D&D General What Are Dragonlance's Weis & Hickman, and Actor Manganiello Cooking Up?

Actor and D&D superfan Joe Manganiello and Dragonlance co-author Tracy Hickman have both posted a cryptic image on their respective social medias showing themselves, along with Margaret Weis standing together in front of a large dragon statue at Wizards of the Coast's offices in Renton, Washington.

Hickman's image was accompanied by the words "Something is coming...", and in Manganiello's case "WE'RE BACK", to which Wizards of the Coast replied "Welcome back to the table!" A later photograph from Weis also included Laura Hickman and Dan Ayoub, who was named head of Dungeons & Dragons back in July of this year.

The posts have sparked speculation as to what they might mean, with guesses ranging from a revival of Manganiello's Dragonlance TV show project--which was no longer in development after he stated in February 2024 that "Dragonlance is not a property WotC are interested in developing further currently"--to a new Dragonlance-based D&D adventure.

Weis and Hickman co-wrote a new Dragonlance trilogy in recent years following a legal dust-up with Wizards of the Coast which was ultimately dismissed without prejudice, so it would seem that any bad blood from the dispute has been left in the past.

The question now remains--what are they all cooking up this time?

 

[JDazzle]

Wishing for a 5E conversion of the original Dragonlance saga with the Curse of Strahd treatment (meaning added content, fleshed out scenarios, goodies, etc).

Note that we already have updated stat blocks from the Dragonlance adventure, Shadow of the Dragon Queen

 

[Parmandur]

Wishing for a 5E conversion of the original Dragonlance saga with the Curse of Strahd treatment (meaning added content, fleshed out scenarios, goodies, etc).

Note that we already have updated stat blocks from the Dragonlance adventure, Shadow of the Dragon Queen

Honestly, seems very probable and more likely than a successful TV show.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I mean...cast it like the books and existing art describe the characters which have existed for decades?

Seems a pretty easy "issue" to thereby avoid.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I will point out that the original GoT author hasn't been able to adapt the story competently either. The trouble with setting out to subvert tropes is that you paint yourself into a corner. "Has a satisfactory ending" is an unrealistic trope - and it was Tolkien, not GRRM, who hung a lampshade on that: "don't adventures ever end?"

As I said, the original story doesn't matter. The GoT TV show looked good, and had a good cast. Which made it initially much better and more popular than the novels upon which it was based. What it lacked is any idea of where it was going, a problem with the novels that the TV show inherited by trying to copy them too slavishly.

Game of Thrones actually is not as subversive as people have been trained to expect. The real hero of the series is the archetypical hidden prince. The subversion is early on, in decoy protagonists like Ned Stark, Robb Stark or Daenarys. The showrunners didn't understand their material as well as they thought they did and made certain changes or omissions early on that affected the story that was being told. As I said, skill issue. Rings of Power has a similar problem, but more pronounced since they are creating their own material from the beginning. They either don't understand or don't care to understand with the themes of the world they are creating in, so their new material seems ill-fitting.

 

[pukunui]

The real hero of the series is the archetypical hidden prince.

I know that within the context of the story, he was a hidden prince, but from the viewer's perspective, he spent the entire show with a neon sign above his head declaring him to be the secret Chosen One. It was glaringly obvious right from the get-go that the bastard wasn't really a bastard ...

The subversion is early on, in decoy protagonists like Ned Stark, Robb Stark or Daenarys.

It also came later, like when Arya literally swooped in out of nowhere to defeat the White Walkers, when the story had been building up to it being Jon.

I'm one of those people who doesn't mind where all the pieces ended up on the board by the end of GoT. I just didn't like how they got there. Some endings didn't feel earned in the rush to finish.

 

[mamba]

You can suspect it, yet Amazon keeps makomg the show.

yeah, they certainly are willing to spend on it, $250M for the license is not cheap, and apparently there are penalties if they make fewer seasons too...

 

[mamba]

Wishing for a 5E conversion of the original Dragonlance saga with the Curse of Strahd treatment (meaning added content, fleshed out scenarios, goodies, etc).

I certainly hope for this as a tie-in to the show. Heck, I take it without a show too

 

[Parmandur]

I know that within the context of the story, he was a hidden prince, but from the viewer's perspective, he spent the entire show with a neon sign above his head declaring him to be the secret Chosen One. It was glaringly obvious right from the get-go that the bastard wasn't really a bastard ...


It also came later, like when Arya literally swooped in out of nowhere to defeat the White Walkers, when the story had been building up to it being Jon.

I'm one of those people who doesn't mind where all the pieces ended up on the board by the end of GoT. I just didn't like how they got there. Some endings didn't feel earned in the rush to finish.

Jon being a Targaryan was pretty obvious from the first novel, too.

 

[Parmandur]

yeah, they certainly are willing to spend on it, $250M for the license is not cheap, and apparently there are penalties if they make fewer seasons too...

Yup, and they say they are making money...doubt they would continue if they weren't.

 

[MockingBird]

Jon being a Targaryan was pretty obvious from the first novel, too.

Yeah the first book gives it away, or lays it out for the reader when we see Ned's fever dream. Id say the show did pretty good keeping the viewer second guessing it. Was it season 6 when we finally see the Tower of Joy flash back (Ned's fever dream)? I didn't read the books until after the show finished. The level of adaptation that season 1-3 used was perfect in my opinion. By season's 4-8 they really threw away some interesting story archs. We still dont know how GRRM plans on finishing it, and may never know haha. I heard the show runners really wanted to make a Start Wars movie so they rushed the last couple of seasons. They didn't even get to make their SW movie either. Looking forward to Knight of the Seven Kingdoms though. Still on the fence about HoTD.