Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Announced, Release Date Scheduled for June 2026

[Scribe]

The PHB also has Orcs. Which don’t exist in Krynn.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If Orcs in the PHB work for Krynn, so does the Lunar Sorcerer.

Neither of which do, and they shouldn't have messed with the setting. Do it right or don't do it.

 

[Artamo]

Dragonlance is such a mystery to me - it was probably the most well known setting at one point forty years ago, with the books making TSR considerable money. And they just kind of let it die on the vine. Ravenloft, amazingly, kept being nurtured and updated with virtually every edition of the game, and now it’s maybe the second most recognizable setting after Forgotten Realms.

How might have design decisions changed if Dragonlance was still one of their top settings? Would Draconians have replaced Dragonborn? Would orcs have been introduced narratively in some way?

 

[Stormonu]

Dragonlance is such a mystery to me - it was probably the most well known setting at one point forty years ago, with the books making TSR considerable money. And they just kind of let it die on the vine. Ravenloft, amazingly, kept being nurtured and updated with virtually every edition of the game, and now it’s maybe the second most recognizable setting after Forgotten Realms.

How might have design decisions changed if Dragonlance was still one of their top settings? Would Draconians have replaced Dragonborn? Would orcs have been introduced narratively in some way?

The SAGA version and associated books I think did much to cool people's interest in DragonLance, I know it did so for me and that the game line associated with it did fairly awful.

Sovereign Press tried to keep the line alive, but they were a speck compared to WotC - and weren't getting any help from WotC for that matter.

Rolling it back to the War of the Lance for the latest book I think was their best idea to present it once again, especially with moving the action northward where that part of the war hadn't been explored and was open to let players use their own PCs.

It would need a blitz campaign on the level the original had to get a lot of eyes back on it, but with the D&D team's flailing to co-ordinate other media with releases (so many times it seems the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing) I don't have a sense it would be something they could handle without major changes in their team dynamic.

In short, they'd need to make a major push to energize Dragonlance, and these days these seem more fire & forget with products.

***
And I'm sorry, as much as I like Dragonborn, Draconians have no place as PC options during the War of the Lance. (After the War might make some sense, with Takhisis's control over them severed, ala the freeing of Warforged in Eberron). And Draconians are Dragonlance's Orcs, they don't need to be added in.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dragonlance is such a mystery to me - it was probably the most well known setting at one point forty years ago

It wasn’t the setting that was particularly popular, it pretty generic, with a lot less variety and support for different types of story than the Forgotten Realms, and less genre focused than settings like Ravenloft and Dark Sun.

It was the story that was popular, especially the War of the Lance story arc* over many modules and novels. But once the original story was played out it struggled to find other stories with the same impact, and the original writers left to write stories that they actually owned the rights to.


*which was basically a mash up of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

 

[Kurotowa]

Dragonlance is such a mystery to me - it was probably the most well known setting at one point forty years ago, with the books making TSR considerable money. And they just kind of let it die on the vine. Ravenloft, amazingly, kept being nurtured and updated with virtually every edition of the game, and now it’s maybe the second most recognizable setting after Forgotten Realms.

How might have design decisions changed if Dragonlance was still one of their top settings? Would Draconians have replaced Dragonborn? Would orcs have been introduced narratively in some way?

Dragonlance was well known and beloved for its novels. I've had friends who were really invested in them. But I don't think I've ever known someone who had been using it as a campaign setting. No actual play stories, no beloved characters. It's just not nearly as game friendly as other settings. Less room for the PCs, not nearly as much setting diversity.

So it's no surprise that interest in Dragonlance died off quickly when the novels dried up. That's all that most people really cared about. Meanwhile Ravenloft and Planescape are highly game friendly, so those got kept alive by active fan bases that could participate in shared creative works.

 

[Remathilis]

Dragonlance is such a mystery to me - it was probably the most well known setting at one point forty years ago, with the books making TSR considerable money. And they just kind of let it die on the vine. Ravenloft, amazingly, kept being nurtured and updated with virtually every edition of the game, and now it’s maybe the second most recognizable setting after Forgotten Realms.

How might have design decisions changed if Dragonlance was still one of their top settings? Would Draconians have replaced Dragonborn? Would orcs have been introduced narratively in some way?

IMHO Dragonlance has always been a better story than game setting. To me, it's every problem with an IP focused RPG like Star Wars with none of the charm of getting to be something D&D doesn't offer. You get to bask in the shadow of the important characters and get to play the same stuff you could play in Greyhawk or the Realms.

 

[Artamo]

Hadn’t really considered the story vs setting distinction but that makes sense. It’s interesting that Ravenloft is still anchored by a single well known NPC, who is doomed to basically always tell the same story of adventurers knocking on his door interrupting his plans to find Tatyana. But I guess, origin aside, that story never really gets completed - it just resets each time, whereas DragonLance became a whole extensive canon with few pieces left for PCs to explore.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I have got other fool idea for Dragonlance. We start with a group of people from other world who notice they are reincarnated into other "chuansu" (isekai where the main character is reincarnated within a literary work). They discover they are now in the world of Krynn but this is not exactly in the way they remembered... with strange changes, for example they are dragoborns but these are seen like bigger cousins of kobolds. After several adventures (Fizban didn't appear and then they couldn't ask him) they discover a true unconfortable truth.

This "rebooted Krynnspace" is the alternate apocalyptic where Raistlin became the only god. What happened? Raistlin accepted a deal with other divine powers for a "new begining" of Krynnspace. The price? Something linked to Vecna, but also with Tharizdum and the other timeline where the only god was the kingpriest of Istar.

A secondary effect is defiler casters from other world within the Krynnspace.

 

[Parmandur]

See that's the problem. I don't see WotC doing it. Not in the fashion being discussed. I don't think you could release the classic modules without some additional support for the setting and expect it to do well.

Shadow of the Dragon Queen was a module set in the same world and time frame with minimal world building and PC options, but it at least sold something new people. Some people bought it as just an adventure. Others for the PC options. Some bought it because it was a new story in the classic era. But it offered something new and different. I just don't know if redoing the classic adventures with different art and better maps is enough to resell it. It seems like even less than SotDQ offered and WotC probably has to offer MORE, not less, to make up for SotDQ's shortcomings.

Most people buying stuff today are entirely unfamiliar with the Dalnmodukes, just as with the material in Infinite Staircase. Makes it good fodder for a fresh update.

 

[Parmandur]

Dragonlance was well known and beloved for its novels. I've had friends who were really invested in them. But I don't think I've ever known someone who had been using it as a campaign setting. No actual play stories, no beloved characters. It's just not nearly as game friendly as other settings. Less room for the PCs, not nearly as much setting diversity.

So it's no surprise that interest in Dragonlance died off quickly when the novels dried up. That's all that most people really cared about. Meanwhile Ravenloft and Planescape are highly game friendly, so those got kept alive by active fan bases that could participate in shared creative works.

However the DL modules were themselves widely played, and it is interesting finding stories of tables that ran them off-script. Lots of classic dungeon design in there.