Why do Dragonlance campaings never work?

[Endur]

The Dragonlance setting is a great setting.

Several options:

1) Play the characters from the novels: Tanis, Raistlin, etc. as PCs. Either repeat the story (a la the original DL modules) or playing in an untold story.

2) Play characters who know the characters in the novels: Tanis, Raistlin are NPCs. In the background, novel adventures can be going on, or you can be playing in an untold story.

3) Play characters who don't know the characters in the novels. Off-screen somewhere, maybe a different country or century even.

All can be fun. Different approaches appeal to people differently.

 

[Guilberwood]

As a way to minimize the railronding, couldn't you just set the adventure in a diferent side of the world,or in a diferent time?

just a few ideas

 

[Geoff Watson]

As a way to minimize the railronding, couldn't you just set the adventure in a diferent side of the world,or in a diferent time?

just a few ideas

Then why call it Dragonlance?

DL doesn't have much that is unique, and most of it's unique stuff is really stupid (kender, tinker gnomes, gully dwarves). Draconians are OK. What else is unique?

The novels were good, but good novels don't make a good campaign setting.

Geoff.

 

[talinthas]

Then why call it Dragonlance?

DL doesn't have much that is unique, and most of it's unique stuff is really stupid (kender, tinker gnomes, gully dwarves). Draconians are OK. What else is unique?

The novels were good, but good novels don't make a good campaign setting.

Geoff.

heh. dude, if you take away everything that makes it Dragonlance, you're playing in greyhawk with a different map. DL has another continent with more uniquely dragonlance things, and lots of playable time periods. if you want to play the novels, go ahead. its the same as playing the rebellion in the SWRPG. and like star wars, there are a ton of places you can go without being railroaded by an old plot.

 

[Kichwas]

Dragonlance is the setting that defines metaplot.

It's a novel line first, last, and foremost. Making gaming suppliments for it is only an afterthought. Thus everything exists at the whim of the latest novel, and was designed to appeal to writers rather than games.

Look at Kender - played properly they will be utterly disruptive to any gaming group, dominating play, stealing everyone's goods, and being immune to any reasonable method of tension creation the DM attempts.

Tinker Gnomes - all their little devices are just a problem waiting to happen when 'left open' as they would be in the hands of a player who plays them to the hilt rather than to the limits of the given story.

Gully Dwarves - funny in a story, funny for maybe one or two sessions in a game, then just plain annoying and game dragging.


So right there, three core races are going to ruin your game if you allow them and the player plays them properly.

Going back to metaplots - you're dealing with a highly scripted world where everything is just too known and too novel dependant. The story is not only very present, but also big - of a world shattering nature, which makes for a good read but a hard play.

 

[lacunae]

For what it's worth, I played a 2nd edition campaign in Taladas (the continent on the other side of the Dragonlance world) that was EXCELLENT. Mainly focussed on the Roman-esque Minotaur empire. The players were all humans - and therefore outsiders in a foreign, highly civilised land - it gave them good reason to 'bond together' as an adventuring group...

no Tanis in sight...

 

[CrusaderX]

Here are some ideas for a Dragonlance campaign that I've always wanted to try:

- Keep the Chronicles and Legends trilogies as canon. Ignore all of the novels that came after Legends.

- Set the campaign 50 years after the end of Legends. The human characters from the two trilogies are too old to be the world's main heroes, though they can still be NPCs if necessary.

- The elven characters (Laurana, Gilthanas, Dalamar, etc) are all still young, alive, and well, though they still won't outshine the PC's, as they're busy with their own agendas.

- Tanis is no longer capable of being the main hero (for whatever reason - maybe he's injured, MIA, or just plain retired from adventuring), and Laurana has resumed the role of the Golden General of the Knights of Solamnia.

- The main conflict on Ansalon in this time period would consist of Laurana and the Knights vs. the return of...Lord Soth. And he's back with a horde of undead dragons set to swarm all over Ansalon.

- The PC's would be agents of the Knights who have to find a way to stop Soth's forces, perhaps involving quests to find magical undead-slaying artifacts. The Towers of High Sorcery and even the gods of Krynn could be involved in these quests.

- The campaign would heavily involve the various people, places, and things throughout Krynn that make it unique and that DL fans are very familiar with (the Knights, important NPCs such as Laurana, Soth, and Dalamar, the Towers, Draconians, Dragonlances, Dragon Orbs, etc), while still giving the PC's plenty of room to take center stage. So the DM and the players will have the best of both worlds.

 

[Cam Banks]

In the current era of Dragonlance gaming, the notion that the campaign setting remains too scripted and unplayable is no longer relevant. Indeed, it has no more scripted traits now than the Forgotten Realms does, another setting with a highly successful novel series attached to it. Dragonlance has grown beyond its original conceptual framework, and with the line of products planned by WOTC licensee Sovereign Press, this new age promises to offer the best Dragonlance gaming yet.

Of course, I could be regarded as biased.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Null Boundry]

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?

Thats been my experiance as well. People are willing to spend the entire game argueing over trivia thinking it adds depth sometimes even getting the books out to prove a point.

 

[Mordane76]

The only time I've played in a DL campaign involved about three sessions... the characters immediately went out, ended up meeting the Heroes of the Lance pre-War of the Lance. I was going to run stories that ran parallel to the War of the Lance, but...

One of the players killed Tanis Half-Elven.


Flushed the group into Planescape immediately following that.