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

[Maxperson]

That's a bit tricky though isn't it? Wasn't the Silmarillion at least in part written by Tolkein's son? Yes, it uses Tolkien's material, but, his son did write chunks of the book. Since we don't really know what changes were made by Christopher Tolkien, how can we call it "canon"?

For my part, I'm okay with Christopher filling in the blanks and deciding which of the multiple different canon stories his father most likely intended to be official. He inherited the control of the setting, just like WotC inherited them from TSR when it bought D&D. If the setting belongs to you, you can make changes to canon and have them be canon.

And again, there's the specific issue of Dragonlance. Some of the changes to the DL setting were done in 3e by Margaret Weiss Productions, which had the license for the DL setting. Note, not all the changes were done by Margaret Weiss either, as there are a number of other authors involved. It's a pretty fine line to draw.

I mean, how many Batman authors have there been? How many Conan? Does that mean that only material written by REH is canon for Conan? Is only Bob Kane material canon for Batman? Is Frank Miller's Batman not part of Batman canon?

Someone official had to approve the changes, so I'm okay with that as well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've seen several dozen different productions of Macbeth, set in a variety of settings from futuristic SF to the Shakespearean classic. Does that mean that the only authentic version must be set in a specific setting and all the rest are not "real"? That's ridiculous.

The rest are not authentic.

That doesn't mean they ain't awesome. They just ain't authentic.

And "Authentic" Macbeth is still very popular!

Chess has changed many, MANY times over the years. There are also dozens of variations of chess right now. And there have been dozens of variations played all over the world. Are you arguing that there is only one "authentic" version of chess?

Do you have a clear expectation in mind when someone says "Let's play chess!" about what that game is going to be? Do you expect any of the ancient or modern variations played all over the world?

Because at the core of my argument is the fact that when someone says "Let's play Dragonlance!" (or whatever) that there aren't clear expectations about what that is going to be, due to lore changes increasing confusion about what that even means. If you don't have the same problem when someone says "Let's go see Macbeth!" or "Let's play Chess!", then you can see the benefit in consistency over time.

Not perfect consistency, of course. But enough that there's a shared expectation for what these activities entail - what stories are going to be told and what moves are going to be allowed.

 

[jayoungr]

I think the Macbeth comparison is a bit of a mismatch, at least for some settings. A play is meant to be performed, which means it is always going to be a little different every time. The content of a book or movie doesn't change. Obviously, reader/viewer response can vary, but there's an extra layer of mutability in the case of a play.

A setting that was originally created for roleplaying is similar to a play script. There's a core, but it's understood and even intended that every table will interact with it differently.

But a setting that's based on a book or movie series isn't quite the same. The original source material isn't tweakable, because it's already set.

 

[billd91]

For my part, I'm okay with Christopher filling in the blanks and deciding which of the multiple different canon stories his father most likely intended to be official. He inherited the control of the setting, just like WotC inherited them from TSR when it bought D&D. If the setting belongs to you, you can make changes to canon and have them be canon.

Importantly, I think, he also put out the History of Middle Earth volumes that included a lot of the earlier stories in their contexts, including substantial edits and re-edits. Not only do we have the final version of the Silmarillion, we also have a fair amount of transparency into the process. We're effectively invited to review source materials and render our own judgments on the end result.

And that's probably one reason 5e gets as much tolerance for its changes to things like monsters - they had an extended process in which they sought a lot of player feedback and reported on that feedback, offering a substantial amount of transparency. They rebuilt a lot of relationships and credibility that way and, in return, get more acceptance.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Come on, one of us has actually read the books so surely not equally valid!

I guess I just don't know enough about the lore to say! What is or is not canon isn't as much my concern as the fact that changes to canon make that consensus more difficult in general.

I think that's an important point that's been floating through this thread. Settings are more than just dates and places. Things like theme and conceit are also VERY important to the setting. Feel is just as important as fact.

I agree with that.

It's not clear to me what extent DL actually intends your reading of it's themes and feel, and to what extent it's your own interpretation projected on something that wasn't meant to do that, though. I don't know if this is "LotR is a story about having hope in dark times" or if it is "LotR is a story about WWII Europe."

But presumably if Weiss and Hickman came out in the DL campaign setting and said "your characters are expected to be heroes who want to restore the gods to prominence," there wouldn't be a debate.

 

[Corwin]

I have a deeply thought-provoking, and oft polarizing, question that seems apropos to some of the discussion going on here right now. I can even do it with a single word:

Midi-chlorians?

 

[Elderbrain]

It's clear that you don't like the 4e FR campaign guide.

But who was forcing it upon you? Weren't you just free to ignore it and use the book you liked?

... Which, of course, uses the 3rd edition rules, which are incompatible with 4e rules. Why should we be forced to do all the conversion work? Why couldn't they have just released a 4e FR book that didn't screw around with everything, and let us continue play where we left off? Oh, right, normal FR is boring, sucks and needed to be massively changed to be "cool"... never mind nobody asked WOTC to do so. By THAT logic, WOTC shouldn't have released a 4e FR book at all, since according to you, we can all just use the 3e book... come to think of it, they shouldn't have released the 3e book, either, since we can all used the 2e boxed set...

 

[Elderbrain]

On a completely unrelated note, I'd just like to say that I'm very, very impressed with how civil this entire conversation has remained, by and large. We're way past the point where things should be discussed, but, this discussion has remained (IMO) very productive. No one is accusing each other of "missing the point" or "misrepresenting arguments" or any of that other semantic crap that usually bogs down these conversations.

- And to be clear, I don't personally dislike you, Hussar, or Permeton, just disagree (somewhat passionately) with your positions. Obviously, you guys didn't write the 4e material that I had a beef with, nor did I call up WOTC and get the Great Wheel re-instated for 5e (I wish I had that kind of influence!)

Is there any way we could both get what we want? Technically, they COULD print a future Monster Manual (for 6th edition, say) that had two versions each of the disputed monsters (i.e. Planescape Eladrin AND 4e Eladrin, Planescape Archons AND 4e Archons... but I think that book would give me a hernia! Maybe print two MMs and let the buyers pick which they wanted...?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Shasarak]

So, basically, it's just the name. Had they just called Eladrin, "High Elves" then all your problems would go away? It's not the magical end of things, nor the background, just simply that they repurposed a monster?

It is not "basically the name". Calling Eladrin "High Elves" would not have made the problems go away.

One way to make the problem go away would have been to look at the canon. Ok, so we have this Spellplague, 1) maybe it has weakened the boundary between the Realms and the Fey Wild and 2) they have these Eladrin there and 3) they help the Elves take over Myth Drannor and 4) now there is a new nation of Eladrin in Forgotten Realms.

I mean that is not perfect and it took longer to type it up then it did to think of it but that would have been more palatable to me then saying that Abeir-Toril is actually two different worlds that we are now going to smash together.