Dragonlance Dragonlance or Mystara?

[jgsugden]

While you can run a DL game outside the War of the Lance, I think Krynn and Eberron are both best when you focus the stories on the best point of time to tell stories. For Krynn, that is the War of the Lance.

I've run the War of the Lance twice. The first time was cookie cutter out of the modules. The second time I did it on the low down by changing a few names, a few campaign elements, etc... It took them about 8 sessions to realize they were being run through the modules, and then I switched it up a bit more to keep it fresh. I think that version worked better than running it stock out of the modules.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I always thought the main problem with Dragonlance is it's not very good. A large part of that is the races. Idiotic gully dwarves, KKK elves, Kender, Gnomes etc.

Throw in large amounts of chaotic and lawful stupid and blowing up the world.

When you want to drown half of them it might be a problem.

I'm in this camp. Any setting where "maintaining the balance between good and evil" is seen as a good thing is one where the only good ending is to shatter that balance. And Kender. Gully dwarves. Tinker gnomes. Make it stop!

Meanwhile I know little about Mystara - but you'd have to go pretty far to be worse than Krynn.

 

[Older Beholder]

Dragonlance gets my vote purely on Nostalgia

The Dragonlance Chronicles were the first fantasy trilogy I read and had a big part to play in getting me into D&D. It was also the first setting I ever played in.

I wouldn’t mind either way as long as the people working on it are inspired and passionate about the setting.

 

[cbwjm]

I can't really decide between them.

Mystara has a lot going for it if you have access to the gazetteers as many of them focused on different ways to play or made different classes more powerful politically. I think you could sift through them all and find a different play experience each time you started in a new area. Standard affair is Karameikos; powerful wizards, perhaps as students at the school of magic in Glantri; traders or diplomats from Darokin; or explore the old empires in the hollow world.

Dragonlance is a great setting, too many people seem to get stuck on the overall metaplot and think it is the be all, end all of the setting, but it has some great stories to tell and I love the knights of solamnia as the shining knights of the setting, the various holy orders, and the wizards of high sorcery. If you do want to run Dragonlance, you can do it a few ways. You can either decide to run the war or the lance with pregens or replacements, run a game where the war is in the background. The players might hear of the heroes of the lance, perhaps one wants to meet Goldmoon to learn about the return of the true gods. Maybe you can start in the age of mortals with the return of sorcery and the loss of wizardry and clerical magic. You can still have the same sort of adventures you'd have in other settings such as dungeon delving and wilderness exploration and the good thing is, 5e is quite suited for running a game without the healing magic of clerics, druids, etc so even if these classes don't exist, you should be able to continue through the game.

 

[TerraDave]

I love the 2 page "Known World" setting, everything you need is right there! In its expanded form (gazetteer series, etc) it has a huge range of options.

And then there are the adventures. I have run my own conversions of Into the Unknown (B1), Isle of Dread, Lost City, and Castle Amber. I think Goodman Games also has official conversions for all of these, plus B2 Keep on the Borderlands. They are great, and 5e works pretty well with them. You could also easily set AD&D adventures in the Known World.

One issue with older adventures and 5E is the resting mechanics. You may want to put some limits. Or just be ready to dial up difficulty.

 

[dave2008]

I's basically D&D's Star Wars. You can find corners to adventure in, but the central plot overshadows everything.

What is the central plot?

 

[Tonguez]

What is the central plot?

Mystara was created by TSR sketching a vague map around the Isle of Dread and then passing each bit out to independent authors who were tasked with writing the relevant Gazetteer. As such each of its nations have their own story and details, but are vaguely the Known World of 15th Century Europe the Gazetteers are brilliant.
Later Mystara was expanded to include Hollow World and the Savage Coast and whatever anyone else wanted to add.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

What is the central plot?

The central plot of Dragonlance is that everyone hates Jar Jar.

 

[dave2008]

The central plot of Dragonlance is that everyone hates Jar Jar.

I didn't get deep into DL, but I always liked Tass. I enjoyed the original trilogy back in the day and I couple of the side books. I never finished legends because it was two focused on the brothers for me (or at least that is how I remember it).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I didn't get deep into DL, but I always liked Tass. I enjoyed the original trilogy back in the day and I couple of the side books. I never finished legends because it was two focused on the bothers for me (or at least that is how I remember it).

Well, if it was focused on the bothers, then it was certainly focused on a kender.

Never let a good typo go unaddressed