D&D 5E Whatever "lore" is, it isn't "rules."

[Hussar]

Writing canon from the point of view of a sage is just a fancy way of delivering the canon. It doesn't make it more prone to being wrong.

Umm nope.

There is such a thing as the "unreliable narrator" which is common trope, particularly used in RPG's, in order to keep things flexible. There's a reason that Volo is described the way he is by Elminister and even Elminister is described as being somewhat unreliable.

 

[Hussar]

Your entire rant was about the lore of different editions... please stop reaching and trying to make it about something it wasn't.

Umm, nope.

Different editions, different takes on a setting, doesn't matter. The point is, you're still trying to tell everyone else that they are doing it wrong and that their version of the game (be that at the setting or edition level) isn't the OneTrueWay.

Be that as it may, where is the difference? It's okay to change lore across editions, but, not within specific settings? That doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny since so much sturm and drang has been spilled over changes between editions.

I mean, good grief, you're now telling [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] that he didn't actually add Wizards of High Sorcery to Greyhawk because his version doesn't include hunting down renegade wizards. You are actually telling someone else that the things they are claiming in their own game aren't actually true because they don't follow your specific take on canon.

Can you get any more Onetruewayism than that?

 

[ProgBard]

We don't always agree, but I do enjoy reading your posts. Keep it up.

Thank you, and back at ya.

 

[ProgBard]

... and even Elminister is described as being somewhat unreliable.

This is confirmed by Word of God, btw, if that matters; El was actually invented, at least in part, so that the information on the Realms was provided from a certain point of view - one that might be mistaken, incomplete, or deliberately misleading. He was a device for DMs to say, in essence, "You don't need to take any of this at face value."

(Source: One of the 50-year FR retrospective videos on Ed Greenwood's site, which I apologize for being too lazy at this hour to look up and link to.)

 

[Maxperson]

Using the word "bad", no. The term you used for it was, if I recall, either "poor" or "very poor". Either way, hardly the most conciliatory of approaches.

I didn't call him a poor DM, either. Nothing I said applied to his DMing as a whole. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] owes me an apology for his gross mischaracterization of what I said.

 

[Maxperson]

Umm nope.

There is such a thing as the "unreliable narrator" which is common trope, particularly used in RPG's, in order to keep things flexible. There's a reason that Volo is described the way he is by Elminister and even Elminister is described as being somewhat unreliable.

Narrators are not inherently unreliable. There has to be something about them that makes them an unreliable narrator, like being insane. You don't just get to declare any narrator you feel like an "unreliable narrator".

 

[Lanefan]

Narrators are not inherently unreliable. There has to be something about them that makes them an unreliable narrator...

...which in this case would be the setting's inventor (and thus its de-facto Keeper of Canon, if such a thing exists) saying outright that the narration - and thus the narrator - is intentionally made to be so; if post #504 above is correct.

You don't just get to declare any narrator you feel like an "unreliable narrator".

Nor do I, or you, or most other people. But the setting's inventor can do what he likes, and by default whatever he does is as canon as it gets. Same goes for Keith Baker - whatever he does with Eberron automatically becomes part of its canon, end of story.

Lan-"sometimes the king's word really is the law"-efan

 

[pemerton]

It is weird to have [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] tell me that it was very poor DMing to include the WoHS, under that name, in my GH game; and and the same time to have [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] telling me that in fact I am misdescribing what I'm doing when I say that I added WoHS to GH.

As far as I can tell, Maxperson does not resile from his description of it as very poor GMing. And as far as I can tell, his reason for saying that it was very poor GMing is that he and his fellow players wouldn't feel it was consistent with being a "Greyhawk" game. He hasn't pointed to anything about it's actual effect on my game that suggests it was poor GMing. He seems to think it is irrelevant to the question of whether it was good or bad GMing that I had 5 (I think) WoHS PCs over the course of the campaign, and many more than that number of memorable WoHS PCs.

I've also got [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] telling me that by adding a 3rd moon I'm breaking GH canon and making my game some sort of Alt-GH whose "Alt-ness" is fundamentally different from the "Alt-ness" of his FR game; but is the same as the "Alt-ness" of a GH game with 12,000 extra moons blocking out the sky.

Whereas [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] seems to think that adding a 3rd moon is addition, not change - as I have been posting for the past several pages in response to his posts, but which he wouldn't accept until given an exact transcription of the folio that (apparently) he is not familiar with, and which I first read over 30 years ago!

It's hard for me to keep up with all the different arguments in this thread about the importance of canon - the only constant seems to be that, whatever exactly the argument is, it reveals some defect in the relationship of my GH + WoHS to canon (although said defect went unnoticed by me or my players, and I didn't learn of it until this thread and the other one helpfully brought it to my attention!).

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], read what [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] posted at no. 466.

The sage doesn't say there are only two moons. He describes too moons (Luna and Celene). That's it. For all the reader knows the sage is quite aware that there is a third moon but is keeping it secret.

The folio does not make any sort of canonical statement that there are only two moons.

 

[discosoc]

Lore should generally trump rules, when possible. That's purely my opinion, but it's based on the fact that lore is something that is fairly stable over time, whereas rules change without regard to how it impacts the lore. Letting rules take priority just results in crap lore hacks like The Sundering.