Surely you jest. What is this whole discussion about, except your desire to invalidate all the lore that has been built up for D&D since its first appearance in the 70's and replace it with 4e lore? Not have 4e lore added to the game in a separate book, but have 4e lore replace the original lore created by/approved by Gary Gygax (who thought up the Great Wheel, FYI) and have the original material removed from the current books, existing only in older books. What did the 4e design team do, but force their personal tastes on the rest of the hobby, who were happily enjoying the original cosmology and monsters? All 5e did was (mostly) un-do the retcon and restore what had been there for 40+years. This would be akin to the creator of the Ebberon campaign setting, Keith Baker, demanding that the Ebberon cosmology be the default and only planar arrangement in the core books, that the Ebberon assumptions about monster lore be in the core MM, etc, because of his personal preference for them. Fortunately, he's not so arrogant! When 3e Forgotten Realms went with a different cosmology, they didn't feel some burning need to kill off the Great Wheel - they just moved the Forgotten Realms to a separate Great Tree cosmology, outlined in the FR hardcover book. Why the hell can't that method be the standard - add new stuff in its own books, and leave the 40+ years of accumulated lore alone?
Swimming rather far upthread.
Sorry, did you miss the part where I don't care about canon? Where have I said that I want to replace anything?
See, I 100% agree with you. Why can't all these changes be kept cordoned off from the general game? Why is Planescape the default for all settings, where every single setting MUST conform to Planescape? Heck, even the Great Wheel, for that matter? Why does every single setting have to follow the Great Wheel, along with its attendant demon princes, devil lords, yugoloth, angels etc? You are forgetting that all those great settings HAD THEIR OWN COSMOLOGIES that were then retconned in 2e to follow a specific lore.
And that's what blows my mind. I've been told over and over and over that canon is
important. That we should leave that 40+ years of accumulated lore alone. But, we don't. Monsters, classes, whatnot, got all sorts of changes in 3e, then in 4e, then again in 5e. And we see people torturing the language in order to allow the changes while still claiming that lore is important.
Heck, take warlocks in Dragonlance. Ok, Raistlin made some sort of pact. Fair enough. But, that's NOT what Warlocks say. Warlocks make pacts with "mysterious beings... ancient knowledge such as fey nobles, demons, devils, hags and alien entities of the Far Realms". ((PHB p 105)) Simply making a pact with another wizard isn't what a warlock does. Warlocks are "defined by a pact with an
otherworldly being". Number one, most of those things don't even exist in Dragonlance. There is no Far Realms, nor devils nor fey nobles. Granted, some of that stuff was added later, that's true. But, since canon is important, why do people accept those later changes?
Adding warlocks to the setting changes Dragonlance. Depending on the pact, it changes the setting considerably.
Now me? As a DM? I'd probably roll with it and not even blink. But, I don't care about canon. I'm more interested in the story you're going to tell at the table. But, for those who claim to care about canon, THEY'RE the ones arguing with me. These aren't really changes, they claim. They're just... additions... reinterpretations... stuff. *erm*
For me? I'd love to see core D&D stripped of most of its lore. Go back to how D&D was presented in about AD&D, with just a bare framework of lore. And then, for you lore junkies out there, you can buy the books full of goodies and I don't have to strip all that stuff out. Best of both worlds AFAIC.