D&D General How Do You Feel About Established Lore

[Mind of tempest]

look some of it I hate but it is better to have a baseline than not, blank canvas is hard to work with for many people.

 

[Xamnam]

For my FR game, I try and use the widely known stuff as reasonably as possible. My players went to Neverwinter, and the people there were grumbling about Neverember's taxes, warned them of the chasm in the SE quarter, etc. I like having confidence in what I'm saying, especially for the players who might be familiar with the world already, and I'm not seeking to confuse or mislead them. That said, I'm not going to worry about searching for something like an "official" general store that exists there, though I'm going to want to keep things like The Moonstone Mask, or the names of the bridges.

For my homebrew game, I think the only things that are carried over is the FR pantheon, because I was not inspired at all to create my own, and the creatures of the world are largely the same, though the cultural side of things generally doesn't cleave to FR.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

"How Do You Feel About Established Lore?"

At first I was skeptical about established lore, but I decided to start reading it. Still was pretty skeptical. Then I slowly got interested. More interested. More interested. Then I was VERY interested in the lore!

Then I lost interest.

 

[el-remmen]

People, they specifically said for your current game(s).

 

[Micah Sweet]

People, they specifically said for your current game(s).

My feelings about established D&D lore in my current game are very different from my feelings about D&D lore in general, as I play homebrew and make up my own lore (which I do care about and stick to as much as possible).

 

[billd91]

It depends on the role the lore plays. If it's a nitpicky detail, I usually don't sweat it (unless it's kind of juicy and fun to use). But generalities and broad definitions, those I like to use. I am using a fair amount in both of the D&D games I'm running. One is set in Greyhawk, the other in Forgotten Realms.

 

[DragonBelow]

My real stance is somewhere between the first two options. The first option makes it sound like one would only use published adventures. While I like to create adventures, inspired by canon, maybe events that were not detailed or mentioned only in passing, but also leaving room to launch my own stories.

 

[Oofta]

I run in my own campaign world, it's lore is quite important to me. Of course sometimes the official lore is incorrect or at least incomplete version of what historians understood or wanted people to know. When I do use official lore, I stick reasonably close to it so that people have shared assumptions and ideas. When I vary from it I let people know. So for non humans I use the standard deities, most lore about monsters is mostly the same and so on.

Gnolls would be an example. They're still fiendishly corrupted hyenas, but the corruption can from a Jotun fiendish god that Thor struck down, the hyenas feasted on the flesh and became corrupted. Yeenoghu doesn't exist in my campaign world. In other lore, Lollth does exist but is in Svartlheim, not the abyss. Moradin crafted Gungnir, Odin's spear, and so on.

 

[el-remmen]

For me established lore is just grist for the mill in my current and all past campaigns. Sometimes I change names and details, sometimes just names, sometimes details - sometimes I change nothing (though this is rarest). None of my current players care about lore (established or otherwise) unless it is directly related to something we are doing in game.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I almost always run homebrew, but if I steal a god or whatever I tend to steal wholesale. Why use the Raven Queen if players can't bring their understanding of her to the table? If I want something that's just similar I'll rename it. (Countess of Crows)