Dragonlance: Our LotR?

[Mycanid]

DL's influence was HUGE - almost all off its influence went to adventure, campaign and setting design for later D&D products though, so it might be easy to miss. But the D&D game, product wise, can nearly be divided into a pre and post DL phase.

I dunno.... :\

For me the main thing the DL novels did was finally begin to make DnD acceptable in the public eye. In THAT sense it had a huge influence, yes.

I would be interested to hear more of this though. Can you give more lengthy examples of DL's influence in the games products after it's introduction?

(And feel free to chime in any other folks to the subject at hand. )

 

[Valesin]

My LotR is Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Read it in high school and it has shaped my view of fantasy ever since.

Which, if you are familiar with the books, is a little scary.

Never really got into DL. I just don't think they are very good writers, relying too much on cutesy Disney-isms for me.

 

[Ravellion]

I dunno.... :\

For me the main thing the DL novels did was finally begin to make DnD acceptable in the public eye. In THAT sense it had a huge influence, yes.

I would be interested to hear more of this though. Can you give more lengthy examples of DL's influence in the games products after it's introduction?

Well, the novels were joined together with the game line. I suppose it is the game line, and not the novels, that really influenced the game.

It was the first setting which departed a lot from certain D&Disms (as an example: no orcs, but Draconians!), laying down the foundations for far more oddball settings, such as PS and DS. I suppose the credit for that is as much in the novels as in the game line.

Adventure wise though, we have the very first adventure path right there in the novels and the game lines, but also dungeons with a very large degree of verisimilitude, with foes reacting to stuff that happens elsewhere in the dungeon.

Campaign wise, putting the characters in the central position was mentioned before in this thread. It really sparked the "story campaign".

Is that enough ?

 

[Desdichado]

Maybe Heathcliff (from Wuthering Heights - pretty much the only 19th century novel I like).

W-what?! Sir Walter Scott wrote in the 19th century! So did H. Rider Haggard and Robert Louis Stevenson.

I'm sorry, sir, but you are a shameless Philistine.

 

[Mycanid]

Yes my good sir. And thank you.

I think you may be right in terms of % wise influence, but I still doubt the comparison to be accurate % wise. JRRT stuff had a much bigger influence on the beginning.

DL, though, may have trail blazed a standard though - novels, lit side by side with products with the emphasis that helped to slowly shape the "face" of 2e.

I still think the two things were different though in type of influence. One was a reference point for many of the source material of the game. I still don't know if DL was the same for subsequent versions.

I should be fair, though, and admit that I did not like the "standard" DL set, nor where the game slowly went after this. Not a 2e fan either. No a Forgotten Realms fan....

Sigh ... just an 'ole Greyhawk and Mystara fan here. Especially the former....

 

[Zendragon]

Whereas I used to bake Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari cookies on Halloween straight to the Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home Specifications. (TERRIBLE cookies, by the way, with no flavoring built in). Always wanted to try "Stag On Steel", but never had a group wanting to cook it by the book....

Otik's spiced potatoes are really good, just had to add more papricka for my tastes.

Goes to show that we had the "gamer generation gap" even within the same gamer generation! How many teens out there will treat "Full Metal Alchemist" or "Princess Monoke" anime with similar devotion -- THEIR "Lord of the Rings"...

Worse yet, Harry Potter will be this generations LoTR.

I picked up the first volume of the DL trilogy about 2 weeks after it was out. A buddy of mine (and my first DM) was extolling the virtues of Tolkein and I thought this series might bring him down a peg or 2.
Once the first 3 were out, I made him read them and he admitted that they were pretty good, but no LoTR.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I think, in terms of nostalgic beginnings, the age at which books are read has everything to do with how they are remembered. My LotR is indeed Dragonlance, as well as Prydain, Magic Kingdom: For Sale/Sold, and Guardians of the Flame. The reason for this, quite honestly, is that they were the first fantasy series I read, starting at about 10 or so with Prydain. I tried to read LotR later in life and still, for the life of me, can't get past the first few chapters. I was introduced to Dragonlance by a non-gamer (my mother) along with the Drizzt novels and Guardians of the Flame (a book partially based on gaming and I was introduced to it by a non-gamer...go figure). I came into D&D shortly thereafter, when my new older step-brother saw me reading the first dragonlance book for the umpteenth time.

I will echo what others have said about going back to a childhood favorite book and finding it lacking in some areas. However, I also get my hackles raised when the term "literary merit" starts getting used. Having recently taken a college literature course, I find the term insulting and somewhat elitist in that "merit" seems to be judged by a select few academics. I read to be entertained, just like I go to the movies or listen to music to be entertained. If it's not entertaining, I don't bother. If something does entertain me, I don't appreciate it being attacked as having no "literary merit" because it doesn't fit a certain style or the tastes of a select few who happen to write college literature textbooks.

Sorry for the rant at the end there. I just believe merit is a matter of opinion and taste.

 

[freyar]

I will echo what others have said about going back to a childhood favorite book and finding it lacking in some areas. However, I also get my hackles raised when the term "literary merit" starts getting used. Having recently taken a college literature course, I find the term insulting and somewhat elitist in that "merit" seems to be judged by a select few academics. I read to be entertained, just like I go to the movies or listen to music to be entertained. If it's not entertaining, I don't bother. If something does entertain me, I don't appreciate it being attacked as having no "literary merit" because it doesn't fit a certain style or the tastes of a select few who happen to write college literature textbooks.

Two nice points here:

A lot of childhood faves are lacking when we read them as adults, I agree. (And this goes for other media, too. I even find that I don't enjoy the original Star Trek quite as much after I got used to TNG.) But I find that I like LotR better and better each time, so that separates it for me.

The other point is about "literary merit." QFT! Ironically, I've often been miffed that Tolkien has been left out of the "literature" category often enough just because he writes fantasy...

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Dragonlance novels were among the first fantasy novels I read, and I loved them as a young teenager until I was sixteen or so (ten years ago! ack!) . . . but I'm completely sour on them now. I'm planning to give my collection to SUTEKH at the University of Sydney when I move house in a few months and have to pack everything up anyway; I just can't imagine that I would ever want to reread them. Partly, of course, that's because I did reread them so many times as a teenager, and remember the storyline vividly.

I guess they rank higher in my esteem than The Lord of the Rings, though, but that's only because I so thoroughly disdain everything about Tolkien's work except the worldbuilding - and even then, he's built a big and complex world I have absolutely no interest in.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

There is a lot of this in Tolkien's writings, and the fact that he could make this kind of thing interesting is what sets him head and shoulders above many authors.

Or it could have, had he done so.