lowkey13 is right about this.
The "multiverse" has its canonical beginnings in the 1st ed MotP. The rest of this post will elaborate.
This is not a canonical "multiverse" in which everything exists and every campaign world is to be found. It's a worldbuilding conceit to allow the GM to include variety, to run sci-fi crossovers, etc. A GM may take the view that some other GM's campaign world is part of his/her campaign's multiverse, but there is no explanation that this will be the default. As p 111 of the DMG says,
Again, we see the "multiverse" as a gameplay conceit - parallel prime material planes create a homeland from which these transferees have travelled to the new milieu, and their loss of magic items can be explained as a consequence of that travel: as p 118 says, "Simply inform the person that he or she must have left the item in his or her former area, as it is not around in yours!"
The difference that MotP makes is this: it is the first presentation that assumes that all the DDG deities all exist, concurrently, in the various planes of existence. DDG itself assumed that a GM would choose which gods are part of his/her campaign world - so that the book was a catalogue of choices for a GM to make, not a catalogue of the inhabitants of the planes. MotP changes this fundamental assumption, and is the bedrock on which later "multiversal" endeavours like Spelljammer and Planescape are built.
That is not to deny that there may have been some players who, prior to MotP, imagined all the gods in DDG as co-existing; or who imagined that every D&D setting, from the published ones like GH and Boot Hill (a setting to which Murlynd had notoriously travelled) to the setting that they once made up for a one-shot on a lazy Sunday afternoon, all co-existed as parallel prime material planes. But that view was just one possibility, and enjoyed no canonical status.
Canon doesn't spring fully formed from a book like Venus from Zeus.
Canon grows organically over time, with each new product adding and expanding to canon. It's a tapestry woven over time with each line of a book.
The D&D multiverse started with the PHB. That was the seed. That seed opened with
Deities & Demigods which expanded on the names mentioned in passing in the
Monster Manual. Then it sprouted with
Manual of the Planes. Then with Greyhawk and Dragonlance it grew and grew.
Nowhere does D&D assume that my D&D game happens in some component of a common "multiverse"; there is no assumption, by default,of some sort of continuity between campaigns that I run.
As with Gygax's DMG, we see the conceits of the gameworld presented as ideas for worldbuilding by a referee, not as accounts of the nature of a common D&D multiverse.
Funny. I read the same words in
Deities & Demigods as you did. But when I started, I placed my campaign setting in the multiverse, as did the other person who took turns running. It wasn't much of a leap that if both games took place in the multiverse there could be crossovers.
If it's not art - if it's a mere commercial production - then why does it merit respect? Why does it need "curation"?
Why would it not?
Things can be of importance and value without being art.
Those sound like attitudes that make the most sense when directed towards something that exhibits/possesses aesthetic value - ie a piece of art.
See above.
People care about D&D. It's important to them.
Mike Mearls has even acknowledged this, saying he's just the steward of D&D, as it was around before he was there and will hopefully be around after he is gone. Which is part of the issue. "WotC" is a corporate entity. It doesn't write the books. People write the books. Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford and Matt Sernet and Chris Perkins and Chris Lindsey. They don't own D&D. It's not theirs to do with as they please. They're just borrowing it.
This tells us something about you. But it doesn't necessarily tell us about what is good in RPG publishing, or in the commercialisation of story elements by a RPG publisher.
Yes, it does say something about me and people like me. It says that we value and respect continuity. And that is how our business is earned. So, if a publisher wants our money, they shouldn't acvtively disrespect what we like and care about.
For instance, if a RPG publisher has identified that some particular aspect of the game as published to date is an obstacle to, rather than a facilitator of, the play of their game (eg as WotC did with race/class limits), then that creates a reason for change. Which in that particular case also produces significant changes to lore, as all these dwarf wizards, gnome bards etc start popping up where hitherto they were absent.
In Gygax's MM orcs hated elves above all other races. (As per LotR.) [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION], though, called out an orcish hatred of dwarves as canonical: maybe he was influenced by 2nd ed, which says that orcs "have a historic enmity against elves and dwarves; many tribes will kill these demihumans on sight." (But preserves the older hobgoblin law, that they "hate elves and always attack them first.") That's a change, made presumably to differentiate orcs from hobgoblins and/or support a wider range of dramatic encounters involving orcs and/or to reduce the likelihood that playing an elf will mean that all the GM's monsters pick on you.
I've never heard anyone complain about that change. I don't think making that change violated any important principle of writing story material for RPGs, or even any of the more specific principles that govern writing Monster Manuals for D&D.
There are no absolutes. No one here is saying there should never, ever be any change.
Wait, let me repeat that:
NO ONE IS SAYING CANON SHOULD BE ABSOLUTE!
Change can happen. Change should happen. When necessary and for the good of the game, preferably backed up by customer feedback and in response to how the majority of people are using the game.
If the majority of people are portraying orcs as chaotic rather than lawful, ignoring racial restrictions, having orcs hate dwarves
and elves, and the like then it's arguably a change worth making.
But change should not be done lightly. It shouldn't be the first choice. It shouldn't be the default.
I don't dislike canon. It doesn't bother me. Nor does it have much inherent appeal to me. What I like is compelling story elements - where by "compelling" I mean "something I want to use in my own RPGing".
This tells us something about you. But it doesn't necessarily tell us about what is good in RPG publishing, or in the commercialisation of story elements by a RPG publisher.
You want compelling products. I postulate that the existence or nonexistence of canon has limited impact on how compelling a product is. Good products (adventures, sourcebooks, etc) are often good independant of canon.
But to someone like me, violating canon makes a product less good.
To offer an example: the Yawning Portal announcement thread prompted me to go back and re-read my copy of Castle Amber, which I last ran around 16 years ago but never finished. I've started making notes in anticipation of perhaps getting a chance to run it again - and in the course of doing that am taking out all the reference to Glantri, which seem like a distraction to me and dilute the Amber family's connection to Averoigne. Castle Amber I find rather compelling, despite its evident absurdities; Glantri, on the other hand, not at all, and especially not as a component of Castle Amber.
That's not canon or continuity. That's setting.
It doesn't sound like didn't dislike the history of Mystara or adherence to Mystara lore, you objected to the inclusion of
Castle Amber in a fixed setting rather than being setting neutral.
I think you're misunderstanding me, or underestimating me, or both.
I can read the posts. I can draw inferences from what is said. I'm inviting posters, though, to actually articulate the value that is moving them to care about canon. [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION] has done this not too far upthread. But some other posters seem to shy away from it: eg they feel like they need to advance instrumental reasons (eg "players will get confused if canon changes") when it seems transparently clear that their concern is not instrumental; or they try and defend blanket claims about the importance of adherence to canon, yet in doing so put forward examples where canon has changed rather markedly (eg what, if anything, differentiates D&D orcs from JRRT's, or D&D orcs from D&D hobgoblins).
Seriously?!
How on Earth can you expect someone to articulate the value that is moving them to care about canon?
You might as well as me why I like vanilla ice cream over chocolate. Why I love my wife. Why I like
Star Trek more than
Star Wars.
I like canon because I like canon. When a television show or book bring up some deep cut of continuity or throwback or reconciles a plot hole, it brings me joy. I'm the kind of person the "Red 5" moment of
Rogue One was made for.
Which reminds me of an example. While I loved the ending of
Rogue One (limited spoilers) I was initially unimpressed by the addition of the space battle at the end. I prefered the ground focus fight, and wondered if it had been tacked on for more SFX action, out of some need to end a
Star Wars film with a requisite space battle. Then I rewatched the opening crawl of
A New Hope, which mentioned Rebel ships striking from a hidden base winning their first victory against the Empire. And that made me appreciate the battle more, because it fit into continuity. The adherence to continuity made up for the sudden change in tone, improving the movie for me.
I like canon. I like piecing together elements of continuity. I love it when something builds or what has come before, reveals an old mystery, ties together two parts of lore, and generally makes the game more than the sum of its parts.
I think some notion of "integrity of a body of work" is probably in the right neighbourhood for a number of posters other than just [MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION], but the criteria by which integrity is judged could probably bear more elaboration. For instance, what sorts of trade-offs between thematic integrity and "factual" integrity are permissible (eg can we get rid of earthbergs to get something that is more fitting to the themes of Norse mythology - ie foster thematic integrity - even though that means reworking our descriptions of Gladsheim - ie sacrificing "factual" integrity).
It's not impossible. It's a good example where there might be a disconnect between how people are using the lore and how the lore is established. If it's something that's causing more problems than it is being original and useful, than it could be revised.
Alternatively, it could be something you could try and merge, retaining the earthbergs for the larger realm, but having a massive earthberg the size of a small continent (or even larger than a mortal world) housing Asgard and serving as the home of the Norse gods. With that earthberg being reachable by the Bifrost.
