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

[lowkey13]

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[I'm A Banana]

...and yet, we are on the sixth (counting OD&D) edition of D&D. More, if you count half editions and expansions (Unearthed Arcana in 1e, splat in 2e, etc.) in the rule sets. Not even getting into the BECMI line. So rule changes occur frequently.

Yes, that happened.

But, that doesn't mean it's a good thing that should keep happening.

In the run up to 5e, Mearls mentioned that the rapid pace and dramatic changes of D&D between editions was something that disrupted play and made it harder for people to get back into the hobby. In the design of 5e, with all of it's retro elements, the game is set up as a continuation of "your old D&D." In the current philosophy about mechanics releases and errata and the like, the design philosophy is very conservative - don't fix what ain't broken, and act on things actually happening at tables before hypothetical potential issues.

The same logic should be applied to the lore, IMO, because it's not like, for instance, updating the Lucky feat so that disadvantage doesn't give you advantage is any more disruptive than declaring that the Dark Powers of Ravenloft are all actually vestiges stuck on a mountain somewhere that you can go meet, or that gnolls are all inherently demonic.

 

[lowkey13]

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[billd91]

So [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] is telling me that the Hulk reboot was a failure, while you are telling me it was a success.

Is it an example of rebooting hurting popularity or helping it?

Or is the whole "reboot" thing actually irrelevant?

It's not that simple, neither absolutely determinant nor utterly irrelevant.

First off, Incredible Hulk was a reasonable success. It did about $20 million better than its predecessor world wide without costing that much more. The 6 years of inflation wouldn't have been all that significant. But it wasn't successful enough to put a second Hulk film on the schedule - though that may also have been an effect of having to change actors for the character due to difficulties of working with Ed Norton.

I'd say the reboot helped it, but partly by bringing it into a more canonical, consistent, and extendable setting of the MCU under Marvel's control. The Ang Lee version was... weird... in how it got from Bruce Banner to Hulk, very convoluted (and apparently a $#^!ton of people worked on it for over a decade - not usually a good sign for movie coherence). The Incredible Hulk in the MCU simplifies the origin, fits it in better with traditional Marvel content, and promises to lead to greater things as the movies introduce the characters and tie them together - something pretty well publicized as being on the horizon - hence the importance of the production company in viewers' minds.

So basically I'm saying that this argument has devolved into ridiculous degrees of oversimplification as your positions have entrenched in opposition to each other.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Uh huh. Or, it could be that there was a recent, disruptive, change to the ecosystem, and that they decided to "reboot." Sound familiar? Good changes are good, bad changes are bad. But even with all of that, you know, and I know, that at some point in the future, there will be a 6e.

Yes. But it doesn't need to be as dramatic or revolutionary a change as, say, the 3e -> 4e transition infamously was.

I mean that in terms of rules, and I also mean that in terms of lore.

And in the meantime, they can avoid messing with either one too dramatically. This is a message they do seem to have received with the mechanics, but there is definitely a disparity in how they treat these things - which amounts to not being as careful with their lore changes as they are with their mechanics changes. Which is going to hurt more games than it really needs to.

 

[Shasarak]

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when agreeing with you, upthread, that an atheistic character, or one who denounces and opposes the gods, is not a canonical fit for a hero of Krynn.

It always makes me laugh when people try to retcon a canonical Krynn figure like Raistlin into a non-canonical figure. Dragonlance is full of examples where Mortals take on the Gods and win but now all of that is somehow non-canonical even when the original novels are a grand struggle against Takhisis. Do you really expect the Heroes of the Lance to sit down with Takhisis and her army and sing Kumbaya? Is that more appropriate for a hero of Krynn?

 

[Elderbrain]

Sorry, did you miss the part where I don't care about canon? Where have I said that I want to replace anything?

See, I 100% agree with you. Why can't all these changes be kept cordoned off from the general game? Why is Planescape the default for all settings, where every single setting MUST conform to Planescape? Heck, even the Great Wheel, for that matter? Why does every single setting have to follow the Great Wheel, along with its attendant demon princes, devil lords, yugoloth, angels etc? You are forgetting that all those great settings HAD THEIR OWN COSMOLOGIES that were then retconned in 2e to follow a specific lore.

- Absolutely NOT TRUE. Not true at ALL. While the specific details of Planescape (Sigil, etc) were not introduced until 2nd edition, the Great Wheel was RIGHT THERE in the 1st edition Player's Handbook - are you claiming the PH is not core?!? (if you reply "They're in the Appendix", well, so is the Bard class, so I guess we should remove THAT, too!) Demons, Devils, Daemons/Yugoloths, and Aasimon/Angels were right there in the 1st edition Monster Manual and Monster Manual II (and Fiend Folio) - along with specific call-outs of their home planes on the Great Wheel - if they aren't core, NOTHING in any of those books is. Lolth and her Drow are in there, too... are they also not core? These things are PART AND PARCEL of the core game!!! Calling for these to be cordoned off is, frankly, insane. It'd be like me claiming the Paladin character class was not core, and demanding that it be removed from the PH and put in a separate book... ahhhh (buries head in hands)

 

[lowkey13]

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[Shasarak]

- Absolutely NOT TRUE. Not true at ALL. While the specific details of Planescape (Sigil, etc) were not introduced until 2nd edition, the Great Wheel was RIGHT THERE in the 1st edition Player's Handbook - are you claiming the PH is not core?!? (if you reply "They're in the Appendix", well, so is the Bard class, so I guess we should remove THAT, too!) Demons, Devils, Daemons/Yugoloths, and Aasimon/Angels were right there in the 1st edition Monster Manual and Monster Manual II (and Fiend Folio) - along with specific call-outs of their home planes on the Great Wheel - if they aren't core, NOTHING in any of those books is. Lolth and her Drow are in there, too... are they also not core? These things are PART AND PARCEL of the core game!!! Calling for these to be cordoned off is, frankly, insane. It'd be like me claiming the Paladin character class was not core, and demanding that it be removed from the PH and put in a separate book... ahhhh (buries head in hands)

Maybe he is talking about the ODnD lore?

But in any case, I think the chances of seeing a DnD book that is just mechanics is very very slim. The number of people who will buy a DnD maths book must surely number in the ones.

 

[pemerton]

You make all kind of assumptions about things you couldn't actually know... what was it earlier you said about "making stuff up"??

It's not an assumption, it's an infernence - you can't make a billion dollars from a film unless your attendances go beyond those who care obsessively about contintuity in the way that some comics, Star Trek etc fans do.