Dragonlance Dragonlance "Reimagined".

[Micah Sweet]

Funny, I get almost the opposite take. DL is as black and white (and red) as D&D settings come.

DL literally has three mini-pantheons of Good, Evil, and Neutrality, with capital letters. It specifically has orders of Good, Evil, and Neutral wizards, whose magic is drawn from the god-moons that influence Good, Evil, and Neutral magic respectively. Alignment/morality is extraordinarily real, rigid, and sharply delineated in Krynn's cosmology.

But the problems start because a whole lot of DL material treats one's professed allegiance to one of the three moral factions as something that's very often divorced from one's personal actions - and this is true for gods almost as much as mortals. Again, I always come back to the Kingpriest because he's such a standout example. The Kingpriest wasn't acting alone - we're told that the clerics of the Good gods were right alongside him. How does a cleric of Mishakal, the goddess of mercy, reconcile their beliefs with the commandment from the Kingpriest to commit genocide on goblins or punish people en masse for evil thoughts? And this was all in early AD&D where clerics could lose their powers if they displeased their deity, so we can safely assume Mishakal was on-side as well. It's like once someone has signed up to Team Good, they're there for life no matter what they do unless they consciously choose to leave (like Raistlin did when leaving the red robes for the black). There's no obligation to act in a Good manner to stay on Team Good, which makes 'Good' a meaningless concept. You might as well just have Team White, Team Black, and Team Red and abandon the moral dimension completely (and judging from the UA, this is quite possibly pretty similar to what WotC is going to do). And there was a quote earlier in this thread where Fizban was talking about how the Kingpriest was a good man and that the weakness of Good is that it can lead to intolerance. Surely if you succumb to the sort of wildly over-the-top genocidal intolerance we're talking about, you're no longer acting in a good manner? But this doesn't seem to stop Fizban thinking you're good, and the Good gods having their clerics back you up to the hilt. It's as if they're saying that there are certain evils that are inherent to goodness - which I find really hard to take seriously.


Which makes very little sense given the cosmology. If Balance leads to the greatest benefit for the greatest number, why isn't it the goal of the good gods rather than the neutral gods?

Actually, by the time of the Cataclysm nearly all Good clerics had been stripped of their powers. Those few that weren't were taken off Krynn right before the mountain hit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, I am throwing in the towel. It shouldn't matter to me what they do with DL or any other setting they own, as I have what I need to use them in 5e (which is literally all I want from an update), so I'm going to try to ignore it.

As far as I'm concerned, 5e did what I needed from it already, which was survive and be popular until a version I like a lot better (Level Up) could be released that I can then jump to. Their upcoming plans seem to be heading in a design direction almost exactly opposite what I want out of the game, and I'm just not going to pay $50-70 for a new book that might have a couple things in it I can use. So I'm done. I know I've been hyperbolic, and I apologize.

I really need to stop engaging in threads that are just going to make me angry.

 

[JEB]

Ok, I am throwing in the towel. It shouldn't matter to me what they do with DL or any other setting they own, as I have what I need to use them in 5e (which is literally all I want from an update), so I'm going to try to ignore it.

As far as I'm concerned, 5e did what I needed from it already, which was survive and be popular until a version I like a lot better (Level Up) could be released that I can then jump to. Their upcoming plans seem to be heading in a design direction almost exactly opposite what I want out of the game, and I'm just not going to pay $50-70 for a new book that might have a couple things in it I can use. So I'm done. I know I've been hyperbolic, and I apologize.

I really need to stop engaging in threads that are just going to make me angry.

That's the healthiest way to go about this - focus on the six years of 5E that produced content that appealed to veteran fans like you, and feel no shame in parting from official content when it no longer does that. I'm sorry that Wizards has disappointed you so much, though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Again, I really have to ask if you've ever actually read the books or the modules.

Which ones?

Again, this is a decades old property with tons of books and modules.

Which one of these is the homework assignment I need to have as a prerequisite to this discussion? Does someone need to read ALL of it? The first books? The Twins trilogy? Read those. The Campaign setting? I've skimmed it at a friend's house. The new book? Which modules? The occasional Dragon article? I've got a few. Do I need the parts where Soth was in Ravenloft too? I wasn't aware of the specific reading list required to get past the keepers of the Dragonlance Gate.

How much material do you think I need to absorb before my fundamental moral outlook is altered by this one D&D setting and go 'Oh, it's okay that thousands upon thousands died because the choice was really, really hard and Paladine feels bad now.'

 

[the Jester]

So, in your argument, no good god can ever handle the Trolley Problem?

I think the argument is rather that, using the Cataclysm as an example, the trolley problem only exists because the Good gods are the ones who tied everyone to the tracks. Or maybe they're the ones who started up the train in the first place.

There may be a legit trolley problem situation for good gods in which they have to make a 'lesser of two evils' choice. But actively smiting the world out of choice, despite it having thousands or millions of innocents in it that will perish or suffer horribly for generations, is not it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Which completely takes away from the unique idea that all mages are in a brotherhood despite their differences and that The Magic is more important over ideology. Instead lets turn it all into the same thing every other setting has but it has a dragon war.

Is "All Mages are brothers" really so hard a thing to imagine?

Also like, evil doesn’t mean the same thing in DL as elsewhere. It just doesn’t. The god of the black moon is “evil”, but much more sympathetic to mortals than his mother Takhisis, as is Dalamar the Dark. But Evil is always aligned with the cosmic force called Evil, and tend to be ruthless, ambitious in a selfish way, and comfortable with collateral damage, especially if it benefits them.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think the argument is rather that, using the Cataclysm as an example, the trolley problem only exists because the Good gods are the ones who tied everyone to the tracks. Or maybe they're the ones who started up the train in the first place.

There may be a legit trolley problem situation for good gods in which they have to make a 'lesser of two evils' choice. But actively smiting the world out of choice, despite it having thousands or millions of innocents in it that will perish or suffer horribly for generations, is not it.

Yeah. Using the Cataclysm as a solution to the tyrannical Kingpriest is like nuking the entire planet to kill Hitler.

This isn't the Trolley Problem. This is the gods committing an extreme genocidal act in response to the actions of one evil guy.

 

[Hussar]

Which ones?

Again, this is a decades old property with tons of books and modules.

Which one of these is the homework assignment I need to have as a prerequisite to this discussion? Does someone need to read ALL of it? The first books? The Twins trilogy? Read those. The Campaign setting? I've skimmed it at a friend's house. The new book? Which modules? The occasional Dragon article? I've got a few. Do I need the parts where Soth was in Ravenloft too? I wasn't aware of the specific reading list required to get past the keepers of the Dragonlance Gate.

How much material do you think I need to absorb before my fundamental moral outlook is altered by this one D&D setting and go 'Oh, it's okay that thousands upon thousands died because the choice was really, really hard and Paladine feels bad now.'

I meant any. As in any of the novels or modules. Because from the points you're making, it looks like you're much more arguing about a Dragonlance that you've constructed in your mind, rather than what the books actually say. So, yeah, if you're going to criticize a work, you should, at the very least, take a few minutes to actually READ the work and not just go by the hearsay and whatnot.

And, I have to ask. Since you obviously don't like the setting and like nothing about it, why do you care what the new setting book says? You're obviously no more the target market than @Micah Sweet is. Why would anyone write a book for someone that hates the subject?

 

[Hussar]

Yeah. Using the Cataclysm as a solution to the tyrannical Kingpriest is like nuking the entire planet to kill Hitler.

This isn't the Trolley Problem. This is the gods committing an extreme genocidal act in response to the actions of one evil guy.

No, it really isn't. Because it wasn't just the Kingpriest. The Kingpriest and thousands of clerics and paladins under his command were in the process of committing genocide all over Ansalon. The Kingpriest and his clerics were about to begin using thought police (literally) to root out evil, where anyone who committed an evil thought was going to be killed.

It was never about just the Kingpriest.

Additionally, it was Istar that was destroyed, not the entire planet. Granted it's still horrific, no question. But, again, simply killing the Kingpriest would have done nothing. There was a couple of decades of the Kingpriest and his people committing horrible acts of true genocide - trying very hard to exterminate all humanoids, all wizards - before the Cataclysm.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, it really isn't. Because it wasn't just the Kingpriest. The Kingpriest and thousands of clerics and paladins under his command were in the process of committing genocide all over Ansalon. The Kingpriest and his clerics were about to begin using thought police (literally) to root out evil, where anyone who committed an evil thought was going to be killed.

It was never about just the Kingpriest.

Additionally, it was Istar that was destroyed, not the entire planet. Granted it's still horrific, no question. But, again, simply killing the Kingpriest would have done nothing. There was a couple of decades of the Kingpriest and his people committing horrible acts of true genocide - trying very hard to exterminate all humanoids, all wizards - before the Cataclysm.

Krynn had social media?