Cam Banks's page

Does the game focus on the players playing the primary characters from the show, or is it more about playing unique original characters (meteor freaks and the like) who are allied with Clark, Oliver, etc.? I'm assuming that the game puts the PCs into the roles of heroes, if perhaps not always as boyscout as Clark Kent.

Our premise is that you're creating a spinoff show with your group of players, setting up all of the major characters, locations, and relationships of the campaign. This doesn't mean you can't play Clark, Ollie, Chloe, and so forth, and we include those characters (and many many others) in the book, too. But, we figured most players would be keen to tell their own stories, with their own central conflicts.

Cheers,
Cam

I saw where Margaret Weis Productions is going to be releasing a Smallville RPG based off the TV series this year. I've been a fan of the series since it started, even if sometimes the story arcs weren't always great. For those who are thinking of picking this up, what sort of features do you hope the game has? What style of play do you think it'll support?

The Smallville Roleplaying Game will be using a version of the Cortex System that we call Cortex K. It focuses heavily on the interaction of the characters, the drama, secrets, and values that the characters on the shows struggle with. In many ways, it's a young adult soap opera with superpowers.

Cheers,
Cam

The Supernatural RPG is officially in print and hitting distribution. The book will be on sale at GenCon (it premiered at San Diego Comic Con) and should be available here at the Paizo store sometime mid-August.

The Supernatural Quickstart ("The Hunt Begins") will be an in-store promotion and then available online for free after that.

What ever happened to Dragonlance?

http://www.dragonlance.com/products/

:)

Cheers,
Cam

Nope-I really enjoyed the first two Dragonlance Trilogies back in the day, but all the pointless changes over the years destroyed the setting for me.

No pointless changes in my book! Well, nothing too serious.

Cheers,
Cam

My first novel, The Sellsword, just hit the shelves this week. It's a Dragonlance novel, set just after the War of the Lance, and while I didn't write it specifically with 4th edition D&D in mind I am pretty confident that all of the characters in the book could be created with 4th edition rules. Heck, one of the villains is essentially a warlock.

There's a lot of debate right now, however, that some settings won't be able to work properly under 4e, or that 4e's implied setting will "infect" them. The Realms fans are very upset about the changes that are coming about with Faerun in the next year or two. Dragonlance novels are still scheduled all the way until 2009, but the future of that setting is completely unknown at this point.

Cheers,
Cam

"Warlock" and "witch" are not technically opposites. Warlock means "oath-breaker" while "witch" comes from Old English and Germanic words for sorcerer, will-worker, waker of the dead, etc.

That said, you could easily make the warlock class the witch class, going with the folklore of a witch having charms and the ability to invoke curses. I just wouldn't use them at the same time; pick one or the other.

Cheers,
Cam

This could very well be placeholder art, folks. The real cover might not look anything like that.

Cheers,
Cam

Finally arrives today. Blargh.

Cheers,
Cam

Still nothing today, on Nov 29th. 24 days after the ship date of Nov 5th.

Cheers,
Cam

I've still not got mine yet, either. Frustration, thy name is mail.

Cheers,
Cam

Okay, now it's been 21 days. Even throwing in Veteran's Day, that's a fair long while. #1 and #2 arrived speedily, but this one's taking forever.

Cheers,
Cam

I had a notice on November 1st that my copy of Pathfinder #3 was being packaged to ship, with a link to the PDF and so forth. Yet it's now November 15th and nothing's arrived yet. Was it waylaid somewhere between Washington and Wisconsin?

Cheers expectantly,
Cam

Blargh.

Cheers,
Cam

Hmm.

You're small. You can talk to burrowing mammals. You're above average when it comes to magic that misleads or misdirects.

Surely you must come from a culture who's afraid of the things on the surface, forcing you to live in cramped quarters (small) getting along with your neighbors (burrowing mammals) and making sure people can't see or find you (illusion).

Gnomes - the meerkats of the world!

Cheers,
Cam

I've always wanted to rewrite halflings as a people with a similar backstory to the Jews of the Middle Ages. Kicked out of their homeland, forced into a Diaspora, settling in many cities and forming their own communities and neighborhoods, adapting the local culture and language to their own, doing all the things that the natives don't want to, etc.

Cheers,
Cam

Cam Banks wrote:

Tim & Nick,

Just got Dragon #356. Great list. However...

Who told you Cyan Bloodbane was a dracolich? He's not!

Cheers,
Cam

Get Matthew over at the Dragonlance Nexus, its all his fault. :)

The Nexus is a fantastic storehouse for unofficial fan-created materials of all kinds, from alternate timelines, new fan organizations, and rules of all shapes and sizes. The Lexicon entry for Cyan was written by Matthew but the "sources" he cites are his own, none of which are accepted by WotC or MWP.

If anybody at Paizo ever needs information about Dragonlance, they should feel free to contact me or somebody else at Margaret Weis Productions. We love to help!

Cheers,
Cam
Managing Editor | Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.

Tim & Nick,

Just got Dragon #356. Great list. However...

Who told you Cyan Bloodbane was a dracolich? He's not!

Cheers,
Cam

Cam,

A replacement's on its way!

Thanks!

cos!

Hey, thanks Cosmo! Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Cam

I haven't got my issue of #354 yet, either. Should I expect it this coming week?

Cheers,
Cam

Frost aka Gellidus the White Dragon Overlord.

Since, well, I wrote a whole freaking 360-page adventure about him.

Cheers,
Cam

We're having a great deal of fun with Dragonlance at the moment over at Margaret Weis Productions and Sovereign Press. If you're a Dragonlance fan (or even if you aren't but wonder if there's been anything new to freshen it up) you should check us out!

Cheers,
Cam

http://www.planewalker.com/downloads/godslist/files/gods_list.pdf

It's a shame this list doesn't extend to official licensed properties, like Dragonlance. WotC approves all of our material and it also jives with the novels published by the book department, so it's considered to be the official word on DL (and not just some third party thing.)

Cheers,
Cam

The Kingpriest was probably the second most difficult stat block I've ever had to write for Sovereign Press, right after the War of the Twins-era Raistlin. We discussed this into the ground; we were going to make him LN, but it soon became clear (especially if you read Chris Pierson's excellent trilogy about him) that he thought he was being good and righteous almost until the moment Paladine told him "no" and dropped the meteor on his head.

Beldinas characterizes that extreme end of Good that the Balance of Krynn warns of - believing so fervently that evil must be eliminated that one's actions become those of a fanatic or a zealot. I think we'd be hard pressed to find him sane, and alignment being what it is, I think you'd be justified in making him something other than LG if that doesn't work for you.

IT should be noted that he bears the Crown of Power, Miceram, which only functioned at the time for good-aligned people. There's a thought that perhaps its corruption into the Crown later worn by Emperor Ariakas in the War of the Lance began when Beldinas took his desire to see good ascendant and became an extremist.

Cheers,
Cam

Well, fair enough. Any chance you could comment on the "Kingpriest is LG" issue? Because it just strikes me as really wrong - he's the head of state of a totalitarian regime, backed by secret police and thought police, with the stated aim of committing genocide.

That's the line being parrotted by the folks writing the official Dragonlance stuff for Margaret Weis Productions, one of whom was the author of that piece. Apparently Weis and Hickman never liked the idea of Krynn being a part of the D&D multiverse, so they've decided to just ignore everything else and pretend it never happened.

Hey now. I'm not remotely parrot-like!

And the Realms did it too! At least Krynn started out not being connected to the Great Wheel. :)

Cheers,
Cam

The weird thing with Dragonlance, which I think separates it from the other D&D campaign settings featured in novels, is that from what I have heard the first 6 books still consistently outsell the newer ones outside of initial release period. Newcomers to Dragonlance are still sent to Chronicles and Legends, and we have new fans every year. The kids read these books, want to play in that world since they hear it's D&D, and so we have to service that market, which is really enormous.

So yeah, the current novels and game products are moving things forward, but the DL creators would be crazy to ignore the huge segment of the fandom that just wants more of the War of the Lance.

Cheers,
Cam

Dragonlance has info on Istar. Since DL is still in print, I'd have preferred a Mystara piece instead, but that's personal preference. (I wish DL products would stop going back to the original trilogy, but that's a seperate rant)

Istar wasn't the original trilogy. It was the second trilogy, Legends. :) And we split our products fairly evenly between Age of Despair/War of the Lance stuff, current era/Age of Mortals stuff, and era-independent stuff, so it's not like we're retreading things all that often.

Cheers,
Cam

We gave rules for hoopaks in the 32 page Dungeon Master's Resource Booklet included with the DM's Screen for Dragonlance. Various other 3.5 sourcebooks by Sovereign Press/Margaret Weis Productions include characters with hoopaks (such as Tas in War of the Lance and Dragons of Autumn), and most of the classic kender weapons will be included in Races of Ansalon, due out in the next few months.

It is essentially a combination of quarterstaff, shortspear, and sling. It's an exotic weapon, although kender treat it as a simple weapon due to Weapon Familiarity. Costs 21 gp (or steel pieces in DL) and weighs 8 lb.

Cheers,
Cam

Plus, once they've been done eaten, they leave behind awesome shells that look like they're made of rainbows trapped in iron.

In New Zealand, where I'm originally from, they call abalone "paua," which is the Maori word for the shellfish. Paua shell is a major component of Maori decorative and symbolic art. It's also one of the most common touristy things in all the gift shops - rings, earrings, inlaid wood, etc all made with paua shell.

Cheers,
Cam

Brinebeast wrote:

I kept the Chemosh and Hiddukel layers for completeness sake. If you don't want to use them as part of the core cosmology, don't.

I personally hate all of these boutique cosmologies and retcons that have infected the planar cosmology of D&D over the last few years, but your mileage may vary.

Two problems with this:

1. Dragonlance's cosmology was separate before it became incorporated into the Great Wheel (around the time of Manual of the Planes). The Dragonlance Abyss and the Greyhawk Abyss weren't originally identical. MotP and 2nd edition AD&D even had to move Takhisis to the Nine Hells since she's lawful evil. So it's not so much a retcon as a retcon of a retcon, and we worked hard to clarify all of this in the recent DL gaming sourcebooks.

2. Chemosh isn't chaotic evil, he's neutral evil. So either he's slumming in an Abyssal layer or he's not the Dragonlance Chemosh (who is incidentally a major player in recent Dragonlance novels.)

Are all the chaotic evil Faerunian gods included in the list?

Cheers,
Cam

Krynn's also about 40 years ahead of the other settings, which makes things tricky. But the crux of it is that Krynn is not a part of the Great Wheel cosmology and has its own, in addition to having been moved by Takhisis following Dragons of Summer Flame.

There's a division in the fan base about whether it's a good or bad thing to rule out multiversal crossovers in Dragonlance. My point of view is that in a core Dragonlance campaign, Krynn is a relatively closed setting. In any other campaign, visitors from Krynn are perfectly fine, so long as you don't expect it to conform to what's accepted in the core DL version of things.

Thus, Soth never went to Ravenloft, there aren't Spelljammer ports in the city of Palanthas, drow elves didn't crash land their spelljammer ship in Southern Ergoth, and so forth... unless you're playing a Ravenloft or Spelljammer campaign.

Cheers,
Cam