Dragonlance Pitching Dragonlance to new players

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think how I'd pitch Dragonlance would depend on the people I was pitching it to. If they're more into lore, I might focus on the deep worldbuilding. If they like combat most, I'd bring up the clash of armies, fighting in the air, dragon against dragon. If they really get into role-playing and social interaction, I'd talk about the interpersonal and drama, how the connections between the characters play out against the epic fantasy backdrop.

 

[toucanbuzz]

War of the Lance -- tell them it's Star Wars, but fantasy. Not a perfect analogy, but not a terrible one either!

That might resonate most with everyone at the table.

Both include a dead religion(s) seen as myth by many, an overbearing invincible evil empire encroaching on one's peasant world, cool things to fly on someday, and little points of hope scattered throughout.

 

[ECMO3]

I would be careful about not having healing magic. It is built into the game and assumed that the PCs have access to it. It may lead you to doing more work adjusting encounters and such. Maybe it can be reskinned as herbs and poultices rather than divine healing. I would introduce it before they start needing bigger healing though.

Healing gets introduced to the party through Goldmoon right away, it just does not exist anywhere else in the world. From memory she has a staff that can heal at the start of the game, she loses this in DL1 but she is a functioning cleric with spells at the end of DL1. Healing was pretty integral to 1E when this module came out too, so I don't think it is too over the top.

My reason for using pregen characters is the backstory and I would absolutely redo them on point buy and with 5e classes. The problem with asking players new to the setting to do their own backstory is they don't know anything about the setting.

As far as the story parts go, I loved the Dragonlance series when I played them nearly 40 years ago and I loved them when I dmed them for a group of new 1E players in 2012. The one in the Elf forest with the Green dragon and the dreams is awful, but I though the rest were pretty good. DL 2 can be kind of a railroad, but is also really neat and fun I think.

Some of the fights are over the top tough though and I think these would translate better to 5E where the other pillars are more important.

 

[el-remmen]

I always liked the old friends from youth coming back after time away doing their own thing aspect of DL and then the events at their hometown/where they met get them embroiled in the war. I would really focus on players building past relationships (don't make them play the original characters, but maybe offer a set of backgrounds and relations to build on using the OG characters as a kit, as they collectively make their characters - I'd also have them start at 3rd or 5th.

 

[Jackdaw McGraw]

The gods are gone
The wizards have locked themselves in their towers
The elves have retreated
The kings are old and tired
The knights are fat
The terrors are asleep
The dragons are dead
...and the common people have finally gotten some well deserved peace and quiet.

Five generations of peace and quiet in fact. (Both your parents are alive and happy. When does that ever happen?)

Then one of you fools had to go and become the champion of the returned Goddess of Healing, thus ushering in the next Age of Heroes and Wars! Gee, thanks.

DRAGONLANCE! (cue music)

 

[Casimir Liber]

Not sure how I'd pitch it to new players other than "dragons are cool!"...but for me a huge deterrent was the full-on railroading in the modules. So "I promise not to railroad so much" would be attractive....

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Healing gets introduced to the party through Goldmoon right away, it just does not exist anywhere else in the world. From memory she has a staff that can heal at the start of the game, she loses this in DL1 but she is a functioning cleric with spells at the end of DL1. Healing was pretty integral to 1E when this module came out too, so I don't think it is too over the top.

I would ditch the pregens for a whole bunch of reasons, but you can dump this mechanic onto any PC cleric.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

DL1, other than Goldmoon, can easily be run without any of the pregens. She could be run as an NPC or removed entirely, but at that point the adventure starts to degrade. I think it a far better solution to not, and just ask the players that one person play a cleric.

I would ditch the pregens for a whole bunch of reasons, but you can dump this mechanic onto any PC cleric.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

DL1, other than Goldmoon, can easily be run without any of the pregens. She could be run as an NPC or removed entirely, but at that point the adventure starts to degrade. I think it a far better solution to not, and just ask the players that one person play a cleric.

I've played in campaign that had no clerics, and wizards lost all their magic. It worked pretty well.

You can read it here:

In the desert

And that was 3.5 where healing was important. 5e healing is much easier to do without magic. Having a single worshipper of an Old God would be enough. It doesn't even have to be a cleric. But a cleric would work best and it would probably push the story-line in a specific way.

Dragonlance: The Old Powers have waned (wizards are almost extinct and untrusted, the old gods are gone and True Clerics have disappeared), wars on the horizon with an unknown enemy and dragons coming back, ridden by epic Warriors.

@toucanbuzz What did you do for wizards in your Dark Sun game? was it 5e?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Oh, yeah, that sort of campaign can totally work with player buy-in. It's not so much that they need a cleric because of the magic, but that the module itself hangs some of its major hooks on the Crystal Staff, the return of clerical magic, and the Disks of Mishakal.

I've played in campaign that had no clerics, and wizards lost all their magic. It worked pretty well.

You can read it here:

In the desert

And that was 3.5 where healing was important. 5e healing is much easier to do without magic. Having a single worshipper of an Old God would be enough. It doesn't even have to be a cleric. But a cleric would work best and it would probably push the story-line in a specific way.

Dragonlance: The Old Powers have waned (wizards are almost extinct and untrusted, the old gods are gone and True Clerics have disappeared), wars on the horizon with an unknown enemy and dragons coming back, ridden by epic Warriors.

@toucanbuzz What did you do for wizards in your Dark Sun game? was it 5e?