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

[Parmandur]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] The question is primarily commercial, yes; and in this case, Wizards has a zero-sum choice on their plate: they can willy-nilly do whatever in any given product, with no eye to consistency with occasional interesting results OR they can intentionally curate a self-consistant IP for the pleasure of readers like [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] or myself.

There is no middle ground to be had, though you could argue that 3.x tried. The builders, like yourself, will still build and steal what you like or not irregardless; the lore lovers will not go for the willy-nilly approach.

We don't have access to the market data to know which path to follow, but WotC does, and they have gone hard for curating a self-consistant IP this time around, referencing and collating what came before. Aesthetic preferences are what they are, no problem: but for me and mine, I'll take what Chris Perkins is selling.

 

[Jester David]

D&D is a shared world, like the Realms and its other settings. The monsters have lore, as do the planes, which has been built up for 40+ years now.
Canon and continuity are a shackles, but they're also a tool. Good shared world writers working in the Reams or D&D will look at the lore and see two incongruous details ("the lore says X but it also says Y") and tell stories that reconcile the details. They use the details of the world to launch their own stories, making their tales a part of the setting. They don't just want to tell their stories or leave their mark on the world, they want to tell Realmsian stories.


It's not unlike Star Trek. Both have a long legacy of stories. Really, D&D probably has more being continually published for 40 years, unlike Trek that was produced for 28 combined seasons. I'm sure there are lots of stories you could tell in Trek that only work if you ignore canon ("What if Picard just didn't have to worry about the Prime Directive in this story?") Canon and continuity are a shackle on creativity. But then it's not *really* a Star Trek show since it's much the continuity and shared lore - the legacy of the past - that make Trek what it is. You can't just slap a "Star Trek" logo on an unrelated show and have it suddenly become Star Trek.
(I would argue shows like Gotham or Heroes are what happen when you don't care about continuity, canon, and consistency.)


Now… this isn't to say you HAVE to accept all canon. Not every story is relevant. If you're doing a story set on the Sword Coast, continuity regarding Cormyr is irrelevant. And sometimes bad stories and mistakes creep in. Or there's a conflict in lore that cannot be reconciled. Sometimes you do just have to declare something non-canon. But that should be a group decision involving multiple people and not just one person trying to fix a pet peeve.
Otherwise you just end up with dozens of authors working at cross purposes, making changes and un-changes. And changes and events cease to matter and have any impact since things will just change again.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Actually… internal consistency is what some people are arguing against. That's the canon I want preserved.

Some posters in this thread want to just give writers the freedom to make whatever changes they want and ignore whatever changes the writers want. To erase, ignore, or delete canon.

Yeah, I can understand that. Personally, I think it's a balancing act when it comes to the fiction. Almost any change can be explained, as you go on to point out later (not all of them are, but they can be), so whenever that kind of storytelling option comes up, my take on it would be did they justify the change by making a cool story? If so, then make the change. If not, then the change seems unjustified.

But then, what happens when such a change is attempted, and then turns out not to be justified in the eyes of most? Do they then ignore that change? DO they honor it? Do they change it back with another retcon? Does that make things worse?

This is my point....sometimes, it's simpler and better just to ignore something. The endless patches made to maintain canon are part of the problem. I am not saying they should just go about making any and all changes willy nilly....just that sometimes, to put out the best product possible, they may need to ignore canon or to fudge it a bit.

The thing is, the major changes to settings didn't ignore canon or change canon… they added to canon. "The canon now includes X and Y".
It's a change to the setting, but not canon.

Yeah, sure, I agree with that. Those kinds of things don't really bother me in and of themselves...even if I may or may not like the actual change in question.

To me, I would have rather they just started having dragonborn show up rather than introduce the whole Aebir thing (my knowledge of all the ins and outs of this is admittedly sketchy, so please bear with me). To me, the attempt to explain why the dragonborn are just now showing up is more disruptive than to just have them show up. Sometyhing simple like a hidden city that now is discovered, and they spread out into the world is a far simpler and easier explanation than some returned planet that merged with the existing planet.

That's a great example of what I'm talking about as well. Returned Abeir was a *huge* retcon. "Abeir-Toril are two planets, not one, there are Primordials, etc".
But it doesn't really change anything. It simply adds to the mosaic. It negates nothing from the past.
An actual change was something like "sun elves are eladrin not elves and are from the Feywild". But that's a minor one.

What about Unther? Didn't it get removed from the setting? I know we can argue that the removal was explained in world, so this actually "made sense" within the canon...but these seem to be the kind of changes some defenders of canon are saying should not happen.

The example of actually changing canon I used upthread was from the 3e product Lords of Madness where Mind Flayers went from being creatures from the Far Realm that entered the Prime Material Plane hundreds of thousands of years ago to being creatures from the distant future that went back in time arrive in the world 2000 years ago.

Okay, and how did this change to canon affect anything? Does it simply give two options for gaming groups to choose from? Couldn't these different takes on that lore simply be viewed as differing myths of the mind flayers' origins?

Was there any negative impact on the fiction that you noticed? Was there a negative impact on your game?

Another example is actually from 5th Edition, where the Cult of the Dragon swapped from venerating dead dragons and believing undead dragons would one day rule the world to being servants of Tiamat. Which is an example of what I'm talking about. Rather than reconcile the planned plot for Tyranny of Dragons with the lore of the Forgotten Realms, they changed the Realms to fit their story. They didn't invent a new cult or bad guy, they changed things.
It wouldn't have even been hard. The Tiamat cultists could have been a branch of the Cult of the Dragon that broke away forming the new church of Tiamat. Which could add another wrinkle of forging allies with the old Cult of the Dragon (which would have made more sense than allying with the Red Wizards who were on the opposite side of the map from the Sword Coast, where all the action was taking, requiring some hand waving for how the party gets there).

I admit to not being too sure about this. I've not read the full adventures, so I am only going on second hand info. But I have seen posters here on the site that have explained why this all makes sense. That there was enough material from prior editions to support a change in focus like this.

And even if there was not, didn't you just explain it yourself? A faction whose views differed from that of their main organization, who then took over and changed things. We can find so many examples of this in the real world and fiction, that it's pretty easy to grasp.

It wouldn't have hurt if they came right out and said it, sure. But again, I think they know that this is primarily a game setting....so they leave how individual gaming groups use the material up to them.

A group who was familiar with the Cult of the Dragon's longstanding shtick can come up with their own take on why things changed. A group that is not familiar with the change won't be bonked over the head with a bunch of lore that's not relevant to the adventure.

Similarly, Curse of Strahd is a big blender of Ravenloft lore, taking setting material and just mashing it with the classic adventure. It's a bit like a Marvel Cinematic Universe film where it lifts names and ideas but does it's own thing, using the source material as inspiration for Easter Eggs.

I'd prefer a fresh, back to basics approach like this, myself. I don't think that it contradicts a whole lot from the 2E days, and even includes a cyclical aspect to the realm of Barovia that can be used to justify any changes. If they attempted to explain all the established lore from the 2E days, and then from when they farmed it out in the 3E days, along with all the novels and so on....then things start to become really convoluted.

As it is, Curse of Strahd is a great adventure. I think it's streamlined continuity is what allowed it to be so. Yes, it drew from a lot of past canon, but it did so in ways that were new and interesting, and served as Easter Eggs for those familiar with them.

I honestly don't know if the adventure would have been as good if the design team had been forced to acknowledge any and all lore that had been previously established. I think that's the best example I can give of why I think canon should be a tool and not just automatically observed.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@pemerton The question is primarily commercial, yes; and in this case, Wizards has a zero-sum choice on their plate: they can willy-nilly do whatever in any given product, with no eye to consistency with occasional interesting results OR they can intentionally curate a self-consistant IP for the pleasure of readers like @Jester David or myself.

There is no middle ground to be had, though you could argue that 3.x tried. The builders, like yourself, will still build and steal what you like or not irregardless; the lore lovers will not go for the willy-nilly approach.

We don't have access to the market data to know which path to follow, but WotC does, and they have gone hard for curating a self-consistant IP this time around, referencing and collating what came before. Aesthetic preferences are what they are, no problem: but for me and mine, I'll take what Chris Perkins is selling.

I think that 5E is kind of a middle ground approach. They've reset a lot of things. They've used a catch all phrase of "The Sundering" to explain the changes. They have not gone into great detail on a lot of the changes that occurred. The only setting material they've produced so far has been done in the voice of characters who appear in the world, giving them plausible deniability for any later changes to that lore.

It seems to me that they are trying to give people what they want....a Realms that is very familiar to fans of what's come before, and a Realms that is easily understood by newer players and DMs.

 

[Shasarak]

Why is ignoring the 4e changes to FR harder than ignoring the FtA changes to GH?

For me it is harder because I have never read FtA or had to fit it into a GH game.

So you will never see me telling someone else who loves Greyhawk that they should just suck it up and just use the stuff they like.

 

[Shasarak]

I mean, one way to look at it is this: if WotC just cancelled FR as a series of publications no one would have any legitimate complaint. And so no one is any worse of - and hence no one has any new cause for complaint - if instead of cancellation WotC takes it in a direction that some, even many, people don't like.

It seems odd to expect people to just sit back passively and take what they are given without any comments at all. That really does not match the reality that I have experienced where people seem to have opinions on stuff they do not even use.

Perhaps you are right and it would be better if WotC just cancelled their FR. At least that way the rights could revert back to someone who does not just see it as a, what did you call it, "commercial" property.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually… internal consistency is what some people are arguing against. That's the canon I want preserved.


Some posters in this thread want to just give writers the freedom to make whatever changes they want and ignore whatever changes the writers want. To erase, ignore, or delete canon.



The thing is, the major changes to settings didn't ignore canon or change canon… they added to canon. "The canon now includes X and Y".
It's a change to the setting, but not canon.



That's a great example of what I'm talking about as well. Returned Abeir was a *huge* retcon. "Abeir-Toril are two planets, not one, there are Primordials, etc".
But it doesn't really change anything. It simply adds to the mosaic. It negates nothing from the past.
An actual change was something like "sun elves are eladrin not elves and are from the Feywild". But that's a minor one.


The example of actually changing canon I used upthread was from the 3e product Lords of Madness where Mind Flayers went from being creatures from the Far Realm that entered the Prime Material Plane hundreds of thousands of years ago to being creatures from the distant future that went back in time arrive in the world 2000 years ago.


Another example is actually from 5th Edition, where the Cult of the Dragon swapped from venerating dead dragons and believing undead dragons would one day rule the world to being servants of Tiamat. Which is an example of what I'm talking about. Rather than reconcile the planned plot for Tyranny of Dragons with the lore of the Forgotten Realms, they changed the Realms to fit their story. They didn't invent a new cult or bad guy, they changed things.
It wouldn't have even been hard. The Tiamat cultists could have been a branch of the Cult of the Dragon that broke away forming the new church of Tiamat. Which could add another wrinkle of forging allies with the old Cult of the Dragon (which would have made more sense than allying with the Red Wizards who were on the opposite side of the map from the Sword Coast, where all the action was taking, requiring some hand waving for how the party gets there).


Similarly, Curse of Strahd is a big blender of Ravenloft lore, taking setting material and just mashing it with the classic adventure. It's a bit like a Marvel Cinematic Universe film where it lifts names and ideas but does it's own thing, using the source material as inspiration for Easter Eggs.

They buried the lede in Rise of Tia.at, but the Cult thing was taken from 2E/3E adventurevseeds about Tiamat trying to take over the Cult, and the hundred plus year gap. They provides the history of how itbhappenedand named names. That's not a great book organization but a good use of canon that respects the history.

 

[pemerton]

It seems odd to expect people to just sit back passively and take what they are given without any comments at all.

you will never see me telling someone else who loves Greyhawk that they should just suck it up and just use the stuff they like.

The framing in both these posts is different from how it looks to me.

No one is being given anything. They are being offered it, invited to buy and read it. If people don't like it, they (presumably) won't buy and read it. And hence don't have to "suck it up". No GH fan has to suck up FtA. They can just ignore it.

I legit don't get your point. Ofc WotC can do whatever they want, it's their IP. Ofc we can't "morally" complain, but fans of the setting can express negative opinions on WotC's work.

My point is that if you don't like what is being published then (if you interest is mainly story) don't read it, or (if you interest is mostly RPGing) don't use it in your game. And this is no harder to do if you like sticking to canon - you stick to the canon you like, and thus get a by-the-book FR (or GH, or whatever) experience - of if you don't care about it - in which case you pick and choose whatever you want from the book.

The normative language ("people should take what they are given", "people should suck it up", "WotC should do this rather than that") is what I don't get. There are absolutelyu posts in this thread that imply that people's FR experience was made worse by the publication of 4e stuff they didn't like; and to me that makes no sense, because if they were enjoying the canon up to that point then they can just ignore what comes after and maintain the same degree of enjoyment.

Likewise with [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s concern about Lords of Madness: if the Ilithiad was better in its treatment of mind flayers, then you just ignore the later book as if it has never been written.

Unless you really love it, a world with such a heavy metaplot made up of things getting blown up (sometimes with 1 line of explanation and then forgotten forever, until their resurrection), and then getting restored in an endless cycle (and here again with heavy deus ex machinas and little to no explanation) is surely less compelling and inviting than a world with an organic metaplot.

To me, this goes back to what the point of the fiction is.

If the fiction is mostly for game play, and the post-metaplot/blowing up world is better for game play, than maybe the meta-plot heavy world is more compelling.

The new, 5e Realms seems to have even more of what you don't like than the 4e one did - because there's everything that came before plus the new stuff used to undo the 4e stuff - and people seem to like that better than the 4e Realms.

EDIT: I"ve just read [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s post no 145. It sets this out nicely - if you publish some canon that many people don't like, is it better to ignore it, or ret-con it, or . . . ? There's no obviously best answer. And then each gaming group has to make the same sort of decision in relation to its engagement with the published material for the setting it is using - and there's no obvioulsy best answer for that, either, in terms of what should be used and what dropped. All that can happen is that the publisher, and then each group, does its best to generate the fiction that it thinks will sell (for the publisher) or will make for a fun game (for the group).

I also agree with [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan's take on Ravenloft and the Cult of the Dragon. It undermines the accessiblity of the game fiction to new players to burden it with stuff that only makes sense, or matters, to those who are familiar with older material. (Maybe this is why FtA, which was all about "the Greyhawk Wars", seemed to ignore the prior canon of a more limited war between the Horned Society and the Shield Lands.)

I think these illustrations show that it's just not true that preserving and conforming to canon is always the best way for WotC to proceed.

 

[pemerton]

D&D is a shared world, like the Realms and its other settings. The monsters have lore, as do the planes, which has been built up for 40+ years now.

Are dwarves mostly brown (as the 1st ed AD&D MM says) or mostly white (as every illustration in every book and magazine I can think of tends to suggest)?

Is the ultimate goal of the mind flayers to block out the sun (as the Dungeonee's Survival Guide says)? And if so, why has this never been mentioned since (eg it is not mentioned in the summary of lore on the Wikipedia "ilithid" entry, and I've never seen it referenced in anything I've read subsequently). Personally I find the DSG account of mind flayers' aspiration more compelling than simply yet another group of would-be evil overlords.

As [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] says, there is no consistency in this lore. It's a bunch of different ideas that different authors, at different times, have though would be fun. Which is as it should be - we're talking about material for RPGing, not writing a setting bible for a TV series.

Sometimes you do just have to declare something non-canon. But that should be a group decision involving multiple people and not just one person trying to fix a pet peeve.
Otherwise you just end up with dozens of authors working at cross purposes, making changes and un-changes. And changes and events cease to matter and have any impact since things will just change again.

I don't understand this notion of "mattering". The existence of a consistent fictional world is not an end in itself. What makes fiction compelling is its narrative and thematic and imaginative power, not its consistency from iteration to iteration.

Canon and continuity are a shackles, but they're also a tool. Good shared world writers working in the Reams or D&D will look at the lore and see two incongruous details ("the lore says X but it also says Y") and tell stories that reconcile the details.

At a certain point this is up to the fans who care. (Which is why Marvel instituted the "no prize".) And different games will adopt different reconciliations.

It's not unlike Star Trek.

D&D setting material is nothing like Star Trek (beyond being an instance of genre fiction). The goal of my D&D group is not to write a story that is a consistent element within an overarching series. It's to have fun FRPGing! If our version of Dark Sun only bares a passing resemblance to yours, or to Troy Denning's, that doesn't matter.

 

[Hussar]

My biggest issue with canon is that it becomes fetishized. Canon is canon, not because it's a good idea but just because it came first. And any new idea is automatically dismissed, again not on merit, but just because it doesn't follow canon.

Drives me up the wall.

And the other thing that gets my knickers in a bunch is that it's so unevenly applied. This change to canon is unacceptable but that one passes without comment.

Like many here I've been gaming through multiple editions. Monsters and whatnot have had many interpretations and incarnations.

But start futzing about with some race of elves no one has ever heard of much less care about and people lose their minds. Change the length of tiefling horns and you might as well be eating puppies without ketchup.

The canon stick so often is just an excuse for "I don't like this and I need to justify my dislike".