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

[Shasarak]

As I've said, a setting is mostly about tone, theme etc.

The basic theme of DL is rediscovering the gods and freeing the world from the oppression of dragons. I don't see that playing an atheist character fits into this very well.

So if we are "rediscovering the Gods" then should not everyone start as an Atheist?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So if we are "rediscovering the Gods" then should not everyone start as an Atheist?

Of course not. Everyone learns the cataclysm to start with.

But like the real world, there is no hard proof, just stories and faith.

OTOH, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] , atheism definately fits that theme. It's a different personal arc than the faithful character whose faith is rewarded or the bitter character who believes the stories and thus distrusts the gods, but the doubter discovers proof that the faithful are actually right story is certainly a valid "rediscovering the gods" story.

 

[Maxperson]

As I've said, a setting is mostly about tone, theme etc.

The basic theme of DL is rediscovering the gods and freeing the world from the oppression of dragons. I don't see that playing an atheist character fits into this very well.

It's certainly the theme of War of the Lance and after that, but prior to the start of the War of the Lance it was about there being no gods or dragons, and atheists are right at home in that sort of environment.

 

[Shasarak]

It's certainly the theme of War of the Lance and after that, but prior to the start of the War of the Lance it was about there being no gods or dragons, and atheists are right at home in that sort of environment.

The first "bad guy" that they encounter is from the Seeker cult which certainly does not worship one of the "official" Gods of Dragonlance. Probably makes them more Pagan then Atheist though.

 

[GreyLord]

I think an Atheist before the WotL and even during the WotL is absolutely acceptable as a class. Heck, in fact I think much of Krynn didn't believe during that time. Unless you were something like a Wizard (as the Wizards ALWAYS could see the effect of the moons on their magic so that was their evidence right there) which most of the populace distrusted or hated...or MAYBE a Knight of Solamnia (which again, many distrusted or hated)...there really is no reason to believe.

Even during the War of the Lance...they didn't really see that many signs of the return...most saw dragons and other creatures rather than a LOT of clerics. That took time.

After the events of the War of Souls I could also see atheists...afterall, if you can kill a Deity...is it really a deity? Or is it just some super powered being that is just as fallible as the rest of us, the only power they really have being more access to power than others?

I think Dragonlance is more prone to have atheist characters than other campaign settings.

 

[Hussar]

No, they say that just because you are powerful does not make you a "God" any more then being a high level Magic User is a "God"



In the spirit of Dragonlance, which of the Heroes of the Lance was a Cleric at the beginning of the novels and which was a Cleric by the end of the novels? Which ones believed in the old Gods and did it matter if they did not? If anything one of them tried to kill a Goddess in the following trilogy which surely must rank higher on the FU Spirit of the Game rankings then being an Atheist.

Goldmoon was a cleric all the way through and was the impetus behind the entire Heroes of the Lance. Their very first adventure is to retrieve the Disks of Mishakal. Additionally, Tania, Flint, and Sturm were all believers. Raistlin's backstory has him debunking false prophets and nearly getting lynched for it if Carmen had not rescued him. Tasselhoff becomes a believer through his interactions with Fizban (who is, in any case a god). Did I miss anyone?

And, how does battling the goddess of evil become a big FU to the spirit of the game? And, note, that's the novel line, not the actual RPG. AND, note, trying to kill Takhisis is seen and presented as a BAD THING. Everyone, including the good guys, tries to stop him. And, his reward for this is being tied to a rock Prometheus style and having his innards ripped out on a daily basis.

And the setting remains unchanged.

And as for overwhelming evidence of Gods, around 200 years ago there was a volcanic event which caused the Year Without a Summer . Now the Cataclysm was probably a lot worse then that but I presume that your family has passed down tales to you of the hardships they suffered. And if they did not then why are Dragonlance characters being held to a stricter standard given their even more inferior records?

Heh, never minding that one of Tanis' parents would have actually LIVED through the cataclysm. That's not important, I guess. But, the point is, NONE of the characters in Dragonlance were presented as atheist. The whole point of the campaign was to return the gods to their rightful place. That's the basic conceit of a War of the Lance era campaign. Which brings me to my point about this character. The basic conceit of this character is that the gods should take a long walk off a short pier and leave Krynn to its own devices. A point of view held by absolutely no one in the entire setting. The basic conceit of the setting is that the return of the gods brings hope to the people of the setting who were basically just slowly dying off before the War. It's not like everything was goodness and light before the War of the Lance starts. You have false prophets all over the place, you have the various races either outright fighting each other or, at best, retreating further and further from each other. The various elements of society were either brutally enforced or breaking down.

It's a setting with no hope before the War of the Lance and the return of the gods. The heroes had just spent five years searching for any sign of the gods prior to the opening of Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Does that sound like people with no interest in the gods to you?

 

[Hussar]

Well that is a simple question really, can you play an Atheist Gnomish wild mage in Dragonlance? Yes.

It's not quite that cut and dried.

Does the canon support playing an Atheist Gnomish wild mage in Dragonlance? Yes.

If you add in canon retconned into the setting, then yes, canon supports this.

You dont have to debate anything. Where is the rule saying you have to be a Thiest? Where is the rule that says that Gnomes can not cast spells? Where is the rule that says Wild Mages dont exist?

Well, Wild mages DIDN'T exist for quite a while actually. It wasn't until the 2e Tome of Magic that added Wild Mages to D&D at all. I believe, but, I'm not sure, that it wasn't until 3e that Wild Mages were retconned into Dragonlance. So, for much of the history of the setting, Wild Mages didn't exist because they didn't exist in the game.

Gnomes could not be wizards until 3rd edition. Prior to that they could be illusionists only. So, again, this is retconned lore into the setting. Note, sorcerers are also a 3rd edition element as well, and are VERY problematic for Dragonlance where all wizards MUST be taught by another wizard and must be members of a Tower of High sorcery, under pain of death if discovered.

Raistlin mentions this in one of the books when he discovers that Gilthanis is a wizard, albeit a very minor one, and chooses to ignore the issue because there are bigger fish to fry. And, well, he's pretty sniffy about the whole thing, pretty much seeing Gilthanis as an amateur wizard and not worth the effort of bringing in for justice.

We're 10th level in this campaign. In a setting where the maximum level is 18th, and at that, there's generally only one person in the whole world who is that level. We are not just amateurs. Now, we worked around this in game and moved on, but, the fact that this had to be worked around is just another example of how this character isn't really a canon character. Canon characters don't need workarounds.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah im mostly with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on this debate, but the idea that an atheist in DL is even strange, much less against canon, is pretty absurd. It seems strange to me to play DL before the WoTL without any atheists.

Just to clarify. We're playing out the War of the Lance, not the period before it. This is an alt-history take on the WoTL, with a bit of time traveling tossed in.

Funnily enough, thinking about it, I think this campaign is a great example of why I don't really care that much about D&D lore. We've already cocked the lore of the WoTL in a hat. The bad guys won. We took on the role of the Heroes of the Lance and we failed. The dragon armies have won and Takhisis is ascendant. Now, we still have a chance to set things right, and we'll see how things play out, but, at this moment, the history of the WoTL is completely different.

What bothers me, is that a great campaign like this can NEVER see the light of day outside of our group. WotC would have to be suicidal to try to publish this. The "Lore uber alles" crowd would lose their collective minds if this were to be published. Heck, advancing the Forgotten Realms timeline a couple of centuries proves that.

Me, for me, I WANT more versions. I WANT alternative lore. That's why I loved 4e lore. Not because it was better than what came before but because at least it was DIFFERENT than what came before. It was an attempt to revise what came before and present it in a new and fresh way. 5e, to me, is a huge step backwards because not only are they going lore heavy (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but they are locking in that old lore again. No creativity, no new ideas. Just the same old stuff recycled yet again.

To me, Eberron was a huge breath of fresh air. D&D that was different. I loved Scarred Lands for the same reason - such a huge departure from how settings were presented (Scarred Lands was Points of Light long before WotC coined the term).

I don't want same old same old. I HAVE the same old. I've DONE the same old. Gimme something new or don't bother.

 

[Remathilis]

Just to clarify. We're playing out the War of the Lance, not the period before it. This is an alt-history take on the WoTL, with a bit of time traveling tossed in.

Funnily enough, thinking about it, I think this campaign is a great example of why I don't really care that much about D&D lore. We've already cocked the lore of the WoTL in a hat. The bad guys won. We took on the role of the Heroes of the Lance and we failed. The dragon armies have won and Takhisis is ascendant. Now, we still have a chance to set things right, and we'll see how things play out, but, at this moment, the history of the WoTL is completely different.

What bothers me, is that a great campaign like this can NEVER see the light of day outside of our group. WotC would have to be suicidal to try to publish this. The "Lore uber alles" crowd would lose their collective minds if this were to be published. Heck, advancing the Forgotten Realms timeline a couple of centuries proves that.

Me, for me, I WANT more versions. I WANT alternative lore. That's why I loved 4e lore. Not because it was better than what came before but because at least it was DIFFERENT than what came before. It was an attempt to revise what came before and present it in a new and fresh way. 5e, to me, is a huge step backwards because not only are they going lore heavy (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) but they are locking in that old lore again. No creativity, no new ideas. Just the same old stuff recycled yet again.

To me, Eberron was a huge breath of fresh air. D&D that was different. I loved Scarred Lands for the same reason - such a huge departure from how settings were presented (Scarred Lands was Points of Light long before WotC coined the term).

I don't want same old same old. I HAVE the same old. I've DONE the same old. Gimme something new or don't bother.

I don't mind alternate takes and what-ifs, but the issue I'd have is when the what-if is present is THE default.

Plain, vanilla D&D should be traditional, familiar, and "boring." It should tell the story that has been repeated. What made Eberron unique was the fact it took the vanilla elementals and inserted a caramel-fudge core and peanuts into it; but you still need that vanilla base. Tribal scorpion drow aren't as novel without classic spider-underground drow in the MM. Dino-riding halflings don't shine without the traditional hobbit or gypsy halflings in the PHB. Odd needs the familiar to remain interesting.

The bitter reaction to 4e was that it didn't give vanilla; it gave us all mint-chocolate chip and said it was the new vanilla. Some people liked it because it was different, more flavorful, or better tasting, but just as many wanted borning vanilla because MCC doesn't go good on apple pie or in root beet floats. It didn't help that 4e then attempted to change my apple pie or root beer (Forgotten Realms and Eberron) to better go with its MCC default flavor.

Personally, a world based around the default 4e ideas (PoL, Nentir Vale, Dawn War, eladrin, World Axis, and the revised monster concepts) would be a cool product. They just shouldn't have sold it to me as the default flavor when all I wanted was boring old vanilla I could continue to flavor with toppings as I always have...

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] - I can understand that. However, all those "old" ideas were new once upon a time. Drow (as depicted in D&D) while having perhaps some grounding in legend, are pretty much entirely a D&D creation (I'm rather drawing a blank at fandom fetish faeries, but, perhaps I'm not well enough read). Beholders are a D&D creation. The Blood War is a D&D creation. All these ideas were new at some point and all of these ideas trod on the toes of what came before.

If lore is important, why are these changes acceptable? If you want, as you say, vanilla D&D, doesn't the taste of vanilla change depending on when you joined the hobby?

Scorpion tribal drow aren't interesting because they change what drow means, but, because they are interesting in their own right. And, if it's fine to completely rewrite what drow means within a given setting, why can't we get multiple different takes of drow in "default"? Why do we need a "default"? Being default privileges certain concepts over others. Why not simply have multiple competing versions and let users decide which one they want?