D&D General Baldur's Gate 3 Hates Religion (Spoilers)

[Micah Sweet]

Comics is a whole nother ball game!

For example, in Marvel, is the Universe really the same Universe after the Age of Apocalypse was resolved, or is it sort of the same but yet different with the subtle change made to it (X-Man actually exists in the universe after that, coming out of nowhere). Or did it cease to exist when Scarlet Witch wiped out 99% of Mutants and changed the entirety of reality after The House of M debacle?

Or...a dozen other times when they wiped out the existing known universe and replaced it with something new (I prefer any of the universes where Peter Parker stayed married with MJ and thus had more character growth and showed progress then the regression they did...though he still is married to MJ supposedly, but in yet another universe...).

I mean, in one Marvel Universe...Reign happens...in the current Marvel Universe...that's never going to happen due to paradoxes between that storyline and Reigns...which means they must be in a different universe...etc...etc...etc.

And that's just Marvel...DC is far far far worse. When did their Universe actually end...was it in the 70s? The 80s? The 90s? the 10s?

And those were complete wipes and reboots as opposed to what Marvel did (more of soft reboots).

DC even admitted that the original universe was different than the one they were using in the 80s (I think that's when it came out) and have had that same type of thing occur over and over again.

MCU...the 616 (is it really though? the current 616 would be impossible to match up to the canon future of older 616 universes...so which was the REAL 616 universe...because they contradict each other and the future that would have come)...Ultimate (remember that universe...the one where Miles was one of the ONLY survivors)...I think the editors get confused about which universe is the actual Marvel universe and which one is the copy these days.

Virtually all of your Marvel examples canonically represent alternate universes; they've published books specifically about this phenomenon. The Marvel have always at least made an effort towards an explanation, so that things hang together at least in broad strokes terms. That is impressive given the many decades of history involved, and I have always appreciated it.

DC, as you say however, is a different kettle of fish.

 

[MockingBird]

BG1 and 2, or at least parts of it, have been made canon. Most information printed about Baldurs Gate mention the "hero" that saved Baldurs Gate in the times of trouble. Not sure about Icewind Dale though. Never played the NWN games so I can't speak on them. I'm interested if BG3 will be canon going forward.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

BG1 and 2, or at least parts of it, have been made canon. Most information printed about Baldurs Gate mention the "hero" that saved Baldurs Gate in the times of trouble. Not sure about Icewind Dale though. Never played the NWN games so I can't speak on them. I'm interested if BG3 will be canon going forward.

Canon is what people accept as canon, not what someone says is canon. Which is why these days WotC decline to try and say what is canon. For a lot of people, video games like BG1 and PS:T were their introduction to the setting, and first impressions are always the most important. Given the massive success of BG3, it has introduced a lot more people to the setting, and therefore is their definitive version of both the Forgotten Realms and the standard D&D setting. It is canon, whether WotC like it or not. There is nothing they could do to change it now, even if they wanted to. It's firmly lodged in people's minds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Canon is what people accept as canon, not what someone says is canon. Which is why these days WotC decline to try and say what is canon. For a lot of people, video games like BG1 and PS:T were their introduction to the setting, and first impressions are always the most important. Given the massive success of BG3, it has introduced a lot more people to the setting, and therefore is their definitive version of both the Forgotten Realms and the standard D&D setting. It is canon, whether WotC like it or not. There is nothing they could do to change it now, even if they wanted to. It's firmly lodged in people's minds.

You do know that's not what "canon" means right? You are re-defining the term to suit your own purposes. The people who control a property get to decide what is canon and what isn't. The people who interact with a property get to decide what they like and what they don't. That's it. Head-canon, despite the name, isn't actually canon.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think it is a bit weird to worry about canon that much in an RPG setting. It is meant to be played in, and tell your own stories with. There cannot be one immutable timeline, it always be a multiverse of different stories by different participants. It really isn't the same than with media that is just meant to be passively consumed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it is a bit weird to worry about canon that much in an RPG setting. It is meant to be played in, and tell your own stories with. There cannot be one immutable timeline, it always be a multiverse of different stories by different participants. It really isn't the same than with media that is just meant to be passively consumed.

Not at the table, no, but the story of a setting also exists in the books, and most of that story for a lot of RPG settings was developed during a time when products were meant to be read first, played second. Changing that now means telling folks who have been fans of your setting for potentially decades that none of that actually matters anymore. Its the opposite of validation.

There's also the issue of RPGs based on properties that didn't originate as RPGs, like Star Wars, Star Trek, various comics properties, and Tolkien's Legendarium, among many others. Those stories were certainly meant to be experienced as they were, so any departure should, IMO, be called out and explained.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not at the table, no, but the story of a setting also exists in the books, and most of that story for a lot of RPG settings was developed during a time when products were meant to be read first, played second.

That seems like a terrible way to do a RPG product.

Changing that now means telling folks who have been fans of your setting for potentially decades that none of that actually matters anymore. Its the opposite of validation.

Do your old books vanish if newer ones contradict them?

There's also the issue of RPGs based on properties that didn't originate as RPGs, like Star Wars, Star Trek, various comics properties, and Tolkien's Legendarium, among many others. Those stories were certainly meant to be experienced as they were, so any departure should, IMO, be called out and explained.

Yes, perhaps. Though You can "reboot" such settings too. Personally I'm not a huge fan of doing that, but it certainly has happened many times. Also, different iterations of the same basic setting can exists consecutively, like is the case with comic universes and their onscreen interpretations. And new iterations do not erase the older ones. Burton's Batman films (which I love) are still perfectly valid even though newer versions have been produced.

And to be perfectly fair, Forgotten Realms is, and has always been an incoherent mess. It might be serviceable as a backdrop kitchen sink for light-hearted RPGs if you don't think about it too hard, but to compare it to something like Middle-Earth is ludicrous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That seems like a terrible way to do a RPG product.


Do your old books vanish if newer ones contradict them?


Yes, perhaps. Though You can "reboot" such settings too. Personally I'm not a huge fan of doing that, but it certainly has happened many times. Also, different iterations of the same basic setting can exists consecutively, like is the case with comic universes and their onscreen interpretations. And new iterations do not erase the older ones. Burton's Batman films (which I love) are still perfectly valid even though newer versions have been produced.

And to be perfectly fair, Forgotten Realms is, and has always been an incoherent mess. It might be serviceable as a backdrop kitchen sink for light-hearted RPGs if you don't think about it too hard, but to compare it to something like Middle-Earth is ludicrous.

The point is, newer versions are called out as different versions, and are not intended to replace the existing ones. When they are is when I have a problem.

Look, I get that you just don't care about these things in regards to an RPG property. That fine, of course, but it's no more valid a preference than mine.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The point is, newer versions are called out as different versions, and are not intended to replace the existing ones. When they are is when I have a problem.

What sometimes happen are "soft reboots" and sliding continuities and other such things. Like with comics they just "forget" events that supposedly happened in the same continuity and timescales mutate and all sort of weirdness like that.

Look, I get that you just don't care about these things in regards to an RPG property. That fine, of course, but it's no more valid a preference than mine.

I mean with RPGs there never can be one continuity. The moment the people play it, it diverges. So it just doesn't make sense to me to worry about a thing that even in theory cannot exist.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What sometimes happen are "soft reboots" and sliding continuities and other such things. Like with comics they just "forget" events that supposedly happened in the same continuity and timescales mutate and all sort of weirdness like that.


I mean with RPGs there never can be one continuity. The moment the people play it, it diverges. So it just doesn't make sense to me to worry about a thing that even in theory cannot exist.

Again, it can't exist at the table level. It can, and IMO should, exist at the level of the actually published material if you want to have any level of setting consistency.