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

[Hussar]

For me D&D canon is sort of interesting on occasion but as pointed out there are so many versions of canon that I pick and choose which bits of canon I want in any new campaign I run.

This is largely my approach. Whatever is in the books is there for inspiration AFAIC. If I like the idea, fantastic. Yoink and off it goes into my campaign. If I don't like it, change it and go with whatever I do like. To me, D&D lore is just the starting point. It's what you jump off from, not to. Having three different versions of Lolth is a good thing. Having three different versions of Demogorgon (3e) is a good thing.

Y'know, it's funny. I've been told time and time again that something like Planescape and the Great Wheel is just one interpretation of the cosmology of D&D. That multiple interpretations are not only possible, but, expected. But, here's the trick. Any time someone comes along with something that isn't toeing the line in Planescape and the Great Wheel, it's automatically bad.

It's just so baffling to me.

Heck, look at a kobold. These are all kobolds:

and there are certainly more where that came from. All of those are canonically kobolds. So, what does a kobold look like?

As I've repeatedly said here, canon is only important when it intersects with personal taste. Adding a second teaspoon of salt doesn't ruin the dish. It ruins the dish for you. For others it's perfectly fine. IOW, there's nothing inherently wrong with adding more salt or changing the flavor of the dish. It's only important when someone doesn't like the new flavor. But arguing that adding more salt or changing flavor is inherently bad or that a specific flavor somehow holds a priveleged position because it's what you happen to like is just arguing in bad faith.

All you can say is that you don't happen to like it. Fair enough. But, "I don't like it" doesn't make anything bad. It just makes it not to your taste. And then turning around and forcing everyone else around you to eat what you like is a douchey thing to do.

 

[Shasarak]

Who is forcing who to use anything? You like bad ideas then great good for you.

To give them their due, at least Blink Elves were trying something new and giving a go.

But the simple fact of the matter is that you dont make a successful idea by trying to force a bunch of over salted food down peoples throats. You need to be smarter then that and combine salt with fat to get the best results.

 

[Hussar]

So now canon ideas are "bad ideas"?

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I'm used to add to the setting instead of ignoring parts of it. If the books say Elminster lives in Shadowdale, I'll probably never move him somewhere else, but I might add a second powerful wizard, from my own design, living in a nearby village.

 

[Elderbrain]

But people change up this stuff all the time. In fact, original D&D play was based on this sort of thing - eg the GM says "You see something that looks like a beholder" but really it's a gas spore. Or whatever./QUOTE]

But see, that's just it - that WASN'T a change! They didn't KILL OFF the original Beholder and REPLACE it with a Gas Spore, they ADDED an additional monster to the game!!! There's a difference, folks. For instance, Planescape revealed that Demons and Devils actually call themselves Tanar'ri and Baatezu, respectively, but the material was explicit that your average Joe peasant on some Prime-Material world still calls them Demons and Devils (and probably doesn't know the difference.) While some of these creatures become annoyed at not being referred to by their proper names, a few actually revel in it (such as the Glabrezu in one Planescape adventure who is described as preferring to be called a Demon because many people know and fear that name.) Adding something to the game - such as allowing Dwarves to be Wizards - is not the same as subtracting something from the game, since any DM can tell his Players "We're playing an old-school Dragonlance game, and here are the allowable options."

 

[Elderbrain]

Heck, look at a kobold. These are all kobolds:

and there are certainly more where that came from. All of those are canonically kobolds. So, what does a kobold look like?

Actually, three of those look quite similar - all reptilian-looking, with small horns and tails. Only the one second from the left looks different, with sort of a squashed face compared to the others, and no scales or tail.

In any case, it's not unusual for a artistic depiction of a creature to vary to a greater or lesser degree from the written text, such as the artist not drawing in some bodily feature or adding something not written in the text, or giving the creature one weapon when the text states it uses another, etc.

 

[Shasarak]

So now canon ideas are "bad ideas"?

No, bad ideas are bad ideas.

Was the Blood War a bad idea? It has been in 3 editions of canon and at least mentioned in another.

Were Gold Elves being Eladrin a bad idea? It lasted for 1 edition of canon.

Was the Feywild a bad idea? It has been in 2 editions of canon.

Will all High Elves being able to cast a cantrip be considered a bad idea? I guess we will see in the next edition because it seems to me that bad canon get weeded out pretty quickly.

 

[Elderbrain]

As I've repeatedly said here, canon is only important when it intersects with personal taste. Adding a second teaspoon of salt doesn't ruin the dish. It ruins the dish for you. For others it's perfectly fine. IOW, there's nothing inherently wrong with adding more salt or changing the flavor of the dish. It's only important when someone doesn't like the new flavor. But arguing that adding more salt or changing flavor is inherently bad or that a specific flavor somehow holds a priveleged position because it's what you happen to like is just arguing in bad faith.

All you can say is that you don't happen to like it. Fair enough. But, "I don't like it" doesn't make anything bad. It just makes it not to your taste. And then turning around and forcing everyone else around you to eat what you like is a douchey thing to do.

But if a large group of people have been eating at the same place for years and years, and everybody knows what's on the menu and is presumably there because they like how the food is served, having somebody else come along and change the menu isn't fair to them. I presume you looked at your 1e, 2e, and 3e books before you bought them, and knew what you were getting. Those were the standard for what D&D WAS. 3e changed a few things, such as allowing Dwarves to be Wizards, but you could continue playing your old Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or Planescape game with little or no problem. Then 4e came along and changed almost everything. Netir Vale mugged Greyhawk and stole a lot of the good bits, the cosmology was completely different, monsters were killed off or radically changed, etc. Talk about "forcing everyone else around you to eat what you like"!!! 4e made the players of all previous editions take that second helping of salt whether we wanted it or not.

All 5e did was (mostly) restore D&D to what it had been in the three editions (or 3.5...) prior to 4e. They're serving McDonald's food at McDonald's again.

 

[Hussar]

No, bad ideas are bad ideas.

Was the Blood War a bad idea? It has been in 3 editions of canon and at least mentioned in another.

Were Gold Elves being Eladrin a bad idea? It lasted for 1 edition of canon.

Was the Feywild a bad idea? It has been in 2 editions of canon.

Will all High Elves being able to cast a cantrip be considered a bad idea? I guess we will see in the next edition because it seems to me that bad canon get weeded out pretty quickly.

Ah, so, canon is only important when you don't like it then? How can there be "good" and "bad" canon? Who gets to make that determination? Who gets to tell everyone else that THIS canon is good and THAT canon is bad? How do you distinguish between them?

IOW, canon=stuff I happen to like and "bad" canon= stuff I don't like.

Which makes canon utterly pointless. It's simply an expression of personal preference. "Oh, that's not really canon because I don't like it" means that canon is not actually important. What is important is that you (generic you) gets to force everyone else to play the game the way that person likes by playing the canon card only when it's convenient.

Either canon matters, in which case it's ALL important, or it doesn't.

Look, right now they've changed kobolds quite considerably. The 5e MM talks about kobolds being a slave race to dragons, something kobolds never were in the past. The preview from the Volo's Guide expands that quite a bit. So, now we have entirely new canon that changes the creature. Kobolds were never a "slave race". They were their own thing.

And, this has a knock on effect. Since when did dragons keep slaves? I'm drawing a blank on a single example in D&D where dragons keep slaves. Maybe there's some module somewhere, but, I'm not recalling it right now. So, if dragons keep slaves, why only kobolds? Why aren't they keeping all sorts of slaves? And, what exactly does a kobold slave DO for a dragon? I'd always kind of thought of dragons as being pretty self sufficient and not really needing or wanting anyone around. It's not like evil dragons are social creatures. At least, up until now anyway.

So, if canon is important, if changing lore is bad, why is this passing without comment? If you claim that changing lore is bad, then why not this change? How can you rationalize resisting one change based on the fact that it's a change, and not resist this change? How do you justify that? The claim is that canon changes are bad. But, when faced with a canon change that someone happens to like, suddenly canon stops being important.

If you want me to accept that the change of Gold elves to Eladrin is bad based on canon, then why shouldn't you also consider the changes to kobolds and dragons equally bad?

 

[Shasarak]

Ah, so, canon is only important when you don't like it then? How can there be "good" and "bad" canon? Who gets to make that determination? Who gets to tell everyone else that THIS canon is good and THAT canon is bad? How do you distinguish between them?

IOW, canon=stuff I happen to like and "bad" canon= stuff I don't like.

If you change the "I" to "who ever is writing this time" then you have it essentially correct since, as you have pointed out, canon seems to be as fluid as who ever the editor is at any particular time.

Which makes canon utterly pointless. It's simply an expression of personal preference. "Oh, that's not really canon because I don't like it" means that canon is not actually important. What is important is that you (generic you) gets to force everyone else to play the game the way that person likes by playing the canon card only when it's convenient.

Either canon matters, in which case it's ALL important, or it doesn't.

Except that it is never that black and white and never will be if there is not a single person in control of the canon. As soon as you have more then one person involved then it could go anywhere. I remember that Dragonlance was supposed to have no Orcs and yet in one novel a main character happens to be a Half-Orc. So what does that mean for canon? Are there Orcs in Dragonlance or not? How are you going to explain that contradiction? Is the original no Orc canon important or not?

Look, right now they've changed kobolds quite considerably. The 5e MM talks about kobolds being a slave race to dragons, something kobolds never were in the past. The preview from the Volo's Guide expands that quite a bit. So, now we have entirely new canon that changes the creature. Kobolds were never a "slave race". They were their own thing.

And, this has a knock on effect. Since when did dragons keep slaves? I'm drawing a blank on a single example in D&D where dragons keep slaves. Maybe there's some module somewhere, but, I'm not recalling it right now. So, if dragons keep slaves, why only kobolds? Why aren't they keeping all sorts of slaves? And, what exactly does a kobold slave DO for a dragon? I'd always kind of thought of dragons as being pretty self sufficient and not really needing or wanting anyone around. It's not like evil dragons are social creatures. At least, up until now anyway.

Kobolds could get them food, scratch their itchy spots, serve as scouts or disposable shock troops, polish coins, dig roomier caves. What do you think an evil creature would want from having a slave anyway?

So, if canon is important, if changing lore is bad, why is this passing without comment? If you claim that changing lore is bad, then why not this change? How can you rationalize resisting one change based on the fact that it's a change, and not resist this change? How do you justify that? The claim is that canon changes are bad. But, when faced with a canon change that someone happens to like, suddenly canon stops being important.

If you want me to accept that the change of Gold elves to Eladrin is bad based on canon, then why shouldn't you also consider the changes to kobolds and dragons equally bad?

So does this canon change affect everything that already exists? If I have a Dragon without a Kobold slave does he suddenly stop being a Dragon until he gets one or can he still have his vote in Dragon Parliment? If I have a Kobold warren without a Dragon do they suddenly disappear in a puff of canon? If I combine all the Dragons and Kobolds together do they transform into a new type of Dragobold or maybe a Kobogon that can now teleport every 5 minutes?

For me a bigger problem would be making all Gnolls into some kind of Demon Gnoll mash-up that WotC seems to prefer now. Luckily for me I dont have a Gnoll PC who suddenly got transformed into a Demonoll because that would have been a problem.