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

[I'm A Banana]

Man, you step away from the Internet for one evening....

Trying to summarize some big points...

It's kind of like...because we don't know DL very well, and all we have to go on are these various written works that don't always agree, we need for some external order to be imposed on it. Imposing that order is generally the GM's job.

And this, right here, is the true source of argument involving canon. It's not that people can't agree on whether it's important, though that is a factor; it's that people can't agree on what it is.

Is "true" Dragonlance canon everything that's appeared in official written material? Or is it only what was intended in the first two trilogies, with everything else being apocrypha?

Here's where we run into some of the (unnecessary) hassle that is involved in lore changes: the GM is expected to be the external order, but a GM might not be any better at any other player at "knowing the lore," might be worse than some, and if they're expected to set the order, it needs to be something that all the players agree is "authentic" to the setting.

Or, you get "It's Dark Sun, but without the environmental devastation, since I'm only interested in the Stone Age Sword & Sorcery stuff and I wanna use dinosaurs."

Or, in this case, "It's called Dragonlance, but since this gnome is an irreverent wild mage, it's not truly Dragonlance."

That doesn't mean it's better or worse, just that it's different and confusing and adds barriers to satisfying play and generally, is a frickin' hassle. If the game's lore is consistent, that burden is alleviated. If it's not, that burden is exacerbated.

Note that this doesn't mean "don't change lore," it just means "don't change lore just because you want to change stuff up." It acknowledges a cost for that lore change - there's confusion and unsatisfying play there.

I'd include "I don't care about lore" as a cost there, too. If you're designing a setting, having your audience react with "I don't care about the lore" is not the response you want. It means you've failed to cultivate the engagement you want - you might as well not bother with the lore development if your audience reacts like that. I mean, some probably will regardless, but you want MOST people to care at least a LITTLE about the intent of your world design!

Change to lore is only a problem when someone doesn't like the change.

You keep asserting this, but you don't seem to be listening to the counterpoints, so...whatever, man. Keep on believing whatever makes you happy, I guess.

That is not to say there isn't joy in doing something against the norm. However, you need to make sure it all fits.

Yeah, part of what drives me to dive deep into the settings is seeing the sides of the main conflicts and how they fit. Like, a druid trying to return rain to Athas fits. It's not even exactly "against the norm." It is, however, kind of a Luke Skywalker fitting: it's someone who hopes to transform the setting by the time they're done. It tries to change the status quo.

[The default effect] is not an explanation for why some people complain about having to depart from the default.

The explanations of the default effect attempt to explain why people don't go with the default.

And most of those could easily explain some of the frustration at lore changes.

I'd think this would be pretty dang obvious to anyone who even read the wikipedia article?

I think the hostility to changes has very little to do with any costs of change.

Keep on believing whatever makes you happy, I guess.

I don't care about canon, but that doesn't mean I want it kept intact. I want RPG authors to give me their best stuff, because some of that might be useful to me in running my game.

If you don't care about canon, how useful can canon possibly be to running your game?

Or is this that double-standard that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is on about: you only care about the canon that you personally like and the rest can go screw?

I don't think it does - even if we are just using the 1st ed Dragonlance Adventures book, your DL game might look pretty different from mine. (Eg look at ICE's MERP books, and then tell me what they have in common with JRRT's fiction other than maps and names.)

If everyone agrees to call this thing the Ship of Theseus, we're good.

But as that DL example shows, not everyone is agreeing.

Because lore changed.

If your answer to that last line is "yes", then you are saying that the fiction in your RPG gameworld is being established and changed by someone who isn't even a participant at your table. This is the normative attitude to canon that I don't share and don't really get.

I mean, you let the rules of your game be set by someone who isn't even a participant at your table. Is it really that much different in your mind? Everyone needs to be on the same page about attack rolls, and everyone needs to be on the same page about tieflings, too.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I mean, you let the rules of your game be set by someone who isn't even a participant at your table. Is it really that much different in your mind? Everyone needs to be on the same page about attack rolls, and everyone needs to be on the same page about tieflings, too.

So would you say that a game that uses any house rules is not D&D?

So is a game that changes the lore a bit not taking place in Forgotten Realms (or whatever world)?

The rules are there as a starting point...a framework for you and your group to create the game that you want. Why is lore any different? It's a tool, just as the rules are.

If a group decided to get rid of criticals, decided to use feats, and instituted character death at negative CON score in HP, would you really tell them they aren't playing D&D? If not, then why would you ever tell someone who ignored the Spellplague and the Sunderig and said dragonborn have always been around on Toril is not playing in the Forgotten Realms?

Are the only true D&D games the Adventurer'S League games? Or maybe we have to look at it even more strictly....maybe the only true D&D is being played right now in a basement somewhere by some guys who have the original rukes by Gygax....

This is kind of the rabbit hole we fall down with this canon debate. Pretty much everyone cherry picks canon to an extent, whether by choice or by not knowing it all. Some just cherry pick more than others.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So would you say that a game that uses any house rules is not D&D?

So is a game that changes the lore a bit not taking place in Forgotten Realms (or whatever world)?
...
If a group decided to get rid of criticals, decided to use feats, and instituted character death at negative CON score in HP, would you really tell them they aren't playing D&D? If not, then why would you ever tell someone who ignored the Spellplague and the Sunderig and said dragonborn have always been around on Toril is not playing in the Forgotten Realms?

I'd say in both cases that we're not using what the books take as a baseline.

That's fine, but it's important to be explicit about that. If I show up for a game of 5e D&D set in the Forgotten Realms and everyone's creating characters using FATAL, rolling THAC0, and riding around on motorcycles wearing outfits out of MadMax, I'm going to say this isn't really what I signed up for. It might be awesome or awful or somewhere in between, but regardless it's not what I was trying to do with a 5e D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms.

I also wouldn't blame anyone if they said, "Dude, that's not really what 5e D&D in the Forgotten Realms is like." Yeah, fair enough - this is a different experience.

The rules are there as a starting point...a framework for you and your group to create the game that you want. Why is lore any different? It's a tool, just as the rules are.
...
Are the only true D&D games the Adventurer'S League games? Or maybe we have to look at it even more strictly....maybe the only true D&D is being played right now in a basement somewhere by some guys who have the original rukes by Gygax....

This is kind of the rabbit hole we fall down with this canon debate. Pretty much everyone cherry picks canon to an extent, whether by choice or by not knowing it all. Some just cherry pick more than others.

There's no slippery slope, here, though.

There's value in the designers defining "gnome" or "tiefling" as much as there is in defining "attack roll" or "saving throw." And the point of defining those things is so that everyone has similar assumptions and a solid baseline for coming together in play.

And if 6e came along and said "Attack rolls are now performed by kicking the player to your right in the shins, and if they say "ow," the attack hits," it would be just as disruptive as if it came along and said "Elves are now all evil overlords who have enslaved half the world."

And the more you change lore, the harder it is to set a baseline. A newbie 6e player will come into that game with different expectations than Granddad 1e, and a 4e player might just be wondering what happened to the Feywild...

All of that is friction, barrier to entry, hassle, overcoming norms, rejecting recommendations, putting in extra work....

Even if the story for 6e elves is mind-blowingly amazing, it incurs very significant costs to do that, and if someone decides that any of those costs are too much to pay....

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'd say in both cases that we're not using what the books take as a baseline.

That's fine, but it's important to be explicit about that. If I show up for a game of 5e D&D set in the Forgotten Realms and everyone's creating characters using FATAL, rolling THAC0, and riding around on motorcycles wearing outfits out of MadMax, I'm going to say this isn't really what I signed up for. It might be awesome or awful or somewhere in between, but regardless it's not what I was trying to do with a 5e D&D game set in the Forgotten Realms.

I also wouldn't blame anyone if they said, "Dude, that's not really what 5e D&D in the Forgotten Realms is like." Yeah, fair enough - this is a different experience.

I agree with you about being explicit. If it's clear what's going on in the setting, then most problems are easily avoided. I also think that there is a tipping point where you've changed things to the point of it now being unrecognizable. There are certain elements expected in a traditional D&D setting like FR...quasi-medieval, Tolkienesque fantasy. Whether a specific race has horns and a tail or yellow eyes and smells of brimstone is a minor change that doesn't alter the setting.

What I disagree with you about is the baseline. The core rulebooks contain numerous options for changing the baseline. They expect you to use the options that appeal to you. To me, that means that the baseline assumes there will be some rules changes.

The same applies to the setting lore, I'd say.

There's no slippery slope, here, though.

There's value in the designers defining "gnome" or "tiefling" as much as there is in defining "attack roll" or "saving throw." And the point of defining those things is so that everyone has similar assumptions and a solid baseline for coming together in play.

And if 6e came along and said "Attack rolls are now performed by kicking the player to your right in the shins, and if they say "ow," the attack hits," it would be just as disruptive as if it came along and said "Elves are now all evil overlords who have enslaved half the world."

Are you at all familiar with the Dice,Camera, Action stream of Curse of Strahd? There's a player in that game playing a tiefling from Sigil...so so she is drawing on 2E lore as flavor for her character. But as for her appearance...we can't really say. Is she a 2E tiefling or a 5E tiefling? It literally does not come up in play at all. Literally the player could have one concept in her head, and the DM could have another, and there need not be any conflict. How a tiefling looks or where a gnome comes from is cosmetic, in that sense.

Where as a change in attack rolls would impact play all the time, and for all players.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree with you about being explicit. If it's clear what's going on in the setting, then most problems are easily avoided. I also think that there is a tipping point where you've changed things to the point of it now being unrecognizable. There are certain elements expected in a traditional D&D setting like FR...quasi-medieval, Tolkienesque fantasy. Whether a specific race has horns and a tail or yellow eyes and smells of brimstone is a minor change that doesn't alter the setting.

That tipping point and those expectations are different for different people. Part of why they are different is because there's been so many contradictory and divergent changes in the canon. Like, the game isn't quasi-medieval if it's Eberron or Dark Sun, it's not Tolkienesque if it's FR or the Savage Coast, and whether the appearance of Tieflings is variable or not matters a lot if you're playing Planescape or in the Nentir Vale.

The more one word is used to describe different stories, the more confusion reigns and the less easy it is to establish those norms as a DM. Our Dragonlance DM hasn't just been able to say "We're playing Dragonlance" and have that mean the same thing to everyone.

What I disagree with you about is the baseline. The core rulebooks contain numerous options for changing the baseline. They expect you to use the options that appeal to you. To me, that means that the baseline assumes there will be some rules changes.

The same applies to the setting lore, I'd say.

Having a baseline doesn't mean it can't change (hell, that's half the reason for having a baseline), it just helps set norms and establish defaults.

But then it's a hassle to have to overcome those norms and change those defaults, and that's why changing setting canon is a pain in the butt, and should thus should not simply be nuked because the designer thinks they have a better idea.

I mean, I might think 3d6 for attack rolls is a better idea than 1d20, but if I decided that this should be the default mechanic in 6e, there's going to be a price to pay for that. If I mention it as a possible alternative, though, that price is significantly lessened.

Are you at all familiar with the Dice,Camera, Action stream of Curse of Strahd? There's a player in that game playing a tiefling from Sigil...so so she is drawing on 2E lore as flavor for her character. But as for her appearance...we can't really say. Is she a 2E tiefling or a 5E tiefling? It literally does not come up in play at all. Literally the player could have one concept in her head, and the DM could have another, and there need not be any conflict. How a tiefling looks or where a gnome comes from is cosmetic, in that sense.

Where as a change in attack rolls would impact play all the time, and for all players.

We actually do know, since she's got a portrait picture, and she's shown up at cons in costume:


...and I get the impression that the story of being a PS tiefling is important to Holly for Strix's character (hence all the Sigilian slang and the notes on being experienced in planar matters and the orphan backstory), so it would be kind of a big deal if, say, Diath mentioned how all of her ancestors lived in decadence in Bael Turath.

Hell, it was used in the adventure, since her "brother" was a dude with a big, fiendish red arm, if I'm remembering right.

So it definitely comes up in play, and it definitely is something the whole group should be on the same page about (and are, by appearances). It seems to be part of the fun of playing the character for Holly. If that aspect was removed, or if she was forced to play a Turathi tiefling, I think she'd be having less fun with the character (and would definitely be dropping fewer "berks").

 

[hawkeyefan]

That tipping point and those expectations are different for different people. Part of why they are different is because there's been so many contradictory and divergent changes in the canon. Like, the game isn't quasi-medieval if it's Eberron or Dark Sun, it's not Tolkienesque if it's FR or the Savage Coast, and whether the appearance of Tieflings is variable or not matters a lot if you're playing Planescape or in the Nentir Vale.

The more one word is used to describe different stories, the more confusion reigns and the less easy it is to establish those norms as a DM. Our Dragonlance DM hasn't just been able to say "We're playing Dragonlance" and have that mean the same thing to everyone.


Having a baseline doesn't mean it can't change (hell, that's half the reason for having a baseline), it just helps set norms and establish defaults.

But then it's a hassle to have to overcome those norms and change those defaults, and that's why changing setting canon is a pain in the butt, and should thus should not simply be nuked because the designer thinks they have a better idea.

I mean, I might think 3d6 for attack rolls is a better idea than 1d20, but if I decided that this should be the default mechanic in 6e, there's going to be a price to pay for that. If I mention it as a possible alternative, though, that price is significantly lessened.



We actually do know, since she's got a portrait picture, and she's shown up at cons in costume:


...and I get the impression that the story of being a PS tiefling is important to Holly for Strix's character (hence all the Sigilian slang and the notes on being experienced in planar matters and the orphan backstory), so it would be kind of a big deal if, say, Diath mentioned how all of her ancestors lived in decadence in Bael Turath.

Hell, it was used in the adventure, since her "brother" was a dude with a big, fiendish red arm, if I'm remembering right.

So it definitely comes up in play, and it definitely is something the whole group should be on the same page about (and are, by appearances). It seems to be part of the fun of playing the character for Holly. If that aspect was removed, or if she was forced to play a Turathi tiefling, I think she'd be having less fun with the character (and would definitely be dropping fewer "berks").

So are we talking about designers or gaming groups?

I agree that each setting has default assumptions. My point is that even those are subjective. I think what you're saying is that it is easier to establish those assumptions if the settting has never changed from a design standpoint. So a setting like Ebberon is easier to establish a baseline because less has taken place in its "timeline" when compared to a setting like Faerun, which has blown up and been restored a couple of times. Is that what you mean?

If so, then yes, I would agree with that. But then once play starts, everyone's canon is different. If my players bring down the fall of one of the major houses of Ebberon, than my setting is different than yours. My canon has changed from the default assumption. But does that mean my setting is no longer recognizable as Ebberon?

Again, with everyone picking and choosing what to use in their campaign, I just can't view canon as being anything more than a tool to use. I feel no need to remain faithful to the books just to keep in line with others' expectations. I suppose this could be more of a problem if I had players who were really devoted to any setting, but then I'd address it and make sure it was clear how we would handle it, and make sure all agreed on an approach that worked, and then use that.

So sure, canon is a starting point, I agree with you there. However, it feel no requirement not to immediately change anything I want about the setting.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So are we talking about designers or gaming groups?

I'm talking about how designers affect gaming groups as a way to talk about what I think designers should do for the betterment of many gaming groups.

I agree that each setting has default assumptions. My point is that even those are subjective. I think what you're saying is that it is easier to establish those assumptions if the settting has never changed from a design standpoint. So a setting like Ebberon is easier to establish a baseline because less has taken place in its "timeline" when compared to a setting like Faerun, which has blown up and been restored a couple of times. Is that what you mean?

Yeah, that's a big chunk of it.

If so, then yes, I would agree with that. But then once play starts, everyone's canon is different. If my players bring down the fall of one of the major houses of Ebberon, than my setting is different than yours. My canon has changed from the default assumption. But does that mean my setting is no longer recognizable as Ebberon?

It does mean if I was a new player joining your game, I'd expect that house to be there, and the fact that your game doesn't have that house would be important to note.

Just an example, if I was hoping to play a gnome, it would be important to know if House Sivis was still around or not. So if you invite me to play and just say "We're playing an Eberron game" and I make a dragonmarked House Sivis gnome, and then I show up and House Sivis is fallen, that changes the story I was going to tell with that character.

Again, with everyone picking and choosing what to use in their campaign, I just can't view canon as being anything more than a tool to use. I feel no need to remain faithful to the books just to keep in line with others' expectations. I suppose this could be more of a problem if I had players who were really devoted to any setting, but then I'd address it and make sure it was clear how we would handle it, and make sure all agreed on an approach that worked, and then use that.

So sure, canon is a starting point, I agree with you there. However, it feel no requirement not to immediately change anything I want about the setting.

I'd agree that individual campaigns shouldn't feel any special commitment to canon - they just need to be explicit about what's going on with their game (just as they would if they were changing the way saving throws worked).

I think the designers, however, should feel that commitment, and that it causes some issues when they don't.

 

[Shasarak]

Bringing up a different game doesn't change anything. Clearly, since he was referencing 1e, he's talking about the 1e-5e game, not the different and concurrent running Basic game.

I still did not hear the Basic game of what, Max?

Please tell us what this different and concurrent game of which you speak is a Basic version of?

Actually dont bother explaining how wrong you are. At least Hussar has an excuse not to know his DnD history.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Maxperson]

I still did not hear the Basic game of what, Max?

Maybe you should open your ears then. I said it once or twice in prior posts not too far back.