Thread by @hexcrawl

Volume II of the #Dragonlance Saga begins with DL6 Dragons of Ice.

Which is where the whole thing starts to fall apart.

It's time to continue our Let's Read of the Dragonlance Saga! If you haven't seen the beginning of the thread, you can hop over to it here.

We'll wait for you to circle back.

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

Up until this point, the designers have mostly kept things on track with the help of geography: The PCs start at the northern tip of a peninsula, are hemmed in by conveniently impassable mountains, and then forced south by an implacable army advancing (more or less) behind them.

They can thus be forced through choke points (adventure sites) through a sequence of regions (which are also adventures).

It's a natural linearity that emerges from geography.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/3696…

And, yes, if you take a step back, you might observe that this is some VERY weird geography that, unto this day, stands out like a sore thumb on the world map of Ansalon.

But it basically works.

All of this funnels the PCs to the dwarven citadel of Thorbardin and the conclusion of Volume I.

But as the PCs exit the south side of Thorbardin, the convenient geography vanishes... but the designers' need (or, at least, desire) for linearity remains.

And the wheels pretty much immediately fall off the bus.

The opening of DL6 is an onion of crazy. So let's start peeling.

Okay, so the refugees are finally safe in Thorbardin. The players are, therefore, confronted with a simple question:

What do we do next?

But the Saga can't afford to have them ask that question.

I mean, the players could say ANYTHING.

So the designers cut that off by providing an answer: You need to go hire ships to continue the evacuation of the refugees.

(This premise, it should be noted is completely forgotten about thirty seconds after it's written. The Saga asserts that the refugees are still in danger, but then just assumes the PCs will just stop caring about them in any way.)

But what does looking for the ships look like?

Batshit insanity.

Remember the Cataclysm happened 330 YEARS AGO.

We jump directly from a bunch of NPCs saying: "Let's head to the port city of Tarsis!" to "Whoops! Turns out Tarsis hasn't been a port in 300 years!"

It's fuckin' nuts.

I can almost spin a head canon where I can almost see what they were going for. But it ain't on the page.

But okay, let's roll with it: We came to Tarsis looking for ships. It turns out Tarsis is no longer a port. The actual port is another 40 miles down the road.

So what would be your next logical step?

If your answer was, "Go to the actual port," we're on the same page.

...

The designers are not on that page.

The PCs instead just kind of wander aimlessly around Tarsis for a week, at which point we trigger the almost equally bonkers plot hook that we've previously discussed.

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1529189461442981889

As I noted in that previous discussion, none of this is actually necessary: The key plot point here is that the PCs need to learn (a) that dragon orbs exist and (b) that a dragon orb can be found at Icewall Castle.

That's the core adventure premise here.

In any case, the group leaves the too-convenient-by-half library...

...and half the PCs vanish.

Backing up: At the beginning of DL6, about half of the players are handed a new set of pregenerated PCs.

If you poke around a bit, you can eventually figure out the intention here:

- In one place it's obliquely mentioned that the other PCs are staying at the Inn of the Red Dragon.

- Then Tarsis gets attacked by the blue dragonarmy.

- In another place it's mentioned that the Inn is destroyed during the attack.

- In yet another place, we are reassured that the other PCs did not actually die when the Inn was destroyed!

It's kind of difficult to explain how utterly confusing this is in the published book.

Once you take all these pieces and put them together, it's fairly clear what the intention is: The party gets split up and both assume that the other half died in the attack.

Very dramatic.

But these pieces are absolutely NOT brought together in the book.

The DLC2 reprint actually removes the text saying "they did not die in the Inn's destruction" (which is the only place the adventure suggests that's a thing that might have happened), so it's even more baffling.

In any case, the basic concept of splitting up the PCs and using that opportunity to introduce new PCs is actually really cool.

It's something that I've seen happen organically a couple of times in other campaigns, and it's always a great moment that vastly expands the scope and depth of the world.

(And the troupe play of Ars Magica is basically designed to make this a core pillar of the game.)

But what I come back to in this specific example is how forced and confusing it all is.

Stop and imagine what this experience looks like at the actual table.

DM: Bob, Stacy, Emily. You're going be playing these new characters today.

Emily: Wait. What? Why?

DM: Just trust me!

<20 minutes later>

DM: Ha ha! Your characters are dead! Definitely dead! A dragon blew them up off screen!

Emily: What the actual fuck?

The intention is clearly for this to be a sad moment: Our friends are dead. We must persevere.

And then later you can totally imagine the amazing scene where you realize that your friends AREN'T dead!

But this moment will never land at the table, because the practical reality of how it's forced by the DM completely undercuts it.

The players will never be focused on their characters in this moment. They'll be focused on the DM dickery.

(If you do manage to pull this off, BTW, the correct sequence is NOT: Play Group 1 adventures, play Group 2 adventures... reunion!

The correct sequence is: Play through Group 1 adventures... HOLY SHIT! IT'S THE DEAD PCs! Go back and play Group 2 to see how they got there.)

What I keep coming back to here is Thorbardin: You want to send one group of PCs to Icewall to find a dragon orb. You want to send the other to the elven realm of Silvanesti, where there's another dragon orb.

Instead of this weird Interlude in Tarsis, start Volume 2 in Thorbardin: The refugees are safe. That's done. Don't reopen it.

The dwarven scholars reveal the ancient lore of the dragon orbs and the fact that they can be found here and here (POINTS TO MAP).

Put your thumb on the scale here if you want to: "The idea here is that you'll need to split up. It'll be a cool opportunity for everyone to create a second character!"

Heck, I'd even toss the Tomb of Huma in there, too. "It is said that the great dragonslayer locked secrets of the last war in his blah blah blah."

Now you've got DL6, DL7, and DL10 in play, and you're empowering the players to make choices.

Okay, back to DL6 Dragons of Ice as written.

As the Interlude at Tarsis ends, the PCs head towards Icewall and run into the most ubiquitous of Dragonlance stock characters: The NPC who stares at you, demonstrates an omniscient knowledge of your quest, and points you at the plot!

These NPCs show up constantly in the Saga. (There's at least two, arguably three in DL6 alone.)

My head canon is that all of these NPCs are actually just Paladine in disguise.

Paladine, of course, being the God of Railroads.

The PCs end up on a glacier, where they fight minotaurs and walrus-people (thanoi) because the draconians are reptilian and don't handle the cold well.

Along the way they get stuck in a blizzard, which inflicts 2d6 damage per day (-2 per fur worn) and lasts "until a PC drops below 12 hp," which is definitely a thing that will happen because it's not like one of the PCs is a 9th level cleric.

"Because of the nature of this adventure, the heroes may wish to go almost anywhere. They should certainly be allowed to do so."

..but if they do, use an army to make them go where they're supposed to.

The Saga seems to be using a definition of "allow" that I'm unfamiliar with.

The PCs eventually find Icewall Castle.

There they fight a white dragon, find the first of three dragon orbs, and also a broken dragonlance!

The collection of magical McGuffins, which will be the major backbone of Act 2, has begun.

DL6 wraps up with the PCs directed to a fleet of 300 year old ships frozen in the glacier. They're able to free one, which is surprisingly intact, and set sail.

Their destination is Whitestone, where there is said to be a council of light gathering to oppose the dragon armies.

The PCs however, will not arrive there soon.

For they are fated to shipwreck on the shores of DL7 Dragons of Light.

The Let's Read continues over here!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1545035978448019457