What's so special about Dragonlance?

[the Jester]

It's the novels, imho, that make Dragonlance cool. After a brief dip in the DL gaming pool waaay back in the day, I decided it wasn't for me as a player OR as a dm- it was too constrained, too railroady.

Instead, I used them as a base for my own batch of Dragonarmies, justified by saying that Tiamat (Takhisis in DL) was moving across many planes at once, including both Krynn and my campaign world. I radically changed the whole setup though.

Re: the railroadiness of the modules- are you kidding? IIRC there was one of them were the party was traveling in the wilderness, but if they went the wrong way- i.e. tried to get off the train- they would inevitably run into an impassable army of draconians. Jeez. Heavy handed enough that, even at a fairly early age, I recognized it as problematic. Give me meaningful choices, please.

Yeah, great for books, not so good for dnd- at least, not for my playstyle.

 

[Cam Banks]

Re: the railroadiness of the modules- are you kidding? IIRC there was one of them were the party was traveling in the wilderness, but if they went the wrong way- i.e. tried to get off the train- they would inevitably run into an impassable army of draconians. Jeez. Heavy handed enough that, even at a fairly early age, I recognized it as problematic. Give me meaningful choices, please.

This is a frequently cited example but it's the exception, rather than the rule. Like any other adventure module of the day, DL1 Dragons of Despair described only as much of the world as it needed to for the adventure. While the intent was to prove to the players that a huge army was coming down from the north, slowly taking over hex by hex, and that heading north was a really bad idea, the module handled this by suggesting that the DM keep throwing more and more draconians at the PCs until they turn around.

Typically, this is the point (after more than one or two of these overwhelming odds) that I'd ask the players, "are you sure you want to play this adventure?" It's the same as being presented the scenario of going into a big dungeon full of evil and saying, "Yeah, why don't we just go to the inn and have some beers."

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Starfox]

If Greyhawk is a a pseudo-historical fantasy world with adventures in it, and the Forgotten Realms are a setting where powerful characters shape the world by adventuring, Dragonlance is a world entirely shaped by the story, by the adventure. It doesn't need consistency, verisimilitude, or real history. It has exactly what the story needs, no more, no less.

While its not my cup of tea, I think its interesting. Putting narrativism over all other concerns was a brand new idea at the time. It is in a way similar to Ravenloft (also first conceptualized by the Hickmans), only Ravenloft doesn't end at the line of mist, it only appears to (or perhaps it is the continuity that is the illuison?).

 

[Dice4Hire]

Dragonlance is one of the worlds where you need to toss the central storyline in the trash to have fun. The gods are good, I love the three towers of magic, and there are other good bits. But to have a decent campaign, you either need to choose your time very carefully, or say that X will not happen, or Y did, so the game is more workable.

Wheel of Time was far worse for this. Nice version of magic there, very very nice, but diddly squat to do in the world. Very very constrained.

But I enjoy dragonlance, especially those little destruction machines, the gnomes. The only gnomes I ever liked to play really. My gnome whose life quest was to make a mechanical dragonlance was very destructive. Very.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Fantastic races, archetypes (wizards and knights, among others), gods, dragons, etc. Above all, it's a setting where story reigns supreme.

I could go on forever in great detail, but the summary version is that Dragonlance has captured my imagination like no other setting. It is because of Dragonlance that I wrote for the setting sourcebooks and Legend of Huma comics, and realized my own potential.

Plus I hear it has a kickin' Ennie Award-winning fan website. See my sig for details.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

3.5 DL is really awesome. Lots and lots of details in a variety of source books. The War of the Lance source book has got to be one of the best DL resources ever published. The Towers of High Sorcery as well.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

As a gaming setting, Dragonlance has its flaws. However, there are plenty of things it got right.

-- Great Iconic Campaign Elements specific to the setting: As a quick list, the setting gave us Lord Soth, Astinus of Palanthas, Knights of Solamnia, Orders of High Sorcery, the Dragonlance artifacts, Frost Reavers, Flying Citidels, Blood Sea of Istar, also Minotaurs as a PC race.

-- Strong world history: You have a few dragon wars and the fall if Istar to work with for campaign hooks.

-- Great use of stock D&D archtypes: You are given Elves and Dwarves with Silvanesti, Qualinesti, Thorbardin. They are familiar enough as a campaign trope, but they do stand out enough from the classic cliche's.

-- Draconians: My favorite setting specific monster. I like the idea of monsters that can be dangerous to kill, and I love the flavor text that goes with them.

-- Popular setting fiction: If you do not like the fiction, then this is not a bonus. But the fiction is popular enough that you have a good chance of having players in your game recognize the significance of finding a spell book belonging to Fistandantilus.

There are drawbacks though.

-- Not enough 'active' villians. At the end of War of the Lance, there really is not a whole lot left to do that can make the players feel important. You can create your own villains in the world of course, but the lack is felt. Forgotten Realms catches alot of flack for Uber NPC's who can save the world instead of your players. But at least you have very many organizations you can use for villains that are active. Red Wizards of Thay, the Zhentarium, the Cult of the Dragon, Dark elves from Menzobaranzan, and more.

-- Badly handled product line. You have the 2nd Cataclysm which set us up for the SAGA debacle. Then you later get a War of Souls which acts as an obvious RetCon.

-- Creation of potentially annoying Tropes. Tinker Gnomes, Kender, and Gully Dwarves are not well liked by most DM's.

-- Narrowly defined world. Do you know what Nordmaar is? In general, if a particular part of the world was not directly used in the original adventures or in the novels, it is not well developed.

-- Imperfect Pantheon. Thematically, Paldine, Takhisis, Mishakal, Gilean, Reorx, and the Gods of Magic are well done. Kiri-Jolith, Sargonnas, Hiddukel, Chemosh, and Morgion are adequate but not that great. But then you have a bunch of rather boring gods in the pantheon that seem to be there just to fill out the numbers.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Gadget]

I think Dragonlance, more than any other RPG setting, incorperates, inspires and draws upon the classic Romantic High Fantasy tropes. No other setting has piqued my imagination and desire to play like Dragonlance. The Wizards of High Sorcery made traditional vancian D&D wizards come alive for me with it's magic phases of the moons and spellcasting wearies the mage flavor. The Knights of Solomnia took the paladin/knight in shining armor cliche and made it flawed, real and cool at the same time. The villians: Lord Soth, tragic Death Knight extrodinier; Draconians, dragon men done right with a cool origin story and special abilities that made you think twice about crossing them; Armored Dragon HighLords that want to conquer and destroy. Not to mention subtle and menacing black-robed wizards, self-righteous and misguided king-priest tyrants. The whole setting just oozed flavor and high Fantasy while still being a somewhat recognizably medieval and down to earth setting. It didn't need upteenth level tarrasques and Demon lords to be cool and baddass.

That being said, perhaps the setting made a better novel platform than open ended campaign, as it was somewhat tightly scripted. I have always felt that the novels where there (other than the few that were a good read in and of themselves) mainly for ispiration and flavor, not something I was bound to adhere to in play, YMMV. There was also the much maligned kender, gully dwarves, and tinker gnomes that needed to be dialed down a bit (or more than a bit). Although I never had a problem with the pantheon per se, they were a bit too hands on and involved for my taste. I prefer a more hands off abstract approach to great powers (Though Fizban the Fabulous is, well fabulous if not overused). Also, the setting became a bit of a victim of its own success: they produced so many novels for it, many of dubious quality, that it began to collapse a bit under it's own weight (though this is nothing compared to what later happened to Forgotten Realms). Then it later, IMHO, fell victim to the 'forced symmetry bug'. Hey, draconians were cool and popular, lets intoduce a race of 'good' draconians. The Knights of Solamnia worked out well, lets make a corresponding organization of 'evil' knights, etc.

 

[Tewligan]

Re: the railroadiness of the modules- are you kidding? IIRC there was one of them were the party was traveling in the wilderness, but if they went the wrong way- i.e. tried to get off the train- they would inevitably run into an impassable army of draconians. Jeez. Heavy handed enough that, even at a fairly early age, I recognized it as problematic. Give me meaningful choices, please.

I can't remember offhand which module it appears in, but I seem to recall at least one of the DL modules instructing the DM that some NPC's just can't be killed until later in the series - if the party manages to kill one of those NPC's, he miraculously survives/escapes to reappear when he's needed. Although I owned the first few, I never ran them - however, I can't imagine THAT would have been popular with the players. "WTF, dude - we killed Verminaard last month!"

 

[Cam Banks]

I can't remember offhand which module it appears in, but I seem to recall at least one of the DL modules instructing the DM that some NPC's just can't be killed until later in the series

That's right! The Dragonlance design team wanted to include that classic trope from movie serials of the villain who suffers a mysterious death and comes back later on to face the heroes again. This schtick's appeared frequently ever since, both in adventures and in GM advice sections. While it's no good if it's overdone or forced, I think there's a really clever use of it in the modules regarding Verminaard (if you've read DL12, you'll know what I mean).

Cheers,
Cam