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Originally Posted by wingsandsword

This is about the so-called "canon lawyer", the person with huge archives of Forgotten Realms knowledge in their head that not only knows obscure minutiae of Faerun and Abeir-Toril, they also expect any FR game to use all of this.

In my experiance it isn't even that they expect it to all be used, but they respond expecting X when other people at the table (event he DM sometimes) have no idea why...

The thing is, I always hear these "canon lawyer" horror stories online but I never ran across them in real life.

How many Cons have you gone to? I only ask becuse if not for Gen Con 1999 I would have never thought anyone else ever ran into this. Since then ever Con I have been to (except last year) I have herd some variant of these horror stories (although not always in the realms)

They all understand that they are playing in that setting, but it isn't precisely like everything and that I am only human. I am trying to keep the game fairly close to the setting as published, certainly enough that a casual fan won't notice, but I can't promise 100% canon match, they certainly don't ask for it, and I think I wouldn't take it well if I had someone join a game I was running that really tried to throw obscure esoteric lore from some novel or some sourcebook I haven't read in my face.

See it isn't even always "thrown in faces"...like my friend Ross. He is a sweet guy. He never really argues, but he is a Realms Cannon Lawyer. He always ever single FR game in 2e or 3e (even a little in LFR 4e) has a story. Oh this city is where X happened...or this king is really controled by the zents...or Did you know X character was changed from Class A to Class B in the edtion switch...or Heyin Volo's guide...In elminster;s Ecology...

but I do really wonder, just how common are they in typical Forgotten Realms D&D play?

They are just common enough to have upset enough people to make it a vocal problem...

Originally Posted by thecasualoblivion

I've seen one or two of them. The big problem with them is once you've seen one in action, the setting is pretty much ruined for you for all time.

This is where I was pre 4e.
I have meet more then a few fans of the novels, and each has his onw thing...but I have meet 3 "canon Lawyers" infact one is mty roommate. ((also one of them, not the roommate, was the worst of the rules lawyers, power gamers, and drama queen we had for a while))

Most of us are geeks, enough to have witnessed Star Wars/Star Trek fanatics arguing over minutiae at some point in our lives, so the feeling is familiar.

On the other hand I have had every single attept to do eaither star trek or star wars RPGs as player and DM shut down by this...I don't think I can count on both hands togather the number of rabid fan boys I know for both...

Canon lawyers aren't the only problem with FR. Just as big of a problem were Mary Sue DMs. These tended not to be canon lawyers but novel fanboys, who tend to insert their favorite novel characters into their campaigns as intolerable Mary Sues.

but the biggest problem is that Ed greenwood himself endurces and helped push this out..If you find his interview at the Tomb you will find a story he tells of the PCs being held by a king and about to be excuted...then elminster barges in and tells the king he must speak with him privatly right awya ((Of cource what king would dare refuse the sage of mary sue)) as el and the king went to a private room El winked at the PCs and motioned for them to run away...

Now just to put this in perspective this was his idea of el being 'played right' by the DM.





Now I also want to say, the NPC thing is a problem becuse of how I run games. I normaly start out low level as the PCs are adventures...by the mid levels they work as qusy mercs, sometimes I even fall back on the "Person A finds you and begs for help" archtype...
By like 12th leve (2nd or 3rd edtion) I have plot lines running (sometimes right from level 1 I lay them in there) were something HUGE is going down. My 13+ level games where always legendary...Good Vs Evil on some epic scale. The PCs have to save the whole world...or even multivers.
The problem being When the you know what hits the fan (Example I had a red wizard plot to invade...opps I didn't know there were chosen of the god of magic devoting large portions of there lives to fight said threat) I expect the PCs to feel a little out classed, and to have to scramble and start to build to the big climax that might take levels...What do i do when the PCs say "We can get the Harpers to help" or "Hey they are invading Symbol's contry we can get her help" or "(Insert NPC from a novel) has been ready to fight them since (Insert event I didn't even know about)"