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Author Topic: Dragonlance Comes to 5e  (Read 4324 times)

Thor's Nads

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Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« on: April 23, 2022, 03:47:52 PM »




I don't have a lot of confidence in the current regime's ability to translate this property.
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David Johansen

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2022, 05:01:06 PM »
WoW!  I'm amazed.  That was incredibly generic.
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Pat
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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2022, 05:03:52 PM »
Is that narrated by Shohreh Aghdashloo? She does have a great voice.

Umm... was there anything else in the trailer? I forget.

S'mon

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2022, 05:54:51 PM »
WoW!  I'm amazed.  That was incredibly generic.

Yes, it looks very very Current Year D&D. Nothing there says Dragonlance that I could see.

VisionStorm

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2022, 06:32:31 PM »
WoW!  I'm amazed.  That was incredibly generic.

Yes, it looks very very Current Year D&D. Nothing there says Dragonlance that I could see.

"It's right there in the video thumbnail! It says: 'D&D DRAGONLANCE Teaser Trailer'. See?!?

It's called Dragonlance so it obviously IS Dragonlance!"  ;D

^That's good enough for them.

RF Victor

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2022, 10:56:59 PM »
That was so BORING. And the bland, unified D&D® Branding™ even prevents the classic Dragonlance logo from giving it some life at the end. Looks like "Zak Snyder's Dragonlance." 

Cat the Bounty Smuggler

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2022, 11:30:22 PM »
Finally watched it. Man, if I wasn't told me it was Dragonlance, I would have never guessed.

I know when I think Dragonlance I think: (a) Tanis, (b) Raistlin, (c) kender.

Not a single one of those things, or anything resembling them, was in that trailer.

Ruprecht

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2022, 12:48:32 AM »
I'd be curious how many people truly, honestly, care about Dragonlance. I bet the folks that do are all in a very specific age range.
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Armchair Gamer

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2022, 09:41:01 AM »
Finally watched it. Man, if I wasn't told me it was Dragonlance, I would have never guessed.

I know when I think Dragonlance I think: (a) Tanis, (b) Raistlin, (c) kender.

Not a single one of those things, or anything resembling them, was in that trailer.

  I think there's a kender in there, there's a floating citadel in the last shot, and the bit about 'Each other' might be a call-back to Dragons of Summer Flame. But otherwise, yes, this looks like 'generic 5E D&D with dragons and war elements.'

   As I've often said, my relationship with Dragonlance is a long and tumultuous one, and I have no interest in either of the new versions of the setting coming forward. I expect that whatever we get out of WotC will be 'one part Weis' influence on the novels, four parts current D&D', while the proportions will be reversed and closer to 90/10 for the new Destinies novel trilogy, with the wildcard of Hickman's influence on the latter. (If you track the history of DL closely, you can see two very different philosophical and thematic baselines that seem to map to those two authors, and Hickman's is anathema to WotC's own vision.)
« Last Edit: April 24, 2022, 12:29:29 PM by Armchair Gamer »

Omega

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2022, 10:15:33 AM »
Lets see. All women? Check. Minorities shoehorned in? Check. Villains are all men? Check. Doesnt feel a thing like Dragonlance? Check.

WOTC is trying overtime to fail this before its even out the gate.

David Johansen

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2022, 10:47:16 AM »
I certainly wouldn't blame WotC if they just buried Dragonlance forever.  It had its run.  It was progressive for its time but seems regressive now.  The setting is so rebooted, restarted, reran that it might as well be an X-men title.
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SHARK

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2022, 10:59:12 AM »
Greetings!

Back in the day, when Dragonlance was first introduced, and then became the darling campaign setting for many gamers in the hobby, I confess that I never got on that bandwagon. Number one, by that time I had developed my own campaign world just fine, so I wsn't eager to open a campaign in an entirely different campaign setting; Number Two--once I reviewed the Dragonlance Campaign, I honestly was not that impressed. It's a fine setting as far as that goes--everyone has different preferences. However, at the time, I just did not really gel with what I saw as a kind of overall flavour pandering to kids--say, the 14 and under crowd. Coming from a heavily Conan-influenced/Appendix N/Real World History influence, along with the beginnings of the hobby with D&D and AD&D, I was much more focused I suppose on "Adult Themes" even though I was a teenager at the time.

So, I'm not really a fan of Dragonlance. The novels didn't do anything for me, and the campaign modules put out at the time felt very much "Railroady" and *scripted*. I was also a big fan of history, war, blood & sandals action and gore, hedonistic sensuality and cheesecake, Roman Legions, the taboo Gor novels, Christopher Lee Dracula and Hammer-style horror. And Gary Gygax's "Gonzo-Style" approach to game modules. From all of that background inspiration, Dragonlance seemed like chewy bubblegum for kiddies that mommy would approve of. The whole Kender race and characters I found to be eye-rollingly ridiculous. They seemed like a race tailor-made to appeal to immature jack-ass kids that are far more interested in how they can fuck up a adventuring party and a DM's campaign than actually being a team-player and a productive member of the group. So, yeah. Fuck Dragonlance.

However, I have had personal meetings with Tracy Hickman. I attended a seminar he hosted at Gen Con. Brilliant guy, great designer and writer, and a top-notch gamer. Outstanding gentleman. I greatly enjoyed meeting him, talking with him and so on. As weird as it may sound, I have immense respect for him, his work, and his enthusiasm and overall approach to DMing, writing, playing, and game design, while at the same time, my critiques of commercial Dragonlance stand.

I don't have any confidence that WOTC won't fuck up and mangle Dragonlance beyond any recognition. Fucking up long-cherished campaign settings has been what WOTC seems to love doing in recent years, so I have no expectation of anything good being produced by WOTC. I lament and have condolences for gamers that are genuine fans of Dragonlance. While I am not a Dragonlance fan, I recognize that the Dragonlance campaign setting and books have many good elements, along with the negatives--but overall Dragonlance has been a significant and positive influence on the D&D gaming hobby through the years.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
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DefNotAnInsiderNopeNoWay

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2022, 11:49:58 AM »
What exactly would help make this trailer SCREAM Dragonlance?

The setting has always been some of the most grounded and vanilla D&D standard-fare fantasy in the entire genre... It isn't Ebberon, it's not Dark Sun, and it isn't any other setting that goes out of the way to differentiate itself to create a niche within fantasy. If I had to reach for a general description of the setting it would simply be that the heroes USUALLY are fighting against what seems like absurdly overwhelming odds and ... the trailer seems to touch on that trope a bit with the whole barely standing after taking a dragons breath bit on a devastated battlefield.

The teaser trailer is only just over a minute long and it features a small group of heroes facing armies (pretty standard fare Dragonlance stuff), Kender (Okay sure, they basically look just like any other halfling with slightly more pointed ears and hair tied up in a topknot), and they fight a dragon.

The only thing that is really missing is... what, a Lance? Were people expecting Raistlin to personally make an appearance in the trailer or something?


THE_Leopold

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2022, 12:02:06 PM »
I remember enjoying dragonlance when I read it as a child.  Seeing as how the modern gamers have the attention span of children it's only fitting they bring back LOTR reskinned so their current dopamine riddled audience can enjoy the Nostalgia Trip one more time.


Also, Kitiara would've killed every single one of these Diversity Hire standins because she could.  Why couldn't they make HER the BBEG. Why is WOTC so terrifed of making a woman the BBEGal?
« Last Edit: April 24, 2022, 12:04:05 PM by THE_Leopold »
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jmarso

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Re: Dragonlance Comes to 5e
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2022, 12:05:57 PM »
Hmm. Was that trailer narrated by the Iranian lady who played Avarasala in the Expanse? Sure sounded like her.

It should be called 'Genderlance', since apparently it's a war between men and women.

Won't be touching it with a ten foot pole, not that I play 5E at all these days anyway. I've full on regressed to 2E.

I read the books and enjoyed them back in the 80's when I was a teen, and we bought the setting and played a single campaign in it before running home to Greyhawk. It just didn't translate well to open-world play, it seemed to us, and fell into that trap where it felt like we were 'adventuring in someone else's story,' or a story that had already been told. Overall it was a gigantic 'meh.'