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

[pemerton]

Deadpool only has one movie so far so it really hasn't had the chance to keep or break from it's lore and canon yet.

Deadpool was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I haven't seen the follow-up movie but (i) I don't think it stuck to the earlier movie continuity, and (ii) this doesn't seem to have hurt it any from the commercial point of view.

 

[Imaro]

Those who engage with a fictional setting only casually don't care about things like eladrin changing from "outsiders" to "fey"; or about orcs changing from LE to CE; or about gnolls having their backstory altered to be more expresssly demonic.

My reason for asserting this? That the people I play with, who have been playing D&D more-or-less continually since childhood in most caes, don't care. And they are hardly apt to be described as casual RPGers.

So... personal anecdote = data now. Got it.

The only people whom I encounter in my life who care about canon to that degree of detail are hardcore fans of the sort who are not enough, on their own, to keep this multi-million dollar enterprises afloat.

But if casual people don't care (your logic not mine) and the hardcore fans do... why would you change it since you risk loosing your hardcore market and your casual market doesn't care either way? Again you've yet to show me a situation where changing the lore and canon regularly for a property is a positive...

 

[I'm A Banana]

And certainly not canonically faithful in a way that would please the most strident adherents in this thread (were they analogously faithful to Deadpool canon as they are to FR, Planescape, et al).

I buy the argument that Deadpool succeeded without adherence to lore, but that doesn't imply that the success was due to disregarding canon.

Of course, it's kind of impossible to show that.

But this comparison has raised another interesting point for me: Why isn't comic book fiction like game setting fiction? What's different in the goals of a consumer for them?

And one big answer that seems to appear: because game setting fiction is interactive. It's a tool, in a way that other genres of fiction aren't.

You use Dragonlance lore. You play with it. It becomes an ingredient in your game experience, an element of your character building or adventure building, an important aesthetic element in the gameplay. The primary purpose of Dragonlance lore is that it creates good gameplay experiences.

Deadpool lore, though, you consume differently. Whatever it's format, you don't then take it and go make homemade Deadpool movies with it. You're not invited to (and you're legally prohibited from doing it!). The primary purpose of Deadpool lore is that it creates an enjoyable comic book/movie experience.

I wonder if, for people who "don't care about lore," they treat gaming lore in a similar way to the way people treat Deadpool lore. They don't use it. They don't play with it. Or, at least, they don't use it any more than they use LotR - for inspiration, for ideas, but not the thing itself.

You could complain about either one that the new lore isn't true to the spirit of the old lore. If they made Deadpool a stone-faced, Serious Protagonist who was very patriotic and self-sacrificing and who loved children and atoned for all the murders he committed, people would rightly complain that it wasn't true to the original material, and even if it was good, it might not matter. (You could argue that every Superman movie since the '80's is plagued by this particular issue, in addition, perhaps, to just being not very good)

But, if you use lore, a change in Dragonlance lore affects how you actively play a Dragonlance game - it affects the characters you create and the adventures you go on, the experience of playing the game. That could lead to the effect above, but it's not the same effect.

My position is mostly about how the lore is used in play. I use lore. It forms my characters and my adventures. Changing an element of it is no less significant than changing a rules element (and in some cases, it's a bigger impact!).

But as best I recall he wasn't talking about the backstory for gnolls or eladrin. He was talking about basic tropes and mechanical fundamentals - the "feel" of the game.

Any D&D player who even knows the backstory to 2nd ed AD&D eladrin is already a pretty hardcore fan - they're part of a setting (Planescape) that is a meta-heavy play on ordinary D&D, and that (to the best of my knwoledge) had only modest commercial success. These players aren't being confused by the changes to eladrin in 4e. They're being put off because they don't like it!

The backstory for gnolls and eladrin is no less important to the feel of the game than basic tropes and mechanical fundamentals.

 

[Imaro]

Deadpool was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I haven't seen the follow-up movie but (i) I don't think it stuck to the earlier movie continuity, and (ii) this doesn't seem to have hurt it any from the commercial point of view.

Lol... wow one instance where canon and continuity was disregarded and it did better. But I show numerous comparisons going in the other direction and they don't mean anything. Look nothing is 100% but the fact that you could only find one marvel movie where this was the case speaks volumes to how strong your argument actually is. Of course if there was a character kind of based around breaking canon and continuity... it would be 4th wall breaking... I murdered the entire Marvel Universe and it's writers...Deadpool.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

I will admit it is fun to take an established setting and add your own twist. Sometimes, players really like it.

Overall, I'm about fun. Will I enjoy it? Changing the setting to keep the campaign fun and interesting isn't something I have a problem with. It can even take problematic areas of a setting and make them more palatable to the group.

I don't really see why some people have to be so hard about canon. The canon of the setting isn't affected just because I decide the goddess of marriage's favorite weapon is the whip or the god of magic is named Bob.

 

[pemerton]

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!)

Absolutely, the PHB appendices are not core:

From Appendix 1 (p 110): "If your DM opts to include psionic abilities in your campaign, they will be determined for humans (and possibly dwarves and halflings) as follows . . ."

From Appendix 2 (p 117): "As this character class subsumes the functions of two other classes, fighters and thieves, and tops them off with magical abilities, it is often not allowed by Dungeon Masters. Even though this presentation is greatly modified from the original bard character class, it is offered as supplemental to the system, and your DM will be the final arbiter as to the inclusion of bards in your campaign."​

The DDG is the first presentation of the Appendix IV Outer Planes as a wheel, and it also includes Concordant Opposition. (In the PHB/DMG alignment scheme there is no need for a plane of True Neutrality as it is a "naturalistic ethos" - and tellingly, True Neutral clerics are not allowed.) The introductory stuff in DDG asserted that it was a core book on a par with the other three, but I believe it was near-universally treated as optional. And in any event, I don't think it was intended that all the gods presented were to be understood as co-existant in every campaign world. The intention was for picking and choosing.

The idea that all the DDG pantheons co-exist in the "Great Wheel" was first presented, as best I am aware, in the original MotP. That is nearly 10 years after the publication of the PHB, and 10 years after the first presentation of the Appendix IV arrangement in Dragon number 8.

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

The original MM also tells us that Ogre Magi are Japanese ogres (p 76), that Rakshasa are from India (p 81), that Giant Rats are from Sumatra (p 81) and that Gold Dragons are Chinese ('Draco Orientalus Sino Dux'). Does that mean that the existence of the Asian lands and cultures of our own world are also part of the core canon of AD&D, and that any departure from this is a canon change?

 

[pemerton]

But if casual people don't care (your logic not mine) and the hardcore fans do... why would you change it since you risk loosing your hardcore market and your casual market doesn't care either way?

This takes us right back to page 1 of the thread!

The answer is - if you want to make 1 billion dollars out of a movie, or 1 million dollars out of a RPG book, you need people to buy it who aren't your hardcore fans. And those people won't buy it just because it sticks to continuity. They want it to be good, whatever exactly that means to them. And so if canon gets in the way of it being good, you have to be prepared to override canon.

The original X-Men movie even has a shoult-out to this - when Wolverine first puts on his X-Man uniform, and makes a disparaging remark about it, Cyclops replies "What would you prefer - yellow spandex?" Whether this sort of inside joke is good for the film is a further question, but the point it makes is that sticking to the canonical Wolverine costume doesn't necessarily make for credible movie visuals.

 

[pemerton]

Lol... wow one instance where canon and continuity was disregarded and it did better. But I show numerous comparisons going in the other direction and they don't mean anything. Look nothing is 100% but the fact that you could only find one marvel movie where this was the case speaks volumes to how strong your argument actually is.

Well, I think it is quite consistent with my claim that there is no evidence that what makes movie franchises popular is continuity of backstory.

 

[pemerton]

the god of magic is named Bob.

I always assumed that "Bob" was just short for "Boccob"!

 

[pemerton]

I buy the argument that Deadpool succeeded without adherence to lore, but that doesn't imply that the success was due to disregarding canon.

Of course, it's kind of impossible to show that.

It succeeded because it was (I'm told) a good film. No one is saying that people will go to see a film precisely because it butchers canon. (Except perhaps for some limited-appeal avant garde films.) The claim is that there is no evidence that adherence to canon is an important factor in flimic success.

You could complain about either one that the new lore isn't true to the spirit of the old lore. If they made Deadpool a stone-faced, Serious Protagonist who was very patriotic and self-sacrificing and who loved children and atoned for all the murders he committed, people would rightly complain that it wasn't true to the original material, and even if it was good, it might not matter.

But this is the difference between canon and tropes, feel, theme, etc.

Being true to the character, or the setting, doesn't mean never chagnging anything. Whether or not West Side Story is true to Romeo and Juliet isn't going to be settled by noting that it is set in NYC rather than Verona.

The backstory for gnolls and eladrin is no less important to the feel of the game than basic tropes and mechanical fundamentals.

Not in my experience. As I have already posted, I play in a D&D groupt that has over 100 years of collective FRPGing experience. Yet I doubt that any of them but me would know about PS-era eladrin, and while they're been cheerfully beating up on gnolls for decades, I doubt that any would notice that the 4e gnolls they fought were slightly more demon-oriented than the AD&D versions.

This stuff is just not such a big deal. And here's one of the reasons why:

Why isn't comic book fiction like game setting fiction? What's different in the goals of a consumer for them?

And one big answer that seems to appear: because game setting fiction is interactive. It's a tool, in a way that other genres of fiction aren't.

You use Dragonlance lore. You play with it. It becomes an ingredient in your game experience, an element of your character building or adventure building, an important aesthetic element in the gameplay. The primary purpose of Dragonlance lore is that it creates good gameplay experiences.

Deadpool lore, though, you consume differently. Whatever it's format, you don't then take it and go make homemade Deadpool movies with it. You're not invited to (and you're legally prohibited from doing it!). The primary purpose of Deadpool lore is that it creates an enjoyable comic book/movie experience.

I wonder if, for people who "don't care about lore," they treat gaming lore in a similar way to the way people treat Deadpool lore. They don't use it. They don't play with it. Or, at least, they don't use it any more than they use LotR - for inspiration, for ideas, but not the thing itself.

<snip>

But, if you use lore, a change in Dragonlance lore affects how you actively play a Dragonlance game - it affects the characters you create and the adventures you go on, the experience of playing the game.

I think that your analysis here is exactluy the opposite of the truth.

It is because RPGers use lore that canon doesn't matter much to many of them. Lore provides the building blocks of a shared fiction - it is not itself the shared fiction.

Converesly, those for whom lore matters - for whom the goal of RPGing is to emulate an existing story or setting - are the ones who are not using lore but rather are holding it in crystalline stasis. I have never played with such people. I get the impression that they are a minority of D&D players (eg from another current thread I believe that WotC reports the most popular campaign setting is "homebrew").

From the aesthetic point of view, I don't think it is good for the game to cater excessively to this minority, because it undermines what I regard as the key point of RPGing: creation, not emulation/reenactment. And from the commercial point of view, I think the same conclusion follows, as this minority is not enough on its own to make the publications viable. Therefore the publications have to appeal more broadly, which sometimes will require disregarding past lore.