G’day, folks!

I know I haven’t been blogging much recently – and also my presence on Twitter has taken a nose dive. I would love to say that it’s because I’ve been working on wonderful projects that I’ll share with all of you, but it’s more a case of finding a few other things to occupy myself.

Some of them are boring (work), but others are interesting (computer games).

The computer games I’ve been playing have generally been of a sort that I would call “story games” – that is, they have a strong central narrative. Over the past couple of years – and even more this year, since I bought a Playstation 5 – they have included:

• Cyberpunk 2077
• God of War
• God of War: Ragnarok
• A Plague Tale: Innocence
• Assassin’s Creed
• Assassin’s Creed II (and sequels)
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Horizon Forbidden West
• The Last of Us
• The Last of Us, Part 2
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Elden Ring
• Stray
• Uncharted trilogy (currently playing #4).

Earlier in my life, I was a Civilization player, but in recent days I’m far more likely to enjoy myself playing one of these games with a strong central narrative, excellent voice acting, and incredible music.

I’m amazed at how disinterested I have been with what Wizards of the Coast has been producing for Dungeons & Dragons. It’s not like I don’t play the game – I run a session every Monday night and a session every second Friday night. And they’re great fun, as I continue to use the World of Greyhawk in new ways.

It doesn’t help that there is a definite feeling of “this product isn’t for me” about a lot of the releases. A new monster book or a book devoted to new player & DM tools not linked to a setting? Those interest me. Setting books? Less and less.

And then you have products like the Spelljammer boxed set, which are so incredibly poorly done that you wonder who’s running the place!

I did very much enjoy Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. So, it’s not like revisiting settings holds no appeal to me – but a lot of these settings don’t have resonance.

Resonance is important. I got into the Forgotten Realms when it was first released as an AD&D product. It was also supported by some incredible novels. While not every Forgotten Realms product appealed to me, there were enough of them. And it created a living, breathing world – not a world stuck in amber.

I don’t know if there’s a Dungeons & Dragons setting not stuck in amber at the moment, with no advancement to its timeline. All the people interested in telling stories seem to have wandered over to the Magic: the Gathering side of things.

I thought the Forgotten Realms was still an advancing timeline, but then Icewind Dale hit…

It’s not like advancing timelines don’t have their problems. They certainly do. And yes, I’m aware that all these settings have advancing timelines once you run them yourself – but one of the hooks for a setting is getting enraptured in the characters and events of the setting. And without novels, without ongoing stories, those are harder things to sell.

Which brings me to Dragonlance.

This is the big new release. And, let me tell you, I loved the original Dragonlance adventures and novels. I first read the novels, then bought all the original adventures – this was in the late 1980s. I was only able to run a couple of them, but the storytelling in them has stuck with me. This was Tracy Hickman and his team doing incredible, ground-breaking stuff. Sure, not everything worked, but that which worked was amazing.

And here’s the thing: I then didn’t know what stories to tell myself in Krynn. I’m not the brilliant Cam Banks, who can make amazing things happen in the world. Same thing applies to the Lord of the Rings. For me, the main trilogy of novels defines the world, and I can’t see past them. I know I’m not alone in that.

But does that make them poor settings? By no means. They’re incredibly rich – lots of material, lots of potential stories. They’re just not what I naturally work with. Greyhawk, on the other hand, I’ll happily tell tales in that forever. (Also the Forgotten Realms, though it’s been a while since I ran an original campaign there. Err.. 1991?)

One good thing about people reading the new Dragonlance book – Shadow of the Dragon Queen – for the first time, is that there’s all the old material they can go back and discover. It’s not just one book. Some will have aged well. Some less well. (Psst – some wasn’t that great in the first place!)

But falling in love with Tanis Half-Elven, Caramon, Laurana, and Raistlin through the novels was what got me into the setting. It’s like how I love Aloy in the Horizon games, and Kratos and Atreus in the God of War games. I want to see what happens next. Sometimes for them, sometimes for the setting.

I think I’d be better writing new adventures for the Horizon series than I would with Krynn!