Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance... isn't dead?

[Husky_Khan]

Apparently Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman dismissed their ten million dollar lawsuit against Wokeists of the Coast a few weeks ago and now with the lawsuit out of the way, the Dragonlance trilogy of novels is set to be released again by the duo with Wizards of the Coast support.

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman Announce New Dragonlance Trilogy - Reactor

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are officially returning to the Dragonlance franchise. Weis announced today that she and her writing partner will be writing a new trilogy set to follow their classic fantasy novels with Del Rey Books, with the first installment to tentatively hit stores later...

www.tor.com

When the lawsuit was first announced several months ago, I assumed that it would be the end of Dragonlance in general since win or lose, it seemed highly unlikely that anything under the Dragonlance banner would be released ever again. The original lawsuit arose out of disagreements over the composition of the novels and if some sources are to be believed, that the Dragonlance novels being written weren't tailored enough for what WOTC would consider modern readers sensibilities in this post-Critical Role era of Tieflings everywhere and every Orc and Aasimar has an equal chance of being a Paladin or a Pedophile.

But I digress. Obviously neither the Dragonlance writers nor Wizards of the Coast will mention anything in regards to the old lawsuit or the issues surrounding it, at least for the time being, but the main takeaway is that a few months ago I was thinking about posting a thread with the 'Rest in Peace' tag and talking about the Dragonlance lawsuit but never got around to it. Apparently that was premature and Dragonlance isn't dead... yet. And we're still getting a new Dragonlance novel trilogy from its original creators.

 

[gral]

I heard that supposedly 3 settings will be released for D&D 5th Edition this year. Dragonlance is one of the frank favorites to be one of them, IMO.

 

[Husky_Khan]

As a long time DnD player I'd love to see a Dragonlance Setting book similar to the ones they've done with those MTG settings and Eberron.

Dragonlance, Planescape and Dark Sun (just to check it out and see how such a radical setting can be adapted to 5e) wpuld be particular faves of mine. Plus I never played Dragonlance either and it's just as big in traditional DnD as Forgotten Realms is (and Greyhawk).

Ravnica and Theros are cool but I don't use them as settings proper, I just plunder them for ideas and inspiration to plop into my own campaigns. Dragonlance would be even better with how rich the lore has been developed for ADnD specifically inwould hope!

 

[Terthna]

I heard that supposedly 3 settings will be released for D&D 5th Edition this year. Dragonlance is one of the frank favorites to be one of them, IMO.

I'm kinda hoping for Mystara personally; more people need to know about that setting. Then again, I don't trust Wizards of the Coast to not inject their regressive leftist politics into basically everything they touch; which I suspect was part of the deal with Weis and Hickman to write the new Dragonlance books.

 

[absenceofmalice]

DnD has been dead since 4e

 

[Terthna]

DnD has been dead since 4e

Honestly, The last edition I played was 3.5; everything since then just doesn't appeal to me at all, and even 3.5 was inferior to 2nd Edition in many ways, in my opinion at least. Then again, I always preferred playing the video game adaptations, in comparison to the original pen and paper; so my perspective may be skewed.

 

[absenceofmalice]

Honestly, The last edition I played was 3.5; everything since then just doesn't appeal to me at all, and even 3.5 was inferior to 2nd Edition in many ways, in my opinion at least. Then again, I always preferred playing the video game adaptations, in comparison to the original pen and paper; so my perspective may be skewed.

3.5 was the peak of human culture.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'm in the 3.5 pool for life as well. Though I do think Star Wars Saga Edition filed the last few rough edges off the 3.5 system before Wizards flushed DnD down the toilet.

 

[Buba]

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

They are alive?
Wouldn't they be like one hundred years old?!?

 

[gral]

3.5 was the peak of human culture.

Eh; I loved, and love, 3.5. But recently I've been longing for AD&D 2nd Edition.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I liked the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, and I liked the Twins trilogy.

I thought that Dragons of a Summer Flame was a spit in the face for fans (killed off beloved main characters), and the War of Souls trilogy was... also unsatisfying (it also killed off beloved main characters, and also nuked the kingdoms that the heroes defended in the first two trilogies). Hopped off the Dragonlance train after that.

Still have the books on my bookshelf.

 

[Terthna]

I liked the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, and I liked the Twins trilogy.

I thought that Dragons of a Summer Flame was a spit in the face for fans (killed off beloved main characters), and the War of Souls trilogy was... also unsatisfying (it also killed off beloved main characters, and also nuked the kingdoms that the heroes defended in the first two trilogies). Hopped off the Dragonlance train after that.

Still have the books on my bookshelf.

Yeah; it's important to remember that the Weis and Hickman kinda jumped the shark with the setting long before woke political agendas got involved.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I found the view the series had on good and evil got increasingly strange over time.

Dragonlance: "You can't have too much good in the world, that would be bad."
Me: "Do you understand what the word 'good' means? Apparently not."

I liked the series better when it was more "street-level" so to speak and concentrated on adventuring parties, cities, pirates, and the like. When it got into their pantheons it seemed to generally get stupid in my opinion, and the gods were usually obviously gods from other DnD settings with the serial numbers filed off (No, this evil dragon goddess with one head for each kind of evil dragon isn't Tiamat, she's Tarkhisis! Totally different except for her everything.)

I did like how the series played with normal racial expectations and stereotypes, only one I've seen where Minotaurs were the seafaring race.

 

[Terthna]

I found the view the series had on good and evil got increasingly strange over time.

Dragonlance: "You can't have too much good in the world, that would be bad."
Me: "Do you understand what the word 'good' means? Apparently not."

I liked the series better when it was more "street-level" so to speak and concentrated on adventuring parties, cities, pirates, and the like. When it got into their pantheons it seemed to generally get stupid in my opinion, and the gods were usually obviously gods from other DnD settings with the serial numbers filed off (No, this evil dragon goddess with one head for each kind of evil dragon isn't Tiamat, she's Tarkhisis! Totally different except for her everything.)

I did like how the series played with normal racial expectations and stereotypes, only one I've seen where Minotaurs were the seafaring race.

It becomes a bit easier to understand when you realize that they conflate "good" with order, and "evil" with chaos; which was something a lot of fantasy writers got wrong back in the day.

 

[absenceofmalice]

The Wizards of Dragonlance are cowards and idiots and nobuddy involved in the writing of Dragonlance knows what Good means smoothbrain takes on DnD alignment like 99.99999% of the time someone talks about "Neutral" or "paladins" remind me of arguments made by political moderates i.e. "Karl the god of baby killing wants to eat this baby, Jim the god of good wants Karl to not eat this baby" "JeEeEeZ gUyS cAnT yOu SeE hOw SiMiLaR yOu SoUnD yOuRe BoTh SuCh ExTrEmIsTs LeTs TaKe ThE mIdDlE pAtH"

 

[Bear Ribs]

It becomes a bit easier to understand when you realize that they conflate "good" with order, and "evil" with chaos; which was something a lot of fantasy writers got wrong back in the day.

Yup, nothing as law abiding as all those good-aligned Kender they wrote about.

But really that's freakin' weird for a DnD supplement given that the game has chaos and law baked in as being orthogonal to good and evil on the alignment chart that Dragonlance uses.

I took a look at the core rulebook. They literally have chaotic good (Branchala) and lawful evil (Nuitari, Sargonnas) deities on their listing of gods on page 45. How did they miss that?

Oddly enough that would make more sense in DnD 4.0 where they made the alignment chart a single axis with "chaotic evil" being worse than plain "evil." Then again I'm pretty sure that's one of the things I hated about 4.0.

 

[Terthna]

Yup, nothing as law abiding as all those good-aligned Kender they wrote about.

But really that's freakin' weird for a DnD supplement given that the game has chaos and law baked in as being orthogonal to good and evil on the alignment chart that Dragonlance uses.

I took a look at the core rulebook. They literally have chaotic good (Branchala) and lawful evil (Nuitari, Sargonnas) deities on their listing of gods on page 45. How did they miss that?

Oddly enough that would make more sense in DnD 4.0 where they made the alignment chart a single axis with "chaotic evil" being worse than plain "evil." Then again I'm pretty sure that's one of the things I hated about 4.0.

As far as I can tell, Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil are, according to Weis and Hickman's setting, the ideal alignments; the more people that are Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, the more the balance of "good" and "evil" has been shifted too far in one direction.

 

[Buba]

I was amused by the game-session transcript clunkiness of the Trilogy, the first book in particular.
I was into Warhammer RPG at that time hence the High and Epic Fantasy of the Trilogy was offputting. Nevertheless I have fond memories of those books, and time casts a veil of coolness over things I liked in my "yoof".
I found Twins unreadable and dropped the setting altogether.

 

[Doomsought]

Eh; I loved, and love, 3.5. But recently I've been longing for AD&D 2nd Edition.

The is a big difference, in 2e you don't have as big of an investment in your character as in 3e. Character creation is much simpler in 2e, but THACO was a mistake, and the actual game-play rules were all over the pace. 5e is actually a great compromise between 3e and 2e. I'd love for them to come out with a 2e box sets and modules translated over to 5e rules.

 

[Terthna]

The is a big difference, in 2e you don't have as big of an investment in your character as in 3e. Character creation is much simpler in 2e, but THACO was a mistake, and the actual game-play rules were all over the pace. 5e is actually a great compromise between 3e and 2e. I'd love for them to come out with a 2e box sets and modules translated over to 5e rules.

I never really got the hate for THACO; it always made perfect sense to me.