Redemption is NOT a theme of the setting. It is only the theme of the War of the Lance. Prior to the war, no redemption was happening, yet the setting existed.
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These things are not what YOU think of when you play in those settings, but that doesn't mean that they are not a part of the settings. They just don't strike your fancy is all.
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setting transcend the books that spawn them.
To me, Dragonlance isn't about the geography or the history of the setting. That's part of it, of course, but, that's not what the setting is about. The setting is about redemption. How the setting is presented is all about redemption.
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Dragonlance isn't really defined by Ansalon which, at the end of the day, is a fairly stock standard D&D setting (other than no orcs). What defines Dragonlance is the themes - epic fantasy, clash of cultures, massive conflict between good and evil and the final redemption of the setting.
Two things.
First, I agree with Hussar. When I think of a setting, I don't think solely, or even primarily, of an imaginary geography and history. I think of tropes, themes, broad-brush backstory, etc.
This is why I've been able to play Oriental Adventures - the same setting - using two different sets of maps (home-drawn one, inspired by the description in the back of the original OA book; and the ones published by TSR).
This is why my Greyhawk games don't always involve the exact same backstory. Eg in my current GH game,
Slerotin is the name of a Suel figure of some importance whose mummy was buried in a pyramid in the Bright Desert, and then at some time reinterred in the catacombs of Hardby. I can't remember if Slerotin eve figure in my other GH campaigns, but if so certainly not in this manner.
Second, the fact that a given setting, grounded in a given set of canonical texts, can nevertheless produce these quite different responses and interpretations
is, in itself, evidence that [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]'s hope of ensuring conformity by reducing or elminating additions/changes to those texts, is unlikely to be realised.
Settings created for RPGing are B-fiction at best and are unworthy of consuming upon their own merits. The only thing canonical about such settings is what is established in the fiction at the table.
What I think RPG settings can usefully do is (i) handle some of the grunt work (of drawing maps, coming up with names, etc), and (ii) provide a ready supply of what I'll call "trope implementations". So if you want to play some sort of sand-and-sandals/sword-and-planet thing with evil overlords and mind powers, Dark Sun gives you stuff that implements those tropes. If you want to play spirit bureaucracies and kung fu, OA gives you stuff that implements those tropes. If you want to play something fairly Conan-esque, with wizards of ancient empires in a mash-up of pseudo-mediaeval European/Mediterranean/West-and-Central-Asian lands, GH is an alternative to the Hyborian Age itself. These tropes, in turn, tend to feed into the themes of the game.
This is what I mean when I talk about "using a setting".
And because they're just aspetcs of trope implementations, I don't regard the minutiae as being very important. Certainly not for their own sake.
I think this is probably also why FR has never appealed to me - I've never seen what particular trope implementations it is providing me with.
