Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[Stormonu]

All mind control is rape.

Yeah, no. Mind control is mind control.

The recent Wandavision show heavily dealt with the negative aspects of mind control. I think it’s a reasonable subject for games too and not something to merely dispense with.

 

[Cadence]

RE: Mind Control, et. al.

In the 616 we have Professor X, Mantis, Jean Grey, Karma, Moon Dragon, Dani Moonstar.
In the MCU we have Mantis and Wanda.
In Star Trek how close is the Vulcan mind meld?
In Star Wars we have the Jedi Mind Trick

 

[Scars Unseen]

I know too many people who have been abused and who are uncomfortable with fantasy mind control for that reason, to agree.

Honestly? That's what session zero is for. The existence of bad stuff in the world isn't, in my opinion, justification to avoid any heavy topics or content in game writing. It just means every group should have an open and honest discussion as to what topics and content they are comfortable engaging with.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, no. Mind control is mind control.

The recent Wandavision show heavily dealt with the negative aspects of mind control. I think it’s a reasonable subject for games too and not something to merely dispense with.

Yeah, no. I stand by my statement.

The idea that Wanda, or comics Prof. Xavier who is a serial violator of people's will often for purely selfish reasons, and also literally knowingly enslaved a sentient being because to do otherwise would be mildly inconvenient, are good guys, is fracking laughable. Reasonable people who are actually heroes would do whatever they could do to stop them. Using comics characters are examples here is not a compelling argument.

 

[Cadence]

Yeah, no. I stand by my statement.

The idea that Wanda, or comics Prof. Xavier who is a serial violator of people's will often for purely selfish reasons, and also literally knowingly enslaved a sentient being because to do otherwise would be mildly inconvenient, are good guys, is fracking laughable. Reasonable people who are actually heroes would do whatever they could do to stop them. Using comics characters are examples here is not a compelling argument.

"Well, we can't have Karma or Xavier or Moondragon just freeze up his mind or make him drop the gun. Guess we need to shoot him to save the kids." (and don't read the other one's mind to see where the folks are being held captive, and don't make the third one forget we walked by so we don't have to do something worse to stop them from saying we snuck in, or...)

I mean, Xavier has done awful stuff, and it shouldn't be held up as good. And folks with swords and fireballs and illusions and gp have done awful stuff too.

 

[James Gasik]

In Wanda's case, she herself has serious mental and emotional problems. It doesn't condone her actions, but sometimes it makes her sympathetic. Professor X is clearly a jerkass. He goes on and on about using his powers responsibly, but he has repeatedly done things even supervillains would look at and go "dude...no".

Now, can a hero use mind control powers in a good way? It's a tool, like any other. I'm sure you could. Modify Memory could be used at someone's request to remove painful memories (the ethics of this are debatable, of course, but it's possible this could be a good thing). And using your powers to stop evil people is probably at least a Neutral act, if not actually Good.

The real debate happens on the Law/Chaos axis, which is when sparks will really fly.

 

[Remathilis]

"Well, we can't have Karma or Xavier or Moondragon just freeze up his mind or make him drop the gun. Guess we need to shoot him to save the kids." (and don't read the other one's mind to see where the folks are being held captive, and don't make the third one forget we walked by so we don't have to do something worse to stop them from saying we snuck in, or...)

I mean, Xavier has done awful stuff, and it shouldn't be held up as good. And folks with swords and fireballs and illusions and gp have done awful stuff too.

To be perfectly honest: the realist interpretation of what a comic book world would be like is the original Watchmen. The notion of a costumed crime fighter's morality (with or without super powers) would more or less break down along the lines of Rorschach (vigilante with unflinching moral certitude that justifies his actions), Dr Manhattan (detached godlike entity) the Comedian (psychopath with a badge from the government to hide behind) or Ozzymandius (schemer for whom the end justifies the means). It's probably the truest vision of what that kind of power would do to people. Powers like telepathy, invisibility and invulnerability would only exacerbate the problem.

Which is why I try to use traditional comic book morality over real world morality in D&D. It doesn't hold up to logic as well, but it's cleaner and easier for escapism.

 

[James Gasik]

D&D does have it's own strange morality. From the very early days, it wasn't about personal morals as much as adherence to cosmic forces. If you were Lawful, you were a "good guy", not because of your morals, but because you fought against Chaos, which is trying to tear down everything.

You could kill goblins without mercy because they were all servants of Chaos, and thus, your mortal enemies. There were no debates about whether mistreating orc babies made you "evil". They were the spawn of Chaos, and stopping them meant, ultimately, saving the universe as you knew it.

Adding Good and Evil made the game more nuanced, but it led to moral debates that the game has NEVER SUPPORTED. You can easily fall down a rabbit hole of Goblins being victims of society or circumstance, and that their actions, meant to survive in a harsh world, are understandable, and the actions of "heroes" who break into their homes, slaughter them, and take their stuff, is the act of sociopaths.

The stuff of high fantasy, it is not. Did the Heroes of the Lance ever pause to think about whether or not it was the Draconian's fault for being what they were? They were made from the stolen eggs of good dragons, and forced into service to Takhisis! Yeah no, we don't have time for that, just remember what happens when they die, and quickly move your sword so it doesn't get trapped in a stone statue.

Now we are in a different age, where society is saying "hey, we can be better people". And that's great! But D&D doesn't exist in our world. It really can't! There has to be "ultimate, unredeemable evils" or the whole swords & sorcery dungeon crawl falls apart.

And I'm not saying we can't have a game that takes enlightened attitudes into account (I have to get that out there, lol). I'm just saying that Dungeons & Dragons can't be that game.

You can slap D&D on the title of that game, but it would be VERY different.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"Well, we can't have Karma or Xavier or Moondragon just freeze up his mind or make him drop the gun. Guess we need to shoot him to save the kids." (and don't read the other one's mind to see where the folks are being held captive, and don't make the third one forget we walked by so we don't have to do something worse to stop them from saying we snuck in, or...)

I mean, Xavier has done awful stuff, and it shouldn't be held up as good. And folks with swords and fireballs and illusions and gp have done awful stuff too.

A sword can be used without maiming or killing anyone. Mind control cannot be used without egregious violation of Will and fundamental mental autonomy.

There is a reason some weapons are illegal even in war.

 

[Cadence]

A sword can be used without maiming or killing anyone.

Well, in D&D anyway, where you can declare you're hitting for non-lethal.

Mind control cannot be used without egregious violation of Will and fundamental mental autonomy.

If you're using it to lock someone down with some kind of mental hold or making them drop a weapon with a command spell, how is that different than a taser? Where is the line between a charm person to get a friendly reaction and the high level bard turning on the manipulation/charisma roll?

Anyway, it still feels to me like it might be the better choice in some situations. (The three I gave in the previous post.) And, of course, better is not necessarily good and I agree that actually controlling someone for anything extensive is not good, and I'd expect Xavier to be ostracized.

In any case, if someone said in session 0 of a not-psionically-focused game that they hated it then I'd leave it out. Just like if someone had a horrible reaction to bladed weapons and brought it up in session 0 of non fantasy-combat game I'd leave them out. And I'd portray Xavier or the brutal bladed killer as not good bad even if no one had said anything.