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

[billd91]

But, that's the point I've been making all the way along. It's only priority because of personal preference. You said it yourself, if the new idea is good enough, then it skates by - as evidenced by 3e and now 5e.

You're ignoring the nuance. It's not a question of being better skating by, it's being so much better. It pretty much has to really beat the hell out of the prior version to avoid frustrated blowback.

Why is backwards compatibility such a major issue? We've had lots of evidence that most campaigns don't last more than a year or two. Yes, there are outliers that last much longer, but, they are outliers. If campaigns only have a half life of a couple of years, then changes should be pretty easy to incorporate. And, if someone wants the earlier stuff, they can still do so - just convert the earlier stuff to the new ruleset, same as we've always done.

Most campaigns aren't all campaigns. Nor are all campaigns defined by a single churn of PCs, some extend from adventuring group to adventuring group within the same continuous setting, even to the point of spanning D&D editions. Backward compatibility is pretty important in those situations. We had a campaign run from 1e, through 2e, and into 3e. And the same evidence that shows most campaigns don't last more than a year or two also shows that the longer a gamer is in the hobby, the longer the campaigns run partly due to the frequency of play decreasing and the length of time played in a single set of characters increasing, both of which increase the vulnerability of a campaign to encountering an edition change.

What I don't get is this idea that change is the criteria for judging material. It really isn't. It's all about personal preference. No one ever steps up and says, "Well, I really like the new paladins, but, they're different, so, we should go back to the old paladins". The only thing prioritizing earlier material does is set people up as gate keepers for protecting their personal favorites.

As people, including me, have brought up in other threads, changes bring on extra effort and frustration. If the new paladin's a major change, ongoing campaigns may have to deal with new players coming in and needing more reeducation to replace their expectations. Or it may mean a bit of conversion on the GM's part or even reeducation of the players already in the game. The greater the change, the more the effort. None of that has anything to do with quality, per se. If it involves personal preference, it's borne from preferring to not have to relearn so much of the game every time the developers get it in their heads they want to reconcept the hell out of everything. Give me new rules? OK, how well does this work with what we've been doing? Give me new monsters? OK, how well do these fit in? Redesign the rules? OK, same as before but the bar is much higher since they may substantially change how characters play. Redesign the monsters? OK, same as with new monsters but again the bar is much higher since they may substantially change how parts of the campaign work.

People almost universally conflate personal taste with quality "I like it, therefore it's good. I don't like it, therefore it's bad."

Fortunately, we're not discussing quality here. We're discussing continuity and compatibility and the frustration and extra effort required when new changes conflict with older information. These contribute to why people put priority on what came before and the continuities from publication to publication, from edition to edition.

 

[Imaro]

I've said it once. And there is nothing pejorative about that. Because it's true.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. There is nothing wrong with running other people's stories. We all do, to a greater or lesser extent. Some of us enjoy more (or less) fidelity. Some of us enjoy more (or less) pastiche/remix. Some of us enjoy more (or less) official imprimatur.

I run other people's stories all the time; I run GH, but I've added in some Lankhmar, a touch of the Land (Donaldson), a soupcon of Julian May psionics, and so on. I LOVE other people's stories, and telling my own stories using other people's stories. Sometimes I even use REAL STORIES (you know, history).

If you are defensive about that, you might ask why you're spending so much time instructing other people about the proper use of lore. Jus' sayin'.

But the story is what happens in play... not before. How in any way am I running someone else's story if I am using their backdrop for my stories? I'm not defensive... It just doesn't make any sense and I'm trying to understand what you even mean.

Okay maybe you've cretaed some other definition of "story"... so I'll ask before continuing what do you mean by story?

EDIT: Who am I instructing about the proper use of lore... or are we back to conflating me stating my opinion with me claiming everyone should do the same? That seems to be the go to tactic for some people in this thread...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Imaro]

I'm good! Carry on.

That's what I thought...

 

[Teemu]

That's up to you, but letting them know that it's not a pure canon game wouldn't even begin to allow them to guess at either one of those.

So what's the point of telling the players that it's not going to be a 'pure' canon game? What purpose does it serve? Doesn't a player always assume that the DM could change various aspects of canon (NPCs, locations, organizations, deities, priesthoods, monsters -- you name it), even when running published modules created for the setting? If I run City of the Spider Queen but switch an NPC from a cleric to a favored soul, should I tell the players in advance that one of the NPCs will have an adjusted statblock? Seriously? Why?

 

[Teemu]

Disagree... its all about setting expectations and transparency. Yes its the DM's right to change things as he sees fit... but its my right as a player to decide if I want to play in your homebrewed game vs. a game where I could trust my knowledge of FR without explicit DM affirmation of my assumptions. No one is claiming you have to list out all your changes (though I would expect any that affect character creation to be laid out in detail beforehand) but I fail to see the issue with simply stating to your players... this will be a homebrewed version of FR so expectations based on canon may not be true.

See, I wouldn't even necessarily call the example changes I laid out 'homebrew'. Let's assume I say that before the first session, that this'll be a homebrewed version of the setting. The players ask, "Ok, what's changed? What should we take into account?" And due to the nature of the changes I'm gonna have to reply with, "Well... you'll see. Or maybe you won't." What's the purpose of the 'homebrew warning' in this case? Wouldn't players expect me to come up with FR-appropriate stories, some of which could very well be Shar usurping Lolth or a Harper leader being a dragon in disguise?

 

[Maxperson]

So what's the point of telling the players that it's not going to be a 'pure' canon game? What purpose does it serve? Doesn't a player always assume that the DM could change various aspects of canon (NPCs, locations, organizations, deities, priesthoods, monsters -- you name it), even when running published modules created for the setting? If I run City of the Spider Queen but switch an NPC from a cleric to a favored soul, should I tell the players in advance that one of the NPCs will have an adjusted statblock? Seriously? Why?

I've already stated the point many times. It's about player expectations. As for assuming that the DM can change aspects of canon. No, I don't assume that. It's an absolute fact that he can. What I don't assume, is that he has made any changes. If he tells me he's running Greyhawk and leaves it at that, I expect that all the Greyhawk lore that I know will be the same in his game.

 

[pemerton]

pemerton said he kept the maps and modern things the same, but changed all the history of Greyhawk.

<snip>

He said he changed the vast majority of the lore

I never said that, and every time you have imputed that to me I have pointed out that you are wrong. Most recently in posts 1019 and 1020 of this thread. For convenience, here is a repost of post 163 which made the same point at greater length:

[sblock]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned that he plays with the Greyhawk map and makes up his own lore for it and plays Greyhawk.

Have you at any point asked him what he feels is the heart of Greyhawk, rather than tell him he's Doin It Rong?

Maxperson hasn't. But he doesn't have to - I've posted it in this thread, and the canon thread in which Maxperson has been a prominent participant.

Those posts also illustrate that Maxperson's description of what I do is, at best, a very loose paraphrase.

When I talk about running a GH game, or an Oriental Adventures game; or when I say that I am running a module; what I mean is that I am using some maps, some characters, some tropes and themes, taken from the setting or module.

But I don't pay much attention to the "canon" of the setting or module. I've run OA using homedrawn maps and the Kara-Tur boxed set. I'm currently running a GH game, using Burning Wheel mechanics, and I move between my old folio maps and 2nd ed and 3E era ones - whichever happens to be at the top of my folder - without worrying too much about it.

What makes this game a GH one is the basic geography and history (Hardby is a city ruled by a magic-using Gynarch, across the Wooly Bay from the Bright Desert, which is populated by Suel tribesmen). Not the minutiae of canon: the details of the setting I make up as needed for play or determined during the course of play.

When I run a Greyhawk game, I use the GH maps. Now, I have a folder which has all my maps: from the original folio; from the City of GH boxed set; the City of GH environs map from FtA; maps from the Adventure Returns reboot, from the LGH gazetteer, from Iuz the Evil and the Marklands, etc. (But my From the Ahses world maps, and my boxed set ones identical to the folio ones but in better condition, sit on my shelf in plastic pockets.) When I'm running a game, I don't tend to worry too much about time period - I'll just pull out whichever map is at the top of the pile and has a helpful degree of resolution - because the differences across time periods often don't really matter to my game.

What the maps give me is a basic geography (physical and political) and some names to go with it. The centre of the maps, in particular, gives a lot of adventuring geography in a fairly small space - the Bright Desert; the hills north of that; GH city for European urban adventuring; Hardby and the Wild Coast for more Conan-esque, Zamora-esque urban adventuring; the Gnarley and Suss Forests; the Woolly Bay for ship-borne adventuring; Highport for slaver galleys; Furyondy and the Shield Lands for knights and paladins; and Celene, the Lortmils etc for elves, dwarves and other standard fantasy elements.

<snip>

But as far as history is concerned, I'll use the general tropes - ancient wars, Suel wizards who migrated east, etc, but won't bother with the details. For instance, I find the idea that GH's vikings are actually Suel migrants; or that the martial arts monks are actually survivors of the Suel Empire; too silly for words, and so I just ignore that stuff and use "real" (pulp) vikings and "real" (pulp) martial artists living atop a hidden plateau.

the idea that the Scarlet Brotherhood are Suel renegades <snippage> just dilutes and distracts from the inherent interest of the Scarlet Brotherhood as a hierarchy of thieves, assassins and monks under the Father of Obedience, by requiring that stuff to be tied into ancient Suel culture. It dilutes the secret martial arts plateau trope, and it makes the ancient empire trope carried by the Suel pick up stupid backage. All the Suel and the Scarlet Brotherhood have going for them is that they are workings out of these pulp tropes, so once you dilute them you just get less compelling stuff.

Greyhawk, for me, is a setting that supports pulp/S&S tropes (ancient empires with a legacy of ruins, magical traditions, etc). It's the Hyborean Age but with a handy integration of more-or-less Tolkienesque dwarves and elves. (I tend to ignore the halflings and gnomes, or treat them as dwarf variants.) And instead of Pelias and Xaltotun I've got Mordenkainen, Bigby and Vecna, with ideas of how to handle these personages in D&D mechanical terms. Etc, etc.

To my mind, that's what a setting is for: to save me the work of making all this stuff up, so I can get more quickly to the good bit of playing the game![/sblock]

First, the ranger's ability is based on LotR, but was changed to include other objects that allow ESP, so is different.

Well, the WoHS in my GH game are based on DL, but have been changed also - eg they are not the dominant magical tradition in all parts of the campaign world.

Based on something does not equal that thing.

Interesting. In that case, how is a GH game that includes WoHS "GH + DL" - because something based on DL (ie my WoHS) is not DL per se (by your criterion).

The rest doesn't matter since the person who created Greyhawk made those things a part of it.

It matters a great deal if we're trying to understand the character of GH, and how sensitive or resilient it is in the fact of pastiche.

What can one feasibly add to Greyhawk while still playing Greyhawk and not Greyhawk + X____? Warforged? Races from other settings? Adventure modules from other settings? Towns from other settings? People from other settings? Is the integrity of running a Greyhawk campaign so easily broken by an organization from another campaign setting? Do you get equally upset when people tell you that they are running X adventure module only for them to deviate from the written book by substituting or adding something else to the adventure? Has that GM lied to you?

That's all going to vary from person to person.

I've already stated the point many times. It's about player expectations.

The above are part of the expectations by those who know Greyhawk. Changes by modern DMs are not.

The first claim is true. And it rebuts the generality of the thrid. Expectations - including those mentioned in the second quote - vary from person to person. There is no single set of expectations among "players who know GH". Especially because (i) GH has always involved pastiche, and (ii) different play groups have different expectations about what "Let's play X" means vis-a-vis whatever the canon of X might be.
[MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] elaborates this point well in post 1084 upthread.

 

[Maxperson]

I never said that, and every time you have imputed that to me I have pointed out that you are wrong. Most recently in posts 1019 and 1020 of this thread. For convenience, here is a repost of post 163 which made the same point at greater length:

From your first post on the matter.

When I run a Greyhawk game, I use the GH maps. Now, I have a folder which has all my maps: from the original folio; from the City of GH boxed set; the City of GH environs map from FtA; maps from the Adventure Returns reboot, from the LGH gazetteer, from Iuz the Evil and the Marklands, etc. (But my From the Ahses world maps, and my boxed set ones identical to the folio ones but in better condition, sit on my shelf in plastic pockets.) When I'm running a game, I don't tend to worry too much about time period - I'll just pull out whichever map is at the top of the pile and has a helpful degree of resolution - because the differences across time periods often don't really matter to my game.

What the maps give me is a basic geography (physical and political) and some names to go with it. The centre of the maps, in particular, gives a lot of adventuring geography in a fairly small space - the Bright Desert; the hills north of that; GH city for European urban adventuring; Hardby and the Wild Coast for more Conan-esque, Zamora-esque urban adventuring; the Gnarley and Suss Forests; the Woolly Bay for ship-borne adventuring; Highport for slaver galleys; Furyondy and the Shield Lands for knights and paladins; and Celene, the Lortmils etc for elves, dwarves and other standard fantasy elements.

Why would I bother reinventing and renaming all this, when Gygax et al have done all that work for me?

But as far as history is concerned, I'll use the general tropes - ancient wars, Suel wizards who migrated east, etc, but won't bother with the details. For instance, I find the idea that GH's vikings are actually Suel migrants; or that the martial arts monks are actually survivors of the Suel Empire; too silly for words, and so I just ignore that stuff and use "real" (pulp) vikings and "real" (pulp) martial artists living atop a hidden plateau.

You say right there that the history doesn't matter much other than a few general events, and you change the details. You keep a few vague things and fill in the rest with what you feel like.

Interesting. In that case, how is a GH game that includes WoHS "GH + DL" - because something based on DL (ie my WoHS) is not DL per se (by your criterion).

The name is a direct tie in to DL. They were created for that setting.

The first claim is true. And it rebuts the generality of the thrid. Expectations - including those mentioned in the second quote - vary from person to person. There is no single set of expectations among "players who know GH". Especially because (i) GH has always involved pastiche, and (ii) different play groups have different expectations about what "Let's play X" means vis-a-vis whatever the canon of X might be.

It doesn't negate the third at all. Yes expectations vary from person to person. That in no way means that they don't exist. The mere existence of expectations based on what you portray to the players means that you really should take those expectations into account. The courteous thing to do is let players know if the Greyhawk game you are going to run is going to have changes to canon.

 

[FrogReaver]

Running any campaign at all in any setting changes that setting. Introducing new heroes into a world and new problems and battles and villains and magic items and adventures in general changes the setting.

Oh but those changes are okay right? :footStompingSmiley

Here's the deal. Changes are inevitable. It's a matter of expectations. What do my players expect when I say we are going to play GreyHawk. As long as my players understand what I mean by that then all is well.

From your first post on the matter.



You say right there that the history doesn't matter much other than a few general events, and you change the details. You keep a few vague things and fill in the rest with what you feel like.



The name is a direct tie in to DL. They were created for that setting.



It doesn't negate the third at all. Yes expectations vary from person to person. That in no way means that they don't exist. The mere existence of expectations based on what you portray to the players means that you really should take those expectations into account. The courteous thing to do is let players know if the Greyhawk game you are going to run is going to have changes to canon.