D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

[pemerton]

if we generalize enough eventually we get to the point where all monsters are the same... "They are both monsters in the monster manual... so they are the same"

<snip>

As a more concrete example... otherworldly beings of CG could also describe Djinni in 3.5. More importantly Eladrin in 4e aren't "Good" in alignment, they can be any alignment so they are just as likely to have a chaotic good bent as a lawful evil one... You as a DM are choosing to give them a CG bent. That's my point.

The suggestion that 4e eladrin have nothing more in common with 2nd ed AD&D eladrin than they do with djinns is odd. Needless to say, I don't agree. 4e eladrin are other-planar elves of a CG bent. (There are exceptions - the Prince of Frost et al - but that is surely addition, not rewriting!)

4e djinn are continuous with earlier edition djinn, too. And are unaligned - which is something of a return to the original neutrality. (On the alignment of genies - Book 2: Monsters and Treasure tells us that Efreet tend to be Chaotic, and Cook/Marsh Expert sticks to this; whereas in the original MM they are N (with LE tendencies); and then the d20srd tells us that they are Always LE - despite these rather dramatic changes to "canon", which seem comparable to the Storm Giants changes that [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] is concerned about, I don't ever recall seeing many complaints, nor reports of gross confusion resulting from uncertainty among players as to the alignment of Efreets, or genies more generally.)

So you're saying both official alignment as well as the entire cosmology changed... and yet Eladrin (a race tied to cosmology) somehow stayed the same as they were in the previous 3 editions even with said changes?

The tropes are preserved - they are otherworldy elfin creatures of a CG bent.

The details change - how could they not when the cosmology changes?

It may be that you are not sensitive to the distinction between continuity of tropes and continuity of fictional details - this is what is suggested by your comparison of changes in comic book lore to having Superman be an ordinary person who is super-good at computer programming.

If so, fair enough. I think that the 4e designers were very consicous of this distinction, and they explain - in Worlds & Monsters - how it affected their authoring of the lore for the default 4e setting.

 

[Imaro]

As @lowkey13 said, the point I'm making is that the frequent rebooting/reimagining of comic characters doesn't seem to have done any harm to revenue for Marvel characters (whether that accrues primarily to Disney or other studios).

If you're talking about Disney I think it very much depends on whether it's primarily to Disney or other studios... but this does give us a pretty good opportunity to compare and contrast below...

And the lore of Marvel characters isn't consistent in the film era - look at the X-Men, for instance, which do not have a consistent lore across the films. This doesn't seem to have done much harm.

First, the X-men movies are not Disney... and you are correct they aren't consistent and have had many changes and reboots (which they are just now trying [unsuccessfully??] to pull into a money making cohesive whole). But has it hurt them? Looking at how much the films grossed I would say yes.

The highest grossing X-Men movie (and remember this is a top tier property for Marvel) grossed $234,362,462. Now for comparison let's look at the Marvel Studio/Disney movies that have not taken this route of constant re-boots and changes...

Iron Man 1 (A second or third tier property at best): $318,412,10
Guardians of the Galaxy (A second or third tier property): $333,176,600
Marvel's Avengers:$623,357,910

Marvel/Disney movies which have a consistent and continuing lore tend to do much better than Fox's properties (constant re-boots and changing of the lore) at the box office. I mean the Wolverine movies (Fox) did worse than Ant-Man (Marvel/Disney)... and Wolverine is one of the top IP's Marvel has. So I'd disagree that the constant re-boots and changes don't seem to be hurting the x-Men movies... much less claim that it in some way is helping them.

I don't know of any evidence for this. What "barrier for casual entry" is created by the fact that, in X-Men Origins Xavier can walk and use his powers, and Wolverine and Sabretooth are brothers, whereas the other films imply that Wolverine and Sabretooth are strangers and that Xavier can only walk by taking a drug that suppresses his powers.

Sales numbers?? The fact that the every single Wolverine movie have done worse than movies about obscure characters like Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy and that the highest grossing X-Men movie is nowhere near any of the Avenger movies (two similar tier properties) in sales? Now let me turn the question to you...What exactly is your argument for why this hasn't hurt the films? You keep saying this but data seems to indicate they were hurt by it or at the very least it didn't help them in any discernible way.

 

[Imaro]

The suggestion that 4e eladrin have nothing more in common with 2nd ed AD&D eladrin than they do with djinns is odd.

It's probably "odd" because it's a mis-representation of what I actually posted... but that is starting to seem par for the course around here.

Needless to say, I don't agree. 4e eladrin are other-planar elves of a CG bent. (There are exceptions - the Prince of Frost et al - but that is surely addition, not rewriting!)

The fact that they are now Elves is rewriting.

4e djinn are continuous with earlier edition djinn, too. And are unaligned - which is something of a return to the original neutrality. (On the alignment of genies - Book 2: Monsters and Treasure tells us that Efreet tend to be Chaotic, and Cook/Marsh Expert sticks to this; whereas in the original MM they are N (with LE tendencies); and then the d20srd tells us that they are Always LE - despite these rather dramatic changes to "canon", which seem comparable to the Storm Giants changes that [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] is concerned about, I don't ever recall seeing many complaints, nor reports of gross confusion resulting from uncertainty among players as to the alignment of Efreets, or genies more generally.)

Thanks but again you've either misread what I posted or purposefully mis-paraphrased it... you should go back and re-read it taking into consideration the context and exactly what I said...

The tropes are preserved - they are otherworldy elfin creatures of a CG bent.

So they aren't the same except in the broadest sense... and again if we get broad enough we can claim any two things are the same.

The details change - how could they not when the cosmology changes?

So we agree... they were changed, whether it's details or broad sweeping changes (for my purposes it's irrelevant because my point was they were changed)... it's still changes.

It may be that you are not sensitive to the distinction between continuity of tropes and continuity of fictional details - this is what is suggested by your comparison of changes in comic book lore to having Superman be an ordinary person who is super-good at computer programming.

I think that different people value one or the other more... but claiming something hasn't changed is patently false if the details have in fact changed. You can't claim there was no change if weither of the above have changed... only that the change didn't matter to you.

If so, fair enough. I think that the 4e designers were very consicous of this distinction, and they explain - in Worlds & Monsters - how it affected their authoring of the lore for the default 4e setting.

I don't care why they changed it or the lore of D&D... I'm just glad a big chunk of it has been rolled back and away from the 4e lore because I didn't care for it overall.

 

[pemerton]

the X-men movies are not Disney... and you are correct they aren't consistent and have had many changes and reboots (which they are just now trying [unsuccessfully??] to pull into a money making cohesive whole). But has it hurt them? Looking at how much the films grossed I would say yes.

The highest grossing X-Men movie (and remember this is a top tier property for Marvel) grossed $234,362,462. Now for comparison let's look at the Marvel Studio/Disney movies that have not taken this route of constant re-boots and changes...

Iron Man 1 (A second or third tier property at best): $318,412,10
Guardians of the Galaxy (A second or third tier property): $333,176,600
Marvel's Avengers:$623,357,910

Marvel/Disney movies which have a consistent and continuing lore tend to do much better than Fox's properties

What "barrier for casual entry" is created by the fact that, in X-Men Origins Xavier can walk and use his powers, and Wolverine and Sabretooth are brothers, whereas the other films imply that Wolverine and Sabretooth are strangers and that Xavier can only walk by taking a drug that suppresses his powers.

Sales numbers?? The fact that the every single Wolverine movie have done worse than movies about obscure characters like Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy and that the highest grossing X-Men movie is nowhere near any of the Avenger movies (two similar tier properties) in sales?

You're just making stuff up!

The first Iron Man movie, in 2008, made over half-a-billion dollars. The first X-Men movie, 8 years earlier, made a bit less than three hundred million. Even allowing for inflation (one site suggested around 25%), the Iron Man movie made more money. This clearly has nothing to do with continuity of canon.

Part of the logic of Days of Future Past was to try to build a longer-running money-making franchise, and this was attempted by changing canon. Now maybe you know more about marketing movies than Fox, but personally I'm sceptical.

Is there any actual evidence that what explains the big sales for Marvel movies is tight continuity of canon?

 

[pemerton]

claiming something hasn't changed is patently false if the details have in fact changed.

No one has claimed that eladrin didn't change. The claim is that the change preserves their essence - that's it's not the radical change that it is being portrayed as being by some in this thread.

As to whether or not making eladrin elves is a radical change - some Googling for 2nd ed AD&D monster info gave me all this:

The eladrins are the native race of Arborea, just as the baatezu are associated with Baator and the tanar’ri with the Abyss. They’re wild and free beings who exult in their own existence and live a life of song and celebration. The eladrins aid all people of good hearts against the forces of evil, but seek to do so with individual acts of kindness or heroism. . . .

The magical and mysterious heart of the eladrin lies in the Court of Stars, where the beautiful Queen Morwel reigns over her people. Morwel is sometimes called the Faerie Queen, the Lady of the Lake, or the Lady of Stars . . . The Court moves from place to place throughout Arborea, existing only where night falls over the realm. . . . In the elven realms, the eladrins feel free to show themselves for what they are.

The greatest of the eladrins are the tulani, or faerie lords

Ghaeles resemble tall, athletic high elves

It shouldn’t be any surprise that there are eladrins who devote themselves to art, music, and magic. The firres (pronounced feers) are creatures who live for beauty . . . In their natural form, firre eladrins resemble stocky elves with brilliant red hair and fiery red eyes

The shieres appear to be exceptionally tall high elves of some kind

The novieres appear to be aquatic elves or nixies

Coure eladrin resemble tiny, slender elves with long gossamer wings

Bralani in their natural form resemble short, stocky elves​

I don't think it's a radical departure from the above to assimilate eladrin to a type of elf that comes from a fey land of faerie courts!

 

[Lanliss]

If you're talking about Disney I think it very much depends on whether it's primarily to Disney or other studios... but this does give us a pretty good opportunity to compare and contrast below...



First, the X-men movies are not Disney... and you are correct they aren't consistent and have had many changes and reboots (which they are just now trying [unsuccessfully??] to pull into a money making cohesive whole). But has it hurt them? Looking at how much the films grossed I would say yes.

The highest grossing X-Men movie (and remember this is a top tier property for Marvel) grossed $234,362,462. Now for comparison let's look at the Marvel Studio/Disney movies that have not taken this route of constant re-boots and changes...

Iron Man 1 (A second or third tier property at best): $318,412,10
Guardians of the Galaxy (A second or third tier property): $333,176,600
Marvel's Avengers:$623,357,910

Marvel/Disney movies which have a consistent and continuing lore tend to do much better than Fox's properties (constant re-boots and changing of the lore) at the box office. I mean the Wolverine movies (Fox) did worse than Ant-Man (Marvel/Disney)... and Wolverine is one of the top IP's Marvel has. So I'd disagree that the constant re-boots and changes don't seem to be hurting the x-Men movies... much less claim that it in some way is helping them.




Sales numbers?? The fact that the every single Wolverine movie have done worse than movies about obscure characters like Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy and that the highest grossing X-Men movie is nowhere near any of the Avenger movies (two similar tier properties) in sales? Now let me turn the question to you...What exactly is your argument for why this hasn't hurt the films? You keep saying this but data seems to indicate they were hurt by it or at the very least it didn't help them in any discernible way.

Fwiw, I do not think it is the subject of the movies that caused a lower profit. Even back to Iron man 1 the Avengers set of movies was great quality, and more gritty than X-men, which has always seemed far too tied to its drama for my liking. The Avengers set are all high action, with good quality humor and acting, while X-men has a higher need of good graphics, considering the kinds of powers the mutants have, but are mostly lower quality, and have a good number of seemingly disconnected actors. The majority of the actors in the X-men movies seemed fairly flat, while most Avengers movies are loaded with natural behavior, little quirks and ticks that make the characters that much more relatable.

To sum up, quality makes a difference, IMO, which is why Avengers/Guardians has ruled the market so well.

 

[Remathilis]

This reminded me of the fact that (per early X-Men comics) Prof X fought in the Korean War, yet (per 80s/90s X-Men comics) was a middle-aged man 40 years later. The subtle revisiting and readjustment of timelines that is part-and-parcel of long-running comic series doesn't seem to cause problems.

Which is probably more evidence that there is no very strong correlation between tight fidelity to canon and popular, commercial or literary success.

Wolverine is a trope. His precise age, the minutiae of how he was infused with adamantium, etc, are details that can be (and have been) fuged.

Fun fact: Marvel continuity has kept what is known as a "sliding scale" of time, meaning the time certain actions happened has changed, but not how long ago they happened. Its why a character like Spider-Man can have 60+ years of continuity, but still remain in his 20s. This, as you point out though, as created some oddities in the timeline (Tony Stark seems to be injured in every major war since WW2; Xavier fighting in Korea, Magneto being a child during the Holocaust) which are either ignored or time-shifted (and sometimes both).

DC, on the other hand, handles it by rebooting continuity ever decade or so starting with the 1980's Crisis on Infinite Earths. So rather than slide-shifting events, DC simply retells the origin stories and ignores previous events (mostly; it seems DC can't keep that straight and often times refers to events that, per new continuity, could not happen).

None of its relevant to D&D, buts its two interesting ways to keep nearly a century of continuity straight.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6801219]Lanliss[/MENTION], I don't necessarily agree with your evaluations of the various films, but I certainly agree that what leads to box office is typically something other than tightness of canonical continuity.

 

[Lanliss]

[MENTION=6801219]Lanliss[/MENTION], I don't necessarily agree with your evaluations of the various films, but I certainly agree that what leads to box office is typically something other than tightness of canonical continuity.

Yeah, I am about the only one in my circles that doesn't care for the x-men movies. I am hardly an official critic or anything, but my post above is my armchair analysis.

 

[billd91]

Yeah, I am about the only one in my circles that doesn't care for the x-men movies. I am hardly an official critic or anything, but my post above is my armchair analysis.

Your analysis of the comparison between the X-Men movies and MCU is pretty good, I think. The highest achieving X-Men movie as far as reaching MCU quality is probably the second film, X-Men 2. I think the rebooting has made it kind of hard to follow the franchise and they keep screwing up the chemistry between characters other than Xavier and Magneto.