D&D General How Do You Feel About Established Lore

[RuinousPowers]

I've always played in worlds of my own devising, so I don't care a whit about any established lore. I only buy books so I can find interesting mechanics that I can adapt to my own stuff.

 

[Yaarel]

I adhere to mechanical rules closely.

At the same time, I consider worldbuilding to be Rules-As-Written, to make up whatever "lore" one wants.

I often look to the official lore for inspiration, often wish it was more versatile and less heavyhanded so it got in the way less often. But I feel free to do new lore wherever interesting and practicable.

 

[Stormonu]

I grew up on 1E and 2E lore, and still use a lot of it. However, the recent changes since 4E and modern movies like Fantastic Beasts have had me reconsidering some old lore that I had just assumed to be fact instead of one author's interpretation of a myth. It's let me strike out with my bits of lore for my homebrew and do some interesting takes on things. However, for published campaign worlds I tend to prefer sticking to the older lore rather than the new (especially Ravenloft, FR and Dark Sun).

 

[delericho]

For me, there are two axes to consider.

When I'm reading a setting, I like to see the lore. And while I am open to seeing changes, they have to be changes that I like - with 5e's changes to both Spelljammer and Ravenloft falling into the "do not want" category.

When I'm running a setting, I'll generally default to what the setting lore says, but reserve the license to change any or all of it - and to do so either deliberately or apathy.

 

[Riley]

I can’t endorse any of the voting options.

I LOVE D&D lore. It’s a great big pile of ideas, and some of it inspires me/us, and gets incorporated into a game. The rest of the lore resides in Schrödinger’s box, its status uncertain until needed.

 

[Charles Lowry]

I borrow heavily from existing campaign worlds and reskin them to fit in my homebrew. I redrew a Sword Coast map, but rename locations and add the Lightning Rail lines. We wanted to play something akin to Eberron's magic is technology, but also the original idea of Xanathar. Ultimately, mix it all in, take notes to maintain some internal consistency.

 

[Reynard]

I am currently running a 5E conversion of the Pathfinder 1E Iron Gods adventure path, and while I haven't intentionally contradicted any existing lore, I have not made an effort to embrace and utilize it either. I should make more an effort, just to give the game a more concrete identity beyond "Dungeons and Deathbots" but, frankly, that was why I picked it anyway. I am not a lore person, but I feel like I should try and be at least a little bit more of a lore person sometimes.

 

[amethal]

I'm running a Pathfinder campaign set in Golarion, but since it's mostly aquatic I've had to design my own underwater region for the adventures to take place in. (The only official lore I'm aware of that might have been detailed enough is in the Ruins of Azlant adventure path, and one of my players has previously run that.)

I'm also taking the opportunity to adapt various underwater adventures I own, none of which were set in Golarion - e.g. War Rafts of Kron (Known World/Mystara), Sea Devils Trilogy (not really part of a setting) and Sunken Pyramid (Lonely Coast, kind-of) - so I had to change the lore to fit the world (and the campaign). I'm also about to start Feast of Dust, which is a Golarion adventure but I'm changing it from a desert adventure to an underwater adventure.

On the other hand, the nearby land is taken pretty much straight from the Dragon Empire Gazetteer (the city of Goka in particular), the included organisations such as the Pathfinder Society are true to the lore, and I ran the Ruby Phoenix Tournament adventure (also Golarion) pretty much as written.

So I went for "I use some of it and write the rest myself".

If I ever get the chance to run an Eberron game then I will stick much more closely to the established lore (or Keith Baker's own version of it, anyway), but even then I'll change some things to better suit my own preferences. (I'm sure if I ran through my list of proposed changes everybody here would prefer the official version!) Of course, Eberron is a special case in that key mysteries of the setting don't have an official answer anyway.

 

[glass]

I can’t endorse any of the voting options.

Nor me. I use D&D lore in a variety of ways.

My homebrew world contains a lot of elements that were inspired by existing D&D lore, but which do not now much resemble their original inspirations. OTOH, if I am running an adventure set in Greyhawk or the Realms I try to stick as closely as I reasonably can the the established setting lore, unless I have a jolly good reason not to (possible reasons might include racist, mysoginistic, or other wise problematic elements; ret-cons and contradictions, in which case I go with whichever version I prefer; and elements I simply do not know about or have forgotten).

 

[DetachedObserver]

Anything pre 4th edition I'll take a look at and see if it inspires anything creative in my brain. If not, I'm likely to ignore whatever bit of fluff I'm looking at. But I skipped 4th entirely and have barely skimmed the surface of 5th so I am unfamiliar with any of the fluff from those eras.