Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE is coming this year!

This year, a hardcover book and a 'battle game'. Here's the teaser trailer! The adventure is set at the start of the War of the Lance, while the battle game is designed for 'large scale' battles. And they're coming later this year, in 2022.

• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
• Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn

 

[beancounter]

Not much to say other than I'm looking forward to the adventure.

Not sure about the battle game though. I'll wait for the reviews on that one.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, the thing to remember is that the 80's is when fantasy as a genre really gets rolling. Prior to the 80's, there just isn't all that much published. Not comparatively anyway. There's very likely more fantasy published in the 80's than there was in the previous 80 years. And a lot of it was ... well... not very good. Granted, lots of the stuff before the 80's wasn't very good either, but, there was so much less of it, that it was pretty easy to find the gems.

To put it in perspective, prior to the 80's, there were entire years when you might get a couple of dozen original fantasy titles. Total. By the end of the 80's, you generally are getting several dozen original fantasy novels in a month.

And that's not including media tie in stuff.

While I agree that there was a boom of fantasy literature in the '80s and their wake, I think that you are underestimating how much published fantasy literature was out there prior to that point. An obvious point being that Appendix N doesn't reflect '80s fantasy literature. More anecdotally, neither did my father's fantasy library, which was entirely pre-1975 fantasy/sci-fi literature, albeit pulp fantasy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

While I agree that there was a boom of fantasy literature in the '80s and their wake, I think that you are underestimating how much published fantasy literature was out there. An obvious point being that Appendix N doesn't reflect '80s fantasy literature. More anecdotally, neither did my father's fantasy library, which was entirely pre-1975 fantasy/sci-fi literature, albeit pulp fantasy.

Yeah, the was lots of stuff, even if some of it, like John Carter, was written a long while earlier. And I learned to read on Target Doctor Who novelisations, of which there where hundreds published in the 70s and 80s.

 

[Von Ether]

I do think there are some "excessively generic" or tail-eating issues with fantasy now, particularly "Teenage girl magical assassin pygmalion" sub-genre that's emerged, but the average standard of writing is a lot higher at least.

Pfft! That's so 2019.

Now it's LitRPG, where the fantasy story is one level removed from Ready Player One and the protagonist is the PC of a player (and the player's IRL may or may not be shown and is Plot B if it shows.)

e.g., the hero doesn't bleed or get exhausted, they have low health bars and empty mana pools.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Demonstrably false. They just released an art deco 1920's mafia set, and I have such a mighty need for it to be turned into a D&D book.

That would truly be the best timeline

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Pfft! That's so 2019.

Now it's LitRPG, where the fantasy story is one level removed from Ready Player One and the protagonist is the PC of a player (and the player's IRL may or may not be shown and is Plot B if it shows.)

e.g., the hero doesn't bleed or get exhausted, they have low health bars and empty mana pools.

Oh god.

I've not really caught up to that yet. Not looking forward to it given Ready Player One was a cesspool of rotting nostalgia and utterly facile ideas to start with, so derivatives are unlikely to immediately improve on that.

I noticed a lot of anime has gone that way (started a while ago of course).

 

[Juomari Veren]

Oh god.

I've not really caught up to that yet. Not looking forward to it given Ready Player One was a cesspool of rotting nostalgia and utterly facile ideas to start with, so derivatives are unlikely to immediately improve on that.

I noticed a lot of anime has gone that way (started a while ago of course).

In anime that's called an isekai, they're very popular. I prefer the faux-intellectual ones where people just stand around and muse on the blurring of reality and fantasy using the game as digital escapist medium (like .hack). Most of the other ones out there either lean into the concept without taking it seriously and just lampoon it, or they kind of don't have any vision after the outset and don't go anywhere or become ridiculously convoluted (like the ever-popular Sword Art Online).

I know that among peers closer to my age group, the idea of a tabletop game that has that sort of skeleton of a backstory is enticing, but I don't think anybody who's actually played it has enjoyed it very much.

 

[Bitbrain]

This year, a hardcover book and a 'battle game'. Here's the teaser trailer! The adventure is set at the start of the War of the Lance, while the battle game is designed for 'large scale' battles. And they're coming later this year, in 2022.

• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
• Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn

View attachment 155696

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OH GOD, I’M SO EXCITED!!!

 

[Azzy]

I knew that DL was coming out this year and guessed there might be mass combat rules, but this proves interesting. An adventure book (it seems like) and a mass combat board game that can be integrated. I'm looking forward to more detail. Especially about the board game.

 

[nyvinter]

Well, the thing to remember is that the 80's is when fantasy as a genre really gets rolling. Prior to the 80's, there just isn't all that much published. Not comparatively anyway. There's very likely more fantasy published in the 80's than there was in the previous 80 years. And a lot of it was ... well... not very good. Granted, lots of the stuff before the 80's wasn't very good either, but, there was so much less of it, that it was pretty easy to find the gems.

To put it in perspective, prior to the 80's, there were entire years when you might get a couple of dozen original fantasy titles. Total. By the end of the 80's, you generally are getting several dozen original fantasy novels in a month.

And that's not including media tie in stuff.

I never read the Dragonlance books until recently and that was a hard bounce, they do not work when you're in your 40s at all. So this will of course colour my opinions below.

But the same year as the Dragons of Autumn Twilight was published we also had Moonheart by Charles De lint, Yendi by Steven Brust, two Diana Wynne Jones books, the first two Black Company books by Glen Cook, the first Discworld came the year before, as was the first So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane as well as books by Tamora Pierce and Susan Cooper. The big fantasy boom was already well on its way.

Outside of TSR and DnD players, Dragons of Autumn Twilight is a footnote. That they made that footnote so big due to a direct pipeline to players is both impressive and a little sad. (Sad because I think kids deserve better written books.)

And I think this is why it's probably a good idea that Weis and Hickman isn't involved in the ttrpg setting: it's a game, it shouldn't have to follow their plot and they've been real loud whenever something in DL isn't according to their vision.