randomwizard

So I was reading through DL1 Dragons of Despair again, and I think I can articulate why I dislike it right at the beginning.

In a well run campaign or story, the world is casually consistent and events happen independent of the the PCs (if they are not doing things).

The module starts off with the back story of, "no cleric has been seen in 300 years". But for some reason, the PCs have been searching for a cleric for the past 5 years. And just as they meet, they encounter Toede and hobgoblins who are looking for a "blue staff" which just happens to one of the things associated with bringing gods back to the world.

Then they just happen to encounter Goldmoon (who later becomes the first cleric in 300 years, I guess).

It is all just so contrived.

Everything exists because the PCs are there. Everything feels like a set piece.

The adventure immediately delivers exactly what the PCs are looking for, usually through a series of very unlikely coincidences.

Then, on page 5 it states, Two regions cannot be captured by the draconian army at this time: the Qualinesti Elflands (area 19) and the Darken Wood (22- 26). Theirs is another story, to be told in future DRAGONLANCE modules.

No matter what! Nothing can happen unless the PCs are there.

#dnd #rpg #ttrpg #osr #dragonlance

Apr 3 at 2:12amWeb
Show threadDave Clark17h ago

@randomwizard it felt so great at 12 years old

Now it feels so bad

Show threadrandomwizard17h ago
@bedirthan Well. If someone goes and has fun with it, no harm, no foul. I am just stating my opinion after having read through it a few times over the years.
Show threadDave Clark17h ago

@randomwizard for sure

I think those early DLs are a good way to discover the difference between cutting edge then and now

Show threadBaroness Winter17h ago
@bedirthan @randomwizard I loved the Chronicles movels as a kid. Now Krynn in general sets off all kinds of red flags for me. Kender, gully dwarves, constant catastrophes, it just doesn't jive with me anymore.
Show threadCraig17h ago
@bedirthan @randomwizard Great way to describe it, IMO. I think DL also provides a way for newer/inexperienced/less confident DMs to run an epic campaign/adventure path. I think we sometimes undersell how hard it can be to plan and track all the events and consequences for world spanning campaigns. DL solves a lot of that (in admittedly heavy handed manner). Also, DMs have to keep the curtain up, because it's not just reduced "off camera" activity but PC agency gets impacted as well.
Show threadrandomwizard17h ago

@Craig @bedirthan I am not so against being a little heavy handed by having someone in authority in the campaign give a quest or clues.

But it just seems really contrived to say "you have been looking for a cleric", "you meet goldmoon with a staff", "a strange old man in a tavern tells you where to go"

Instead, it would be less grating to me, if it were more like

Dragonmen armies are attacking. Ahhhh. Run.

Then some old elf who has been around a long time says "this was told in a prophecy", "there are 3 things spoken of to help defeat the threat", "we can not spare any troops to investigate"

Can you go get?

Platinum Disks
Dragonlances
The Wisdom of the Tower of Sorcery

I mean, there are even better ways of setting it all up, but that is just the simplest, one step removed from being too contrived.

Show threadStephen Collins17h ago

@randomwizard I rather like Krynn as a world and mythology, but those early DL modules were heavily contrived. The PCs were absolutely the cogs in the watch movement of that world.

And as products of their time (though I don’t think deliberately), the racism inherent in Goldmoon and Riverwind essentially being analogs for American First Nations, but being ethnically Vikings was pretty on the nose in today’s thinking; it would probably have been worse if they had been mysteriously wise and powerful brown people.

I’m yet to take a look at the 5.5e evolution.

Show threadrandomwizard17h ago

@trib I am pretty certain that Goldmoon finding the platinum disks is to mirror how Joseph Smith found golden plates. Tracy Hickman is mormon so I do not think it too far of a stretch.

I never thought about Goldmoon and "native americans", but I seem to recall mormon's thought native americans might have been one of the lost tribes of Israel?

Show threadStephen Collins17h ago

@randomwizard one cannot avoid one’s
preconceptions of the world, no matter how hard you try.

I’m puzzling how to write some adventures leveraging Australian Indigenous stories at the moment, and I’m struggling. There are a couple of YA novels that have done some of the work, and I might adapt those. To do anything else without close consultation with elders and songline holders would be incredibly disrespectful.