Why no love for Dragonlance? [slightly rantish]

[seasong]

Are you kidding? I love playing those so-called "irritants." They got more personalities than previously played PC races prior to the debut of Dragonlance back in the 80's.

Here's my problems with them (and some other aspects of the setting):

Personally, I feel that protagonists should be exceptional in some way. It's different for a horror campaign, of course, or certain kinds of gritty narrative, but kender, tinkergnomes and gully dwarves don't fit in those kinds of narrative. That wouldn't be an issue, except that the tone of voice in the books, and the way the kender, gully dwarves and tinkergnomes were described... is that serious kender, smart gully dwarves and successful tinkers are not simply rare - they're impossible, as in Creation Of The World Gods Defined This Way impossible.

Yeah, I can change that. But by the time I finished changing the stuff that annoyed me, it's not really DragonLance anymore, and for the effort I've put in, I might as well have rolled my own setting.

Kender have plenty of personality, I'll certainly give them that. So do halflings. The difference is that halflings have variety - plenty of halflings are exactly like kender, and I wouldn't have minded so much if they'd just said that kender were a culture of halflings who used hoopaks and encouraged thieving.

Tinkergnomes have plenty of personality, too. So do gnomes. Wouldn't it have been cool if there was a tinker class of mad technologists, with gnomes having it as a favored class or special bonuses in it? But no, they went the Basic D&D route, where an elf and a fighter/wizard are synonymous.

Gully dwarves have plenty of personality, but it's just one personality. They have so many racial personality traits that there's not much else left to do with them.

The above is not restricted to the Three Stooges, of course. The writing of the DragonLance world is rife with overly defined, "if you change this it's not in the spirit of DragonLance" stuff. Given that the setting wasn't that strong anyway, it just didn't work out.

 

[pogre]

My problem with Dragon lance is the author. Hickman I'm sure is a lovely human being, but he manages to irritate me with his writing and attitude. Hey, he probably would not like my stuff either

 

[haiiro]

I'm with you, Kai Lord. The first complaint you list is often levelled against FR as well, and I just don't buy it. If you don't like the canon storylines, don't use them. Same goes for the canon NPCs -- although personally I like including larger-than-life NPCs sometimes, just to enforce the notion that the world around the PCs is a living place (realistically, there will always be bigger fish in the sea). Just because these folks exist doesn't mean your party can't grow to prominence -- it's just a matter of play style.

I love tinker gnomes, and -- in moderation -- DL's gnomes, kender and gully dwarves can be great additions to a campaign (or adventuring party). Like anything else, comic relief can be overdone. Done right, though, characters like Merry and Pippin in LotR:FotR or Gimli in LotR:TTT help to ease tension and provide humor at appropriate moments.

Edit: spelling.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I spent my earlier D&D years playing Dragonlance and it was generally very good. Draconians, lots of dragons, highlords, solamnics, arcane order, death knights, huge evil cities = good.

The fifth age stopped that.

Comic relief/irritants are always bad for a setting imo. These things happen already, they don't need mechanics to enforce them.

I may go back to the setting again, depends on the upcoming source book.

 

[Zappo]

My main beef with the setting is that if you stick to the canon there isn't much for the PCs to do unless they are the Heroes of the Lance - in which case the adventures are predetermined anyway. If you don't stick to the canon, then you still don't have much to do simply because the setting is severely underdetailed in all aspects that aren't covered by the novels. Pull out the map from the Tales of the Lance boxed set; 90% of the places on it aren't even mentioned anywhere on the manuals, and I'm not talking about small villages. There are entire nations that get maybe one paragraph. Capital cities of which nothing is known save the name. "Special places" with mysterious names of which nothing at all is said. Lairs of creatures, apparently randomly scattered. Really, this setting gives the choice between total railroading OR practically homebrewing.

 

[Agamon]

I love Dragonlance...the books. The setting is pretty ho-hum.

Kinda like I think FR is a great setting, but the books generally suxxor. I also like Greyhawk, Kalamar, Dark*Matter, 7th Sea and my own homebrew.

Additionally, I don't think Middle-Earth makes a very good setting. Or Lankmahr. Or Wheel of Time's world. Or Star Wars' galaxy far, far away...

Maybe it's because I like settings that aren't defined by particular events or characters, but are just settings waiting for a story to be told in them.

 

[Taloras]

Dragonlance, the novels, was what got me interested in D&D. I never played 2E, so i havent tried the setting, but id read the books so much, i knew quite a bit about it. Im actually -waiting- for Dragonlance 3E to come out, to see what its like. Who says the world has to go as the novels did? What happens if the people from the novels died somewhere and your PCs take their place? You can tweak it a little. Personally, i like homebrew worlds, where there are NO preconceived notions of how things should go. When DL comes out, ill try and get a group to play it. I cant say anything about other settings besides Greyhawk and FR, which i like both of, but im eagerly awaiting DL 3E.

 

[Ranger REG]

Additionally, I don't think Middle-Earth makes a very good setting. Or Lankmahr. Or Wheel of Time's world. Or Star Wars' galaxy far, far away...

Personally, this is one of the best ways to get people interested in RPG, or roleplaying for that matter, in a setting that everyone is familiar with, either by motion picture medium or printed medium.

OBTW, I don't think that ALL Forgotten Realms fiction line is bad. There some that I like, from the Icewind Dale Trilogy to the Horde Trilogy.

 

[Alcamtar]

I could remove Kender and Gully Dwarves and Tinker Gnomes and Minotaurs and Draconians and ignore the major NPCs and plotlines, but then why use the setting? I don't know, I read some of the books and played in a module or two and didn't like the feel of it. It's easier just to use Greyhawk if that's what I want. (It's not, but...)

Sorry!

 

[Mercule]

I don't have a problem with Dragonlance. Really.

I think Kender are kinda neat. I just don't want to see all halflings in Greyhawk played as though they were kender (it happens quite often).

Gully gnomes don't bother me. If you read Dave Duncan's "A Man of His Word" series, it's pretty much the same thing. And I love that series.

I don't like gnomes that tinker in _any_ setting. I don't mind it so much in DL, actually, because it's the exception. Somebody took the gnome concept and twisted it, making it their own. I generally ignore them and move on. Now in any other setting, playing a tinker gnome (again, happens quite often) is a sure way to get me to kill you as a DM.

Of course, the fact that the culture of the "little people" bled from DL into other settings shows just how lacking those race were to begin with. As much as I did like the orginal trilogy, I don't think there are _that_ many people who are paying the authors tribute. Even the Drizz't clones are finally dying out.

As far as the rest of the stuff goes; I never much cared for draconians, but I think that's a taste thing; the moon magic is one of the cooler ideas I've seen within the D&D rules; and I kinda like the DL take on Minotaurs; but I could live without Irda.