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

[Imaro]

That's a pretty fine line. When is a change a change or an addition?

I don't think it is...

Change = Something previously established that is disregarded and replaced with something new.

Addition = Something that was not previously established or touched on and is created or an aspect of something already created that had not been established that is expounded upon.

Is the difference really that hard to see?

I mean, Eladrin expand elves. They don't change them. They added a fey background story and a teleport ability. Did they change elves or simply expand?

The problem is you're asking the wrong question... they changed what an Eladrin actually was...

I'll bet the answer to that questions depends an awful lot on whether or not you (generally you, not you @Imaro) like the changes.

Nope let's examine what an Eladrin has been in each edition...

[h=3]Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition[/h]Eladrin first appeared in a D&D product in Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II (1995). This book featured the greater eladrin: the tulani, the firre, and the ghaele. And the lesser eladrin: the bralani, the coure, the noviere, and the shiere.
[h=3]Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition[edit][/h]The ghaele eladrin appears under the celestial entry in the Monster Manual for this edition (2000).^[3]
The firre eladrin appears under the celestial entry in the Manual of the Planes (2001).^[4]
Savage Species (2003) presented the ghaele eladrin as both a race and a playable class.^[5]

[h=3]Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition[edit][/h]The bralani and ghaele eladrin appear in the revised Monster Manual for this edition (2003).
The coure, the firre, the shiradi, and the tulani eladrin appear in Book of Exalted Deeds (2003). The book also details the Court of Stars, the celestial paragons of the eladrin: Morwel, Queen of Stars; Faerinaal, the Queen's Consort; and Gwynarwhyf, the Whirling Fury.^[6]
The eladrin's role in the tanar'ri uprising in the Abyss was detailed in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (2006).

So far nothing about what an Eladrin is that has been established has changed... The ghaele eladrin is expanded as a player race in 3e, the Court of Stars is expanded on in 3.5 as well as some named Eladrin but what the eladrin are as well as what has been established has not been changed just added to. Now let's look at 4e...

[h=3]Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition[/h]Eladrin appeared in the preview product for 4th edition, Wizards Presents: Races and Classes (2007).^[8]
Eladrin appear as one of the core player character races in the Players Handbook for this edition (2008). They are described as living in the Feywild and are the 4th edition equivalent to High or Grey Elves. The elves are eladrin who made their way to the mortal world after the war between Corellon and Lolth.^[9] All elven races have the humanoid type and the fey origin in 4th edition.
The Eladrin also appear in the Monster Manual (2008) for this edition, which includes the eladrin fey knight, the eladrin twilight incanter, the bralani of autumn winds, and the ghaele of winter.^[10]
In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, the Moon and Sun Elves are now subgroups of Eladrin, as opposed to elves, as described in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (2008).
The shiere knight is an Eladrin racial Paragon Path in the Player's Handbook 2 (2009).
The eladrin also appeared in the fourth edition Monster Manual 2 (2009).
The spiral tactician is an Eladrin racial Paragon Path in the Martial Power handbook (2010).
The eladrin appeared again as a core character race in the Essentials rulebook Heroes of the Fallen Lands (2010).

So now they are a sub-race of Elves, come from the Feywild but reside in the mortal world, have fey as their origin, encompass Moon and Sun elves, etc. and we no longer have the original Eladrin... and you honestly don't see the difference here... really?


EDIT: What irritates me about changes like this is that the developers/designers could have just created a new sub-race of elves called something else instead of using the Eladrin name for something totally different. The other side of this coin is that we no longer have that class of anatgonist in D&D 4e or 5e because of a silly name change that could have easily been avoided.

 

[Hriston]

The wars happened in Harondor, regardless of who was invading or why. That's going to screw the inhabitants of Harondor and they are going to be pissed at both countries fighting on their land, destroying their houses and crops, and killing and raping their people. There may not have been a ton of population there, but it wasn't close to being empty.

But they aren't "rebels against Gondor". They don't live in a land controlled by Gondor. If they hate both sides, why would they fight against Gondor and help the Haradrim win? Why would the inhabitants of Harondor hate the Men of Gondor for defending their own country from conquest by their mutual enemy if they themselves hadn't been stirred up by the emissaries of Sauron? I would think the Harondorians would want Gondor to come back and defend them from the Haradrim as they had in the past. Unfortunately, all Gondor could do at the time was to hold its southern border. A similar invasion of a Haradrim army crossing the Poros had happened almost 1000 years earlier, which seems to indicate that it had been some time since Gondor had been in possession of South Gondor. We know with certainty, however, that it had already been lost sometime before the Battle of the Crossings of Poros in 2885.

 

[jayoungr]

The wars happened in Harondor, regardless of who was invading or why. That's going to screw the inhabitants of Harondor and they are going to be pissed at both countries ... raping their people.

This right here is a pretty good example of the type of divide I was talking about up-thread.

Fun fact: Did you know that there is not a single successful rape in all of Tolkien's writing? (Definitely in the published stuff, and I'm pretty sure not in his notes and drafts either.) And even attempts are extremely rare and only committed by thoroughly depraved individuals.

The "settings transcend the books" side would say, "But of course the soldiers on both sides were committing rape regularly! That's what happens in a war--it's just realistic! Anything else would be so ridiculous as to strain suspension of disbelief!"

The "books set the parameters" side would say, "Casual rape is not part of the palette that defines Middle-Earth, and it is definitely not on the table for the armies of the 'good guys.' If you put it in, then you take away part of what makes Middle-Earth unique!"

I don't know if there is a compromise to be had here. All you can really do is make sure you don't play at a table with people on the "other side."

 

[Warmaster Horus]

As a DM I don't really care. In fact I like to subvert it because I can't stand players who correct me on the history I present in my game and let them know that, no, that's not what happened so put your fanboy metagame knowledge away for another day.

 

[pemerton]

Nobody is arguing that you cannot go against canon in your HOME GAME! What they ARE arguing against is taking the Star Wars RPG rulebooks and inserting Vulcans and the TARDIS into it, and thus forcing it on people who just wanted vanilla, canonical Star Wars.

To me, this goes to the heart of the thread. How does someone writing a Star Wars book with Vulcans in it force that onto anyone? How does this forcing happen?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Shasarak]

To me, this goes to the heart of the thread. How does someone writing a Star Wars book with Vulcans in it force that onto anyone? How does this forcing happen?

I guess a better question would be; Why would you want to make a product that people do not want to use? Where is the angle to that?

 

[Elderbrain]

So the great case against 4e is that it changed the alignment of the grey render - a monster that did not exist in classic D&D, and as far as I'm aware has never had a memorable module or adventure scenario designed around it.

As for the premise that nothing can be in the 4e MM that is tameable: the MM (p 29) has stats for various sorts of bears. And in my 4e game both times a bear has been encountered - in our second session, and then a couple of years of play down the track - the PCs tamed the bear.

I guess we were doing it wrong!

The most popular ever versions of D&D - classic D&D dating from the late 70s/early 80s (AD&D, B/X) didn't have Grey Renders.

Whatever the explanation for the popularity of D&D, the alignment of Grey Renders, and the backstory around Eladrin, has never been part of it.

- 1. I didn't SAY that there was NOTHING in the 4e MM that was tamable, only that the Gray Render had been changed from a possible ally to an automatic, evil-for-the-sake-of-evil foe.

- 2. I never said Gray Renders or Eladrin were in "old school" D&D or that they accounted for the game's popularity, so your statement is a complete non sequiter.

 

[Elderbrain]

Well, as long as the whole table agrees. If you don't have buy-in from everyone, it can lead to friction ... as we're seeing on this very thread.

- Well, yes, my comment assumed that everyone, Players and DM, were on board. Guess I should have spelled it out.

 

[Elderbrain]

See, for me, and I keep repeating myself, this is mostly an intellectual exercise. I simply DON'T CARE.

- If you DIDN'T care, then seeing traditional D&D canon in the core rulebooks wouldn't get you steamed. It's that simple. When I saw that the "names" section on creating a Human character included names from the Forgotten Realms world, it didn't bother me. If it HAD bothered me, that would have been ipso facto proof that I DID, in fact, CARE. If canon REALLY, TRUELY doesn't bother you, can I PLEASE ask that you stop demanding that it be removed from the books and/or changed, and instead leave it in for those of us who WANT IT?