Has anyone run the entire Dragonlance saga?

[Kylearan]

Well met!

I played the whole series and DM'd it as well. DL1 was my first AD&D adventure to play, and I can't recall any motivation problems going to Xak Tsaroth. But then again, one of the other players ran through the module before and was playing Riverwind. Us newbies, we created our own characters to fill roles like Caramon or Raistlin.

In the end, the whole campaign was a lot of fun and I liked the 'railroading' aspect; at least, it gave us a view of the grad story. Probably set my style of playing: try to adhere to the given storyline.

Also, I found it easier to run the modules without the players knowing the books: more excitement after new revelations, no 'I read the book, this can't happen like that' attitudes.

And DL1 is the perfect introductory adventure for beginning players and DMs, I think. I'm still intrigued by the dragonman priests aka Bozak Draconians.
[edit] But the campaign also set standards for magical equipment: you get too much of it, which makes it difficult to handle the characters later on... [/edit]

Btw, why not have an Evil Dragon create Draconians in Greyhawk. Could be an interesting story... (Where did he get the eggs from? What's his plan? Can these Draconians reproduce on their own? Why is the Church of Vecna helping? The look of players aware of the Dragonlance Saga when they unexpectedly meet a few Baaz led by a Bozak.)

Kylearan, who needs to do a Draconian conversion because he doesn't want to buy the new Campaign Setting only for five monsters

 

[wazza]

I am currently running the Dragonlance saga with the 3.5 rule set. I explained upfront that their PC's would be railroaded from time to time and only one player objected (and has subsequently left the group).

I am on DL2 at the moment and the party has just arrived at Pax Tharkas to free the Plainsmen prisoners. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

I find it definitely works best if the players chose their characters from the heroes provided rather than generate their own. The only problem I find is the difference in power levels between 1st edition and 3.0/3.5. If the party were to take on Onyx (an ancient Black dragon) using the 3.5 rules they won't have a chance. Likewise Toede is only a 4th level fighter so may need to be beefed up.

I'm running Dragonlance for 3 reasons:
1. I have always wanted to since being a player in then when they first came out back in the 80's.
2. I don't have time to generate my own campaign world and
3. There is a cohesive story line and the players are for the most part good aligned.

I would recommend that the saga only be attempted by a experienced DM and players who don't mind be nudged in the correct direction from time to time.

Wazza.

 

[Toscadero]

re: Dragonlance

I ran the series up through DL9. Would have liked to complete the campaign, but several players graduated and moved so the group went dormant for a while. At the time, I loved the setting. It was one of the first really detailed campaigns and the provided characters were fully fleshed out.

There is some railroading, but if provided in the right context (following the quest) the modules are very enjoyable. The battle for the High Clerist's Tower is still one of the best meetings I've ever run.

I tried to run a new group through the modules a few years back before 3.0, but it no longer had the same feel. The funny thing was, rather than being dissappointed that the players (group 2) did not run things like the book, I found myself thinking that the players from the first group did things better. We scrapped the campaign for something more original.

The Draconians are still pretty cool to this day.

 

[Klaus]

I don't think they're the worst paintjobs ever - I've seen worse - but they're not good.

However, the shape of the miniatures is fairly accurate.

Cheers!

Well, they can certainly be used as Dragonkin (Draconomicon) or the half-dragon personal guard of a metallic dragon...

The kapak can even pass for half-white dragons.

Game On!

 

[wedgeski]

I was just wondering if there was anyone here who had DMed or played through the entire Dragonlance Saga (DL1-14, or the Dragonlance Classics reprint series).

Yep. It's hard. Very very hard. I consider the running of that campaign to be my training as a DM.

My group did not know the Dragonlance Chronicles story-line at the time so most of what was going on was new to them. They were running their own characters - but knowing what was coming up in the campaign, I made a few suggestions about a good party which they mostly followed (so we had a kender, a cleric-in-waiting, a tank, and a wizard, for example, allowing many of the plot hooks to impact the party but still allowing them to feel in control).

During the running of this campaign, I transmuted from a winger DM to the most extreme type of planner imaginable, putting untold hours of preparation into each session, and by the end, I'd swung back into a bit of both. Some of the modules are so DM-unfriendly in layout and detail that it beggars belief, requiring massive preparation, but others just fall off the page into the laps of the players. You have to get used to these good and bad sessions - it's very difficult to be consistent.

In terms of railroading - well yeah, of course it does. Some of the modules try hard to find ways to entice the party back onto the plot, others put in only token effort. However, the epic feel of the campaign, the quality of the NPC's, and the variety of locales (even if, back in the day, you were forced to invent a lot of the detail) almost always shine through. I've come out of the back of sessions which I thought were awful, and yet my players have been talking excitedly about it and waiting for more. You really just never know.

 

[Beretta]

I was just wondering if there was anyone here who had DMed or played through the entire Dragonlance Saga (DL1-14, or the Dragonlance Classics reprint series).

It is one of the things I want to do before I die.

I bought the modules as I was growing up. I loved reading them, I loved reading the novels (though I don't like the world as an ongoing setting for D&D adventures). I've run DL10 a couple of times, likewise with DL1, but I've never got any further into the series.
So, has anyone here run them all, or played through the entire sequence?

Cheers!

I too would like to either run or play through the entire series of modules before I die, but none of my group are DL fans. So there's little chance of me doing either unfortunately. I think that the modules would be vastly improved under V3.5, and if the stats of the characters were redone using the point-buy method (as they're pretty disparate between them as presented, not to mention downright crap for some of them).

It's a shame you live so far from Sydney, MerricB...

 

[MerricB]

It's a shame you live so far from Sydney, MerricB...

It is, isn't it.

Cheers!

 

[Cam Banks]

I think that the modules would be vastly improved under V3.5, and if the stats of the characters were redone using the point-buy method (as they're pretty disparate between them as presented, not to mention downright crap for some of them).

A big part of those wildly variant ability scores is the class of the character in AD&D. Rangers had all kinds of prerequisite scores, so Riverwind is overall the better of the Heroes of the Lance. Some of the others look as if they were actually rolled - Flint and Tasslehoff have really low Intelligence scores, for example.

I'm the guy who put together the 3.0 conversion documents in the link posted earlier in this thread. Work on those got me involved with the Whitestone Council, the core fan support behind the Dragonlance Nexus and Dragonlance.com, and from there to writing freelance for Sovereign Press. The original modules and characters still rank right up there as some of my favorite things about D&D, so it's no surprise to me to see folks excited about running the DL1-DL15 series again.

Those who are interested in a Chronicles campaign should definitely pick up the War of the Lance hardcover at GenCon 2004. It's Dragonlance's 20th anniversary this year, and this book looks to be absolutely packed with valuable and useful information and rules for 4th age gaming.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[wazza]

I'd be interested in any more details of the War of the Lance hardcover due out this year.

PS. Will you be writing any more DL module conversions? I downloaded DL1-2 when I ran my Campaign and they were very useful.

Regards
Wazza.

 

[Cam Banks]

I'd be interested in any more details of the War of the Lance hardcover due out this year.

Wish I had more information for you. Check out www.dragonlance.com for updates and so on. Jamie Chambers is the guy who distributes details, I'm just a freelancer!

PS. Will you be writing any more DL module conversions? I downloaded DL1-2 when I ran my Campaign and they were very useful.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to do any more conversions, with the work I do for SP and my own busy life. I do have a copy of DL3's conversion notes lying about, but they're not 100% complete.

Cheers,
Cam