[WOTC] May to August 2003 Release Schedule

[Alzrius]

I would like to ask this one question though: Is it true you guys have made your own Death Knight Template?

I'm going to be impertinent and give an answer here, despite the fact that I am not in any way affiliated with Sovereign Stone Press.

Last GenCon I talked to the guy who was the manager for the new 3E DL setting (curse my addled memory, but I can't recall the guys name), and this came up. He assured me that the Death Knight would be redone by them (he didn't say if it was a template or not). When I pointed out that the Death Knight had already been done several times over, he said that theirs would be different, and called it the "Krynnish" Death Knight. I doubt that's the name it'll end up with though, since the quotation marks were audible.

 

[Alzrius]

However, BP has recently bought the right to Dragon Fist, and I would be surprised if the core DF setting book was to not be published by DF.

You're slightly confused here Gez. The right to publish Dragon Fist was purchased by Green Ronin, not Bastion Press. It's Chris Pramas (the original writer of Dragon Fist), not Jim Butler, who will be putting out the 3E DF.

 

[Alzrius]

Hardly. As someone who was disappointed with how Spellbound turned out, I pushed to make UE really cool. As with The Silver Marches, UE is a book where you can actually play characters native to the area(unlike Spellbound, which was mostly from a Dales/Western Heartlands perspective treated Ag, Rash, and Thay as incredibly hostile places that you'd visit once and then never return to).

Hmm, I may have to revise my opinion then, since I liked how the Silver Marches turned out. Does this mean that that appeal to the masses to purchase the Sliver Munches so that those little elves could make more things that were more chewy than crunchy was a success?

 

[Stormprince]

Of course I do. I have faith until proven otherwise. Besides, I think, regardless what some people think, there's a lot of GOOD d20 products out there, in the market. I think that d20 Dragonlance will certainly be one of them.

I would like to ask this one question though: Is it true you guys have made your own Death Knight Template?

Yes we did, but then again, we absolutely had to. We looked at the death knight template provided by WotC and realized that it was VERY different from the original death knights from 1ed...the format we had used for death knights like Lord Soth since day 1, oh so long ago. So, we took the death knight template and tweaked it, making a Death Knight of Krynn template, complete with a brand new sample Death Knight. Power words, fireballs, walls of ice, the whole enchilada.

What can we say? When we stat up Lord Soth in the future, we don't want to have to say "Oh, see... well, there's this new template, so we hafta use that one... so... all those things Soth did in the books? We're retcon'ing them... they never happened. It was all a dream." *shudders* No, no retcon'ing!

- Christopher

 

[Stormprince]

I'm going to be impertinent and give an answer here, despite the fact that I am not in any way affiliated with Sovereign Stone Press.

Last GenCon I talked to the guy who was the manager for the new 3E DL setting (curse my addled memory, but I can't recall the guys name), and this came up. He assured me that the Death Knight would be redone by them (he didn't say if it was a template or not). When I pointed out that the Death Knight had already been done several times over, he said that theirs would be different, and called it the "Krynnish" Death Knight. I doubt that's the name it'll end up with though, since the quotation marks were audible.

That was probably Jamie... tall, dark hair, glasses? He's the Sovereign Press Managing Editor and the guy "in charge" of the Dragonlance stuff. He's been involved in the DL community forever, so he knows his stuff. As I mentioned, right now, we're calling it the "Death Knight of Krynn" template. Yet more "crunchy" goodness for DL. Can't tell ya too much more than that, I'm afraid...but you'll find it well worth the wait!

- Christopher

 

[bolen]

Chris, what are the plans for dragonlance do you guys write the setting book and then allow wizards to publish it. What are your plans after that?

 

[Gez]

You're slightly confused here Gez. The right to publish Dragon Fist was purchased by Green Ronin, not Bastion Press. It's Chris Pramas (the original writer of Dragon Fist), not Jim Butler, who will be putting out the 3E DF.

Ah yes, indeed. I knew it, but my brain was probably in power-saving mode when I typed this.

 

[Stormprince]

Chris, what are the plans for dragonlance do you guys write the setting book and then allow wizards to publish it. What are your plans after that?

The plans are thus: We write the Campaign Sourcebook and WotC will publish the 1st/core rulebook (wrote, past tense...it's now in editing and we're starting to solicit art and map orders), then we have a rather ambitious schedule of release products afterwards. The Campaign Setting focuses on Dragonlance as it is now, reflecting the recent changes from the War of Souls trilogy and other recent Dragonlance titles. There's also information on playing in "Krynn's past," that will allow players and DMs to play in earlier eras. Our products will zoom in on specifics: Setting Sourcebooks focusing on very specific times "During & Post War of Souls," "War of the Lance," etc. We have a trilogy of adventures that will form a complete Dragonlance Campaign, carrying characters through an epic (lower-case, not Epic Level) adventure taking them from 1st level through to 18th or so, with a storyline that will change the status quo, but unlike the original adventures, there are no-pregens... this time, it will be as if the PCs ARE the heroes of a new set of novels. I'm extremely excited about these, not only because I'll be writing them, but because the story is one that we have ironed out, sitting down with Margaret Weis, Don Perrin, Jamie Chambers, and myself, so as to make sure that it captures the feeling of a true novel. There will be advice on Creating a Cohesive Party, advice on Tests of High Sorcery for the PCs, opportunities to join the Knights of Solamnia, and focusing on areas of Krynn that have never been fully explored anywhere.

We have material planned to flesh out Krynn's Pantheon, explore the Wizards of High Sorcery in depth, monsters both new and old (many of which have only ever truly appeared in novels), and simply tons of other support materials.

We're going to do our best to make sure that the novels and the game truly reflect what's going on, but without making it seem as if one is completely controlling the other. Events that occur in the novels, or in the game, will have an impact that will be felt for years to come. It's truly an exciting project, and I cannot wait for the DLCS to hit the shelves, so the "party" can begin!

- Christopher

 

[bolen]

I have to admit I have not read Dragonlance since it came out in the 1980's. Does it use a new magic system like Soviegn Stone does. I like that system but it does not fit into any other world except for it's own.

 

[Stormprince]

Though there is a slightly different system of magic for sorcerers and mystics in Dragonlance, much effort was made to ensure compatability with wizardly arcane magic. Otherwise, Dragonlance IS a D&D world, as it always has been.

Sovereign Stone, on the other hand, is a d20 world, where completely different rules apply. Dragonlance was created to fit in with Dungeons & Dragons rules specifically, while Sovereign Stone had to take the rules and change them a little in order to make everything fit correctly.

As it says, Dragonlance is compatable with D&D3e worlds, yet like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, it has its own little quirks and foibles that make it different

- Christopher