5th age Dragonlance

[Angelalex242]

I was looking through some ancient boxes a while back, and found this old box full of stuff for Dragonlance Campaigns.

Has anyone ever managed to successfully run this odd variant of D&D?

[LibraryOgre]

It had some neat ideas, but, IMO, it really fell down once you moved beyond human-scale conflicts (for example, hitting a bear was such a difficult feat that you gained a level every time you did it), and had some real oddities with races (elves could be as strong as Minotaurs, for example. Having the highest stat possible also meant you were incompetent at things related to it).

OTOH, it had a great magic system for free-form casting. I used some principles of its design in ODE.

[Angelalex242]

Well, yeah. You could have a 9A in any stat, if you were lucky enough to draw a 9 out of the deck (and it sucked if you had anything less then a 9 for spellcasting, because mana was number squared...), but the only way to get a 10 was to draw Malystrix, the Dragon, and then assign it to a stat.

But the difference between 9A and 10X was...odd. At 9A strength, you could use a greatsword, but at 10X, you basically fought barehanded, or with a little knife. I guess 10x strength was fine if you were aiming to be Kevin Sorbo Hercules, who basically punched the lights out of his enemies, but if you wanted a weapon...9, or even 8A was far better.

The best use I've found for 10X is in agility. Then you could use a 2 handed weapon and not worry about the fact you now can't use a shield.

[Jigawatts]

Is it the Dragonlance SAGA system or the Age of Mortals time period you are interested in? If the former, I never got too in depth with it, but from what I remember I wasn't really a fan. If the latter, the 3.5 DL books by MWP were excellently done and go in depth on the time period.

Personally, I didn't like the Age of Mortals, it had the gods "leave" again, had the silly alien dragon overlords completely take over and start terraforming, and removed the ability to play iconic roles, like Priests of Paladine or Mishakal, and Wizards of High Sorcery. The War of Souls fixed all that somewhat, but was more akin to slapping a band-aid over a festering wound. I much prefer to play in the WotL time, or after the end of the Legends series.

Now, I will say, the Age of Mortals Adventure Path for 3.5 (Key of Destiny, Spectre of Sorrows, Price of Courage) was expertly done and is up there with Paizos best work.

[Angelalex242]

The game system I'm talking about had no dice and lots of cards in the system.

If you were rolling dice, you're not thinking of the right system. If you were drawing cards, you are.

[JadedDM]

The card game is SAGA, yep. I never played it myself, but I thought the concept was interesting, especially the way magic worked.

Dragonlance started at 1E, was converted to 2E, then SAGA, and finally 3E. It was never officially made for 4E and while the fans are optimistic, I somehow doubt it will ever officially be made for 5E, either.

[SiuiS]

It had some neat ideas, but, IMO, it really fell down once you moved beyond human-scale conflicts (for example, hitting a bear was such a difficult feat that you gained a level every time you did it), and had some real oddities with races (elves could be as strong as Minotaurs, for example. Having the highest stat possible also meant you were incompetent at things related to it).

OTOH, it had a great magic system for free-form casting. I used some principles of its design in ODE.

How does that work?

SAGA?

I'm completely in the dark. Where do I start looking?

[LibraryOgre]

How does that work?

SAGA?

I'm completely in the dark. Where do I start looking?

Dragonlance SAGA. TSR experimented with a diceless, non-collectible card-based system for both Dragonlance and Marvel.

There were 9 suits, 8 of them associated with attributes, and 1 of them, the suit of Dragons. You generated your stats by playing a hand of 8 cards. If the suit matched the attribute you were playing it for, you got an A rating in the Stat. If it was related (you played Dex for Agility, for example), you got a B. If it was the right "type" (physical or mental) you got a C, and if it was the wrong type, you got a D. If it was a Dragon, you got an X, which meant incompetent at it. (This is from memory so I may be a bit wrong).

Now, the 8 suits were numbered 1-9, while dragons was numbered 1-10. So, while the "best" score was a 9A, it was also possible to get a 10X... which amounted to "I am incredibly strong, but can do nothing related to this attribute competently." Someone with a 9A in Reason had 81 spell points and could cast from 3 schools of magic; someone with a 10X was a genius who could do nothing magical at all.

Now, you played with a hand of cards, and the size of your hand was determined by how many "quests" you'd succeeded at. When you took damage, your hand went down. When you succeed on a particularly difficult task, though, you got a quest, and, eventually, a new card. The base difficulty to hit something was 8... plus its "Physique", which was a monster attribute which was roughly the equivalent of Strength and Stamina. A bear had a 40 Physique, IIRC, so hitting it was a 48 difficulty... which would require you to lay down several cards, in succession, of the correct suit to get a "trump" each time. Which wouldn't be so hard if every card after the first didn't come from the top of the deck, and so was essentially random. But that 48, if you pulled it off? Was enough to get you a quest.

It was a poorly realized system with some great ideas.

[Angelalex242]

Well, hey. It made Bear Hunting the quickest way to level up, when you wanted to.

"Before we save the world, let's go kill some bears and level up!"

[LibraryOgre]

Well, hey. It made Bear Hunting the quickest way to level up, when you wanted to.

"Before we save the world, let's go kill some bears and level up!"

Consider that a bear attempting to attack you would require you to resist something like a 12 hit (base 8 + their Coordination, IIRC). Then soak about 40 damage.

[Sith_Happens]

Consider that a bear attempting to attack you would require you to resist something like a 12 hit (base 8 + their Coordination, IIRC). Then soak about 40 damage.

So basically Krynn was ruled by bears.

[Angelalex242]

I didn't say you should kill bears at close range.

Bows for the win, yo.

[LibraryOgre]

So basically Krynn was ruled by bears.

Nope. Because Dragons were worse.

[Angelalex242]

Yep. Dragons, unlike bears, could fight at range. Anyone with enough bows could take down the bad news bears.

[Sith_Happens]

And now I'm imagining dragons leading armies of bears into battle.

[SiuiS]

So, why 10X? Ever?

[LibraryOgre]

So, why 10X? Ever?

Because you have it in your hand. It could be useful in some situations (someone mentioned an agile but shieldless character; you could also use it for a non-magical genius), but it didn't really mean very much.

As I mentioned, I put some of its concepts in mind when I developed ODE. Some things, like Trumps, remain, because they're a useful concept. However, I also acknowledge that it's very much a human-scale game.

[Angelalex242]

Yes. 9A strength combines well with 10X agility to be a greatsword (or other 2 handed weapon) user.

[Meronin]

How does that work?

SAGA?

I'm completely in the dark. Where do I start looking?

There's a few fansites with the basic rules; SAGA was actually more widely used for Marvel Superheroes at the time. The magic system played somewhat odd in that while it was freeform, you were better off using the Heroes of Magic libram rules since actually making up spells on the fly could slow the game to a crawl.

The idea was that each sphere of magic was effectively treated as a skill, with 20 in total (I've actually been fond of reusing that system in 2E with some tweaks and more spheres for relatively low magic campaigns); strength of the spell was figured out by 6 or so tables (technically five categories) - strength, duration, casting time, range, and area or number of targets (the last two are mutually exclusive).

Steve Kenson also has a bunch of old barebones conversions for things like Earthdawn and variant magic systems on his website.

It made Bear Hunting the quickest way to level up, when you wanted to.

Leveling up was pretty much the DM arbitrarily figuring out what amounts to an adventure.