Recently, WotC announced something that felt like the return of Dragonlance in the D&D multiverse.
The official announcement is the trailer, of course. But then, there's the Gizmodo article, and, last but not least, a free Unearthed Arcana beta-test supplement.
After taking a look at all of them, I must admit I am not really convinced, even if there's a specific consequence that could be good news for Dragonlance lovers.
Here's why.
The Trailer
The trailer can be found here:
The trailer is... not good.
Because it says nothing: Dragons. Wars. Battles.
That's all.
Ah, yes. There's also "dragonlance" written somewhere, in generic D&D fonts.
So, it's an appeal to fandom, and nothing concrete for now.
The Article
The article can be found here: https://gizmodo.com/d-d-direct-spelljammer-dragonlance-starter-set-1848822873
... and, I'm sorry, but it's freakingly bad.
The mistakes & misconceptions
First, because of some misconceptions and mistakes.
For example, Dragonlance was not originally a series of novels. It was instead both an enormous adventure path of 13 modules, and at the same time, a novel that soon became a trilogy, then was followed by another trilogy. Then a campaign setting sourcebook was published, etc..
Also, the following quote:
This is about as classic swords-and-sorcery role-playing as D&D can get, and it doesn’t seem from the trailer that WoC is deviating much from the formula.
... is actually missing that fact that Dragonlance was actually everything but the classic swords-and-sorcery, and at the time, revolutionized the industry. And this will become important, later.
If you want classic swords-and-sorcery settings, D&D's Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder's Golarion are exactly that (with Golarion having a dumber name, but a much better setting, IMHO). In these settings, everything is possible, every class/race exists, and every culture you can think of can be found somewhere. Generic is the right term, I guess.
What's in the "Shadow of the Dragon Queen"?
Let's make a list:
- lore-light game
- a brand new setting/story (but during the War of the Lance)
- situated on "Ancelon", a place not covered in previous Dragonlance materials
So... That's all?
A tasteless logo, some vague tidbits, ignoring the existing lore, and a place whose name is suspiciously similar to the original Ansalon?
Really?
What's in the "Warrior of Krynn"?
Who cares?
I mean, Dragonlance is not even back on track, and they are publishing a board game.
That would be like producing the merchandising before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even started in.
Also, the following quote:
Dragonlance is a war storyDragonlance is as much a war story as is The Lord of the Ring.
Both are a story of a group of people caught in the middle of an epic war with fantastic beasts and monsters. Both are a story of Good vs. Evil. Both feel "personal", with well-beloved characters, with amazing backstories.
Being set during a war, or having one in thirteen modules being a wargame doesn't make Dragonlance a war story.
Red Flag: New designers
The following extract:
Original Dragonlance authors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, were not associated with this setting or board game.
... is a red flag.
Not that T. Hickman, nor M. Weis need to be involved in everything Dragonlance.
But quite a few Dragonlance luminaries could have been involved. I'm thinking about the people who had worked on the 3.5 edition of Dragonlance books, some of them being involved in the excellent Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything.
I guess having a few of them (even one), and mentioning it in the article would have be reassuring, as having someone who loves Dragonlance, and who knows the setting, would have helped made sure the new iteration wasn't changed into something Dragonlance is not.
So... it could become anything.
And what about Heroes of Krynn Unearthed Arcana?
It would be a mistake to not mention this Unearthed Arcana article, providing Krynn flavored features for beta-testers.
The PDF can be downloaded here: https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn
So...?
Yeah, underwhelming.
The Kender is an underdeveloped joke of a mutant to try to avoid the "race-as-a-thief" controversy. The Sorcerer is... well, not very Krynnish (slapping a moon on a class doesn't suddenly make it Dragonlance-y).
A revised version was published here: https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn-revisited
The kender is better (the supernatural curiosity is cute, even if I would have liked an emphasis on the chaos kender create around them), but still less developed than in Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything.
The use of feats to customize characters even more is... interesting.
In the end, it feels like as if they wanted to give a light nod to the rule specifics of Dragonlance, but at the same time, changing as little as possible to the 5e character classes and races.
This is good in a way (reusability, as well as being rules-light), and yet somehow underwhelming. I guess I wanted more lore...
My advice is keep in mind the excellent Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything, which you can download here: https://dragonlancenexus.com/tasslehoffs-pouches-of-everything/ and which usually provides better rules.
But... why?
The article-and-trailer are unconvincing because they give us little to no information, and seem to be missing the fact that what's interesting in Dragonlance is not its title, no matter how fanbait-y it can be.
My fear is that "Shadow of the Dragon Queen" will become some kind of cheap remake.
For example, it could be a follow up on the Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, a way to bring and introduce the players from these modules into the Dragonlance setting, for some reason.
Or it could be a cheap remake of the Chronicles modules into the Fifth Edition, perhaps going as far as Disney did when they created the new Star Wars trilogy, copy-pasting the scenario and renaming characters and locations to hide the plagiarism.
Or it could be something new and as detached from Dragonlance as possible, not only rebooting the franchise, but cutting ties with everything Dragonlance from the past. But keeping the brand, because of its business value. It makes me think of what Sony shamelessly did when pumping out Spiderman movies as to make sure they would keep the rights to the setting, instead of it reverting back to Marvel.
In the end, I'm not sure there was a good reason to make a new Dragonlance product. But I'm quite sure there could be very bad ones.
WotC vs. Hickman & Weis
I am not taking sides, here. I don't know why the disagreement happened. I just know the disagreement happened.
(Note: Roaming around on the internet, I have a very unfounded suspicion it happened because WotC might have asked Hickman & Weis to be more "inclusive" in the new trilogy. I don't know, different races, gay romances, transgender characters, or character with disabilities. For what is worth, I support more inclusivity, and the last years showed that we needed, as a community, to be more actively inclusive than just pay lip service and remain neutral on that social subject, so if that's the case here, I'm might side with WotC. But again, that's pure speculation, so, let's keep neutral.)
If the disagreement is real, that might be a motivation for WotC to part ways with Weis & Hickman once and for all.
Not convinced?
Remember the "Ancelon" vs. "Ansalon" typo above? Remember the generic font Dragonlance logo above?
Still not seeing it? Zooming again...
So, the question is... What The Fish is this cancerous growth of a "classic" label on the top of the pristine Dragonlance logo?
Why the WotC products above write "Dragonlance" in a generic font, and this novel logo has some kind of "classic" ugly patch on it?
It feels like this is the result of a behind-the-scenes settlement, where Weis & Hickman kept the logo, but had to put the "classic" patch on top of it as WotC's kept the name, somehow. Like as if the WotC product and the Weis & Hickman Trilogy are distinct, unrelated products.
And that's not good, for a healthy setting.
Not many 5e Settings
Have you noticed there were few settings sourcebooks for the Fifth Edition?
If you want to explore the Forgotten Realms, you might as well search for previous edition books, or use the relevant public fan-made Wiki. The same for Greyhawk.
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_0_45462_0_0
That means even if we got a genuine awesome Dragonlance product, it would probably not be a setting book. At best, a campaign book, probably designed to be easily reusable in any other setting.
I can't really blame WotC, there. Any old setting has a lot of lore to compile, and making a 5e version might be a simple rehash of what has been done before, and these apparently never really profitable. Also, there are wikis out there doing exactly that, for free. So, if they can manage to minimize setting-specific rules, they don't even need to publish a rulebook only a subset of their customary clients will buy.
But there's a good news, there: This could be enough to make DM's Guild be open to Dragonlance products by non-WotC authors.
What it might be: Curse of Strahd
Curse of Strahd is a "remake" of the Ravenloft module. But it was done with love.
First, Tracy and Laura Hickman were creative consultants, which meant they had a say on what went there, and what was not appropriate. And they even took inspiration from other past Ravenloft products.
Second, they put most of Barovia in there, with many dungeons. It became an extended adventure path, not just a dungeon crawl in Castle Ravenloft. Many characters are present, some new. I mean, our beloved Rudolph van Richten is there.
This was a product born of love.
And the result is awesome.
I hope, I really hope, this new Dragonlance product will be of the same quality. But that hope is not based on the current article, trailer, and supplement.
Dragonlance is not D&D
Strangely, I don't think I will make many friends writing that. But that's true. D&D has this concept of multiverse, but this never really applied to Dragonlance, no matter the similarities, or the ruleset.
Dragonlance is not an universe where everything is possible and okay, like the Forgotten Realms, or even Pathfinder's Golarion. There is no Elysium, nor Hell. Only the Dome of Creation, and the Abyss. This is not an "open" universe, where any god you can think of, including our own Greek and Egyptian ones, do exist.
Like it or not, this means Asmodeus has no place there. Nor Mystra. There's no drow per se, but there are Irda, and Kender. And it means Takhisis is not Tiamat, nor Paladine is Bahamut, nor draconians are dragonborns, despite all attempts at maintaining a semblance of compatibility.
And my greatest fear, I believe, is to have Dragonlance's very essence diluted so it can mix with the rest of the generic fantasy universes out there.
I don't really mind sharing rules, but having aasimars or tieflin in Krynn need a better explanation than: "Oh, they appeared in D&D 3rd Edition, so now, we have them". The same for sorcerers.
Of course, this is personal, and I know not everyone would agree with me. But that is important, in my humble opinion.
Conclusion
It's important to remember that everything in this post is based on the trailer, the Gizmodo article and the two Unearthed Arcana supplements (and knowledge of the fallout between WotC and Hickman & Weis)
I am not impressed by both the article and the trailer. And the lack of proper logo for Dragonlance is very worrying.
I really fear they are working on a adventure path parallel to the original Dragonlance modules, with half-baked feather-light Krynn-specific rules, happening in some "Ancelon" place, created from scratch by unknown people, the board game that goes with it, and paste a "Dragonlance" title on it.
So, yeah...
Meh...
The only exciting news is that it might mean that anyone might publish its own Dragonlance books on DM's Guild. From then, everything's possible!
- a new campaign settings with updated rules, à la Tasslehoff Pouches of Everything, with rules on how to play iconic characters like knights of solamnia, or wizards of high sorcery.
- the return of the RPG staff formerly working in Weis Production, so they could, again, publish updated 5e books.
- a gazetteer of Ansalon (or many gazetteers, one per nation), with background information on how each nation is organized, the important people, city maps, etc., like it was done with the Mystara Gazetteers.
- a new ambitious campaign building on what exists now, with emphasis on the PC protagonists and their relation with the Krynn universe. Perhaps there's a new Tracy/Laura Hickman out there, with outrageous ideas for the next RPG revolution. (Ok, this one is hard, but... well...).
If this happens, then let me change my mind: The new Dragonlance product will be awesome, no matter what's inside!
P.S.: Official Announcement
Shadow of the Dragon Queen had been announced, here https://dndstore.wizards.com/us/product/768939/shadow-of-the-dragon-queen-deluxe-edition-bundle ... and here https://dndstore.wizards.com/us/product/768939/shadow-of-the-dragon-queen-deluxe-edition-bundle ... which is not confusing at all.
One seems to be the rulebook, and the other contains the rulebook, plus the wargame.
Dragonlance®: Shadow of the Dragon Queen™ is a tale of conflict and defiance set during the legendary War of the Lance.
Create characters from Krynn, the world of the Dragonlance setting, then march them to the front lines of battle against the terrifying Dragon Armies.
A Dungeons & Dragons® adventure that takes characters from 1st to 11th level.
It might be some kind of "remake" of the original scenarios, and in that case, to avoid ending with a 500 pages book, they'll probably need to cut some content to make room for expansion of other content.
Also, they abandoning the logo is... really puzzling. I mean, the only lance there is the icon on the top left:
I mean, Legend of Vox Machina had a dragonslaying lance that was more dragonlance than the above logo...
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| https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Vox-Machina-Season/dp/B09PZG2979 |
Strange...
