Dealing With Alignment In Dungeons & Dragonlance

[Chamomile]

The amount of stupid shit in Dragonlance is actually relatively small and could be easily excised if someone wanted to do a reboot, retcon, or just move the plot into a new era while cleaning out old issues. The problem is that the main authors of the series are enamored with the stupid shit and rub it all over everything. Leading example: Kender. Kender have little impact on the overall war and make up a tiny fraction of any given party of heroes in the stories. When they do show up, their impact on the plot is usually not contingent on their being kender at all, and they could be wholly replaced by regular halflings or by other existing races in Dragonlance with almost no impact on the plot at all. If Tasslehoff Burrfoot was a half-elf with personal wanderlust and an annoying streak and not a representative of two entire nations of wanderlusted halflings with an annoying streak (who are somehow the most innocent souls of Krynn for being oblivious to how harmful they are to the people around them as both kleptomaniacs and general nuisances), nothing would change. If the kender nations were completely removed from the map (as one of them has been), nothing would change.

If Tasslehoff Burrfoot were removed entirely from every single book he is in (almost all of them) and had all of his plot contributions handed out to other characters in the party, most books and characters would be mostly or completely unchanged. Tas is there in the Time of the Twins, but he doesn't really do anything except serve as a sounding board for Caramon's recovery from alcoholism, which could've been served just as well by any of the other characters Caramon meets in Istar. Tas is there in the War of the Lance, but his contributions are pretty much limited to sneaking off with Fizban to watch him do important things near the end of the first book. And so on. Tas is omnipresent in the main plot books of Dragonlance, and yet he contributes almost nothing and could be excised with almost no damage to the stories or setting at all.

Same deal with the gully dwarves, except they're less pervasive. If they were replaced with any other primitive race ever conceived of in D&D (lizardfolk would be my pick), things would've gone about the same in Xak Tarthas (or whatever that place was called in the first book of Chronicles). They are never again relevant to any book in the main line, and were never important to the setting in general. They just kind of show up sometimes as minor characters for the space of one or two scenes to remind people that they exist because the authors think they're funny.

Then there's the fantasy psuedo-Mormonism, which suffers on two counts. Firstly, the count that the gods of good sort themselves firmly out of most people's interpretation of that category when they brought the Cataclysm down on the whole world because one man turned out to be a megalomaniacal sociopath. Second, it only has the surface trappings of Mormonism anyway, so if this was supposed to be pro-Mormon propaganda, it's not doing a very good job at all. Actually Mormon values and buzzwords don't show up at any stage (or at least, not in a way that's distinguishable from generic goodness), nor does anything recognizably structurally similar to the Mormon Church ever get established as a good guy organization (and if it did, it would eventually be ripped down, because the good guys have lost basically every confrontation in Dragonlance except the War of the Lance, with significant territory loss after every defeat).

Despite the catastrophic failure of the allusions of Mormonism even from a Mormon perspective, let alone a secular one, they also show clear signs of having been tacked on somewhere towards the end of the project. Maybe this was an idea the Hickmans had early on but never found a place for, so they just sort of shoved it in as things began to take shape, or maybe it's an idea they didn't have until near the end, or maybe it's an idea they just lost interest in after the first couple of modules and stopped referring back to. Either way, the effect of the comings and goings of the gods has actually very little impact on the plots of most books or on the setting. Goldmoon is fantasy Joseph Smith, but all this does is provide her with a motivation to go to Xak Tsaroth and retrieve the gold plates of Mormon Disks of Mishakal. If the gods of Good were still active forces upon Krynn during the War of the Lance and had told Goldmoon, an entrenched cleric of the Mishakal traditions of the plains barbarians, to go retrieve the Disks not to return faith to the world but just because an important religious artifact had fallen into the hands of minions of Takhisis and Mishakal would like that problem solved, the plot of the first book remains identical. That plot line doesn't ever really come up again outside of the first module (the first half-ish of the first book).

You can also make the gods of Good more justified in the Cataclysm by having people's faith fade during the Age of Might, when they're decadent and wealthy, rather than during the Age of Despair, when it's fantasy Mad Max and you'd expect people to be more desperate for supernatural help than ever before. Then have Takhisis be directly responsible for the corruption of the Kingpriest and the Temple of Istar (which she later on uses as a nexus of unholy power anyway) and have the Kingpriest's "petition to the gods of Good" actually be an evil ritual to summon Takhisis into the world for a permanent Team Evil victory. This is almost exactly the same as Takhisis' plan in the War of the Lance, the difference being that in the War of the Lance she uses fascist armies rather than corruption of powerful leaders originally loyal to Paladine in order to do this, so we aren't breaking a ton of new ground here.

We also aren't breaking a ton of new ground if, instead of vague (and destructive) signs that no one could reasonably interpret correctly, we instead have the gods send an angel directly to the Kingpriest to try and warn him about what the real purpose of the ritual is, and he banishes it because he's been convinced that it's a demon in disguise or something, so then they send an angel directly to Lord Soth, a well known hero of the land whom the Kingpriest will hear out, and tell him to go warn him about the real purpose of the ritual, but then that gets foiled in the way it was canonically, and Paladine resorts to the nuclear option not because he happens to be in an Old Testament mood today, but because none of his pieces on the board are responding to orders so he's going to flip the table and start over rather than let Takhisis win. This still doesn't explain why he nuked the entire nation and not just the temple in question, but considering that the temple's foundation stones survived even after the nation-spanning nuking and Takhisis was able to use that to rebuild the temple and try again, it's possible to argue that Paladine didn't nuke it hard enough.

There's a couple of other things in Dragonlance that you'd probably want to retcon away if you had the chance, but the gully dwarves, kender, and the stupid backstory to the Cataclysm can all be changed with pretty much no impact on the plot or setting whatsoever. All the main book plot lines are unchanged. All the relevant setting information from the setting books are the same. All the plots of the major adventures (of which there are only two, one of which follows the plot of the books anyway) are essentially identical.

[Starmaker]

^ Pretty much this. Furthermore, some authors did actually implement these retcons. There is, for example, a prequel book with a kender who's a viewpoint character and a fairly useful member of his party (think Frodo). There's a story in one of the anthologies about an alt-Krynn where the Kingpriest ascended to godhood, which suggests the Kingpriest found some sort of cosmic cheat code and never actually had the good gods' mandate, so the nuclear option of the main continuity was the otherwise powerless gods' only chance to prevent the rise of an immortal, literally omnipotent and omniscient magic Hitler. That's as far as the stupid and the evil are concerned.

However, Dragonlance has structural problems of the regular bad variety which I think are not fixable. One is DMPCs. Whereas in the original modules you were supposed to play the actual Heroes of the Lance or their stand-ins as you saw fit, these days the story is established enough that you're expected to play second fiddle to DMPCs. DMPCs are more of a product identity than dragons and lances.

The other, a related one, is villain scaling. By its YA literary nature, Dragonlance leaves no place for small stories. Each subsequent "playable" period uses enemies that are progressively more gimmicky and untouchable by regular tabletop characters. Huma's dragon war and the fall of Istar are established historical events; if you fuck with them, the setting won't be Dragonlance any more. In the war of the Lance, you can fight Draconians, but the outcome of the war is decided by Raistlin in Neraka. Chaos warriors are immune to fucking everything except artifacts, there's only one type of them and they don't have an agenda other that destroy fucking everything -- there's no hook to hang a D&D campaign on. Fat space dragons are even worse, in that they require the meddling of a single leftover god to kill them. Thus, only the War of the Lance can have meaningful conflicts, but it's also lousy with "canon" for this very reason, so no matter what and where you're playing, you're playing what-if, possibly time travel, fanfiction rather than a side story. (FWIW, you aren't picking an epic fantasy for assistant ratcatcher side stories.)

Finally, because everything has got to involve hero spawn, events move too fucking fast. Cataclysms happen every day and twice on Mondays, and fuck you if you wanted to accomplish something meaningful before lunch. Dragonlance is too "epic", in a bad sense, to be a solid tabletop world.

[Neurosis]

Dragonlance is Weiss and Hickman, and therefore stupid in its entirety.

I saw the animated movie. I've read some books. I hate it all.
(Except for Keifer Sutherland as Raistlin.... that was OK.)

The "DRAYGUNLANCE" movie is hilaribad, except for KS as Raistlin, which is fucking awesome.

But George Strayton should never be allowed anywhere near a D&D rulebook or a film script again, which means the fact that it is literally his job to combine those things is to my eternal sorrow and rage.

The amount of stupid shit in Dragonlance is actually relatively small and could be easily excised if someone wanted to do a reboot, retcon, or just move the plot into a new era while cleaning out old issues.

What is the status of DRAGONLANCE in 5E? I'd honestly love for my company to take a crack at subcontracting "DRAGONLANCE 5E" for WotC (or MWP?), but I have no idea what the status of the IP license is, and it might well be a clusterfuck from hell.

Then there's the fantasy psuedo-Mormonism, which suffers on two counts. Firstly, the count that the gods of good sort themselves firmly out of most people's interpretation of that category when they brought the Cataclysm down on the whole world because one man turned out to be a megalomaniacal sociopath

It's an important distinction that they did it because one man that ruled all of society was being a megalomaniacal sociopath IN THEIR NAME. It doesn't make it OKAY, but it is very Yahweh-esque.

and retrieve the gold plates of Mormon Disks of Mishakal

SO GLAD this wasn't just me.

The main difference between the Disks of Mishakal and the gold bullshit of Mormon is that Goldmoon let people SEE the fucking disks.

which suggests the Kingpriest found some sort of cosmic cheat code and never actually had the good gods' mandate, so the nuclear option of the main continuity was the otherwise powerless gods' only chance to prevent the rise of an immortal, literally omnipotent and omniscient magic Hitler

The phrase I bolded pretty accurate describes straw fascist bitch Jadis of Charn (AKA the White Witch of Narnia fame), speaking of both a) thinly veiled religious allegory and b) shit that is a big fucking deal in campaigns I am currently running.

[Neurosis]

One is DMPCs. Whereas in the original modules you were supposed to play the actual Heroes of the Lance or their stand-ins as you saw fit, these days the story is established enough that you're expected to play second fiddle to DMPCs. DMPCs are more of a product identity than dragons and lances.

I guess in this respect we're doing it wrong, because we're following the original module's directions and actually playing as those DMPCs--plus some OCs (like Felgrane) to whom, dramatically speaking at least, the canon Heroes of the Lance play second fiddle (barring some very weird die rolls, Raistlin will be more important to the story than Felgrane ultimately, but right now they're on different continents, as it's the part of Chronicles where the Heroes of the Lance are split up into two eight person parties. )

I will resummarize the fate of certain DMPCs here:

* Gilthanas slain by a finger of death from Highlord Feal-Thas.
* Tasslehoff Burrfoot eaten by Sleet. If you hate kenders, that probably makes you chuckle. If you like kenders, I can't say anything nice and this is the den so instead of the way that idiom usually finishes, go fuck yourself : P
* Ellistan frozen and exploded by thermodynamics, falling off the slippery bridge to Huma's tomb into the hotsprings and then frost breath-weaponed by Squall.
* Flint Fireforge pulped into Dwarf Heaven by the Guardian of the Lances. D'Argent cast Resurrection but my player and I collectively decided that Flint's spirit was unwilling to return from Reorx's dwarven halls.
* Tika Weylan spit-roasted by Kitiara's lance charge (Caramon was very upset and Tanis is way fucked up over it).
* Sturm Brightblade is currently a statue thanks to failing a Fort Save versus the Celestial Greater basilisk, but Felgrane just got his 11th effective Wizard Level, learned Stone to Flesh, and can fix him.

[Wiseman]

I always find this entry in the sourcebooks hilarious, essentially telling you to not play kender as written.

Kender as Characters
The best way to play a kender character is to rein in some
of the more overbearing kender personality traits. Many
DMs have banned kender characters from their games,
because most players feel in order to successfully play a
kender they must be foolish and disruptive to the game.
Be friendly without talking endlessly, be fearless but not
foolhardy, be curious but smart. If you are a true kender,
don’t always attempt to steal valuable items. Keep in mind
that to a kender a shiny river stone is just as enticing as a
diamond.
Play against stereotype—the kender stereotype is so
well defined and so overplayed that it has garnered a bad
reputation. Not all kender are like Tasslehoff Burrfoot.
Nightshade Pricklypear is an excellent example of a kender
from the novels who is not good at handling (i.e. stealing) and instead
has the interesting ability to communicate with the dead.
Try something different and look for a unique niche for
your kender character.

[Chamomile]

What is the status of DRAGONLANCE in 5E? I'd honestly love for my company to take a crack at subcontracting "DRAGONLANCE 5E" for WotC (or MWP?), but I have no idea what the status of the IP license is, and it might well be a clusterfuck from hell.

WotC definitely has the rights to use the Dragonlance name and lists of deities and text from the books in their 5e products, because that is a thing they are already doing. So far as I can tell, the status of Dragonlance (and Eberron and Dark Sun and Greyhawk) is that WotC has all the rights to it, but they're only using those rights to add in a few paragraphs of conversion advice in the introductions of their adventure paths set in the Forgotten Realms.

I don't think Starmaker's concerns are as big a stumbling block as they seem. Now, make no mistake, there are some valid complaints in there. The frequency of cataclysmic wars and actual cataclysms is way too much and it makes operating in any time period except the very close neighborhood of the War of the Lance very difficult. However, if the main novels have shown anything, it's that the Companions got lucky as Hell in the War of the Lance, and ever since then the only "victories" they've ever managed is losing only some of the world instead of all of it. Dragonlance has (accidentally) set itself up for a heroic comeback from two decades (real time) of the steady advance of the forces of evil. I'm pretty sure if you asked Weiss and Hickman to do something with that, they'd write novels in which some DMPCs fix everything, but someone else could write an adventure path (that being like 90% of WotC's output these days anyway) allowing PCs to do it, or just a setting guide pointing out the extensive ways in which all the world is fucked and then letting GMs figure out the details themselves (note: The 3e Dragonlance setting guide is very nearly up to date for purposes of this, since it was written after the last book in the main plot).

You could also just update and republish the War of the Lance modules again, and write a setting guide for the War of the Lance era and then not write one for everything after that, with the implicit suggestion that players should probably ignore all of it.

I've been toying with the idea of writing some Dragonlance stuff for 5e lately. With the official story killed pretty much all the way to death and Mearls' well known predisposition towards getting the fanbase to do his job for him, a sufficiently popular blog could probably get itself folded into canon and save the setting from itself. Dragonlance was my first D&D setting, so I feel a curious loyalty to it despite how frequently and fervently it shoots itself in the foot.

[Neurosis]

You could also just update and republish the War of the Lance modules again, and write a setting guide for the War of the Lance era and then not write one for everything after that, with the implicit suggestion that players should probably ignore all of it.

I've been toying with the idea of writing some Dragonlance stuff for 5e lately. With the official story killed pretty much all the way to death and Mearls' well known predisposition towards getting the fanbase to do his job for him, a sufficiently popular blog could probably get itself folded into canon and save the setting from itself. Dragonlance was my first D&D setting, so I feel a curious loyalty to it despite how frequently and fervently it shoots itself in the foot.

Chamomile, if that's still something you feel like doing circa early 2017, let me know.

Assuming that it is, and that it's still something that I feel like doing circa early 2017, AND (lots of ifs, I know) assuming you think there's at least a 50% shot we could create a sufficiently popular blog and at least a 50% shot that blog could get folded into canon, I wouldn't mind partnering up with you on this. I think we have a pretty similar vision for what DL5E should be.

I also wouldn't mind paying you $0.025 per word on receipt of final draft for any text you contribute, in addition to a 50% split of the final profits in the vanishingly small chance there are actually any. It's a sea of "if statements", I know, but try and remember this post as we approach the new year (I am busy as SHIT until then).

(I'm being hellah transparent about all of this but I think of the Den as a place that has already peeked into the worst rooms of the sausage factory anyway--cough Catalyst cough.)

[Neurosis]

Related:

I was at that table and unlike Mike Krahulik (who is probably a douchenozzle, sadly, from what I've heard) managed not to assume snake form.

[Kaelik]

Apparently he likes Margaret Weis books and dislikes Sanderson books. I find it difficult to imagine a sentence that more conclusively demonstrates shitty taste in books that doesn't include the words "Mein Kampf."

[Maxus]

Apparently he likes Margaret Weis books and dislikes Sanderson books. I find it difficult to imagine a sentence that more conclusively demonstrates shitty taste in books that doesn't include the words "Mein Kampf."

That is literally 80% of my exact reaction. I didn't think of the Mein Kampf bit.

[pragma]

In his defense, Mistborn is pretty clearly a rookie effort. The latter books in the trilogy and the rest of his catalog are considerably higher quality, but I found Mistborn itself deeply grating.

Also, can we get a spoiler tag on the comic? I'm out of resolutions and don't like scrolling back and forth.

[Neurosis]

Mistborn can suck a barrel of cocks. I haven't read the novels but the "Adventure Game" offends me.

[Kaelik]

Mistborn can suck a barrel of cocks. I haven't read the novels but the "Adventure Game" offends me.

Uh...........

"I refuse to watch the Avengers Movies. I haven't ever seen one, but once I played in a superhero game with the Director, and he was shit, so obviously he can't make good superhero movies!"

[Josh_Kablack]

Refusing to read Mistborn because of the adventure game is a bit like not reading Dragonlance because THAC0 was dumb.

[Kaelik]

I think that's getting the cause and effect wrong.

Mistborn the book predates the game, so problems with the game could derive totally from things not related to the book, whereas Dragonlance books at least are supposedly based on the events of the game, so Thac0 being dumb could have influenced the books.

Minor point, but meh.

[hyzmarca]

Mistborn does have one of the best plot twists.

[Josh_Kablack]

I think that's getting the cause and effect wrong.

Mistborn the book predates the game, so problems with the game could derive totally from things not related to the book, whereas Dragonlance books at least are supposedly based on the events of the game, so Thac0 being dumb could have influenced the books.

Minor point, but meh.

Minor, but I specifically chose THAC0 because it was not a 1e mechanic.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight was 1984. 2nd Edition AD&D was 1989.

[Neurosis]

I didn't say I refuse to ever read Mistborn, just that it can go suck a barrel of cocks.

Anyway: you guys seem to like Mistborn. I have also heard Sanderson fucked up the ending of the Wheel of Time series pretty bad.

[Starmaker]

whereas Dragonlance books at least are supposedly based on the events of the game

Dragonlance books are not based on the events of the game. They got TPKed in the first adventure. To quote the commentary, "It would've been a really short book."

[Kaelik]

Anyway: you guys seem to like Mistborn. I have also heard Sanderson fucked up the ending of the Wheel of Time series pretty bad.

You must hang out with the weirdest fucking people. Wheel of Time at it's absolute best was the promise of a few decent ideas and the potential for a good story wrapped in garbage.

The ending was certainly less of a waste of fucking time than the 6 or so books before he took over, because he at least had events happen without long pointless periods of nothing happening in between. It's certainly not his best work, but it's better written than several of Jordan's.

If the ideas are shit... well, he got them from Jordan's notes to a large part, so I think it's beyond weird to say he ruined them. Basically, if you weren't reading it for just the weirdest fap bait about how women are mysterious creatures I really can't see how he ruined it, at worst he dragged it on at exactly the same level.

[Judging__Eagle]

Honestly; after the first post; this reminds me of just how stupid and hamfisted it was to force "Good" and "Evil" as optional axes for alignments.

The original opposites of the axes: Chaos & Law; were helpful enough. They made opposite extremes look equally distasteful; and both could be seen as morally vague, with beneficial and detrimental aspects in either.

Bending over backwards to please the immature and insane mentality of Anglo-Americans beliefs that there is pure good & evil actually pandered to the lowest common denominator; not improved the game.

[Maxus]

I didn't say I refuse to ever read Mistborn, just that it can go suck a barrel of cocks.

Anyway: you guys seem to like Mistborn. I have also heard Sanderson fucked up the ending of the Wheel of Time series pretty bad.

I haven't tried the Wheel of Time past book 8, but let's be clear: Robert Jordan did a great job of fucking up Wheel of Time all on his own, and I'm not sure how wheel anyone could have unfucked that mess.

Sanderson's own stuff is pretty awesome. You can get Warbreaker for free; it's up on his website, where he got permission from his publisher to do an experiment. My own starting point was Way of Kings because a friend came waving at me going "READ THIS!"

And spoiler that damn penny arcade picture, man, it's fucking up the whole page

[deaddmwalking]

Or we can keep posting to get this to Page 3.

[Neurosis]

I'll spoiler the penny arcade Maxus ya whiny bitch. : P

Anyway, I've only read the first three books of Wheel of Time, but I really liked them. I have heard that they get shittier and that they get shittier before Jordan dies and Sanderson takes over, but let's get the thread back on topic.

THIS THREAD IS NO LONGER ABOUT WHEEL OF TIME OR MISTBORN OR BRANDON "PIGNUCKLE" SANDERSON. FIAT.

HOW DO PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT THE IDEA OF NEUTRALITY AS A TEAM? As opposed to it being, as 4rries fap to, "Unaligned".

[angelfromanotherpin]

/obligatory.

What does it mean to be on the Neutral team? I think the most explicit version you see is the stupid-ass 'balance' deal where you try to beat on whichever of the other teams is strongest for nonsense reasons. That's provides unending conflict fodder, but makes mixed-alignment parties very hard because nobody's going to trust the Neutral who was opposed to them last summer and the spring before that, and so on. The only other 'neutral-as-team' thing I've seen is people who just want to be left alone in the great GvE struggle, but people whose goal is to avoid conflict also don't make for good adventurers.

I think it's tough to have a 'team Neutral' that means anything.