How do you Retcon your Campaign Settings?

[el-remmen]

It sounds a bit Infinite Crisis-ish

I have always been a Marvel Comics guy, myself - but if there is one thing I LOVE about D.C. is the meta-textual elements.

 

[S'mon]

In particular, I need to retcon the planar structure of my setting. Previously I kind of had the Great Wheel cosmology, with the Prime Material Plane in the centre and multiple Material Planes surrounding it, with an ancient place known as the Land of the Ancients being a sort of transitive plane that surrounded the cosmology, and another transitive plane around that known as the Ends of the Earth.

Now I've retconned my planar structure to be more of an Eberronish style, with the planes rotating around the Material Plane. So now the Land of the Ancients is one of the alternate Material Planes, with the Ends of the Earth being a sort of stretchy border surrounding the Astral Plane.

But I don't really want a "bad guy tries to alter the multiverse but fails" kind of explanation to retcon it.

Anyone have ideas?

I did this. I used, in-game:

"Only foolish old fuddy-duddies still believe in the Great Wheel theory of Cosmology..."

For this, and 99% of other retcons, IMO the best approach is simply "We have always been at war with Eurasia" - you just change it, and proceed as if nothing has changed. Us academics do that all the time - when we're decide to change the nature of the universe you guys live in, we simply tell you the new rules, and you go along with it.

 

[S'mon]

Did I say "academics"? Of course, I meant "GMs". Really...

 

[victorysaber]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Well, my players do care about the cosmology. Previously I had never really drawn a map of the Planes before, so it was mostly description. But this time round I drew a map of the Planes, and then one person said "I thought the Land of the Ancients and the Ends of the Earth were together and surrounded the Multiverse?"

Then the rest went "oh yeah" and "how come" and so I said there was an explanation for everything. So yeah, the players do bother lots about the campaign world.

Of course I'm not sure whether the explanation will be
a)POOF! It's always been this way
b)Scholars have discovered their theories were wrong
c)or something else.

 

[Tetsubo]

I retconned one campaign, a 2E game after the Skills & Powers books came out. The PCs were off plane when the books came out. So when they finally made it "home" I made the changes to the characters. "Home" ended up being just a REALLY close "echo" of their actual home plane... but close enough for government work...

 

[lukelightning]

You could always do it the Order of the Stick way!