Why do Dragonlance campaings never work?

[Guilberwood]

Hy guys
Well, first of all, Im a big fun of Dragonlance. Reading the novels and the campaing settin released recently,I' thought that Dragonlance wuld be a wonderful setting to play a campaign, but every thread I read here about Dragonlance campaingssay that the setting is not very good, and most campaigns sucks

I was wondering what it is that makes Dragonlance such a bad candidate for campaign, and what have you guys done/tried to make the settiing easyer to play

 

[the Jester]

My experience is that you either know what's going to happen or you aren't the main characters (if you're playing the original adventures). There also tends to be a lot of railroading in a lot of DL campaigns for some reason; I think the old modules also kind of established a precedent for this.

Doesn't mean it can't be good, just that I haven't experienced it.

 

[Pants]

I'm guessing it has to do with the whole meta-plot of the novels and how the pc's will always be outshined by Tanis and Co.

 

[AeroDm]

Same reason the original Star Wars RPG didn't work (the non d20 one). It took place during the movies, so you weren't the big shot. Not even you can't be the big shot, you ARE NOT. Players dislike that.

 

[Guilberwood]

Well
I guess it can happen to Forgotten Realms too,right

This depends a lot of the way you run the game, especialy if you are not using pre-made modules, and just create the adventure on your on

I'm belie a DM can make the characters shine in the campaing, you just can repeat the things Tanis and CO did, try something new
or am I dreaming?

keep coming plz !

 

[BiggusGeekus]

BECAUSE THE DRAGONLANCE SETTING SUCKS LIKE THE COLD, HARD VACCUM OF SPACE!!!



.... just kidding ...



DR has a lot going for it. The cultures are distinct templates, so you are clearly either from Culture-A or are an outcast from Culture-A. That's a nice method for a roleplayer to get a quick character hook. Yet the setting has enough familiar fantasy axioms so that if you wanted to play a rough-n-ready dwarf you wouln't have to read 500 pages of text. You could just play Gimli from the LotR movies and be just fine.

The problem with DR from a campaign standpoint...

1) It is very character-dependant and those characters are from the novels. The PCs are almost forever to lurk in the shadows of Caramon, Tanis, et al.

2) Weiss and Hickman keep blowing the world up.

So, if you're going to DM a strict DL campiagn you have to have your players embrace a "second fiddle" role and you have a time limit before the campain changes and you have to start over.

Sure, you could change the campaign around. But then you're doing all the work of building a new campaign anyway. Essentially, you're just using the map and the races. The players start to wonder what the point of playign DL is if you're playing DL with heavy modifications.


That's my take on the issue. As always, your miliage may vary.

 

[talinthas]

wow. beats me. my dragonlance campaign has been going strong for 4 years now. i guess i didnt get the "DL Campaigns Suck" memo =)

Seriously though, the main problem is that people hear dragonlance and think chronicals. They think railroaded plots and pregens who've already done everything important. The game products aid this slightly, by not really fleshing out the whole world. But for those willing to work a little, the setting is a vast place with a lot of adventuring potential, especially at the current point in the timeline. My main campaign takes place right at the cusp of the Chaos war, and my secondary campaign will be taking place right after the war of souls.

If you want any help in making Dragonlance more playable for you, head over to Dragonlance.com, dl3e.com, or the wotc boards. Or shoot me a private message =)

Dragonlance gets a bad rap, and doesnt deserve all the hate. There is so much to mess around with there as long as you're willing to toss out chronicals =)

 

[KenM]

I never played DL, but I just want to say I think for any campaign to work, the players should be "into it" and expect certin things. If at the start of the game the DM says: "There will be a fair ammount of railroading, but we are all diehard DL fans, so lets have fun" Then it will be fine. But if you don't expect that kind of stuff, then players will get frustrated and leave.

 

[Otterscrubber]

I haven't tried DL recently but I did enjoy the old modules. I especially like the maps they made. They had one of the High Clerist's tower that was the best dang map I've ever seen of a tower. Really helped make it an interesting world and yet somehow never seemed as convoluted as Greyhawk or FR.

That said, it did feel weird when you know the world is gonna end in 20 years or so. Honestly, Krynn seems to get destroyed more than its fair share. I guess you dont have to have it that way though, although as someone else mentioned why play DL then. Best thing to do is take the world at a certain point in Krynn's history as you and your characters like it, and just take it from there. Dont necessarily have to have all the world shaking upheavals that way but you can still make use of the various dragon army factions, races and maps and enjoy that DL flava.

 

[Painfully]

People are too attached to the novels.

Tell your players that you are ONLY taking the basics of the DL world, and leave the novel specific characters and timeline behind. There is no reason why a DL campaign has to include everything from the novels.

Including everything from the novels is a quick way to railroad the whole campaign world. If you want to imitate the DL novels, that's fine, but wouldn't you rather live your own adventures?