I’m working on establishing a long-desired Dragonlance campaign, and with any consideration of using such a widely published (and beloved) fictional world, I’m pondering the implications of established canon.

Dragonlance was one of the earliest published settings for Dungeons & Dragons. Numerous gaming products and novels have been released since the early 1980s. While I don’t think a GM should be required to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Dragonlance and its world of Krynn (or be forced to own the bulk of relevant published products), some effort should be made to present at least a decent facsimile of Krynn that is recognizable as Dragonlance.

There is a delicate balance to be struck, for sure. A GM should work to provide the feeling of a published world. If you stray too far from the lore set forth in gaming products and fiction, you risk bleeding off the “soul” of an established setting. This may not be as important to people not as familiar with a setting like Dragonlance, but for those invested in the world, it will be noticeable if a setting like Krynn doesn’t feel like Krynn.

I believe canon is instructive for providing the flavor of an established fictional world, and can also be a source for game-relevant details of said world: famous locations and NPCs, world-specific variations of cultures and creatures, and so on. However, I don’t believe a GM should be highly restrained by canonical lore.

I’ve encountered players and GMs who were gravely concerned with being true to published lore, to the point of captivity. They would worry over even miniscule deviations from canon, and took great pains to gain GM-player consensus on how campaign progress would or should “make sense” as a logical progression from published content.

Such considerations always seemed like a recipe for railroading and exhaustion!

My intended approach for my nascent campaign (tentatively called “The Age of Rebirth”) is to start off a year after the events at the end of the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. Everything that has been printed regarding the timeline leading up to that point is technically “canonical” in my campaign, and everything after that point is only potentially relevant, if I choose to include it.

However, I’ll give preference to player character agency in the timeline going forward. Meaning, the players and their characters are creating a new timeline.

The River of Time to the Rescue

Fortunately, I believe Dragonlance has what could be considered a built-in mechanism for a plausible multiverse: the River of Time.

I won’t get into depth in this post about how time travel has been handled in the Dragonlance novels and other materials, though I will recommend you read the Legends trilogy to see how it has been done.

Time travel is relatively rare on Krynn, and I don’t expect it to feature prominently in my campaign. But, if the question comes up with regard to moving backward or forward in time, I’ll take a multiverse approach to things. Meaning, my campaign itself is its own tributary from the main flow of the canonical River of Time. Going backward and changing events will be difficult, and major events will most likely be unchangeable. If, through some truly god-tier effort, the players are able to change past events, they will constitute the creation of a new tributary of the River (or even a tributary of a tributary).

As mentioned above, any canonical events that lay in the “future” of my campaign are only potential occurrences. At this time, I don’t really intend to have the Chaos War or the Age of Mortals occur in my campaign, for instance. But that may change over time, depending on the actions of my players’ characters, and perhaps even the “wish list” items of players who may be fans of the setting. Like any good GM, I can sometimes be persuaded by the pleas of players!

If you’ve ever participated in a Dragonlance campaign, did time travel ever become a factor? Did your campaign progress deviate in some way from published canon?

Note: I recommend you visit the excellent Dragonlance Nexus and the equally excellent Dragonlance Saga for further exploration of the River of Time!