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

[Sadras]

As an example I remember reading the story of Gygax allowing his Players to play Balrog and Vampire characters in his games. Should we not aim to raise our DM games to that level rather then being content with mediocrity?

Gygax also created rule 0.

Unless you have anecdotes of those two refusing to work something out with a player wanting to play one of those things, you've created a false equivalence.

I don't of course, but my point is if you're playing canon, the setting of Krynn doesn't cater for those races, however we have a PHB and now Volo's Guide riddled with additional races and classes which do not have a history in that setting. Now If the intention of the DM is to create a game within the parameters of setting are you saying that is not allowable? Similarly, I have my own limitation for my setting, I don't permit monks at my table for whatever reason for my Mystara game. The players know this beforehand. We have been playing within this setting for the last 20 years and they're very much aware of this ruling. It is not as if they are coming every week to my table with a character sheet and I'm going "No, not happening"

Not pre-adding everything that a player could possibly want to your campaign setting, and telling a player you won't add in a specific something they like under any circumstance are worlds apart. The former is fine, not at all lazy, and not what was being discussed. The later is what @Shasarak called "lazy".

Sorry no you're very much misrepresenting him. @Shasarak has very much outed his intentions by neither responding to my post or @Caliban's. He firmly said that all should be allowed otherwise it's lazy DMing. I'm assuming this is because he still carries the scars of a bad DM or his players have limited (lazy) imaginations and can only play one-trick ponies.

 

[Hussar]

Right. It was there all along. The other thing with forces that nearly vanish, or even become entirely unknown for a period of time, is that it doesn't mean that some individuals along the way didn't discover them. It just means that the knowledge wasn't passed on or made general knowledge. Take the discovery of America. Columbus is credited with that since he was the one that made the Americas common knowledge. Later we discovered that others found it before him, but nobody ever heard about it from those people. Wild magic is just like that.

So, canon is meaningless.

I've quoted chapter and verse that Wild Magic is not present during The War of the Lance. It's not like it's unclear or ambiguous. It's flat out stated that Wild Magic casters start in the Age of Mortals. But, again, it's convenient to ignore lore that doesn't fit with your own preconceptions.

 

[Sadras]

Not sure how you being lazy makes anyone else entitled

There we go again. Nice guy this, sure you still want to defend this @AaronOfBarbaria?

Secondly Dragonlance is infamous for its on going meta story where Margaret and Tracy introduce changes that blow away adding a Dragonborn Monk to your own campaign in comparison. They literally drop a mountain on the world and that is just the beginning without mentioning Chaos, Alien Dragons and killing their own Gods. And dont forget the rules changes that make what the Forgotten Realms went through look light in comparison.

Wow, they killed some Gods. They still don't have orcs and lycanthropes. I guess they still believe in limitations. So if I have a deceased God in my setting then I can impose the no monks rule. Got it. That's the magical criteria on limitations.

And thirdly, I do appreciate the irony of using a World where anyone can actually play a Dragonborn Monk (well Draconian but you know WotC policy on reflavouring; see also Purple Dragon Knight) to make your point.

Only said monk, nothing about dragonborns, saurials, or draconians.

Now He-who-isn't-Lazy answer my very first question which you keep ignoring.
Do you consider a DM lazy that doesn't allow all which is in the PHB and supplements? If no, please list the exceptions? I have already started your list for you...

1. DM must drop a glorious mountain on the world.
2. DM must kill Gods;
3. DM must introduce Alien Dragons
4. Chaos! We must have Chaos!
5+ Awaiting any other wonderful exceptions

 

[Caliban]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but you've certainly gotten my view of D&D wrong.

It's not "player-centric" - it's everyone-at-the-table-centric.

I refuse the separation of DM and players when it comes to determining who gets what they want out of the game. Instead, I insist that the entire group collectively get what they want, working together towards that goal - even when it means someone tolerating someone else having different preferences.

Much like communism, this sounds great in theory, but horrible in practice.

Despite what you say, it really is player-centric. You expect the DM to always compromise in favor of the players. The players always get what they want and the DM has to adjust the world to accommodate them. I simply don't find that acceptable and won't DM if the players try to force it on me. (Not that anyone ever has. I've never encountered this attitude in the real word, just on forums.)

I play and I DM. Being a DM is far more of a time and effort investment, and usually a monetary investment. (I've yet to meet a DM that doesn't buy more gaming books and supplements than someone who only plays.) As far as I'm concerned, the DM invests more into the campaign, they get the final say.

The social contract I expect is that the DM gets to set up the ground rules for the game (taking input from the players as appropriate). After that they are expected to run a game consistent with the ground rules. You want to challenge the players and help them have fun, but that doesn't mean catering to their every whim. That's not challenging or fun.

 

[Shasarak]

It's a group game which means that all of us partake of all dishes. Nobody can "eat liver" in a D&D game without my being forced to eat it, too. If someone plays a dragonborn, I have no option to not eat the dragonborn "liver".

I find if I substitute "poked in the eye" instead of "eat liver" that the analogy becomes a lot more entertaining and more three stooge like.

 

[Hussar]

These lore threads remind me of an argument I had years ago during the whole 4e kerfuffle. Another poster insisted that the 4e medusa was a huge diversion from canon medusae because you could resist the medusa's gaze. Hang on, I said, that's not actually a change, you've always been able to resist a medusa's gaze. This went back and forth for a while until I (and a few other posters) actually went back and posted the relevant text from EVERY SINGLE edition of D&D up to that point - all the way from OD&D to 3.5.

And the lore was surprisingly consistent. You could resist a medusa's gaze in every single edition of the game. His interpretation of medusa's was not based on the actual canon of the game. The only change (in this specific case) was that a medusa's gaze was somewhat slower (Save Save or die vs simply SoD), but, that was it.

Despite quoting chapter and verse from every single edition, the other poster still refused to accept the facts of the situation.

Now, we are here with this gnome wildmage example. Two separate posters (myself and [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]) have posted the relevant sections from canon. The canon isn't ambiguous. It's not like we're trying to say that slave and servant are synonyms. The facts are right there - wild magic casters exist in the setting in two time periods, neither of which is the Age of Despair which is when the game is set.

Now, [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION] freely admits to not having deep knowledge of the setting and simply made a mistake. Fair enough. He got the timeline of the setting wrong. No worries. But, all these kind folks in this thread have repeatedly told me that I was 100% wrong. That I didn't understand the setting and my knowledge of the canon was too out of date to be relevant.

Yet, when shown in black and white, again, quoting chapter and verse of the setting, posters are now tripping over themselves to rewrite and reinterpret canon. "Oh, well, wild magic does exist all the time, so, maybe this one caster is just an exception". But, if we can do that, then canon doesn't really mean anything does it? If we can simply reinterpret canon to suit whatever argument we want to make, then canon isn't terribly important is it?

See, I don't care about canon. I don't. I just find it hilariously ironic to watch people who claim that setting canon is very important and that changing setting canon actually means you're no longer even playing that setting anymore, fold, spindle and maul canon. And why? Why are we reinterpreting canon here? Is it to correct some inconsistency in the setting? Nope, it's being done to win an Internet argument. People are abandoning their stated positions that canon is important and must be respected and must not be changed without careful consideration, all in order to win an Internet argument.

That's how important canon really is.

 

[Shasarak]

Gygax also created rule 0.

He did say to make the game fun for the players.

I don't of course, but my point is if you're playing canon, the setting of Krynn doesn't cater for those races, however we have a PHB and now Volo's Guide riddled with additional races and classes which do not have a history in that setting. Now If the intention of the DM is to create a game within the parameters of setting are you saying that is not allowable? Similarly, I have my own limitation for my setting, I don't permit monks at my table for whatever reason for my Mystara game. The players know this beforehand. We have been playing within this setting for the last 20 years and they're very much aware of this ruling. It is not as if they are coming every week to my table with a character sheet and I'm going "No, not happening"

Of course they are not coming every week with Monks. If they get rapped on the head everytime they bring up their Monk character then how long are they going to keep on bringing up their Monk character?

Sorry no you're very much misrepresenting him. @Shasarak has very much outed his intentions by neither responding to my post or @Caliban's. He firmly said that all should be allowed otherwise it's lazy DMing. I'm assuming this is because he still carries the scars of a bad DM or his players have limited (lazy) imaginations and can only play one-trick ponies.

I can not really respond to Caliban at the moment because he is on time out so I do apologize for that.

Maybe you would not see so many one-trick ponies if you let someone play something new. Maybe something created this century? After all even Dragonlance has gone through a few revisions in 20 years. Just saying.

 

[Sadras]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] with my limited knowledge of Krynn I agree with your assessment of Wild Magic during the Age of Despair. Again I'm no expert despite having read 20+ novels on the setting.
Personally I think canon is important to the table that uses it (maybe only for that one campaign or for their entire roleplaying life), to others like perhaps yours or pemerton's not so much.

 

[Shasarak]

I've quoted chapter and verse that Wild Magic is not present during The War of the Lance. It's not like it's unclear or ambiguous. It's flat out stated that Wild Magic casters start in the Age of Mortals. But, again, it's convenient to ignore lore that doesn't fit with your own preconceptions.

You still have not explained the Chaos Gem. We already know that time traveling exists in Dragonlance. We know that Wild Magic exists in Dragonlance. Its like the guy with the Apple Pen and the Pineapple Pen.

 

[Shasarak]

See, I don't care about canon. I don't.

Ah huh, just like you did not care that other time you had to prove the guy wrong about Medusa?

So did that change in 5e, or can you still save against them? It would be nice if something remained constant (I am looking at you Orcs!).