Here’s DL2: Dragons of Flame. Bid farewell to freedom of choice in Dragonlance from this point forward.

Fantastic Jeff Easley cover aside, the wheels are already starting to come off. There is really only one path through the adventure – learn of the destruction of Solace, free some slaves, hook up with elves, travel a secret passage and get into the fortress of Pax Tharkas to rescue a bunch of prisoners while avoiding the highlord Verminaard and his dragons. This is a rigid flow of events and the thing that is so frustrating about this scenario is that there is no reason for it to be. This could have been presented as a sandbox, allowing players to navigate at their whim, and still get the same end result. But this is not the case, as the importance of the novel’s portrayal of the characters begin to exert a stranglehold on the details. There is no room for different interpretations of Raistlin or Sturm or whoever – you HAVE to play them like the book, or the whole thing falls apart. Which is weird, because the book wasn’t even out yet. Blargh.