Dragonlance Give Me Three Reasons to Play Dragonlance

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Over in this thread, @Kamikaze Midget asked for folks to provide three reasons to play D&D 5E in the World of Greyhawk. I thought it would be nifty to do the same thing with the other settings, in roughly the order in which they originally released.

Having covered Mystara/Known World, its time to move on to Dragonlance!

]If you had to boil down the reasons to play in the Dragonlance world instead of any other D&D setting and present it to someone fairly new to the game (say, a few months' experience) and present it in a list of 3 things, what would you say these are?


What makes Dragonlance and the World of Krynn different than other settings? What does it offer that you can't get in other official settings in the D&D pantheon? What can you do with it? What makes it better at those things? What are the "selling points" of Dragonlance?


Note that we're not too concerned about the history and the context and the Proper Nouns. In this hypothetical, that doesn't add much. We'll be more interested in what we can actively do with the setting -- in how a Dragonlance experience is different from any other D&D experience.


What say ye?

 

[Raunalyn]

I think it really depends on your tastes. Let me see if I can provide 3 reasons why it's one of my favorite gaming worlds.

1. High, epic fantasy: Destiny and the balance between good and evil is a core theme of Dragonlance. Good redeems it's own, evil turns upon itself, and the balance must be maintained. Evil tries to subjugate the races of the world, why Good and Balance tries to maintain free will.

2. A well established world rich in lore: Ansalon (the core continent where the Dragonlance novels take place on) has a very detailed and rich history. The main areas where the novels touch are well detailed, but there's also a great deal of details that are left open to the GM to develop. The "default" campaign world takes place 350 years after a great cataclysm that devastated the world, so finding lost lore, lost cities, etc. is easily incorporated into the campaign. In other words, it is extremely easy to take the Dragonlance world and make it into your own.

3. Dragons....lots and lots of dragons: Dragons play a huge part in the history and themes behind Dragonlance. Draconians play a big part as well. And of course, the interesting weapons that help to defeat them.

There are many more reasons...just those 3 off the top of my head. The machinations of the Gods, particularly the evil ones (I absolutely love Hiddukel...one of my favorites) play a huge part.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at those 3.

 

[Parmandur]

1.) Ties into popular novels (this could go in the con column too, depending on personal tastes)

2.) Epic, cosmic struggle between gods involving the PCs as serious actors

3.) Dragons, duh

 

[Sacrosanct]

Because the setting appeals to you. Really, that's the only reason. But if you wanted to break it down:

* Kender don't bother you
* arcane magic based on lunar cycles sounds neat
* dragons, dragons everywhere
* playing a minotaur sounds cool
* injecting politics into your knighthood sounds cool.

 

[Rejuvenator]

1. A fantastic setting that IMO feels more grounded and sensible than, cough cough, FR
2. Relatable characters caught in an epic struggle
3. Tinker gnomes, love those guys

Edit: 4. One can pretend the canon ends at the end of the War of the Lance

 

[Sailor Moon]

1: Raistlin Majere.
2: Raistlin Majere.
3: Raistlin Majere.

The only three reasons you will ever need.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The only three reasons you will ever need.

To avoid Dragonlance maybe...

 

[Cernor]

Over in this thread, [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] asked for folks to provide three reasons to play D&D 5E in the World of Greyhawk. I thought it would be nifty to do the same thing with the other settings, in roughly the order in which they originally released.

Having covered Mystara/Known World, its time to move on to Dragonlance!

]If you had to boil down the reasons to play in the Dragonlance world instead of any other D&D setting and present it to someone fairly new to the game (say, a few months' experience) and present it in a list of 3 things, what would you say these are?


What makes Dragonlance and the World of Krynn different than other settings? What does it offer that you can't get in other official settings in the D&D pantheon? What can you do with it? What makes it better at those things? What are the "selling points" of Dragonlance?


Note that we're not too concerned about the history and the context and the Proper Nouns. In this hypothetical, that doesn't add much. We'll be more interested in what we can actively do with the setting -- in how a Mystara experience is different from any other D&D experience.


What say ye?

I say that thou forgot to replace the bolded Mystara with "Dragonlance"!

Three reasons Dragonlance is worth playing from someone who's never played it:

1. It isn't FR, so I can ignore the DL canon to make the world as I want it instead of having to ignore the FR canon to make the world as I want it.
2. It isn't FR, so if characters from the novels show up I can use Raistlin instead of Drizzt. The difference matters, I swear!
3. Every random encounter (regardless of PC level) can be a fight against a dragon and you can call your being a sadistic bastard "Being fair because you were invading the dragon's territory (and in my version of Krynn pretty much everywhere is dragon territory)"

 

[Gadget]

1) A Classic good vs Evil epic world with a lower magic, less high powered (though not less high stakes), more story driven world.
2) Cool organizations that fire the imagination: Knightly orders with codes and politics, Wizards of High Sorcery is what personally made me buy into Vancian magic.
3) Back ground and story are more emphasized

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

1. Kender
2. Tinker gnomes.
3. Draconians.