Dungeons & Dragons' new Dragonlance campaign is a new world with its own rules, but 5e's playable races could bring a few changes to the canon. When it comes to flavor, Dragonlance has a few features that clash with the established canon of DnD 5e, setting up some potential conflicts on the line. In order to keep a campaign running smoothly, the DM and players may need to take some exceptions with Dragonlance's rulebook.
Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign that takes place in the world of Dragonlance, which is also the setting of a series of similarly-titled fantasy novels. Dragonlance has its own rich lore and history that sets it apart from DnD's iconic Forgotten Realms. While Shadow of the Dragon Queen is far from the first DnD campaign to take place in the Dragonlance world, it is the first Dragonlance campaign's return to DnD under 5e rules. This distinction is what opens the door to the biggest discrepancies between settings.
Dragonlance's Missing Playable Races Are Not An Obstacle For DMs
Dungeons & Dragons' roster of playable races has expanded significantly since its inception, with 5e offering the biggest selection of races yet. This new selection even includes orcs, who for years were relegated to either homebrew builds or supplementary books rather than being a core race. This wide array of races for the players to choose from when making their characters is actually one of the biggest things that split 5e from Dragonlance. While Dragonlance features a lot of new and interesting content, not only are many DnD races not playable in Dragonlance, but several don't exist at all. This can be a problem, but many players and DMs would be willing to work around it.
Theoretically, it's possible for races that aren't normally native to Dragonlance to appear in a campaign. One way would be to simply describe them as travelers from afar who have come in search of adventure. Another route would be that they fell through a gate, and on their quest to return to their own dimension, they got involved in one of Dragonlance's many adventures. The DM could also make them rarely-seen races of Dragonlance, or have them come from a recently discovered area, but that would require more finessing of the setting. Considering that Dragonlance has necromantic dragons in DnD, it wouldn't be too unusual to include a few extra races fo adventurers to choose from.
One may argue that the presence of races not typically seen in Dragonlance could compromise the setting, but that is not exactly accurate. Despite its status, it's still a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, which means that it's open to interpretation by the DM. They can even ignore the War of the Lance entirely if they want to. An individual game is specific to the players involved, not canon as a whole, so editing it for a group's campaign is perfectly fine. After all, DnD was designed to be heavily customized, and Dragonlance is as much of a canvas as the Forgotten Realms. Like knowing when to use homebrew mechanics in DnD, bending a campaign's setting for the game's benefit is a skill that good DMs can use expertly.
The decision on whether 5e races from outside Dragonlance should be used in Dragonlance campaigns is up to the Dungeon Master. Just because a race isn't normally playable in a specific setting, it doesn't need to be outlawed entirely for any campaign that takes place there. In Dungeons & Dragons, orcs can be just as welcome in Dragonlance as anywhere else.
Source: Dungeons & Dragons/YouTube