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Dragoncat wrote:

Or maybe it is because you don't need a Dragonlance 4th Edition book.

All the fluff still works.

All the crunch is satisfied by the current material.

All the storylines are still there.

All the maps are still accurate.

All you need is to pull out the old manual and run the game.

Draconians? Draconomicon 2. Kender? Halflings. Gnomes? Gnomes. Swords and sorcery? Sword and sorcery. Method that would allow you to actually learn some of the stunts pulled off in the books, like time travel? Ritual casting system. Minotaurs? PHB3. Dragons? All over. Lances? Polearms. Elves and dwarves and humans and fighters and rangers and generic fantasy? Already here. Walrus-folk? Sorry, don't give a damn.

The only thing that a 4th Edition Dragonlance Player's Guide and Campaign Guide could do is rehash old fluff or drive fans mad.

If it keeps all the old fluff....it's worthless. Everything's a reprint, the crunch has been satisfied, the fluff is a regurgitation of all the lore you already know. We don't need this, and we don't need to waste a year on stuff we already know.

If it changes the setting to advance the timeline and move forward...they'll catch hell. No matter what changes, the Old Guard will go ballistic about them ruining their setting, and the main market, die-hard fans from the past, will reject it. Sure, people might say that they don't mind if the setting advances...but everyone will think it should advance differently. Metaplot tends to be the bane of settings, and trying to continue it will result in vast amounts of rage. Look at the comments on the changes of the gods, the shifting territory, the removal of the Platinum Dude and She Of The Five Heads and Terrible Morning Breath. If they change the future, that's what is in store.


You want to play Dragonlance? Go get your campaign books and play Dragonlance. You don't need a 4th edition book to play the setting you love when everything required is already here. And we don't need the setting taking up a precious 1-per-year-slot simply so that the old fans can get affirmation of their favorite without it actually contributing anything from a setting (generic fantasy world #1, 2, 3 don't need a year each) or crunch (all the major races and players are already statted).

Not publishing a setting for every old setting doesn't mean that Wizards hates Dragonlance or persecutes Greyhawk...it just means that you don't need new books if you can already run games in the old setting.

I basically agree. Mechanically we can't play Dark Sun right now. We need rules for multi-armed races, we need rules for defiling, we need rules for game balance when players have access to little or no armor. We certainly can play Dragonlance with the system as is. I think it is a great idea to pick a setting which expands mechanical options. It will also make it easier for people building out-of-the-ordinary home-brewed settings to do so.

Dragoncat wrote:

If it keeps all the old fluff....it's worthless. Everything's a reprint, the crunch has been satisfied, the fluff is a regurgitation of all the lore you already know. We don't need this, and we don't need to waste a year on stuff we already know.

Isn't this what we are getting with DS? The old fluff and new mechanics? I believe they stated they are trying to keep it true to the old stuff, like the first boxed set.

Don't get me wrong, I think DS is a fine setting. I just would have preferred Dragonlance.

Duke5150 wrote:

Multiarmed race rules for combat? 4e DSPG, done. Rules on defiling and preservering magic and energy gathering, 4e DSPG, done. Little to no armor? Must not be familiar with athas at all to say that. Darksun has TONS of armor, many of which are JUST as hard as iron armor. I can understand the second to the last part and I agree with the last part.

Mostly this sounds like more anti DL crap. But w/e, its come to be expected.

I am not anti-Dragonlance at all. I mainly chimed in to make the point about giving us rule books that expand mechanical options. And yes, the upcoming DSPG will do that.

Also armor and weapons on Athas had issues with durability (we'll see if they give us rules for this) and you had to be darn lucky to find any at all (and you certainly weren't going to find a suit of magical full plate lying around). Heavily armored knights adorned like Christmas trees with magic items don't exist on Athas. They are going to have to give us mechanics to deal with this because the designers assumed +x magic weapons, and circlets of defense, and godplate and so forth when they set monster defenses, HP, attack bonuses, etc. Fighters, Warlords, Paladins (if they even attempt paladins) and anyone else assumed to wear heavy armor are going to have to receive alternate mechanical options to remain viable. You COULD just reskin everything (that's not plate...it is really thick obsidian armor! and that is a +6 bronze necklace of defense) and leave item acquisition frequency unchanged but then you've taken away one of the core elements of the setting: tougher-than-nails characters in crappy gear who have to scrape by without the benefit of all the fancy magical items (that provide additional abilities like flight, teleportation, new attack powers, etc.) that heroes rely on in other settings. It should be exciting and rare to actually find a powerful magical item in Athas and dangerous too because it will attract the attention of other forces. So yes, I think it is about time the developers give us options to do away with most magical items while still maintaining balance. I'm hopeful that they will do this with Dark Sun.

Hlethvagi wrote:

Isn't this what we are getting with DS? The old fluff and new mechanics? I believe they stated they are trying to keep it true to the old stuff, like the first boxed set.

Don't get me wrong, I think DS is a fine setting. I just would have preferred Dragonlance.

According to the interview, not only are we getting race and class love, but we'll be seeing rules for things like wilderness survival and environmental hazards, where merely getting from Point A to Point B through Wasteland Point C is an adventure all its own. That kind of grit doesn't currently exist, and one of the points of the DS campaign book is, again according to the designer, to push the system past its current limits.

Duke5150 wrote:

This could be said for ANY setting. Any. Go tell that to the 4e FR and EB players and see what they say.

My changeling artificer, drow spellscarred, and warforged swordmage would like to disagree. Moreover, however, FR brought the high fantasy, traditional swords and sorcery game. Eberron supplied the pulp action thriller. Now Dark Sun is offering grit, grime, and tooth-and-nail survival.

There are simply too many generic fantasy settings for each one to take time out of the yearly cycle, especially if they don't have any significant crunch required to play them.

If they honestly need love, WotC could easily do a series of Dragon segments for Greyhawk, Birthright, 'Lance, and all the others that helps DMs incorporate the old into the new. Maybe a racial article for those obscure peoples that sometimes come up(Irda), or a feat or two here and there(red/black/white wizard traits akin to the white lotus school), or even something as simple as throwing in a critter or two (such as a dragon mount). Plus a good number of pages dedicated to the theme of each setting and how it can best be realized with 4th edition.

But you don't need a full player's guide for two or three pages of crunch, nor the one year slot just to feel better about your setting.

My point wasn't that old fluff is worthless. Old fluff is magnificent and wonderful, and contains countless gems that can be used to inspire gaming no matter what system you use.

My point is that all your old fluff still works. You can pick up Dragonlance Adventures from where it sits on your shelf, open it up, reread the setting you love, and run a game with it. Right now.

If the old fluff needed huge mechanical resources to run, that would be different. One of the reasons Dark Sun works so well for another setting is that it offers a chance to get rules on fighting for your own survival, not against the orcish horde, but simply to live through the day in a harsh environment. The old fluff, therefore, offers 4th edition itself something new and different. Not only do we get a setting, we get rules we can use whenever we run a game that includes the sort of wasteland vibe, where an adventure could literally have no villain, and the struggle to survive is the core of the game.

But if you're going to demand that we push back other sources an entire year so that your setting can be reprinted, you'll have to justify why. Why Dragonlance instead of Greyhawk, or Birthright, or Blackmoor, or Mystara? This justification, meanwhile, requires the setting offer up something you can't find anywhere else. And between all the generic fantasy settings, there just isn't enough difference to justify it when instead we can be breaking new ground.

Dragonlance fans don't need a book right now to run a game in the setting they love, and 4th edition doesn't need to box itself in by taking years and years to reprint every setting that has ever existed.