Now, to highlight the statement and respond to the question to illustrate the difference between a "strong" canon (or fan canon) position and a weak canon position.
Could I see a black James Bond? Sure, Idris Elba. That would not only be awesome, he'd certainly be my choice. I'd settle for Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Could I see a female James (Jane) Bond, a female 007? Sure, Emily Blunt, Hayley Atwell come to mind, and there are many others.
Could I see an old James Bond? I already have! Did you see Roger Moore hobbling around at the end? Of course, I would have preferred that the story revolved what happens with an older spy, as opposed to, "Ima not old, Ima still James Bond," but you get the idea.
So what is the (movie) James Bond canon that precludes a black person, a woman, or an older James Bond (??). Nothing. Nothing in the gestalt of it. That's kind of the point; there are those who use "canon," as a club to ensure that their version of a property is the correct one, whether or not the resulting product is good and contributes to the overall story (or canon).
I can see all of those as well. I'd love a Idris Elba. Because you can nudge canon a little. Canon is a tool, not a straightjacket. A black Bond? Sure. A female Bond? Harder as there's a subtle sense of misogyny to the character, but you could. An elderly Bond (that isn't an established actor pretending to be young). Okay. All three? At that point you risk diluting the character. You risk drifting away from the character's key attributes.
That said… the elderly black female Bond is probably a poor example, as we really DO need more colour and diversity to the character. That's on me.
A better example would be an American Bond. Making him NSA. Or a historic Bond set in the 1940s. Or even 1890s.
Victorian Bond. Which sounds cool. Bond in the era of Holmes. Very
League of Extraorinary Gentlemen. But it'd be super, super easy to fail doing. Because it's that much harder to make the character iconically Bond when you're stripping away identifying aspects of the character: the Aston Martin, the Walther PPK, the Vodka Martini (no British gentleman would be drinking that in the 1890s) and chaste Victorian England would be less fitting for his womanizing.
If you make too many changes all at once you lose what was important in the first place. Changes should be evolutionary: small subtle tweaks over time.
The more changes that are introduced, the more points of failure you introduce. Creative endeavors are already risky. There are plenty of *terrible* Bond movies already. And plenty of terrible D&D products.
A work is judged on the merits, not merely on the canon.
Very true. BUT canon IS one of those merits by which it is judged.
Canon, and continuity, are tricky things. Done well, they enhance the experience. But to answer the question asked- if the discomfort with the product is merely because of canon, and not because of the product, that is often indicative of a desire to have things (yours) a certain way. And having seen this debate played out over decades in D&D, I know that today's "Stick to the canon," is tomorrow's "It's all been downhill since Gygax systematized the supplements." Not all change is good, but change is sometimes necessary. AND FUN!
I completely agree that continuity and canon are tricky. And that sometimes change is necessary. I've never argued otherwise, and repeatedly (REPEATEDLY) said that sometimes you do need to make changes. And I've defended some changes.
But, making those changes should be the last resort. If something isn't working, if the plot of the adventure or the tone of the monster isn't meshing with the canon, you don't default to changing the canon. You swap out monsters or alter the adventure.
There's also no correlation between change and fun. Change can be fun. Change can also be non-fun. Change can also be stressful or irritating, making it negative fun.
2. People have also pointed out that "canon," is never really defined in D&D. If you go back through all of those threads, you can see the difficulty; canon is whatever WoTC publishes (the official canon) which would mean that by definition, it would be pointless to say that anything WoTC does ever violates the canon. However, what some people are attempting to argue is the (very-recent) notion of a fan-curated canon.
"Canon" is very seldom defined by any entity with a long term continuity.
The only time I've seen that done was the Extended Universe with Star Wars, where they can various levels of canon. Or maybe comics where they formalized "imaginary stories"
Generally, unless otherwise mentioned, you have to assume a story is canon.
What's canon in D&D: generally the content released by TSR/WotC. Anything licenced will be of dubious canonicity until proven otherwise. Like Star Trek really. So the game books and novels are canon. The comic books and videogames are generally not.
The only stuff really in doubt is the Paizo magazines and the 3e licenced world (Dragonlance and Ravenloft).
3. Further, the problem is compounded because D&D, unlike other areas where "canon," can be more easily identified (Star Trek, Star Wars, MCU) is not a single narrative, but a TTRPG. With multiple campaign worlds. And various iterations of narrative (rulebooks, 3PP, computer games, other media (movies, cartoons), narrative fiction). Many of these comments have gotten ... confused as people interchangeably discuss changes to "canon," as referring to changes to the rules of the game, to the "fluff" surrounding the rules, or the combined fluff/crunch that we often see.
D&D has it much, much easier than Star Wars, as it doesn't have to worry about novels anymore. Or comics. Or television shows. Or multiple movies being worked on concurrently.
And unlike comics, there are not three dozen creative teams working simultaneously on monthly products.
D&D is small enough that they should have a much, much easier time keeping track of the lore.
While D&D has multiple worlds, none of those really matter anymore since content is not being set there. The canon of Dragonlance doesn't much matter. They really just need to worry about the Realms and Greyhawk/ generic D&D
4. People often fail to note that a stance on canon at this moment (this is the definitive canon, brah!) overlooks the fact that canon has changed as D&D has evolved, and if a person were to have taken an absolutist stance on canon in the past, they wouldn't have the canon they love now. If you don't believe, just ask a grognard (walk five miles, uphill, both ways, in the snow, so we could play a game where Drow were always evil, not some emo good ranger).
I'm all for canon evolving. A good drow ranger doesn't change continuity, it
adds to it. It's drow lore… plus.
Technically, most of the 4e changes to the Realms were not canon changes and not objectionable from that standpoint, and were just poor changes. (Which is a related complaint: sweeping change for change's sake or based on personal taste.)
Many of the 4e changes were good and easy to defend. The primordials. Abeir as Toril's twin. Adding dragonborn. The spellplague and spellscars. They're additive and make the world richer.
Other changes are harder to defend. Removing the real world analogues for example. That was someone removing something they personally did not like. It didn't add to the lore. It was change for change's sake.
Then there's stuff like the eladrin. Making all sun/high elves suddenly from the feywild and able to teleport. That was a straight change to continuity and completely needless.
5. Which means that your absolutist statement isn't correct; as pointed out, this is the chasm of small differences. I don't want to put words in pemerton's mouth, but I don't think he'd appreciate a D&D 6e that eschewed fantasy completely for sci-fi, and revolved around a new d40 (try rolling that!). Instead, it's about the deference accorded to-
a. Continuity. Some people prefer a high degree of deference, some people accord it a low degree of deference. Some people think that a change has to be super-duper awesome, others just good to warrant the change.
b. Deference to the creators. By this, I don't mean that they always make good decisions; sometimes they make horrible, terrible, not-good decisions. But if they do, they get punished (by the marketplace, if nothing else). Still, it is their right to make those decisions, not ours.
Changing the dice is a good example.
A d40 is a comedic example. But D&D
could easily drop the d20 though in favour for 3d6.
You can make a strong argument for that change.
Switching to 3d6 introduces a bell curve: you have better odds of hitting while still having the ability to miss, so it works well with bounded accuracy. It reducing the swingingest of the game without making the dice irrelevant. Critical hits can be that much more special and cooler. It's easier to add fumbles to the game, since they're that much less likely.
It's much easier for new players as not everyone will have six sided dice.
It removes the "9" and the "7", so you don't get those sides mixed up with the "6" and the "1". And you can switch to pips making the dice easier to see at a distance. The fewer sides mean the dice will also stop rolling sooner, being less of a ball.
Plus it introduces a wealth of potential mechanics. You can retain advantage where you reroll the dice, but you can also add or drop d6s for further bonuses. Dice pools! Or you can introduce mechanics for doubles. Green Ronin's Fantasy Age system does some neat stuff with 3d6 by colouring one differently.
And it's a change, and change is fun, right? So D&D should totally drop the d20. It's all positives no negatives.
