My position in that post is that change in mechanics is comparable to change in fiction for the game overall.
By positing some hypothetical table that LOVES the published rules and playing with them, but then doesn't care about the published setting material or playing with it, you're not showing that my position is wrong, you're just saying that there's some tables that put more emphasis on the published rules than they do on the published fiction. That's true, it's fine, it's great, I'd expect a lot of those folks in this thread, but in as much as tables don't match your hypothetical (and among millions of players, I'm positive that many don't!), your hypothetical doesn't matter.
Your position is not held by the people actually making the game and doesn't seem to matter to them. WotC demonstrated that when they completely ignored established lore to make Faerun into two worlds, with terms that once referred to one world suddenly referring to two. And when they made mummies evil. And when they made eladrin elves.
If the people who make the game don't seem to hold lore as equal to mechanics, why should anyone else be expected to?
If we were talking about specific settings, this wouldn't be a major concern. If Eberron wants to have different drow, that's cool. If some DM wants to have different drow, that's between her and her table. If WotC wants to publish a product that says Drow in D&D are now entirely different then they were in previous editions, we run into a disruption of play. Same thing happens if WotC publishes Eberron and now Drow are spider-worshipers there.
5E treats drow differently than every edition prior; they're one of the player races
in the core rules. 5E also treats succubi differently. 4E treated eladrin and gnomes differently than prior editions (gnomes were removed as a core race). And even in lore, WotC has been unafraid to treat drow differently; Drizzt is only the most famous of the good drow, establishing that drow can be massively different even in-setting from their core rules established lore.
That isn't what I said. I said you care more about mechanics (at least in published products). You use the mechanics from the book. You don't use the story from the book. It doesn't seem controversial to suggest that you care more about the thing you use than the thing you don't.
Where did I say I don't use the story? How can I change aspects of the story to adapt it to my group if I am not using it?
There is a massive difference between
canon and
story. Especially when it comes to an activity where there is player choice involved. Canon might be that Mollie Milkmaid survived Dragon Attack 33 at Generic Town, but when playing the actual module the players fail to save her or even kill her themselves. Problems like this cropping up are why it is that smart video game makers make it a point to be as vague as humanly possible when referring to events of prior games when you can't port over save data that has player actions. And why the idea of porting saves between games was so important to the Mass Effect series.
Roleplaying games are set-up to be a framework for you to tell your own stories. The canon exists to give you an idea of what the setting is like, but not to prevent you from changing it as DM or your players from changing it through actions in roleplay. After all, what does it matter if the canon says Lord Neverember is to continue to rule Neverwinter if the player characters chopped his head off and left it on a pike the first time they met him? And what does it matter if you change something within the setting to fit within a group's roleplaying preferences (such as making ogres from Pathfinder less offensive to even have in a game).
I care about the story as written in those works. But I also know it won't be a good idea to always tell it the same way that it was told in those works. Or even to keep the same elements when the group themselves don't like some elements. And because I know WotC will change lore as they feel like at the first opportunity when publishing a new edition.
