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

[Tony Vargas]

what gives D&D its identity? No easy answer there.

It's not an easy answer, but I'd say "it's flaws." D&D was the first RPG and it was relentlessly imitated. For the most part, more successful RPGs pulled the good stuff from D&D and tried other things where it wasn't so great. Apparently, by the 90s this had culminated in a syndrome oddly labeled 'fantasy heartbreaker,' in which D&D imitators would be very D&D-ish, but for one big improvement or cool idea (apparently, almost always including ditching Vancian). shrug: I think I just don't get the 'fantasy heart-breaker' concept.)

Anyway, the upshot of everyone trying to imitate and improve on your original is that what distinguishes the original is the bits no one wants to imitate. The flaws. Maybe not the worst most intractable flaws, but the ones it's relatively easy to fix or leave out of an imitator.

Why did so many of us see 4e as the obvious next evolutionary step in D&D and others saw it as a repudiation of everything that came before, to the point the "4e isn't D&D" became a forum meme?

The obvious 4venger answer is because there were no legitimate criticisms to level at it. ;P

Really, though, the two perceptions are not at all at odds, no matter how much the folks holding them may have been. Something 'evolves,' it changes. Something changes enough, it's no longer the same thing.

I can't say I agree with that. If I port Forgotten Realms over to the Savage Worlds system, I wouldn't say I'm playing D&D.

If your'e explaining it to anyone outside the hobby, saying you're playing D&D would probably be your best bet at getting the idea across.

Canon grows organically over time, with each new product adding and expanding to canon.

Exactly. So freaking out when it changes, re-boots, or gets retconned is a little silly. But, that's never going to stop us. Ever.

The D&D multiverse started with the PHB. That was the seed.

There was 5 years of 0D&D before the PHB.

That seed opened with Deities & Demigods

Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes.

People care about D&D. It's important to them.

No question. And the vision of the D&D they care about is subtly different for each of them.
The question is, can we respect that diversity? Or does caring about D&D always have to expand into dictating how others can play it?

Yes, it does say something about me and people like me. It says that we value and respect continuity.

Canon doesn't spring fully formed from a book like Venus from Zeus.

Hey, have a little respect for the continuity of Greek & Roman myth, here. It'd be Aphrodite & Zeus or Venus & Jupiter. And, it was Athena who sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus. Don't go contradicting the cannon like that. ;P

 

[Jester David]

I think you have illuminated why I have such difficulty following Jester's argument. It's the conflation of different aspects of "lore," such that he appears to be seeing a continuity of this lore from the very beginning in the 70s to the present, yet excludes other things.

Pathfinder is closer to 3.5 lore than 4e or 5e, yet that isn't D&D? The OSR/retroclones are closer to BECMI and 1e than anything since 2e, yet that isn't part of D&D lore? Golarion isn't a part, and Judges guild assuredly as well (wildlands) but is Lankhmar? It would seem that there is the additional conflation of "generic" D&D with specific campaign settings (GH, FR) which are more conducive to generic D&D, while ignoring those settings that are more modified (DL, EB) by attempting to put them all in the generic multiverse and excluding the campaigns that are the basis for the multiverse (Gammaworld, as an example) as not D&D.

Which is why I think I have had such difficulty following the "hard canon" argument; I could understand continuity for a campaign world, with the caveat that edition and rule changes may require some rethinking and retconning of aspects (just as makeup and budget changes drove the difference for the Klingo changes), but ... Yeah

This is likely the crux of the issue.
To you, D&D is a ruleset without a campaign world. To me, it has assumed lore as a campaign world. It's multiple worlds. It's the default races of Greyhawk with the cosmological origins introduced in Planescape.
D&D isn't generic.

Now, you can use D&D as a generic ruleset and make it your own. That's cool. I've done it. And my homebrew world breaks from D&D lore and assumptions in a few places. And I'm totally fine with D&D books that are lore-lite or generic, like most of the 3e books. No problem with that. (I do prefer some story and flavour in the books.)
I just don't want books that contradict the established lore.

My argument is that Pathfinder is no more different from 3e than 1e is from 2e. Editions are different. Pathfinder is just another edition of D&D, published by a different company.

And Marvel Comics is just the DC Universe published by a different company.

Pathfinder and D&D are two fantasy games that use a very similar ruleset.
When/If Pathfinder does a second edition - a Pathfinder revised - it will no longer use the same rules as D&D. But it will still be Pathfinder.

You could argue that for Eberron. Eberron had no time lapse, it just had some new features that incorporated 4e lore changes.

There wasn't a transitional event for Greyhawk from 2e to 3e. And Dark Sun actually backed up a few decades for it's 4e update. Ravenloft didn't really change from 2e to 3e either.
Dragonlance had a change, but that predated the 3e rules and was more novel based. Like the Sundering it was more a change back, trying to undo a nuking.
And regardless of rules tweaks or events, all have unbroken timelines. Dragonlance was never rebooted, the gods just left and returned… again.

Really, the only campaign setting WotC has ever done a reboot for was Dark Sun in 4e. And that was a rolling back of the timeline to ignore changes done entirely in 2nd Edition (which could still occur. The book was just set in an earlier era).

Sure. I don't think anyone is arguing that many people like canon, and get upset when it's changed. The interesting question is why. What's the non-utilitarian reason people desire continuity in their shared fantasy constructs?

*Shrug* Why do some people watch serialized television rather than anthology shows or shows that reboot at the end of each episode?

Well, that's just sailing around one of the other big questions of the thread...what gives D&D its identity? No easy answer there. Why did so many of us see 4e as the obvious next evolutionary step in D&D and others saw it as a repudiation of everything that came before, to the point the "4e isn't D&D" became a forum meme?

4e was a revolutionary step in rules *and* a repudiation of continuity. It did both at the same time, which probably made it that much harder to accept. It didn't keep all of the lore and just revise the rules, or just tweak the rules and rewrite the cosmology. It did both. So there was that much less familiar about the game.

Even before the PHB was released, when we knew nothing about the rules themselves, people were worried about the edition based on the Elemental Chaos and changing planes, eladrin rather than high elves, the vast changes to the Realms, and so much more.
The rule changes of 3e were much more sweeping. But there were familiar elements that lessened the shock.

To go with Star Trek it wasn't "Hey, we're gonna kill Kirk's dad and reboot the entire universe, but don't worry, all the classic crew you know and love are here."
Instead, it was "Yeah, Nero totes killed George Kirk. And now the pilot of the Enterprise is a reptile woman. With breasts. And we're worried people will mistake Vulcans for humans since they're very similar in appearance, so Spock has bright red skin and foot long ears. And we don't like the backstory, so the Federation was founded by Vulcans to fight the evil Xrepreq empire 1000 years ago."

 

[Jester David]

Hey, have a little respect for the continuity of Greek & Roman myth, here. It'd be Aphrodite & Zeus or Venus & Jupiter. And, it was Athena who sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus. Don't go contradicting the cannon like that. ;P

That was a purposeful and intentional slight. Baiting really.
I apologize.

OTOH, that's exactly what cannon does, it just comes into being, fully-formed (but not immutable). Until there's a second book or other influences, that is, then it starts to change/grow.

Exactly. So freaking out when it changes, re-boots, or gets retconned is a little silly. But, that's never going to stop us. Ever.

Change? Sure. Grow? Fine. Retcon? When necessary, okay.
Reboot? Yeah… not interested. I'll just keep what I own and stop buying. Maybe fill in a few gaps in the back collection.

There was 5 years of 0D&D before the PHB.

Gods, Demi-gods, & Heroes.

OD&D was mentioned. And the lore introduced in [i[Greyhawk[/i] and Blackmoor. The PHB line was mostly in reference to the growing multiverse.

No question. And the vision of the D&D they care about is subtly different for each of them.
The question is, can we respect that diversity? Or does caring about D&D always have to expand into dictating how others can play it?

We're not talking homegames or actual play. I think we're all just (rightly) assuming people can do whatever the hell they want with continuity at their table.

 

[TwoSix]

*Shrug* Why do some people watch serialized television rather than anthology shows or shows that reboot at the end of each episode?

I don't know, but that's an interesting question! I understand you don't find the fact that people have different opinions very compelling (why do some people like chocolate but not vanilla, I think you said), but I've always found it fascinating digging into the why.

Instead, it was "Yeah, Nero totes killed George Kirk. And now the pilot of the Enterprise is a reptile woman. With breasts. And we're worried people will mistake Vulcans for humans since they're very similar in appearance, so Spock has bright red skin and foot long ears. And we don't like the backstory, so the Federation was founded by Vulcans to fight the evil Xrepreq empire 1000 years ago."

I liked the Abrams reboots just fine, but your version sounds way more interesting!

 

[Tony Vargas]

That was a purposeful and intentional slight.
I apologize.

Don't apologize to us, make the appropriate sacrifices - you may have offended three deities, there.

To you, D&D is a ruleset without a campaign world. To me, it has assumed lore as a campaign world. It's multiple worlds.

There's a contradiction in there. D&D /is/ a ruleset. You can use it in one of several published campaign worlds or in one of your own devising. In different editions it's had different (or no) default setting.
Thus, D&D is a ruleset, and campaign worlds are merely examples of things you might do with it. Those campaign worlds are also IP, though... and each has their own 'canon.'

I just don't want books that contradict the established lore.

Part of the established lore, in a broad sense, is a multiverse of infinite alternate prime material planes. So anything that contradicts the established lore of a given setting could be passed off as one of the many alternates of that setting.

And Dark Sun actually backed up a few decades for it's 4e update.
Really, the only campaign setting WotC has ever done a reboot for was Dark Sun in 4e. And that was a rolling back of the timeline to ignore changes done entirely in 2nd Edition (which could still occur. The book was just set in an earlier era).
...
4e was a revolutionary step in rules *and* a repudiation of continuity.

I don't see how the above is a repudiation of continuity, it's just set in a different time period. For that matter, the horrible changes to FR weren't continuity changes, just rolling forward in the timeline to a less stable, less caster-dominated future. Post apocalyptic FR? Whatever, didn't care for it any more than I did FR in general, myself. :shrug:

And, again, in a multiverse of infinite universes, you always have an alternate-universe/time-line fig-leaf for continuity...

So there was that much less familiar about the game.

Nod.

The rule changes of 3e were much more sweeping. But there were familiar elements that lessened the shock.

There were some significant changes, but the biggest sacred cows kept on mooing, so I'm not so sure. If I had to point to the biggest change in 3e it'd've been feats & MCing (both now optional in 5e), and one of those isn't a change, but an addition. Other things like ditching THAC0 for BAB that still differentiated classes like THAC0 had in mathematically very similar ways, just using more consistent dice mechanics, or the consolidation of save categories, while they had definite impacts, don't seem like dramatic changes. Of course, I've had a long time to get used to them....

 

[Elderbrain]

Sheesh, has this thread ever gone on - 186 pages! WOW...

 

[Shasarak]

Nonsense.

That MHRP will take place in the Marvel Universe is a core conceit of MHRP. It is there from the opening pages of the book.

Nowhere does D&D assume that my D&D game happens in some component of a common "multiverse"; there is no assumption, by default,of some sort of continuity between campaigns that I run.

Except that it kinda does. If you are using the DnD rules then obviously there is common thread that runs through each separate campaign. If you use DnD Trolls and I use DnD Trolls, and you can summon Fire Elementals and I can summon Fire Elementals, and your Clerics can cast healing spells and my Clerics can cast healing spells.

So you can say that these games are happening in completely different Universes but at the same time they could very well be happening together as per the Spelljammer and/or Planescape suggestions.

 

[Shasarak]

I'd be interested in reading more about this, as I wasn't following it at the time. Do you have links?

I am 90% sure it was from a Tome Show interview but I could not tell you which one.

 

[Jester David]

I don't know, but that's an interesting question! I understand you don't find the fact that people have different opinions very compelling (why do some people like chocolate but not vanilla, I think you said), but I've always found it fascinating digging into the why.

You can eschew canon and continuity to great effect. There are some great episodes of the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. And at the extreme there's Aeon Flux, which has regular characters who die regularly.
You can segue from episodic to mythology as well. Stargate SG1 was continuity-lite for most of it's first couple seasons. But gradually that changed and it developed a tight mythology. Some of the later seasons bordered on being serialized.
Doing the reverse - going from harder continuity to anything goes - that's rarer. You can make a case that Simpsons did that, when the writers just stopped caring what had been done before. And Doctor Who to a certain extent as it's timelines and continuity grew more and more tangled.

If a show never cared about continuity, I'm not going to fault it for not caring about something it never pretended to care about.
But I dislike it if a show alternate between continuity and episodic. Where half the time past episodes matter and the other half each story exists in a vacuum.

I like continuity because it rewards participation. I'm that little bit obsessive - like many collectors - so I have to watch every episode. In order. I hate starting a show in the middle. Not every episode is always going to be good. But if that episode *slightly* advances the story and character development, at least it wasn't a waste of my time and/or money. If events in that episode have consequences, then my viewership is rewarded.

I liked the Abrams reboots just fine, but your version sounds way more interesting!

Interesting doesn't mean it's Star Trek though. It *could* be. But the more changes that are made, the harder it has to try to remain Star Trek. When you drift too far away from the core concepts of the brand, the less it's Star Trek and more its just a generic science fiction film with familiar games. Why not just do your own thing at that point?

I liked the first one reboot until I saw it a second time and the seams started showing. (Although the bad science always irked me.) Hated Into Darkness. So very, very much. Terrible movie.

 

[Jester David]

There's a contradiction in there. D&D /is/ a ruleset. You can use it in one of several published campaign worlds or in one of your own devising. In different editions it's had different (or no) default setting.
Thus, D&D is a ruleset, and campaign worlds are merely examples of things you might do with it. Those campaign worlds are also IP, though... and each has their own 'canon.'

See, I would argue that D&D isn't a ruleset but *includes* a ruleset. It is both rules and the baseline assumptions of it's main campaign setting (which is either or Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms).
It's forgiving as far as rulesets go for stripping out the world and doing your own thing, but it's not a generic ruleset. That's GURPS.

D20 Modern is an example of a generic d20/OGL ruleset, complete with suggestions of settings/worlds.

I don't see how the above is a repudiation of continuity, it's just set in a different time period.

Yeah. It's not. It was an example of a reboot.

For that matter, the horrible changes to FR weren't continuity changes, just rolling forward in the timeline to a less stable, less caster-dominated future. Post apocalyptic FR? Whatever, didn't care for it any more than I did FR in general, myself. :shrug:

And, again, in a multiverse of infinite universes, you always have an alternate-universe/time-line fig-leaf for continuity...

Complaints about 4th Edition Realms are overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. One being "changes" and the other being "continuity changes".
75% of the changes were just generic changes. With a few retcons that tweaked the past without altering anything. (Like Abeir) Things happened. Time passed.
There were a few continuity changes in the mix though. Eladrin being the big one. Primordials. The Dawn War.

There were some significant changes, but the biggest sacred cows kept on mooing, so I'm not so sure. If I had to point to the biggest change in 3e it'd've been feats & MCing (both now optional in 5e), and one of those isn't a change, but an addition. Other things like ditching THAC0 for BAB that still differentiated classes like THAC0 had in mathematically very similar ways, just using more consistent dice mechanics, or the consolidation of save categories, while they had definite impacts, don't seem like dramatic changes. Of course, I've had a long time to get used to them....

4e didn't really change the rules outside of the classes. The actual rules of the game were mostly the same, albeit slightly tweaked. How you played didn't change. It was the classes that changed. Well, classes and monsters.
In contrast, 3e changed the basic mechanics of the game. Everything became d20 + ability score + modifiers. It was a very big shift.