Dragonlance What Happened To The New DRAGONLANCE Trilogy?

[Mannahnin]

It seems to me that when W&H originally approached WotC they gave them permission to go ahead expecting them to do (b). But they actually did (a), which was why WotC objected. Lawyers then pointed out that having given permission, WotC can't stop W&H doing (a). As a result of that WotC have made it clear that the game and any novels are completely separate entities. WotC wouldn't have needed to do that if they where not moving forward with their own DL product. It seems to me that the novel and an a WotC revamp are both likely to come out in 2022, but by coincidence, not planning (at least not on WotC's part).

But b) doesn't actually exist, right? My understanding is that they asked for some content/plot changes (I have a vague memory of a love potion, for example) based on D&D's current internal content guidelines. Not based on consistency with a new canon for Dragonlance which hasn't been created yet.

I don't think the obstacles to a) are really that big. It's not huge areas of DL that need revision. Gully Dwarves are not all that important an element. Kender and Tinker Gnomes might need minor tweaks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think the obstacles to a) are really that big. It's not huge areas of DL that need revision. Gully Dwarves are not all that important an element. Kender and Tinker Gnomes might need minor tweaks.

Yeah it's not the NON-human races that are the major issue with DL.

The major issues are many, but some examples are:

A) All the black people in the setting are basically pirates and referred to as "Sea Barbarians" (which is just rude lol on top of anything else, because they seem just as technologically advanced and civilized as everyone else).

B) There are lot of faux-Native American tribes in the setting, but not only are they pretty stereotypical (of 1970s white perceptions of Native Americans, which I guess is better than 1960s or 1950s or something), and you guessed it, referred to as "barbarians", but plenty of them are "white people", which like, yeah, that's really not great at all on a variety of levels.

C) Asian people straight up don't exist even though these other groups do (on Anaslon anyway - arguably they do on Taladas, which is about 20x more diverse, racially and culturally, than Anaslon), which er, yeah again not great.

I could go on.

Is it fixable? Maybe, but it would require pretty drastically new "takes" on a lot of stuff.

 

[Mannahnin]

Those seem like entirely reasonable criticisms.

My recollection is that those societies didn't come up much in the original pair of trilogies; some tribal folks (Goldmoon and Riverwind's people, and later the Kagonesti, right?), but to a limited extent. But I may be misremembering or missing stuff; I read only a few books beyond those original six, and it's been more than twenty years.

Thinking on the setting elements you'd expect to be central, A, B, and C mostly aren't among them, and so I reckon those could be safely revised without impacting the central nostalgic stuff.

 

[darjr]

It seems to me that when W&H originally approached WotC they gave them permission to go ahead expecting them to do (b). But they actually did (a), which was why WotC objected. Lawyers then pointed out that having given permission, WotC can't stop W&H doing (a). As a result of that WotC have made it clear that the game and any novels are completely separate entities. WotC wouldn't have needed to do that if they where not moving forward with their own DL product. It seems to me that the novel and an a WotC revamp are both likely to come out in 2022, but by coincidence, not planning (at least not on WotC's part).

Or the WotC adventure could be a modern take on the original adventure material and the books are a new story in the classic era?

I don’t see W&H (love this btw) rewriting the original stores.
Further I don’t see WotC doing anything other than the original adventure material.

Unless WotC does a full setting book. Which still might not track closely to W&Hs new story. Nor does it need to.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

With the learnt experencie even the same authors notice some new ideas could have been added.

Why are taling about decades of novels being printed and published. This is not like a movie or teleserie where remake or reboot are better tolerated.

This is not only about how to add more people from different ethnic origins, but other crunch elements as classes and PC races.

Modules and videogames allow non-canon options, for example a different list of PCs, or little changes, for example Goldmoon being a druid or a favored soul instead a cleric without armor, or Sturm a warblade (martial adept class) or Raitslin with some warlock levels, or the order of the seeker train to develope psionic powers.

The heroes of the lance are very famous but with their closed ending to introduce new adventures with these are more difficult. The second generation is a good option, but these needs an interesting antagonist and a good reason to explain why this didn't appear before.

The time travel is canon in Dragonlance, but if we allow uchronies and alternate timelines then this could alter seriously the rest of the D&D multiverse. Let's imagine in DM Guild homebreed alternate version of Krynn.

The Krynnsphere could be totally retconnected, for example to allow space where the gem dragons could be added (this could be a good reason to explain why they didn't appear for the war of the lance).

 

[Scribe]

Nobody ever went broke selling Gen X their own childhood back to them.

Yep. If I look over my own hobby time and expense over the last probably 15 years, it's either stuff I did as a kid, wish I had as a kid, or fitness (as I break down because I'm not a kid).

It will be interesting what they do with the story, but outside a setting book to capitalize on the hype, I expect nothing more.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Those seem like entirely reasonable criticisms.

My recollection is that those societies didn't come up much in the original pair of trilogies; some tribal folks (Goldmoon and Riverwind's people, and later the Kagonesti, right?), but to a limited extent. But I may be misremembering or missing stuff; I read only a few books beyond those original six, and it's been more than twenty years.

Thinking on the setting elements you'd expect to be central, A, B, and C mostly aren't among them, and so I reckon those could be safely revised without impacting the central nostalgic stuff.

Yeah the books didn't make any of it central (though A & B are in the original trilogy note (IIRC), and C by implication) and like, I think if you disregarded all the actual AD&D setting books for DL (which made a lot of that stuff more obvious/prominent), and just had someone carefully go through the "Classic Dragonlance" books, you could carefully extract what is established as a "fact" in those books, what is something characters seem to believe but not established as a fact, and what is just a blank space, and you'd be able to construct a sort of framework that gave you quite a lot of space for a revised DL that didn't have these issues or reduced them, but... it'd be a lot of work, like a lot. And I'm not sure it'd be worth it.

 

[Burnside]

I think the heavy-handed Mormon allegories and symbolism of the Chronicles trilogy would cause issues for WotC now much more than that stuff did for TSR in the 80s.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I once read all the DL books, but I cant seem to remember: was Tass the only Kender main character? Like, is every thing we know about Kenders from the book based on Tass?

If so, saying Tass is just the Kenders' Jar-Jar Binks would solve all the problem for the small folk

 

[Burnside]

I once read all the DL books, but I cant seem to remember: was Tass the only Kender main character? Like, is every thing we know about Kenders from the book based on Tass?

If so, saying Tass is just the Kenders' Jar-Jar Binks would solve all the problem for the small folk

P sure he is the only significant kender in the original 6 "classic" books. But we are often told in the latter part of that series that he is much LESS of an idiot than most kender.