RavenX

Join Date 10/2008

+194

Dragonlance Mod: Outline Proposal and Discussion (Part 1)

The Master Plan

This is Part 1 of a outline and discussion of my plans and thoughts for the work I shall soon begin on the Elemental Dragonlance Mod entitled "The War of the Lance". The Mod will concentrate on the War covered in the original Trilogy, also called the Dragonlance Chronicles. As readers of Dragonlance can tell you this war was in fact Not the first War of the Lance. The first war was fought many many years prior to this one and can be found in part in the book "The Legend of Huma". There may be references in the Mod to some of Dragonlance's rich history including the first War of the Lance as well as other events. Now, on with the planning.

1) Conception of Ideas:

There are one of two ways I can think to do this. Either each Hero could act as a Sovereign and have full control over raising armies to fight back the forces of Takhisis the Evil Dragon Goddess, or, the Heroes could be "Champions" the player always has control over if they are playing on the side of the forces of "Light". One thing I'm decided upon is that one of the main companions, Laurana Kanan, will be a Sovereign once she takes the position of the "Golden General" after the battle of Palanthas. The rest of the main "Companions" will be Champion units under the players control.

At this point a decision must be made. Do I heavily follow the storyline of the books and have the Companions in game mirror their actions in the book (this requires a lot of scripted events)? Or do I go with a broader scale and concentrate more on the War having the companions act as "Adventurers" that must complete certain Quests to help further their faction?

There was another strategy war game for PC a long time ago based on Dragonlance. In that game you didn't directly control the Companions. Instead you sent them on Missions/Quests to find magical artifacts to help your war effort. They would go off looking for "Dragon Orbs" or pieces of the "Dragonlance" and if they were successful in finding them you could then use those items in your fight against the armies of Takhisis. I rather like this idea but I'm not sure if people would rather directly control the war effort or if they'd rather treat this like a RPG where they control the Companions and don't have to worry about raising armies or designing cities. Right now I'm leaning heavily towards having the player control a faction in the war and have the companions be assigned to the players faction as Champions. You'll be ale to use them to lead armies and also go on Quests to find items (like Dragon Orbs) to help the war effort.

2) Possible Factions:

"The Forces of Whitestone" aka the Good Factions:

Knights of Solamnia , Sovereign: Lord Gunthar Uth Wistan

Qualinesti Elves, Sovereign: Silveran the Speaker of the Sun

Silvanesti Elves, Sovereign: Lorac Caladon the Speaker of the Stars

Dwarves of Thorbardin, Sovereign: Pounce Quickspring

Conclave of Mages "White Robes", Sovereign: Par-Salian the Highmage, Head of the Whiterobes

(Note: The Conclave of Mages is made up of 3 "Orders" each representing Good, Nuetral, and Evil. As such they will also have a Evil faction)

"The Dragonarmies" aka the Evil Factions:

Blue Dragonarmy, Sovereign: Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar

Red Dragonarmy, Sovereign: Highlord Verminaard

Green Dragonarmy, Sovereign: Highlord Salah-Khan

Black Dragonarmy, Sovereign: Highlord Lucien of Takar

White Dragonarmy, Sovereign: Highlord Toede

Conclave of Mages "Black Robes", Sovereign: Ladonna the Highmage, Headmistress of the Blackrobes

Secondary Idea for Gameplay:

Instead of having all those sovereigns and factions, I could go a third way and only have two sovereigns on the map in the form of the head deities in Dragonlance. These being Paladine the God of Good and Takhisis the Goddess of Evil. I could make each of them a sovereign and have them guide the war effort for their side. They would be Truly Immortal in game and would not be able to be defeated unless they are killed by their counterpart. Meaning only Paladine could kill Takhisis and only Takhisis could kill Paladine. Other characters or armies could defeat them in battle, but they wouldn't be truly killed unless they were slain by their counterpart. If I do things this way all the Companions and other heroes and villains will be playable as Champions for their respective factions.

The World of Krynn:

The world of Krynn, and more specifically the continent of "Ansalon" is where the game will take place. If there will be a way to load characters into another map while still in the same game I may or may not have the various characters traveling to other areas which will get their own maps, like the Abyss, or the under-sea remains of the Kingdom of Istar. As I don't know if we'll be able to do that or not for now I'll plan on just mapping out the continent of Ansalon. Pictured Below:

Reduced 71%

Original 800 x 530

I Do plan on releasing the Map of Ansalon as a "Stand Alone Map" that people can play as a "preview" or "demo" of the Mod. In this instance it will be just like any other game of Elemental played the normal way. I just thought it would be nice to release it separately as it will most likely be the first piece I finish and it will be a way to "wet" people's appetite for the full Mod.

Races:

There will be quite a few races in this Mod provided Stardock is awesome enough to include some of the models I will need. If they don't then I'll have to make them my-self or find someone to help me make them as 3D modeling isn't one of my strong points. Skins and textures I can do, modeling...eh, not as well. Anyway, on with the planned races.

Intelligent Races:

Humans

Dwarves

Elves and Half-Elves

Kender (halflings)

Dragons

Draconians (Dragon-Men, some fly, some don't)

Minotaurs

Ogres

Goblins

Undead

During this planning phase I'm very open to suggestions for Gameplay and any other thoughts or questions you may have. I'm also accepting applications for those of you who may want to help out with this. I don't know any Python so if You do, please let me know as there will be some "events" during the war that will have to be scripted or hard coded into the mod. Also as I mention above, if you're a decent modeler I could probably use Your help as well. I imagine there may be Models for more then a few of the races/monsters I mention above. I think I heard somewhere that Minotaurs will be a wandering monster so it might have a model already. I do know how to do Some things with 3DsMax so I might be able to piece a few things together as well.

So, what does everyone think? Thoughts, Ideas, Comments, Questions?

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kintap

Quoting Magicke,

reply 1

I like the version that would let you control Raistlin, Tasslehoff, Caramoon, etc as heros that you could use in battles and also do quests with. What classes will you make? Mage, Fighter, Priest, Thief? Will you have classes or maybe just skills? Maybe there is\was a neutral god or goddess in campaign with attendant Sovereigns, Heros, etc.?

Well, both versions have the player being able to control the Companions as heroes. One version has them as Heroes with the God/Goddess as the "Sovereign", the other version there are many "Sovereigns" and the Companions may be split among them. In the books, for a time Tanis is with Kitiara and during that time in the game he would be (reluctantly) fighting With the Dragonarmies and not against them.

In the God/Goddess version there are only two factions. One for good and one for evil. That's what the whole war is about when you boil it down and there are two ultimate powers in the land.

The other version will have many factions, but, all those factions will either be on the Good side or the Evil side. The factions will follow the same allegiances they have in the books.

While it is true that the world of Krynn has a very wide and diverse pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, and some of them are indeed "Neutral", they won't be represented in game. If I'm sticking to the story of the books (while of course giving the player freedom to change it within reason) none of the Neutral powers were strong enough to take down one of the two major powers. Notice there are actually 3 Orders of Magi but I only make 2 of them playable factions. The 3rd Order is the Order of the Red Robes. Raistlin himself starts out as a Red Robe but later dons the Black Robes in his pursuit of power.

As we all know Dragonlance is owned by Wizards of the Coast and follows the standard D&D classes. I'll most likely emulate those (at least for the main characters and their abilities) but when it comes to normal units I'll be sticking with the game standards minus some changing of Hitpoints, Mana, etc etc to make them play the way I want for the Mod. Case in point, Dragons. In Elemental, Dragons are Rare and Powerful creatures. In Dragonlance....well the place is just lousy with them. You can't turn around without almost getting eaten. The player will be waging war with Armies of Dragons, not just one or two. For the Mod they'll have to be tweaked and most likely toned down to be a little more balanced. Not saying they won't be incredibly hard to kill, they will. Then again if you have the right weapons, like a Dragon Orb, and maybe a few Dragons of your own, you'll fare pretty well.

At the beginning of the War the forces of Good don't have any Dragons of their own. Until you find a way to fight them, or find some good Dragons, if you go against the Dragonarmies chances are you're going to get your ass handed to you.....bad. Then again if you're playing as the forces of Takhisis you have a tactical advantage in the early game. You'll just have to hunt down the appropriate people before they can find the right "tools" to defeat you and You win. (That won't be as easy as it sounds though, there must be balance)

So just to clarify, which version of it did you like/want?

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Note to the Devs: If any of you have any suggestions or can see a way here that you'd like to see tried, please let me know. Being the ones making the base game, there me be times that you (as players, not employees) might want to see something work different then the way it will work in Vanilla Elemental. Maybe you had a great idea but Frogboy or Boogie overrided you. Maybe you ARE Frogboy or Boogie and Everyone Else overrided you!!! Either way, I would Greatly Appreciate any feedback you may have or thoughts you may have on the ideas I want to incorporate into my Mod.

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 5

I like what you've got so far.

When we get into the modding beta, what we'll do is create sub-forums specifically for different mods from the beta group. My intention is to have Stardock developers work with mod developers to make sure we provide enough APIs and such so that you can make very different games.

I would love, for instance, for someone to make a literal MOM clone with it.

I'm a big Dragonlance fan from way back though.

That - Is - Awesome!!! Might I suggest though to add the forum sections for modding maybe around the step before the actual Modding Beta? I imagine I'll have enough materials (base game files) to start working on the Mod before we actually get to the Mod Beta. I also think I'll probably be working on this longer then the Modding Beta will actually last (guessing it could take 3 or 4 weeks).

As a Dragonlance Fan if there's anything in particular (certain scene from the books) you'd like to see in a Dragonlance Game I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Dragonlance mod? Neato!

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I hope this isn't a double-post. The forum keeps crashing as I try to post..

Have you checked out Dragons of Glory? It's a boardgame on the War of the Lance, originally published as D&D module DL 11. There should be some information on BoardGameGeek, unfortunately the site is currently in maintenance.

I would think that the most interesting things in Dragons of Glory would be the factions and the map. The factions have diplomatic modifiers included which tell how inclined they are towards WhiteStone and the Highlords. The knights for example, can never join the Highlords, while Nordmaar could join either side as easily.

If we had actual countries as factions - the major ones at least - the games could wary in who joins which side. And we could have quests for the heroes which would give their side diplomatic advantages towards the other factions. Hmm... thinking about it more makes me think that there truly are only two major factions and the rest of the countries are smaller in nature, joining one side or the other... maybe just two victory conditions and factions would have to choose which one to support by joining an alliance. Or something.

Additionally, a lot of good quest ideas can be found in the expansion to the game, called Paths of the Lance. It had action cards which simulated the effect of the adventures the heroes were going through while the war was raging. Here are some examples:

"Lorac's Nightmare: In a desperate attempt to save his homeland, the elf king Lorac is enslaved by a dragon orb, turning the forest of Silvanesti against its inhabitants."

"Lord Soth’s Legion: The death knight is called out of Dargaard Keep by his master, Highlord Kitiara."

"Hammer of Kharas Found: Lost in ages past, the Hammerof Kharas is a symbol ofdwarven unity."

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Quoting Vallu751,

reply 5

I hope this isn't a double-post. The forum keeps crashing as I try to post..

Have you checked out Dragons of Glory? It's a boardgame on the War of the Lance, originally published as D&D module DL 11. There should be some information on BoardGameGeek, unfortunately the site is currently in maintenance.

I would think that the most interesting things in Dragons of Glory would be the factions and the map. The factions have diplomatic modifiers included which tell how inclined they are towards WhiteStone and the Highlords. The knights for example, can never join the Highlords, while Nordmaar could join either side as easily.

If we had actual countries as factions - the major ones at least - the games could wary in who joins which side. And we could have quests for the heroes which would give their side diplomatic advantages towards the other factions. Hmm... thinking about it more makes me think that there truly are only two major factions and the rest of the countries are smaller in nature, joining one side or the other... maybe just two victory conditions and factions would have to choose which one to support by joining an alliance. Or something.

Additionally, a lot of good quest ideas can be found in the expansion to the game, called Paths of the Lance. It had action cards which simulated the effect of the adventures the heroes were going through while the war was raging. Here are some examples:

"Lorac's Nightmare: In a desperate attempt to save his homeland, the elf king Lorac is enslaved by a dragon orb, turning the forest of Silvanesti against its inhabitants."

"Lord Soth’s Legion: The death knight is called out of Dargaard Keep by his master, Highlord Kitiara."

"Hammer of Kharas Found: Lost in ages past, the Hammerof Kharas is a symbol ofdwarven unity."

That is Excellent information, Vallu751. I heard of the boardgame but unfortunately never played it. I looked for it for years but never could find one to purchase and then ended up forgetting all about it. Until you just reminded me about it that is . Well done.

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

I'm not expert in Dragonlance lore/story/characters/... Just read the original trilogy, the one about Takishis Knight's and another one about the twins going nuts.

Companions as Sovereigns or as Champions... Uff. Which is your definition of Sovereign? It'd seem more logical to have them as Champions?

That of heavily scripted to follow the storyline... Europa Universalis 2? I'd go with the broader scale. And I like the idea of having my own faction with the proper companions as Champions that can lead armies, do quests...

About factions, multiple factions sounds better than just Fiz... Paladine versus Takishis. Both ways have their appeal but from a Sovereign choice point of view, multiple factions rule imho.

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I would prefer for the two gods to be "untouchable NPCs" ... not necessarily part of the game, but theoretically involved in random events and questing.

I think that the Sovereigns should be (multiple) mortal rulers, while the Companions are exceedingly powerful Champions.

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Quoting Tasunke,

reply 8

I would prefer for the two gods to be "untouchable NPCs" ... not necessarily part of the game, but theoretically involved in random events and questing.

I think that the Sovereigns should be (multiple) mortal rulers, while the Companions are exceedingly powerful Champions.

I think that is a good idea. That leaves the Companions/Champions able to quest for you.

One other thing. No mention of Red Robes in your lists.

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Quoting Supreme Shogun,

reply 9

I think that is a good idea. That leaves the Companions/Champions able to quest for you.

Even if I use the Gods as the only two Sovereigns, the Companions will still be free to go on quests as heroes/champions/generals. Perhaps I should just throw out the term "Sovereign" when referring to the mod as those mechanics won't play the same.

I could also very well make the Gods more "stationary". As we know Paladine is Fizban who as Fizban is rather incompetent. Takhisis can't fully enter the mortal plane of existence and the temple is located in Neraka. Outside of Neraka her Highlords would have to do everything for her.

It's an interesting idea. I'll give it some thought and see what I come up with. When I decide on a few Core Mechanics that I'm happy with I'm going to post a Poll here on the forums and let people chose which Core Mechanic they like the best. That will be the one I go with.

Quoting Supreme Shogun,

reply 9

One other thing. No mention of Red Robes in your lists.

The Red Robes will be there but not as their own "faction". I don't plan on having any "neutral" characters or factions. Ultimately the war comes down to the powers of "Good" and "Evil" and that's the main overall theme I'll be following.

Saying that how-ever, I do plan on having a few factions that could be swung to go either way. When they enter the war though, they will choose a side, either for good or evil. Such as the "Nordmaar" example that Vallu751 gives above. There won't be that many "swing factions" though as following the books most nations knew where they stood.

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Glad to be of assistance

Here's the BoardGameGeek link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/709/dragons-of-glory

The page contains the original map as a 1600x1200 image file: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/205250/dragons-of-glory

And in the file section, there are the full rules for Paths of the Lance as well as the action cards. The diplomatic information I mentioned can be found in the rules on page 3.

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Thank you again, Vallu. Those will come in very handy indeed. I already have a very accurate map but the rules may give me some inspiration.

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*Bump* For those new to the forums who haven't seen this and are interested in the DL Mod.

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i love dragonlance(i own and have read many of the books), so i would love to see it as a mod.

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I like that swing faction idea. Ever play the old game, "War of the Lance" ? Reminds me of that kind of where the forces of good would want to ally with as many as they can (strength in numbers, disadvantaged at the start ). Forces of evil would want to crush or kill off any who will not join them. Increase their lead or make sure the good guys aren't getting stronger.

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Quoting Supreme Shogun,

reply 15

Exactly. That's the very same concept we'll be going for here. It will add a lot of replay to the mod as well.

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I will be watching this mod with baited breath, we have not ever had a good modern Dragon lance game or mod as far as I can tell.

Personally I think, to actually follow the storyline closely you will actually need to have the "companions" going out and doing quests for the faction, not being in command of any armies or such with the exception of laurana. I.e the quest for the Dragonlances, the hammer of hras (sp?) or the dragon orb.

I am not sure I like the idea of actually playing as Takhisis or Paladine but it's an interesting concept. Very interested ot see what you come up with.

Also the war of the twins need's to be done as well! =P

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Sounds badass.

Having the paladine and takhisis as the opposing faction leaders sounds EASIER to handle.

Regardless, my main interest would be in actually playing the party from Solace and going after the blue staff etc. all the way to Raistlin betraying takhisis. Any details beyond that sound like they're above my pay grade.

Not sure if that's exactly your intention though.

*shrug*

Would try regardless of outcome, though.

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Looks very interesting I like the concept of having several good and evil factions more than just Paladine vs. Takhisis I think. Never played War of the Lance, but the idea behind it sounds very cool.

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Has this Mod been started yet ????

Thanks

FlynnO

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Quoting MatthewMiller,

reply 20

Has this Mod been started yet ????

Thanks

FlynnO

Yes

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On a side note I used to own some of the Dragon Lance modules and may have DL 11. I had one that had armies in it at any rate but can't remember the number. If I remember it was smaller scale than the whole war so it might just be one of the other DL modules though. Unfortunately over the years I lost some of my stuff so I may not have it anymore. If I do have it I will see if I can scan it or something if you still can't find a copy and would like to look at it.

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Quoting edpfister,

reply 22

I agree that having many factions would make the game more interesting than just having two sides and I favor the "war" version more than the "rpg" version. Handling the two gods might be hard to pull off though with multiple sides and I can't say I have any good ideas on how that could be handled. It would be cool if they could be side players that had their own motivations and would help out here and there.

On a side note I used to own some of the Dragon Lance modules and may have DL 11. I had one that had armies in it at any rate but can't remember the number. If I remember it was smaller scale than the whole war so it might just be one of the other DL modules though. Unfortunately over the years I lost some of my stuff so I may not have it anymore. If I do have it I will see if I can scan it or something if you still can't find a copy and would like to look at it.

That would be awesome my friend, I'd really appreciate that

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Maybe the two Gods can be stationary NPCs, (separate and opposing factions, non-recruitable) ... and you can earn their favor in order to get more enchantments/buffs.

(say, only X number of champions can have the "favor" of either of the gods -> maybe those with Takhisis's favor become/are Highlords??)

so like ... maybe those with evil god favor can found a new faction (allied to other factions with "evil god favor"), and gain extra powers/high lord ....

while those with good god favor become beefed up Champions (more like, a LOT more luck/evasion/critical and slightly boost other stats) with really high diplomacy bonuses with Kings not allied with evil.

And maybe, if you play as Good, you play as one "with good god favor" and try to get kings to "loan" you armies ???

and maybe, just maybe, if you play as Good (with a good champion) you might be gifted a city from a Kingdom (to start your very own faction) as vassal to that King.

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Turns out I do still have it so I can scan it, copy it or whatever works best for you short of giving it to you. The maps are pretty huge so they might be a bit of a problem but I'll see what I can do.

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