Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
This.
D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?
- Thread starter pemerton
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This.
I'm not sure who or what this is addressed to. I mean, what do you think WotC have been doing since 1998 (? or thereabouts), and TSR before them?
[MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] - I having trouble getting a handle on the canon changes that you're talking abut. Gnomes, Reorx, the Greystone as a cause of transmutation among the races of Krynn, the Cataclysm - these have all been part of DL from day 1. Mortals with serious doubts about the gods - part of the setting from day 1 - but insofar as they have these doubts, they are not the heroes of the setting. To the extent that they emerge as heroes - as the good guys - they overcome those doubts, or realise that the doubts are the result of error, and help restore Krynn to its proper equilibrium in relation to the gods.
You, or someone like you, could read nothing but DL Adventures (published 1987) and come up with your character idea - a gnome whose Lifequest involves magic rather than technology, and whose goal is to dethrone the gods, or at least free mortals from their yoke, because that seems the fittest response to what they did in creating the gnomes and in inflicting the Cataclysm. The only canon change I can see is that you are a wild mage - which is mostly a rules change retconned back into the setting - but that does not seem to be the cause of the disagreement between you and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]. The same issue could have come up with a gnome illusionist in 1987, who is also barely a canonical DL character. (The DL Adventures book has a slighly confusing sidebar dealing with the idea of "mad gnomes", which - lilke Heathen Clerics from other dimensions - seems to be primarily although not exclusively a device for allowing non-tinker gnomes from other campaigns/settings into a DL game.)
The issue - as far as I can see - is that you are departing from what (as best I can tell) Hussar is taking to be the moral/thematic premise of the setting (and me likewise) - by presenting the repudiation of the gods as a protagonistic rather than antagonistic oriention towards the setting . And you are taking this non-canonical orientation using also a non-standard vehicle - namely, a gnome who is not a tecnologically-oriented tinker gnome.
At the end of this post, I guess my question is - of the elements of your character, which one do you think is canonical, but only in light of later canon? Not gnomes, with their crazed ways and Lifequests. Not Reorx. Not Reorx creating the gnomes as a punishment. Not the Greystone. Not the Catalcysm. Not the fact that some mortals doubt/reject the gods.
The non-canonical bits, in terms of "classic" (1980s) DL, are (i) that a hero of the setting would be opposed to the gods, and (ii) that a gnome's Lifequest would be focused on magic rather than technology. Are these the things you are saying come from later canon? For the sake of utmost clarity, these are thing things that I have been assuming come from you, as your interpretive response to the canonical material you'ver read which seems to me to be basically no different from 1987.
The same thing is going on when [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] tells me and [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] that it is perfectly canonical to play a Middle Earth game in which people of South Gondor take revenge against Minas Tirith for those Gondorian soldiers raping and pillaging. I'm sure that Maxperson read the same words that I did, but he obviously took them to convey something utterly different from what I did.
Which is why I am asserting that freezing the canonical story elements (eg no new classes in DL ever, no matter what supplements TSR/WotC publishes) will not get rid of I'm A Banana's problem, of inconsistent preconceptions when players come to the gaming table. And that, in turn, is why I don't think that I'm A Banana has identified a cost that result from changing those canonical elements.
For instance, to point to [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]'s drider example: it may be true that, for a given person, the meaning of fighting a Lolth-cursed drow is different from the meaning of fighting a Lolth-blessed one. But for two differeent players the meaing of fighing a Lolth-cursed drow might also be different. And it may be that, given other assumptions/presuppositions, the meaning for player A of fighting Lolth-cursed drow is the same as the meaning for player B of fighting Lolth-blessed drow.
Hence why I am saying that you can't resolve these interpretive clashes by freezing the words you write in your stories.
But within the context of this thread, and to set out my response to your post - if you take hope and providence out of LotR, then you can't find out what would happen. Because those are the most important "causal mecahnism" in Middle Earth.
Likewise (though with appropriate substitusions of values and literary purposes) for REH's Hyborian Age. It's not as if REH is running a simulation to see whether civilsation or barbarism is a truer expression of human virtue. He is making a point, and the world is set up to illustrate that point.
That's not to say that to play a "true" Hyborian Age game one would have to play a literal barbarian. One might play an urban character - but that character would have to be prepared to embrace the values that REH regards as expressive of the superiority of barbarism to civiliation: forthrightness over subtlety; masculinity over effeteness; nature over artifice; and, ultimately, a willingness to use vioence over the fear of death.
I mean, if you wanted to you could pull out the maps of REH's world and run a game in which grain traders count the drachmas in their purses and the bushels in their silos, and most of the action of play is calculating shipping costs and timetables. You might even use ancient magic of Acheron to make your ships faster (eg by crewing them with zombies). But I personally don't see how that would in any meaningful sense be a Hyborian Age game. It has nothing at all to do with the world written about and presented by REH!
You, or someone like you, could read nothing but DL Adventures (published 1987) and come up with your character idea - a gnome whose Lifequest involves magic rather than technology, and whose goal is to dethrone the gods, or at least free mortals from their yoke, because that seems the fittest response to what they did in creating the gnomes and in inflicting the Cataclysm. The only canon change I can see is that you are a wild mage - which is mostly a rules change retconned back into the setting - but that does not seem to be the cause of the disagreement between you and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]. The same issue could have come up with a gnome illusionist in 1987, who is also barely a canonical DL character. (The DL Adventures book has a slighly confusing sidebar dealing with the idea of "mad gnomes", which - lilke Heathen Clerics from other dimensions - seems to be primarily although not exclusively a device for allowing non-tinker gnomes from other campaigns/settings into a DL game.)
The issue - as far as I can see - is that you are departing from what (as best I can tell) Hussar is taking to be the moral/thematic premise of the setting (and me likewise) - by presenting the repudiation of the gods as a protagonistic rather than antagonistic oriention towards the setting . And you are taking this non-canonical orientation using also a non-standard vehicle - namely, a gnome who is not a tecnologically-oriented tinker gnome.
At the end of this post, I guess my question is - of the elements of your character, which one do you think is canonical, but only in light of later canon? Not gnomes, with their crazed ways and Lifequests. Not Reorx. Not Reorx creating the gnomes as a punishment. Not the Greystone. Not the Catalcysm. Not the fact that some mortals doubt/reject the gods.
The non-canonical bits, in terms of "classic" (1980s) DL, are (i) that a hero of the setting would be opposed to the gods, and (ii) that a gnome's Lifequest would be focused on magic rather than technology. Are these the things you are saying come from later canon? For the sake of utmost clarity, these are thing things that I have been assuming come from you, as your interpretive response to the canonical material you'ver read which seems to me to be basically no different from 1987.
See above. LotR has characters who revere Sauron - but would a game in which such characters are framed as the heroes and protagonists be canonical? It doesn't seem to me that it would.
Correct. And as far as I can tell this is what is causing I'm A Banana's character to provoke an unexpected and undesired response in Hussar.
The same thing is going on when [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] tells me and [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] that it is perfectly canonical to play a Middle Earth game in which people of South Gondor take revenge against Minas Tirith for those Gondorian soldiers raping and pillaging. I'm sure that Maxperson read the same words that I did, but he obviously took them to convey something utterly different from what I did.
Which is why I am asserting that freezing the canonical story elements (eg no new classes in DL ever, no matter what supplements TSR/WotC publishes) will not get rid of I'm A Banana's problem, of inconsistent preconceptions when players come to the gaming table. And that, in turn, is why I don't think that I'm A Banana has identified a cost that result from changing those canonical elements.
For instance, to point to [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]'s drider example: it may be true that, for a given person, the meaning of fighting a Lolth-cursed drow is different from the meaning of fighting a Lolth-blessed one. But for two differeent players the meaing of fighing a Lolth-cursed drow might also be different. And it may be that, given other assumptions/presuppositions, the meaning for player A of fighting Lolth-cursed drow is the same as the meaning for player B of fighting Lolth-blessed drow.
Hence why I am saying that you can't resolve these interpretive clashes by freezing the words you write in your stories.
I am going to start another thread that tackles this issue in a more general context - is the main aim of RPGing exploration (in a suitably full and rich sense of that word).
But within the context of this thread, and to set out my response to your post - if you take hope and providence out of LotR, then you can't find out what would happen. Because those are the most important "causal mecahnism" in Middle Earth.
Likewise (though with appropriate substitusions of values and literary purposes) for REH's Hyborian Age. It's not as if REH is running a simulation to see whether civilsation or barbarism is a truer expression of human virtue. He is making a point, and the world is set up to illustrate that point.
That's not to say that to play a "true" Hyborian Age game one would have to play a literal barbarian. One might play an urban character - but that character would have to be prepared to embrace the values that REH regards as expressive of the superiority of barbarism to civiliation: forthrightness over subtlety; masculinity over effeteness; nature over artifice; and, ultimately, a willingness to use vioence over the fear of death.
I mean, if you wanted to you could pull out the maps of REH's world and run a game in which grain traders count the drachmas in their purses and the bushels in their silos, and most of the action of play is calculating shipping costs and timetables. You might even use ancient magic of Acheron to make your ships faster (eg by crewing them with zombies). But I personally don't see how that would in any meaningful sense be a Hyborian Age game. It has nothing at all to do with the world written about and presented by REH!
On this, I agree with [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION].
And I think [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]'s gnome PC illustrates the point. Or [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s example of rebels against Gondorian pillagers.
If the setting is defined simply by its component elements, of the sort you'd find in an atlas or chronicle - here is Minas Tirith, in such-and-such a year this area fell to the Haradrim, etc - then adding something new (say, this Gondorian army fighting the Haradrim is full of pillagers) will be regarded as permissible provided it doesn't expressly contradict any existing element.
If the setting is taken to be defined also by what is absent from it, or what is implied by its component elements, though, then things get much more complex. Because introducing something new might disturb those absences or implications. For instance, REH's Hyborian Age is defined, in part, by an absence of a capable ruler who is not willing and able to hold a throne through personally wielding force. (In that sense it really is the precedent for "name level" PCs in classic D&D). Introducing a flourishing parliamentary democracy into one of the (hitherto) under-described lands of the Hyborian Age wouldn't just be a neutral addition. It would be a change, because an overriding of a significant absence, and hence also contradicting an implication of the setting - namely, about the importance of a willingness to use violence.
And once we really start to look at elements other than simply those set out in maps and chronicles, it gets even more complex. For instance, as JRRT presents Middle Earth it is defined by the consequences of various falls from grace (by the Noldor, by the Numernoreans, by the Gondorians, and by individuals of these and other peoples eg Saruman) or failure to ever attain grace (the non-Edain, the Avari, etc). Nothing in the maps and chronicles tells you that it would contradict the setting to have a group of Variags living a flourishing family life that is a valuable instance of human flourishing; or a happy, flourishing Black Numenorean township; etc. But as soon as you introduce instances that make flourishing independent of grace and providence, you've completely undone the moral logic of the setting. It's not Middle Earth anymore, at least as presented by JRRT.
I would add: recognising this sort of feature of JRRT's or REH's world doesn't depend upon enjoying or celebrating it. Moorcock clearly recognises the centrality of a moral theme to Middle Earth: he just thinks that its untenably timid and sentimental.
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
I'm not sure whether I'd view the themes presented in some of the fiction set in a particular setting as a requirement for whether something is "canon" or not.
I'm thinking much of this discussion is just going to boil down to semantics: what people's personal definition of what the word "canon" means.
For example would a civilised knight who prefers to parlay before fighting, meticulously washes and primps himself every morning, and isn't adverse to throwing the odd insult when speaking be a suitable PC for a Hyborian age game? He would certainly fit into the setting: it is a common stereotype almost in the fiction. But would he be 'canon'?
Would a game where merchants and farmers grimly defend their town against ravening barbarians be canon Hyborian age if it cleaves to the places, events and peoples of the setting?
Neither of those examples is extolling the virtues of the agenda that the author of the books was pushing however. Does that make them non-canon?
I can certainly see a distinction. A light-hearted game of the kick-in-the-door exploits of Murderhobos inc. could be set in Ravenloft, and be canon Ravenloft. But it wouldn't be what many people would associate with the phrase "A Ravenloft game."
I'm thinking much of this discussion is just going to boil down to semantics: what people's personal definition of what the word "canon" means.
For example would a civilised knight who prefers to parlay before fighting, meticulously washes and primps himself every morning, and isn't adverse to throwing the odd insult when speaking be a suitable PC for a Hyborian age game? He would certainly fit into the setting: it is a common stereotype almost in the fiction. But would he be 'canon'?
Would a game where merchants and farmers grimly defend their town against ravening barbarians be canon Hyborian age if it cleaves to the places, events and peoples of the setting?
Neither of those examples is extolling the virtues of the agenda that the author of the books was pushing however. Does that make them non-canon?
I can certainly see a distinction. A light-hearted game of the kick-in-the-door exploits of Murderhobos inc. could be set in Ravenloft, and be canon Ravenloft. But it wouldn't be what many people would associate with the phrase "A Ravenloft game."
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
pemerton said:
From what I can gather about pre-3e DL, (ii) is coming from new gnome lore. Also, the very concept of wild sorcery comes from new DL lore. And it's wild sorcery + gnome that turns into "gnome wild mage." Without those elements, you don't have a gnome wild mage who obsesses about Chaos and wants to dream big about free will - these emerge from his identity both as a DL wild sorcerer and a DL gnome. That leads to a different class or race and perhaps a different background and origin. A gnome who took an Artificer class, for instance, wouldn't have much cause to differ from his Lawful kin and wouldn't be concerned much with the fabric of reality, and so might have the Guild Artisan background instead and feel no differently about the gods than most gnomes. Or maybe in looking for unique DL archetypes I'd pass over gnomes who were just tinkers (I mean, that may have been unique at the time, but it's hardly unique now), and I'd ping on moon mages and now we've got very devout wizards. That all changes how a character might feel about (i).
I also think the requirement for characters to want the return of the gods is not clear at all from the setting information, and some of the folks who know DL better than me are pointing out that it's not necessarily the case. So at the very least, the setting information is awful at producing that outcome. It's possible that you and Hussar are just dead wrong about what the intent of game play should be in DL - that it is more open and flexible than you suggest. I don't know what's right because I'm new to the setting, and the sources used to create my PC didn't really mention it. They did mention that most people weren't faithful, and that the original reason for this was that people turned from the gods because the gods slaughtered millions of innocent people in the Cataclysm, but it didn't indicate in the slightest that this was a bit of the setting that the PC's should want to change, or that the PC's should believe that the gods were right. If the intended result was PC's who wanted to restore the gods, we have a pretty catastrophic design failure.
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billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
Just because you're looking at the setting from the opposite direction doesn't make a treatment of it non-canonical. Does the history and lore match the extant source material? Then I'd say it's pretty much canonical even though it's approaching the campaign from a different in-character perspective.
Imaro
Legend
Is this (if one is being faithful to the canonical elements around setting, characters, history, campaign rules, etc...) possible though? Now granted this is assuming good faith on the part of the players and DM in wanting to play a Ravenloft game and I could totally see it if the DM asks if everyone wants to play a Ravenloft parody but it's hard for me to grasp this as a result of following the canonical elelments I listed. Could you give an example or more detail on how this might arise?
In the case of the "rebels against Gondor" scenario, you have to posit behavior from the Gondorian army that I don't think fits into the canon world in order to justify the attitude of the PCs. So in that sense, I still think it can be called non-canon.
I'm guessing quite a few "let's play the bad guys" games would similarly invent transgressions on the part of the "good guys." Not all; sometimes people just want to cut loose and be bad. But often enough.
I'm guessing quite a few "let's play the bad guys" games would similarly invent transgressions on the part of the "good guys." Not all; sometimes people just want to cut loose and be bad. But often enough.
You wanted to know who was being "forced" to use material and I wanted to know who would have to be.
I can not think of a TSR product where that was the case.
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