Dragonlance (+) What Would You Want From 5e Dragonlance?

[Libertad]

A revision to Gully Dwarves and Kender of some kind. I doubt that outright kicking them from the setting is an option, particularly for Kender given how iconic they are. But something to make them more than just a comic relief race is ideal.

Also there should be focus on the 4th Age/Age of Despair. Like it or not, that's the most popular era by far, and while the 5th Age is the current timeline it is rather controversial among fans.

Rules for dragonriding are needed, although the OPness of a constant dragon companion would need to be addressed. Surely they can't use the same stats as from the Monster Manual, and riding on a small/baby dragon is kind of anti-climactic. In the Chronicles adventures the PCs rode to battle on adult-sized dragons in liberating the metallic dragon eggs from Sanction, so something like this needs to be an option for gaming groups at some point.

Finally, the setting has to address the role of the gods in bringing about the Cataclysm and the resultant Age of Despair, where they effectively performed a genocide upon eastern Ansalon for the crimes of a few. This is the largest elephant in the room, and prior official material that placed the blame squarely on mortals (even ones not involved with Istar or were born far later) is something that didn't fly over well with a lot of gamers.

I went over such things (and other problems with Dragonlance and means of fixing them) in prior review and blog posts. Here are links to 2 of them I figure are the most relevant to this chain of discussion.

Dragons of Renewal: Overarching Themes

Let's Read: Dragonlance: War of the Lance

 

[Steampunkette]

What I want from Dragonlance?

For it not to be a Kitchen Sink. There's no orcs, there. So don't cram orcs in so players can have PHB Half-Orcs. No Tabaxi. No Tortles. No Firbolg. No -Tieflings-.

Make it Dragonlance. Do D&DLance.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Great thread. Would love to see subclasses for the white, red and black robes. Also love the idea of developing the Towers of Hogh Sorcery some more.

Finally, bring the knights of Solamnia to 5E as unique subclasses. I like the breakdown between the knights of the sword, rose and crown and think some fun things could be done with that.

 

[Blue Orange]

I agree, you'd have to keep the classic things like black, red, and white robes, Solamnic Knights, and find some way of doing gully dwarves and kender people can tolerate now.

People are going to want stats for the companions, especially Raistlin. It's just such a crowd-pleaser. I mean, every RPG that adapts another property I've ever seen has stats for the major characters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, you mean other than dragons?

IDK, DL is really a nostalgia thing for me, I really like the idea of heading in the direction of high fantasy romance though, that's a cool idea. So a tight set of rules for bonds and whatnot would be awesome. In there somewhere you could even completely rework the ideals bonds and flaws system into something awesome rather than the tacked-on nonsense it currently feels like.

This is also probably the right place for those mass combat rules, yeah, for sure.

I think leaning into romantic fantasy undertones of the setting would be a really good idea. And Crawford worked on Blue Rose, so he knows Romantic Fantasy. I think giving optional rules for doing more with personality traits is agreat idea, and DL is a perfect setting to introduce the idea.

The most important thing for me is that it NOT be about the characters in the novels.
Definitely need rules for the different spellcasting and deities there......
I like your ideas in general.

Thanks! And I agree with both your points here.

The Spell System.
The Pantheon.
The Historical Locations.
The Monsters.

One thing that always interested me about the Krynn setting is that darkness and evil must exist. This shows up in some other settings like the Forgotten Realms, where AO steps in if things tip too far in one direction or another. For your average adventurer? It means nothing. But in Krynn, you literally have to "tolerate" people worshiping evil gods for the sake of balance. Struggles for supremacy happen on the regular. And you're often part of that, making a tangible difference in a world that can literally be tipped one way or the other through your specific actions.

Granted, you can completely ignore that and run normal adventures too.

Hell yeah. The gods and alignment and the cosmology is different in DL, and that should be leaned into, not avoided.

I know this is unlikely, but it is the way I'd run a 5E DL game (something I am considering), but with an option for running the War of the Lance with your PCs as the central characters replacing Caramon, Tanis, Laurana, etc. . .

I am actually considering running an almost West Marches style "war" game in Krynn - where from among 10 (maybe increase to 12) PCs they respond to different quests and war events of their own accord (in groups of 4 to 6) that broadly coincide with the original 12 modules, but with room for things to change based on in-game events.

That is a great idea, yeah.

If the new Dragonlance novel ends up being about Silvara and Gilthanas, I could see a heavy emphasis on unity with dragons (e.g. AD&D had a "dragon knight" kit, the subclass of the time, and some amazing Taladas-based adventures were all about this, including finding out who was killing baby dragons and eventually going through time portals to retrieve powerful gems that gave you powers of dragons to fight the minions of Takhisis/Erestem/aka Tiamat).

The original War of the Lance AD&D modules were re-released in 3rd edition as a mega-adventure with solid success, so it's not out-of-bounds that this could be done again in Strahd-like fashion. Gothic horror with suave vampire nemesis, that sells itself. Dragonlance would need something for those who don't know what it is, that resonates like Strahd.

So, aerial combat rules with dragons + dragon/character subclasses + moon magic + (maybe) dragons as humanoids (who shapeshifted and permanently gave up their draconic heritage, but not dragonborn, though I'm sure we'll get draconian PCs) + kender and Irda and maybe we're on our way.

I can't believe I didn't mention kender and irda and draconians in the OP...Yes, definitely that. And yeah rules for pairing up with dragons, for sure. I think a really good DL book could expand the game at least as much as the Eberron book did.

Warlock as the ''official'' mage of the setting, with the 3 Moons or the Tower as Patron. Maybe with a reprint of the Celestial, for characters like Goldmoon. Maybe a new Boons like Pact of the Staff, for character who gained an spellfocus like Raistlin (?) and Goldmoon as part of their magical learnings.

Interesting. I'd go a different way, but that is really interesting.
I really wish 5e had given more weight to spellcasting focus items like staves.

I agree with most of your ideas but the mass combat rules. I would not object their presence in the book, but I'm not sure DL is the right book for such thing. I often found to mass combat to go well with domain management, and while DL sure shows a lot of large scale battles, there is few companion that becomes rulers of land while in the spotlight.

I don't see mass combat rules as needing to have anything to do with domain management. That's a separate thing, IMO. To me, part of DL is being able to gather forces and lead them. To become a Captain of a band, or even a general of an army. But also to effect the outcome of large battles through individual actions. d

Heroic Destiny: have the group come up with a theme that comes with tables equivalent to their Ideal/Bond/Flaw etc, with few example like the group patrons from Eberron, like you said.

One thing I'd like would be a system where the ''group/party'' gain level, like in Blades in the Dark (I think?). A little like the Gifts from Theros. Another idea would be a ''point system', like the piety rules, where the more the group gain points in relation with their ideals and/or cosmic good/evil/neutrality, the more they gain special features for the whole group.

Yeah I think that group quests are a good place to have the group level up as a group.

I totally forgot to list expanded Personality Traits, but yes, agreed.

What I want from Dragonlance?

For it not to be a Kitchen Sink. There's no orcs, there. So don't cram orcs in so players can have PHB Half-Orcs. No Tabaxi. No Tortles. No Firbolg. No -Tieflings-.

Make it Dragonlance. Do D&DLance.

I feel like that is something that is more likely to be left up to each group, with only the traditional DL races given any pagespace. I would be fine if they added firbolgs, though. They would fit in just fine with some of what else is in the setting.

Great thread. Would love to see subclasses for the white, red and black robes. Also love the idea of developing the Towers of Hogh Sorcery some more.

Finally, bring the knights of Solamnia to 5E as unique subclasses. I like the breakdown between the knights of the sword, rose and crown and think some fun things could be done with that.

I'd love a multiple-classes subclass for the Knights, as well.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Somehow I forgot to mention working in mechanics for how different phases of the moon affect the three schools of magic.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

For them to finally realize that this is a setting for novels and not a setting for gaming. It's always been too railroady and too restrictive and modern gamers hate, hate, hate both of those.

But if they really have to do it, than they should use the Devotion rules from Theros to measure characters allegiances to various causes, gods, and ideals.

 

[The Glen]

Dragons, lances

 

[Mercurius]

A full setting guide, including Ansalon and Taladas. Oh, yeah, Irda.

I kind of like the idea of retconning everything back to War of the Lance, and then Weis & Hickman rewriting it with 35 years of writing experience to improve the prose. But Chronicles and Legends is Dragonlance, at least to me.

Alternately, setting it in the future of any novels, sort of a "cycles of time" thing, with Takhisis returning and all that.

Maybe I'm biased, though, as I didn't read anything other than the original Chronicles and Legends; I was always turned off by the the idea of the later stuff. It felt like it didn't belong.

 

[Don Durito]

The core of Dragonlance is the War of the Lance.

So take those old modules gut them out completely for what is good in them, drop the insistence on Pre-gen characters, and write a big adventure that is much more open and has a lot of different ways that things can turn out.

You could do a setting guide on top of that as an expansion, but the main barrier with Dragonlance has always been that I want the PCs to be the big heroes, not Tanis half-Elven and co.

(Although to be honest there's something just weirdly retro about the idea of doing Dragonlance in the 2020s. Nothing since the first six books has really stuck, so it's a bit weird to just go back to the 1980s as if nothing has changed since then. At least with something like Dark Sun there is a sense that it may have become more timely in many ways, rather than less...Dragonlance very much not the case)