Dragonlance - Opinions?

[Irda Ranger]

I know the modules are often chided as being a textbook example of railroading, and I don't disagree...but aside from that, what do you folks think?

I think they'd make a great set of novels.

If you recognize the "Irda" in my handle you can probably guess I played a lot of Dragonlance as a kid. I did. It was great. But I never ran the modules because, as you say, they're a textbook example of [hated, hated, HATED] railroading. I ran and played in the DL world in a sandboxy manner, either pre- or post-War of the Lance.

If someone offered to let me play in a DL 1-14 game I'd say "Great. Let me know how it turns out." And I say that as someone who's still a huge fan of the campaign world generally.

[Benoist]

Back in the day, I loooved me some DragonLance. I had the DL Adventures book, some modules, the Atlas by Karen Fonstad, ran some games based on Krynn., etc. Really, a lot of fun was had by me and my buddies around DL. All fine and good.

Now, I came to see DL as a symptom of everything that went wrong with D&D. Railroading, stepping further and further away from the core of the game, the blurring lines between writing novels and writing game supplements... Yeah. Not a big fan of DL anymore.

[Marriat the Ranger]

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

ROFL, well said.

As a kid I thought they were decent. At age 14 or so I could already tell they had a different look and feel to the other modules I owned and had tried to play through (G 1-2-3, A series, etc). But what did I know? They were great to read in study hall!!!

In retrospect I'm not a fan. Too much railroading, and other reasons already mentioned in this thread. I am not a fan of the setting either, never have been. I do not like the ways in which it deviates from standard fare AD&D. The modules were an extension of that deviation in addition to being heavy on the railroading IIRC.

My opinion is no.

But the fact they were the gateway for you into a fun and enjoyable hobby, thats priceless.

[Falconer]

There were several efforts to fix Dragonlance.

There was the Time of the Dragon boxed set (1989), which details the continent of Taladas. It’s a much grittier/pulpier version of Dragonlance where there is no overarching storyline and things don’t fall into such neat categories like they do on Ansalon. I consider it to be one of TSR’s best campaign settings. Unfortunately, it never gained popularity precisely because it was missing all of Ansalon’s (cloying) signature elements.

There was a boxed set in 1992 called Tales of the Lance which was a heavy-handed attempt to make Ansalon into more of a sandbox (?) world. It is much reviled by DL fans (rightly so), because it goes way too far in rewriting a lot of established history, and has basically caused endless canon debates ever since. However, it includes a really excellent map of Ansalon designed by Harold Johnson, which simply adds dozens and dozens of sites to the established map, all evocatively named and otherwise completely undeveloped. I think it is one of the best RPG maps ever, because it makes you want to just go out there and explore all those sites to see what they are all about.

Finally, there was the Fifth Age (1996), in which they tried to make Ansalon dark and pulpy like Taladas. Unfortunately, the novels for it were terrible, and the modules for it were railroady as ever. They introduced mega-dragons who replaced the gods, which is fine as long as they don’t dominate and give the players a sense of hopelessness/uselessness (they have to be killable!). So this was the worst failure of all with the fanbase, who really just wanted the world to go back to how it was in the original series. (It also used a new, experimental card-based game system instead of AD&D, which didn’t help.)

So, ultimately, my suggestion if you want to play in DL would be this: download The Matter of Theology for info on the gods, and then purchase either Time of the Dragon and play in Taladas, OR, if you must have Ansalon, get The Atlas of the Dragonlance World plus the map from Tales of the Lance (and toss the rest!). Do ignore all of the suggested races/classes proposed by all DL products (especially ignore DLA!)—and just use the AD&D PH. Regards.

[Falconer]

Other decent DL products include Palanthas, which simply details Ansalon’s most famous city in a manner which the author states he hopes is evocative of CSIO (it obviously falls short, but hey, detailed map no railroad plot, yay!), and War of the Lance, which contains an actual gazetteer of Ansalon (also 3e junk like prestige classes, but you can obviously ignore that).

It occurs to me that there are also some monsters introduced in Dragonlance. Obviously if you own the entire DL1-14 series you will have all the info you could want. I think they might be all compiled into DL14. DLA might be “safe” for this, too. All five types of Draconians are great monsters to fight, as are Thanoi (giant walrus-men), and, um, I think they developed several new types of undead but I’m not sure. That’s all I can think of that were any good. They obviously also used a lot of common AD&D monsters. And gully dwarves. I don’t mind fighting them as long as they are completely unsympathetic and NOT ever used as PCs.

There is also a 1e module called The Lyceum that Hickman put out for free on the Internet at one point, which, if you skip past the introductory junk, actually looks like a gameable dungeon crawl. At least, the maps look good, but I haven’t tried the actual dungeon, so don’t quote me.

WATER GOLEM

# NO. APPEARING: 1-8
ARMOR CLASS: 5
MOVEMENT: 6
HIT DICE: 12 (40hit points)
THACO: 8
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE / ATTACK: 1d12
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Drowning
SPECIAL DEFENSE: May only be hit by blunt weapons of +1 or greater
MAGIC RESISTANCE: None
SIZE: Large

The water golem appears either as a stream or other water phenomenon but rarely in a natural water setting. When activated, it forms itself into a clear, huge manform to attack, forming rushing columns of water (rather like a fire hose) to slam against its victims for damage. Damage done to the target is not from the force of the water itself as from the impact of the victim hitting the stone wall behind him. Occasionally, the water golem will attempt to drown a victim by simply walking in the same place as the victim and moving with them, thus surrounding them with water and making it impossible for them to breath. A Lower Water spell and the like is most effective against these creatures.

Nothing wrong with that!

[AxeMental]

Falc, I think you can pull out examples of good stuff (interesting encounters, dungeon section, neat spells, monsters etc.) from any of the versions and periods of D&D, but that doesn't say squat about the whole and what effects it had on the game. DL was by far the most destructive evolution D&D ever undertook...because of what it represented and lead to: a commercial success that evolved into 2E (as the old ways were eventually abandoned for the story line epic focus). Simply put, DL was saying "your ideas as DM and the story generated by your characters as they randomly go about doing stuff are not going to cut it, you need to allow us to supply that for you. They poisoned the audiance into buying this redefinition of FRPG (the railroad vs. free will of players and creativity of DM).

And, btw, don't particularly like that monster, theres always a problem with making little baby versions of killer monsters IMHO....it can ruin the speicalness of the original (in this case the water elemental). What about, little fire people, weak vampirlings, weak liche zombies, weak ghosts, etc. etc. Some monster types/concepts I think, need to stay rare and deadly so when PCs get high enough to encounter them they've got some fresh challanges, plus it keeps magical stuff rare. It took me a long time to understand this. Speaking of that, I really hate what DL did to dragons.

[Falconer]

I know, I know. I am cursed by having read the original DL novels as a kid, and for better or worse I retain a fondness for the setting. With AD&D, though, I have never used the DL series or anything else Dragonlance, because I’m smart enough to know it is bad for gaming. As I’ve said, in the back of my head there is a desire to salvage DL, but it’s ultimately not worth it.

[Bargle]

I loved DLA. Most especially the chapter on wizards of high sorcery. I thought the level chart and spell advancement for the different orders was the epitome of 1E. Black robes make the perfect necromancers to the Player's Handbook's illusionist. Thnk about it. Faster advancement than m-u, faster spell progression, but slightly weaker by not having access to any evocation spells.

Come on! 7th, 8th, 9th level spells at 13th level? With the advancement chart of a thief practically? Awesome. The only thing standing in your way of such power is the head of the order...The only house rule I would make now would be to keep the progression of the black robes and white robes as it's written in DLA, but replace red robes with the PHB's illusionists.

The rules for kender's pockets and gnomish devices were wonky, but fun as well. The knights of solamnia were pure awesomeness as far as I'm concerned. It all had a very 1E feel to me, which is to say rules for one class were not codified with others, which made everything from Crown Knights to black robe wizards unique.
My high school gaming group used DragonLance almost exclusively and never had any problem with railroading (we never used the published modules). We simply played in a sandbox campaign where the whole world was at war around us (war of the lance). Gave it a nice feel. Imagine Blackwater mercenaries running around Iraq during the invasion...that was us.

[Melan]

In the early 90s, one of the guys in our group was a Dragonlance and Jack Vance fan; meaning that when he was the DM, he used the Dragonlance rule addon (black, red and white mages, various knights, draconians etc.) and the world, except every NPC was a vancian sociopath and every adventure something right out of Eyes of the Overworld. It worked admirably.

I can't say so many good things about the novel trilogy.

[James Maliszewski]

Speaking of that, I really hate what DL did to dragons.

You're not the only one, but then the whole genesis of the Dragonlance project was to push dragons to the forefront of adventures, on the belief that they'd been "under-used" prior to DL. I recall a quote by someone at TSR who explained that, at the time, the game already had "too many" dungeons and "not enough" dragons, so the series was intended to rectify this. I personally feel that Dragonlance succeeded in making dragons trite, so much so in fact that I've actively avoided using them in my games for years afterward.

[Le Noir Faineant]

There was the Time of the Dragon boxed set (1989), which details the continent of Taladas. It’s a much grittier/pulpier version of Dragonlance where there is no overarching storyline and things don’t fall into such neat categories like they do on Ansalon. I consider it to be one of TSR’s best campaign settings. Unfortunately, it never gained popularity precisely because it was missing all of Ansalon’s (cloying) signature elements.

There was a boxed set in 1992 called Tales of the Lance which was a heavy-handed attempt to make Ansalon into more of a sandbox (?) world. It is much reviled by DL fans (rightly so), because it goes way too far in rewriting a lot of established history, and has basically caused endless canon debates ever since. However, it includes a really excellent map of Ansalon designed by Harold Johnson, which simply adds dozens and dozens of sites to the established map, all evocatively named and otherwise completely undeveloped. I think it is one of the best RPG maps ever, because it makes you want to just go out there and explore all those sites to see what they are all about.

Finally, there was the Fifth Age (1996), in which they tried to make Ansalon dark and pulpy like Taladas. Unfortunately, the novels for it were terrible, and the modules for it were railroady as ever. They introduced mega-dragons who replaced the gods, which is fine as long as they don’t dominate and give the players a sense of hopelessness/uselessness (they have to be killable!). So this was the worst failure of all with the fanbase, who really just wanted the world to go back to how it was in the original series. (It also used a new, experimental card-based game system instead of AD&D, which didn’t help.)

So, ultimately, my suggestion if you want to play in DL would be this: download The Matter of Theology for info on the gods, and then purchase either Time of the Dragon and play in Taladas, OR, if you must have Ansalon, get The Atlas of the Dragonlance World plus the map from Tales of the Lance (and toss the rest!). Do ignore all of the suggested races/classes proposed by all DL products (especially ignore DLA!)—and just use the AD&D PH. Regards.

What Falconer has said so far.

All three of those boxed sets were excellent on their own behalf.

DL is really a world for younger gamers, and those who enjoy railroading.

HOWEVER, certainly not the worst TSR put out.
Save to say those three boxed sets saved D&D for me in the 90s.

[Le Noir Faineant]

...And any DL novel was infinitely better than any novel for FR. Period.

[Irda Ranger]

My high school gaming group used DragonLance almost exclusively and never had any problem with railroading (we never used the published modules). We simply played in a sandbox campaign where the whole world was at war around us (war of the lance).

This.

Plus the Age of Despair makes for a great low-magic campaign, where there's no Clerics and Magic-Users are universally reviled and feared.

[Zotster]

It reminds me too much of Christian, or should I say Mormon, rock.

Heh, that's pretty funny.

As a disclaimer, I'd first like to say that I was heavily involved in Dragonlance from DL6 on, as the editor/developer for the last 11 of the initial series of modules, the hardback book, and 5-10 other DL modules in all those follow-up series they had. So I had a personal interest in it.

That said, I didn't care much for the restrictions and straitjacketing that players had to subject themselves to in order to play the series. There was a completely linear story arc in the series (DL1 - DL16) and you had to be willing to play your part. It wasn't my cup of tea as a player and I wouldn't have played it, but I started playing D&D in 1976 as an 18-year-old and we regarded all D&D/AD&D products (except for the original box set, PH, DMG, and MM) as the work of the devil, to be avoided at all costs. Which makes the 8 years I worked for TSR (5 in-house, then 3 freelance) creating exactly that sort of material rather ironic.

OTOH, I can very much see the appeal of DL to young teen and pre-teen players. It was all set out for them, in excruciating detail, very little thought required on the part of the DM, and there was what would seem like an exciting, all-encompassing story to feel a part of. All things designed to appeal to younger gamers.

I think the vitriol that some here are spewing is somewhat knee-jerky. Those products were created for a certain segment of TSR's audience. Accept that and the fact that they weren't aimed at you. TSR knew who they'd appeal to and they did. In that respect, they served as a good gateway drug to the crack cocaine of AD&D.

For anyone over the age of 16, I'd say you could probably get some good stuff out of those modules. Use the world, let your players create their own characters and have their own experiences in that world. There are (IMO) some great isometric dungeon maps and a ton of useful content in that initial series of 16 modules. If you were going to run a campaign in that world, the hardback book would be a good resource, IMO.

FWIW,
Mike

[Irda Ranger]

I think the vitriol that some here are spewing is somewhat knee-jerky.

That describes nearly 20% of the posts here at KKA. You're a brave man for admitting to DL authorship in this forum.