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

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[billd91]

But the danger is that you get people that will attempt to freeze something because it's canon; moving back to TTRPGs, I refuse to use anything GH since the 1983 boxed set. Period. Does that mean that I, as arbiter of canon (since Gygax, it's all non-canonical crud!) gets to say that WoTC doesn't get to make any changes? Tell any stories?

The great thing about TTRPGs is that we each tell our own stories, at our own tables. I have my own canon, and I hope you have yours, too.

Yes, you can have that and it can be OK. But when different canons mix at the table, you end up with misunderstanding and having to spend effort on reconciling your differences. That's what some of us have been getting at in this thread. If I run G2 assuming that storm giants are known to be good but play with some players who only know 4e canon, we're approaching at least one encounter with a fundamental misunderstanding of what it signifies. The lingua franca of D&D has been disrupted by a change in a property - the storm giants' typical alignment. It's not necessarily a major headache, but it's a hitch - too many of them and I'll avoid recruiting the players who increase my inconvenience level and won't buy/play the inconvenient version because it requires too much work to retrain myself, other players, or retrofit to my ongoing campaign. WotC or any other publisher may think the changes they're making are good ones and will facilitate the stories they want to tell, but every change also raises a potential barrier to adoption that wouldn't exist had the content remained static.

 

[Imaro]

Object all you want! Since you are again going down the whole arguing about arguing thing, we'll agree to disagree. Since, after all, our opinions don't matter.

Good luck!

I have no problem agreeing to disagree... though I feel like we did this earlier in the thread...

 

[lowkey13]

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[Shasarak]

To the best of my knowledge, Disney is a far bigger and wealthier company that WotC. So that's the first reason that comes to mind.

Ok, if that is the main reason for your argument then where is the best selling most popular Micky Mouse RPG then? Surely there must be one since Disney is a far bigger and wealthier company. Biggest = best, right?

 

[Shasarak]

But do you really think that every character labelled Good in 4e must be different from every character labelled CG in AD&D 2nd ed?

Does that mean that you think every character with a given alignment label is identical?

Well since the specific example you gave for "Good" is different then that given for "Chaotic Good" then why would I assume any particular Good character would be Chaotic Good? After all they would have to look at the example given for a Good character and then disregard that to make their character Chaotic Good.

And if we are disregarding the example given then that must mean that an "Evil" character could act the same way a Chaotic Good character does for the same reasons.

This is nothing to do with unconsciously changing anything. As far as I can tell, it's about an alignment label fetishism that goes beyond anything I've ever seen before. How did you guys cope with the transition from 3-place to 9-point alignment? Did you literally have to rewrite every bit of your campaign, because no one in AD&D behaves the same as anyone in Moldvay Basic?

I dont know why you think that just because it has been done before means that it should be done again. I can think of a lot of examples where precedent is not a good example for doing something now.

I mean, this is how we get into all of these Realms Shaking events to try and explain edition changes in the first place.

 

[Shasarak]

What I believe [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] was implying was that the various changes to the lore do not seem to keep Disney (the successful owner of the Spiderman* and other Marvel characters** IP) from making quite a bit of money from them; both from hardcore lore fans as well as the casual, I wanna see a movie, market.

Well if the sole criteria is "amount of money" being made then it looks like DnD is making much much more then what ever the Marvel game is.

 

[Shasarak]

In the end, what matters more is whether the story is good; not whether Heimdall ever looked exactly like Idris Elba in the comics.

This is exactly what I have been saying. All that matters is if the story is good and all evidence for Forgotten Realms is that they are just going to forget the previous awfulness* and move forward with the best of the canon.



*Excepting of course the awful bits that a current designer liked.

 

[lowkey13]

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