In order to avoid increasingly cluttering up the Darksun 4E thread with discussions on Dragonlance I'm opening a new thread.
In order to avoid increasingly cluttering up the Darksun 4E thread with discussions on Dragonlance I'm opening a new thread.
Is this in hopes of Dragonlance being the next Campaign Setting?
Yes.
Well it would be an interesting concept except how are they going explain draconians given they've already got dragonborn?
As I recall draconians are
and I don't ebelieve anything been said about how they reproduce...
Well they did it to Faerun can only hope they do a better job when they come to dragonlance.
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The first draconians were created in a foul ritual performed by Dracart the Black Robe, Wyrrlish (a cleric of Takhisis [the head honcho of the evil pantheon and the Dragonlancian version of Tiamat]), and the red dragon Harkiel.
It was long believed that draconians were unable to breed true, but that is not the case. A clutch of female draconians were discovered after the War of the Lance and draconians are now able to reproduce. In fact, there's now a nation comprised of draconians called Teyr.
As for Dragonlance 4e, I'm all for it. Even though I've made a decision to stick with 3.5/Pathfinder RPG, it'll be very interesting to see how Wizards of the Coast will approach Dragonlance in the 4e era of the game.
To me the hardest to adapt would be the "Wizards' Curse": Krynn's in-campaign, historical justification for Vancean spell casting.
I could see quite heavy-duty adaptation of 4e for the setting to be able to keep the flavor between the magic systems in post WoSouls: sorcery vs. Moon Wizardry and mysticism vs. clerical magic.
Cosmology is also complex.
And tinker gnomes are rather different from 4e gnomes: really un-charismatic, clearly non-fey in their origins and quite against magic
To me the hardest to adapt would be the "Wizards' Curse": Krynn's in-campaign, historical justification for Vancean spell casting.
I could see quite heavy-duty adaptation of 4e for the setting to be able to keep the flavor between the magic systems in post WoSouls: sorcery vs. Moon Wizardry and mysticism vs. clerical magic.Cosmology is also complex.
And tinker gnomes are rather different from 4e gnomes: really un-charismatic, clearly non-fey in their origins and quite against magic
Maybe they'll explain it all by having it set one hundred years after an earth shattering event. Oh wait...
Dragonlance being the next 4th edition campaign setting is a strong possibility.
The next D&D miniatures set that comes out in August will have an Aurak Draconian.
Dragonlance being the next 4th edition campaign setting is a strong possibility.
The next D&D miniatures set that comes out in August will have an Aurak Draconian.
Several pieces of evidence point to Dragonlance being the next setting, but Draconians MAY show in the Draconomicon 2 which comes out before the 2010 setting.
Just something to think about.
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They will have to really do a great job, in fact I would say that unless Hickman & Weis are writing it that they should can the idea full stop.
4e I think is perfect for FR, Eberron & Dark Suns (mostly DS). But not so great for Greyhawk or Dragonlance.
Remember DL was built from a game of 1e AD&D, and much of what was captured in the novels was an interpretation of the 1e rules.
If they were listening to me - do Dark Suns, leave DL alone.
2 cents,
S.
I think the next setting will be Dark Sun, if only because Dragonlance is questionably indistinct from the two settings already released. However, one of the hints towards Dragonlance is, I believe, that Weis and Hickman are running a panel (or participating in one at least) for WotC at GenCon.
Either way, DL or DS, since the PHB III will arguably have more Divine and Primal classes, hopefully the flavors of the worlds can be maintained.
(As an aside, if they did pick DL, I'd expect it to be in the current time, post the SAGA system changes. What do you guys think?)
Cut from the Darksun thread.
Stuff... Now I personally think that it was deeply flawed in many ways but...stuff...Fundamentally the whole original campaign is nothing but an AP and one that's flawed by today's standards.I'm really interested in this if you care to elaborate...perhaps in a new thread? I just started the Chronicles for the first time (annotated version), so I'm genuinely curious.
Its been years so my understanding of what made this a flawed gem are not as clear as they were the last time I read over this product.
What I can say is that, at the beginning of 3.x I went back and looked at these adventures. This would have been about the third time I read them. This time I was thinking of converting them, to 3.x and figured that I could smooth out the rough edges during that process. I gave up that idea as I went through them again, though I kept reading because I felt there were elements that could be taken from them and incorporated into the campaign I eventually did run.
I presume you've been through them yourself and should therefore have encountered the same kinds of problems I encountered. If not then its possible the problems simply are not as large for you as they were for me.
For me the most significant aspect of why this was nearly unrunable was that its integrated to tightly. It took specific characters (the heros of the Lance) and wove their story into the larger story about the Dragonlance War.
It then made presumptions about the behavior of the main characters in terms of personality and even, if I recall correctly, when they died or who they loved. It introduced characters that would seem to suddenly become PCs and had others that might be PCs leave to lead the armies of good.
It created an extremely tight timeline and then hurried the players along the plot path, often using really lame methods to try and keep them on the rail road tracks. In a modern AP we'd have the story of the bad guys all laid out but the story of the PCs is theirs to create. Furthermore there is usually a fair bit of slack built into the adventure so the DM has a fair bit of ability to deal with players that wander off the beaten path. The DM can round them up again and get them back on to the story without to large an impact. You'll notice, if you look, that modern APs almost never have anything resembling hard time limits between parts of the adventure. Time limits are pretty much always revealed after the players have solidly bitten the adventure hook. The players know what their trying to do and hopefully why their trying to do it - they've agreed to do it and then, oh look...it turns out your in a rush.
Furthermore the goals are usually somewhat straight forward. The key plot points are generally difficult to miss or mess up. With the Dragonlance material the adventure might expect the players to react in one manner and subsequent material might presume that they did behave in the expected manner and yet the DM finds that the players are reacting to a situation in a manner that seems logical to them and him but is not at all in line with how the modules expect the PCs to behave.
My feeling is that a lot of these problems could be cleaned up (and the 3.5 version might have even cleaned some of them up - I have not read it) but it'd take some work and a lot of considering how to integrate the interesting aspects of the AP into a form that is better able to handle dealing with an unknown adventuring party whose players may wander off the railroad tracks.
Sorry I can't provide more specific details but its been too long since I read this to delve deeper then general impressions.
Now it does look like Draconians are going to be in the Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons
"There's the 25th anniversary of Dragonlance, to which I'll add a party favor or two in the form of a preview of the draconians as they'll appear in Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons and the Monster Manual: Legendary Evils miniatures set."
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Dragonlance has gone through enough world shattering events and just recently felt like it was getting back to normalcy to me. It is hard to get attached to any countries or people if it all gets rearranged and destroyed. If they do a 4e product I hope they decide to leave the setting alone and instead make 4e fit into the setting instead of the other way around. Instead of forcing dragonborn in, just have draconians use the dragonborn stuff.
...a whole lot of stuff...
First off, thanks for answering my questions. Second, I have a couple more.
When you started your conversion, were you converting the novels or actual adventures based on the novels and setting?
Has there been an actual conversion released officially?
...a whole lot of stuff...First off, thanks for answering my questions. Second, I have a couple more.
When you started your conversion, were you converting the novels or actual adventures based on the novels and setting?
Has there been an actual conversion released officially?
I never did a full on conversion. I just considered it and read the adventures with the idea of doing a conversion in mind. My source was the 1st edition series of adventures from DL1 to DL14.
My understanding is that Margret Weis' company put out the adventures in 3.5. I can't really say much more in that regard as I've not read them.
I own all of the 3.5 Dragonlance adaptations and ran Dragons of Autumn. The players got a kick out of running it but it really isn't well designed by today's standards. As previous posters have mentioned its still too railroady (although its improved over first edition which I also have) and there are always a ton of NPCs joining and leaving the party. Combat falls into two types. A battle against a horde of mooks which tend to be too easy, or a single very high level opponent which kills half the party before the realize they have to run.
I've considered running the other two parts but it would require so much re-writing I'll probably never get around to it.
i pray that dragonlance isnt tainted with the stink of 4e.
me, i spent the money on 4e, bought the 3book set when it came out, and i read through the first 4 chapters of the PC and set it down in disgust.
i switched allegiance to pathfinder and have used the dragonlance setting exclusivly since. the idea that Weis would allow the setting to become corrupted by the drizzle the WoTC has pushed onto the masses is going to create alot of backlash. look at how many D&D fans took one look at 4e and decided to go over to pathfinder? ALOT! did wizards feel it? maybe a little, but they arent saying anything.
weis productions and weis herself, who is now the sole owner of the DL franchise (so i understand, but if my info is wrong, someone shout out the correct info), should not change format and go into 4e. if she does, since it is a small company, will feel the bite something fierce.
now, i understand people who run businesses have to put the business first, and if going to 4e will generate money, ok fine. but i say, when she writes up the contract, if it happens, there should be a clause that allows her to put the books and adventures into both pathfinder style and 4e style.
my X cents, where X= the rate of irateness i have with WOTC with coming up with 4e
Dark Sun 4e I will buy.
Dragonlance 4e I won't.
A bunch of stuff...
You are wrong. WotC owns the DL franchise and can do with the setting whatever they want and Weis doesn't really have a say in the matter. This is why there was a stink about them pulling the DL license from them when they were pulling all of their licenses for the release of 4E including the Dungeon & Dragon magazines. If Weis wants to write anything for DL then it has to go through WOTC so Weis has to go 4E because WOTC will not be supporting anything other then 4E.
I for one am both a fan of 4E and a fan of Dragonlance so I would quite like to see a DL 4E setting. I would also like to see a Dark Sun 4E setting. I would also like to see a 4E Oriental Adventures, but that isn't likely to happen. It is all spectulation what is going to come out until they announce it. The only hint that was given to us is an reference in the Manual of the Planes about Oerth and Krynn.
I own all of the 3.5 Dragonlance adaptations and ran Dragons of Autumn. The players got a kick out of running it but it really isn't well designed by today's standards. As previous posters have mentioned its still too railroady (although its improved over first edition which I also have) and there are always a ton of NPCs joining and leaving the party. Combat falls into two types. A battle against a horde of mooks which tend to be too easy, or a single very high level opponent which kills half the party before the realize they have to run.
I too am a bit of a saavy consumer when it comes to Dragonlance. I got into D & D because of the books. I played (and still play, a bit) Saga. And when it came to 3rd Ed., I was ready to finally bring my regular players to the campaign setting I loved.
And I was a bit disappointed. The adventures were far more railroads than I recalled. Incorporating the NPC's didn't work well. It was the feared "Lord of the Rings" game, where the fealty to the story was paramount.
And then I realized, as I looked over the rules, that we were playing the setting wrong. The point was not the standard 3.5 Min/Max, it was all about creating characters who fit the themes of the world. Wizards who got fatigued by casting. Knights who adhered to duty. Gnomes who got a bit crazy. Once we got used to that principle, and worked on telling a story through our characters, it became a lot more enjoyable.
The question that I am left with is this: Can 4.0, with it's focus on perfect balance, capture that? Perhaps. But warlocks, invokers, halfling and devas don't belong on Krynn. And after the debacle that was the Age of Mortals, I don't think a reboot will work. I'm heavily in the "They did what to Faerun?!" I don't want to see a reboot.
Rather, I hope they provide you with the flavorful elements of Faerun for 4th ed. What are the stats for Tinker Gnomes? What are the stats for Minotaurs? What is the curse of the magi? Can I play a Solamnic Knight? Nerekan Knight? Give us some advice for incorporating existing classes while retaining the flavor.
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i pray that dragonlance isnt tainted with the stink of 4e.Always glad to see an opinion put forward in civil and reasonable terms. >_>
Anyway, with the news that Draconians will be statted out in the second Draconomicon,
Agreed, perhaps not the most considered of statements. I do agree it would be strange to "double-dip" the drac's if they were doing DL soon. I am not convinced that DL will work in 4e, it didn't in 3e after all - in fact I put forward that it hasn't been that good since they original "Dragonlance Adventures" written by the authors themselves under 1e AD&D. But this is obvious DL was a product of the 1e AD&D games that the authors were playing - hence my reservation of the DL for 4e. Nothing to do with 4e other than it's style of play. Same problem that I feel plagued the 3e version. DL isn't about min/maxed Conan's it's about unlikely heroes.
S.
Ahh I love the smell of hyperbole in the morning.
There is nothing like A F*CKING GAME to get people so wound up.
i pray that dragonlance isnt tainted with the stink of 4e.
If you wouldn't want to see something like that said about Pathfinder, don't say it about other people's game of choice. The Golden Rule goes a long way towards keeping civility in place.
4e I think is perfect for FR (...) But not so great for Greyhawk or Dragonlance.
Considering what they did to the realms (which you think are perfect), I'm happy I'm not a Dragonlance fan, or that train of thought would make me wake up screaming at night...
If they do a 4e product I hope they decide to leave the setting alone and instead make 4e fit into the setting instead of the other way around. Instead of forcing dragonborn in, just have draconians use the dragonborn stuff.
Wouldn't get my hopes up, as they did it the other way around for the Realms, too.
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Yea, 4th Edition Dragonlance would allow the authors to create some great apocalypse to destroy the world once and for all. Then, when all is quiet. Little points of light...
Hmmmm, that sounds somewhat familiar. Like when the Queen of Darkness was invading Krynn and brought along some evil Dragons, made Draconians, and appointed Dragon Highlords. Then when it all looked really, really bad a group of friends met again after 5 years in their home town inn where two barbarians and a strange old man were...
Seriously if ANY DL 4e players/campaign book does NOT have Weis & Hickman on the cover as authors other than slinging mud at the book I am unlikely to give it any notice. Working on the theory that if I don't see it, it therefore doesn't exist. DL has already taken a huge hit with that abortion they called the DL animated movie - I hope WotC isn't looking to provide more nails for the coffin as it were.
S.
Dragonlance has had a couple cataclysms which changes everything. It would be hard to argue that "blowing up" Krynn isn't par for the course anyway. The challenge is to decide what era to set a campaign in. Weis solved the problem by having multiple source books for different eras. WotC has a mess in their hands if they wish to fit it all in a couple sourcebooks.
Still, I'm guessing that Dragonlance will be out in 2010. Why build all the excitement for the setting if they don't plan to announce that it will be coming out?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Don't forget the wonderful Legends of the Twins sourcebook. Multiple realities to boot.
I agree with the concerns that WotC would do the 'jam everything' into it. I'm just miffed they blew up Taladas in a trillogy of good books, but never did a sourcebook on it.
Yea, 4th Edition Dragonlance would allow the authors to create some great apocalypse to destroy the world once and for all. Then, when all is quiet. Little points of light...
Being optimistic, probably that's not necessary. DL 3.5 was launched after the War of Souls ended. If 4e sourcebooks go in a line similar to Eberron and not FR, WoS is the apocalypse 4e needs (as in Eberron it was just Last War, no re-cataclysm introduced there).
All in all, DL does seem quite compatible with 4e, and eras of play do not need scores of new rules, but just some guidelines on what to use or what not (as in "no sorcerers before Age of Mortals"). Of course, given 4e's love for "if it's in a 4e rulebook, it has to fit", post-WoS is the best suited area for 4e play.
My only concerns are some DL-specific rules which are heavily ingrained in the campaign background (as opposed to simple mechanics):
1) Vancean spellcasting is campaign-built for Wizards as the infamous "wizard's curse". Wizards of High Sorcery perhaps should be a variant from 4e generic Wizards, perhaps with a slightly larger spell choice, but a fatigue-related handicap (requiring Endurace rolls).
2) Iconic classes (Wizards, Knights) are ill-suited for Paragon Paths. I would be disappointed if Red Robe, Knight of the Crown, Legionnaire of Steel, just became 11th level + paths, as that quite defeats the stories, where characters take their Test when rather young apprentices or naive squires. I would rather see those careers treated as multiclass / feat trees (similar to the Spellscarred options in the new FR).
3) Races: Dragonborn work ok as Noble Draconians, which are a rarity, not so well for reflecting the "garden draconian" of Teyr, less of all the War of the Lance troops. Other races are ok, but please, no Orcs or Half-Orcs in Krynn; and no lycanthropes / shifters either. Others may shift OK (Goliaths sound like some obscure ogre race, gnomes may require some feat-related modifications, and no Cha bonus I hope).
4) Careful with magic items saleout. If I ran DL 4e I would be tight with the magic I give to PCs, but heavily use the Adventurer's Vault rules for item improvement as a form of treasure, instead of finding new magic. DL is rich in "legacy heirlooms" whose powers grow as owners experience adventure, and that agrees with the spirit of the setting more than huge magic troves and forays into magic shops (which are quite a rarity in Krynn, especially for non-members of the Orders).
As for the rest, DL is quite a good default Points of Light setting (perhaps wilder and more threatened by evil than Eberron). It can work well if done by designers with a good grasp and respect for the setting's huge bibliography.
I'm not terribly sure it wouldn't be better to just use the 3.5 version of the Dragonlance setting with the 4e rules, if folks were inclined to do so. I don't know that Dragonlance is so unusual a setting that it requires a whole 4e book to deliniate the differences between it and standard D&D.
For my money the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book is about the best you can get. A good introduction to the setting without getting ensnared in the main characters' overarching narriative. It was nicely put together, beautifully laid out with very nice art. Best of all it put aside a lot of the corny, somewhat dated and cheesy material that the setting has always labored under. It's always felt a little like juvenile fiction to me. It seems like a nice clean translation of it into a version of D&D that I can appreciate and relate to.
If they make a 4e version of it, well I'm just not sure I'd care enough to pick it up.
That said, I'd buy the 4e Dark Sun core books in a red hot second. That there is a game that was written for 4e way back when they first wrote it. A roiling Elemental Chaos full of powerful godlike elemental beings? Creepy land of the dead? Crumbling and largely abandoned Astral Sea? Magic that feels primal and cool without all the weird Greyhawkian/Vancian spellcasting? Bigger more powerful character races and classes wondering the wastes like conan on a giant ticked off ant-monster? It's like they knew 4e was coming, but wrote it in 2nd edition because they didn't have it yet.
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4e I think is perfect for FR (...) But not so great for Greyhawk or Dragonlance.Considering what they did to the realms (which you think are perfect), I'm happy I'm not a Dragonlance fan, or that train of thought would make me wake up screaming at night...
You misunderstand my meaning. I was talking about the "feel" of the settings. FR is about big heroes doing big things, and basically nearly everyone is a big hero. Greyhawk to a lesser extent in later editions, but at the outset it was a world were creatures 10 levels higher than you would eat you if you decided to walk further than you front door. With DL the way characters work is locked in with the way D&D use to work. In fact as pointed out some mythos gobbility-g!~$ was written to explain the then current game mechanic (Mages curse and what not). Perhaps I'm stuck in the War of the Lance period? But I can't see how the WoS period would work any better in 4e. I am ONLY talking about game mechanics here, they just do not reflect what has been penned to date by Weis and Hickman. So are we going to see a DL version of 4e? Or are we going to see the DL world shoe horned to fit the 4e system? I'm thinking more likely the later, and I do not think it will benefit the DL world one iota.
I do however strongly agree that 4e and Dark Sun was a marriage made in RPG heaven. Stupidly overpowered things fighting other stupidly overpowered things. Very keen on this product.
S.
You misunderstand my meaning. I was talking about the "feel" of the settings. FR is about big heroes doing big things, and basically nearly everyone is a big hero.
And thank you R.A. Salvatore for that *snarl*.
I've always thought Forgotten Realms works best as a very personal, atmospheric setting dealing with sweeping vistas and human dramas than dumb megadrama.
Greyhawk to a lesser extent in later editions, but at the outset it was a world were creatures 10 levels higher than you would eat you if you decided to walk further than you front door.
Whereas this I just always took a bad design from early DMs who were the kind of crabby old coots who'd as soon kill your character as look at them--because being a good DM was all about bodycount. But seriously was there any setting back in the old days that wasn't rife with this?
My take on Greyhawk is that it was this really wartorn, battlefield drama setting. The war against Iuz, or between the Suel and the Baklunish, seems to have cast a pall over anything that might have once been bright and hopeful.
I don't know that either one really cries out for 4e rules.
With DL the way characters work is locked in with the way D&D use to work. In fact as pointed out some mythos gobbility-g@#% was written to explain the then current game mechanic (Mages curse and what not). Perhaps I'm stuck in the War of the Lance period? But I can't see how the WoS period would work any better in 4e. I am ONLY talking about game mechanics here, they just do not reflect what has been penned to date by Weis and Hickman. So are we going to see a DL version of 4e? Or are we going to see the DL world shoe horned to fit the 4e system? I'm thinking more likely the later, and I do not think it will benefit the DL world one iota.
I do however strongly agree that 4e and Dark Sun was a marriage made in RPG heaven. Stupidly overpowered things fighting other stupidly overpowered things. Very keen on this product.
S.
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And thank you R.A. Salvatore for that *snarl*.Whereas this I just always took a bad design from early DMs who were the kind of crabby old coots who'd as soon kill your character as look at them--because being a good DM was all about bodycount.
Ed did his part, Spellfire ring any bells...
Not sure what people you associated with in the "good old days" but we found 3e to be the hardest on PC's of all the editions. Bad design and TPK DM's are not edition specific - unfortunately. 4e is the most player friendly D&D to date I put to you. And as such a reason I am not so keen on a DL setting - but very, very keen on the DS setting.
S.
As always, the biggest hurdle to the success of a campaign world is WotC's marketing-heavy scheme of "everything is core". While this hasn't upset Forgotten Realms or Eberron too much, you're going to start noticing the breaking moments when players start introducing warforged to Ansalon or wilden to Athas.
Hopefully they realize distinct game settings have a purpose and be willing to say "you know what? There isn't a Far Realm for Ansalon" and let the setting stay the setting.
Having said that, I've already statted up a half-vampire warforged psionicist for when Ravenloft goes live.
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As always, the biggest hurdle to the success of a campaign world is WotC's marketing-heavy scheme of "everything is core". While this hasn't upset Forgotten Realms or Eberron too much, you're going to start noticing the breaking moments when players start introducing warforged to Ansalon or wilden to Athas.
Hopefully they realize distinct game settings have a purpose and be willing to say "you know what? There isn't a Far Realm for Ansalon" and let the setting stay the setting.
Having said that, I've already statted up a half-vampire warforged psionicist for when Ravenloft goes live.
I am soo hoping they relize themself. Settings start losing thier itendity if they start making everything fit every where. One thing I like about the settings in the past was the uniqness to every setting, Some settings had racrs others did not, or pretige classes others did not even Feats.. If they start making everything fit to every setting and do major changes to those settings to allow this, then I will continue not to buy thier setting books.
I think the wheels have already long fallen off the "everything goes everywhere" theory. There's signs they're already giving up on it. You can't introduce a Spellplague and base a class off of it, and then have it show up anywhere but the setting where the Spellplague happened. Dragonmarks are pretty much always going to be an Eberron only sort of thing. More and more with each Campaign Setting they release for 4e, it seems they're less and less concerned with trying to cross-polinate the settings. The one thing you do tend to see is PHB stuff getting ported in, things like Dragonborn and Eladrin, but each time they do it, it feels like they're figuring out how to get the stuff in without butchering the setting as much.
I think Dark Sun is going to really be the one that's going to kill their all-enclusiveness theory. Elves are too different there. Halflings are too different there. A lot of the other stuff just doesn't exist--half-orcs for instance, or eladrin. Try putting dragonborn in a setting with no dragons except for mutated evil mages. Hard to have tieflings when the only planes are elemental planes. I really think they're going to be forced to just make the Player's Guide and say "look, some stuff in your Core Books just doesn't work here..."
I mean, then again there's the possibility they won't get to that breaking point and will just throw all the PHB races and classes in there and change the heck outta' the setting. Not sure how that would work, but I guess stubborness and a red pencil can make anything fit.
The nice thing about the Dark Sun setting is we've only explored a portion of one continent. Who knows what lie in other parts of the world.
Not that I want them to add everything, but it makes it easier to add the missing races. Just because Nibenay killed all the Gnomes in the Tyr region does not mean he killed them all. The Mind Lords of the Last sea managed to save a race by hiding them from Rajaat's Champion, so there are way ways to add races.
True. I recall really being excited when the setting expanded a bit to reveal the Mind Lords and their little corner of the world. It gave the game a greaters sense of isolation and discovery to realize that there was no telling what was just on the other side of the horizon.
Very well could BE a land of living constructs...
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About changing stuff
The Idea is though that changing things that are not needed even if it makes them easier for them is what the problem is for me.
Instead of trying to fit the 4e Gnome in Dragonlance, just Stat up a Dragonlance Tinker Gnome, Not every setting has to have every race in the PHB. No reason to put Warforged or Dragonborn in, they have never been part of the world so why put them in now? Because they are in the PHB? That is a terrible excuse. A setting should be set by the story, not the Story set by the Rules. Not every race in the PHBs has to be in Dragonlance. Now Dragonlance is going to have Halflings to? THat would be an extreme change.
The only issue they need to work with because of the rules is Magic, because it is so drastically different in 4e. But They can do that with out drastic changes to the setting.
Also not Every setting WotC makes has to have the Points of Light Idea either, if they did that they would be limiting themselves in the stories they can tell. But Dragonlance happens to fit it very well.
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The only issue they need to work with because of the rules is Magic, because it is so drastically different in 4e. But They can do that with out drastic changes to the setting.
I assume you mistyped and meant can't. DL magic is the way it is (which is best described as Vancian), change that and suddenly reading Dragons of Autumn Twilight makes little sense story wise. What was Raistlin doing collapsing after 1 spell? The 4e magic system would need severe modifications to embrace the feel of DL. Someone meantioned fatigue? That could work, but adding in restrictions like that (and if no others) means your wizards are more like 3e sorcercers. Tricky one, and I know I am going to be super critical of what they do (when/if they do it). Not saying it can't be done in 4e, just saying I believe in the context of the 4e rules presented so far it will fail to meet my expectations. These of course are to read the first three DL books and think that the rules reflect the powers and limitions as written in the novels. I don't want "gunslinging" wizards and warforged running around my Krynn - others may of course.
S.
We're not writing a book - we're playing a game. And the setting should be set by what makes for the best game.
Matthew makes a sharp observation. Is Dragonlance cool because it adhered to the mechanics of 2nd edition? Probably not, though I'm not the avid DL fan many others are. Matt makes me wonder if the 4e versions of these classic settings aren't better served by writing 4e versions of them rather than trying to make sequels.
Like the new-ish Battlestar Galactica, I guess.
Now, I'm not sure what the main selling points of Dragonlance were (help me out, DL fans), but I'm thinking it's a world abandoned by the gods after a great catastrophe and rediscovering their divinity in the face of a war between two opposing gods on the face of Ansalon. That those two gods often wear dragon faces makes this a war of dragons. Oh, and they didn't like hobbits so they morphed them into Kender.
Now I know how the dedicated Dragonlancers are going to answer, but for the more casual player, would you be okay with a setting that re-envisions the original concepts into a 4e game world? How much of the developed world history would you need to keep to feel like you were in Dragonlance?
As an aside, my favorite 4e campaign setting so far has been the Middle World of the assumed PoL setting (even though it doesn't have a map, grrrr). That the history of the world plays to the 4e rules rather than just acknowledging them gives that setting a stronger basis to me. Considering the number of comments here about how the original Dragonlance worked so well with the 2nd Ed. rules is probably an indication that that's an important aspect of world-building.
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Is Dragonlance cool because it adhered to the mechanics of 2nd edition?
Like the new-ish Battlestar Galactica, I guess.
Now I know how the dedicated Dragonlancers are going to answer, but for the more casual player, would you be okay with a setting that re-envisions the original concepts into a 4e game world?
1e AD&D... but that is beside the point.
I like what you are saying, but I would go one step further. Why can't the smart designer people that made 4e just make an entirely new 4e setting? Why are they "stealing" from the past? There seems no reason not to take the cool things of all of the "previous" settings and come up with some very, very cool single setting and not lumbered with "previous" setting baggage? Use the concepts and not that actual settings?
2e almost imploded under the weight of settings after all (RPG singularity?). 4e should keep us all in one land. That would be excellent, a common land that over time becomes home to all the communities adventures.
4e's "all rules are core" is a destroyer of individual flavour of settings for sure. What will the difference be bewteen DL, DS, FR, GH if you can have exactly the same races/characters/etc in each? Background fluff only? I would say background is not enough alone.
4e is a "rule" reset for D&D, why not use it to make newer 4e specific settings rather than shoehorn (or destroy - see complaints about FR) settings that were made for older editions. The rules that settings were written under do contribute to their flavour. As we have seen in other threads the mechanics have a large influence on how a creature or encounter behaves.
4e is good, time it stood on its own two feet...
S.