What's the deal with Dragonlance?

[buzz]

Okay, I've never read any Dragonlance novels, and only played through maybe half of the first DL module that was released back when I was 14 or so. Now that the campaign setting book is coming out, though, I'm somewhat intrigued, as I've been quite the completist as far as WotC 3e products go.

So, if you had to give a quick summary of DL in an effort to "sell" someone on it, or alternately warn someone away from it, what would you say? What's the "gist" of the setting?

 

[johnsemlak]

I'm no expert, as I've primarily read the novels, but since nobody else has posted yet...

I think one of the defining aspects is that Clerics and divine magic in general are extremely limited (i.e. don't exist at all or or incredibablly rare). In Dragonlance, divine magic existed in a bygone age that was ended by a terrible cataclysm. Clerical magic is the stuff of myth and legend.

I'm not completely familiar with all the game ramifications of this, but they're easy to imagine.

In the first trilogy, one character, Goldmoon, completes a quest by actually 'becoming' a true cleric.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Well, the basis of the original trilogy is the return of the gods, along with the return of dragons.

About 300 years before the original series the gods abandoned the world because of the hubris of the priests of the time (demanding the gods answer their prayers, for example).

Now the gods are returning, led by the evil gods, and the chromatic dragons have also return - but no metallic dragons.

The main characters get involved with the war, to find ways to defeat the evil dragons, to get help from the good gods, and to stop the evil goddess from taking over the world.

The problem that existed previously with DL was that the story revolved too much around the one group - the "party" of the original novel series.

But the core fiction was ok - if you want to see it in action, get the DL books written by Weis and Hickman, starting with Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

HTH,

Duncan

 

[krunchyfrogg]

The above is describing only the 4th age of Dragonlance (actually, the 3rd age ends with the Cataclsym, where the gods leave the world). Since I've only read books of the 4th age (the original Weis and Hickman trilogy is the best stuff), I'd just like to add to the above info:

There aren't any sorcerers (maybe they come in in the 5th age), orcs, or halflings in Krynn (The DL world). There are Draconians (telling you what they really are is a spoiler), kender (fearless, kleptomaniac 3e halflings), and all of the wizards need to take "The Test."

The Test is taken at one of the Towers of High Sorcery (I think there's 4 or 5 in Ansalon, the main continent of Krynn), and passing The Test is obviously an initiation into a PrC. You take The Test around level 3, IIRC, and definitely before you can cast 3rd level spells. The Test changes every wizard who takes it, usually humbling them, and making them realize to rely on their magic, nothing else.

Wizards who pass The Test wear one of 3 different colored robes, to match their alignment: Good Wizards wear White, Neutral wear Red, and Evil wear Black. There are restrictions on spells depending on their color. Also (I don't know how they'll translate this into 3e), Black is the "fast and easy" way, and they advanced on the fastest XP chart, with White being the slowest, and Red in the middle.

Wizards who refuse to take The Test are considered Renegades, and are to be hunted by any and all Wizards of High Sorcery.

The magic is affected by the three moons of Krynn. There's a White, Red, and Black moon (although only black robed wizards can find the black moon). When the moon is full, the wizard of the appropriate robe is more powerful, and when it's a new moon, the Wizard is at his weakest.

 

[s/LaSH]

What made the Dragonlance books special was the emphasis on heroes.

Sure, you have the mighty sweep of armies, and military dragonriders (isn't dragonriding a cool thing?), but at its core the story was about people doing things. Most of the time, the heroes were vastly outnumbered by these huge armies, yet they struggled through and won out over great odds. I don't know if that comes through in the game (never really played in DL), but in the books it's heroes versus the armies of darkness (and sometimes the heroes have armies too).

And then there's Raistlin, who everyone thinks is cool. Drizzt may be cool, but Raistlin is cooler. He's got his own agenda, and damn if it isn't a cool one.

Anyone more qualified to speak on the matter than I?

 

[Tsyr]

Also, as the name might imply, Dragons play a more important role.

At least, at certain times... During the time around and after the Cataclysym, for example, there were no dragons around. But As the second War of the Lance grew near, the dragons started re-apearing.

Dragons in Krynn aren't *quite* like dragons on, say, Oerth, or Faerun. They don't get quite as big, and they aren't quite as arrogant. And the evil ones don't hate humanity quite as much. Dragon Knights are an important factor in all the major wars, on both sides.

Hmm...

Gods take a much more... active, I guess, role in things. They will smite Krynn with a flaming mountain if the people of Krynn offend the Gods much, they will leave if they must, they will fight (and die) to protect Krynn, they will manifest personaly to go look about and have fun (Reorax, the dwarven/gnome god, is said to occasionaly manifest just to go to bars and gamble), they will grant visions and give devine guideance... I mean, yes, all of that is supposed to happen in the other settings to, but to no where near the level it does in Dragonlance. Dragonlance is a setting about the gods, when the gods are there at all.

There are no Hobbit-style Halflings... instead you have kender. Dwarves are split into four main types.... Hill, mountain, deep, and gully. Gully dwarves are a sort of throwback race... mentaly retarded to the last dwarf. They are sort of the good-aligned equivilant of goblins. Technicly, "gnomes" per say, that is, rock and forest gnomes, don't exist. You have the Minoi, known as "tinker gnomes". They are gadgeteers gone insane. Minotaurs are an important race, as are Ogres. There are no "drow" style dark elves.... Dark elves are simply anyone who has been cast out of elven society.

In the old version, there just weren't some things... There were no Paladins, for example, despite the heavy role the gods played. Instead, you have assorted knightly orders... Primarily, this falls into two groups... First, The Knights of Solamnia, which is further broken down into the Knights of the Crown, Knights of the Sword, and Knights of the Rose. Next we have the Knights of Takhisis, which are further broken down into Knights of the Lily, Knights of the Skull, and Knights of the Thorn (Which aren't actualy 'knights' in the sense most people would think of... they are wizards, who happen to be knights). I really like this, and I hope this continues in the 3E version, instead of just replacing them with Paladins.

Dragonlance is also a bit closer to the dark ages than most settings, like Faerun or Oerth. Major Cataclysyms have rocked the world a number of times in recent memory. Gold and Silver, while valuable, aren't the primary form of currency... peices of steel are. Things aren't *quite* as happy and friendly in DL as in FR, even when the gods are around... Clerics that can resurect people and so forth aren't exactly on every street corner.

Furthermore, there three overwealming themes in Dragonlance, that in the novels you are shown time and time again, and I think are quite important to the setting.

Sacrifice, Personal Growth and Change, and Honor.

Nothing is free on Krynn. Sacrifices are made constantly. Not literal sacrifices as in the "bloody corpse on the alter to a god" type, but sacrifices none the less. Sacrifices for others, sacrifices for the greater good, sacrifices for honor and integrity... the theme is everywhere. Even the "comedic relief" kender (Which I feel are a bit mis-portrayed as such) make sacrifices in their life.

People change. Things grow and evolve. People on Krynn aren't born evil and that's the end of it, nor are they born good. People change because of outside influences. Good people can do bad things by mistake or because of the circumstances, bad people can do good things... People learn about themselves and confront their weaknesses... And there is definetly the "loss of innocence" theme in there too.

Honor is important on Krynn, far more so than in most worlds. Almost all of the big movers and shakers on Krynn are, in their own way, honorable people. Evil, perhaps, but generaly honorable, even if's only a personal honor. Every "key" character in Krynn has something they hold as important. There is a reason they got where they were. Even Raistlin, a very evil, dark, traitorous character, had a certain level of personal honor. At times, anyhow.

 

[Derren]

Don´t get the wrong impression. Dragonlance is not about "Mighty heroes crush enemy armies" (like it is in some FR books) but "Cunning heroes strike vital spots of the enemy"

In DL there aren´t many superheroes who control each other like in the FR, but "normal" heroes who are at the right time in the right place doing the right thing.
Dragonlance has 3 major times where you can play.

-The 4th age is where the original novels take part. It is about the returning of the gods to krynn and the army of the dark queen who wan´ts to control the whole world.
The main problem many players had with this age was that the whole story resolved around the book heroes and their doing so that you hardly could play something which hasn´t something to do with the war.

- The 5th age was planned to be an ending to Dragonlance and the beginning book of this age was supposed to be the last one, so it had some major changes in it. But then WotC decided to continue dragonlace in their SAGA system (card game) and the writers and designer had to deal with the changes which were made. Many DL fans don't like the 5th age because of the radical changes which were made.

- The 6th age was just released and I can´t give much information game wise. (The campaign setting will contain them, but it will also allow you to play in other ages then in the 6th). The books are very good and the writer tried to take the best from the 4th and 5th age and to avoid mistakes made in the past. In the 6th age there is´n't an all dominating thread like in the 4th age so making adventures should be more easy. A word of warning the 6th age seems pretty dark, so if you don´t like that play at an other age.


Generally dragonlance focuses more on the traditional sword fantasy. Magic, be it divine or arcane, is rather rare and posses unique flavor compared to other D&D worlds (Test of high sorcery, the moons of magic) In the 2nd Edition, dragonlance had an level limit of 18 so it focused more on low and mid level adventures than high level.
Imo dragonlace is a setting which is very good for roleplayer because it has a detailed storyline and no (or not much, depending on the age) "dominating NPCs" The bad side is that because of the tight storyline, dms don´t have much freedom to invent things and following the official storyline. (But I don´t know if this will stay the same with the 6th age)

 

[Gothmog]

I'll echo the sentiments of several others on here: Dragonlance doesn't allow for much PC freedom in choosing their destiny, especially if the DM is taking the novels as canon. The concept for Dragonlance works fine for fiction, but its not very good for a game world. Too much focuses on the struggle between the good and evil dragons, and on the events that transpired in the books. There is a big emphasis set on black and white morality (even more so than in default D&D) which leads to some pretty one-dimensional and predictable characters (both in the books as in games). I have both played and run games set on Krynn, and from experience I can tell you that as a player, I felt like I was being kept on a straight-and-narrow path that limited my creativity to do interesting things with my character. As a DM, I tried to break away from the DL canon and do some original stuff, but some of the players who take the DL books as canon balked at this, and the campaign ended up disintigrating. On the other hand, the de-emphasis on hack-n-slash and the lower general magic level is appealing, as well as some of the other world changes (magic based on lunar phases, etc). In the end though, Dragonlance is definitely a one trick pony, and I don't think the world is very well suited to role-playing.

 

[Zenon]

Sorry, I'll have to disagree with Gothmog. If you are running in a DL world, there are several things you have to set up as gospel with the players:

1) Which books are the background? When we played, we use the first two trilogies as history, nothing else (War of the Lance, Test of the Twins).

2) Set these events in the past - we played 20 years after the War of the Lance, and we were the new "heroes".

Our storyline involved stopping the death of the world, which was being brought about by a powerful vampire, who also happened to be a black robed wizard and a cleric of Chemosh (the god of death). We played for about 6 years to resolve this stoyline, which was run once per week. Every now and then, our PC had a brush with a powerful character from the books, but it was in no way an "Elminster Event" (where the powerful NPC swoops in to save the day). Mostly we either saw them or interacted with them briefly.

The world is what you make of it, the DL books are about as restricting as the FR books are to that world. As for the "one trick pony" analogy, lets take Gothmogs original message and substitute LotR themed words:

I'll echo the sentiments of several others on here: “Lord of the Rings” doesn't allow for much PC freedom in choosing their destiny, especially if the DM is taking the novels as canon. The concept for “Lord of the Rings” works fine for fiction, but its not very good for a game world. Too much focuses on the struggle between the good and evil “Rings”, and on the events that transpired in the books. There is a big emphasis set on black and white morality (even more so than in default D&D) which leads to some pretty one-dimensional and predictable characters (both in the books as in games). I have both played and run games set on “Middle Earth”, and from experience I can tell you that as a player, I felt like I was being kept on a straight-and-narrow path that limited my creativity to do interesting things with my character. As a DM, I tried to break away from the “Tolkien” canon and do some original stuff, but some of the players who take the “Tolkien” books as canon balked at this, and the campaign ended up disintigrating. On the other hand, the de-emphasis on hack-n-slash and the lower general magic level is appealing, as well as some of the other world changes. In the end though, “Lord of the Rings” is definitely a one trick pony, and I don't think the world is very well suited to role-playing.

As you can see, this type of message can be stated about almost any world which is either based on novels, or had novels written about it (I can't wait to see these same comments about George Martin's ASoIaF when it's put out as an RPG world in the near future).

Suggested reading - the first six books (two trilogies). I never read any of the others (tried to, but they didn't interest me), but I still enjoy the about books and reread them from time to time.

 

[jonesy]

First I'll start with a small correction:

The 6th age was just released and I can´t give much information game wise. (The campaign setting will contain them, but it will also allow you to play in other ages then in the 6th).

There is no 6th age. There.


There have been 5 ages in Dragonlance:

Age of Starbirth (First Age)
-the gods create Krynn, wage wars and create the first races:
gods of good create metallic dragons and elves,
gods of neutrality create humans and
gods of evil create chromatic dragons and ogres
-these races than proceed to wage wars

Age of Dreams (Second Age)
-the graygem creates additional races
-all of the world is slowly populated
-the second age ends in Huma's war and all dragons are forced to
leave the world

Age of Might (Third Age)
-the empire of Istar becomes the most powerful nation and begins
exterminating 'evil' races, the last kingpriest of Istar demands
from the gods the power to eradicate evil resulting in the gods
casting a fiery mountain on Krynn that devastates the land,
this is called the First Cataclysm

Age of Despair (Fourth Age)
-the first half of the fourth age the gods were believed to have
abandoned Krynn (which wasn't true), and there were no clerics
or dragons around
-during the second half the dragons come back and people reach
out to the gods once more resulting in the return of clerical magic
-war of the lance comes and goes, Raistlin tries to become a god
and fails
-the chaos war devastates the land and the gods truly leave at
it's end, this devastation is called the Second Cataclysm

Age of Mortals (Fifth Age)
-at the beginning of the fifth age the only magic is mysticism
because of the absence of the gods
-powerful dragon overlords (who are epic size dragons) arrive to
Krynn and attempt to become it's ultimate rulers
-the war of souls happens, some of the overlords are killed, the
gods return and now there are 4 different types of magic around:
focused divine (clerical), ambient divine (mysticism), focused
arcane (high sorcery, wizards), ambient arcane (wild sorcery, sorcerers)


A couple of points on Dragonlance in general:
-It's basic filosophy is balance, good neutral and evil need to be
kept equal and everyone has to have a choice between them
-There are 21 gods on Krynn, 7 good, 7 neutral, 7 evil. Plus 2
higher gods, Chaos and the High God. Clerics are faithfull
followers of their gods and usually choose a single deity to
worship. None of the DL deities have racial preferences as to
who they accept as their followers.
-The most prominent races (other than dragons) have been ogres,
bakali, elves, humans, dwarves, gnomes, minotaurs, kender and
draconians.
-There are three moons on Krynn, the white, the red and the
black. The moons represent the gods of magic. All wizards must
pass a test and join the Conclave of the Wizards of High Sorcery.
White robe mages follow the path of good, red neutral and black
evil.
-There are three lawful Knighthoods on Krynn. The Knights of
Solamnia follow the path of good, the Knights of Neraka/Takhisis
follow evil and the Legion of Steel promotes balance.
-There are 14 types of dragon, 7 good metallic and 7 evil chromatic.
And no they are not smaller than in other settings.
-There are no drow, sahuagin, lycanthropes, orcs, gem dragons
or halflings on Krynn.
-Magic is just as potent as in FR, just more hidden and not as
easy to come by (which makes it relatively more powerful).