D&D 5E How do you hope WotC treats the upcoming classic settings?

[Hussar]

Even so, referring to a novel as YA when not labeled as such can be seen as a diminutive. Like telling someone that the thing they like is just for kids (and implying that the fan is immature for enjoying it). Maybe people are just defending a story they like.

But... Dragonlance IS labeled as YA fiction. It was at the time and it still is. How is it diminuative when it's simply the truth?

 

[Hussar]

They will change things to be more agreeable. IE Dark Sun may not have massive slavery. Dragonlance may not have that all Kender are kleptos or all Gnomes are Tinker Gnomes. Takhisis isnt an evil goddess, shes just misunderstood.

.... no. Just no. And, frankly, if that's your understanding of the issues around things like orcs and whatnot, you really, really have missed the point.

 

[Hussar]

There are actually lore reasons why Gnomes are all tinkerers (in a fashion) and all Kender feel wanderlust and "borrow" things and why Dwarvesa ll like to create things etc.

You can't say it doesnt make sense when the in game lore reason is literally "god magic makes them do it".

Someone help me out here. THere's a word for using in universe elements to justify bad ideas, but, I'm drawing a blank on it.

 

[jasper]

How should they treat them? Not publish them at all.

 

[Steampunkette]

Even so, referring to a novel as YA when not labeled as such can be seen as a diminutive. Like telling someone that the thing they like is just for kids (and implying that the fan is immature for enjoying it). Maybe people are just defending a story they like.

Oh, sure. But within the context of the discussion it was just a description of reality. Not an insult.

I suppose it depends in how you look at it.

Most of what you mentioned wouldn't be out of place in books I read.

Love triangles, oppression, death, and such isn't out of place for even just Dragonlance.

I think it's fair to say aspects of Dragonlance are more whimsical in parts. Though, that would also be true when comparing DL to other books I read around the same time.

Hunger Games doesn't seem particularly worse to me. The ideas being presented are just different and in a different genre.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is a book series written by Suzanne Collins. Lavinia's Brother - Speared by the capitol. Unnamed District 8 Male - Throat slit by Marvel in the Cornucopia Bloodbath. Unnamed District 10 Female - Stabbed repeatedly by Glimmer offscreen during the Cornucopia Bloodbath. Unnamed...

listofdeaths.fandom.com

Here's the list of deaths, which are sanitized for the wiki. Perhaps it's been too long since I read the Chronicles, but I don't remember there being this many deaths, much less this many gruesome deaths of innocent and/or protagonist characters...

Also no point in which Tika was forced to stand naked in front of thousands of people...

So... y'know. I'm not trying to say the Hunger Games or other more modern works than the Chronicles are "Worse" or something. I'm just saying that the Chronicles had less total "Adult" violent material to them by comparison. And it was set during a time of war.

It has to do with society's changing tolerances, more than anything. But ultimately I think the Chronicles would be solidly in the tween, teen, and young adult reading level. Which, y'know... is just a thing. Not a value judgement.

 

[Faolyn]

There are actually lore reasons why Gnomes are all tinkerers (in a fashion) and all Kender feel wanderlust and "borrow" things and why Dwarvesa ll like to create things etc.

You can't say it doesnt make sense when the in game lore reason is literally "god magic makes them do it".

That makes it even dumber, IMO. That's not a lore. That's "we can't think of a decent reason so we just say a god did it."

 

[Hussar]

Considering that YA fiction is probably the best selling fiction of all time (thank you JK), I'm not sure being in the YA genre is a bad thing.

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But, just a thought about cutting stuff for "modern sensibilities" and the like.

Take the slavery in Dark Sun. Some are saying that it will be cut because we can't have slavery in works. That's not what's being argued at all. Slavery in a D&D product is perfectly fine (read the Monster Manual if you think it's not). What isn't fine would be to celebrate slavery. To try to justify it somehow and make it acceptable or even just accepted. Slavery in Dark Sun is evil. It's shown (and has always been shown) to be evil. There's no shying away from the horrors of slavery in the setting. And, making slavers the bad guys in adventures is pretty easy.

What would be problematic would be an adventure where the PC's are hired to go around to villages, kill all the males they find, round up all the women, bring them back to be sold into sexual slavery and then rewarded. But, fortunately, no one is publishing that adventure.

OTOH, you look at kender kleptomania. Here we have mental issues being paraded as parody and celebrated. They're not mentally ill, they're just "that way". They were just "made that way". It's diminishing the actual issues that mental issues cause in the world and those who suffer from them. Psychotic as hero instead of someone who is suffering. So, yeah, kender are problematic and, in a future Dragonlance product, you will probably either see the whole kleptomania thing fade to the background, or be seen as a curse. The Greygem didn't do them any favors when it twisted their minds and turned them into Kender.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How should they treat them? Not publish them at all

 

[Charlaquin]

You mean like, say, Harry Potter? 8 is the first year for Hogwarts (or is it 9?). Seemed to work pretty well.

11

 

[Charlaquin]

Someone help me out here. THere's a word for using in universe elements to justify bad ideas, but, I'm drawing a blank on it.

Thermian Argument, though I think the term frequently gets misused. The Folding Ideas video that coined the term was specifically about responses to critique of a writer’s choices that defend those choices based on in-fiction lore.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That makes it even dumber, IMO. That's not a lore. That's "we can't think of a decent reason so we just say a god did it."

Yeah. And that's pretty common in Dragonlance. (It's common in the FR, too, but Dragonlance has major plot points hinge around it.) Saying "a god made this race be evil kleptomaniacs/absolutely terrible at the thing they're supposed to be good at/very clear stand-ins for people with mental illnesses" is not an argument in favor of that thing. "A Wizard Did It" doesn't make it any better. In many cases, it can actually make it worse.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Considering that YA fiction is probably the best selling fiction of all time (thank you JK), I'm not sure being in the YA genre is a bad thing.

------------

But, just a thought about cutting stuff for "modern sensibilities" and the like.

Take the slavery in Dark Sun. Some are saying that it will be cut because we can't have slavery in works. That's not what's being argued at all. Slavery in a D&D product is perfectly fine (read the Monster Manual if you think it's not). What isn't fine would be to celebrate slavery. To try to justify it somehow and make it acceptable or even just accepted. Slavery in Dark Sun is evil. It's shown (and has always been shown) to be evil. There's no shying away from the horrors of slavery in the setting. And, making slavers the bad guys in adventures is pretty easy.

What would be problematic would be an adventure where the PC's are hired to go around to villages, kill all the males they find, round up all the women, bring them back to be sold into sexual slavery and then rewarded. But, fortunately, no one is publishing that adventure.

OTOH, you look at kender kleptomania. Here we have mental issues being paraded as parody and celebrated. They're not mentally ill, they're just "that way". They were just "made that way". It's diminishing the actual issues that mental issues cause in the world and those who suffer from them. Psychotic as hero instead of someone who is suffering. So, yeah, kender are problematic and, in a future Dragonlance product, you will probably either see the whole kleptomania thing fade to the background, or be seen as a curse. The Greygem didn't do them any favors when it twisted their minds and turned them into Kender.

But then you are making them JUST halflings and JUST Gnomes etc.

Take away the Wizard robe colors and the they are just… Wizards.

It all makes Dragonlance just more generic and frankly we have Faerun and/or Greyhawk for that. Or currently Crit Role land.

Taking away or changing everything that’s a setting ubique just makes them all boring and same-y IMO.

 

[Hussar]

But then you are making them JUST halflings and JUST Gnomes etc.

Take away the Wizard robe colors and the they are just… Wizards.

It all makes Dragonlance just more generic and frankly we have Faerun and/or Greyhawk for that. Or currently Crit Role land.

Taking away or changing everything that’s a setting ubique just makes them all boring and same-y IMO.

If the defining elements of a setting are grounded in concepts best consigned to the dustbins of history, then that setting either needs to be changed or consigned as well.

Let's not also get started on gully dwarves as well. Some ideas just don't really age well. If we can redeem Lovecraftian horror, surely we can sort this out.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah. And that's pretty common in Dragonlance. (It's common in the FR, too, but Dragonlance has major plot points hinge around it.) Saying "a god made this race be evil kleptomaniacs/absolutely terrible at the thing they're supposed to be good at/very clear stand-ins for people with mental illnesses" is not an argument in favor of that thing. "A Wizard Did It" doesn't make it any better. In many cases, it can actually make it worse.

I'm sorry, but I see this as such a poor take on Kender, but perhaps I'm simply naive and looking at it from the perspective of a kid reading the books.

I highly doubt the author's intent was to create a race and just laugh at how they are mentally ill.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

But then you are making them JUST halflings and JUST Gnomes etc.

If the only parts of their identity that separate them from Halflings and Gnomes are extremely problematic (mocking mental illness), then they don't deserve to exist. I know that people would complain about it because of nostalgia, but that's not an argument against changing them. If the only thing not making Dragonlance be just another generic fantasy setting filled with generic fantasy races is making fun of mental health issues, then it doesn't deserve to be updated to 5e, especially if there is no compromise between "get rid of these problematic things" and "getting rid of them destroys their core identity!!!"

Maybe they deserve to be just halflings and gnomes if the only other parts of their identity are extremely problematic.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I'm sorry, but I see this as such a poor take on Kender, but perhaps I'm simply naive and looking at it from the perspective of a kid reading the books.

I highly doubt the author's intent was to create a race and just laugh at how they are mentally ill.

I was referring to three different races there. Kender, Tinker Gnomes, and Gully Dwarves. The Gully Dwarves are the most problematic of the three, and are who I was referring to with the "very clear stand-ins for people with mental illnesses". Of the problematic things from Dragonlance's races, the Gully Dwarves would be the first ones getting dumped if I were in charge of a modern translation of Dragonlance.

 

[Scribe]

I thought we were talking about the Kleptomania. Gully Dwarves have their own issues certainly.

 

[Malmuria]

Couple of things.

1. Train Your Dragon 3 is PG-13. It has, apparently, drugs, sexual content and naughty language. IOW, it's more adult content than Dragonlance.

2. Dragonlance at the time was marketed to the YA fantasy crowd. DL was never intended as an adult series. The primary audience for DL was the same as Harry Potter, or, now, How to Train Your Dragon. I'm frankly rather baffled how you came to the idea that DL was meant for an older audience.

So, with that in mind, why do you think that DL is a mature audience series?

I read DL when I was 10 or 11, and it was perfect for those ages. I came back to one of the novels when I was 14, and was horrified to find my beloved novels were filled with overdone purple prose!
Meanwhile I read The Crystal Shard only as an adult and...I'm sorry, but it's bad. Real bad.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I thought we were talking about the Kleptomania. Gully Dwarves have their own issues certainly.

Not just that. More in general the problematic elements of Dragonlance's race and how "A God did it" doesn't make them any less problematic.

 

[Scribe]

Not just that. More in general the problematic elements of Dragonlance's race and how "A God did it" doesn't make them any less problematic.

'A God did it', is why I have said Wizards needs to address Gods in general, or distance themselves from them as we see in Eberron, and this upcoming CR book.

I'm not sure that the Gods of FR, will ever sit well with the 'modern fan' if they think about it too much.