Why do Dragonlance campaings never work?

[Desdichado]

Oh, no doubt it can be done. I'm just pointing out challenges that need to be addressed in one way or another.

 

[Kichwas]

Which does not preclude the other player's from being afraid. Not to mention, if you remember the novels, Tas had a few moments where he was actually afraid or realized that humor and cheer were not in order.

Starman

It's kind of hard to play out tension, fear and horror when one of the players is dancing about, giggling, and singing "Mammy, mammy don'cha know I love ya!"

Or perhaps something more appropriate like "I'm singing in the rain, what a glorious..."

Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Tinker Gnomes are just -too far- onto their stereotypes. Locked in by uncontrollable compulsions in some cases which can make for decent juvenille novels but really get in the way of open ended roleplay.

While I'm pulling from an extreme example, for a Kender it's not all that extreme. In any situation -minor or major- that the DM tries to play out a tense moment the Kender just won't 'get it' and will let the tension slide right off with a silly remark, and that will interfere with the groups roleplaying as a whole. If the Kender does 'get it' and act tense or fearful, the player is probably failing to play it properly.

 

[Enkhidu]

It's kind of hard to play out tension, fear and horror when one of the players is dancing about, giggling, and singing "Mammy, mammy don'cha know I love ya!"

Or perhaps something more appropriate like "I'm singing in the rain, what a glorious..."

Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Tinker Gnomes are just -too far- onto their stereotypes. Locked in by uncontrollable compulsions in some cases which can make for decent juvenille novels but really get in the way of open ended roleplay.

While I'm pulling from an extreme example, for a Kender it's not all that extreme. In any situation -minor or major- that the DM tries to play out a tense moment the Kender just won't 'get it' and will let the tension slide right off with a silly remark, and that will interfere with the groups roleplaying as a whole. If the Kender does 'get it' and act tense or fearful, the player is probably failing to play it properly.

You've given a good example of why Kender aren't a good fit for a grim campaign. Krynn, however, is not truly a grim place, and is not meant for grim fantasy. It is high fantasy, and having a kender break out in "Singin' in the Rain" while stuck in a watery death trap fits that high fantasy model. In the novels and often in play, the kenders' fearlessness serves as the hook for new adventure or as the rallying point when all hope seemed lost.

The silliness was as much a part of Dragonlance as the heroics: if the silliness is not to your taste then I'd suggest that the setting isn't for you. However, many gamers thrive on the kind of free-wheeling strangeness that Dragonlance an provide.

 

[Oni]

Why would a Kender -not- steal from his companions when it's an uncontrollable trait?

Here's a situation to put a Kender in:

The party are all chain below decks in a slavers ship caught in a terrible storm, above them they can hear the sailor yelling and shouting, trying to keep the vessel afloat and avoid crashing into the reefs around a nearby shore. Below where they are the hold is filling with water and at least one NPC slave has drowned from being chained too low.

It's a miserable moment, the DM describes the tension and horror with pure wonderful form.


If a Kender is played properly, this is about where he breaks out in show tunes...

They're cheery and immune to fear.

I don't think your assessment of the kender is fair or correct. It is very reasonable that they would be sad from the loss of life of the fellow already dead if he in anyway deserves being sad for. He might not fear for his own life, but he would certainly be worried about the fate of his companions. And he might very well do his best to keep the moment from becoming too grim but I think that is an admirable thing and certainly what would be precisely the reason one would have a kender around.

The long and the short of it though is that kender are not always cheerful, and while they may not experience fear like the other races do, there is still a wide gamut of emotions they do experience.

 

[Wolffenjugend]

I stand by my original point that DL has a much stronger role-playing emphasis to it than many other published campaign settings, and is also meant to be much more epic in scope. Alot depends on the ability of your DM. If he's good, then anything is possible. Anyone who thinks that players can't surpass the achievements of the Heroes in the WotL obviously underestimate the potential for greatness and probably shouldn't be playing DL at all.

 

[DragonLancer]

Kender are child-like, don't understand fear and generally have a cheery mood. When one of their friends gets killed by the evil bad guy they don't break into a song & dance routine. When something bad happens they may well say something cheery or funny, just to break the moment and relieve that tension. Those who don't know Dragonlance should really look at them again and try to see what they are.

It is correct, that DL has become a slave to its novel line, and I agree that that does direct the world a bit too much. I would love to see a stand alone novel that deals with a regular adventure much like a fair few FR novels do things. Sadly I don't think that will happen though.

As for the roleplaying over hack n' slashing, DL has always been more roleplay and less dungeons. Yes, ruins and a few dungeons have appeared over the years in modules and stories, but thats not where the game lies. I think that the nature of roleplaying over combat in DL has always been there in spirit it just hasn't been put into so many words. Running a dungeonn crawl in Dl would not fit the setting as much as politics, wars and consequence. Yes, those things can appear in any setting but DL of all TSR's old settings carries those themes across as part of what the setting is.

 

[talinthas]

The thing that makes Krynn more roleplay than powergaming (outside of the artificial 18th level cap back in 1st ed) is that adventurers, heroes, and other high level folk are very rare in the setting. Magical items are almost Dark Sun-like in rarity. Arcane casters are rare, and pending when you play, divine casters nearly unheard of. The game is much more low magic than most standard campaign settings. If you try to play a standard dungeon crawl or powergaming session on DL, you'll quickly find yourself bored, or easily dominating everything out there. Part of the point of dragonlance is that your heroes are _the_ heroes- that is, you are the only force of change in the world. That, coupled with the concept of epic fantasy, helps make DL more roleplaying based, and less powergaming friendly.

 

[Orius]

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.

AND Raistlin! (How could you guys forget Raistlin?!)

But yes, being in the shadow of the Heroes of the Lance is usually the big reason why people say DL campaigns suck. It's doesn't have to be that way though. Weren't the original DL modules playable with any group of characters? Couldn't they conceivably be played that way even today? And even so, you can always set a campaign after the major events, the 2e Tales of the Lance box was set up that way, set right before the Chaos War. Of course, a lot of players will want to participate in the big events, War of the Lance, Chaos War, War of Souls. That causes some problems too.

2) Weiss and Hickman keep blowing the world up.

Isn't that kind of the fault of the old TSR executives, "blowing up" campaign worlds to sell new rules? They did that with the Realms, the whole "Time of Troubles" , killing off the best evil god, and replacing him with a fool (though I hear Bane has returned, yeay!). How much of Dragons of Summer Flame was an excuse to push that SAGA stuff everyone turned their noses up at? It was only around about a year when DL stuff started to have both SAGA and AD&D stats. And the War of Souls doesn't seem to be much better; I haven't read it, but judging from the timeline in the new DL book, Weis and Hickman slapped a massive reset button on the setting. I suppose I can't really blame them though, given the extreme unpopularity of SAGA.

 

[Gothmog]

Part of the point of dragonlance is that your heroes are _the_ heroes- that is, you are the only force of change in the world. That, coupled with the concept of epic fantasy, helps make DL more roleplaying based, and less powergaming friendly.

See, thats exactly why I didn't like playing or running DL games. I ran a DL game in high school for 2 years, and played in another for 1.5 years under 2nd edition. Its just too hard to suspend disbelief that the PCs are THE most important and heroic characters in the world. Surely there have to be other people out there trying to change the world, for better or worse. Making the PCs the sole moral agents on the world is rather boring IMO, and DL also suffers from EXTREMELY simplistic black and white morality (which isn't surprising considering Hickman's moral stance). Morally complex situations typically don't arise much in DL games IME, its more point the PCs at the bad guys and let them have it. As hard as it is to believe, DL suffers much more from uber-NPCitis than the FR does.

Second, every time I have seen a kender PC in a group, they ruin gameplay. Its like when someone plays a kender, they completely lose all common sense they have. I have seen more intra-party fighting and bickering caused by kender than I EVER have by evil or CN characters. It got so bad in one game that the red wizard lured the kender away from camp one night and into a nest of draconians, where he was captured, tortured, and killed. There were cheers from the rest of the group, followed by an agreement by the group no more kender would be allowed in the campaign, EVER. Kender are cute but annoying in the novels, but downright loathesome in gameplay.

Another problem I had with DL is the same one I have with FR, and any other world with oodles of novels- it feels like you are straightjacketed when you are playing. The metaplot IS Dragonlance, and I really dislike metaplot-heavy worlds. Players of DL are typically big fans of the novels, and expect the game to reflect the same reality the novels did. That severely limits the DM's ability to come up with something new and creative, considering he'll likely face cries of mutiny from players who are upset he isn't following "canon". Blah. I'll homebrew from now on, thank you.

Finally, I don't think that DL is more roleplay heavy than any other setting- that is solely a function of the DM running the game, and whether or not he rewards good roleplaying, or simply throws endless strings of monsters at the group. Some world are more geared toward RP-intensive playing styles (Midnight for example), while others are more powergamerish (FR comes to mind). Dragonlance falls somewhere in the middle- there is typically less combat in DL, but the absolute morality of the setting counters that IME.

 

[Orius]

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.

It gives Reorx something to do.