From what I've read, Dragonlance was originally going to be a series of Dragon themed modules similar to the Giants/Drow/Demonweb saga, but probably with even more installments than that seven chapter series.  Each module would focus on a specific dragon color.

So, in our reality, the Dragonlance project was refined very early on into one of the first big multimedia events.  The story became a big thing.  The first four modules were story centric, but were written before the first novel, so they were the most like the AD&D modules which had come before.  Later modules were finalized or written entirely after the two other Chronicles novels had been written, so they spent much more effort on just following the books. What if it hadn't gone that way?

What would you do for Dragonlance?  What kind of module series focusing on different dragons would you do?

Quote from: Gabriel2;1048205The first four modules were story centric, but were written before the first novel, so they were the most like the AD&D modules which had come before.  Later modules were finalized or written entirely after the two other Chronicles novels had been written, so they spent much more effort on just following the books.

It's closer to the other way around--the later modules are heavily divergent from the novels, often sharing little more than location and a few characters and plot points.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1048205What if it hadn't gone that way?

Well, much of the criticism of the DL adventures is how railroad-y they were, and what you are saying suggests that there were influences that helped make them that way. Take those away and... they still could have ended up that way? One of the big problems was that TSR hadn't done something like that before, and didn't know that it would receive such criticism. So they very well might have been railroad-y anyways. Or, they could have been completely different, but without at least a few more pieces of the in-TSR landscape at the time, I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what it would have ended up as.

As to what I would do, well I would certainly have made each module independent, non-linear, and not required to be in any particular order (although, simply by power level, you would probably do the arctic (white) adventure before the mountainous (silver-red) one. Oh yeah, I'd make them terrain-focused (since there is imperfect metallic-chromatic pairings, just include metallics where it works, and maybe only as a side 'if the PCs find and negotiate with the metallic, they might learn/get/etc. ...').

I definitely would get rid of the pseudo-save-the-world plot and the plot-important NPCs (well, more important than PC NPCs, that is). Maybe have an Against the Giants-level big overarching thing the PCs are trying to do/stop, but maybe something more simple like it's just rutting season among dragons and they are getting active and causing problems, and the PCs are trying to minimize (/maximize) the damage.

Dragonlance as a project was among the first of its kind. Unlike OD&D it didn't get anywhere close to being right the first time out. It took multiple stabs over a decade before Paizo figured out what worked on a consistent basis with their adventure paths. Even then there are obvious limitations that the adventure path  format became another specialty taste.

I don't see any reasonable point of departure that would have made Dragonlance any different than how it turned out. For the authors the Desert of Desolation and Ravenloft worked because they were mostly site oriented and narrow in scope. But initally idea wasn't expandable to something that impacted a setting on a epic scale.

Quote from: estar;1048276I don't see any reasonable point of departure that would have made Dragonlance any different than how it turned out.

Well, the basic problem is that from the get-go they wanted to tell a story and wanted players to follow along through books and modules and whatnot. It's the same problem that most folks have when they run Star Wars or James Bond or other franchises based on a book or a movie, where the players are "supposed" to do what the characters in the book/movie did but it never works well that way because everyone knows how those stories end up. Dragonlance might have helped their own cause a little if they had held off on publishing the books for a year or so after the modules so that the modules might have seemed fresh instead of derivative.

Also, I can certainly imagine a "sandbox Dragonlance" where the basic elements are in place but no pre-determined storyline exists. It could have been a lot like the World of Greyhawk (either folio or boxed set) with maps and country information and scads of NPCs and lots of dragons. Each dragon might have been fleshed out to be individual with their own personality and goals. The Knights of Solomnia and Wizard's Towers could still be there. Heck, the few times I've run anything DL that's pretty much the way I ran it.

Quote from: estar;1048276Dragonlance as a project was among the first of its kind. Unlike OD&D it didn't get anywhere close to being right the first time out. It took multiple stabs over a decade before Paizo figured out what worked on a consistent basis with their adventure paths. Even then there are obvious limitations that the adventure path  format became another specialty taste.

Considering that to this day, you still see people naming their characters Raistlin in MMORPGs and the like, I would say it was a pretty big success

Adventure paths are a whole different thing. I'm far from an expert, but I don't think they have novel tie-ins that tell the story of the modules or have pre-existing characters

FYI: At least the first two modules are pretty much bog standard wilderness adventures with points of interest like how many DMs do their maps. Intersperse this with some timed events which were partially world in motion stuff and a few more scripty bits.

They also didnt follow the books much at all once the PCs get out on the road. And in the second module the PCs could potentially crash-n-burn the setting.

As for "what if?"... Who knows. More scripted modules would have appeared eventually. and at least the early DL ones werent on the rails that much, of at all really. One of these days I'll get ahold of the others and see just where it stops being open and starts being focused.

Quote from: Gabriel2;1048205What would you do for Dragonlance?  What kind of module series focusing on different dragons would you do?

I would have intelligent dragons that are rather leery of wanting to be anyone's mount, but interested in working with humans if it gives them access to magic items which benefits them, particularly in ways that make them very difficult to slay by humans and wizards and so on. I'd also tend to use

(And since you said "completely different", I'd  also not use D&D and use TFT or GURPS instead, and reinvent the setting.)

I could certainly see a high level AD&D series that dealt with Dragons. Possibly really high level, ending with an extraplanar adventure where the heroes had to stop Tiamat or something.

Quote from: JeremyR;1048369Considering that to this day, you still see people naming their characters Raistlin in MMORPGs and the like, I would say it was a pretty big success

I don't think anyone named their character Raistlin because he appeared in a series of modules.

Quote from: Pat;1048955I don't think anyone named their character Raistlin because he appeared in a series of modules.

Yeah. The novels are cheesy fiction that's mostly formulaic fantasy (with, admittedly a couple of moderately clever twists). But the modules were godawful.