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

[Maxperson]

So we agree that the disagreement has had negative effects in gameplay and that these negative effects are caused by lore changes. I've apparently shown that. Good. We can now all appreciate how canon can matter.

Now I can move onto what I suggest the devs do about it going forward.

Going forward, I suggest the devs better take into account these negative gameplay effects from lore changes.

That's all.

How? The only way to avoid it is to 1) not ever change lore, and 2) never change mechanics that have visible effects, since mechanical changes alter lore. That's clearly unworkable as a success strategy for a business of this sort, so there will be lore changes which will have the effects we currently see.

 

[I'm A Banana]

How? The only way to avoid it is to 1) not ever change lore, and 2) never change mechanics that have visible effects, since mechanical changes alter lore. That's clearly unworkable as a success strategy for a business of this sort, so there will be lore changes which will have the effects we currently see.

Again, my proposition isn't that such things should "never" change.

Only that their changes should be well-considered and take into account this cost.

Like, maybe when the get around to writing something Eberron-based for 5e, when Chris Perkins or whoever comes up with the Brilliant Idea (tm) of the forges that create warforged being powered with the blood of orphans sacrificed in dark rituals, they can consider how that changes the nature of the setting, the nature of warforged characters, the nature of artificers, the nature of the Last War....and they can weigh those changes against their Brilliant Idea, instead of just saying "That's a Brilliant Idea! Let's do it!"

There should be a voice in that room saying, "Look, this turns House Cannith into villains, and every warforged character into a character born out of an act of monstrous evil. That's a new story. Some people aren't going to like that story. People who DO like the story will have to fight those people whenever anyone plays an Eberron campaign. Someone who remembers warforged from 3e will be playing a different character in 5e, without changing their race. Could we get the same effect by making a variant "warforged" made this way that isn't necessarily the same as the warforged that people already know?"

I don't know all of (or probably even the most relevant) concerns for the D&D team's production. Maybe they still make the change because orphan blood is the hot new thing in marketable products down in Hollywood and this would ensure a D&D movie gets made about orphan-blood warforged or something. Given some of the 5e changes so far (several bits from Curse of Strahd and Volo's Guide to Monsters that are pretty narmed), I don't have much confidence that this voice is present, or loud enough.

 

[pemerton]

changes should be well-considered

When it comes to 4e, the changes were well-considered. They even wrote a whole book explaining it (Worlds and Monsters).

Like, maybe when the get around to writing something Eberron-based for 5e, when Chris Perkins or whoever comes up with the Brilliant Idea (tm) of the forges that create warforged being powered with the blood of orphans sacrificed in dark rituals, they can consider how that changes the nature of the setting, the nature of warforged characters, the nature of artificers, the nature of the Last War....and they can weigh those changes against their Brilliant Idea, instead of just saying "That's a Brilliant Idea! Let's do it!"

There should be a voice in that room saying, "Look, this turns House Cannith into villains, and every warforged character into a character born out of an act of monstrous evil. That's a new story. Some people aren't going to like that story. People who DO like the story will have to fight those people whenever anyone plays an Eberron campaign. Someone who remembers warforged from 3e will be playing a different character in 5e, without changing their race. Could we get the same effect by making a variant "warforged" made this way that isn't necessarily the same as the warforged that people already know?"

What actual examples of lore change/development do you think are analogous to this absurd example?

And why can't people just ignore them? That is, why is House Cannith turned into a villainous organisation?

That isn't a concern about communcation breakdown. (Which is what you were saying you were worried about.) It seems to be a concern about rewriting the significance of something. Which seems to assume that people are obliged to incorporate such rewritings. But why would they be?

 

[pemerton]

Sometimes players want that special vibe that comes with playing D&D in a fantasy world that you've explored through novels or computer games: A place where a lone drow ranger walks the surface world and kicks butt and there's a chance you might run into him is fun to explore.

I want to start a new thread on this idea of exploration.

I'm used to RPGing as a way to explore/play with certain tropes and themes.

But I'm not really used to the idea of exploring a world, or a series of events, that's already written and that the players want to "relive" by means of the game.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, my proposition isn't that such things should "never" change.

Only that their changes should be well-considered and take into account this cost.

Like, maybe when the get around to writing something Eberron-based for 5e, when Chris Perkins or whoever comes up with the Brilliant Idea (tm) of the forges that create warforged being powered with the blood of orphans sacrificed in dark rituals, they can consider how that changes the nature of the setting, the nature of warforged characters, the nature of artificers, the nature of the Last War....and they can weigh those changes against their Brilliant Idea, instead of just saying "That's a Brilliant Idea! Let's do it!"

There should be a voice in that room saying, "Look, this turns House Cannith into villains, and every warforged character into a character born out of an act of monstrous evil. That's a new story. Some people aren't going to like that story. People who DO like the story will have to fight those people whenever anyone plays an Eberron campaign. Someone who remembers warforged from 3e will be playing a different character in 5e, without changing their race. Could we get the same effect by making a variant "warforged" made this way that isn't necessarily the same as the warforged that people already know?"

I don't know all of (or probably even the most relevant) concerns for the D&D team's production. Maybe they still make the change because orphan blood is the hot new thing in marketable products down in Hollywood and this would ensure a D&D movie gets made about orphan-blood warforged or something. Given some of the 5e changes so far (several bits from Curse of Strahd and Volo's Guide to Monsters that are pretty narmed), I don't have much confidence that this voice is present, or loud enough.

I understand what you are saying, but it literally applies to every change they make. No matter what the change is, there will be those that like it, those that don't like it, and those that don't care one way or the other. How are they supposed to make any kind of decision based on that? I mean, any change should be well considered, but how are they to take into consideration a cost that happens to literally every change?

 

[I'm A Banana]

When it comes to 4e, the changes were well-considered. They even wrote a whole book explaining it (Worlds and Monsters).

Explaining it doesn't mean they considered it. When your idea of "why people like tieflings" boils down to "people like playing the 'bad boy'," you're failing to consider the lore closely enough.

What actual examples of lore change/development do you think are analogous to this absurd example?

A small selection? Gnome wild mages in Krynn. Asmodean tieflings. Elemental giants. Demon-created gnolls. The Amber Temple. Gypsy halflings. The Time of Troubles. The Spellplague. The Feywild in Dark Sun. The Dawn War and Torog. Eladrin as a PC race.

Hell, this lore change isn't even quite as dramatic as some of those - it was never explicitly stated what went into House Cannith's creation forges. Filling that empty space with dead orphans wouldn't even necessarily disrupt the themes of the setting (which can include the dangers of modernized military-industrial technology).

And why can't people just ignore them? That is, why is House Cannith turned into a villainous organisation?

That isn't a concern about communcation breakdown. (Which is what you were saying you were worried about.) It seems to be a concern about rewriting the significance of something. Which seems to assume that people are obliged to incorporate such rewritings. But why would they be?

You misaprehend. To repeat:

There is a cost.

There's a cost involved in correcting people who come to your game presuming that House Cannith is a villainous organization because that's what the most recent lore dubbed them. There's a cost involved in correcting people who come to your game presuming that House Cannith is not a villainous organization because that's what the original lore dubbed them. The Great Gnome Wild Mage Debate has rather clearly demonstrated that, I would hope.

Thus, with this lore change, it becomes less clear what "Let's play an Eberron game!" means, and it makes playing "an Eberron game" more difficult than it otherwise would be.

I understand what you are saying, but it literally applies to every change they make. No matter what the change is, there will be those that like it, those that don't like it, and those that don't care one way or the other. How are they supposed to make any kind of decision based on that? I mean, any change should be well considered, but how are they to take into consideration a cost that happens to literally every change?

The easiest way is to transform your process from "change" to "add." If you've got a cool new idea for tieflings or gnomes or warforged or whatever, add it to the lore, rather than revising lore to be exclusive to your new version. I'd totally play an Eberron adventure where we infiltrated the secret forge of a rogue House Cannith artificer and uncovered an orphan-murder-artificial-solider facility. I'd totally allow a warforged subrace born of orphan-murder in my Eberron game.

When you're adding, you do still need to carefully consider your lore (maybe gnome wild mages still wouldn't pass muster!), but it becomes more flexible, since it is relieved of the duty of setting expectations for the players.

And you can still change. When you need to. When it's well-considered. When the benefits are big enough. Just maybe not whenever you think you have a Brilliant Idea.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]

When you say the 4e lore developments/changes weren't considered, depsite a whole book explaining the considerations that went. I don't really know what you mean by "consideration".

And I still don't know what 4e change you consider equivalent to making all warforged and their creators born of orphan blood.

And as I said someway upthread, although I have read many, many complaints about these changes, none of them took the form of complaining about communication breakdowns between players who have read old or new books. They were all complaints made by people familiar with the old material, who didn't like the new material.

That pattern has been repeated in this thread. The only poster who is saying that the main objection to writing new lore is that it causes communication breakdown is you. And you haven't provided a single example, yet, of a 4e lore change derailing a campaign startup in the way that you have described.

And just looking at some of the examples you give: why would a campaign be disrupted or derailed because giants are connected to the elements? It's been inherent in stone, frost, fire and storm giants from the beginning of the game!

Do you have an actual play example of someone who was familiar only with Planescape tieflings turning up to play 4e and being confused or derailed because the game being run started from the premise of Bael Turathian tieflings? All the objections I've seen have been objections of aesthetic outrage, not campaign-premise confusion. Similarly for gnolls, the Fey Wild in Dark Sun, etc.

And how would Torog cause the sort of confusion you're talking about? What established setting does Torog change the lore of?

 

[pemerton]

Gnome wild mages in Krynn.

<snip>

The easiest way is to transform your process from "change" to "add." If you've got a cool new idea for tieflings or gnomes or warforged or whatever, add it to the lore

This is exactly what happened with wild mages in Krynn.

I don't see how you think adding is any different from changing, if what is added is at odds with what was alread there.

When it comes to opt-in fiction, a change is in any event as good as an add. For those who are familiar with Planescape, or The Hobbit, it is literally no harder to treat what 4e says about tieflings and halflings as addition rather than change.

This is why I am getting confused by your posts: your "official" complaint is that change is bad because it causes communication breakdown, but the actual examples you give are the same old examples that have generated hostility for aesthetic reasons, not communication reasons; and the solutions you posit (like "add, don't change") don't actually address the "official" concern - because adding, just as much as rewriting (if that even makes sense), can change someone's expectation as to what a setting is about.

 

[Shasarak]

And as I said someway upthread, although I have read many, many complaints about these changes, none of them took the form of complaining about communication breakdowns between players who have read old or new books. They were all complaints made by people familiar with the old material, who didn't like the new material.

That pattern has been repeated in this thread. The only poster who is saying that the main objection to writing new lore is that it causes communication breakdown is you. And you haven't provided a single example, yet, of a 4e lore change derailing a campaign startup in the way that you have described.

And just looking at some of the examples you give: why would a campaign be disrupted or derailed because giants are connected to the elements? It's been inherent in stone, frost, fire and storm giants from the beginning of the game!

Do you have an actual play example of someone who was familiar only with Planescape tieflings turning up to play 4e and being confused or derailed because the game being run started from the premise of Bael Turathian tieflings? All the objections I've seen have been objections of aesthetic outrage, not campaign-premise confusion. Similarly for gnolls, the Fey Wild in Dark Sun, etc.

And how would Torog cause the sort of confusion you're talking about? What established setting does Torog change the lore of?

Was there anyone really confused by 40 years of having non-elemental Giants wandering around? Or maybe just that one guy at WotC who thought it would be cool if Giants were powered by the elements?

 

[I'm A Banana]

When you say the 4e lore developments/changes weren't considered, depsite a whole book explaining the considerations that went. I don't really know what you mean by "consideration".

Largely, I mean understanding the value of the thing for others before you decide that your version offers more value for them. How many pages of justification you publish won't fix a broken assumption about that value.

And as I said someway upthread, although I have read many, many complaints about these changes, none of them took the form of complaining about communication breakdowns between players who have read old or new books. They were all complaints made by people familiar with the old material, who didn't like the new material.

If you stop at "they don't like it," you're only getting half the story. Why they don't like it is the other half. That's personal and subjective and kind of arbitrary, but trends emerge - trends that to me, through my conversation, clearly speak to the Default Effect and the cost of lore changes at individual tables.

As an example, if you ask a person who rejects 4e lore if they'd feel as strongly if all the 4e changes were just in their own 4e campaign setting, you get a much different perspective on those changes.

This is exactly what happened with wild mages in Krynn.

I don't see how you think adding is any different from changing, if what is added is at odds with what was alread there.

Like I said...

When you're adding, you do still need to carefully consider your lore (maybe gnome wild mages still wouldn't pass muster!), but it becomes more flexible, since it is relieved of the duty of setting expectations for the players.

I'm relying on others to tell me what the pre-3e DL lore was like, and there's conflicting reports, there, so it's possible that gnome wild mages are in line with the setting's assumptions, or that they're not. If they're not, then they wouldn't pass muster, and they're a bad addition (because they change the setting's assumptions too much).