Dragons of Despair - your experiences?

[rogueattorney]

Sounds like a bad DM ruined DL for you, not the campaign setting.

Unfortunately, it sounds to me as if Olgar's DM was running the module as written. Which is the big problem.

Steel_Wind is a fan of the setting. I'm not. However, I think he hit the nail squarely on the head as to what the problems with the module are. It's hard to argue with the DL series' success and popularity. However, I don't believe those modules have stood the test of time anywhere near as well as most of the 1e modules that preceded them.

I always thought the way the DL series could have been done, that would have been a lot more satisfying to me... Start with an introductory setting book - something very similar to DL5 Dragons of Mystery - that had a basic timeline for DM's to follow. Something to the effect of... At month 1, unless the pc's do x, then A happens. At month 2, unless the PC's do y, then B happens, and then so on. Then have a series of site-based modules that DM's could offer to the players in any order that would allow the pc's to complete the tasks. This would give the pc's and DM a lot more freedom to pursue their own interests and wouldn't bring the gosh-darn thing crashing down if the pc's ever failed. It also wouldn't have had to have been so slavishly devoted to following the books.

A D.M. could do all of the above, which is pretty much what Steel_Wind was suggesting, but it'd be a whole heck of a lot of work.

R.A.

 

[talinthas]

I love dragonlance. But DL1 is a royal pain in the donkey to try to run.

Let me offer some background. I started playing in 2e, and in a dragonlance game that was run by my pal out of the Tales of the Lance box. It was loosely modelled on autumn twilight but went way weird soon after, for a good time had by all.

It wasn't until very recently that i actually ran DL 1, as part of a demo for my gaming club's new member night. Oh, i knew what was supposed to have happened, and what should have happened, but man, that module is rough. It doesnt tell you where to go, or how they get there, or who they talk to and what they say. It's very very barebones and old school. Maybe i'm too much a 3.x DM to be able to properly read the mod and understand what it says, but i ended up just tossing most of the boxed text and running it as i thought a DL game should be run, updated to 3.5. which meant that the encounters with the wyrmling black dragons in xak tsaroth's swamp were really challenging and very rewarding. Plus, i modified the module to reflect how DL is now and not what it was then.

But man, xak tsaroth is freakin' awesome, and tracy hickman layed the ground work for one of the best things to happen to D&D, and changed the gaming paradigm forever. Before this, dungeons and loosely connected modules. after- settings and full out campaign worlds.

 

[Steel_Wind]

MorrowLance? Uhm..no thanks

A D.M. could do all of the above, which is pretty much what Steel_Wind was suggesting, but it'd be a whole heck of a lot of work.

No, I wasn’t suggesting any such thing. The classic War of the Lance campaign is a metaplot driven campaign. There IS a story line. Sometime you can move off of it easily enough and adapt as you go – and sometimes you cannot do so without some effort. But if you are trying to suggest DragonLance would be as popular and successful as it was if it was some location based, non-linear Morrowindesque like RPG setting – I think not.

The module series does not actually track the novels that closely, past DL1 and DL2. The novel plotline shows up again briefly in DL 6, 7 and 10, and small elements of DL12 and DL14 but it never dominates play nor reveals actual goals and locations again to any significant degree. DL 3, 4, 9, and 13 are never mentioned in the novels. DL8 is mentioned – but it is not at all like it is in the novels at all.

The rest of the module series is great and most (not all, but most) can be played without too much messing around. DL 3, 4, 6 and 8 and 13 are *excellent* modules. DL10, imo, goes beyond excellent and is one of the best AD&D modules of all time. The problem is DL1 (railroad is utterly broken) and DL2 (metagaming totally spoils it) and how those themes later show up again in your campaign if you are not careful. They will prove most troublesome for novice DMs.

If you and your players prefer seat of the pants gaming where players will do whatever it is they please on a given night, actively resist playing the selfless good guys, or they really do not like the thought they are on a “pre-planned adventure” at all ; or if your DM style is to just show up and wing it: don’t bother with a DL classic War of the Lance campaign. Krynn as a setting may be fine for you - but the classic module series is not going to work with you and your group so let’s not waste time with that. No amount of cajoling is ever going to change that.

Save the world metaplot quests which last a few years of real world campaign time are not for every gaming circle. And there are a LOT of gaming circles who hate this style of play. I don’t think it’s a matter of good and bad, or a right and wrong way to game. But it certainly is a stylistic choice and it has consequences in terms of adventure design and campaign flow. There is no point pretending it does not.

At the same time, there are a great many players and DMs – most, I would say – that do not have a problem with a pre-planned adventure path. DL Classic Campaign will suit those groups nicely – with some work.

My point is not that:

1- DragonLance is a railroad – and all railroads are inherently and irretrievably bad.

Instead, my point is:

2- “DragonLance is a railroad. This railroad has certain undeniable strengths & benefits along with some weaknesses too. Overall, the good outweighs the bad especially with an experienced DM running it who is able to seamlessly adjust on the fly. Some of the current railroad elements work – but some of them do not. Upon reflection, you need to be prepared to compensate on the fly and you must discard the railroad elements that are broken in DL1 and fix them”

The railroad elements in DL1 before the party enters the swamp surrounding Xak Tsaroth are just badly broken. They never worked. Plain and simple. Discard them and remake the module and alter the metaplot in the DL campaign to compensate. This will probably necessitate a significant alteration to the story arc, depending on what you did to fix things.

Why are you bothering to do this? Because there are ten (10) modules after DL1 and DL2 that are completely worth the effort. There is years of gaming here – and it’s great stuff if you do the things to let it shine.

 

[Dr Simon]

First time I ran this, back when they first came out - played as written and used the Pre-Gens. Back then, the concept of "rail-roading" wasn't known to our group, so the PlotLine wasn't really a problem, but none of the players gave a toss about the characters.

I ran the campaign all the way up until DL12, but by that time the group were all heading off to university and we never finished it.

A few years back I re-jigged a lot of the setting and ran a PBeM game ( See http://www.physiol.ox.ac.uk/~sl2). I used RuneQuest for the mechanics, allowed the players to use their own characters and only loosely based things on the modules. The PBeM began with players scattered all over the place, and the idea was that they'd gradually meet, maybe end up opposing each other and so on, Worked pretty well, with only one character playing DL1 as such (and becoming the GoldMoon sort of character). Unfortunately PBeM lag took place. Some players met up but it seemed that as they did they dropped out. Fun though.

Undeterred, I recently tried to run a face-face game, again using RuneQuest and again only loosely following the modules (basically, the places were there but the order in which the characters found them, what they did and the outcomes I left to chance and player whim).

Xak Tsaroth was moved to the borders of Lemish to facilitate play. Otherwise the players have (effectively) done DL7 (Dragons of Light - Silvara and the Stone Dragon of Ergoth) and DL 8 (Dragons of War - High Clerist's Tower) but the rest has been variant adventures.

In all iterations of the game, though, everyone enjoys the "lift" down into Xak Tsaroth - there's always a good swashbuckling fight around that part.

 

[francisca]

But man, xak tsaroth is freakin' awesome, and tracy hickman layed the ground work for one of the best things to happen to D&D, and changed the gaming paradigm forever. Before this, dungeons and loosely connected modules. after- settings and full out campaign worlds.

You are speaking of TSR published material, correct? Certainly, I knew of people playing in detailed settings with deep plots prior to 1984, they were just homebrew.

In addition, my cousin, through the late 70s and early 80s, ran a very story heavy game set in and around Judge's Guild City State. He had very deep characters (both NPC and PC) and a story arc that Babylon 5 fans would swoon over. It worked because the mechanics, maps, and details were provided by Bledsaw and company, with little or no plot he needed to engineer his way around.

My opinion differs from yours. I don't want a script for a story, I want components I can assemble into a story. In my view, Hickman's contribution was great, but unwelcome.

 

[howandwhy99]

and the half-elven ranger died.

That wasn't death, that was a mercy killing. He just couldn't live knowing he had elven blood in him. pity.

But I am enjoying this new character thoroughly. Wait 'till Olgar springs the surprise.

 

[Dr Simon]

I don't want a script for a story, I want components I can assemble into a story. In my view, Hickman's contribution was great, but unwelcome.

Exactly. That was my intent in re-running the DL series - now I have all the components in terms of locations, NPCs and a general on-goin situation. Let the players into the sandbox and see what they stir up.

The "obscure death" rule in the DL series was a hateful thing, IMO.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I probably ran one of the weirdest DL1 games ever-

I converted it to Star Wars d20.

I was going to run the entire series as a template for a early Sith War campaign taking place on an out-of-the-way planet that was the Dark Jedi citadel during the Schism (20,000 years earlier). The party, a group of Jedi Padawans, had crashed on this world, their master was dead, and they were in posession of a strange amulet with healing powers (Blue Crystal Staff, anyone?) The Dragon Highlords became Sith Lords, invading the planet with armies of Massassi (which replaced the Draconians). Hobgoblins became Zabrak mercenaries, Elves became Twi'leks, Dwarves became sentient Droids, and dragons were kludged out and replaced with starfighters (a big part of the campaign would be to try to acquire some way to counter the Sith air support to stop the advance of their armies). The Wizards of High Sorcery became a secretive order of Force Adepts, and the Gods were replaced with spirits of dead Jedi masters. Lord Soth became an ancient Dark Jedi Cyborg of vast power who had been in cold storage for twenty millenia. All names were changed to protect the innocent.

Despite filing off all the serial numbers and transposing the whole game into Star Wars, one player figured out what I was doing a third of the way into the first module, and I suddenly decided it wasn't such a hot idea anymore...

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Played this back in high school during lunch breaks. Didn't really know that we were being railroaded (seems like back then we just followed the leads the DM threw us) and we had some fun with it (kind of lost interest after DL3 though). Re-reading it years later it really isd a railroad of the first order. Doesn't dampen my good memories of smacking down that black dragon in the first module and killing that Toade guy in the second.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I probably ran one of the weirdest DL1 games ever-

I converted it to Star Wars d20.

O_O

That's really cool. With a touch more work - you might have totally pulled that off. I'd never thought of something like that at all.

And I have spent a whole *lot* of time thinking up weird stuff to do with DL