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

[pemerton]

By the way the game mechanics and lore changes have been done, it's pretty obvious they do the game mechanics first and then try to figure out how the lore fits after.

I think this is true sometimes but not always.

For instance, in Worlds & Monsters Stacy Longstreet, the then Art Director says this (p 15):

The Scramjet team [= world concept team] took all of the D&D monsters and attempted to create a world where all of these monsters could live. We reorganized some of them and assigned them new backstories to explain their locations, their alliances, and their enemies. In some cases, these revisions meant that physical traits would need to change. In other cases we found it necessary to redesign a monster completely, taking mechanics we liked from creatures we did not. As a result, some monsters in this edition [ie 4e] will look familiar, some will be new, and some will remind you of monsters that no longer exist but have exciting abilities borrowed from something else.​

That's describing a process that's more nuanced than just "mechanics first, story second". But equally, it's not putting canon on any sort of pedestal! The story elements are being thought of in terms of their function in the play of a D&D game, not in terms of their place in a story that has already been authored and told.

 

[pemerton]

I'm the DM, I've already changed how the mythos & cosmology works long ago. There's been no harm.

No disagreement. But I think your comment might be slightly orthogonal to my conversation with [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

I used the word "harm" because Maxperson did - I probably wouldn't have chosen it myself, which is why I put it in scare quotes. My point is that, if in fact the Celestial Emperor is not the ruler of the heavens - suppose, say, that he is just another Greater God on the Upper Plane of Nirvana (which is the LN plane in Appendix IV/DDG/MotP) - then that is a change to, or departure from, the cosmology of the Celestial Bureaucracy as presented in OA.

Whether that change is good or bad is a different matter. Personally I wouldn't care for it, but that's my preference, not necessarily anyone else's.

Ao was completely unknown up until the Avatar Crisis. The entire world was in fact mistaken in thinking that the gods were the highest power.

The barbarian tribes, Easterlings, etc., have no idea who Iluvatar is. They are in fact mistaken in their beliefs.

But if the Easterlings were correct, that would change the setting dramatically. (For a start, it would no longer be a fictional reworking of Christian theology.)

If, in fact, the Celestial Emperor does not rule the world - at the extreme, say he's just a guy handing out green spectacles like the Wizard of Oz - then the significance of the Celestial Bureaucracy is very different from how it is presented in the OA book.

 

[Imaro]

Yes. But then, they don't have to hold either in anything resembling high regard to hold one in higher regard than another.

I guess I'm trying to figure out why you think "they" hold one in higher regard than the other?

 

[Maxperson]

If, in fact, the Celestial Emperor does not rule the world - at the extreme, say he's just a guy handing out green spectacles like the Wizard of Oz - then the significance of the Celestial Bureaucracy is very different from how it is presented in the OA book.

The portion of OA that speaks about the Celestial Bureaucracy doesn't say that he rules the world, though. It explicitly uses language like, "Unlike the western world..." and "One particularly strong belief is that the Celestial Emperor heads the the Celestial Bureaucracy.", which says nothing about the entire world. It then goes on to talk about spirits working for him. Nowhere does it say that "all gods", "the whole world", etc. are a part of the Celestial Bureaucracy. It DOES go out of its way to to say that the east is not like the west, though. That again strengthens the theme of East vs. West being different and having different rules and gods, which started with the Gajin section.

The section on religion fails to mention the Celestial Bureaucracy entirely. That's very telling.

 

[Shasarak]

The portion of OA that speaks about the Celestial Bureaucracy doesn't say that he rules the world, though. It explicitly uses language like, "Unlike the western world..." and "One particularly strong belief is that the Celestial Emperor heads the the Celestial Bureaucracy.", which says nothing about the entire world. It then goes on to talk about spirits working for him. Nowhere does it say that "all gods", "the whole world", etc. are a part of the Celestial Bureaucracy. It DOES go out of its way to to say that the east is not like the west, though. That again strengthens the theme of East vs. West being different and having different rules and gods, which started with the Gajin section.

The section on religion fails to mention the Celestial Bureaucracy entirely. That's very telling.

So wait, are you saying that the entire idea of the Celestial Emperor and Bureaucracy being the sole ruler of the Universe is just as correct as the idea of the King of France being the sole ruler of the Universe?

That is fascinating.

 

[Maxperson]

So wait, are you saying that the entire idea of the Celestial Emperor and Bureaucracy being the sole ruler of the Universe is just as correct as the idea of the King of France being the sole ruler of the Universe?

That is fascinating.

Heh. Yeah. It even describes the Celestial Bureaucracy as a belief, and not a fact.

 

[pemerton]

From p 116 of the original Oriental Adventures book:

Unlike the western world, which has always tended to view non-hunan creatures as a loose collection of being with no unity or cohesion, the Oriental mind has organized the world into a unified whole. One particularly strong belief is that of the Celestial Emperor, a powerful being who heads the Celestial Bureaucracy, a type of government of the spirits. Many of the spirit creaures described in this section come under his command and many hold offices or positions within the Celestial Bureaucracy.​

The second sentence talks about a belief. The third sentence presupposes the existence of a Celistial Emperor heading a Celestial Bureaucracy. SO what is going on?

I think the most natural reading is that the first two sentences are being said at the "meta" level: they are talking about a difference between settings. The third sentence, on the other hand, is talking from an in-fiction point of view.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

I guess I'm trying to figure out why you think "they" hold one in higher regard than the other?

The fact precisely no care at all was directed toward how badly the lore of Eberron was being screwed over by the way magic items are handled in 5E? The fact that even Forgotten Realms lore is being doled out so piecemeal that the setting is still mostly dark, and it's the most detailed setting we have as far as available 5E material? The fact that alignments of creatures like mummies have been changed across editions without care as to what lore existed about them prior? The fact that grues completely changed what they are from 3E to 4E?

Basically, the fact that they've shown absolutely no evidence that canon is considered at all during product creation and lore itself is subject to change at the drop of a hat?

 

[Maxperson]

From p 116 of the original Oriental Adventures book:

Unlike the western world, which has always tended to view non-hunan creatures as a loose collection of being with no unity or cohesion, the Oriental mind has organized the world into a unified whole. One particularly strong belief is that of the Celestial Emperor, a powerful being who heads the Celestial Bureaucracy, a type of government of the spirits. Many of the spirit creaures described in this section come under his command and many hold offices or positions within the Celestial Bureaucracy.​

The second sentence talks about a belief. The third sentence presupposes the existence of a Celistial Emperor heading a Celestial Bureaucracy. SO what is going on?

I think the most natural reading is that the first two sentences are being said at the "meta" level: they are talking about a difference between settings. The third sentence, on the other hand, is talking from an in-fiction point of view.

It can't be at the meta level. AO explicitly says there is a western world and players can play western races and classes as Gajin. That's canon. That's RAW. That's not meta at all. The entirety of the three sentences are in-fiction and explain the thematic differences between the western world and eastern world.

There is nothing in AO canon that says the Celestial Emperor is even a god, or rules even the eastern gods, let alone the western ones called out in the setting as separate from the eastern beliefs and way of doing things.

 

[Imaro]

The fact precisely no care at all was directed toward how badly the lore of Eberron was being screwed over by the way magic items are handled in 5E? The fact that even Forgotten Realms lore is being doled out so piecemeal that the setting is still mostly dark, and it's the most detailed setting we have as far as available 5E material? The fact that alignments of creatures like mummies have been changed across editions without care as to what lore existed about them prior? The fact that grues completely changed what they are from 3E to 4E?

Basically, the fact that they've shown absolutely no evidence that canon is considered at all during product creation and lore itself is subject to change at the drop of a hat?

This is just silly... nothing you've said above shows they don't consider canon at all during product creation and lore. I could just as easily say the fact that feats are now optional there is no AEDU structure to every class and THAC0 is gone shows they have absolutely no regard for mechanics... and I'd be just as incorrect as you are.