Forgotten Realsm or Dragonlance?

[Sir Degrader]

Myself i personally prefer dragonlance, as Weis and Hickman have way better characters and overall talent then salvatore or Niles. The setting too is alot better, krynn is a better area then the Forgotten Realms. For one thing, it doesn't blatantly use real world examples, *cough*Tuigan horde*cough or the *cough* Maztica *cough*. The characters are more developed, (Raistlin, goldmoon, Riverwind, Kang), and stuff does happen to gods... just read war of souls.... [img]smile.gif[/img] , i must say, the ending to that series was NOT what i expected..... In all i say that Krynn/Dragonlance is way better then FR.

BTW raistlin would kick elminsters ass.

[Bardan the Slayer]

Ignore 5th age, and Dragonlance rules.

I make it one of my personal codes of conduct to studiously deny that the fifth age rubbish ever happened. It was all a terrible nightmare that Weis and Hickman had that accidentally got sneezed onto some paper, or somehting.

[Luvian]

I agree, the Dragonlance world is alot better. Weis and Hickman are good writers, compared to the FR ones.

[Azred]

<font color = lightgreen>The Forgotten Realms world was a really great place with a lot of promise, until people like Ed Greenwood began to ruin it. Then came the Time of Troubles--ugh. Then they started all that Kara Tur, Maztica, Al Qadim stuff and doing off-the-wall plots like the "Chosen of Mystra", which was designed only to make the authors' old characters invincible and immortal.
On the other hand, I never could get into Krynn because they had too much godly influence (or interference) and black-and-white good-versus-evil duality. I must admit that Raistlin probably could kick Elminster's ass, and Mordenkainen's, as well.

In short...neither.</font>

[Ken Rauhl]

Originally posted by Sir Degrader: Myself i personally prefer dragonlance, as Weis and Hickman have way better characters and overall talent then salvatore or Niles. The setting too is alot better, krynn is a better area then the Forgotten Realms. For one thing, it doesn't blatantly use real world examples, *cough*Tuigan horde*cough or the *cough* Maztica *cough*. The characters are more developed, (Raistlin, goldmoon, Riverwind, Kang), and stuff does happen to gods... just read war of souls.... [img]smile.gif[/img] , i must say, the ending to that series was NOT what i expected..... In all i say that Krynn/Dragonlance is way better then FR. BTW raistlin would kick elminsters ass.

War of Souls is... erh, after reading it, other than the part about our all time favor Tass, it made me want to puke. Mina, so cheesy. stealing the world and gods returning, obviously Weis and Hickman has nothing to write about but to somehow clumsily resserruct a dead series.

the Dragonlance series involving ANY of the characters of the original 9 heros of the lance should have ended with the banishment of the Dark Queen. talking about the self sacrificing and dedicating of evil paladins was a absurd failure and lack of imagination. where is the consequences in the evil EVENTUALLY turning upon themselves?

saying the dark queen abandon her followers by the end of the Chaos war was not a conclusion to the dark paladins. it was, in my arrogant opinion, a lame way of avoiding conclusion. why? because Weis and Hickman had nothing to say about it. their petty little attempt at creating a dark honorable evil natured noble warrior were never intended to fall into the pit of backstabbing and power struggling, and that is where it failed. looking everywhere at any reference that the creation of dark knights might base on, any of who would sacrifice another person to progress their 'cause' falls, eventually, into self destruction. that is the very nature of evil. and yet, i never did seen their demise. instead, the dark queen step in with her divine intervention, and we as readers were just innocently taken away by other, more pressing topics (like the invasion the evil huge dragons and stuff).

another reason i dont like about Weis and Hickman. they kill people off way too easily. Tanis, it was so very friggin obvious that because Laurana was going to be trapped in Qualinasti, and it would add to the complexity of writting, that he just simply died a 'so-called' heroic death. there was no foreshadowing other than, at the last day before his death, the poor excuse of "we will go back through the kitchen". it was shallow, pointless and stupid compare to Sturm Brightblade, whom his entire life story had been foretelling his final tragic but ultimately heroic sacrifice. while poor old Tanis, "well you know, this is a last minute thing, Old Buddy, it is time to go packing."

Caramon's two sons, Sturm and Tanin. this one is more absurd you had to laugh. reading through the entire book of Dragons of Summer Flame, you would find no place for their chance to act heroic, if they lived through their last encounter, without sounding too much like Sturm Brightblade. and isnt it obvious for me to point out that the author wrote em off because it would somehow make Palin/Caramon suffer? lets see, Guy needed a terrible lose to show that he is real enough to experience loses in his life, and this dude happened to have two sons that no one else really cared about, and no one would miss them too much if they didnt show up for the next play, say, shouldnt we get rid of them?

next, the thief guide in Palanthas. need I say more? they are the only, dominating, thief guide in the city, which by itself is rare enough. maybe that explains why they are so stupid. cause survival of the fittest simply does not apply here. but dont get me wrong, I liked their funny descriptions of the thieves fairly.

and there are many many many more cheesy, stupid, obvious to the eye plot you can spot right away. one last example, when Tanis was delayed at the Tower of High Clerist, Dalamar had offered Tanis to escape by teleport him back to his house. lol, how unusually friendly was Dalamar? Cannot you see the connections here? Tanis was not needed later, because Laurana would be trapped in Qualinasti. If Tanis escaped at this point, then our authors will have to write more stories about him, which undoubted adding immense work to an already complicated epic. We must not let that happen, right? Thus, Dalamar, with our authors' best interests in mind, persented this chance for Tanis (who had little to say in the matter) knowing our friend would turn it down anyways. Tanis would die looking prettier, and our authors would no doubtly save probally a couple months of contemplating.

oh well, that is a lot bad things said about the later works of Weis and Hickman. but i am a really big fan of the War of the Lance series. that includes Dragons of Autaum Twilight, Winter Night and Spring Dawning. btw, Tass and Fizban are definitely the spotligths.

well, as for Salvatore's works, I've never found anything like the above. lets say that the difference does not lie in realms, but rather authors. if R.A. Salva writes Dragonlance, he would probally do better. ppl say nothing bad's ever happened to Drizzt series' characters, that is ok because we know eventually Drizzt or Bruenor's gonna get it. probally the dwarf gets it first trying to save a certain skinny elf butt or protecting his daughter. Catti Brie is too stern and bright to die, despite the common belief that beauty withers. only the die hard noble ones like Drizzt and the unbreakable ones like Bruenor will be caught in a dire situation where he cannot turn away. the halfling is never gonna die, and Wolfgur already died once, somehow the previous death diminishes the marginal meaning of the second one.

anyways, like I say, that is ok for them to continue to live on and adventure on. and Drizzt will probally see Cattie Brie die of age. we know, in the end, Drizzt will find an opponent he cannot outfight or outrun or outguess or simply outluck, and we know Bruenor will die in a groundbreaking adventure, die of saving his friends, or defending a village, or slaying a dragon, or banging his many notched axe on the head of an evil wizard while the whole fortress crumble on top of him. until then, they continue to adventure, and their life is continously fullfilled.

but, Raistlin would DEFINITELY own Elminster, lol. just show the cranky wizard a topless female, and kill elminster while he was distracted

[ 04-15-2003, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: Ken Rauhl ]

[Luvian]

Nice post, Ken Rauhl. It's nice to see someone willing to explain his opinion, instead of simply saying something like "This world suck". As most people usually do.

I quit reading those after the gods had left. That's the 4th age, right? From what I can see, it seem they really messed their world with the last age. Good thing I quit before getting there.

I don't agree with you about R.A. Salvatore, I think he is good when it comes to adding "morals" to his story, I really like the comments he make between chapters, and I like the characters he created, but I think they are too powerfull to give us any suspense, but this is off topic, so I won't say any more about this here.

[Ken Rauhl]

Originally posted by Luvian: Nice post, Ken Rauhl. It's nice to see someone willing to explain his opinion, instead of simply saying something like "This world suck". As most people usually do. I quit reading those after the gods had left. That's the 4th age, right? From what I can see, it seem they really messed their world with the last age. Good thing I quit before getting there. I don't agree with you about R.A. Salvatore, I think he is good when it comes to adding "morals" to his story, I really like the comments he make between chapters, and I like the characters he created, but I think they are too powerfull to give us any suspense, but this is off topic, so I won't say any more about this here.

thank you [img]smile.gif[/img] you are right about the last age. it was REALLY messed up. another thing I forgot to mention was, the authors seem so desperate that they want to make money off Krynn that they dont give the world a rest. there was always war, there was never a peaceful place and time for our old friends to have some rest. Qualinasti was invaded and ravished again and beaten so badly, finally, into the a lake. sorry for the plot spoiling, but you really shouldnt read it. Laurana died a violent death, so did Tanis, so did Tas. I dont know what happened between Palin and Usha, but judging by palin's cynical state of mind in the War of Souls series, you know nothing good happened. Caramon was the luckiest of them all, and he died without any of his sons by his funeral. At laest he died at home.

my little conspiracy theory is, the authors are too afraid of trying new characters, thus they revive the old topics, continuing the orgininal tales over and over, until they turned the original into tasteless. because there was always a new evil after every happy ending, and every struggle against the new evil requested a sacrifice, and every sacrifice had to be bigger than the previous ones in order to make the book worth reading. thus Krynn would never have peace. all the sacrifices made by the fathers would not dminish or even delay the arise of another evil at the sons' time.

back to R.A. Salvatore, well, I like a LOT about his morals too. I pretty much agree with most of them. about chivalry, defending the weak and rejecting evil. sometimes I am not required with certain skills to do what I believe, say if I see an armed robbery, I probally stay the hell out of the way. but Drizzt, in his world, it is different. he is the righteous and self righteous ass kicker that represents all that I couldnt do. plus, it is good to see that certain ideal of good and kindness are common, and are played out from time to time.

[ 04-15-2003, 06:58 PM: Message edited by: Ken Rauhl ]

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Ken Rauhl: thank you [img]smile.gif[/img] you are right about the last age. it was REALLY messed up. another thing I forgot to mention was, the authors seem so desperate that they want to make money off Krynn that they dont give the world a rest. there was always war, there was never a peaceful place and time for our old friends to have some rest. Qualinasti was invaded and ravished again and beaten so badly, finally, into the a lake. sorry for the plot spoiling, but you really shouldnt read it. Laurana died a violent death, so did Tanis, so did Tas. I dont know what happened between Palin and Usha, but judging by palin's cynical state of mind in the War of Souls series, you know nothing good happened. Caramon was the luckiest of them all, and he died without any of his sons by his funeral. At laest he died at home. my little conspiracy theory is, the authors are too afraid of trying new characters, thus they revive the old topics, continuing the orgininal tales over and over, until they turned the original into tasteless. because there was always a new evil after every happy ending, and every struggle against the new evil requested a sacrifice, and every sacrifice had to be bigger than the previous ones in order to make the book worth reading. thus Krynn would never have peace. all the sacrifices made by the fathers would not dminish or even delay the arise of another evil at the sons' time. back to R.A. Salvatore, well, I like a LOT about his morals too. I pretty much agree with most of them. about chivalry, defending the weak and rejecting evil. sometimes I am not required with certain skills to do what I believe, say if I see an armed robbery, I probally stay the hell out of the way. but Drizzt, in his world, it is different. he is the righteous and self righteous ass kicker that represents all that I couldnt do. plus, it is good to see that certain ideal of good and kindness are common, and are played out from time to time.

Damn! I was hoping Tanis and Laurana would get to live in peace. It suck that all the characters got killed. I also like it when authors write about the old heroes's childrens, I was hoping they could become legends too. Look like most didn't.

So, what happen at the end of the 5th age? Who is left alive? Did the good guys win or what?

As for your conspiracy theory, while it's possible that they are trying to get as much money out of the Dragonlance world as they can. They do have other characters. They created their own world that is not asociated to dungeon and dragon. Here is an example or a novel. So my own conspiracy therory is that they are trying to kill the Dragonlance world. It might be because they don't want TSR to bother them with Dragonlance again so they can concentrate on their on world, or maybe they feel Dragonlance is a competitor to their new world and need to get rid off, I don't now, but I'm sure they butchered it on purpose.

[Rimjaw]

Originally posted by Luvian: QUOTE]Damn! I was hoping Tanis and Laurana would get to live in peace. It suck that all the characters got killed. I also like it when authors write about the old heroes's childrens, I was hoping they could become legends too. Look like most didn't. So, what happen at the end of the 5th age? Who is left alive? Did the good guys win or what?

Most of the 'original cast' got killed off when Dragons of summer flame came out, Tanis died an unspectacular death at the hands of evil minion #1 and Tasslehoff Burrfoot aka most anoying character in a fantasy series ever was quite literally squashed to death at the hands of Chaos, or so it seemed because unfortunately he got resurrected by Weis and Hickman for the War of the Souls trilogy. Aaargh! Anyway I haven't read that trilogy by the way. Waiting for all three of the books to be out on paperback. IMHO, Dragonlance, which started off as an interesting setting has become nothing more than a cash cow for Weis and Hickman these days.

[Ken Rauhl]

Originally posted by Rimjaw: </font><blockquote>Quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Luvian: QUOTE]Damn! I was hoping Tanis and Laurana would get to live in peace. It suck that all the characters got killed. I also like it when authors write about the old heroes's childrens, I was hoping they could become legends too. Look like most didn't. So, what happen at the end of the 5th age? Who is left alive? Did the good guys win or what?

Most of the 'original cast' got killed off when Dragons of summer flame came out, Tanis died an unspectacular death at the hands of evil minion #1 and Tasslehoff Burrfoot aka most anoying character in a fantasy series ever was quite literally squashed to death at the hands of Chaos, or so it seemed because unfortunately he got resurrected by Weis and Hickman for the War of the Souls trilogy. Aaargh! Anyway I haven't read that trilogy by the way. Waiting for all three of the books to be out on paperback. IMHO, Dragonlance, which started off as an interesting setting has become nothing more than a cash cow for Weis and Hickman these days.</font>[/QUOTE]u are tooooo right, except i personally disagrees the Tass thingie. we love tass! lol

oh, one more annoying matter on Dragonlance is the expression of [i]Everything and Nothing[/]

I mean what the f*** i see this SO MANY times it doesnt even make sense any more.

dark queen is every color and none, F*** A
chaos is the father of everything and none
the dragon orb is everything and nothing

omg, whenever i think abt it, I go crazy with the willing of beating Weis and Hickman to death, it is SO cheesy I feel embarassed every time.