequently includes utter BS in their books like "oopsy, the good gods killed a ton of innocent people, took away healing magic and abandoned the world when people were asking for their help, and acted like it was the layman's fault when people stopped worshipping them, and the books still have the audacity to pretend like these gods are good and should be worshipped" and "oopsy, the good gods are complicit in the eternal torment of innocent people, because they're such big egomaniacs that they would prefer someone to worship one of the setting's EVIL gods to them not worshipping any god at all, and the setting still pretends that they're good". And, of course, let's not forget Gary "nits make lice" Gygax and all of his messed up stances on alignment.

D&D has misused alignment since the very beginning. The dude that created it couldn't figure out how to use it correctly, so it's no wonder that D&D keeps fumbling over itself with it.

And this is a huge reason why I've got major problems with Dragonlance. It screws up alignment in worse and in dumber ways than D&D is usually prone to do, and makes the books accidentally seem like they condone a huge array of terrible acts by having Good characters do these terrible things, do absolutely nothing to try and atone or repent, the setting pretends like those things never happened and it's still an epic fantasy conflict between Good and Evil, and the devout fans of the setting get upset with you when you suggest that maybe, just maybe, the Good guys of the setting should actually have to do good things in order to be given that label, especially if the books want your characters to worship them.

Have you considered that Dragonlance isn't for you? There are plenty of settings that downplay alignment. Everybody seems to love Eberron, for example, and it has what I assume you'd consider the added bonus of subverting traditional expectations virtually across the board.