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

[Manbearcat]

Complain the universe mechanic is dissociated, of course.

I've briefly searched the AD&D 2e Monster Manual and Planescape Setting for the canonical answer to this, but I can't locate it.

LEARN 2 READ ESSENTIAL SOURCE MATERIAL BEFORE YOU TRY YOUR HAND AT GMING NUB.

Yet another example of my terrible GMing and its pathetic life justifiably being cut short.

 

[TwoSix]

Yet another example of my terrible GMing and its pathetic life justifiably being cut short.

By a katana, no doubt.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TwoSix]

To answer that question, we must refer to the Godel/Gygax random uncertainty table!

00 – 10 A whale appears high up in the atmosphere, and plummets to its death.
11 – 25 You hear the sound of one hand clapping down a dark alley.
26 – 35 Rick Astley appears before you, singing. As a henchman, he'll never give you up, or let you down ...
36 – 50 You find yourself playing chess with death.
51 – 65 You feel a razorblade start slicing your eyeball.
66 – 75 You realize that none of your actions are your own, but you are being controlled by some alien intelligence and the whim of random dice rolls.
76 – 85 Roll again on the random harlot table.
86 – 90 You come across future you, who shouts, "Don't build the warehouse-sized box!"
91 – 92 You realize that people's lips aren't matching their words, and they've all been telpathically communicating with you ... telling you about their plans to kill you.
93 – 94 No, you're the ghost.
95 – 98 You suddenly understand that your thought process contains a belief that is both true, and cannot be proven, and lapse into a catatonic stupor.
99 – 00 Katana kills you.

You realize "katana kills you" and "uncertainty" are completely contradictory?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pemerton]

Does it honestly matter whether it's "advice" or "lore"? Doesn't that advice give you insight into the creature's likely modes of behavior?

No. Being told that a doppelganger might follow a PC to an inn doesn't give me any insight. That's my point.

The doppelganger is a shapeshifting mind reader. It's whole raison d'etre as an element in the game is to imitate a PC (or, perhaps, a trusted NPC) and cause havoc. Given that, it is absolutely redundant to be told that it might follow a person to an inn. All that is doing is reiterating that I might use a doppelganger in an encounter in which it might try to imitatite someone to cause chaos, and some such encounters might happen in inns. Which was self-evident as soon as I looked at the monster and recalled that adventurers staying in inns is a staple trope of D&D.

 

[billd91]

No. Being told that a doppelganger might follow a PC to an inn doesn't give me any insight. That's my point.

The doppelganger is a shapeshifting mind reader. It's whole raison d'etre as an element in the game is to imitate a PC (or, perhaps, a trusted NPC) and cause havoc. Given that, it is absolutely redundant to be told that it might follow a person to an inn. All that is doing is reiterating that I might use a doppelganger in an encounter in which it might try to imitatite someone to cause chaos, and some such encounters might happen in inns. Which was self-evident as soon as I looked at the monster and recalled that adventurers staying in inns is a staple trope of D&D.

Again, hung up on the specifics of a particular case. Generalize.

Just a few pages away in the Monstrous Compendium, you can contrast the advice given for dragons tactics and see how they work with their Habitat/Society info. Black dragons are ambushers, lurking in swamps and murky ponds. Green dragons are stalkers and information gathers/interrogators and that fits in with their hunger for information about the forests they consider their own. Blue dragons, meanwhile, like to strike from distance using hallucinatory terrain to confound enemies - all of which works well for the open expansive locations they prefer where they have long sight lines to approaching trouble.

But regarding the specifics here, is it evident a doppelganger will follow a PC to an inn? Not necessarily. That's a bit more persistent and subtle than a lot of the denizens you'll find in a typical hodge-podge dungeon. They're reasonably formidable (a d12 attack is nothing to sneeze at in 2e), one might deduce from that they're a bit more straightforward in their attacks, trusting in their good attack and decent hide to see them through a fight, but they aren't. They're stalkers.

 

[pemerton]

Yes it has come up. With dopplegangers as I was describing those few dead ones in their natural state. I described them as completely hairless.

That's not what I meant.. What I mean is, did ankything turn on the fact that doppelgangers have no body hair? The mere fact that you stated it, because you read it from the Monstrous Compendium entry, isn't an instance of it actually mattering at the table.

As I said, in over 30 years of GMing I have had things turn on hair colour, skin colour, and size of feet (for fitting magic footwear) and head (for stealing an NPC's helmet). But never on whether or not a doppelganger (or anyone else, for that matter) had hair on its arms and legs.

That's how dopplegangers act which makes that tactic distinctive to them. If you encounter shape changers that act differently, you can use that as a clue to rule out dopplegangers.

Nonsense. Wererats follow people to inns all the time. I'm prety sure I've seen modules with werewolves in inns. Following people to inns is not the least bit a unique doppelganger trait. That's part of my basis for saying that, even as GMing advice, it is utterly banal - and as "lore" is just rubbish.

Not knowing it means that I have to ignore it or come up with it on my own. In that case the game is doing nothing and is at a lesser depth than if it offered that information.

How does that information add depth? You seem to be equating depth with detail. My point is that that is a highly contestable equation. It doesn't hold true in any other representational art form, so why would it hold true in RPGing?

Here. To help you understand why the lore about dopplegangers following victims to locations is lore, I'm going to use real world example.

Bonobo chimps like to kiss and have sex. They do so to resolve conflicts, rather than fight. That's Bonobo lore. According to you, if I were to include that lore in a D&D write up on Bonobo chimps, it would cease to be lore and somehow become a suggestion that DMs use it.

The reality is that it would remain lore and not be a suggestion at all.

There are so many differences between a zoolgical treatise and a Monster Manual that it's hard to know where to start.

But here are two.

(1) The goal of a zoolgical text is to inform about a real state of affairs. The goal of a Monster Manual is to provide RPGers with material to run their games.

(2) The creatuers in a Monster Manual are governed by fictional logic. Eg shapeshifters take on the form of innocent people and wreak havoc. The "lore" in a Monster Manual is meant to help identify and elaborate what is distinctive about them from a narrative point of view.

 

[Remathilis]

You don't need monster lore when everything is encountered in 30' by 30' nondescript rooms.

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[Maxperson]

That's not what I meant.. What I mean is, did ankything turn on the fact that doppelgangers have no body hair? The mere fact that you stated it, because you read it from the Monstrous Compendium entry, isn't an instance of it actually mattering at the table.

I don't know about you, but fun matters at my table. So yes, it actually mattered.

As I said, in over 30 years of GMing I have had things turn on hair colour, skin colour, and size of feet (for fitting magic footwear) and head (for stealing an NPC's helmet). But never on whether or not a doppelganger (or anyone else, for that matter) had hair on its arms and legs.

Okay. It doesn't have to be a huge deal to matter or add to the game.

Nonsense. Wererats follow people to inns all the time. I'm prety sure I've seen modules with werewolves in inns. Following people to inns is not the least bit a unique doppelganger trait. That's part of my basis for saying that, even as GMing advice, it is utterly banal - and as "lore" is just rubbish.

Unique is one synonym. Others include "typical" or "characteristic", which are not at all unique. Following people is a distinctive trait of dopplegangers, being both typical of them and characteristic of them.

There are so many differences between a zoolgical treatise and a Monster Manual that it's hard to know where to start.

But here are two.

(1) The goal of a zoolgical text is to inform about a real state of affairs. The goal of a Monster Manual is to provide RPGers with material to run their games.

This is effectively no difference. One is a zoological text to inform about a real state of affairs, the other is a zoological text to inform about a fictional state of affairs. Same difference.

(2) The creatuers in a Monster Manual are governed by fictional logic. Eg shapeshifters take on the form of innocent people and wreak havoc. The "lore" in a Monster Manual is meant to help identify and elaborate what is distinctive about them from a narrative point of view.

In your opinion. I think monster lore is meant to inform the DM about the characteristics and behaviors of the monsters. The DM can then choose to use that lore in whole, in part, or not at all.