What do you dislike/hate in Dragonlance?
- Thread starter Blacksad
- Start date
I only had the 1e hardcover and read some of the earliest books so I'll just speak from there. I agree with the kender/gnome/gully dwarf statement. I must say that I don't care for them too much. The setting is also heavily metaplotted. The whole world gets moved and shaken by NPCs and it's all pre-ordained. The 1e book also had a big problem in that the only areas with any real detail were the areas related to the books. The problem with this is that all of the stories in these areas were already told. The setting felt like a place where you could play along with the books but that's about it.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Too much History! Argh!
DL suffers from one big thing that's stopping me from getting into it at all:
Too Much History.
Forgotten Realms suffers a little from this, but, thank Greenwood, doesn't require the same familiarity with the books that Dragonlance requires.
It's always been annoying to me. I have nearly no idea what you people are talking about, because I avoid RPG books, for the most part. Yet I want to give DL a chance. It's just that, in order to do that, I have to read much or all of the library of things that have come before, to understand, even briefly, what's going on.
DL's setting has always been too closely tied to the books. Literature and RPG's, while close, are not and should not be the same story. The PC's should have a chance to affect the world in grand ways without having to know reams of history on the world. They should just be able to know what effects them directly. And I, as DM, should be able to know all the details about the current world without having to read a novel or two. It should be tied to the books, but also independant of them.
That's been the biggest hurdle for me.
The more minor hurdle is that Dwarves are the techie-race, not Gnomes. Gnomes are secretive illusionist-types.
But that's more my bias than anything wrong with the setting itself.
The setting seems intruiging. If I could only get into it without having to read the literature, I'd be happy.
DL suffers from one big thing that's stopping me from getting into it at all:
Too Much History.
Forgotten Realms suffers a little from this, but, thank Greenwood, doesn't require the same familiarity with the books that Dragonlance requires.
It's always been annoying to me. I have nearly no idea what you people are talking about, because I avoid RPG books, for the most part. Yet I want to give DL a chance. It's just that, in order to do that, I have to read much or all of the library of things that have come before, to understand, even briefly, what's going on.
DL's setting has always been too closely tied to the books. Literature and RPG's, while close, are not and should not be the same story. The PC's should have a chance to affect the world in grand ways without having to know reams of history on the world. They should just be able to know what effects them directly. And I, as DM, should be able to know all the details about the current world without having to read a novel or two. It should be tied to the books, but also independant of them.
That's been the biggest hurdle for me.
The more minor hurdle is that Dwarves are the techie-race, not Gnomes. Gnomes are secretive illusionist-types.
But that's more my bias than anything wrong with the setting itself.The setting seems intruiging. If I could only get into it without having to read the literature, I'd be happy.
Derulbaskul
Adventurer
I have hated DL since it was first released simply because the story had already been written. I have not followed the setting since then but simply assume that things have not improved.
Cheers
NPP
Cheers
NPP
Crothian
First Post
There was already a plot and heroes written that did it all. What was there left for the PCs? THe adventures followed the course of the books to closely, it was almost like a choose your own adventure. The PCs never had much free thought.
There was never any product that said how tom play in the world without involving the huge pre writen plot. The other world were defined by what the woirld was, DL was defined by the War of the Lance.
There was never any product that said how tom play in the world without involving the huge pre writen plot. The other world were defined by what the woirld was, DL was defined by the War of the Lance.
Randolpho
First Post
Ds Da Man said:
This is any different from the Forgotten Realms how? The Realms are *teeming* with stuff that's been done by the book heroes, or by the game creator's pet NPCs (*coughEl*cough*minster*cough*), the whole world is shaken up every few decades, and yet it's a fantastically sucessful campaign setting.
jollyninja
First Post
here it is, i am a huge fan of the setting, but here is what i hated about previous incarnations of dragonlance roleplaying products.
they assume that there is a certian level of familiarity (a verry high level, which i do have) that the reader allready has with the world, without that the world has from what i have seen been allmost unplayable. if a person does not come into the campaign having read at least chronicles, they are left feeling like they are blindfolded with their ears plugged.
there is a complete lack of source material for most of ansalon, if only there was a FR style geography section in any book it would make the world more playable. to play dragonlance with the existing material, you had to play in the shadow of the chronicles/ledgends, read every novel ever written, or make it up to flesh out the world. i need more then a single sentence to sum up a vast desert, i can look at the map and see that it's a desert, don't waste the ink telling me that. who lives there? what is their culture like? what monsters can be found?
there has been little to truly distinguish DL and make it different from other settings. give me some stuff that's not in any novel, some stuff that gives DL more of a personality because quite honestly, alot of the stuff has been so regurgitated in every novel that they just are no longer interesting.
for the love of god, give us a reasonable description of the little cultures (victims of character assassination by poor writing and even worse roleplaying) so that they will be more then annoying archetypes, lay it out so that a 9 year old could understand that just because your character is a kender does not mean that he will steal the fighters plain looking +5 vorpal sword every chance he gets.
the FR still has enough locations that have been flushed out for the game but not overexposed in 20 novels that if you do not want your campaign to have anything to do with elminster, you can find places where the scribe of shadowdale is not likley to go without good reason. that's the difference between FR and DL, the areas not in FR novels are playable, the DL areas not in books are barely skimmed over in the existing DL setting info.
they assume that there is a certian level of familiarity (a verry high level, which i do have) that the reader allready has with the world, without that the world has from what i have seen been allmost unplayable. if a person does not come into the campaign having read at least chronicles, they are left feeling like they are blindfolded with their ears plugged.
there is a complete lack of source material for most of ansalon, if only there was a FR style geography section in any book it would make the world more playable. to play dragonlance with the existing material, you had to play in the shadow of the chronicles/ledgends, read every novel ever written, or make it up to flesh out the world. i need more then a single sentence to sum up a vast desert, i can look at the map and see that it's a desert, don't waste the ink telling me that. who lives there? what is their culture like? what monsters can be found?
there has been little to truly distinguish DL and make it different from other settings. give me some stuff that's not in any novel, some stuff that gives DL more of a personality because quite honestly, alot of the stuff has been so regurgitated in every novel that they just are no longer interesting.
for the love of god, give us a reasonable description of the little cultures (victims of character assassination by poor writing and even worse roleplaying) so that they will be more then annoying archetypes, lay it out so that a 9 year old could understand that just because your character is a kender does not mean that he will steal the fighters plain looking +5 vorpal sword every chance he gets.
the FR still has enough locations that have been flushed out for the game but not overexposed in 20 novels that if you do not want your campaign to have anything to do with elminster, you can find places where the scribe of shadowdale is not likley to go without good reason. that's the difference between FR and DL, the areas not in FR novels are playable, the DL areas not in books are barely skimmed over in the existing DL setting info.
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