Quote from: RPGPundit;734451Taladas was amazing.  Krynn on the other hand was so unidmensional I couldn't think of a more boring TSR world in which to do a sandbox.

I think you mean Ansalon, the continent nearly everything in Dragonlance is set on.  Krynn is the planet which contains both Ansalon and Taladas.

That said I definitely disagree. Pre-War of the Lance Ansalon is a fantastic low magic, gritty setting with no clerics to patch your wounds, where wizards belong to a sinister semi-secret franterity with its own agenda (that hunts down a kills freelances), where corrupt cults are willing to burn witches alive at the drop of a hat, where the elves will shoot you if you set foot in their lands without being asked.

Ansalon at the beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight is basically WFRP with fewer cannons (and even then there are the gnomes...)

I think the big obstacle with using Krynn as presented for the sandbox isn't the metaplot of the novels and modules as such - it's the fact that the setting was designed to be the backdrop for that particular plot, and so at least in early presentations the stuff going on with the metaplot seems much more important and developed and real than any sideshow stuff going on elsewhere. So you'd have the feeling going in that if the PCs didn't involve themselves with the metaplot, they'd be missing the whole point of the setting - like playing a 40K RPG but ignoring the Imperium.

I guess later presentations of the setting that weren't tied to the original module series might have added more hooks and fleshed out the world a little more broadly, though I'm not aware of any which have had rave reviews.

Quote from: Warthur;734533I think the big obstacle with using Krynn as presented for the sandbox isn't the metaplot of the novels and modules as such - it's the fact that the setting was designed to be the backdrop for that particular plot, and so at least in early presentations the stuff going on with the metaplot seems much more important and developed and real than any sideshow stuff going on elsewhere. So you'd have the feeling going in that if the PCs didn't involve themselves with the metaplot, they'd be missing the whole point of the setting - like playing a 40K RPG but ignoring the Imperium.

I guess later presentations of the setting that weren't tied to the original module series might have added more hooks and fleshed out the world a little more broadly, though I'm not aware of any which have had rave reviews.

Heroes of Defiance fleshed out the Ergothian Empire pretty nicely iirc (it is statted for the 5th Age SAGA system but most of the information is rules neutral.)

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;734475There is stuff there that can be used, other stuff ignored wholesale. I mean, to try and get myself into it a bit I was reading through DL 1, the Dragons of Despair module.

OK, now I understand.  You are not talking about Dragonlance as the entire campaign setting.  You are only talking about a shitty module.

Yeah, Greyhawk would suck eggs as a sandbox if I only looked at Child's Play.