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

[ArchfiendBobbie]

It's about as easy to ignore one as it is to ignore the other.

Not really.

Rewriting mechanics requires playtesting for balance, errata for when inevitable problems crop up, teaching people the new rules, having to peruse every release for ways to adapt them to the new mechanics, etc.

Rewriting lore is as simple as "Drow are actually jungle elves who are nocturnal" and watching as precisely no mechanics conflicts come up and not a single bit of playtesting is needed. If you get a "that sounds cool, tell me more" from the players, you've done very well.

See? Not remotely the same thing and massively easier to ignore lore.

 

[Shasarak]

But if those gods are powers who are able to order the universe independently of the Celestial Emperor, then the whole premise of the Celestial Bureaucracy is mistaken. Which is to say, the setting takes on the same cynical tone as Planescape.

What if the people are not mistaken, what if the Celestial Emperor is just lying to the people?

 

[MechaPilot]

Not really.

Rewriting mechanics requires playtesting for balance, errata for when inevitable problems crop up, teaching people the new rules, having to peruse every release for ways to adapt them to the new mechanics, etc.

Rewriting lore is as simple as "Drow are actually jungle elves who are nocturnal" and watching as precisely no mechanics conflicts come up and not a single bit of playtesting is needed. If you get a "that sounds cool, tell me more" from the players, you've done very well.

See? Not remotely the same thing and massively easier to ignore lore.

In all fairness the banana did say "ignore" and not "modify." If I chose to, I could easily ignore rolling for initiative and simply have the PCs and monsters act based on how likely it is their action would resolve first. For example, deciding that shooting an aimed crossbow can happen in the beginning while characters who have to move up to an enemy have to act later than the aimed crossbow shot.

 

[Shasarak]

...And don't even get me started with the travesty that was Highlander 2! In fact, if anyone asks, I still deny its very existence!

Man, a Highlander 2 would have been so cool!

 

[Shasarak]

Unless Ouija boards have started to actually work, Gary Gygax doesn't have anything to say about DnD. He's dead.

Wait, when did Ouija boards stop working?

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

In all fairness the banana did say "ignore" and not "modify." If I chose to, I could easily ignore rolling for initiative and simply have the PCs and monsters act based on how likely it is their action would resolve first. For example, deciding that shooting an aimed crossbow can happen in the beginning while characters who have to move up to an enemy have to act later than the aimed crossbow shot.

And in all fairness, you're taking what both of us said massively out of context.

The discussion between him and I started when he made a comment about game mechanics being modified by a later release to cause problems for a player, then equating lore to having the same issue. I pointed out that you can't ignore the game mechanics change easily without running into problems with future mechanics changes, but used his own lore example to show you can ignore changes in lore easily without running into too many difficulties.

My last post was to show that the modifications we started out discussing involve two massively different levels of effort.

Wait, when did Ouija boards stop working?

They never worked. They're a toy.

 

[Shasarak]

They never worked. They're a toy.

Let me will see what Gygax has to say about that!

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

Let me will see what Gygax has to say about that!

If he replies, tell him I want him to get his ghostly butt to WotC HQ and start writing new setting books for them.

 

[MechaPilot]

And in all fairness, you're taking what both of us said massively out of context.

The discussion between him and I started when he made a comment about game mechanics being modified by a later release to cause problems for a player, then equating lore to having the same issue. I pointed out that you can't ignore the game mechanics change easily without running into problems with future mechanics changes, but used his own lore example to show you can ignore changes in lore easily without running into too many difficulties.

My last post was to show that the modifications we started out discussing involve two massively different levels of effort.

I have performed a cursory reading of the thread and am aware of the context. I believe that modifying lore is minimally intrusive while modifying mechanics is more intrusive (possibly even pervasive, depending on how ingrained the rule is to the system). There are also, naturally, instances where these things overlap (making elves come from the far realm would then, reasonably, require slapping the aberration creature type on them, and would interact with certain spells).

That said, virtually anything can be ignored with relative ease (all of the new UA options can be totally ignored with no effect on the game whatsoever). It's when you get into replacing a thing that potential problems can occur.

 

[I'm A Banana]

No one thinks that (say) J K Rowling has a duty to write any particular novel about any particular character just because, in the past, she wrote some novels about a magic school that some people enjoyed.

They do have that expectation, to a significant degree. Why do you think Robert Galbraith exists?

This even touches on the idea of modern "lit farms" where multiple people are hired to all write under the same name.

And the modern phenomena of the "brand self" where our public images are carefully curated to target specific niches.

But as well as this assertion that something is owed, there is also a kind of other-regard or attachment that seems equally unwarranted. Why does the decision taken by someone else about what story to tell about Transformers (or X-Men, or Eladrin, or . . .) matter? Adding one more mediocre film to the list of thousands of such films over the past century or so isn't going to do anyone any harm.

If you don't like a movie, then don't see it. Of all the movies that you haven't seen, or that you saw and didn't like, why does this movie count as one that "gave you the middle finger"?

It sounds like you don't have much literacy in consumer/brand psychology. As an entry point, consider that one of the key components of the concept of a brand is that a brand has consistent attributes. When you make a bad movie about giant fighting robots, it is a very different thing than if you make a bad movie about TRANSFORMERS.

And all the above to one side, no one is going to pay $150 million on a movie that appeals only, or even primarily, to fans of a 1980s line of toys.

Have you see the Netflix catalog recently?

Friend, if you can evoke the 1980's, you can print money, at least for the next 5 years or so.

Consider 5e's "retro" design in light of that.