While D&D’s Dragonlance is excellent, the physical products disappoint

Dungeons & Dragons’ beloved Dragonlance setting is back, and kender-loving folk the world over have every reason to be excited. Wizards of the Coast’s latest campaign book, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon QueenThe 5th edition’s most popular role-playing games has been released with a new version, titled. However, the companion boardgame is also available. Dragonlance: Warriors at KrynnThis promises little. The complex strategy wargame does not enhance the gaming experience. The game also highlights the difference between Hasbro-made and high quality board games.

Originally created by Laura and Tracy Hickman in the 1980s, the Dragonlance setting was a key product line for D&D’s original publisher, TSR, which was acquired by Wizards in the 1990s. Most fans know it best from a series of novels, written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis — Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter NightAnd Dragons of Spring Dawning. While the credit goes to the original creative team, they are not mentioned in the final work. But that’s not the only reason why longtime fans of that setting shouldn’t expect to see cameos by old friends like Raistlin, Tasslehoff, or Tanis Half-Elven. Shadow of the Dragon QueenThis story tells the story of a completely different group of characters. It shifts the focus from the Heroes of the Lance towards the northern kingdom of Solamnia.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Shadow of the Dragon Queen meets or exceeds the goals set out by its design team — that is, to evoke the same kind of grim, life-or-death struggles depicted in war movies such as The Private Ryan Savings 1917. The campaign takes characters from levels 1-11 along a suitably epic arc, all the while managing to touch upon many of the iconic factions, themes, monsters, and magical items that made Hickman and Weis’ novels so appealing to generations of D&D fans.

As in the source material, this adventure has high stakes. You should expect to die from character injuries when you enter. Dungeon Masters who don’t follow their instructions correctly can quickly kill the entire party during the first combat encounter. DMs have the ability to instantly kill any player if a magic ritual is not performed correctly. Later encounters — including one against a challenge level 19 legendary villain on his own home turf — seem to be thematically stacked against the players, and will require some very lucky die rolls for everyone to make it out alive. In this way it feels authentic to the perilous adventures first published by TSR in the ’80s and ’90s — and to the original novels, which include at times graphic depictions of mutilation and death.

Dragonlance’s pantheon draws inspiration from its original sources and is populated by powerful forces. Expect to feel the magic of the supernatural during Shadow of the Dragon Queen —All the way to player resurrection. While the low points can seem very low, highs are possible to be extremely profound.

Image by Daarken/Wizards of the Coast

Some might deride the campaign as “swingy” because of these factors, but I find that the highly dynamic nature of this book allows for just the sort of drama likely to inspire an avid group of players to mount a homebrew follow-on campaign. Thankfully, the book includes just enough background information about the Dragonlance setting to make that possible — especially for those familiar with the classic novels.

Other side of this spectrum are Dragonlance: Warriors at KrynnThe companion board game is available separately, or as a package with the campaign book. You can use the role-playing games up until the time when a large battle is taking place. Players can switch from the tabletop RPG into the board game when the armies are formed. They can then simulate large-scale battles, get whatever result they want, and then return to the RPG.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

The concept may appeal to board gamers, but in my experience I found moving from TTRPG to board game extremely difficult. That’s because the documentation that comes with Warriors of KrynnThis is quite a mess.

The inside of the Warriors of Krynn box are two durable, saddle-stitched booklets — a 25-page rulebook and a 29-page scenario book. The functional and concise scenario book is easy to use. Each of the 13 scenarios can be opened easily with just two pages. However, I believe the rules book needs to be completely redesigned. Although the rules are only 12 pages long, it was overwhelming to read. It’s less like a modern board game manual, designed to make onboarding new players as easy as possible, and more like a manual for an old-school wargame, with a maze of clauses, warnings, and obtusely written text meant to solve myriad edge-case scenarios.

It’s missing lots of things, in my opinion. A glossary would have been nice, as would more written examples of play, or highlighted text for consistently used key game terms — all common features in D&D books for years now. It was difficult to locate key components in the documentation. This led to confusion and frustration during setup. The complexity of the setup was confusing and took literally hours for me to grasp. If you’re not already an experienced board gamer, I strongly suggest waiting for a good video tutorial before wading in.

Learning is possible even with an excellent tutorial from the community, or perhaps a cheat sheet made up of a few pages that can be printed as a PDF. Warriors of Krynn will still be a daunting task — especially for already harried DMs to undertake AdditionallyYou can also run the TTRPG. You might have one player tackle the rules and you can concentrate on the story. Of course, you should know that you can’t simply hand over the game box to your players without first sanitizing it for spoilers. The big one is right at the top of your stack, when you open it for the first time.

Playing has a direct benefit in-game Warriors of KrynnAs players will gain access to the RPG through winning different scenarios, it is a good idea. But my party — which varies wildly in age and experience level — will likely be sticking to the more abstracted methods for resolving set-piece battles included in the campaign book, if only to move things along more quickly.

I also mentioned presentation issues above, because I couldn’t help but notice that the overall quality of Dragonlance: Warriors at KrynnThis is not the result I had hoped for. Although the board game isn’t being offered directly by Wizards, it can be found at some other stores for as low as $80. The game’s price is comparable to some high-end board games for enthusiasts. However, the contents inside aren’t luxurious.

Due to their thinness, the punchboards often result in warped tiles spinning on the table. There is nothing special about the chunky, plastic markers that were used to create armies. The wash is applied to the miniature plastics that are used as heroes. To add shadow to details, such as eye and cloth folds, a wash can be used on miniatures. Instead of running in the creases, this wash sits on top of the surface in thick chalky clumps. This makes the miniatures appear less expensive and more dirty than they are. The pack-in itself is disappointing, as it contains all of the small cardboard pieces in one large well. There’s also a gap underneath the lid which allows everything to move during transport. Compared to other similarly priced modern board games, Hasbro’s work here is simply not up to snuff.

It’s a shame, really, since many will find the struggle of playing through Dragonlance: Warriors at KrynnIt will be well worth the effort. Rob Daviau, Stephen Baker, and Rob Daviau took great care to design and balance this experience. It’s a compelling and consequential experience. The writers are excellent at weaving the story from the RPG. It’s so robust, in fact, that I am confident ambitious DMs will be able to modify it for their own battle-heavy campaigns. It’s ultimately a disappointment, then, that the creative team’s work was not able to be supported by a better final product.

A final note on quality: Due to a shipping error, Wizards sent me four copies of the campaign book in all — a standard copy, a copy with an alternate cover (available only at local game stores), and two copies of the variant foil cover that comes bundled with the board game. To my dismay, two of the four copies that I was sent appeared to be defective. I could have requested a return or replacement. So let’s spend just a little time talking about HowThese were flawed.

Both the alternative-cover copy and standard copy had more rich colors than the copies with foil variant covers. They also featured better contrast. Their pages were also more sepia toned — just like many other 5th edition books that had come before — while the pages on the variant foil copies were more white. The title page revealed that foil copies were printed and made in China, while the two other copies were produced in America. The images of the American-made copies seem brighter and livelier than those made in China. The images in the Chinese-made copy were darkened so much that the details are difficult to see. I was forced to contact customer service for a new copy.

Even the American-made copies had their faults. The standard edition appeared perfect. However, the middle variant cover edition had a number of holes through it that punctured and bound together 12 pages. It was only by careful separating the pages with a pocket knife that I managed to avoid ripping them apart.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Photo:Charlie Hall/Polygon

Regarding these books, Wizards provided the following statement to Polygon: “Printing issues are a frustrating but inevitable part of publishing. Any D&D book that a fan may believe is defective due to printing or manufacturing errors can get their books replaced. Our customer service department is equipped to send out replacements ASAP and we encourage fans to get in contact here to have their issues resolved.”

Although I don’t like to see Dragonlance being relaunched with these quality issues and manufacturing problems, it is not impossible that there are other Dragonlance settings. Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen The campaign underpinning it all is outstanding. But with One D&D right around the corner in 2023, a new version of the game meant to cement 5th edition’s preeminent status as the gold standard in the hobby, this does not feel like a company that is putting its best foot forward. Rather than a victory lap, this release — especially the Dragonlance: Warriors at Krynn board game — feels more like it stumbled across the finish line.

My recommendation is to go all-in on the campaign book, picking up a copy online or at your local game store, as soon as you’re ready to play. Meanwhile, I’d also recommend waiting for a discount on the board game. There’s enough material in Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen You and your party will be busy throughout the year regardless of which way your Krynn warriors choose to fight.

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Dragonlance: Warriors at Krynn The book will become widely available starting December 6. Wizards of the Coast donated retail copies of the campaign books and the board games for the review. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.