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

[pemerton]

If you dont particularly care about canon, then why do you care if other people particularly care about canon?

What I care about is having interesting stuff to buy/read/use.

I think an excessive cleaving to canon can be an impediment to that.

But ultimately it's not a big deal - I already own plenty of stuff, and can make more stuff up if I have to!

What I'm puzzled by, though, in the context of this thread, is the idea that changing canon makes it harder to play the game. I don't really get that, because (i) I don't see how it is hard to ignore or mix-and-match, and (ii) I don't see how a single canon would get rid of the need for a given table to agree on what their game is going to involve (eg the DL canon issue isn't solved by sticking to the original AD&D material, because - as was discussed upthread - you have to work out how new rules fit into it (eg can dwarves be WoHS?), and also people read that material differently - eg is an atheist PC a legitimate option for a DL game?)

Also, at a certain point the discussion went from using canon in game, to the importance of the publisher sticking to canon. I don't really get that either.

 

[pemerton]

The additions of Planescape don't necessarily alter what the clueless know about interactions at home. They just make it so that there is a lot more about the outer planes that the clueless don't know.

It baffles me that you can't see what a big deal this might be.

To use very rough metaphors, it turns the game from a morality play to Call of Cthulhu. (Part of the point of the Cthulhu mythos is that human superstitions are just that - superstitions - because the "magical beings" are in fact aliens whose motivations are wildly different from those imputed by superstitious humans.)

 

[ccs]

So, here's a description of the problem as it has been experienced by me at least:

In some hypothetical world 6e uses the "fiends are just aliens" stuff, and a new player stoked to play D&D comes to your table all excited about playing her character who is a bard whose heroic origin includes a story wherein she made peace between a faction of demons and her hometown, leading to a mutual prospering where the demons even defend her hometown from attack by other creatures. It's part of her identity as a persuasive, diplomatic character - she managed to make peace with demons. Truly, an exceptional and heroic feat! It's why she's taken a "peaceful diplomat" bard build in 6e and why her character has ranks in Religion - to let her know what the demons want. Maybe she's tiefling, too - with the pre-4e "varied children of the planes" story, and that plays into her character's success there.

Of course, in your campaign, this is impossible - demons are not creatures you can make peace with.

The price you then pay is in telling your excited newbie that she can't play the character she's really excited about playing. Sorry, I use old lore, demons aren't like that in my games. You can be a heroic peaceful diplomat, but maybe you made peace with some orcs instead? Maybe instead of a tiefling...you're a half-orc?

Or, maybe she doesn't even tell you the backstory. You know, she has no reason to expect that any other backstory is necessary, 6e presents this narrative as THE narrative. And so when she tries to make peace with the rampaging demons, suddenly everyone else at the table is like "what are you doing you fool?" and she's like "oh, this is a situation wherein everyone tells the hero that she can't do it, but I'm going to be the hero and go forth and do it!" and then she gets clawed to death instantly (or, you have that same conversation above and nuke her character concept, but now it's a few sessions in because the DM and the player weren't on the same page about the lore).

Or maybe your game is ambivalent about demons and you don't think your campaign will really use them, so you say, "sure, that character's fine," and then some other player who's been by your side since 4e sees this bard bragging about making peace with demons and now in his cleric's mind this bard is a liar and a fool, dangerously naive and possibly inventing memories when she talks about the demons who defend her hometown.

All of these situations are part of the cost of changing lore. That cost might be felt differently by different players using and caring about different lore. That cost can be worth it or not, and can be mitigated or intensified in various ways. It's not smart to pretend that this cost is non-existent or only comes from some ulterior motive related to the lore you favor, though.

And thus another newbie learns a few lessons as old as the game itself.... That each table is different. That not all characters fit all games/groups. That talking to the DM about your character is a really good idea. etc etc etc.

 

[Maxperson]

It baffles me that you can't see what a big deal this might be.

To use very rough metaphors, it turns the game from a morality play to Call of Cthulhu. (Part of the point of the Cthulhu mythos is that human superstitions are just that - superstitions - because the "magical beings" are in fact aliens whose motivations are wildly different from those imputed by superstitious humans.)

It's really hard for me to see it as a big deal when it's nothing like Cthulhu. On one hand we have a prime world with demons that are moral bad guys and trade in souls. Then along comes Planescape and they remain the same on the prime plane. Nobody starts going insane just hearing, seeing or learning about them. They already made pacts with demons and devils, so it's not as if they started that Cthulhu type behavior after planescape. They already had powerful demon and devil lords prior to Planescape, so it's not as if suddenly there were these major "Cthulhu" type players that showed up.

The only change was the addition of the Blood War, which Cthulhu didn't have. They in no way changed from Demons/Devils to aliens who were not understandable by the mortal mind.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And thus another newbie learns a few lessons as old as the game itself.... That each table is different. That not all characters fit all games/groups. That talking to the DM about your character is a really good idea. etc etc etc.

Sure. Or she loses the motivation to show up to Sunday's game because really she ain't got 4 hours a week to spend on a hobby where she's just going to come in after reading all the books and getting really excited about her character and everyone is going to tell her she has to do it differently, because the lore's so muddled that nobody even knows if there IS something to talk about.

Because this is 2016 and playing a tabletop game about magical elves is still very much an opt-in kind of thing.

I'm playing that Dragonlance game with decade-plus veterans in the hobby and we STILL had at least two (maybe three!) different definitions for "A Dragonlance Game."

The lore change is a barrier to entry, an obstacle to enjoyment, a roadblock to a common agreement. It may, sometimes, still be very worth it. But you will always be paying a price.

 

[pemerton]

In some hypothetical world 6e uses the "fiends are just aliens" stuff, and a new player stoked to play D&D comes to your table all excited about playing her character who is a bard whose heroic origin includes a story wherein she made peace between a faction of demons and her hometown

<snip>

Of course, in your campaign, this is impossible - demons are not creatures you can make peace with.

The price you then pay is in telling your excited newbie that she can't play the character she's really excited about playing.

<snip>

Or maybe your game is ambivalent about demons and you don't think your campaign will really use them, so you say, "sure, that character's fine," and then some other player who's been by your side since 4e sees this bard bragging about making peace with demons and now in his cleric's mind this bard is a liar and a fool

<snip>

All of these situations are part of the cost of changing lore.

I find it very hard to imagine this sort of thing happening in a game I GM, because it attributes a role to backstory in the game that is quite different from my approach.

As you may have seen me post before, I dislike the use of "secret backstory" by the GM as a consideration in action resolution. And when backstory is contested between players (eg between the player of the bard, who hopes to make peace with demons, and the cleric, who thinks her a fool) then the resolution of that contest is something for actual play. (In my current 4e game, for instance, whether the Raven Queen is is a source of hope, or of threat, is the subject matter of a contest between various players as they play out the ideas and actions of their PCs.)

In other words, the problem you pose arises from the treating of backstory - including canonical backstory - as having a sort of "given-ness", a fixedness prior to play, that is not the case in my preferred approach to RPGing. (I regard this as more than just tangentially connected to the earlier discussion upthread about whether playing a RPG is performing another's work. A necessary condition of that being so, I think, is that the work has some degree of fixedness that is independent of the actual events of play.)

For those who do prefer pre-play fixedness, I still think the issue that you identify can arise, however. Two players sit down to play AD&D and one thinks that demons can be useful as you describe (maybe she's read the Elric books where Elric draws aid from the Lords of Chaos and other supernatural beings) while the other think of them through the prism of a crusading knight-style paladin or cleric.

In other words, confining oneself to a single text won't prevent these issues arising, because they are predominantly about consistency of theme/tone/etc. And a single text is often amenable to multiple readings in these sorts of respects.

 

[Remathilis]

Sure. Or she loses the motivation to show up to Sunday's game because really she ain't got 4 hours a week to spend on a hobby where she's just going to come in after reading all the books and getting really excited about her character and everyone is going to tell her she has to do it differently, because the lore's so muddled that nobody even knows if there IS something to talk about.

You realize you have just argued why home-brewed campaigns with significant rules/lore changes are bad, right?

I mean, if you invite me to play and I grab the phb and come up with a dwarf evoker, and then you inform me dwarves in your world are LN militant expansionists who convert all they meet to their god (by the sword) and burn wizards at the stake for witchcraft. Well, you might have a cool idea for dwarves, but you just buggered my pc idea. Why read the phb again if none of it is relevant?

 

[Hussar]

."

The lore change is a barrier to entry, an obstacle to enjoyment, a roadblock to a common agreement. It may, sometimes, still be very worth it. But you will always be paying a price.

It's only a barrier when people insist that their interpretation of lore is the one true interpretation and nothing can deviate from that interpretation.

When lore isn't fetishized but instead simply acts as a source of inspiration and not something of intrinsic value in and of itself, all those barriers go away.

When ideas are judged based on the merit of the idea rather than how closely they follow someone's ideas of how the game should be played, those barriers go away.

 

[jasper]

2 lores to bind the film media
4 lores for fiction mind them
7 lores for geeks who find them
1 lore for the DM to bind them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In other words, the problem you pose arises from the treating of backstory - including canonical backstory - as having a sort of "given-ness", a fixedness prior to play, that is not the case in my preferred approach to RPGing. (I regard this as more than just tangentially connected to the earlier discussion upthread about whether playing a RPG is performing another's work. A necessary condition of that being so, I think, is that the work has some degree of fixedness that is independent of the actual events of play.)

That "fixedness" can be very important to player empowerment. If I want to play a character that makes use of the stories and lore suggested in the material, then it undermines my own motivations for play if those things are not agreed upon as shared elements. If I have to debate about whether or not a gnome wild mage is acceptable in a Dragonlance game or if it makes it "not Dragonlance," then my goal of making a uniquely Dragonlance character has failed already.

In other words, confining oneself to a single text won't prevent these issues arising, because they are predominantly about consistency of theme/tone/etc. And a single text is often amenable to multiple readings in these sorts of respects.

I've often raised the point that lore changes are unavoidable. They are, however, costly. Which means that they need to be done cautiously and with consideration, not simply because some dev thinks they have a better idea.

You realize you have just argued why home-brewed campaigns with significant rules/lore changes are bad, right?

All home-brewed campaigns have a cost. That's not the same thing as being bad, but sometimes that cost might be too high to pay.

Like, I probably wouldn't go around changing dwarf lore for a table of newbies. I would want to be able to say, "you know, pretty much like Gimli."

It's only a barrier when people insist that their interpretation of lore is the one true interpretation and nothing can deviate from that interpretation.

You're not listening, so this isn't really a conversation. I'm not interested in continually knocking down your strawmen.