How do you deal with canon fanatics?

[jdrakeh]

Something like, "ok guys, I'm not the expert and don't have time to read everything, so I'll need a co-DM on most of my adventure ideas, and I'll rotate it around among people. I'll come up with the monsters, spells, and stuff, but I may need some thoughts from you on how to set it properly into the scenario/environment, without affecting the milieu."

Well, the truth is, I don't change canon because I don't know it. I change it 'cause I think that, often, it sucks.

[Edit: I should clarify. Much canon, I've found, seems to be crawling with Mary Sue NPCs, metaplot that does as much as it can to trivialize PCs, etc. This was true in many FR 2e adventures, as well as most (if not all) oWoD sourcebooks. Some folks really like standing in the shadows of well-known NPCs. I could never run such a campaign because I know that it would bore me to tears (both as a GM and as a player).]

 

[Nightfall]

JD,

I hope you don't consider me a "hard nose" for cannonity. Admittedly I'm a little biased but honestly while I admit there's a little fuzziness about why you want something that way, I still say "Go for it!"

Scarred Lands may be my baby but a) I'm not the guy in charge and b) I'm just one voice out there.

I do hope you reconsider about using Scarred Lands. As I said earlier, it's possible to use Vesh to support you ideal. Certainly with the patronage of Tanil, Vesh has a lot to offer for social progressives like yourself.

In any case PLEASE, feel free to ask me questions. It's what I do. Answer them as best I can and let the chips fall where they may.

All I ask is you DON'T build any railroads. I don't need the headaches or the troubles.

 

[lonesoldier]

I usually frown disapprovingly and continue over their objections. (I also have a tendency to run my games in homebrew settings, so this doesn't happen often). I don't attempt to change their opinions as I've found that someone who holds that strongly to an opinion isn't going to be swayed by any amount of rhetoric. My player pool consists of my close friends, I don't game with strangers in real life. All my players have, roughly, the same opinions as me and thus I don't run the risk of alienating them. As for online games, the gm-to-player ratio works in my favour.

 

[Asmor]

Simple solution: Don't run your game in the Forgotten Realms. Run it in the Phorgotten Relmz, a homebrew setting which just so happens to have a lot of stuff inspired by a certain setting which shall remain unnamed (or, if you prefer, which shall remain forgotten).

 

[Nightfall]

Asmor,

Hopefully he'll run it in Ghelspad and just saying "This is JD's Scarred Lands. Deal with it."

 

[jdrakeh]

I hope you don't consider me a "hard nose" for cannonity.

Nope! No worries

I do hope you reconsider about using Scarred Lands. As I said earlier, it's possible to use Vesh to support you ideal.

I am reconsidering but, to be frank, if I'm going to run up against a large number of people who want to judge/criticize and/or attribute motives for wanting to explore themes other than "kill things and take stuff" generica (really, the only motive is "I think it would be neat!"), it just won't work and that's all there is to it.

I think that a less-established setting (eg., Murchad's Legacy, the Middle Realms) may be a better way to go, as I won't have to worry about setting purists being pushy or offensive if I decide to deviate from written material (simply because there is no canon standard for many things in such settings).

Which is why this thread exists. . . I need to find a productive way to diffuse such a "This way only!" mentality at my table. Admittedly, such mentality is hardly limited to setting conventions, though that's where I've personally encountered it most often (again, specifically in FR 2e and oWoD circles of fandom).

 

[Nightfall]

Beyond kill things and take stuff? What kind of railroad you running JD!? *is kidding*

Well I think if you want to move past that, have them explore and spent time with the Orcs of the Plains of Lede. They have a social structure that might allow for "outsiders" to join them, and you can explore (in detail) the history, relationships and indeed the belief systems of not just barbarian tribes, but also of the Scarred Lands/Ghelspadian continent as a whole.

Another aspect is to try planar adventuring. My own campaign (defunct at the moment) dealt with using a device that allowed the players to move beyond the norms of the Scarred Lands BUT still kept them tied to the Scarred Land setting too. Think a little SG meeting regular fantasy with some Moorcock themes mixed in. I used Beyond Countless Doorways as a means to showcase what can be "beyond" and still allow the PCs to feel like it was a) either a once in a life time thing or b) something that can be repeated if they choose it.

Just some options. Also consider using the World Serpent Inn. I know I like it.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

I handle it this way (as far as FR goes):

"Hey, look, I've been running FR for 15 years now (I can't believe its been that long)."

"Various Gaming Groups have had their oppurtunity to change the Realms for the better or worse. Some of the actions of players from over a decade ago I still use."

"Anything you accomplish can continue to influnce my Realms for years to come."

"My FR ceased to be the FR of Canon since the day the 2nd ed Box set came out."

"My world is similiar (I try to fit & steer my Realms close to Canon as time goes on as it maximizes compatibility with future FR products), but it is not 100% identical."

"If you are unhappy with the possibility of your character having a permanent influence in all my future FR games, maybe you should sit this one out."

That's how I do it.

That's how Ed & Gary did it. Portions of Greyhawk & FR Canon are there due to what players did.

Plus, with FR, you can often find contradictory information or hints that what seemed to happen, didn't really happen.

(Bane never 'died' in my FR. Seems like I wasn't the only one who thought Xvim was a wussy).

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Depends. When someone spends 40 bucks on a book and then gets every excited about playing it and then says they arent going to use the gods, any of the organizations or anything that made the setting unique it kinda irritates me.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I run a ton of Star Wars games, and that's definitely a canon heavy setting. For me, it helps that I know far too much about the setting off the top of my head, so running into potential problems with 'breaking canon' isn't really a problem. Of course, at the same time, all of my games run under one strict policy.

The PCs can do whatever they want.

Which means that if, for whatever reason, they run into one of the major players...they can change the 'canon' events. While I usually attempt to avoid this(and its easy in a big galaxy), its come up before. I've had a group of PCs that started a brawl in the Cantina from A New Hope just before Luke and Obi-Wan got there...and ended up stopping them from meeting Han/Chewie because of Stormtroopers coming in earlier than in the movie.

Now, I have had people that hate this kind of thing. How I've dealt with it depends more on how many it is.

If the entire group doesn't like it and is very canon-focused, then its probably best to change the setting of the game to a homebrew that just happens to be similar. If its just one player...well, then I'd tell them to just deal with it.