Steel_Wind
Legend
In a word: No.Remember that for a very long time, going back to TSR days, the novels were the horse and the game was the cart.
And then there's the fact that if the game is the horse, there's been no horse for ages. Since WotC took over D&D in 1998ish, they've done nothing with the Dragonlance game line other than licence it out to Sovereign Stone. that's 20 years of zip on the game front, but they've still been releasing novels in that time (the Lost Chronicles series which I'm currently reading, probably most notably). If the horse spends 20 years dead, while the cart keeps merrily trundling along, maybe the conventional wisdom of the drivers of the setting have to be rethought?
The original DragonLance Chronicles were a new form of marketing tie-in support to sell a module series. And that module series SOLD RIDICULOUSLY WELL. TSR didn't have to share that money with Random House - it was theirs. And that money saved TSR for many years.
The mid-80s was a DL bonanza. The novels sold well, especially the Legends Series where the authors were no longer "constrained" by the adventures they were trying to depict.
But the setting was created to tell a specific tale and as a generic AD&D campaign world, it never worked all that well. Once DL's principal story was told? It was difficult to tell others set in that setting. It became a dumping ground for cheap adolescent gaming fiction.
And there, the problem became the novels. Moving people beyond them was very hard. When editions changed and there was hope to do more with it -- again -- the novels were a hindrance, not a help.
These DL fans who came to DL through the novels first have no appreciation why things were written as they were (i.e., to reflect the rules of AD&D 1st Ed). The classes are constrained by weapon choices -- and so they are in the novels, too.
But when the underlying rules changed, these fans could not accept it. Cries of foul and "too much retconning!" were the buzzwords of the day.
And the resistance was at every turn, too, and for foolish reasons. When DL1 started a brand new module series and setting at 4th level, it was assumed characters would often be transferred in from ongoing Greyhawk/homebrew campaigns. In order to provide some control over the wealth level among PCs in March of 1984, it was decided that instead of stripping gold from then existing PCs, they would just make gold worthless on Krynn instead. Problem solved. And so the "steel piece" was born.
It was a dumb idea at the time, imposed for meta reasons; as time progressed, it became even stupider. The modules throw MILLIONS worth of steel at the PCs if they want to retrieve it. It never made any sense. But the novel fans cling to it as something "distinctive" about DragonLance.
In fact, it would be fair to say that every change is clung to, and reason is sacrificed on the altar of maintaining that "distinctiveness" and to maintain "canon". And that even extends to Weis and Hickman now. In Dragons of Deceit, released just this past August, the authors made a plot point about the fact that the heroine, Destina, wanted to be a Knight of Solamnia -- but that aspiration could never be met as women were not allowed to be Knights of Solamnia.
SotDQ makes it pretty clear that yes they can. That's because this game needs to appeal beyond white suburban males. There must be change in order to breathe new life into this thing.
But much of this DragonLance fanbase resists change at every step. Some of this fanbase, to my eye, is outright toxic as a result. I can't blame WotC for abandoning it under those circumstances, I really can't.
So here we are with a chance to build the brand and breathe life into it again as an ongoing gameworld... and they are right back at it with retreading the same old, same old.and crying foul at changes to the game required by 5e and a more modern and inclusive setting. Some of that appeal is inevitable and I get it; I do. I'm a longtime hardcore DL fan, too.
But no, I'm not on the authors' side about this. In order for DragonLance to live again and be relevant -- this brand must be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and into 5e. The game MUST come first. Dragged kicking and screaming into a setting where women CAN be Knights of Solamnia, where Gully Dwarves are not depicted as genetically stupid small people to revile and laugh at (not with -- laughed AT). These things require changes - whether part of that fanbase likes it or not.
The horse is the game. The game has returned in the form of a new book for 5e published and supported by WotC in an attempt to make something NEW. Jump on and ride it.
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