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

Jester David said:

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.

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That pretty much sums it up for me as well.

I don't generally care about canon all that much. For me, as a DM, it's a tool to use like any other. I pick and choose what I like and what I want to use, and I freely change the rest to suit my needs.

As a fan or a reader, I expect a bit more attention to canon on the part of the creators, but at the same time I'm very forgiving of any changes or alternate takes. I think that having just a taste of that as a DM has opened my eyes to the incredible amount of baggage that most shared-world fiction has. I long ago stopped worrying about canon or continuity. I like if it's there, but if not, then so be it. Tell a good story, and I won't care.

I find that most calls to adhere to canon or continuity is to attempt to force a specific version of a character or setting that has become timeless. There's a sense of entitlement that comes into play when you see folks insisting that X rendition of the Realms or Spider-Man or what have you is better than another, or is the "true" or "right" version.

Maxperson said:

Good call. It was an invasion from another galaxy, not a civil war.

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It's a trap!!!!

Seriously, the Great Galactic War was apparently between Sith and Jedi and didn't involve the Yuuzhan Vong at all, according to the Star Wars wiki: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Galactic_War. I made a mistake deliberately in my example so that at least I would know what mistake I was making.

BookBarbarian said:

My games in the Forgotten Realms? Canon is not particularly important to me.

My upcoming Game of Adventures in Middle Earth? Canon is extremely important to me.

I guess it just depends on the setting.

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Right - it all depends on the origin of the Canon. Star Wars and LotR have very strong story settings that are very familiar to many people. Messing too much with stuff in there (Darth Vader didn't die, Obi Wan is Luke's father) will definitely cause people to chafe at the changes. But for D&D - many players will not have any clue about the history of FR so hewing closely to canon is just an interesting mental exercise and not going to affect most people's enjoyment of the game.

TBH once the current campaign is done I'm looking forward to going somewhere new (and with every adventure after that). Revisiting the same setting over and over seems like it could become stifling (as Mouseferatu succinctly put it) - I want me (and particularly my players) to have the joy of discovery and mystery that a new setting brings. Call it "new setting smell"

pemerton said:

I don't read D&D setting material, or MM lore, or whatever, to "learn about the D&D world" (whatever that is). As Mouseferatu says, I read it to find stuff to pick and choose from to build my game. So I want authors to give me their best work. If that means changing something, well that's fine - I'll sort that out. If I don't like what the author has written, it's no harder to ignore something they say about the past of the setting, or the geography of the setting, then it is to ignore something they say about the future of the setting, or the personality of a NPC.

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Personally I dont buy products to "sort it out" myself. Sure I can steal ideas from even terribad products but that still is no excuse for just blowing stuff up at random.

delericho said:

As far as I can see, what the comics should have done is taken a look at soap operas, which manage to have both an ongoing story without accumulating an impossible amount of lore - have characters come in, age and possibly die, move on, change roles (the student becomes the mentor), or whatever. But at any given time, they only ever have a manageable set of characters and plot threads going.

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Or they could have used the Simpsons model where everything (basically) resets back to the start again after what ever whacky adventure they had last week.

I use to do.
1) Homebrew with Selective Borrowing: You see the published material mostly as inspiration for creating your homebrew world. If you keep to a theme or a map or something you consider important, you consider your game to be a similar setting with stealing from all sorts of modules game. I also generally will add in various Dieties and demigods stuff.
If I were going to dm homebrew game I would do.
3) Canon with Selective Changes: You start with all of the assumptions of the published world (according to whatever materials you have available to you), and assume anything that doesn't come up during your campaign adheres to those assumptions unless otherwise stated. You make selective changes to parts of the world you feel should be changed to better fit your personal vision, including past timeline, NPCS, and other relatively minor elements
With the actions of PCs affecting the world. Oh noes the PCS killed Drizzit. Oh noes the Pcs killed Boss Hogg. Since the village of Hommlet and the Temple of Elemental Evil are locked in my campaign, no return to modules. Or if the return to module is super great I will move the location.
What is not canon regardless of which published map/world I am using is as follows.
Any novels.
Any Dragon magazine articles, splat books, etc which rewrite or give greater history of monsters which I have already written notes on or dislike the article. So no Lord of madness etc in my campaign. I nix Dragon Mag articles when a Player told me I was running a monster wrong because the new Dragon magazine said x. And my copy had not arrived in the mail yet.

I love me some Eberron. When I run an Eberron game I do use much of the canon and do try to maintain much of the structure that has been laid out. I'm not above changing smaller details, but for me Eberron's world is very rich and the dynamics of the various countries, power groups, and the history is very appealing.

Shasarak said:

Personally I dont buy products to "sort it out" myself. Sure I can steal ideas from even terribad products but that still is no excuse for just blowing stuff up at random.

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An author writing something they think is better than what came before isn't "blowing stuff up at random". It's giving me their best work.

Jester David said:

In one situation you chose to kill Nerof Gasgal. There was action involved. Unless your players are sociopaths, you put him in an adversarial role and a position where he could be killed. In the other instance, you had no choice. Someone else removed Gasgal.
And if you're running a game where Gasgal was a major NPC and player in your setting and you buy this supplement - which seems perfect for your game - and the Mayor is different, it throws you off.

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Like Shasarak's "blowing things up", there is no difference in these cases.

If Nerof Gasgal is dead in my game, and I buy a book in which he is alive, I have to disregard or change that.

If Nerof Gasgal is mayor in my game, and I buy a book in which he is not there, I have to disregard or change that.

Disregarding or changing doesn't become easier or harder simply because the disparity between my gameworld and the published material has one origin or another.

Jester David said:

Which is a change, but it isn't a retcon or a change of canon. It's a change of tone and theme. Which is an entirely different topic.

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Changing the tone and theme of a setting is, in my view, not entirely different to changing canon. They are both changes that have some impact on a person's engagement with, and use of, a setting. And changing the tone of the setting is (for me, at least) much more significant than changing some minor fact of geography or history.

Jester David said:

At the risk of being insultingly simplistic, there are two types of D&D fans: one who use it as a ruleset to run their own games, and ones who use the setting and world of D&D. Lore really is always for the second group.

<snip>

why have lore at all? Why not just have a series of suggestions and possible lore. Or leave it blank and give DMs the ultimate freedom?

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Answers to all this have been given upthread. It is work to draw maps, write histories, name NPCs, etc. Having someone else do that is a service worth paying for.

Not to mention that the people I am buying setting material from might do a better job than I would of drawing maps, writing histories, naming NPCs et.

As [MENTION=1288]Mouseferatu[/MENTION] said, this is the primary function of D&D setting material.

Jester David said:

there are those who enjoy continuity. Why like reading lore and connecting the puzzle pieces together. Discovering secrets. It's like trivia.
People who ignore continuity can do so if it's consistent or not, but people who enjoy it want it to be consistent.

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Is the function of D&D setting material to please canon fans? Or to provide material for playing the game.

If the latter, then the benefit of ignoring consistency/canon when it adds nothing is that it gives me better material for my game!

Jester David said:

If a major detail like that is wrong... can you trust the rest of the book?

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How useful is it at your game when your players might notice a contradiction at the table? Or if major background needs to be rewritten for your campaign.

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Trust it for what? And if the GM is feeding the players contradictory material, the issue seems to be with the GM, not the author of the supplement.

Jester David said:

Who cares if the Mind Flayers have been around for only 2000 years and the gith escaped Mind Flayer slavering 10,000 years ago? Who cares about logic and consistency?

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But clearly no one is going to use both those ideas in a single game. It's not hard to add an extra couple of digits to one of the dates, or knock some off the other.

Jester David said:

you often still don't have a choice. Fairly often, you'd choose the lore that you have. With Mind Flayer lore, you're likely own the more modern version rather than the rare and more valuable 2e supplement.

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And that's an issue because?

Jester David said:

And don't force that lore into the Realms and Eberron and Dark Sun.

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See, I don't see how any is being "forced" to do anything. If you don't like the 4e Realms, you just ignore it. Like when I run GH I ignore good chunks of FtA and subsequent supplements.

pemerton said:

Is the function of D&D setting material to please canon fans? Or to provide material for playing the game.

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Yes.
Those two are not mutually exclusive.