I have no idea if there is anything official, or if that's just a place to talk about DL with 4e rules, or what. I suspect it's just reorganization, though one never knows.
I created the forum because there seemed to be a lot of people interested in talking about Dragonlance. I don't know everything that's coming out in 2008, but I haven't heard any plans for a Dragonlance 4E book for next year. 2009 is the big anniversary for DL though, and it would seem like a great opportunity for us to do something cool with it, although I don't know what the D&D team has planned.
Hope that helps.
-Mike
So conspiracy theorists, put down your torches. It's just them reorganizing their boards and providing a place to chat.
I'm a brand new DnD player. I started with 4E release date. I've just read an article about DnD realms. There were FR, Eberron, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Ravenloft,and Planescape. Dragonlance is my number one (and Ravenloft number 2). I'd be extremely happy if Dragonlance 4E comes out.
Welcome to the hobby!
Which article was that? There are many other D&D worlds than the ones mentioned in that article. Hope you are ready to explore them all!
Havard
I live in the Czech republic, you know. It's a small country in the Central Europe, and it's part of EU. Most RPG players here play a game named "Draci doupe" (Dragon's lair). It's the first RPG produced in our country, it was produced in '90s, and it's very similar to DnD 1E.
DnD's never been pupular in the Czech republic until nowadays. The main reason is Draci doupe is in Czech and DnD is in English. Most people couldn't speak English, so they played Draci doupe. It's changing now. Still more and more people can speak English and they're exploring the beauty of foreign role playing games. DnD 4E dominates above all other foreign RPGs. Yes, if DnD 4E would be in Czech, it would be perfect. Nevertheless, DnD 4E still has more and more new players and funs and there is written about it more and more.
I like the new DND 4E really much. My group plays Pyramid of Shadows in its generic world. We tried to play FR as well and it was fun. I especially like Arda, the world of LOTR. I liked FR, but I think Dragonlance would better fit to me. I hope there will be Dragonlance 4E soon.
Guys, WotC has opened a Dragonlance 4th edition Board. Other settings include the Realms, Eberron, and Greyhawk. There is also a section for Other Campaign Settings. Here's a link to the 4e boards.
I have no idea if there is anything official, or if that's just a place to talk about DL with 4e rules, or what. I suspect it's just reorganization, though one never knows.
I think this thread should be renamed "WotC Closes Dragonlance 4e Boards" as these links are now dead. ;)
I live in the Czech republic, you know. It's a small country in the Central Europe, and it's part of EU. Most RPG players here play a game named "Draci doupe" (Dragon's lair). It's the first RPG produced in our country, it was produced in '90s, and it's very similar to DnD 1E.
Interesting. That just goes to show that when an English-speaking company (in this case TSR) does not address the non-English market (in this case the Czech Republic - or maybe Czechoslovakia back then) the market will find its own solution.
I live in England (the country that owns English :P ) and I do get suprised that multinational corporations do not make more of an effort to support multiple languages. It is especially weird that US based multinational corporations don't do so well at multi-language support as almost the entire population is made up of immigrants (and most of them from Europe). There must be more cultural knowledge in the people of the USA than any other country in the world.
I suppose that (especially when it was behind the Iron Curtain) your country would have been a very small market (compared to the native market), but the world has moved on since then (and there are now tons of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest ;) ). I would be very interested to know how many languages WotC actually intend to translate 4e D&D into.
I'm not sure about the rest of the people here, but I'm pretty sure that Havard will know what the Czech Republic is as he lives just down the road in Norway. ;)
DnD's never been pupular in the Czech republic until nowadays. The main reason is Draci doupe is in Czech and DnD is in English. Most people couldn't speak English, so they played Draci doupe. It's changing now. Still more and more people can speak English and they're exploring the beauty of foreign role playing games. DnD 4E dominates above all other foreign RPGs. Yes, if DnD 4E would be in Czech, it would be perfect. Nevertheless, DnD 4E still has more and more new players and funs and there is written about it more and more.
Have you heard of something called the System Reference Document (or SRD)? This is a cut down version of the 3rd edition D&D rules that Wizards of the Coast released under an open licence called the Open Game Licence.
If you were to work under the Open Game Licence (i.e. obey its rules*) there is no reason why you (and other English-speaking Czech Republic D&D fans) could not translate the SRD into Czech and republish it. By translating the core rules of 3rd edition (i.e. the SRD) into your own language, you could make it much easier for people to play the previous edition of D&D.
* = As well as the legal rules within the OGL, the main thing to remember, is that your own legal blurb would need to be printed in English. But that would still allow you to print an entire Czech edition of the 3e SRD, with one or two English pages of legal blurb at the back of it. You can translate the OGL into Czech (to help people read it), but I'm pretty sure that only the English version would be a valid version of the licence.
Obviously translating the entire SRD, would be a lot of work, but I think it is a far better solution than expecting all Czech roleplayers to master the English language.
Note that Pathfinder (from Paizo Publishing) is still supporting the previous edition of D&D. I'm not sure if they have a policy for translating their work into Czech, but if you surf over to their forums, you could take up the torch for your country.
I like the new DND 4E really much. My group plays Pyramid of Shadows in its generic world. We tried to play FR as well and it was fun. I especially like Arda, the world of LOTR. I liked FR, but I think Dragonlance would better fit to me. I hope there will be Dragonlance 4E soon.
Even if there is not an official 4th edition version of Dragonlance, Cam Banks (who did a lot of work for the 3rd edition DL books published by Margaret Weis Productions has already publicly stated that he will create a fan conversion). Cam hangs about on the Dragonlance Forums that used to be run by MWP, so you might find more news about official or unofficial 4e DL over there.
Personally, I think it is going to be hard to top the 3e Dragonlance products from MWP. From what the fan community say, there is only one "lemon" in the entire product line (although I don't have Age of Mortals myself). All the books I have (including the really really hard to get Towers of High Sorcery) are very good.
It is getting harder to get out of print D&D stuff now, but if you could import one set of 3e MWP DL books (as well as the one WotC 3e DL book) you could give all of your players a copy of the SRD (which, as I said, could be legally translated into their own language).
And don't forget that if you can get Paizo to support the Czech language with their forthcoming Pathfinder RPG, you will have yourself a comercial RPG that is compatible with the last set of published DL books.
Good luck!
I suppose that (especially when it was behind the Iron Curtain) your country would have been a very small market (compared to the native market), but the world has moved on since then (and there are now tons of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest ;) ). I would be very interested to know how many languages WotC actually intend to translate 4e D&D into.
So this is where you have been hanging out lately Big Mac!
The BECMI D&D edition was translated to many European languages back in the 80s. The fact that Mystara was the default setting of that version of D&D may be one of the reasons why Mystara has so many European fans even today.
While most Norwegians speak English, the fact that there are very few games available in Norwegian mean that recruiting kids to the hobby is harder than it used to be. I think this is something WotC should keep in mind as it should apply to most non-English speaking countries.
I'm not sure about the rest of the people here, but I'm pretty sure that Havard will know what the Czech Republic is as he lives just down the road in Norway. ;)
Hehe, you are talking about me here as well? :D
Just down the road might be an exaggeration, but the Czech Republic is one of my favorite European countries and one I keep going back to
I sort of wish the Czech's weren't so good at English though, since I love experimenting with my quasi-slavic. BTW ShadoWWW, doesn't "Draci doupe" translate as something more vulgar in some other slavic languages? ;)
Exploring alternatives to the Forgotten Realms and Ebberon is a good thing ShadoWWW. I would like seeing Dragonlance get more love too, as well as my own favorite setting, Mystara ofcourse (tough chance...).
Havard
PS: Did I mention the Piazza is back? ;)