D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

A thread I just read about Mordenkainen in the FR, plus memories of an active thread from before the recent site crash, prompted me to ask:

Do you care about canon in RPG setting?

When I talk about running a GH game, or an Oriental Adventures game; or when I say that I am running a module; what I mean is that I am using some maps, some characters, some tropes and themes, taken from the setting or module.

But I don't pay much attention to the "canon" of the setting or module. I've run OA using homedrawn maps and the Kara-Tur boxed set. I'm currently running a GH game, using Burning Wheel mechanics, and I move between my old folio maps and 2nd ed and 3E era ones - whichever happens to be at the top of my folder - without worrying too much about it.

What makes this game a GH one is the basic geography and history (Hardby is a city ruled by a magic-using Gynarch, across the Wooly Bay from the Bright Desert, which is populated by Suel tribesmen). Not the minutiae of canon: the details of the setting I make up as needed for play or determined during the course of play.

I approach my 4e games - one using the default cosmology (but the "world map" is the map from the inside of the old B/X module Night's Dark Terror) and one in Dark Sun - the same way. Follow basic outlines, and use published material where it seems useful, but otherwise without too much concern for what is "canon" in the setting.

How do you use setting material? Is canon important to you?

I use it the same way as you do. Basic geography and NPCs mostly.

I care about canon since i always run using a published setting and like to stick to most of it. Afterall, i choose one to evolve in an environment with its own history, lanscape, mythology heroes & villains etc... But i can change anything that i feel is a better fit in my campaign whenever the need arise.

What is "canon"?

Kidding, I know what you mean - but I'm in your camp. If I'm using a "published world" it's mostly because I was to lazy to draw up my own maps for that game and so as a result I used someone else's maps. Yes, sometimes the canon inspires ideas in my head, but I'll gleefully walk away from canon at the drop of a hat. I especially like to do that with very NPC heavy worlds - where the NPCs are all super powerful, like Forgotten Realms. It lets the PCs shine: "El-who? Never heard of him. You're the only heroes in these parts - so what are you going to do about those giants?!"

However, I do find that there is a certain subset of players - not many - who will disrupt a game much like rules lawyers, but are more canon lawyers. They are about as annoying too. For example, if you decide that when the players get to X town in X world, it will be primarily poor and impoverished, with little resources for the players the canon lawyer will pounce and remind everyone at the table that in "Random Book" published by TSR in 1981 - which s/he has both an original printing of the hard cover AND an autographed advanced uncorrected proof - this town actually was prosperous and grand and it was tied to the same module we're still running so it is not poor.

And yes, I know you could hand wave it as something happening but that gets damn exhausting after a while. Hence my preference for home brew worlds.

We use it quite a bit. For our long running campaign in FR we have run several adventures involving the Time of Troubles (our assassin pc had to find a way of avoiding the cull), Spellplague (we were there for the death of Mystra) and Sundering events (we recovered Lantan), as well as dealing with certain published characters (Elminster) and magic items (Nether Scrolls). We also run plenty of adventures that are not tied to the ongoing storylines.

I often create an alternate version of the setting. In my FR, the sundering was very different, for instance. Netheril is still a power, but has mostly ditched Shar as bad deal, Myth Drannor is still intact, there are still earthmotes floating around. Returned Abeir, all the Genasi and Dragonborn, etc, are mostly still there, and aunt her is back, but greatly diminished, because I don't retcon away the fact that Tymanchibar sat on it. Instead, the two worlds were aligned very closely for about a month, and moving between was very easy. This lead to the Unther contingent that was on Abeir to come back, and use the chaos to take "back" a large chunk of their old geography. Except, it's not the same land.

Netheril no no longer has flying cities, but only Shade is gone. The other one is nestled into some mountains, it's once great magic now used to keep the desert at bay. Post war, they are eager to put the past behind them, and the other nations are mixed in their response to that.

Sembia, Netherl, Cormyr, Myth Drannor, The Dales, and some other groups in that area have formed an organization of Knights, which include a handful of orders, ranging from Paladins, to corsairs, to ranger-types, and swordmage types, attached to a school on the southern Dragon Coast. Both organizations are international, and partner nations send the children of their most powerful families there, as well as recruited commoners and petitioners who prove themselves.

Recently, (ie, the year my current campaign is starting) students from many new nations are enrolling, and the school is being expanded. its built into a canyon, where it opens into the ocean, with earbtmotes having been moved to hover between the cliffs.

A new knighthood is also being formed, that will bond with and ride on the backs of giant birds

I care about canon and continuity in books I read, even sourcebooks. When I run, I don't personally care, but I want the authors and editors to care. They shouldn't ignore changes on a whim.

The thing is, every part of the setting might be someone's favourite part. And that shouldn't be changed lightly. When they ignore canon, it's the author saying that they either didn't care enough about the setting to do the research or try and get it right, or they valued their idea more than the setting and couldn't be bothered to make the idea work with canon.
That's inherently disrespectful to the setting.

I like to keep up with the Forgotten Realms and its lore, but I don't mind changing things around. As in art, you should know the rules before breaking them. If Luskan becomes a halfling village in my campaign, I want it to be a creative decision and not pure ignorance.

Technically, not for any system nor setting, do I care about canon concepts, ever. I've never used the default game settings for any edition of D&D or other RPGs, I most often create homebrew settings. I'm not even against someone using my published Kaidan setting of Japanese Horror (PFRPG) and choosing to not use it's canon concepts. I only care that users of my settings are having fun with it, no matter what they want to change about it to better fit their game table. Short of my own settings, most anything I publish that supports a given game system is never about what is canon.

Not at all. Don't want to. My FR games are a hodgepodge of stuff from every edition that takes place pre ToT, is humanocentric, less "powered up" and has a gritty S&S Wilderlands-esque feel. Its also devoid of all the Novel concepts of ultra powerful people and gods directly involved in day to day life. Edit- back in the dawn of 3.0 I wrote my own revision of the ToT/FR. I will have to see if I can find the file again and post.

My Nentir Vale games are devoid of the Dragonborn,Tieflings, half-anythings, and essentially is a region of The Known World as glimpsed in the original Expert rulebook, and early B/X adventures.

Canon lawyers drive me crazy and I always forewarn players if they are those types who would be offended by me deviating from official materials. Generally I avoid rule and setting lawyers, period.