Dragonlance Dragonlance "Reimagined".

[Faolyn]

Well, if you're going to argue about what the books say, and then claim that you don't care what the books say, well, this isn't really going to be much of a productive conversation.

Except that Dragonlance is a game as much as a series of novels, and thus I am talking about what happens in the game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Except that Dragonlance is a game as much as a series of novels, and thus I am talking about what happens in the game.

exactly

 

[the Jester]

What's kind of sad is gutting it will take it from a "Romantic Knight" (something like that) (or however it was originally described) setting where "evil always eats itself and good always wins"

...for certain values of good.

The thing is, this becomes pretty meaningless when the setting's canonical good behavior is, in some cases, almost indistinguishable from evil behavior. I'm all for moral dilemmas and the like, but couching them the way DL has traditionally done portrays "Good" as just another team that is willing to do whatever it takes to win.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If WotC wants to publish a new version today I think THEY need to make it modern sensibilities

I think making a new version today is a mistake.

 

[Faolyn]

Yeah, again, I'm thinking that you haven't actually read any of the books or the modules, or at least, not in a really long time. Because this is flat out not true.

Uh, that's Soth's entire story there. A guy who could stop the cataclysm, got easily sidetracked by believing his wife was cheating on him, and went to confront his wife instead of actually stopping the apocalypse.

Then he got sucked into Ravenloft, and was given a whole domain to be evil in, and he caused a lot of misery there. But the Dark Powers gave him a magical holodeck to torment him with visions of what could have been in a happier life, and he spent so much time watching these happier images instead of going around being evil that he got boring and the Dark Powers fired him.

So you think it's in accordance with the ideals of Good to form a governing body that discriminates against others on the basis of alignment?

Yes. Because otherwise they'd be condoning the acts of evil.

Evil isn't something like skin color, gender, sexuality, social status, nationality, religious beliefs, etc., that people wrongly discriminate against. It's literally Evil. It's actually going forth and harming people for bad reasons.

 

[the Jester]

Exactly. If they insist on changing the setting, why bother publishing it?

Because old material can often be improved, sometimes by a massive amount, by updating it. I agree that it's possible to go too far, but this whole debate about what Good is in DL shows that there's a lot of room for improvement. Likewise, DL would be better served (I think) with the "White Savior" nonsense removed, with the allegories to Mormonism seriously cut back, and by a frank and deep discussion of what alignment means in the setting and whether or not "Team Good" is aligned with Good at all. And if you want them to be, how to modify, remove, scale back, or improve the problematic stuff.

 

[the Jester]

There's no magical equivalent of that, nor will using a paintball gun get you cleared for carrying a deadly weapon.

There is an entire school of Illusion, so I think there is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If WotC wants to publish a new version today I think THEY need to make it modern sensibilities

Dragonlance as a salable game product in 2022 is a terrible idea. Just take the ideas you like, make a new setting for the modern gamer, and sell that.

 

[Faolyn]

Again, keeping magic alive is more important than good or evil in this world. If you can't accept that, DL is not for you.

If keep magic alive is more important than good or evil, then there should be no problem with re-imagining the various wizard groups as something other than White Robe/Good, Red Robe/Neutral, Black Robe/Evil. You could turn them into groups that study particular branches of magic--maybe different schools of magic, or by dividing them into "buffing" spells, "information and utility" spells, and "debuff and damaging" spells.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think making a new version today is a mistake.

that's fine. I wasn't calling for the remake or reimagining. I am fine with it being left in the 80's and 90s