Dragonlance/Krynn?

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Seven
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Seven »

The idea is that personalities and mental traits should never be racial attributes.
These things can vary widely across siblings.
daryen
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by daryen »

Solomoriah wrote: He only draws one woman...
... who is permanently stuck in the 1980s.
Rosisha wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 10:02 am I'm confused about the racism aspect that's being talked about. Kender were supposed to be children - and not tied to any race. Gully Dwarves represent societies oppressed (in that case those with mental handicaps) and how despite how badly they are being treated they survive and thrive. Which is true. I've worked in homeless shelters and can tell you people with mental health related conditions are treated like the scum of the earth. I don't want to get into politics here, but having talked to Weis and Hickman, I'm 99% confident how they intended both Kender and Gully Dwarves and race had nothing to do with it.
Intent has nothing to do with it. It is all about presentation. Fortunately, I have been able to keep my contacts with Dragonlance to all second-hand, but I have read a lot of threads on it, as the flame war threads can actually be fun to read. In all of that reading, this is literally the first post I have ever seen that ever tried to claim that Kender and Gully Dwarves are not supposed to be races. Even those who defend Kender (and I have never seen Gully Dwarves be defended), take as a given that both are races with their proscribed attributes, attitudes, and required behaviors. And even as an outsider, I can see where both are, uh, problematic.
Rosisha
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Rosisha »

Hmm. I guess I don't see it. Gully dwarves are hill dwarves warped by the grey gem. Kender were gnomes warped by the grey gem. In this sense it is more appropriate to think of dog breeds - with significant mental differences as well as significant physical differences. No one would say training a cocker spaniel is the same as training a beagle. Both breeds show remarkable differences in temperament, stubbornness, intelligence, emotive ability and so on - things we can associate with INT, WIS, and CHR. We also see intelligence variance among things like dogs vs snakes. And there are ranges, and some of those ranges cross over - but on average, we see those differences. And before anyone jumps on my butt for using dogs - 1) I rescue dogs so I'm very familiar with them, 2) humans have no racial differences in the real world so there is no comparison I can make there, 3) if we did meet actual alien intelligences that were much like us in that we could recognize their intelligence, we would probably see ranges in that intelligence and other mental acumen and no I'm not saying humans would be number one - odds are we'll be somewhere in the middle.

I would agree with you if the writers had said something like an Ergothian is somehow lesser or greater than someone from Ice Wall or the Plains Barbarians, yes I'd agree with you that's problematic. But they actually went out of their way NOT to do that, and also show equality of gender too (with both Laurana and Kitiara being the best commanders of the White Stone and Dragonarmies respectively).

I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Oh one last note, there are cultural norms that D&D tries to capture for various groups. Be they forest gnomes vs rock gnomes, or halflings in Greyhawk vs Dark Sun. The rules try to guide your character into the cultural norms for that group - hence why halflings get a +1 to thrown weapons. I don't consider this racist either. Different cultures have different norms. It all depends on how you handle it, and frankly, D&D does a fairly good job of being mostly positive.
daryen
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by daryen »

Here is the disconnect: I have never read the stories, or even really any of the fluff. I have only seen the discussions, and some game supplement material. So, perhaps the greatest issue is not necessarily the stories themselves (though I will never know), but rather the translation of those items into game supplements, where, for example, Kender definitely are a separate race (irrespective of how that race was originally generated).

So, we're all good.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Solomoriah »

Kender are presented as a separate, fully autonomous race in the books as well as in the game materials. I have no idea where the idea that they are "children" comes from (other than the obvious German connection). At least, they are not totally useless... gully dwarves are almost entirely so, and really do appear to have been created as an excuse to make ethnic jokes and comments without offending any real-world individuals. I do find this problematic, and I did at the time. While they are less useless, tinker gnomes as presented in the books are pretty awful.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Solomoriah »

Rosisha wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 10:02 am... having talked to Weis and Hickman, I'm 99% confident how they intended both Kender and Gully Dwarves and race had nothing to do with it.
I don't disagree here. I do, however, feel that they are overlooking the effects of what they created.

I did that in the 1st edition of Morgansfort, in the Cave of the Unknown adventure, and I was called out for it. The person who called me out was right about the effect of how I had written the adventure, even though she was wrong about why. I was careless, while she thought I was trying to be "edgy" in presenting the merchant's daughter as a lost cause from the beginning. But whether I meant it that way or not, that's how it came across. I revised the adventure, and the 2nd edition presents a more nuanced situation where the players only lose this particular battle if they don't move with urgency or if they fail to recognize a somewhat obvious trap.
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Rosisha
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Rosisha »

I have to be honest, I am actually shocked at what's being written here. I guess that's what they mean when they say everyone get's their own story. For me, all three races you found problematic I found inspiring.

Kender: I have ADHD. As a child, I was wild and constantly running around. Reading those stories gave me characters I saw myself in. That was part of the inspiration too - childhood wonder and joy unleashed, and not squashed by cynical adulthood (per Weis and Hickman, which is why they used "kinder" in the name).

Gully Dwarves: I am also dyslexic. I was told - point blank, by an English teacher - "Drop out of school and become a dock worker. It's all you'll ever be good for." I was in remedial classes. I was in summer school. But Gully Dwarves in Krynn, despite their handicaps - handicaps that would get them thrown into special schools with me - were cunning and clever and had the grudging fear of the Companions.

Tinker Gnomes: I love to tinker with stuff, and a lot of the time I fail. I have fried three Raspberry Pis. But Tinker Gnomes keep trying. As a kid, that was a super important for me to see and understand - that you have to keep trying.

Interesting to see how some people see something problematic, and other people see hope all in the same book. In many ways, as a 10 year old kid who had been told they were a mistake, useless, stupid, and worthless by most of the adults in their life, those other "kids" really were - for me - something I could hold on too.
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Solomoriah
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Solomoriah »

I see your point, but to me it's not how they themselves *were* but how they were perceived and treated by the writers. There is nothing in the scene where a gully dwarf reports the presence of "two" enemies when there are in fact a horde that says anything positive to me, and at the time I saw mostly that the characters and even the writers seemed to be presenting them as comic relief rather than characters with agency.

Honestly, I really thought that was the point. And I never liked Krynn for this very reason.
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Plungingforward
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Plungingforward »

Dragonlance really forced me to rebel against the "caricature species." I really hated ALL Kender being like Tas. This took some of the thunder out of a pretty great character - any Kender would have broken that Dragon Orb, because they're all so fearless and so spunky and whatnot - so was it really a big moment? It also added irritating mockeries to untold D&D groups.

And once I saw it, I couldn't stop seeing it.

On the one hand, "race" is an unfortunate word when you're dealing with a different species. I have no problems with a nonhuman species having defining traits - Dwarves, Elves, Vulcans and whatnot are not humans, and can be weirdly obsessive, strangely faerie, unfailingly logical or whatever as a group because this isn't a skin color thing - they literally have nonhuman brains. (The only reason we humans don't know what other sentient beings might consider our "group traits" is we can't see ourselves from the outside.) On the other, it's sooooo easy to get this wrong. And Dragonlance, in my humble opinion, got it really wrong. So wrong I owe it a bit of gratitude for opening my eyes on this issue.

I definitely understand loving the characters. Bupu. Tas. That gnome with the incredibly long name. The writers were good. They wrote strong characters. But a big part of the problem for me was that those characters become much less interesting when they're operating largely on biological imperative.

Otherwise, I think there's plenty of room for stories on a huge, dynamic world like Krynn. You can even have the entire war of the lance playing out, you know, over THERE somewhere while your party goes about its business. People did it with WEG Star Wars all the time. It can work out great.
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Beowulf
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Re: Dragonlance/Krynn?

Post by Beowulf »

I'm a nOOb to BFRPG but there's nothing in 1e/2e that would be too hard to convert. You may have to or want to take a few liberties depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. In the official supplements for the Orders of High Sorcery each Order/alignment had different advancement tables, rules, etc. You could certainly dispense with that or at least pare it down. It's unlikely you'll have players that are evil or even neutral (and that depends on if you use the optional alignment rules). Likewise the three different orders of the Knights of Solamnia could be streamlined quite a bit as well.

I think people are confusing the stories with the setting. If the modules were railroady what does that matter? There's no need to use the modules to use the setting. The huge advantage of using a setting drawn from literature is that it's generally very well fleshed out by professional authors. For example if you wanted to set a campaign in a world based on Saberhagen's Sword Trilogy or Tolkien's LotR you'd have an incredible amount of material to work with.

For Krynn you'd have to decide when to set your game. If it's post-Cataclysm then bear in mind there will be no true clerics (unless you want to change it). You could set it PC even after the War of the Lance. To me the point is the rich setting (actually my favorite of all the TSR published stuff).

BTW, when it comes to TSR art, you can either acknowledge that Elmore was the greatest or you can be wrong. :twisted: :lol:
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