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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[Micah Sweet]

What does having gully dwarves add to Dragonlance? I'm hard-pressed to think of any elements that make their inclusion "as-is" going forward necessary enough to have a race that is severely problematic.



I'm so excited to have Dragonlance return and cannot wait to have the new book in my hands and ready to kick off a new campaign with it.

I'm happy you're excited for it.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm saying making new material to appeal to WotC's desired demographic is, in my opinion, a better use of their time than mangling old IP in a desperate attempt to make it valuable to those same new players. If they want to do so anyway, that's their prerogative, of course.

When you say the words "mangling IP," you're not saying "make new stuff." You're saying "don't do anything to the stuff I like."

New players can like old things, especially when the fun stuff of the old thing is kept while the problematic stuff is removed. New viewers still like the original Star Trek, older comics, older shows, older cartoons, and they like reboots of those things as well. They just don't want the crappy things like gully dwarfs kept as-is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When you say the words "mangling IP," you're not saying "make new stuff." You're saying "don't do anything to the stuff I like."

New players can like old things, especially when the fun stuff of the old thing is kept while the problematic stuff is removed. New viewers still like the original Star Trek, older comics, older shows, older cartoons, and they like reboots of those things as well. They just don't want the crappy things like gully dwarfs kept as-is.

I said they can do what they want, but you're right, I have no interest in it. I like plenty of things that are before my time too, but I appreciate them for what they represent according to when they were created. I suppose I have a personal issue with messing with history. I feel making changes to appeal to a modern audience disrespects history, warts and all. Far better in my opinion to simply make something new that does what you want.

But, WotC is a business, and thinks they can make money off of this. They're probably right.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I respect your opinion, but you and I are on very different parts of the 5e spectrum. If we have a new player base, let's respect them with actual new material.

Nah cause I like the old material too, I would just have it updated for the Modern day, which is happening.

Also mangling IP seems a bit much for saying stuff like removing the Gully Dwarves.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah cause I like the old material too, I would just have it updated for the Modern day, which is happening.

Also mangling IP seems a bit much for saying stuff like removing the Gully Dwarves.

That's far from all they're going to do and you know it.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I said they can do what they want, but you're right, I have no interest in it. I like plenty of things that are before my time too, but I appreciate them for what they represent according to when they were created. I suppose I have a personal issue with messing with history. I feel making changes to appeal to a modern audience disrespects history, warts and all. Far better in my opinion to simply make something new that does what you want.

But, WotC is a business, and thinks they can make money off of this. They're probably right.

The Old stuff is still there, unaltered. Personally I hate the idea of just leaving something to be forgotten, which is what will happen if it's not updated.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

That's far from all they're going to do and you know it.

What else do you think they are going to do?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah cause I like the old material too, I would just have it updated for the Modern day, which is happening.

Also mangling IP seems a bit much for saying stuff like removing the Gully Dwarves.

And the Dragonlance Nexus, which IMO has far more interest in the material than WotC, have made a perfectly acceptable (great even) 5e conversion of DL material, called Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything. If you're willing to look at non-WotC material, that is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What else do you think they are going to do?

Actually, if they were going to update the setting, I expect they would make numerous changes, starting with kender and tinker gnomes and going from there.

But, from what we know, they're specifically writing an adventure focusing on a part of Krynn barely detailed, probably to avoid all of this.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

When you say the words "mangling IP," you're not saying "make new stuff." You're saying "don't do anything to the stuff I like."

New players can like old things, especially when the fun stuff of the old thing is kept while the problematic stuff is removed. New viewers still like the original Star Trek, older comics, older shows, older cartoons, and they like reboots of those things as well. They just don't want the crappy things like gully dwarfs kept as-is.

Yeah. I love Spelljammer. I would have been extremely upset if it never got officially updated to D&D 5e. I don't care if it gets changes so long as the setting keeps its core theme (gonzo D&D in space that lets you travel to other settings). I always thought the Phlogiston was pretty boring and didn't actually add much to the setting. The Aperusa have no major part in the setting and were incredibly problematic, so dropping them would be a good idea.

What @Micah Sweet is saying would prevent me from ever getting Spelljammer in D&D 5e. It would probably prevent me from ever running a D&D 5e Spelljammer campaign ever again (due to how much work it took originally to run it). I don't care if some older players are complaining about the Astral Sea replacing the Phlogiston, because the setting is still coming to D&D 5e. The minutia that I don't like I can ignore, and the official updates that I do like are well worth buying the book.

Frankly, I don't really care about Dragonlance. I like it even less than I like the Forgotten Realms, and I do not like the Forgotten Realms. The only reason I might buy the 5e Dragonlance book will be for the new subclass, feats, and monsters. I do not like Kender or Tinker Gnomes, and I despise the Gully Dwarves. If the Gully Dwarves are in this book in their original state, I will not buy it. They are extremely bigoted towards a group that I happen to be a part of and I am not fond of funding ableist crap. If gully dwarves are dropped from the setting or changed (somehow) to not be a problem anymore, I might buy this book.

I don't think that it's "mangling the IP" to fix an extremely problematic part of the setting (like the Vistani or Caliban from Ravenloft or Aperusa from Spelljammer). However, if changing/dropping the Gully Dwarves is "mangling the IP", then, in my opinion, the IP deserved to be "mangled".