Whats the deal with Dragonlance

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Putting together my lists of books and what I need to get and so on. Something bothers me.

Greyhawk is the "basic" 3.5e world, right? Or close enough. Its the default for this edition.
Eberon is an official realm, different from Greyhawk, but still written and published by WotC.
Same with Forgotten Realms/Faerun.

Then you get Kalamar and Rokugan, which are 3rd party realms that "plug in" because they use the d20 system. But they arnt official. And while Rokugan seems to be highly regarded, if people on here ask for build help for a Ninja or a Monk, either people ignore Rokugan (because its 3rd party) or specifically ask "Can you get your DM to include...". Which makes sense.

But what IS dragonlance? No, really. Is it third party? Because SOMETIMES people just include bits of dragonlance in build help threads as though its assumed that if a DM allows all things WotC, he allows dragonlance. Or is it actually WotC published and written, because I have seen people AVOID using it in some build help threads, as they would avoid other 3rd part modules. Is it like Serpent Kingdoms (first party but horribly broken)? Is it Rokugan+ (3rd party but EVERYONE has it)?

Basically deciding if I NEED to get that to complete my first party book collection.

[Florian]

Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Game World and some others are actually TSR/WotC IP that were in print and use up to 3rd edition and were then dropped. They have been licensed out to 3PP, but the IP was kept by WotC and later returned back to them after the license agreements were terminated. Ex: Ravenloft was back with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft in 3.5E, came out as a board game in 4E and again as a campaign in 5E, Game World got featured in 4E, but Dragonlance is just on hold. Hopefully that explains why some stuff has this weird semi-legal status.

[ViperMagnum357]

Short answer? The DLCS, the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book, is first party-it was printed by WOTC and is first party, full stop. Long answer? The rest of the setting books fall under a different category: rather than being printed by WOTC, they were printed under license from WOTC by Sovereign Press or Margaret Weiss Productions. While not printed by WOTC, these books are decisively NOT third party-they are printed under license by WOTC rather than the OGL and are (supposedly) reviewed and edited by some of their writers before printing. This is codified by copyright pages, and signified by a modified WOTC stamp on the covers: rather than the simple unfurled black scroll with WOTC in purple lettering, that stamp is surrounded by an oval cap with ''official licensed product'' rather than the OGL stamp somewhere. This is the same distinction as Ravenloft, Kingdoms of Kalamar, the Wheel of Time supplements, The original 3.0 Rokugan D20 conversion, and the Diablo 2 conversion Diablerie.

All of these were legally printed under the WOTC license rather than the OGL, allowing WOTC to retain whatever creative control they wished over the material, and in turn allowing those same materials to directly reference WOTC material from other books that were not SRD or otherwise available, something OGL has to dance around-such as the Oriental Adventures material Rokugan references, something an OGL supplement could not.

If you are interested in strictly first party material, then the Dragonlance Campaign Setting is the only book you will need; if you want all WOTC material, including the licensed stuff, you have quite a bit more to gather up.

[Darrin]

The rest of the setting books fall under a different category: rather than being printed by WOTC, they were printed under license from WOTC by Sovereign Press or Margaret Weiss Productions. While not printed by WOTC, these books are decisively NOT third party-they are printed under license by WOTC rather than the OGL and are (supposedly) reviewed and edited by some of their writers before printing.


Just to be annoyingly pedantic... the books published by Sovereign Press and/or Margaret Weiss Productions are still considered third party. WotC owns the IP, and Sovereign Press signed a license deal with WotC to publish Dragonlance books under that license. This license is *different* from the OGL (Open Gaming License) or the D20 License. KenzerCo, AEG, and Arthaus/White Wolf have similar licenses to produce Kalamar, Rokugan, and Ravenloft books.

Here's how "third party" works. In business, it's assumed that all transactions are between two parties. The "First Party" is the business that owns the property/service/brand. The "Second Party" is the consumer. When a customer comes to the business and wants to buy something that the company doesn't control directly or may not have in stock, the company can facilitate or encourage a transaction with a "Third Party". This may be done through a license agreement or some formal contract that recognizes that the Third Party is allowed to conduct business with the customer but the First Party still retains certain rights to the brand.

For Dragonlance, Oriental Adventures, and Ravenloft, WotC actually published the first book, and all subsequent books for that product line were published by a different third-party company. I'm not sure exactly why WotC wanted to do it this way, but there's two reasons that come to mind:

1) Sovereign Press/AEG/Arthaus didn't quite have the editorial staff or the logistics in place to get the main rulebook out to the printer at the time they needed it. So WotC decided to do the heavy-lifting to get the first book out the door, and let the licensees handle the rest of the books.

2) The first rulebook in a product line always sells more than any subsequent books (sometimes this is called the "Piano Book Problem"), so WotC wanted to make sure the heftier chunk of revenue would be getting booked to their balance sheet rather than some other company.

The reason why some third-party books are treated as not being official or legal is probably due to the Iron Chef competitions, which recognize Dragonlance Campaign Setting, Oriental Adventures, and Expedition to Castle Ravenloft as legal sources for competitions, but does not allow any other books from those campaign settings. Iron Chef has been going on so long, and some board posters may automatically think out of habit which materials are considered legal, so... it's sorta become a standard to treat only WotC-published materials as "First Party" and to consider everything else to be "Third Party", and thus worthy of wary suspicion.

Anyway, I apologize for the excessive pedantry.

[lightningcat]

I believe that as the IP was licenced from WotC, they are are actually second party products, not third party.

[Silly Name]

I believe that as the IP was licenced from WotC, they are are actually second party products, not third party.

As explained above, the "second party" is the consumer.

[Calthropstu]

Part way into 3.5, wotc lost weis and hickman. Though they own the rights to dragonlance, without the authors and with no one wishing to pick it up, it's a moot point. Weis and Hickman have no intention of returning to Dragonlance as far as I know.

So that is why dragonlance is such a mess. The rights are split between the authors and wotc creating a giant legal mess. Easier to abandon the world. Similar with Ravenloft They kept the rights to castle ravenloft, but the setting itself is split between two owners. Similar with Darksun as well.

In short, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are the settings that wotc own outright, so that is what they published most of.

[Troacctid]

They did Dark Sun in 4e and Ravenloft in 5e, so it's not like those settings are dead.

[Calthropstu]

They did Dark Sun in 4e and Ravenloft in 5e, so it's not like those settings are dead.

I had heard something about a darksun revival, but not sure of the details. As for 5th edition ravenloft, that was CASTLE Ravenloft, which wotc still has rights to not setting ravenloft which they do not.

Edit: My info was garbled. After further fact checking, it seems the rights to Ravenloft campaign setting did in fact revert to wotc.

[Florian]

I had heard something about a darksun revival, but not sure of the details. As for 5th edition ravenloft, that was CASTLE Ravenloft, which wotc still has rights to not setting ravenloft which they do not.

Hm? Ravenloft reverted fully back to WotC. S&S didn't even have time to publish the last Van Richtens supplement back then....

[Feantar]

Part way into 3.5, wotc lost weis and hickman. Though they own the rights to dragonlance, without the authors and with no one wishing to pick it up, it's a moot point. Weis and Hickman have no intention of returning to Dragonlance as far as I know.

So that is why dragonlance is such a mess. The rights are split between the authors and wotc creating a giant legal mess. Easier to abandon the world. Similar with Ravenloft They kept the rights to castle ravenloft, but the setting itself is split between two owners. Similar with Darksun as well.

In short, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are the settings that wotc own outright, so that is what they published most of.

Is planescape in a similar bind, or did WotC just abandon it?

[Florian]

Is planescape in a similar bind, or did WotC just abandon it?

Jepp, discontinued it, like a lot of AD&D 2nd stuff.

[Calthropstu]

Is planescape in a similar bind, or did WotC just abandon it?

abandoned. For some reason, despite the overwhelming success of planescape: torment and the awards the setting won, they scrapped it with 3e.

[Troacctid]

Planescape was updated to 3.5e in the Planar Handbook and is now part of the default setting in 5e, so I dunno what this "abandoned" stuff is about.

[Clistenes]

Dragonlance was an official setting that became popular because some of its novels actually were somewhat good, with characters that you could enjoy even if you weren't a D&D rpg player, and that didn't feel too much like stat sheets on legs.

However, the game setting itself wasn't as popular, by far. It wasn't sandboxy enough, it wasn't friendly to vanilla dungeon delving murderhobos, and the need to respect the plot of the novels sorta gave it a lack of flexibility...

So they kept writing and selling novels for a time, while the game setting sorta stagnated and was dumped away...


Part way into 3.5, wotc lost weis and hickman. Though they own the rights to dragonlance, without the authors and with no one wishing to pick it up, it's a moot point. Weis and Hickman have no intention of returning to Dragonlance as far as I know.

So that is why dragonlance is such a mess. The rights are split between the authors and wotc creating a giant legal mess. Easier to abandon the world. Similar with Ravenloft They kept the rights to castle ravenloft, but the setting itself is split between two owners. Similar with Darksun as well.

In short, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are the settings that wotc own outright, so that is what they published most of.

They would have probably kept developing the game on its own, but as I said, the game doesn't have much appeal without the novels...


Planescape was updated to 3.5e in the Planar Handbook and is now part of the default setting in 5e, so I dunno what this "abandoned" stuff is about.

"The Planes" aren't the same as "Planescape". They aren't publishing books about Sigil and the factions and that stuff...

[Florian]

abandoned. For some reason, despite the overwhelming success of planescape: torment and the awards the setting won, they scrapped it with 3e.

That's a result of the disastrous decision-making process that drive first TSR and later WW into the ground. The Setting and splat approach doesn't work out in the long run, see the explanation about cornerstone products and drops in sales a bit above.


Planescape was updated to 3.5e in the Planar Handbook and is now part of the default setting in 5e, so I dunno what this "abandoned" stuff is about.

Don´t confuse Planescape with the Great Wheel. That is a bit older and really started with the first Manual of the Planes for AD&D 1st. They decided to build Planescape up on that basis to have a meta-setting in the hopes of pushing sales.

[Clistenes]

If they really relaunch Spelljammer for 5e, they should take the chance to include a version of Greyspace, Realmspace and Krynnspace as part of it. Portray a basic, streamlined version of them, with less baggage and less metaplots, from the point of view of a space traveler...

[Troacctid]

"The Planes" aren't the same as "Planescape". They aren't publishing books about Sigil and the factions and that stuff...
I was talking about Sigil specifically, not the Great Wheel in general.

It's true to the best of my knowledge that they haven't published a book specifically about it since 3.5e, but, I mean, like, the same is true of Halruua and I'm pretty sure it's still part of the Forgotten Realms.

[Blackhawk748]

To keep it short, Dragonlance is what is referred to as "Second Party". Its not an actual official term but it nicely explains where it sits. Its not third party but its nort First either. This is because, as stated above, the basic setting book is First Party, but everything after isn't. This is also true of KoK and the D20 version of Rokugan.

[Bohandas]

It's an official setting but was outsourced or licensed to a third party

[Albions_Angel]

OK, so I think I get it now. But its christmas and I am a little slow, so lets see if I have it right.

WotC produced both OA and DLCS. They wrote, published and owned them in their entirety.

But, for whatever reason, money, time, inclination, loss of writers, WotC couldnt produce the rest of the DL setting books, nor any additional OA books. So they farmed out the content to 2 separate groups, who operated under a WotC licence. Essentially, this was code for "Hey, consumer. Its not strictly ours, but you can trust that if you pick up the first book, every other book in the setting will mesh with the real game." While the OGL was "You can be certain the systems will play nicely together, but you might end up with rayguns in your castle, because its not D&D, its d20, and we havnt checked it is all lore appropriate."

If thats the case, I will pick up DLCS but not the others, because I have OA. What other 3rd party settings did WotC produce the first book for?

Also, is there any reason that OA tends to be thought of as "part" of the WotC group of source books, but the WHOLE of dragonlance, including the first book, is often partitioned off? Did OA mesh better with Greyhawk as some far off island, while DL, like Forgotten Realms and Eberon, HAD to be another realm?

[zergling.exe]

OK, so I think I get it now. But its christmas and I am a little slow, so lets see if I have it right.

WotC produced both OA and DLCS. They wrote, published and owned them in their entirety.

But, for whatever reason, money, time, inclination, loss of writers, WotC couldnt produce the rest of the DL setting books, nor any additional OA books. So they farmed out the content to 2 separate groups, who operated under a WotC licence. Essentially, this was code for "Hey, consumer. Its not strictly ours, but you can trust that if you pick up the first book, every other book in the setting will mesh with the real game." While the OGL was "You can be certain the systems will play nicely together, but you might end up with rayguns in your castle, because its not D&D, its d20, and we havnt checked it is all lore appropriate."

If thats the case, I will pick up DLCS but not the others, because I have OA. What other 3rd party settings did WotC produce the first book for?

Also, is there any reason that OA tends to be thought of as "part" of the WotC group of source books, but the WHOLE of dragonlance, including the first book, is often partitioned off? Did OA mesh better with Greyhawk as some far off island, while DL, like Forgotten Realms and Eberon, HAD to be another realm?

OA is actually WotC licensing Rokugan (Legend of the Five Rings) for d20, not a setting they came up with on their own; which is different than a number of the other settings that fall in ambiguous territory. Why it is different, I can only assume it's that since OA got a 3.5 update and DLC didn't (it released JUST before 3.5 dropped I believe).

[Florian]

Also, is there any reason that OA tends to be thought of as "part" of the WotC group of source books, but the WHOLE of dragonlance, including the first book, is often partitioned off? Did OA mesh better with Greyhawk as some far off island, while DL, like Forgotten Realms and Eberon, HAD to be another realm?

OA is designed as a dual-use book. First, it replaces the old AD&D 1st Oriental Adventures, hence all the non-Rokugan-related stuff like Shaman, Wu-Yen and all the other stuff you would need to recreate Kara-Our. Only the second part covers Rokugan and all the compatible material is explicitly marked as such.

[ViperMagnum357]

OK, so I think I get it now. But its christmas and I am a little slow, so lets see if I have it right.

WotC produced both OA and DLCS. They wrote, published and owned them in their entirety.

But, for whatever reason, money, time, inclination, loss of writers, WotC couldnt produce the rest of the DL setting books, nor any additional OA books. So they farmed out the content to 2 separate groups, who operated under a WotC licence. Essentially, this was code for "Hey, consumer. Its not strictly ours, but you can trust that if you pick up the first book, every other book in the setting will mesh with the real game." While the OGL was "You can be certain the systems will play nicely together, but you might end up with rayguns in your castle, because its not D&D, its d20, and we havnt checked it is all lore appropriate."

If thats the case, I will pick up DLCS but not the others, because I have OA. What other 3rd party settings did WotC produce the first book for?

Also, is there any reason that OA tends to be thought of as "part" of the WotC group of source books, but the WHOLE of dragonlance, including the first book, is often partitioned off? Did OA mesh better with Greyhawk as some far off island, while DL, like Forgotten Realms and Eberon, HAD to be another realm?

Not exactly: WOTC wrote and printed the DLCS themselves, then licensed out the rest of the setting while retaining creative control and editing privileges. This is why they have a modified stamp and are printed under the WOTC license rather than OGL, while also not being first party. If you just want first party books there, the DLCS is all you need.

Rokugan is more complicated, since AEG had an entire preexisting setting and game system; the D20 version was a port of a world and system owned by another company that retained creative control and editing privileges during the licensing agreement. Like most of the Dragonlance sourcebooks, the supplements were produced under the WOTC license, as well as a dual-license for OGL that allowed AEG to retain trademarks and Product Identity. Hence, each book for Rokugan is simultaneously WOTC licensed AND OGL, which is why those books are usually put into a category of their own.

The other reason is because the books in the setting besides the core book were designed to be usable by two different systems. (Really). If you look in the supplements, you will find two versions of most of the crunch-one for the D20 system, and another for AEG's proprietary L5R RPG system; most items, classes, NPCs, monsters, and spells have two statblocks for the 2 systems, usually on the same page.

[Florian]

The other reason is because the books in the setting besides the core book were designed to be usable by two different systems. (Really). If you look in the supplements, you will find two versions of most of the crunch-one for the D20 system, and another for AEG's proprietary L5R RPG system; most items, classes, NPCs, monsters, and spells have two statblocks for the 2 systems, usually on the same page.

And it was horrible. The dual crunch took up an inappropriate amount of space, the D20 approach was brutally different then the L5R approach and let's not talk about the PrC and what happens when the tried to model Alternate or Advanced Paths with them. To add insult to injury, most of the flood of added items on the d20 side are totally useless on the L5R side because of the fluff. A magic item in L5R is a near unique artifact and you can be happy when you actually see one, let allow own it, in your entire lifetime.

[Buufreak]

If memory serves, Rokugan had material for it printed in some dragon magazines for 4th edition. Mostly things like introducing an honor system and different abilities based on fighting styles and houses.

[Efrate]

As a player of l5r and dnd, oriental adventures was fairly awful just because the system differences. L5r is significantly more lethal(on average, you can survive 2 hits at near any point in the game vs. appropriate foes. And after your first hit your penalties are fairly substantive). D20 is much more combat as sport than combat is life or death every time. It was a bad match from the onset.

OA and DLCS however are first party no bones about it. Expedition to castle ravenloft is as well, but nothing else ravenloft iirc.

[Calthropstu]

As a player of l5r and dnd, oriental adventures was fairly awful just because the system differences. L5r is significantly more lethal(on average, you can survive 2 hits at near any point in the game vs. appropriate foes. And after your first hit your penalties are fairly substantive). D20 is much more combat as sport than combat is life or death every time. It was a bad match from the onset.

OA and DLCS however are first party no bones about it. Expedition to castle ravenloft is as well, but nothing else ravenloft iirc.

Most of Ravenloft was outsourced to White Wolf and, later, Swords and Sorcery. The setting itself, iirc, was actually heavily written, or at least greatly influenced, by Tracy Hickman during his time at TSR.

[Florian]

Most of Ravenloft was outsourced to White Wolf and, later, Swords and Sorcery. The setting itself, iirc, was actually heavily written, or at least greatly influenced, by Tracy Hickman during his time at TSR.

It´s a bit more complicated than that.

To unterstand what is going on, it is basically necessary to understand how to calculate ROI compared to a company overhead and what an imprint means in this specific context.

WW established S&S as their primary D20 imprint, which in turn established Arthouse as their D20 speciality imprint which in turn paid and organized freelancers coming from the Katargane (SP?) project, the major fan community of Ravenloft.

Now similar to Planescape, RL is a meta-setting established by TSR, which comes with nearly unsurmountable problems: For example, Lord Soth is part of the established DL IP and can´t really be separated from it. so it was impossible for a 3PP to handle his RL realms and so on.

[Calthropstu]

It´s a bit more complicated than that.

To unterstand what is going on, it is basically necessary to understand how to calculate ROI compared to a company overhead and what an imprint means in this specific context.

WW established S&S as their primary D20 imprint, which in turn established Arthouse as their D20 speciality imprint which in turn paid and organized freelancers coming from the Katargane (SP?) project, the major fan community of Ravenloft.

Now similar to Planescape, RL is a meta-setting established by TSR, which comes with nearly unsurmountable problems: For example, Lord Soth is part of the established DL IP and can´t really be separated from it. so it was impossible for a 3PP to handle his RL realms and so on.

As I recall, Soth was trapped in RL Before the events of DL IP. If it is before, then continuity demands he escaped and no longer HAS a RL realm. Personally, I have no qualms about Soth being written out of RL to preserve continuity. To be honest, the Ravenloft setting has always bugged me, and I wasn't sad to see it go.

Strahd is a decent villain, but the writing for the castle ravenloft adventures has always felt rushed to me. And the books for ravenloft were all kinda meh. In short, I think the setting should die a screaming horrible death.

[Kish]

Very much no accounting for taste.

For the factual issues here, Lord Soth was written out of Dragonlance a while ago, and for the entirety of 3.xed's Ravenloft books, they avoid saying his name even as a former darklord--"an undead blackguard," "the Black Rose," used to rule Sithicus.

They do similar things with crossovers from other settings; Hazlik is a tattooed red wizard and his domain's state religion is the tyrannical Lawgiver, but you're not explicitly given the information that he's from Thay and the Lawgiver is another name for Bane.

[Vincent Dragon]

I didn't really know about the definition of "first party" and "third party". I always thought that stuff like Dragon Magazine was "second party" until i read here that "second party" is the consumer. That's interesting.

Anyway, it seems to me that there are 3 types of license between first party (WotC) and third party (licensed companies) in this case:

1)OGL
2)d20
3)Dragonlance, Ravenloft, i guess Dragon Magazine is here too, etc

The third type of contract apparently dwells on a grey area between first and third party blurring the line.

[Florian]

Not really. The OGL is, as the name implies, an open license that is very permissive, as long as potential 3PP follow all the rules. Part of those rules is an explicit "hands off" policy when it comes to separating IP and the material given via the SRD.

Basically, when talking about stuff like Ravenloft, Dragonlance or Dungeon/Dragon mag, we're talking about an explicit license deal that grants access to the IP in question and excludes the material from being handled as OGL.
(For ex.: This is why Paizo could publish Greyhawk and Realms stuff)

The last point is not unimportant, because part of the OGL is making the "technical side" available, so pure rules and stuff.

Lastly, it comes down to how you understand the whole deal that is going on here. You could take the stance that when WotC is the license holder, the licensee is an extension and could be treated as first party, too, or you take the stance that something has to be produced by WotC in-house to count as first party (Difference between D20 Dragonlance core and D20 Ravenloft core)