Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition was seen by most as the golden years of Dragonlance. With three boxed sets a ton of adventures and supplements, this revised vision of Krynn truly continued the tradition of AD&D. Buy Dragonlance: Fifth Age Dramatic Adventure Game: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16960/Time-of-the-Dragon-2e?affiliate_id=50797

https://youtu.be/BKMp8ZM-tvM

Transcript

Cold Open

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition would see the first schisms between fans and TSR in three waves over their beloved setting….

Intro

Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Dragonlance in AD&D 2e. 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. All of these titles are available as digital editions through my affiliate link.

Discussion

There would be three distinct waves of Dragonlance material for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition released by TSR. All were meant to recapture the sales and magic that Dragonlance saw in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. By the time Dragonlance Adventures was released TSR was already planning out its 2nd Edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. But did this stop them from creating Dragonlance content for this coming edition? Nope. What we saw TSR do was to rush out the DLE trilogy of adventures in 1989, in the first wave of releases to reinvigorate Dragonlance. DLE1 In Search of Dragons by Rick Swan in January 1989, a few weeks before the new editions players handbook was even released! This set up Dragonlance as the first of the three primary worlds that would seem to be the focus of the 2nd Edition. This naturally meant that the adventure was compatible with AD&D and AD&D 2nd Edition, which also meant, it wasn't quite compatible with either. DLE1 In Search of Dragons took what worked best about the original DL series of adventures from AD&D and recycled them, while simultaneously dropping the dungeon crawl element which became the hallmark of 2nd Edition. It set the heroes in the village of Fair Meadows, and they had to discover why good dragons were dying off. It also introduces the Dragons Graveyard to Krynn, inspired by the D&D cartoon, and reused in the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Spectre of Sorrows adventure module. DLE2 Dragon Magic by Rick Swan was released in June 1989, and largely ditched the wilderness crawl of its predecessor for an urban crawl adventure, set primarily in Cirulon. Though it does introduce the isle of Schallsea for the first time in any real detail. By now the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Players Handbook have been released, so the adventures are much more in line with what was to become the 2nd Edition style. DLE3 Dragon Keep is the final adventure in the DLE trilogy by Rick Swan, released in October 1989. This adventure took place mainly under the Blood Sea, into the Abyss, and eventually onto Lunitari with a massive hex crawl. This was informed by the preludes novel Darkness & Light that was released several months earlier. The biggest problem in this post Weis & Hickman era of Dragonlance were the canonical issues. It introduces Astral Dragons & Kodo Dragons. This would also see the end of Dragonlance adventures for three years, replaced by Boxed Sets and supplements that were a focus of TSR.

Time of the Dragon by David "Zeb" Cook was released in October 1989.