Thread by @hexcrawl

Let’s talk about the Innfellows.

One of the innovations of the #Dragonlance Saga was the expectation that the players would take on the role of pregenerated characters (instead of rolling their own).

Tanis
Goldmoon
Caramon
Riverwind
Raistlin
Flint Fireforge
Sturm Brightblade
Tasslehoff Burrfoot

We're continuing our Let's Read of the original Dragonlance Saga, which starts over here if you want to begin at the beginning!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1528081088001605634

“You have to play the characters from the novels?! That’s like saying the players have to be Luke, Leia, and Han in a Star Wars campaign!”

But these characters actually predated the novels.

Novel or no, it appears to have always been the intention for Dragonlance to feature established roles that the players would step into.

AFAIK, this was a major innovation that hadn’t been attempted before.

Convention modules had included pregens to get people playing fast, but they looked like this.

They weren't fully developed characters with backgrounds that were integrated into the scenario.

This aspect of the Saga is often treated as anathema.

"Can you believe Dragonlance made you play the characters from the books?"

But there’s nothing inherently wrong with the technique. @john_harper's LADY BLACKBIRD, for example, uses it to excellent effect.

(Lady Blackbird is free. Go check it out.)

onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/

The Cthulhu Masters Tournament at Gen Con also uses it every year. Crafting a specific cast of characters gives you a rich vector for seeding drama, clues, etc.

(For an example from non-RPG media, consider how the horror of a Silent Hill game is customized to the protagonist.)

This seems to have been the intention with the DL modules:

The goal was to create epic fantasy.

Epic fantasy includes big, iconic characters.

The Innfellows were to Dragonlance what the Fellowship was to LOTR.

Having these iconic roles meant that they could include big elements that were tied to the PCs.

Just like Aragorn and Boromir and the Sword That Was Broken could be tied to the legacy of the Ring and the throne of Gondor, so Goldmoon could be tied to the return of the true gods; Sturm to the broken legacy of the Solamnic Knights; Tanis to the Dragon Highlord Kitiara.

This type of integration is something that a good DM does in any campaign.

I describe my process for doing it, using #DragonHeist as an example, here.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4514…

What about the player perspective?

Well, IME, taking on a well-prepared role is a different challenge and a different kind of fun than generating or creating my own character.

Neither is inherently better than the other, IMO.

In the absence of the novels, I wonder how this new technique might have been developed by the DL modules.

In practice, the existence of the novels became a crutch. In trying to figure out how to implement this new technique, it was simply too easy to say, “Uh… Well… It happens just like in the books.”

And this becomes more prominent as the DL series continues (and the novels had been completed), until you get to statements like this one from DL10:

If the novels had never existed, the creative team might have been forced to find a different solution for establishing these dramatic elements and clearly integrating them into the narrative than simply saying, “Read the book.”

(Or they might have failed utterly. Who can say?)

So if the Innfellows weren’t created by Weis and Hickman for the novels, who DID create them?

The short answer appears to be: Everybody.

They emerged out of and were iterated by the creative team through the same development process as the adventures themselves.

Here's Margaret Weis talking about how Raistlin was a name and a cool illustration that needed a background developed.

At the other end of the creative process, here's Michael Dobson: "I participated in the playtest of DL1 in which Terry Phillips did his memorable Raistlin-as-a-young-James-Mason. That was the moment Raistlin changed from a minor participant in the Saga to a leading role."

What were these playtests?

Harold Johnson describes Hickman's creative process: "Tracy begins by drawing charts and maps. Then he calls a playtest and invents the adventure during play, creating a synthesis of his and his players' creativity."

Speaking as an author, this can be a really great way to rapidly flesh out an adventure.

Living in the world, so to speak, can bring it to vivid life. Area descriptions, NPC personality quirks, etc. can all spill out easily at the table and then be captured for future use.

But the most memorable stuff at a game table is often that electric thrill when the utterly unique interaction between GM, players, and dice

And the pitfall is when you try to capture THOSE moments and recreate them.

Because the whole point is that they emerged organically.

A common example I've seen at least a half dozen times is the adventure module where, inexplicably, hundreds or thousands of words will be dedicated to describing how a PC could fall in love with one of the NPCs and how their romance could play out.

I'm fairly certain that this is almost always because a PC in the author's game DID fall in love with that NPC. And it WAS amazing.

But it's not really something you can force. And if you did, it wouldn't have the same power.

For example, in my run of #DragonHeist a PCs got romantically entangled with Renaer Neverember. And it WAS amazing. Major highlight of the campaign. Absolutely integral to the experience we had.

But it would've been silly to force it into the Remix.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4121…

Anyway. Where was I?

Right. The Innfellows.

OK. With all that being said, let me be brutally honest:

I don't give a shit about the canonical Innfellows.

In terms of the adventure modules, they are, at best, a missed opportunity.

The existence of the novels creates a canonicity to how they're "supposed" to be played that hobbles not only their implementation in the adventures, but also players trying to play them.

"Players choosing to play their own characters have no stories to tell."

Oh, Dragonlance, sweetie. You said the quiet part out loud.

When we continue, I'll be taking a peek at the beginning of the Saga and how we can integrate original characters into it.

The Let's Read continues over here, as promised!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1528812507162259456