D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[Shardstone]

While Micah's stance is valid, we have to be honest and admit that most people don't enshrine lore, and most people like to reimagine old ideas. Virtually all myths are reimagined myths from older cultures, some forgotten. The reimagining of lore is in line with the human tradition of storytelling.

 

[bedir than]

Sorry, I was unclear. I meant he didn’t actually say anything about lore changes in this interview.

It's all from the same interview with the same person at the same outlet.

 

[bedir than]

Where's the full video interview of this? The comicbook link I found just has maybe a minute clip from the interview.

It exists as at least two stories with a third one to come (on his documentary)

 

[Micah Sweet]

While Micah's stance is valid, we have to be honest and admit that most people don't enshrine lore, and most people like to reimagine old ideas. Virtually all myths are reimagined myths from older cultures, some forgotten. The reimagining of lore is in line with the human tradition of storytelling.

Most people like to re-imagine ideas? I don't think you can take that as a truism. Some people like to re-imagine ideas, and some people don't. Why else is the original Star Wars trilogy more popular than the sequels? Do most people prefer the re-make of Total Recall to the original? Heck, Hollywood is a franchise recycling machine. Do they do that because most people like re-imagining ideas? No. They do it because its better for them financially to sell the same thing over again, not because recycled ideas are better creatively than new ones.

 

[Shardstone]

Most people like to re-imagine ideas? I don't think you can take that as a truism. Some people like to re-imagine ideas, and some people don't. Why else is the original Star Wars trilogy more popular than the sequels? Do most people prefer the re-make of Total Recall to the original? Heck, Hollywood is a franchise recycling machine. Do they do that because most people like re-imagining ideas? No. They do it because its better for them financially to sell the same thing over again, not because recycled ideas are better creatively than new ones.

My man, Star Wars being more popular is because the sequels were worse movies, not because of a love for the purity of the original stories. All you're saying is that bad remakes are unpopular. I agree.

 

[Ondath]

Most people like to re-imagine ideas? I don't think you can take that as a truism. Some people like to re-imagine ideas, and some people don't. Why else is the original Star Wars trilogy more popular than the sequels? Do most people prefer the re-make of Total Recall to the original? Heck, Hollywood is a franchise recycling machine. Do they do that because most people like re-imagining ideas? No. They do it because its better for them financially to sell the same thing over again, not because recycled ideas are better creatively than new ones.

Hamlet is a retelling of the father avenging storylines, and specifically the Germanic tale of Amleth, that existed for a few centuries before Shakespeare wrote his version. Tolkien's Legendarium is essentially a reimagining of various Nordic and European folk tales doused in heavy Catholic and eucatastrophic undertones. A good deal of our cultural works are re-imaginings to an extent or another. If anything, the sacrality of "canon" and "lore" is a fairly recent phenomenon and is mostly caused by modern copyright laws that forbid others from iterating someone else's IP. I'd argue that Hollywood remakes feel egregious not because they're reimaginings, but because they're soulless re-imaginings that bank on nostalgia and play everything safe.

 

[Shardstone]

Hamlet is a retelling of the father avenging storylines, and specifically the Germanic tale of Amleth, that existed for a few centuries before Shakespeare wrote his version. Tolkien's Legendarium is essentially a reimagining of various Nordic and European folk tales doused in heavy Catholic and eucatastrophic undertones. A good deal of our cultural works are re-imaginings to an extent or another. If anything, the sacrality of "canon" and "lore" is a fairly recent phenomenon and is mostly caused by modern copyright laws that forbid others from iterating someone else's IP. I'd argue that Hollywood remakes feel egregious not because they're reimaginings, but because they're soulless re-imaginings that bank on nostalgia and play everything safe.

Poetry in motion.

 

[Remathilis]

You're not actually addressing the concern. It's not about "repeating verbatim" what has come before, it's about not overwriting, invalidating, and discarding the old lore.

The 5e beholder lore overwrites, invalidates, and discards the previous lore on beholders. They had a reproductive cycle in earlier editions that had nothing to do with dreaming, to give one example. This might not matter in your game, but there is someone out there who has had beholder reproduction as a plot point or an adventure element in their game, and now the official lore not only doesn't support that but actively contradicts it.

You could say the same thing about the apparent incoming shift in 5e's gnoll lore vs. 2e lore. Gnolls are, from various comments that the designers have made, going to shift to Fiends. But in older lore, they weren't created by Yeenoghu, and in fact he's an interloper who muscled his way into gnoll society, pushing the old gnoll gods out of his way in the process. Making all gnolls Fiends completely invalidates that lore.

Not overwriting, invalidating, or discarding the old lore IS repeating verbatim.

So, let's take gnolls. In earlier editions, they were just hyena headed humanoids, not much different than a dozen other humanoids in the game. So, they decided to make humanoids more unique and gnolls were redesigned to be bestial and fiendish. Now, that leaves us three options.

1.) Retcon gnolls to always be savage fiends in origin. It is the cleanest lore-wise, but obviously invalidates everything before it.
2.) Create a scenario where gnolls are suddenly corrupted into savage fiends (a Gnoll-shaking event) to explain the change. Some players will accept this status quo shakeup, some will reject it (but mah campayne!) and some will have no idea because the first time they heard of a gnoll was in the 5e MM.
3.) Never change gnolls. Leave them as another generic hyena-headed humanoid tribe. Reprint what is already there again verbatim.

Each option has its downfalls. Option 1 invalidates the lore. Option 2 does also, through it does it via a convoluted explanation that some players STILL will reject, and 3 keeps the game stuck firmly in the lore created 40 years ago when having one more hit dice was sufficient to differ humanoid monsters apart from one another. (And gnolls are far behind goblinoids, kobolds and orcs in the "humanoid monster" popularity contest).

Which was my point. If you change the lore, people will complain. If you create a convoluted explanation in game to explain the change, slightly less people will complain. If you leave it exactly the same, people will complain they are buying the same thing over again. There is no win solution.

Me, I'm still waiting for Tolkien to rewrite Lord of the Rings that takes into account the original and TRUE version of Riddles in the Dark...

 

[Remathilis]

While Micah's stance is valid, we have to be honest and admit that most people don't enshrine lore, and most people like to reimagine old ideas. Virtually all myths are reimagined myths from older cultures, some forgotten. The reimagining of lore is in line with the human tradition of storytelling.

There is nothing new under the sun.

 

[MGibster]

But the history of the setting in-universe hasn't changed. To me that makes all the difference. You can do all sorts of things if you don't mess with the history.

Practically speaking, whomever owns the IP can do whatever they want including going back and changing established lore. I don't categorically reject changes made, but that doesn't mean I'll like every change that is made.