New Dragonlance board game was designed by Rob Daviau and Stephen Baker

The new Dungeons & Dragons “battle game” announced on Thursday during D&D Direct is a full-fledged board game, says Wizards of the Coast, and will include plastic miniatures. The title of the game is Dragonlance: Warriors Of KrynnYou can use the board game as a stand-alone experience. The board game can be used as a standalone experience, but it also integrates into the accompanying tabletop RPG campaign titled Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. These are the project’s designers: Rob Daviau, Stephen Baker. I can’t imagine a better pair to team up on this project.

A reboot of Spelljammer was announced Thursday. Wizards said that the new Dragonlance products would be very different in tone and design.

“We zero in on this notion that Dragonlance is a war story,” said Ray Winninger, head of D&D at Wizards. “Classic Dragonlance is set against the backdrop of this massive conflict, and these sort of massive military battles are an important part of Dragonlance. A module from the 12 original Dragonlance Dragonlance units [published by TSR]Wargame [called Dragons of Glory]. They asked you to stop your role-playing game experience and start playing a wargame for a bit.”

Winninger continued:

We are also releasing it in the spirit of this. Shadow of the Dragon QueenThis is the role-playing game. We are now releasing this battlegame. [It]You can play in massive military conflicts on the planet of Krynn. The best thing about this game is its narrative element. This game plays much like a role-playing games. It’s a board game, but you’re asked to narrate what’s happening and whatnot. If you choose, while you’re playing the role-playing campaign when major sort of battles break out in the story you can break out the board game and start playing the board game. The characters you created in the RPG can be imported into the boardgame. Keep playing as your character in the RPG, so you’ll be able to see what incredible, amazing and heroic feats they accomplish in these battles. However, this experience can be opted out.

Winninger is completely optional when playing tabletop RPG. The campaign book will contain rules that will help you resolve the battles. Players can also pick up the game from the tabletop RPG without having to dive into larger role-playing games. This is the first time Wizards has integrated its 5th Edition TTRPG products with its board games in such a unique way.

Baker and Daviau are the ideal designers to this project. Both have a wealth of experience in wargaming. For example, they share great design credits for the Risk franchise. Baker is, however, the design behind Risk franchise. Battle MastersA sprawling tabletop battlegame that uses 28mm miniatures and large, plastic playmats. Daviau, naturally, is the originator of the legacy system. It creates games that can change each time you play them.

Daviau was also co-founder of Restoration Games. Restoration Games specializes is restoring old games and giving new life to them. Daviau will be returning to original sources to preserve as much TSR-related design work as possible.

But why didn’t Hasbro just task its hobby board games division, Avalon Hill, with that project?

“Avalon Hill was in-house with Wizards of the Coast […] until very recently,” said Winninger. However, the studio has been busy bringing back the Wizards franchise. Recently they have created their own design and production department. This team is busy with the reboot of HeroQuestTo life and to a spiritual successor Risk Legacy. Wizards were in dire need of outside assistance.

“Avalon Hill and Hasbro were not really involved in the creation of the board game,” Winninger continued. “We in the D&D studio oversaw the creation of it, but that said the designers of the board game Rob Daviau and Stephen Baker are very well-known board game designers, [they] have worked on a lot of games for Hasbro — most recently, [Return to Dark Tower] was one of their efforts.”

Both Shadow of the Dragon QueenAnd the Warriors of Krynn board game represent a “whole new story” Winninger said. The events in the products are set around the same time that the Dragonlance books, which were beloved by Tracy Hickman, Margaret Weis, and remain a best-selling series. He added that Tracy Hickman and Laura, who created Dragonlance, were not directly involved with any of Thursday’s products.

The Dragonlance timeline will continue to be carried forward by a new series of novels that Tracy Hickman (and Weis) also wrote.