For example, we're playing in a Dragonlance campaign. Someone (heh) is playing a gnome. That gnome in no way actually resembles as Dragonlance gnome. Yet, the group accepts it and loves the character. Because the character is fascinating and played extremely well. Fantastic character. Completely ignores lore.
As the player of that gnome, I'd
really disagree with that description. He
completely resembles a Dragonlance gnome. He's going in a direction I don't think Dragonlance gnomes have gone before, since he's my character and not Weiss/Hickman's character, but the roots of everything that shapes his character are entirely consistent with and inspired by the descriptions of Dragonlance gnomes. He in no way violates what DL gnomes are or stand for, and, in fact, he operates entirely within their logic.
I did this specifically because I was interested in playing a character that had some special significance
in Dragonlance. I wanted to work with Dragonlance history, Dragonlance archetypes, Dragonlance mythos. If I was playing a gnome in an
Eberron game, or in a
Greyhawk game, it would be an entirely different kind of character.
And I don't do this because I especially give a flip about DL lore (I've never read the books), but because if I'm going to play DL, I want to play a character that, if they were not in that setting, would lose something. Railing against destiny and the Balance just doesn't have the same meaning in a setting where those things are not very important.
My point is though, canon almost never survives contact with the players. IME, that's pretty universal. And, if that's true, then why get terribly fussed when canon changes. The odds of any given canon actually surviving intact to the table are pretty close to zero anyway, so, why get fussed about it?
Everyone's got their own breaking points. If you're WotC, the question becomes how much you can get away with changing. For you, maybe it's a lot. For George Average Gamer, maybe it's a lot less. Folks got a right to play what makes 'em happy and drop what don't.
Maxperson said:
How much hassle is it for you to say no, it's the way it was before?
For me personally? Depends on my group. I'd have an uphill climb with my newbie group, since it's hard enough getting them to pay attention to what's on their sheets and already written in the books. Honestly, not really worth it - they're not that invested and it'd just be another hurdle they have to leap over.
For a group who's really into RAW, it'd also be a potential issue. Suddenly I'm - horror of horrors - running
homebrew material, and that way lies madness.
For a group who didn't like the particular lore I was changing back to, it might also be a problem. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has a well-developed hate-on for Planescape - I'm not going to tell him that tieflings are now PS tieflings in my campaign. That might be enough to get the campaign to fail to launch before it's off the ground! This might also apply to someone who likes the new lore, in the other direction. "Oh, so eladrin aren't teleporting elves from the feywild anymore, they're chaotic angels of liberation and freedom? Bah, I
liked teleporting elves!"
Beyond newbies, RAW games, and idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, you're looking at a possibility space that might not be all that large, when all is said and done.
....and that's if you can get the group together in the first place!
I imagine the general "you" would face somewhat similar difficulty.
Some of these things might be D&D-specific flavors of the elements that usually come into play when explaining the default effect - loss aversion, recommendation, cognitive effort, switching costs - but those costs go beyond these things, and these things go beyond the costs as well.
