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Are D&D Ravnica and MtG Ravnica the same?
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 7519053" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>There's a difference between a baseline fiction and "canon" (at least as how I think many of us are using the term.)</p><p></p><p>Yes, WotC has a baseline fiction of the Forgotten Realms and Ravnica and Greyhawk and Eberron and Dominaria etc. etc. Of course the do, they write fiction about these places all the time. And at one point for the Forgotten Realms especially, they <em>were</em> concerned with the "canon"-- IE the actual historical timeline of the world, with every single event in every single location from every single piece of media they produced-- dictated and inscribed down on stone tablets for all eternity. If something was to occur in a flashback in some obscure Forgotten Realms novel by some obscure Forgotten Realms author, that info had to go through the channels at WotC to make sure it could "fit" into the spaces hopefully left open so that this obscure flashback scene didn't go against previously established fiction. Because for a time... the "canon" of the Forgotten Realms was important to them. Every single piece had to fit together to create this huge tapestry of Faerunian stories.</p><p></p><p>But that resulted in the ultimate irony of all of this focus on Forgotten Realms "canon". The people for whom this "canon" was to service-- the Forgotten Realms D&D playerbase-- never actually had THEIR events as part of it. Whatever happened in any individual campaign was never woven into the "canon" of the Forgotten Realms. Every single D&D campaign set in the Realms was some divergent universe that meant <em>literally nothing</em> in the Grant Scheme of Things.</p><p></p><p>So what then was the point? What was the point of focusing so much on "canon" when all the people for whom the "canon" was meant to serve never actually gained anything from its focus? ALL the "canon" did was give a particular DM a snapshot of where the Realms were at <em>at the time their individual campaign started</em>. After that... once the DM and their players started playing... the "canon" was useless (other than just as a font of potential adventure ideas the DM could pull from).</p><p></p><p>Which is why I believe WotC finally came to the conclusion that worrying about the "canon" was entirely missing the point. Having a running tally of every single Forgotten Realms event serves no useful purpose for the people for whom the Realms are meant to serve-- the playerbase. Because once you start a campaign, anything else that WotC writes is not technically or necessarily the new "canon" of a particular DM's campaign.</p><p></p><p>So instead, they changed their focus-- they now are merely creating stories for players to use in their games. That's it. And it doesn't matter if a particular piece of fiction in the story matches or doesn't match previously established history. Now if it CAN, then great! Perkins, Sernett and all the others all seem to really enjoy the history and characters of the Realms and I'm sure enjoy greatly the opportunity to pull characters, ideas, and scenarios out of previously established material and use them to weave their stories together.</p><p></p><p>But they aren't <em>beholden</em> to it. And if it turns out (making up an example) they decide they want to use Artus Cimber in Tomb of Annihilation but there's some comic book that established Cimber was trapped in some other location "for years" and thus <em>canonically</em> he wouldn't be "available" to be used in this adventure story they were writing... they'd have no problem whatsoever "breaking canon" to use him anyway. And in fact probably not even waste their time trying to write a "retcon" of it in order to placate the small select few that need the canon of the FR all tied up in bow.</p><p></p><p>And thus... this is why I've never believed we were going to see a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 5E. Because unless what stories they are writing are going to serve the playerbase-- probably in the form of an adventure-- writing just "stuff" of what has happened in every single corner of the Realms is now a pointless endeavor. They use their time more wisely now... giving the majority of the playerbase something to actually use for their own games, because THAT is what is now important.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 7519053, member: 7006"] There's a difference between a baseline fiction and "canon" (at least as how I think many of us are using the term.) Yes, WotC has a baseline fiction of the Forgotten Realms and Ravnica and Greyhawk and Eberron and Dominaria etc. etc. Of course the do, they write fiction about these places all the time. And at one point for the Forgotten Realms especially, they [I]were[/I] concerned with the "canon"-- IE the actual historical timeline of the world, with every single event in every single location from every single piece of media they produced-- dictated and inscribed down on stone tablets for all eternity. If something was to occur in a flashback in some obscure Forgotten Realms novel by some obscure Forgotten Realms author, that info had to go through the channels at WotC to make sure it could "fit" into the spaces hopefully left open so that this obscure flashback scene didn't go against previously established fiction. Because for a time... the "canon" of the Forgotten Realms was important to them. Every single piece had to fit together to create this huge tapestry of Faerunian stories. But that resulted in the ultimate irony of all of this focus on Forgotten Realms "canon". The people for whom this "canon" was to service-- the Forgotten Realms D&D playerbase-- never actually had THEIR events as part of it. Whatever happened in any individual campaign was never woven into the "canon" of the Forgotten Realms. Every single D&D campaign set in the Realms was some divergent universe that meant [I]literally nothing[/I] in the Grant Scheme of Things. So what then was the point? What was the point of focusing so much on "canon" when all the people for whom the "canon" was meant to serve never actually gained anything from its focus? ALL the "canon" did was give a particular DM a snapshot of where the Realms were at [I]at the time their individual campaign started[/I]. After that... once the DM and their players started playing... the "canon" was useless (other than just as a font of potential adventure ideas the DM could pull from). Which is why I believe WotC finally came to the conclusion that worrying about the "canon" was entirely missing the point. Having a running tally of every single Forgotten Realms event serves no useful purpose for the people for whom the Realms are meant to serve-- the playerbase. Because once you start a campaign, anything else that WotC writes is not technically or necessarily the new "canon" of a particular DM's campaign. So instead, they changed their focus-- they now are merely creating stories for players to use in their games. That's it. And it doesn't matter if a particular piece of fiction in the story matches or doesn't match previously established history. Now if it CAN, then great! Perkins, Sernett and all the others all seem to really enjoy the history and characters of the Realms and I'm sure enjoy greatly the opportunity to pull characters, ideas, and scenarios out of previously established material and use them to weave their stories together. But they aren't [I]beholden[/I] to it. And if it turns out (making up an example) they decide they want to use Artus Cimber in Tomb of Annihilation but there's some comic book that established Cimber was trapped in some other location "for years" and thus [I]canonically[/I] he wouldn't be "available" to be used in this adventure story they were writing... they'd have no problem whatsoever "breaking canon" to use him anyway. And in fact probably not even waste their time trying to write a "retcon" of it in order to placate the small select few that need the canon of the FR all tied up in bow. And thus... this is why I've never believed we were going to see a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 5E. Because unless what stories they are writing are going to serve the playerbase-- probably in the form of an adventure-- writing just "stuff" of what has happened in every single corner of the Realms is now a pointless endeavor. They use their time more wisely now... giving the majority of the playerbase something to actually use for their own games, because THAT is what is now important. [/QUOTE]
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