Dragonlance Dragonlance "Reimagined".

[pemerton]

The discussion at hand is more about what a catastrophic business decision it would be for WotC to do this

Given that someone paid a fortune for rights to LotR to tell a story that is all about a Cataclysm, I don't think your estimate of the business rationality is necessarily accurate.

 

[Faolyn]

In the GH setting, a paladin - the King of Furyondy - presides over a feudal monarchy. There is no way of reconciling feudal monarchy with liberal humanist values. The operation of inheritance, caste and unfree labour is a starting point to that argument. There's a reason that once of the first acts of the French revolution was to abolish feudal statuses.

If we insist that the good characters of our fantasy fiction must really be good, then a paladin feudal monarch is a contradiction.

Then the writers either screwed up on the paladin's alignment and didn't changing it because then they'd have to rewrite huge swathes of lore, or they screwed up on their definition and understanding of feudal monarchy. Probably the vast majority of "Good" societies in D&D should actually be neutral, maybe with Good leanings. Radiant Citadel is actually a pretty Good society.

Also, "they suck so it's OK if we suck too" is not the argument you think it is.

And it still isn't an accurate comparison because the paladin isn't a god that has access to multiple wish spells per day.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There is no way of reconciling feudal monarchy with liberal humanist values.

interesting aside I read a current run of X men comics, and they started there own government... and the number 1 fan complaint I hear is "IT's just the powerful/popular characters in charge why not a democracy"
this is when we have mass murderers in the government, and I hear this more then "Why is this guy who was on the wrong side of WW2 allowed in the government"

 

[Vaalingrade]

This thread - and these boards - are not the place to discuss the actual morality of killing and punishment.

We're talking about how there's an issue trying to sell the Cataclysm as a Good* thing the Good gods helped do in retaliation for the Kingpriest being too Good.

No one else is trying to tie it to real world stuff (And thus the third rail we're not allowed to touch on this forum) here.

*Even by D&D Good standards. 'Respect life' my butt.

 

[pemerton]

Ill say one thing though, the 2E book handles Tinker Gnomes a heck a lot better than the 1E book (which was written by Weis and Hickman). Most of the gaming stuff is the same between the 2 books just the lore is weird in the 2E version.

Well in my view Tinker Gnomes and Gully Dwarves are absurd, and Gully Dwarves are also offensive. If I were WotC I'd drop them like hot potatoes.

The setting is meant to have a degree of gravitas to it - both in tropes (dragons, dragon highlords, Lord Soth and his skeletal knights, etc), and theme - and these undercut it.

Perhaps a singularly slight mad gnome inventor might fit in.

As far as Kender are concerned, I don't have strong views but there is a widespread view that they are hard to reconcile with RPGing, so making them more like naive Halflings or Gelflings would make sense.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then the writers either screwed up on the paladin's alignment and didn't changing it because then they'd have to rewrite huge swathes of lore, or they screwed up on their definition and understanding of feudal monarchy.

To be fair, the way Paladins worked in at least 3x is an automatic indictment of the D&D concept of 'Good'.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well in my view Tinker Gnomes and Gully Dwarves are absurd, and Gully Dwarves are also offensive. If I were WotC I'd drop them like hot potatoes.

What if I cite other fiction that historically mocks the neurodivergent?

 

[Velderan]

Given that someone paid a fortune for rights to LotR to tell a story that is all about a Cataclysm, I don't think your estimate of the business rationality is necessarily accurate.

I'm sure WotC wishes for just a small portion of the catastrophic fallout HBO is dealing with on George RR Martin's material.

 

[pemerton]

Then the writers either screwed up on the paladin's alignment and didn't changing it because then they'd have to rewrite huge swathes of lore, or they screwed up on their definition and understanding of feudal monarchy. Probably the vast majority of "Good" societies in D&D should actually be neutral, maybe with Good leanings. Radiant Citadel is actually a pretty Good society.

Also, "they suck so it's OK if we suck too" is not the argument you think it is.

I think you've missed my point.

Many of the older RPGers who post on these boards remember, and admire, Boorman's film Excalibur. It's a wonderful filmic retelling of the Arthur story. A key motif in the film is "the King and the Land are one".

I don't think anyone who watches and enjoys that film, or who enjoys the near-identical trope in LotR, really believes in the theory of government that is being advocated. They are suspending their real political commitments and moral values to enjoy a romantic fantasy story, which works within a different value system.

The same thing happens when I watch an X-Men film or read an X-Men comic, and don't judge Storm for her failure to use her weather powers to relieve drought and famine. These are works of fiction.

To what extent they are purely escapist fiction, and to what extent they have something to say about the real world, is a further question. I think it is one we can set aside in this thread. The key point for this thread is that thinking onself into the Arthur story - a celebration of righteous kingship manifested through the pursuit of lethal violence - is no more or less absurd than thinking onself into a story about divine punishment inflicted on a people for its sin of pride.

These are all fictions, not documentaries and not treatises on actual moral conduct.

(Also: @Vaalingrade has referred to the punishment of one man, but it's clear that the Cataclysm was a punishment of a whole people, not just one man. That's part of the trope - that the people participate in the wrongdoing of their leader. And in fact you don't have to look very far to find serious discussions that play on exactly this idea in contemporary scholarship.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

but it doesn't take out any of the cool things from the setting... are you saying that the only things that make DL unique is sexist racists ableist or tied to the alignment spectrum?!?! you don't see Krynn as different then (insert ebberon planet name here) or Fearun?

I am commenting on your claim that you wanted DL to have more variance. Did I misread you?