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

[Shasarak]

As [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] said, the point I'm making is that the frequent rebooting/reimagining of comic characters doesn't seem to have done any harm to revenue for Marvel characters (whether that accrues primarily to Disney or other studios).

And the lore of Marvel characters isn't consistent in the film era - look at the X-Men, for instance, which do not have a consistent lore across the films. This doesn't seem to have done much harm.

It looks like, according to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] figures, inconsistent lore certainly does harm your film and having consistent lore actually helps.

Who would have thought!

 

[pemerton]

What exactly am I making up? I'm drawing a conclusion from data. Are you saying my data is incorrect?

No. I"m saying that you're making up your conclusion.

if you don't think that the re-boots and lore changes and confusing mash of trying to stitch it together was the cause.. please enlighten me as to your own reasoning (which I've asked for previously) as to why the revenue took such a hit on the re-boot and why the second series of movies never surpassed the first?

I know very little about the market for movies. But, for the reasons [MENTION=6801219]Lanliss[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] have given, I doubt very much that continuity of lore is a factor.

Just as plausible is that X-Men: First Class is a political drama. That, more generally, the X-Men have a political edge that the Avengers do not.

As I posted already, Days of Future Past was intended as an audience building reboot and rewrote a lot of lore. Clearly Fox doesn't agree with you about any causal relationship between lore and profits, and I believe they know more than you about these things.

Here's another way to come at it: X-Men was released in 2000; First Class over 10 years later. What was the overlap between audiences? What did audiences in 2011 remember of the 2000 film?

As I said, you're just making stuff up.

EDIT: Also, why does The Hulk reboot not count in this discussion?

 

[pemerton]

Do these Eladrin have the same abilities, themes and goals as those in 4e? I mean we are discussing lore and you've basically cited appearance a the major factor deciding they are the same?

No. I didn't just cite appearance. I cited information about their love of music, art etc and the fact that their queen is the FAERIE QUEEN of the COURT OF STARS.

That's the same themes and goals. I already documented abilities upthread - the wind ones are similar, but the Ghaele (I thnk?) is different.

 

[Mirtek]

Thats not the definition of canon.... Canon in so far as literature/written works are concerned is defined as...
[Middle English, from Late Latin, from Latin, standard]
a : an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture
b : the authentic works of a writer
c : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works <the canon of great literature>

So actually If its not the authentic works of an author then its not canon... irregardless of who owns said works. And if a work is not accepted... it's not canon. Neither of these are what you seem to be claiming canon is... ie whatever the publishers of a work claim it to be...

Actually it is. The publisher is the one with the right to accept something into canon or not. So yes, that meets a) and c)

 

[billd91]

EDIT: Also, why does The Hulk reboot not count in this discussion?

Well, that one's obvious. The one directed by Ang Lee wasn't part of the MCU. They weren't the ones responsible for the 2003 version so they can't exactly be accused of rebooting their own stuff like Fox and Sony can.

 

[Hussar]

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.

 

[pemerton]

Well, that one's obvious. The one directed by Ang Lee wasn't part of the MCU. They weren't the ones responsible for the 2003 version so they can't exactly be accused of rebooting their own stuff like Fox and Sony can.

But movie viewers don't care about production houses, or who labels what as part of the MCU.

The simple point is that there was a Hulk movie, in 2003, and then another Hulk movie, in 2008 - and the two films did not have consistent lore. By [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s theory, this should have hurt the second movie. But the two movies made about the same - a bit less than a quarter-of-a-billion for the first, a bit more than that for the later one.

More generally: the idea that consistency of canon is the best predictor of commercial box-office success (or even a remotely reliable predictor) has no evidence behind it that I'm aware of.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I don't think I would go this far - and even AD&D is not lore-free: look at druids, monks and assassins in the PHB, or thieves with their guilds and their 'cant', or even illusionists as 'specialty' mages for that matter; and then all the demographics in the MM, as well as the stuff about orc and hobgoblin tribes; and then the setting elements of the DMG (magic items, encounter tables, etc - the City/Town encounter table, especially, really tells a story about urban life in the AD&D world).

But I agree with the rest of your post. In particular, this idea that the law was all consistent, and simply "additive", until 4e came along and spoiled it, is pretty hard to take seriously. Besides all your examples, there's one I've reiterated in this thread but had little response to - why is no one else outraged by the rewriting of mindflayers, so that their goal is no longer to block out the sun (as it was in DSG)?

 

[Hussar]

Oh, and [MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION] - a point about kender.

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. What's something everyone knows about Kender? They steal. That's a part of what kender are. That's how they are presented and that's been an element of kender lore all the way along. Now, is it the only part? Nope. You're right. There are lots of other things too. But, you don't get to pick and choose which lore is important. You don't get to say, "Well, it's okay to ignore this part of the lore, but not that part of the lore". Either it's all canon or none of it is.

Which means, if you're trying to play an authentic kender, obeying the lore of Dragonlance, then your character should be stealing stuff. He should have pouches with random crap in them. Because that's PART of being a kender.

But, when you can simply ignore canon, then canon is no longer important. It shouldn't matter that gnolls are now demonic. Just ignore that lore. After all, if you can ignore this canon, then why not that canon?

So, which is it? Is lore important, in which case changing it should be a non-starter, or is lore simply a convenient bit of shorthand that can be changed when the mood strikes?

 

[pemerton]

is lore simply a convenient bit of shorthand that can be changed when the mood strikes?

Yes.

And all this discussion of DL has prompted me to re-read Dragonlance Adventures. Here are some extracts from the chapter on gods and clerics (the chapter is called "Messengers of the Heavens"):

Mishakal's Return: In the year 351 AC, a princess of the Abanasinian Plains was given a glorious gift. Mishakal appeared to her and gave her the Disks of Mishakal on which are written the true words of the gods and their power. It was the first manifestation of the true gods in over three centuries. From these beginnings, the message of the gods went out across the land and re-established the people's faith in the true gods. . . .

Railing against the Gods: Rarely does a mortal challenge the mighty gods of Krynn. . . . [M]ortals who wish to follow in the dark paths of Raistlin's footsteps find their task one of the most impossible in all of Krynn. Raitslin learned but one lesson: That selfish victories are hollow when all you wished to gain is laid waste in your attempt to attain it.​

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when agreeing with you, upthread, that an atheistic character, or one who denounces and opposes the gods, is not a canonical fit for a hero of Krynn.