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

[I'm A Banana]

I will refer you back to post #136 (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?492891-Do-you-care-about-setting-quot-canon-quot/page14) where I tried to list the various types of canon, and why they provoke different levels of confusion and/or spirited discussion.

Part of the confusion I see here is that people are indiscriminately talking about differences in canon and using examples from 1 & 2 (base rules and base lore) and interchanging them with 4 (campaign worlds). The base rules and base lore of "D&D Elf" is not the same as the FR Canon for the Elf. Just thought I'd throw that in.

FWIW, I still use the 1983 GH Folio, and think everything after that is an abomination and should be set on fire. But I'm pretty picky like that.

I think it's a useful breakdown.

Using that framework, I think "base lore" and "campaign world canon" are kind of swappable - base lore is just a kind of "generic" campaign world. If you had a setting where githyanki and githzerai got along and built and empire, well, fair enough, that's why your world has its own name and isn't "generic" D&D. If you say in generic 6e D&D that this is the case, alarm bells ring - now someone who comes to the table fresh isn't going to share assumptions with someone who came to the table in 3e and thinks the new lore ain't any better than the old.

The issue crops up most prominently when "base lore" is changed and thus a question of which base lore/generic world you can safely assume for the game rises up. Changing "campaign world canon" has the same effect, but on a more limited audience, since specific campaign worlds are always a bit more limited and focused than the base game.

 

[Shasarak]

[/COLOR]Maybe you should open your ears then. I said it once or twice in prior posts not too far back.

Basic set of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Maxperson]

Basic set of Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes. Basic D&D and Advanced D&D are like Baseball and Softball. Much similarity, but two different games. You could easily have named them Baseball(softball) and Advanced Baseball(hardball). Sticking D&D in the name does not make them the same game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Sticking D&D in the name does not make them the same game.

If that is the case, then how do we determine which Dungeons & Dragons games are the same game?

Because BECMI and AD&D are more alike than either of those two and 3rd edition are, and you have already said that 3rd edition and AD&D are the same game... and I'm not seeing what cause there is for that which doesn't also apply to BECMI.

 

[Shasarak]

Yes. Basic D&D and Advanced D&D are like Baseball and Softball. Much similarity, but two different games. You could easily have named them Baseball(softball) and Advanced Baseball(hardball). Sticking D&D in the name does not make them the same game.

If we have to include 4e as a version of DnD then I do not see why DnD is not a version of DnD.

 

[Shasarak]

If that is the case, then how do we determine which Dungeons & Dragons games are the same game?

Because BECMI and AD&D are more alike than either of those two and 3rd edition are, and you have already said that 3rd edition and AD&D are the same game... and I'm not seeing what cause there is for that which doesn't also apply to BECMI.

There has to be some kind of twisty logic going on here. Personally I think it is that Max did not play it and therefore is not DnD but I dont expect him to admit to that.

 

[Maxperson]

....eh......

No, they're not the *same* game, obviously. And I think it was a mistake to differentiate the branches as "D&D" (BECMI) and "AD&D" (1e).

But they also aren't that different. It was fairly common to borrow between the two, and (for example) modules that were designed for BECMI ran just fine in 1e and vice versa. It's just as accurate (if note moreso) to say that they are different editions of the same game (BECMI was .75e?).*

Many a 1e campaign played the B/X series of modules, for example.


*BECMI is more similar to 1e than 1e is to 3e or any edition afterwards.

Which is why I compared it to softball and baseball. Different games with many similarities. TSR/WotC gets to decide which editions are for which game. 1e-5e clearly shows that those are the same game, but different editions. BECMI is a separate, but very similar game.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pemerton]

Well, first off, what makes the maps and history more important than the flavor of the world?

The one is not necessarily more important than the other, but it is more easily identifiable. What counts as GH "flavour" is a bit up for grabs (contrast pre- and post-FtA), but the maps, the Suel Empire, the Oeridian migrations etc are pretty recognisable.

But in any event, I don't see how what [MENTION=6861607]DeltaEcho[/MENTION] suggested is at odds with Eberron flavour. The golem crossbows and increased prevalence of airships seems to fit pretty straightforwardly.

either I like a setting well enough to want to "live" in it, or I don't. So let's say I read Eberron and think "Hmm, this has some great ideas, but I have a better idea for how the warforged could be handled."

My approach then would not be to use everything else about Eberron but just change the warforged. There would be no point, and I would probably find that an annoying "worst of both worlds" situation.

<snip>

Once I'd decided that I didn't like Eberron-as-it-was enough to want to live in it, the floodgates would be open. I'd feel free to grab other things from other settings. Maybe I'd pull a civilization out of some other setting and plunk it into that world.

I don't think this is very uncommon.

In my GH games, for instance, I've used Wizards of High Sorcerery from Dragonlance, and have used the Knights of Solamnia to give detail to the Knights of Holy Shielding.

But when the WoHS are based out of towers in Rauxes and Rel Astra, and a part of an ancient Sueloise tradition; and when the volumes of the Measure are kept in a fortress in Admunfort and the Knights are devoted to fighting Iuz and the Horned Society; then I think the game is recognisably GH and not DL.