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
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 Krynn. But one of the interesting things about that game is that it has a lot of narrative elements, just like a role-playing game. 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. Your characters from the RPG import into the board game. You keep playing your characters in the board game, and you can learn what amazing, incredible, heroic things they do in these battles. But that experience is entirely optional.”
This is following the tradition of calling back to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons starting with their approach to the multiverse, and now wargaming. Battlesystem did not begin and end with DL6 Dragons of Ice however, as Dragonlance featured the War of the Lance, and this allowed TSR to integrate their new war game in many other ways. This would continue with DL8 Dragons of War, where the adventure put the system front-and-center with the Battle of the High Clerist Tower. Though a simplified alternate combat system is offered, TSR was clearly trying to encourage players to use Battlesystem to fight the major battle for the High Clerist Tower that ends the adventure. It was one of TSR’s many attempts to make Battlesystem successful in the ’80s and ’90s. The adventure also contains rules for depicting sieges, which was a notable expansion for the Battlesystem rules.
DL11 Dragons of Glory wasn’t actually a Battlesystem Tactical game, but rather a strategic board game unto itself, also written by Douglas Niles with Tracy Hickman. You could use Battlesystem to resolve medium scale skirmishes, but it wasn’t necessary. In this way, you could use this to further enhance the campaign, by stepping out of the traditional character driven role-playing to resolve massive battles, or reliving specific scenarios to further enhance your Dragonlance campaign. It contained the Fall of Silvanesti, The Solamnic Plain, The Kender Strike, and The Siege of Kalaman scenarios. In Dragon Magazine #107, March 1986, they introduced advanced Dragons of Glory rules and scenarios including the invasion of Abanasinia/The Qualinesti War, The Maelstrom Fleet Action, and the Battle for Neraka. Again, this is precisely what Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn is meant to do. But that is not even the end to the infusion of war gaming with Dragonlance.
DL12 Dragons of Faith would return to Battlesystem with The Battle of Istar underneath the Blood Sea. The goal is to assist the Sea Elves as they attempt to defeat the King of the Deep. DL14 Dragons of Triumph would see a return of Douglas Niles and his Battlesystem to the modules. The BATTLESYSTEM scenario therein represents a grand culmination to the military resolution of the conflict. It is, incidentally, the largest battle ever published for the AD&D®
game system on a tactical level. Five evil armies take to the fields around Neraka to meet
the combined forces of good as they march on the citadel of evil in The Battle of Neraka. This would be the end of First Edition of Battlesystem and Dragonlance, until 2nd Edition and the Castle’s Boxed Set, which would explore the Minotaur Fortress Drungar defending the advance of Thenol’s undead armies in southern Taladas.
Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn may be new concepts to 5th edition players, but they are simply the newest iteration of gameplay that was created thirty-seven years ago! With veteran war game designers Rob Daviau and Stephen Baker behind the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game, I am encouraged that it will live up to or exceed the original Battlesystem tactical and DL11 Dragons of Glory simulation war games that were staples of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance campaign.
Outro
And that is all I have to say about Battlesystem and War Gaming. I hope you enjoyed the information. Do you appreciate the Battlesystem game? Are you looking forward to playing the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game? And finally if you wanted to play a war game, would you stay in the Dungeons & Dragons IP, or use one of the myriad of others? Leave a comment below.
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Behold! The Giant Kender of Balifor!
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