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

[TwoSix]

Because you don't have to obliterate that old story, to do so anyway can seem at the very least like pointless change for the sake of change. Even spiteful if you're feeling especially wronged by it - like they went out of their way to destroy a perfectly good story just because they only want people to use the new one (like, if they described these new trolls as DRINKING AND SWIMMING IN ACID, because they love it so much!). Or like the 2027 designers just don't want you playing this new game, since they're not interested in supporting the stories you want to tell with it anymore. Why even bother to get invested in the game, if it doesn't want to support what you want to do with it?

I see where you're going there, but doesn't that lead to the conclusion that ANY codification of lore in a RPG is problematic, since it will inevitably not support some people's vision of the stories they want from the game?

I mean, if fire/acid resistant trolls allow you to tell a certain set of stories, and cold resistant trolls allow you tell a related but distinct set of stories, then the exclusion of either is problematic, right? Because certain stories are being negated in either case. To assert that the fire/acid resistant trolls are more important to maintain, you're asserting that already created material has an intrinsic value over new material. So then the crux of the issue is, how do we define that value?

It's odd because I'd prefer to keep trolls the way they are, but I'm not sure what my motivation is for why I would prefer that. There's some emotional value to maintaining consistency in fantasy concepts, even if I can't identify any actual utility.

 

[Remathilis]

GDQ specifically leaves it to the DM whether Lolth is a demon or a goddess. Note that since Lolth was a demon first, that's a direct contradiction.

She was a demon who convinced the drow to follow her and by being worshiped, became a goddess. See also: Yeengholu, Baphomet, Orcus, and Asmodeus.

Addition, not contradiction.

 

[Remathilis]

I thought you hated 4e for trying to do exactly this!

Its complicated.

I actually like Nerath as a setting. The setting itself is evocative, and the PoL is a unique take. What I didn't like was:

1.) The need to reinvent the lore for monsters and races to make them fit Nerath. Discussed to death, but there is no reason in why the old giant story (and original six giants) couldn't have been used in Nerath rather than "all giants are degenerate titans, which are all EVILLLL".

{EDIT AFTERTHOUGHT} Its not that the changes themselves were bad; I mean settings like DL, Eberron, or Dark Sun have flipped D&D expectations on their ear for decades now. Its that these flips were not as variants to the core D&D lore but to replace them, and by extension required retroactive changes to the other settings produced by WotC (Realms got it the worst, but Eberron didn't go unscathed either).

Imagine, for a minute, Eberron became the 6e "default" setting and drow no longer live in the underdark and worship spiders but dwell in giant ruins and worship scorpions. Or that halflings are default dinosaur-riding nomads and elves worship their undead ancestors as the Core Rule versions of these things. Furthermore, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and other setting HAD to take these changes into account, making kender dino-riders, Drizzt come from Chult, and the elves in Celene all worship undead. That is how disruptive Nerath was.

2.) It felt the need to shoe-horn things not needed into it to fit the "if it exists in D&D, its in Nerath" paradigm. For example, the first Dragon Magazine after 4e came out had an article on warforged. Now, in 2008 WotC KNEW Eberron was going to go down the pipe next year. Hell, they hadn't even finished getting the 3e PHB races and classes covered, but the first thing they did was take warforged and made a place in Nerath for them, and that really cheapened their unique place in Eberron. They did that again and again; retconning Strahd into a Nerath prince, Vistani losing their connection to Ravenloft/the Mists and becoming just pseudo-gypsies, draconians losing their place from DL and becoming yet-another-generic baddie. Each time, it watered down their unique role in there home setting. WotC KNEW they were going for a setting a year, why not wait to do these things properly?

So my problem wasn't that Nerath was the default setting (or that there was one) but that WotC did it in the most hamfisted way possible.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, 3E had CR 20 kobolds.

And a fireball is canoncially 6d6 (eg that's it's size from an AD&D wand of fireballs or fireball spell on a scroll). And in classic D&D it can raise to 24d6 (and does 20d6 from a death knight). 8d6 is a 5e change.

This is why I have a lot of trouble identifying the criteria some posters use for what counts as continuity vs what counts as change.

If lore should be multiple choice and prone to unreliable narrator, why not the rules as well?

 

[I'm A Banana]

It seems to me that this reasoning - which it seems fair to call ultra-conservative vis a vis changes to the system - applies to everything. Letting dwarves be wizards (hello, 3E and onwards) "invalidates" stories that turn upon dwarves not being able to cast magic-user spells. Letting humans multi-class (hello, 3E again, though AD&D Lankhamar also allowed this) invalidates stories that turn upon humans having to be either single- or dual-classed.

It's certainly not very specific to "lore" or to setting canon. And the idea that the 4e changes to storm giants, eladrin and archons were more significant in this sort of fashion than the 3E changes - which basically rewrote the rules on class/race combos, racial stats (now half-orcs have no 14 WIS limit, so you can't tell a half-orc is magically enhanced simply from his/her 16 WIS), humanoid stats (as I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has already pointed out), etc - is hard for me to credit.

I wouldn't disagree with that take. Part of the "gnome wild mage" problem from what I can tell was that wild sorcerers weren't a thing when Dragonlance made the "all wizards are either part of this one society or are hunted down as renegades by that society" narrative. If gnomes can be wild sorcerers, that impacts that narrative.

And I'd agree that any 4e change, in isolation, isn't more significant than any 3e change. I might say that, arguably, the 4e changes in aggregate were more extensive than the 3e changes in aggregate, but I can certainly see how reasonable people might argue either way, and a lot of that is left to subjectivity (if dwarves not being wizards was SUPER IMPORTANT to you, but high elves being a mortal race from the material world is not, the 3e changes might certainly seem bigger!).

Which is why I don't think, for most critics of lore changes (4e or otherwise), the sort of reason you describe is what is motivating them. I think they're motivated by some other consideration which is not affronted by letting dwarves be wizards, but is affronted by mucking about with planar details and eladrin. It's not a communicative/epistemic consideration, though, for the reasons I've just given - if you're worried about confusion in world-building and adventure plots, it doesn't get more confusing than pre- versus post-3E.

I think for those folks for whom 4e changes were more disruptive than 3e changes, they are going to dislike 4e's changes more. Which changes you like and which you don't like are pretty subjective, and the more things you change, the more disruptions that's going to cause. I don't think we'd disagree that 4e changed a lot of things - each one is a risk.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I see where you're going there, but doesn't that lead to the conclusion that ANY codification of lore in a RPG is problematic, since it will inevitably not support some people's vision of the stories they want from the game?

I don't think it necessarily leads to that conclusion. When one picks up a fantasy book, it's reasonable to think that it defines its fantastic creatures on its own terms. I don't expect LotR orcs to be quite the same as WoW orcs or D&D orcs.

But, I expect LotR orcs to be largely the same in 2017 as they were in 1987. I expect WoW orcs to be largely the same in 2017 as they were in 1997. I expect D&D orcs to be largely the same in 2027 as they were in 2017.

I mean, if fire/acid resistant trolls allow you to tell a certain set of stories, and cold resistant trolls allow you tell a related but distinct set of stories, then the exclusion of either is problematic, right? Because certain stories are being negated in either case. To assert that the fire/acid resistant trolls are more important to maintain, you're asserting that already created material has an intrinsic value over new material. So then the crux of the issue is, how do we define that value?

It's odd because I'd prefer to keep trolls the way they are, but I'm not sure what my motivation is for why I would prefer that. There's some emotional value to maintaining consistency in fantasy concepts, even if I can't identify any actual utility.

I guess I think of it in terms of demonstrated value and potential value. New cold resistant trolls have potential value. Current fire-hating trolls have a demonstrated value. It's cool to add potential value to the game, but I wouldn't want it to be at the cost of the current demonstrated value.

 

[Shasarak]

It would make it clearer to new players what a troll is. If one thinks that is an important thing.

Why do you think it's important to stick to the Poul Anderson troll? Or to put it another way: why is it better than new players have to learn what a troll is in D&D (and what a basilisk is, and how that differs from a cockatrice; and what a medusa is, and how that differs from a gorgon; and what a hill giant is, and how that differs from a stone giant; etc)?

You clearly think that this stuff is important. I don't think you think it's important because of any help or familiarity it provides to new players. I think you have some non-instrumental reason for thinking it is important. I'm wondering what that reason is? Eg do you think that D&D lore, as a consistent body of lore, is good in itself (eg as a work of art)?

Of course I think that DnD lore is good - why else would I feel the need to be on a DnD forum discussing the goodness of DnD lore?

And, as a rule, DnD lore is not nearly as consistent as you may expect. There have even been many instances within this very thread where people have had personal DnD lore that is actually different from "real" DnD lore. So I can understand when someone gets the chance to push their own personal DnD lore onto everyone else then they would jump at the opportunity. But I do not see that I should be expected to sit back and passively lap up all the "brilliant" ideas that some work for hire writer has come up with.

I mean a perfect example is using the "Billy Goat Gruff" Trolls. There is no good reason for using this "brilliant" idea other then adding yet another Troll to the vast Monster Manual of Trolls. But hey what do I know, maybe it will be the new Gnoll that everyone loves.

 

[Saint_Ridley]

Rapidly reading the thread from the beginning, but had to say something upon coming across my favorite books being mentioned.

For another example, the 3.5e book Lords of Madness, gives an entirely new origin for Mind Flayers, completely contradicting the 2e book Monstrous Arcana: The Illithiad in numerous ways. And at the same time created a contradiction that didn't mesh with the origin of the two Gith races.
What that tells me is that someone either didn't do their homework, or thought their ideas were so cool they didn't have to try​ to reconcile them with what came before.

And a lot of people thought the LoM version was a lot cooler.

That's the thing about "canon." If you're too slavishly devoted to it--and I mean this from the perspective of a writer/content producer, not just a gamer/reader--then you miss out on opportunities. Sometimes, a later idea is better than one that's already been accepted.

(And yes, "better" is subjective. But that doesn't automatically make it arrogant to think your new idea is better than a preexisting one, especially if everyone else on the project/in the company agrees, as does much of the fanbase.)

Now, if you're dealing with something that is mostly a set of stories--a novel series, a series of movies, an ongoing TV show--having an idea you think is better isn't enough. Canon's a lot more important to such things.

But D&D? Is a series of pick-and-choose ideas for you to build your own games first, and a platform for prewritten stories second. So no, I don't have a problem at all with things like the conflict between the Illithiad and LoM.

Canon can be cool, canon can be helpful, but canon can also be stifling.

For me, what Lords of Madness did wasn't contradict the Illithiad, but throw a curveball in terms of understanding what the earlier book had presented. The writers of LoM were very careful, I found, not to contradict the Illithiad, but to present a wildly different reading. What the Illithiad put forth as face value facts were not entirely meant to be taken at face value according to LoM. The move was a good one, in my opinion. It respected the original material by opening up its ambiguities in an unexpected direction, and offers enough room for DMs to decide what is true and what is myth for their game (while staking a truth and myth for D&D itself going forward). The Gith stuff doesn't necessarily contradict too much - time travel is weird and the Illithids and Gith could well have been dumped out at differing points in the timeline or what have you (MM5 gives us the Thoon Mind Flayers, opening Far Realm shenanigans as an option as well). My personal solution is that the Gith revolt happened in the future, and started rocking the Flayer empire, but it still took thousands of years to reach the point of collapse (allowing for the split and a great many of the Lich Queens to reign in the future). The Gith races pursued the Flayers into the past and jealously guard the secret of their own time travel. Nothing incredibly fundamental is irreconcilably broken by the lore from LoM, I believe. Currently I'm running a game where one of the major plot points is figuring out the nature of the Sargonne Prophecies - it's been a blast working convoluted and apparently self-contradicting lore into the game to keep the players on their toes.

Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with what someone said very early on that canon is a useful concept for those writing the source material and much less useful in the practice of running a game. But I think this example benefits from some closer reading rather than dwelling on apparent inconsistency.

Incidentally, Lords of Madness's idea makes the Illithid heritage feats remotely palatable, as it means you're a progenitor rather than a descendant.
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - Lords of Madness does mention the blotting out the sun thing. Just so you know.

 

[Jester David]

It would make it clearer to new players what a troll is. If one thinks that is an important thing.

Why do you think it's important to stick to the Poul Anderson troll? Or to put it another way: why is it better than new players have to learn what a troll is in D&D (and what a basilisk is, and how that differs from a cockatrice; and what a medusa is, and how that differs from a gorgon; and what a hill giant is, and how that differs from a stone giant; etc)?

You clearly think that this stuff is important. I don't think you think it's important because of any help or familiarity it provides to new players. I think you have some non-instrumental reason for thinking it is important. I'm wondering what that reason is? Eg do you think that D&D lore, as a consistent body of lore, is good in itself (eg as a work of art)?

Gnomes are one foot tall, live in gardens, and wear pointy hats? And their King is a terrible villain.
Elves are interchangeable with pixies.
Dragons are dumb beasts whose forearms become wings and only breath fire.
Dwarves turn to stone when exposed to sunlight.
Golems are only made of clay.
Vampires are savage beasts.

There's a LOT of myth out there. Much of it is contradictory. The trolls of TrollHunter are very different than troll dolls and trolls of Germanic myth.
The whole damn point of continuity is so you don't need to explain what a "troll" is every single time one appears. Each new module doesn't need to devote space to the basic monsters. A random encounter can just say "a troll appears" and everyone knows what it means.

If the lore is reinvented, it's just as easy to switch to a brand new game as it is to convert. If both the new edition of D&D and Tunnels & Trolls have the same amount of commonality wth the old edition of D&D, nothing is gained by sticking with D&D.

We've been over this before. D&D isn't the rules. The rules have changed and include things like Star Wars and GammaWorld. D&D isn't the publisher or the authors, both of those have changed as well. D&D isn't games with the "D&D logo" and name because that includes the board game, video games, and some terrible movies
What connects D&D, what makes D&D into D&D is the stories and the lore. Because that's unique. Anyone can make a fantasy RPG. Heck, anyone can make a fantasy RPG with the d20 rules that includes owlbears. It's the unique bits of the story of D&D intersecting with the rules that make the tabletop game into D&D.

If you don't like the lore of D&D, then change it for your home game. That's allowed. But nothing is gained by abandoning continuity.

 

[pemerton]

Lords of Madness does mention the blotting out the sun thing. Just so you know.

Thanks - I've never read LoM.