Can we be honest for a second? Dragonlance sucks. Okay, I admit I loved that shiz in junior high; I had pneumonia for a month at the end of 6th grade and read the first trilogy and thought they were the best thing EVER. Then I read them again at the end of high school and wondered what was wrong with me back in the 6th grade.
As a game, the setting, plot, and characters are all the worst. It's a land of zero moral ambiguity (even though the dominant moral compass seems hopelessly out of whack), the damn thing is one big railroad, and the good guys are horrendous Mary Sues.
Still, I think we can work with this.
Instead of a Nice Guy Place where everyone has flowing hippie hair, what if we spun this as Dirtbag Krynn, a land where trailerpark denizens do battle against other inbred jerkwads over the fate of a meth-faced planet?
As long as we're being honest, we can admit that Tanis is lame as hell. His love-triangle plot is lame, his mixed-heritage outsider plot is lame, and he looks like he belongs in Fleetwood Mac. What if Tanis were more like this Red-Headed Stranger?:
How much cooler would Tanis be if he was a weed-smokin' country outlaw? So much cooler. I'm pretty sure Shotgun Willie would have no qualms about bedding both Laurana and Kitiara; hell, he'd probably maneuver them into a three-way.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that kender suck and if someone wants to play one in your game you should punch them in the nose.
Goldmoon?
Want to see what they serve at the Inn of the Last Home?
Dragons are, of course, a big part of Dragonlance. But in Dirtbag Krynn "dragon" is just what they call one of these:
Yeah, they come in different colors and shoot all sorts of killing-you-loudly stuff out the front. Done deal.
Dragonlances? Another nickname. For hyper-powered shotguns:
The Towers of High Sorcery? More like the Towers of Skynyrd, AC/DC, and ZZ Top. The Test of High Sorcery involves chugging Tussin and confronting the demons of rock, maaaaaaaaaaaan.
Paladine
vs. Takhisis:
Draconians?
Nah, nah, son. Juggalos:
goldmoons boyfriend is really her brother
ReplyDeletesturm is a redneck sheriff and a corrupt drunk
kender should just be feral unlovable klepto kids
gullydwarfs just suffer fetal alcohol syndrome
dwarves wear trucker hats
wizard schools just a front for favorite drug
-red = cough syrup
-black = bath salts
-white = heroin
wild elves are naked toothless swamp hillbillies
crossovers with dukes of hazard and deliverance are frequent
See, that's the sort of crowd-sourcing that I love!
DeleteI find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
ReplyDeleteIt's right here.
DeleteUsing Juggalos in place of Draconians will allow the characters to completely sidestep any of that pesky "should I kill this orc baby?" moral quandary stuff.
ReplyDeleteYeah, no one ever shilly-shallied about whether it was right or not to put a juggalo to the sword. Of course it is. It's the rightest thing.
DeleteAlso, needs more NITRO-BURNING FUNNY CARS.
ReplyDeleteyes, yes it does.
DeleteThis...this is a thing of beauty.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteThis has a moral quagmire in that Takhisis looks awesome, but apparently her team has juggalos
ReplyDeleteThat's the only sort of moral ambiguity I'm willing to trade in.
DeleteMuch, much better than the original. I never particularly liked DL, though, even in middle school--but hey, I've always hated at an advanced grade level.
ReplyDeleteI would pedantically quibble with you calling the protagonists "Mary Sues" though. If they are the canonical protagonists of the work, they can't really be Mary Sues, can they?
I looked it up and was working off this definition of Mary Sue: "Today "Mary Sue" carries a connotation of wish-fulfillment and is commonly associated with self-insertion (the writing of oneself into a fictional story)."
DeleteThere's a whole of wish-fulfillment in those characters, at the very least!
My wife told me to calm down because I've been laughing too hard to breathe. Well played, sir, well played.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteFantastic
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteThis looks like something found on the borders of Ur-Hadad. Yes, this is certainly something I could get behind.
ReplyDeleteGet behind it because you definitely don't want to be in front of it!
DeleteWhy is steel more important than gold?
ReplyDeleteBecause nobody has gold and plenty of scrap metal can be found in the backyard undegrowth and traded for cold hard cash!
Hell yeah.
DeleteI was never interested in Dragonlance. It looked really lame when I first saw it. I'm glad my instincts were correct. But to help out with your red-neck version, you need to add B.J & the Bear and Sherrif Lobo into the mix. And the Piston-Packin' Mamas.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've never seen BJ and the Bear!
Delete"Dragonlance is for housewives and little girls!"
ReplyDelete- Kids in the Hall
Hahahaha.
DeleteGotta keep some dragon in there and teally since you failed to mention TRUCKASAURUS I think I have the solution...
ReplyDeleteRiding a TRUCKASAURUS! with a shotgun fighting a high juggalo also riding a TRUCKASAURUS! - Trailer park warlords!
Otherwise it's just how we played Carwars in Jr. High.
DeleteCarwars would definitely fit here.
DeleteRandom Street Encounters in Solace (Roll 1d12)
ReplyDelete1. A car on cinderblocks. It has 1d6 giant rats in it which attack nearby PCs.
2. 1d4 mongrel hellhounds with three legs.
3. 1d4+1 meth-head kender who ask the PCs to get the bugs off of their faces.
4. Two gully dwarves on a porch playing dueling banjoes, but stop when characters approach and stare blankly at them.
5. 2d4+1 Hill dwarf bikers on looking for a fight.
6. A man in greasy overalls approaches the PCs. He asks them if they've got any scrap metal. He's building his own TRUCKASAURUS TANK BULLDOZER so he can demolish City Hall.
7. The local town pervert asks the characters if they can take off their shoes so he can look at their feet.
8. 1d8+1 clean cut youths from Haven shyly ask where the local whorehouse is. (If encountered a second time they've been roughed up and are soaking wet).
9. One of the characters spot Elvis/Paladine for a split second, but then he's gone.
10. 1d6+2 locals sitting on a bench eyeball the characters with suspicion. One of the PCs hears: "They ain't from around here..."
11. A nearby meth lab explodes, each character must make a saving throw or take 2d6 damage from flying debris and kender parts.
12. Honey Boo Boo.
Awwww yeah, that's the stuff!
DeleteThis is amazing!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI... I think I live in Krynn...
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I grew up there too.
Delete