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...

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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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[Vaalingrade]

Dragonlance also feels empty compared to other settings. Like, cities mostly don't exist. Just villages and relatively small settlements. The landscape just feels like if you took the Forgotten Realms but removed the interesting locations (cities) and just replaced them with more empty wilderness and small homlets. There is Haven, but it's pretty lacking in theme compared to some of the major cities of other settings (the Sword Coast's city-states, Sharn of any of the major cities of Eberron, Dark Sun's cities, etc) and it has a pretty low population of just 200,000. It's probably because the gods killed everyone, but it's still weird, IMO.

Well there's the elf ones there to show that Elves are Just Better, but I don't think I can name any other locations.

Which is kind if fair, being a war setting, but I don't think there were many promenant ones aside form Ishtar before the war either so...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, but cities are important to the theme. That's where the majority of NPCs and, consequently, adventuring hooks are. That's where Rogues get to do their Rogue stuff and players sell their loot.

But not-cities are where most adventures actually take place. IMO there are enough urban centers to handle the situations you describe. They just need to provide more setting detail, or at least point people to the 3e books or the DMsGuild.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

But not-cities are where most adventures actually take place. IMO there are enough urban centers to handle the situations you describe. They just need to provide more setting detail, or at least point people to the 3e books or the DMsGuild.

So? My point was "Dragonlance's lack of focus on the cities makes it feel empty". Nothing you said changes that. It just feels way more empty and less vibrant because of that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So? My point was "Dragonlance's lack of focus on the cities makes it feel empty". Nothing you said changes that. It just feels way more empty and less vibrant because of that.

You're welcome to feel how you please, of course. I don't feel that way.

 

[pemerton]

You're not winning points with me by mentioning Dark Sun, but I'll bite.

Dragonlance isn't just about archetypes, it's about organizations.

<snip>

You can be a gladiator in Dark Sun, but you can have dozens of other origins for your warrior and it's not like the Gladiator Union will force you to join or stop fighting.

For me, that's the inverse way of thinking about the organisations. Of course in the fiction they might exercise some sort of constraint on the character. But at the table they're the vehicle whereby the player engages the setting and situation.

I agree completely that the main novels and game releases tend to focus on the Knights of Solamnia and Mages of High Sorcery so much that it tends to make the setting feel pretty restrictive. A good DM could make the struggle against them a pretty interesting campaign. A pirate themed campaign where the group is frequently put at odds with the Knights. A renegade warlock that seeks to remain under the Conclave's radar to further their patron's goals.

For me what you're describing here seems like the opposite of a DL campaign!

 

[pemerton]

I think all settings have more interesting things in them than just cities.

Yeah, but cities are important to the theme. That's where the majority of NPCs and, consequently, adventuring hooks are. That's where Rogues get to do their Rogue stuff and players sell their loot.

In DL, the "adventuring hooks" come from the broader political and cosmic forces, not NPCs in cities.

If my game is going to be about rogues doing rogue-y stuff and players selling loot, I'll use Greyhawk, not DL.

 

[Velderan]

For me what you're describing here seems like the opposite of a DL campaign!

I mean I agree and wouldn't run a campaign like I described, but considering the objections to Dragonlance and it's themes being too limiting, I'm just describing an option to play not-Dragonlance in Dragonlance using it's setting lore.

 

[Velderan]

So? My point was "Dragonlance's lack of focus on the cities makes it feel empty". Nothing you said changes that. It just feels way more empty and less vibrant because of that.

I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from. In the 2e and 3e campaign settings, there was plenty of info on different cities and who inhabited them. What actual material have you looked at?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from. In the 2e and 3e campaign settings, there was plenty of info on different cities and who inhabited them. What actual material have you looked at?

I don't have either of those, I've just read the original trilogy and some of the books after that.

 

[Velderan]

I don't have either of those, I've just read the original trilogy and some of the books after that.

So just the novels? No gaming material?