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Battlesystem & Dragonlance
Wargaming has been a part of D&D from the beginning, as it came out of Chainmail. Douglas Niles perfected it with Battlesystem which was released just months before DL6 Dragons of Ice. Buy DL11 Dragons of Glory: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16917/DL11-Dragons-of-Glory-1e?affiliate_id=50797
https://youtu.be/meR5_B9v6o8
Transcript
Cold Open
With the announcement of the ‘Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn’ war game for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, Wizards of the Coast is once again taking cue from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Battlesystem, Douglas Nile’s War Game and how it was integrated into Dragonlance. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. I am referencing multiple articles and modules for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below.
Discussion
To understand why Wizards of the Coast is creating a war game for Dragonlance in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, you need to understand their approach to Dungeons & Dragons. Everything old is new again. Dungeons and Dragons came out of Chainmail by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren in 1971. It was a miniature war game, and is seen as the precursor to Original Dungeons & Dragons published in 1974. Ironically, there would be no effective rules to manage mass combat to come out of TSR for Dungeons & Dragons until Battlesystem which was originally released in 1985. It was created by Douglas Niles, the author of many of the Dragonlance Adventures for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Bell of Lost Souls describes: [Battlesystem] was split into four parts: Introduction, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, each of which layered in more complexity. Basic was all about melee and movement; Intermediate added ranged weapons, cavalry, and individual heroes as well as terrain; the Advanced game added in magic spells, flying, weather, monsters, and other special rules. Its campaign rules were always intended to be a part of a roleplaying campaign, and was critically acclaimed when it was released, and was widely praised for streamlining the complex rules of 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons. The original Battlesystem set won the H.G. Wells award, and the second edition in 1989 won the Origins Award for "Best Miniatures Rules of 1989".
In fact, included with the original boxed set for Battlesystem was an advanced game scenario for Dragonlance, Battle of Qualinost. It takes place during the same time period as DL2 Dragons of Flame, while the heroes are in Pax Tharkas. Of course, just a couple months after Battlesystem was released, DL6 Dragons of Ice was released, also written by Douglas Niles who included a Battlesystem scenario for the Battle of the Ice Reaches. This allowed the players to step back from their individual characters and run the 700-800 combatant scenario as a war, then return to their characters afterward. This is exactly what Ray Winninger, head of D&D at Wizards, said about the adventure Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the board game Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn.
From a Polygon article: “We zero in on this notion that Dragonlance is a war story. In the spirit of that, at the same time we are releasing Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which is the role-playing experience, we are releasing this battle game. [It] allows you to play out sort of massive military battles in the world of ...
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By DragonLance Saga
4.1
99 ratings
Wargaming has been a part of D&D from the beginning, as it came out of Chainmail. Douglas Niles perfected it with Battlesystem which was released just months before DL6 Dragons of Ice. Buy DL11 Dragons of Glory: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16917/DL11-Dragons-of-Glory-1e?affiliate_id=50797
https://youtu.be/meR5_B9v6o8
Transcript
Cold Open
With the announcement of the ‘Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn’ war game for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition, Wizards of the Coast is once again taking cue from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Battlesystem, Douglas Nile’s War Game and how it was integrated into Dragonlance. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. I am referencing multiple articles and modules for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below.
Discussion
To understand why Wizards of the Coast is creating a war game for Dragonlance in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, you need to understand their approach to Dungeons & Dragons. Everything old is new again. Dungeons and Dragons came out of Chainmail by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren in 1971. It was a miniature war game, and is seen as the precursor to Original Dungeons & Dragons published in 1974. Ironically, there would be no effective rules to manage mass combat to come out of TSR for Dungeons & Dragons until Battlesystem which was originally released in 1985. It was created by Douglas Niles, the author of many of the Dragonlance Adventures for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Bell of Lost Souls describes: [Battlesystem] was split into four parts: Introduction, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, each of which layered in more complexity. Basic was all about melee and movement; Intermediate added ranged weapons, cavalry, and individual heroes as well as terrain; the Advanced game added in magic spells, flying, weather, monsters, and other special rules. Its campaign rules were always intended to be a part of a roleplaying campaign, and was critically acclaimed when it was released, and was widely praised for streamlining the complex rules of 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons. The original Battlesystem set won the H.G. Wells award, and the second edition in 1989 won the Origins Award for "Best Miniatures Rules of 1989".
In fact, included with the original boxed set for Battlesystem was an advanced game scenario for Dragonlance, Battle of Qualinost. It takes place during the same time period as DL2 Dragons of Flame, while the heroes are in Pax Tharkas. Of course, just a couple months after Battlesystem was released, DL6 Dragons of Ice was released, also written by Douglas Niles who included a Battlesystem scenario for the Battle of the Ice Reaches. This allowed the players to step back from their individual characters and run the 700-800 combatant scenario as a war, then return to their characters afterward. This is exactly what Ray Winninger, head of D&D at Wizards, said about the adventure Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the board game Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn.
From a Polygon article: “We zero in on this notion that Dragonlance is a war story. In the spirit of that, at the same time we are releasing Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which is the role-playing experience, we are releasing this battle game. [It] allows you to play out sort of massive military battles in the world of ...