Dragonlance Adventures ( suggestions and tips )

[Equivocator]

I'm about to start running a Dragonlance Adventures campaign for my girl friend and some of our friends, but I'm still adjusting to some of the rules in 1e, even after having poured through the rule books, it still seems like the DMG is just a mess.

Also, I'm going to be running the Palace of the Silver Princess module, mostly because it's the only one I happen to have a physical copy of at the moment, but I'm trying to decide what exactly to do about the bit that concerns the white dragon in the module seeing as how the game is going to be set in Dragonlance well after the dragons were exiled.

[Thrudd]

You're talking about module B3? You know that is written for Basic D&D, so you may need some conversion for AD&D. I don't remember a dragon in the version I had except in the ancient legend, but couldn't you just replace it with another monster of similar HD?

[hamlet]

Well, B3 was written for Basic, not AD&D. The conversion would be very slight, but it would exist, and you'd have to adjust slightly for power balances. AD&D characters tend, somewhat, to be a little sturdier than their Basic counterparts.

Also, keep in mind that it's not really designed with Dragonlance in mind at all. It's set, ostensibly after the fact, in Mystara, which is a different animal of a setting. I'm not sure how that particular bit is going to work out for you. As for after the banishing of the dragons, simple and flippant answer by me is "just ignore that and set it in the base timeline of the original setting (i.e., before the War of the Lance or immediately afterward)." Dragonlance is one of a few TSR worlds that was completely ruined by metaplot and novel tie-ins.

If you must have it that late in the setting, then just assume that the dragon was "overlooked" because it was in a time warp or something. I think B3 involved some time shenanigans that could explain it.

Also also, keep in mind that AD&D dragons are a notch above Basic dragons. Just one can fairly easily mop the floor with a few first level characters.

[LibraryOgre]

If it's after the dragons left, I'd replace it with some sort of dragon-equivalent... maybe a Wyvern or Chimera, depending on what I wanted to use. Looking at the MM real quick, I'd lean towards a Wyvern, as a Chimera is a lot tougher, though depending on the encounter (I'm not familiar with the module), you might try a couple Winter Wolves, or a winter wolf and some bonus wolves for back-up... good breath weapon, about the right number of HD, and they're actually smarter than the dragon.

[Equivocator]

Alright, hmm... I didn't realize B3 was created with Basic in mind, but looking through at the conversions, it shouldn't be much of a problem, but I'm really just using this an introductory module before I have the players really go off into the world on their own.

And is there anything I should keep in mind when running a Dragonlance game? I was thinking of setting the game after the Kinslayer wars and dismissing the overarching metaplot that is supposed to take place after that point.

I appreciate all of yal's advice!

[Jigawatts]

Why did you choose 1E, is that your normal gaming system of choice? Dont get me wrong, I love me some AD&D, but I was just curious.

I will say, the 3.5 Dragonlance sourcebooks by Margaret Weis Publishing are amazing. The War of the Lance sourcebook is one of my favorite. They also redid the classic modules into a 3 part adventure path Dragons of Autumn, Dragons of Winter, and Dragons of Spring.

The other various sourcebooks are all great as well, particularly Races of Ansalon, Knightly Orders of Ansalon, Holy Orders of the Stars, and Towers of High Sorcery (though good luck getting ahold of that last one).

The actual 3.5 Dragonlance Campaign Setting is pretty good itself, but it focuses a lot on the Age of Mortals (not an era that I am particularly fond of personally) and most of its material can be found in the other books as well, but for only 7 bucks, theres no reason not to grab it also.

Even if you dont use the 3.5 system (or Pathfinder, which I use personally), these books are great just for the rich lore and setting material included within. Hope this helps.

[Equivocator]

Why did you choose 1E, is that your normal gaming system of choice? Dont get me wrong, I love me some AD&D, but I was just curious.

I will say, the 3.5 Dragonlance sourcebooks by Margaret Weis Publishing are amazing. The War of the Lance sourcebook is one of my favorite. They also redid the classic modules into a 3 part adventure path Dragons of Autumn, Dragons of Winter, and Dragons of Spring.

The other various sourcebooks are all great as well, particularly Races of Ansalon, Knightly Orders of Ansalon, Holy Orders of the Stars, and Towers of High Sorcery (though good luck getting ahold of that last one).

The actual 3.5 Dragonlance Campaign Setting is pretty good itself, but it focuses a lot on the Age of Mortals (not an era that I am particularly fond of personally) and most of its material can be found in the other books as well, but for only 7 bucks, theres no reason not to grab it also.

Even if you dont use the 3.5 system (or Pathfinder, which I use personally), these books are great just for the rich lore and setting material included within. Hope this helps.

Honestly, I like AD&D because I feel that it reduces the players' ability to min/max and forces them to rely on their wits and try to think through the game as opposed to blindly wading into combat with a sword in hand. Now, I'm not saying that other editions of D&D encourage that behavior, I started on 3.5 and I really enjoy playing it, but it doesn't have the same feel. However, 1e AD&D is an absolute mess, there are a lot of things I really enjoy about the rules and a great deal more that I despise. While second edition is a much cleaner system... and I hate to say this, but I honestly like THACO better than a ****ing attack matrix, I don't have the books for 2e and I lost my 3.5 books.

When I get to play AD&D, I feel as if my characters are significantly less powerful and I'm forced to try and come up innovative solutions. It's the same reason why I normally play a Halfling bard in 3.5 and Pathfinder, I already get to play a big, tough guy in real life, why would I want to do the same in fantasy land when I can instead limit myself and try to rely solely on my wits and a few spells?

But.. that and I wanted to try and run through a lot of the classic modules for first and second edition AD&D... at some point, I want to take the players through Ravenloft.

[Jigawatts]

I started with 2E, played it for several years, my avatar is even of a 2E character of mine. We played with all the core Complete X Handbooks and a good number of Forgotten Realms supplements as options, pretty much everything but Skills and Powers. Min-maxing can still happen in AD&D, it just tends to all happen at character creation rather than as you go along, basically like playing 3.P without feats or prestige classes. But on the whole you are correct, the power curve is lessened in older D&D.

Might I also suggest to you another alternative if the fiddliness of AD&D is bothering you. Castles & Crusades is a rules light game system based on AD&D that is cleaned up with much more concise rules. Gygax was even a big supporter of it when it first started in the mid 2000's. There are 13 character classes (fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, knight, cleric, druid, wizard, illusionist, rogue, assassin, bard, and monk), ascending AC/attack bonuses, no feats/prestige classes, only 4 of the classes have spellcasting capabilities (the cleric, druid, wizard, and illusionist), and it even sports a core knight class that someone could play for a Knight of Solamnia character. Combat runs fast as the game is based around everyone only getting one attack per round (except for high level members of the fighter class, who get two) Its not hard to convert anything from AD&D either, you could pretty much play straight out of the AD&D monster manual if you wanted, just flipping the AC and THAC0. Check out the Players Handbook and see if it might work for you. The other core book you would need, Monsters & Treasure, is actually about to get a new cleaned up printing released very soon to match the new players handbook that just came out (the one I linked above), so I would wait for that. Overall it has that classic feel to it, but with the all important lessened power curve and lack of min-maxing you are looking for, and I would say it runs classic Dragonlance very well.

[Lord Torath]

If you'd prefer 2nd Edition, you can generally get the rulebooks for pretty cheap on ebay. There's also Purple Worm.

[hamlet]

You can also get For Gold and Glory for free, which is a pretty exact clone of 2e.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/justen-brow...-21589647.html

They're quite good and include a few extra rules from some of the complete book series that are worth a look for more . . . "realism" I guess is the only word, or at least a bit of extra character building. Of course, you can easily just ignore them and get on with things.

And, in defense of 1e, it's not so much a mess as it's a bit disorganized. Really what you need is to just be familiar with where things are and that comes from reading through the books a few times. You'll eventually see that there's generally a reason why things are where they are, even if you don't agree with it.



As for Dragonlance as a setting, I'd actually advise that, unless you're running a full Dragonlance campaign rather than just using it as a generic framework, you probably want to avoid the world. There are things built into it that make it kind of tough to use as a generic setting.

For that, I'd actually recommend Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms or, better yet, Kingdoms of Kalamar from Kenzer. That last one is just great IMO and strikes a perfect balance between detail and openness. All three, though, are open enough that you can hammer them into what you need and they'll accept pretty much any pre-made modules and the like with very little trouble.

[BWR]

it's not so much a mess as it's a bit disorganized.

Isn't 'disorganized' basically the definition of 'mess'?

[hamlet]

Isn't 'disorganized' basically the definition of 'mess'?

I differentiate based on tone. "A mess" is quite negative sounding.