D&D General Do you care about lore?

[Richards]

I'm sure Data cares about Lore.

Johnathan

 

[MGibster]

But board games have lore.

You ain't just whistling Dixie. Since 1986, Battletech alone had more than 100 novels published. And most of the game books were chocked full of lore. And of course there's the juggernaut that is Games Workshop and their Warhammer 40,000 line. I couldn't even begin to guess how many novels have been published and the last rule book I purchased was about half filled with lore.

 

[cmad1977]

Nah. The GM is setting the scene. Whatever they throw out is lore enough for me.

 

[Iry]

You ain't just whistling Dixie. Since 1986, Battletech alone had more than 100 novels published. And most of the game books were chocked full of lore. And of course there's the juggernaut that is Games Workshop and their Warhammer 40,000 line. I couldn't even begin to guess how many novels have been published and the last rule book I purchased was about half filled with lore.

I'm sad Battletech doesn't come up more often. It has some amazing and deep lore, and the games are really fun too!
Same for Shadowrun. The game itself is a hot mess, but it has some of the most interesting lore I've read.

 

[MGibster]

I'm sad Battletech doesn't come up more often. It has some amazing and deep lore, and the games are really fun too!
Same for Shadowrun. Man, that game is a hot mess, but the lore is genuinely impressive.

It does. And given how popular Battletech was during the 80s, 90s, and through the early 2000s I'm surprised that it hardly seems to be an afterthought for most people today. Seriously, back in 1999 if you had to guess whether which game would be around twenty years later, Warhammer 40k or Battletech, you would be forgiven for picking Battletech.

I will say that some lore changes in D&D would piss me off. If they printed another version of Ravenloft and made changes to Strahd that fundamentally changed the character I would be very, very unhappy.

 

[Blue]

This came up in one of the Ravenloft threads and I am just curious: do you care about official aka "canon" lore for D&D, either the implied setting or a specific campaign world?

If a DM is using a specific setting, I assume it is because they want to use that setting, and that it's shorthand for the common understandings of that setting. So I will, as a player, heave to that lore. If we're playing in Eberron and I base character assumptions on The Last War or the Dragonmarked Houses and they aren't represented, I'd be put out.

I mention as a player, as a DM I almost exclusively run homebrew and give my players a lot of narrative say, including in the lore. (Oh, and I do are about that lore. )

As a side note, it's one of the reasons I'd never run FR with one particular group. It was a bunch of people who do read the novels and are very familiar with the Realms. They knew the lore of it much better than I and I would never be able to do justice to it being "The Realms" - it was much better to run homebrew or another world instead of constantly tripping them up with things they knew but were false in my Realms because I didn't.

Does it bother you if that lore is changed with editions? Should a new version of a setting be "required" to not contradict a previous version?

A bit of the opposite - if the mechanics change in such a way that no longer supports the old lore, we need to change that lore. If new things are added to the system, such as new common playable races, that weren't supported in setting lore thought should be given to if they need to be lore or excluded from the setting. (I have no problems settings modifying core assumptions, including like Dark Sun excluding races and classes and adding their own.)

For my part, I don't care much at all. Chances are I am going to change some stuff anyway if I am using a published setting and if I am homebrewing chances are the stuff in the Monster Manual or whatever isn't relevant in the first place. I don't read novel lines or pour over setting books, so I probably wouldn't notice most changes anyway.

If you run a published setting and change lore, please tell your players. I don't know why you mentioned the MM, that's not likely lore - change monsters around mechanically as you see fit. But if they go in with misleading lore assumptions because you told them "I'm running Dark Sun" but not "I'm running Dark Sun but the sorcerer kings have been defeated and arcane casting is culturally acceptable" then it's on you.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I had assumed you meant "lore" in a more generic sense, in which case yes, I absolutely do care about lore--for a given game's setting, its lore is extremely important to me.

But the "official" lore of, say, the Forgotten Realms? Not that important to me. I'd much rather a DM set their own rules--even if those deviate--and then stick to them thereafter. That makes for a more interesting execution most of the time.

Now, I do really value certain pieces of lore very highly. 4e's overall default setting is really really good in general, but I fell in love with Arkhosia specifically and the Dragonborn race, so I often try to adapt them to other places.

 

[jgsugden]

It depends a bit. I like the Lore as a player, but as most of my games take place in my homebrew, it is only the things I've stolen thatmatter, and it isn't a huge deal of the lore for them changes.

When I play, I often play in games where the DM is using an established campaign world - often Faerun, Greyhawk, Eberron or Athas. When I'm in those games, I like knowing a bit about the setting so that I can weave things I know into my character's storylines. That allows me to creature story hooks to share with the DM. They don't all take them, but I like to be able to give them the option and see what they do with them.

However, the campaigns I enjoy most are with DMs that specialize their setting. They pick a time for their setting, get to know it and run games in that time within that setting. For a few DMs, that is the time of the FR Grey Box. For others, it is right after the Time of Troubles. MOst Eberron DMs use the default time period. Every real campaign I've played in Athas has started with a version of Freedom. For Greyhawk, the two DMs I know that prefer it each like different time frames, but they both specialize there. As a player, I get to enjoy the setting as they know it (in detail). However, I couldn't do that as a DM on a regular basis in the same setting .... running the same starting adventure over and over 15 times in 30 years would get boring. I kept the entire time frame of my homebrew moving forward for 20 years, although I finally reset it for a new group of players when I moved across the country.

 

[Greg K]

I only care about lore if running specific settings. Even then, I am a fan of most changes and additions in later editions. Therefore, the only lore that I care about with regards to settings is as follows

• Greyhawk: The original foilo, original box set, Gary's lore in the rule books, Dragon Magazine, 1e Unearthed Arcana, followed by what Rob Kuntz has to add. I will also add info from the modules T1, G1-G3, D1- D3, S1-S2, S4, and his WG modules. I will also add the L1 and L2.
• Forgotten Realms: The orignal boxed set, Greenwood's early Dragon Magazine articles, the FR series of regional supplements, and some of the FOR series of supplements for 2e
• Al Qadim: The Land of Fate boxed set and any other 2e Al Qadim material by Jeff Grubb
• Dark Sun:The original boxed set and anything else Dark Sun by Timothy Brown
• Ravenloft: I6 and the Realm of Terror boxed set
• Krynn; Material by Hickman and Weiss, Jeff Grubb, and Niles for 1e and 2e
• Known World/ Mystara: I mostly care about the Gazeteer series material (and, maybe, material by Bruce Heard). Furthermore, Tortles and other anthropormorphic races do not exist.

Finally, I ignore anything about the "mulitverse" and anything introduced in Planescape (including Sigial and the Blood War) and/or Spelljammer lines does not exist.

 

[Kurotowa]

This came up in one of the Ravenloft threads and I am just curious: do you care about official aka "canon" lore for D&D, either the implied setting or a specific campaign world? Does it bother you if that lore is changed with editions? Should a new version of a setting be "required" to not contradict a previous version?

It's all stories. Stories bend with every telling to suit the needs of the teller. Sometimes they want to change the ending, sometimes they want to change the moral, sometimes they just want to insert a dis track. Did you know there's a bit in Homer's Iliad where Zeus chews out Aphrodite for being a daft airhead who doesn't belong on the battlefield, and that's not because it fits her mythological profile but because she was the goddess of war in Sparta and Homer was writing for an audience that hated Spartans? He was re-writing mythology to slander a rival city's mascot. All stories have an agenda, every last one of them.

History is the Venn Diagram of where Facts and Interpretation overlap. Stories are sort of like that, but the Facts aren't facts, they're just what the storyteller declares to be true. Maybe they change their mind to bring back a popular character. Maybe it's a generation later and the stories have been passed to new hands. They change all the time, for reasons great and small, to keep them updated and alive and relevant. The moment a story becomes frozen it's dead, a fly trapped in amber, a fossil entered into the historical record that no longer serves a purpose besides being a window into how people used to think.

If I want the 2e version of a D&D setting, I can buy those books. If I want to continue the metaplot from back then, I can run that campaign. If I want an updated version of the setting that's more in line with 2021 cultural sensibilities and design mechanics, now WotC is offering to sell me that as well. That's great. If some people would rather stay in 1990, hey, that's their choice. But don't go complaining that the rest of the world isn't staying there with you. That's not how it works.