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

[Hussar]

Innate use of magic doesn't mean that the magic comes from within. It means that there is an intuitive understanding of how to use the external magic available. So an innate ability with magic in DL would mean the PC uses the magic of the Moons in an intuitive way and doesn't learn spells like wizards do.

Born of a supernatural bloodline

Right there in the first line of the class. There is no intuitive way in Dragonlance. You only have wizards. They are taught.

If he got Warlock levels out of his pact is of no importance - it was never stated what form this "power" was that he received because the novels never really followed the games rules that closely.

What is important is when someone tells you that no one ever traded their soul for power in Dragonlance you can tell them that Raistlin never cared about their rules and then drop the mic.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=6944488#ixzz4PwuI335K

I believe that's called a No True Scotsman fallacy. Making a pact does not make a warlock. While all warlocks make some sort of pact, not all those that make pacts are warlocks. Plus, the whole "innate magic" thing is a no-no. And note, Raistlin didn't actually trade his soul for anything. It was done through a Magic Jar spell. Raistlin actually WAS Fistandantilus.

It actually IS stated what form his power is. His class is part of setting canon. I can point to chapter and verse in numerous campaign sources if you like.

So, when your player comes to you with a Vulcan Jedi traveling in a TARDIS, that's a canon character in Star Wars? After all, nothing in Star Wars precludes the existence of Vulcans or Time Lords. So, it must be canon right?

 

[Maxperson]

Right there in the first line of the class. There is no intuitive way in Dragonlance. You only have wizards. They are taught.

The Irda are a supernatural race in DL and Raistlin had a daughter with one. Just sayin.

Others could have co-mingled with them over the centuries creating supernatural bloodlines.

 

[Hussar]

Sigh. It's really annoying when people pick and choose bits to argue about.

Dragonlance does not have intuitive casting. At no point, anywhere in any of the stories, modules, supplements or whatnot, does it change that. Casting is TAUGHT. That's one of the main points of the Towers of High Sorcery is that anyone who has any arcane talent MUST be tested. Failure to do so carries a death sentence.

But, hey, why isn't my Vulcan Jedi with a TARDIS not canon in Star Wars?

 

[Hriston]

With Middle Earth's Gondorian invasion and occupation of Harondor, it's inevitable that there would be rebels against Gondor, so those fit the Middle Earth setting perfectly.

You do realize there was no Harondor before Gondor expanded its power into the area more than 2000 years before the War of the Ring, don't you? We don't know who lived there before that. Presumably there may have been a population of Haradrim in that area, but they certainly didn't identify themselves with Harondor, which literally means South Gondor. I suppose, however, that a campaign with a theme about the expansion of Gondor's power in the time of the Ship Kings might be good fun.

This is about the only canon discussed in this thread so far that I care anything about because Middle-earth is a true work of art. Settings created for RPGing are B-fiction at best and are unworthy of consuming upon their own merits. The only thing canonical about such settings is what is established in the fiction at the table.

 

[Maxperson]

You do realize there was no Harondor before Gondor expanded its power into the area more than 2000 years before the War of the Ring, don't you? We don't know who lived there before that. Presumably there may have been a population of Haradrim in that area, but they certainly didn't identify themselves with Harondor, which literally means South Gondor. I suppose, however, that a campaign with a theme about the expansion of Gondor's power in the time of the Ship Kings might be good fun.

This is about the only canon discussed in this thread so far that I care anything about because Middle-earth is a true work of art. Settings created for RPGing are B-fiction at best and are unworthy of consuming upon their own merits. The only thing canonical about such settings is what is established in the fiction at the table.

Gondor was fighting constant wars with the haradrim over Harondor, even up to the time of the LotR. It's a region in dispute, so rebels against Gondor would be fair game.

 

[Shasarak]

Sigh. It's really annoying when people pick and choose bits to argue about.

Dragonlance does not have intuitive casting. At no point, anywhere in any of the stories, modules, supplements or whatnot, does it change that. Casting is TAUGHT. That's one of the main points of the Towers of High Sorcery is that anyone who has any arcane talent MUST be tested. Failure to do so carries a death sentence.

But, hey, why isn't my Vulcan Jedi with a TARDIS not canon in Star Wars?

Ok, let us look at this. No Intuitive casting.

We must all agree that Draconians are a Dragonlance creation? Two of them, the Aurak and the Bozak have innate spell casting abilities - I would suggest intuitive spell casting abilities.

But so what, Draconians are created by a powerful magical ritual from Dragon eggs - just because they have intuitive spell casting does not mean that a random Human adventurer can have intuitive spell casting. No, quite right. So let us look at the Draconians "Parents" so to speak - Dragons.

Dragons are well known for their spell casting abilities which, being magical beasts after all, is intuitive - no one ever saw a Dragon pouring over a Wizard tome to learn their spells or using bat guano to cast a fireball. And Dragons in Dragonlance, particularly Silver Dragons, are well known for their fraternizing with Humans. Famous examples are Huma and Heart and of course Gilthanas and Silvara. And when you get Humans offspring that literally has blood of Dragons in their veins then Sorcerers usually follow. Intuitive spell casters.

So if we accept that there are creatures in Dragonlance with intuitive spell casting then we must accept the possibility that Humans with intuitive spell casting must also exist.

 

[Shasarak]

I believe that's called a No True Scotsman fallacy. Making a pact does not make a warlock. While all warlocks make some sort of pact, not all those that make pacts are warlocks. Plus, the whole "innate magic" thing is a no-no. And note, Raistlin didn't actually trade his soul for anything. It was done through a Magic Jar spell. Raistlin actually WAS Fistandantilus.

It actually IS stated what form his power is. His class is part of setting canon. I can point to chapter and verse in numerous campaign sources if you like.

Sure, I would like to see what the campaign sources give him as a result of his pact. I mean the guy starts the game with an Artifact and ends the game killing Takhisis so it would be interesting to chart his rise to power.

So, when your player comes to you with a Vulcan Jedi traveling in a TARDIS, that's a canon character in Star Wars? After all, nothing in Star Wars precludes the existence of Vulcans or Time Lords. So, it must be canon right?

I dont know, is this pre-Disney or post-Disney Star Wars?

 

[Hriston]

Gondor was fighting constant wars with the haradrim over Harondor, even up to the time of the LotR. It's a region in dispute, so rebels against Gondor would be fair game.

Actually, Gondor lost control of Harondor because of the rebellion of the Kin-strife and its aftermath. It had nothing to do with Gondor's so-called "invasion and occupation of Harondor," however, and everything to do with the rebellion of a faction within the nobility of Gondor who rejected the king's mixed-race parentage. By the time of the War of the Ring, Harondor was occupied by the Haradrim.

 

[Maxperson]

Actually, Gondor lost control of Harondor because of the rebellion of the Kin-strife and its aftermath. It had nothing to do with Gondor's so-called "invasion and occupation of Harondor," however, and everything to do with the rebellion of a faction within the nobility of Gondor who rejected the king's mixed-race parentage. By the time of the War of the Ring, Harondor was occupied by the Haradrim.

Lost control, but still fought wars there. Gondor wanted it back. The point is that a character from Harondor could easily hate Gondor and want to fight against it.

 

[jayoungr]

The settings transcend the books that spawned them.

This is, I think, at the heart of the whole debate. Not everyone agrees with this statement.

One side, as represented above, looks at a fictional world the same way they would look at the real world, with the assumption that of course outliers and non-mainstream positions of all sorts exist, because why wouldn't they? The big gains from this approach are realism (because our world is similarly full of contradictions) and arguably a fresh perspective on the source material.

The other side says that the book (movie, etc.) that spawned the setting sets the parameters, and going outside those parameters dilutes the setting. The big gains from this approach are flavor (because the more you stick to the assumptions of a setting, the more distinct it feels) and immersion in the fictional world.