Quote from: Marleycat;524692All I have to say is Dragonlance is my all time favorite setting but that is directly attributable to the fact that it interesting and central organizations like the Solommic Knights and the Moons governing magic not the metaplot. It was the only setting where Dnd magic users make sense and trashes the generalist concept as it deserves.

I did like the order of wizards aspect of the setting.

For the sake of fairness, I must mention that I have played in a few Dragonlance-based adventures which were perfectly all right. The secret: no metaplot, no kenders, and a slightly Vance-inspired tone (I know, completely antithetical, but that's just how it was - the GM liked Dragonlance and he liked the Dying Earth, so he decided these two great tastes will taste even better when mixed together). With that, it all worked fine, and the various DL-specific ideas added something to an otherwise normal AD&D mini-campaign.

Quote from: Melan;524710For the sake of fairness, I must mention that I have played in a few Dragonlance-based adventures which were perfectly all right. The secret: no metaplot, no kenders, and a slightly Vance-inspired tone (I know, completely antithetical, but that's just how it was - the GM liked Dragonlance and he liked the Dying Earth, so he decided these two great tastes will taste even better when mixed together). With that, it all worked fine, and the various DL-specific ideas added something to an otherwise normal AD&D mini-campaign.

That's exactly how it was when I played it.  There was a Kender player but the player playing it was a superior roleplayer that usually played rogues and bards with the occasional wizard, or rarely a cleric power gamer she wasn't but she NEVER played nothing but straight like myself.  

She taught me everything I know about how to play magic using classes without lording over everyone and still be effective and fun to play without holding back.  Also she started me on my path of being a Mage girl in all things of course. I played a fighter/wizard in that campaign and only survived by following all the things I picked up from her on how to play a wizard.  In game nobody thought I was a wizard, let alone being a Renegade.

It was Forgotten Realms with Dragonlance centric stuff added in to tell the truth but it rocked.

and flavored.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;524336It's as if every single drow in existence was Drizz't Do'urden.

He isn't?
Ha!

Out of my share of the settings that I purchased, I remember Birthright the least. Utterly forgettable is is definitely a special flavor of bad.

Quote...and Pat Pulling-compliant PG-rated presentation.

Mentioning Pat Pulling reminds me of just how terrible Dragonlance was.

When I was in 10th grade I once tried to play Goldmoon's Song (sheet music included in a module -Jesus Buttfucking Christ!) on the piano. It was awful, and not just because I was a shitty piano player. My girlfriend walked in, saw what I was doing, asked if my dice told me which keys to play, rolled her eyes, called me a "homo" and walked out -In that order.

For just a brief moment I wished I could be one of the statistics in Pulling's bullshit newsletter.

As bad as Dragonlance was -and this goes for other Cleveland Steamers TSR unloaded on the chests of hapless gamers- I never really enjoyed any part of it enough to care that it sucked. My eight bucks were wasted, but I never suffered the indignity of seeing something I liked getting vandalized. Which leads me to...

Post-Gygax Greyhawk. I know that a number of the people who worked at TSR after Gygax was canned hotly deny that they were deliberately trashing the setting and characters he created. I also find the Grogtards who are more Gygaxian than Gygax himself repellant, and their conspiracy theories absurd and retarded. HOWEVER, looking through the Greyhawk material that came along after EGG tells me that as much as I hate to admit it, the Grogtards are on to something. It really does look like TSR was toilet papering the neighbors' yard. If they weren't, they were so sloppy with the setting that they might as well have been vandalizing it.

In Gygax Greyhawk, the setting was somewhat static -giving PCs all sorts of options about what they could do. There was no plot and no story -only history before the PCs enter the picture. This gave PCs and DMs the option of GASP! playing a game (D&D is a game, remember?) letting the results play out and having THAT as your "story". There was also room for expansion, either off the map or in the vast wilderness that made up much of the sparsely-populated setting. Clever PCs could make their mark in the World of Greyhawk in their own way in their own time, even if they failed to accomplish their goals.

In From the Asses, as Gygax himself called the revisions, the setting was turned into a collection of railroads like Grand Central Station. It was given plots and story arcs and all that other horseshit that creative gamers don't need and don't want. Screwing with characters like Robilar was just the exclamation point on a massive FUCK YOU! to Gary Gygax.

Settings that spawn (or are spawned by) game fiction invariably cause coniptions.

Quote from: One Horse Town;524740Settings that spawn (or are spawned by) game fiction invariably cause coniptions.

"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.

Quote from: Benoist;524747"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.

You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out.

Seriously I have a brain and can make a game or play in a setting my way regardless of what shit the writer's of said setting came up with. Better that than constantly writing settings myself, leaving me no time to play or run a game here or there.

Quote from: Marleycat;524750You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out.

Seriously I have a brain and can make a game or play in a setting my way regardless of what shit the writer's of said setting came up with. Better that than constantly writing settings myself, leaving me no time to play or run a game here or there.

Marleycat, dear lady, the problem many of us we have is not with the metaplot, though the metaplot sucked gorilla balls. The problem is that DL represents everything absurd and idiotic in fantasy, down to the last comma.

There you have kenders and gully dwarves. There you have the oh-noble-barbarian-that-are-cool-because-Native-Americans and shit. You have plenty of nauseating Christian themes shoved down your throat. You have guys saying "I wear a black robe because I AM EVIL HUR HUR HUR" which is to me the most retarded shit ever.

Frankly, metaplot is the lesser problem.

Serious question- Were they Christian themes or specifically Mormon themes?  To some level they are the same, but Mormons have some idiosyncratic beliefs.

Quote from: Imperator;524763Marleycat, dear lady, the problem many of us we have is not with the metaplot, though the metaplot sucked gorilla balls. The problem is that DL represents everything absurd and idiotic in fantasy, down to the last comma.

There you have kenders and gully dwarves. There you have the oh-noble-barbarian-that-are-cool-because-Native-Americans and shit. You have plenty of nauseating Christian themes shoved down your throat. You have guys saying "I wear a black robe because I AM EVIL HUR HUR HUR" which is to me the most retarded shit ever.

Frankly, metaplot is the lesser problem.

I guess I'm just not so touchy about it. I like it for the political currents and the fact that the 3 way split in magic makes total sense to me. I don't use or care about the silly alignment system in Dnd. If I use alignment it's Palladium or Fantasy Craft style. Personal I separate and never use my IRL religious or political beliefs from Dnd style games, now White Wolf style games is a different story and parameters.

If I run a DL game there are no Kender or Gully dwarves, but I run it 3e style where that stuff is basically removed.

Quote from: Benoist;524747"Are spawned by" indeed. Dragonlance represents essentially the takeover of a bunch of failed fiction writers who spawned a RPG setting only fit for more fiction writing, a tendency which took over TSR for years thereafter.

Not denying the negative effects DL has had on gaming, I must say the early modules done by Tracy and Laura Hickman were full of extraordinary ideas. Even later, deeply flawed railroad-fests have things like the Skysea (a huge plain of glass in the middle of the desert), a tower where time has stopped and you can manipulate it to your liking, the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth (or whatsitsname) and more. That's great, great imagery, and playable if you know which parts you need to remove. Which, predictably, a lot of younger gamers didn't.

Great imagery does not salvage a module that fails conceptually.

Quote from: Marleycat;524750You're just a grumpyhead, I'll shall ignore you on this particular point and continue having fun in Dragonlance without all the metaplot and story drivel you point out.

You do whatever you want, but deep down inside, you know I'm right. That's why it bothers you.

Quote from: Benoist;524779You do whatever you want, but deep down inside, you know I'm right. That's why it bothers you.

Why do I feel like you're my older brother?  (Even though I'm the oldest in my IRL family) . And the fact I'm probably your age to boot!

Whatever it's irrelevant to the fact that Dragonlance rocks socks.