Forgotten Realms "Canon Lawyers"

[Hunter In Darkness]

Heh...I guess someone has to stick up for the canon lawyers...

If you're going to say "I run the Forgotten Realms" and pretty much change stuff around, why not at the outset simply say "This is a homebrew that I took elements from FR" or take the 4e approach "This is a FR over X years into the future, everything is the same but different"

This way the canon lawyers don't necessarily feel like the DM is against them but also they can get more enjoyment as they notice the differences and hell you can even incorporate it into the story

"Wait, there used to a small village of halflings by this lake. There's now an entire forst infested with formorians? What the hell happened to the hallflings...I got to find out"

- adventure seed that both the canon and DM get to enjoy

well I am a canon guy. However when I run a game if I say there is no door hidden being the old well at the halfway inn...there is no door there. If I can't change stuff I might as well be playing a video game.

 

[Umbran]

While I am sure that canon lawyers are a difficulty for some DMs, I am not at all sure that's the reason for the reboot.

Someone correct me if they can find a direct quote, for I can't seem to find it...

But the point was not to save DMs from their canon lawyers. The point was to make it so WotC writers don't have to work under the burden of decades of canon. That sort of load stifles creativity, you know.

If WotC did not reboot, the customers would have every reason to expect that the new and old material would fit together seamlessly. If the new stuff didn't match the old, WotC would take a lot of flack, and rightfully so. But really, folks, good writing and design is hard enough without having to match decades worth of stuff you didn't yourself create.

So, WotC took a sane course - reboot. Yes, they take some flack and disappoint some folks, but their writers get to move forward unfettered by unrealistic expectations.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

While I am sure that canon lawyers are a difficulty for some DMs, I am not at all sure that's the reason for the reboot.

Someone correct me if they can find a direct quote, for I can't seem to find it...

But the point was not to save DMs from their canon lawyers. The point was to make it so WotC writers don't have to work under the burden of decades of canon. That sort of load stifles creativity, you know.

If WotC did not reboot, the customers would have every reason to expect that the new and old material would fit together seamlessly. If the new stuff didn't match the old, WotC would take a lot of flack, and rightfully so. But really, folks, good writing and design is hard enough without having to match decades worth of stuff you didn't yourself create.

So, WotC took a sane course - reboot. Yes, they take some flack and disappoint some folks, but their writers get to move forward unfettered by unrealistic expectations.

On the same vein though, WotC has so far avoided releasing reams of continuity porn like they did in previous editions.

 

[kitsune9]

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. They are notorious for makin an issue out of when something comes up in a game that contradicts something they know about the setting, especially something that most players would consider a minor detail.

I've heard a lot of theories/explanations that this was one of the big reasons for the gutting/nuking of the Realms for 4e, that these "canon lawyers" were making life miserable on DM's that couldn't keep up with the vast lore of the Forgotten Realms (that frankly, nobody except maybe somebody who was paid to do so by WotC could be expected to completely keep up with), so they jumped the timeline ahead 100+ years, killed off or drove mads loads of people and slaughtered a good number of deities all as a giant reset switch to invalidate tons of canon so DMs could run Forgotten Realms canonically without worrying about what was written before.

The thing is, I always hear these "canon lawyer" horror stories online but I never ran across them in real life. When I run Forgotten Realms the players I run with generally know the Realms from playing Baldur's Gate or following some of the novels (particularly the Elminster or Drizzt ones), or they are also a casual fan and have read some of the gaming materials, especially those about a part of the setting they prefer (one of my friends likes Netheril, for example, and knows that decently well, but he couldn't rattle off dates and obscure minutiae). 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.

I've ran into them in message boards, like when I once said something about the Forgotten Realms that is contradicted by some obscure public e-mail Ed Greenwood from years ago that was dutifully archived, and I've heard some horror stories about them here, but I do really wonder, just how common are they in typical Forgotten Realms D&D play?

I've never met one of these guys. I've read lots and lots of FR books and really loved the setting, but had no problem with someone running FR and hammered out a campaign to their own tastes. Did they break lots of canon, of course, but the mods were fun and it didn't bother me. One of the "broken canon" games was playing a bunch of clones of Elminster, Drizzt, Fzoul, and a couple of other famous names and through an accidental explosion at the magical lab where we were created, we escaped. We had to forge our own memories, classes, and identities and it was a total blast.

 

[ggroy]

On the same vein though, WotC has so far avoided releasing reams of continuity porn like they did in previous editions.

By "continuity porn", are your referring to all those 3E/3.5E D&D splatbooks published for Forgotten Realms and Eberron?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

By "continuity porn", are your referring to all those 3E/3.5E D&D splatbooks published for Forgotten Realms and Eberron?

The novels themselves would be the other half of "continuity porn"

 

[MichaelSomething]

continuity porn as defined by TVTropes.

 

[ggroy]

The novels themselves would be the other half of "continuity porn"

I remember the days when the 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms grey box setting was first released. I didn't have the grey box at the time, but I played briefly in a friend's 1E AD&D game which used it as a setting. Back then, there were not many Forgotten Realms novels published yet. It was actually very nice to be playing in a new setting with very little legacy baggage.

One reason I really like Paizo/Pathfinder's Golarion setting at the present time, is that it is relatively new and fresh. It reminds me a lot of the days when the Forgotten Realms setting was first released.

In most likelikhood, I may very well end up changing my mind about Golarion if Paizo ever starts releasing novels written in the Golarion setting. With a line of regular Golarion novels being published, it may very well end up suffering the same fate that Forgotten Realms fell into over the last two decades. This same fate may also happen anyways, with more and more Pathfinder adventure paths and modules being published which end up being perceived as official Golarion canon.

This neverending problem of more and more canon, while producing "setting lawyers" in the process, can easily turn off somebody from a setting altogether.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

continuity porn as defined by TVTropes.

Earlier editions' Forgotten Realms was particularly guilty of Pandering to the Base as defined by TVTropes.

 

[Nymrohd]

The thing is, WotC has access to at least a dozen writers who are experts in anything FR. They wrote the best 3.5 FR books and novels after all. I don't think they would have had any issue keeping up with the Realms canon. And the main issue I have with the timeleap is the dozens of very interesting storylines that were simply sundered. And they were not the stupid railroady NPC storylines either but rather the resurgence of several kingdoms, the resolution of many villain plots and all the adventure these promise.