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

[pemerton]

When 1e needed an example, it defaulted to Greyhawk.

This was true of UA - which was criticised for it at the time, in Dragon magazine correspondence.

The AD&D PHB doesn't mention GH at all, and in the DMG it figures only in the Artefact and Relic descriptions.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, let's see if I can get my point across without ruffling too many feathers.

Like many here, I've been gaming a long time. I've played 7 different iterations of D&D from Moldvay Basic/Expert up to 5e now. So, when you talk about lore in the game, my first question has to be, "what lore"?

In my time in the game the following statements have ALL been true:

• There are no demons or devils in the game (Moldvay Basic/Expert, Core 2e)
• There are demons in the game that live in the Abyss (1e)
• There are demons and devils in the game that all serve in some eternal war against each other, but, aren't called demons and devils (later 2e, 3e and 5e)
• There are demons and devils in the game but have an entirely different back story (4e)

So, tell me, definitively, are there demons and devils in D&D an what is their background lore? At BEST you can claim canon in a single edition, but, even then, that's not true. I've got, on my shelves right now, THREE separate, distinct write-ups for a 1e Lolth. Fiend Folio, Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Lolth as a goddess (Dieties and Demigods).

Better yet, I started D&D in Moldvay. One of the first adventures we played was Isle of Dread. So, tell me, where is the Isle of Dread? It's been in Mystara, Greyhawk and a demi-plane as far as I know. So, which is it? What's the lore?

D&D lore has been mutable since day one. Daemons morphed into Yugoloths which later morphed into something else again. Kobolds went from little dog people to little lizard people to being tied to dragons and having a draconic heritage. On and on and on. Paladins went from Dudley Do-Right LG exemplars to a character of any alignment that reveres some sort of divine aspect. How is a 5e Paladin even comparable in lore to a 1e Paladin?

Lore CHANGES. Lore changes all the freaking time.

There is no "D&D Lore". Or, at least, EXTREMELY little of it. The game has folded, spindled and mauled "canon" so many times that you can basically find evidence of "canon" material for any position you like.

Like I said, you cannot actually definitively answer any of the questions I've asked in this post. Your answer will be completely different depending on what the date is. We have an evil Paladin in our War of the Lance Dragonlance game. Good grief, how is that even REMOTELY canon. War of the Lance era Dragonlance has no paladins AT ALL, for one, and certainly not evil ones, which didn't even exist in the game at the time. The aforementioned wild mage gnome is only possible through ret-cons to the setting. FFS, we had a kender cleric at the beginning of that campaign!

And no one batted an eye. No one said the slightest thing. No one cared. Because no one actually gives a rat's petoot about canon. If canon actually mattered, then none of these things in this post would happen. But, canon isn't important. No one actually cares about it.

Until such time as it becomes convenient to care about it. If CANON was important, then all changes would be important. After all, you can't claim canon is important when virtually every single aspect of the game changes, and often changes radically, year after year after year, edition after edition, and most of the changes are perfectly acceptable and many of them are applauded. You can't claim the importance of canon when it's convenient. It's either important or it's not. If changing elves to eladrin is bad because of canon, then so is EVERY other change. Now, if changing elves to eladrin is bad because it makes the race unfunny, or unplayable or some other reason, fair enough. We can talk about that. But, if changing elves to eladrin is bad because change is bad, then you can't then ignore all the other changes just because you happen to LIKE those changes.

If change is bad, then it is bad. But, you can't try to claim change as bad only when it's convenient.

 

[Shasarak]

Is there anyone who has played 7 different iterations of DnD that does not know what Tanar'ri and Baatezu were supposed to be?

I mean sure the average Mum and Dad who lost their minds during the Satanic Panic are fooled but did anyone actually playing the game really not know?

I guess it is possible that someone believed that the Baatezu kicked all the Devils out of Hell because that would explain why all the summoning rituals stopped working all of a sudden.

 

[Hussar]

Is there anyone who has played 7 different iterations of DnD that does not know what Tanar'ri and Baatezu were supposed to be?

I mean sure the average Mum and Dad who lost their minds during the Satanic Panic are fooled but did anyone actually playing the game really not know?

I guess it is possible that someone believed that the Baatezu kicked all the Devils out of Hell because that would explain why all the summoning rituals stopped working all of a sudden.

Missing the point.

1. Tanarri and baatazu were not in 2e at all until MC8. 2e started with no demons in the game at all.

2. 2e completely rewrote the backstory with the Blood War. Complete revision of how demons and devils were originally presented.

If canon was important then why is this acceptable? Why is adding a Fey origin and a cantrip no problem but adding a fey origin and a teleport shorter than you can walk in the same amount of time a complete rewrite?

If canon is important than it ALL has to matter. Not just the canon you or I personally like.

 

[Shasarak]

Missing the point.

1. Tanarri and baatazu were not in 2e at all until MC8. 2e started with no demons in the game at all.

2. 2e completely rewrote the backstory with the Blood War. Complete revision of how demons and devils were originally presented.

Is that really the case for someone who has played in 7 different iterations of DnD? How many of those people started fresh in every one of those iterations?

Lets take the crossover period between ODnD and ADnD for example. The first ADnD book released was the Monster Manual. So how are you expected to use the Monster Manual if the Players Handbook is not released until the next year? The Answer is of course you just keep on using your ODnD rules.

So you are playing ADnD and then 2e is released without Devils and Demons so does that mean you immediately stop using the Devils and Demons that you had previously? The Answer is of course you keep on using your old ADnD rules.

Interestingly when they did update Devils and Demons to Tanar'ri and Baatezu they did not just replace Devils with something completely different. There was the same old Asmodeus, Ruler of Hell, who was now a "Tanar'ri" not a new Asmodeus the Easter Bunny instead.

If canon was important then why is this acceptable? Why is adding a Fey origin and a cantrip no problem but adding a fey origin and a teleport shorter than you can walk in the same amount of time a complete rewrite?

If canon is important than it ALL has to matter. Not just the canon you or I personally like.

What makes one better then the other? Probably not much when you really come down to it. But if you look at it another way, what is the difference between adding one teaspoon of salt to a meal and adding two teaspoons? Not much difference but one meal tastes great and the other is ruined.

So of course, if canon is important then why do some people use it and lovingly build on it and others just pull ideas out of their butts and ruin it for everyone else? Because we have seen what happens when people start changing stuff that they do not personally like.

 

[Mecheon]

So, tell me, definitively, are there demons and devils in D&D an what is their background lore? At BEST you can claim canon in a single edition, but, even then, that's not true. I've got, on my shelves right now, THREE separate, distinct write-ups for a 1e Lolth. Fiend Folio, Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Lolth as a goddess (Dieties and Demigods).

I keep saying go the Elder Scrolls route of "Everyone has written all of these things. They're not necessarily right"

I mean, let's go Elder Scrolls. Let's ask what the heck happened at Red Mountain. Did Nerevar, champion of the Chimer, die in battle with Shor, or Lorkhan as the elves call him? Was he killed by the Tribunal, with Azura then cursing the Chimer? Or did he venture too deep, dying to Dagoth Ur? Who knows? Do you need an answer as to their background lore?

The true answer to the demons and devils of course is that an early traveler of the planes accidentally introduced the Demons to the Devils and started the Blood War. So broken and traumatised by the evil he had unleashed by this event that he sought to turn it right, by any means necessary. He went to the most powerful of the Night Hags and he requested a gift to do so, but it didn't even up right. And well, I'd tell you his name, but they call him The Nameless One for a reason

 

[Elderbrain]

But anyone who is wanting to run a Planescape game, and who notices the comsology changes in 4e, already owns that matieral (or is in some other way familiar with it). And that one-page writeup tells you how to represent the GW in 4e mechanical terms. So I don't see the problem.

... So, as a 4e fan you're completely happy with the brief mention of the 4e cosmology in the 5e DMG? Feel that's all you need to run your 4e "World Axis" game using 5e rules? So far the only specifically 4e monsters that are in 5e are the Elemental Myrmidons ("Archons" in 4e) and one Primordial. You'd have to do quite a lot of work fixing monster stats (for Angels and Demons, say) to make them back into their 4e counterparts. It's no fun for a 4e player, and it was no fun for a 2e/3e player trying to run a standard game using 4e material. If having current stats for your old material were unnecessary or unimportant, nobody would ever buy a new Monster Manual!

Put it this way: I like eating at different places, but when I go to a particular place, I expect to get that place's food, not the food from some other joint. If I go in McDonalds, I want McDonalds food, not Burger King food. Not because Burger King food is bad, but because if I've been going to a place for a long time, I expect the food to stay the same. If I want Burger King food, I'll go to Burger King. 4e was like walking into a McDonalds and being told "Sorry, we decided McDonalds food sucks. We only serve Burger King food here now!" Remember when Coca-Cola decided to change the formula for Coke and released "New Coke", announcing they were discontinuing the original flavor? A lot of people were upset, and they had to change it back.

 

[Elderbrain]

2. 2e completely rewrote the backstory with the Blood War. Complete revision of how demons and devils were originally presented.

Actually, there WAS no backstory presented for Demons and Devils until the Blood War story was created. The 1e Monster Manuals and Fiend Folio say almost nothing about how they viewed each other, except for mentioning that the Demon Lord Pazzuu was unusual in being tolerated by both groups, suggesting that toleration was not the norm.

 

[Venley]

For me D&D canon is sort of interesting on occasion but as pointed out there are so many versions of canon that I pick and choose which bits of canon I want in any new campaign I run.

 

[pemerton]

So, as a 4e fan you're completely happy with the brief mention of the 4e cosmology in the 5e DMG? Feel that's all you need to run your 4e "World Axis" game using 5e rules?

Yes. What would the problem be?

So far the only specifically 4e monsters that are in 5e are the Elemental Myrmidons ("Archons" in 4e) and one Primordial. You'd have to do quite a lot of work fixing monster stats (for Angels and Demons, say) to make them back into their 4e counterparts.

5e has stats for demons and devils. Again, what do you think the problem would be? And why would it be hard to stat up an angel, given how straightforward it is to stat up 5e monsters?