D&D General Is "official" lore important to you?

[Bitbrain]

Yes, but only to a certain extent. Beyond that point, I don’t mind changes to the lore, and even welcome such alterations if they appeal to my “head canon”.

Further complicating matters is that how much lore I feel is necessary varies from one setting to another...

DARK SUN
The lore provided in the original box set is gospel for the setting in my opinion. I also can’t stand the idea of Rajaat.

Spoiler

I prefer the implication from the original box set that the current group of Sorcerer-Kings are just the latest in a long line of petty magical tyrants who came to power after the world went to heck.

In my opinion, this makes the Dragon of Tyr special; a Godzilla/King Ghidorah-esque kaiju from the ancient world, possessing powers the current crop of Sorcerer-Kings can only dream of...

EBERRON
If Keith Baker says it, then that is how it should be for Eberron, even if I dislike it.

Any changes I make at my own table that deviate from that baseline are simply because I want to see how such a change would fundamentally alter the setting.


FORGOTTEN REALMS
Honestly, there is literally so much lore for the FR, you could pull random statements out of thin air and they would probably be true at least somewhere on Toril...

 

[Hussar]

Looking at this poll though, you can see what game developers have to deal with. About half of folks don't really care one way or another, another quarter might care and about a quarter will care a lot. Which means in any given group, someone will likely care a lot.

Imagine having to deal with trying to add to a setting while still having to adhere to decades old ideas. Doesn't matter if the idea is good or not. It's valued simply for being first.

I really feel bad for game designers trying to thread that needle. Let's add something new without ruffling feathers despite those feathers being old, grey and threadbare. (and, frankly, often based in bigotry and various other unsavory concepts.)

 

[MGibster]

I really feel bad for game designers trying to thread that needle. Let's add something new without ruffling feathers despite those feathers being old, grey and threadbare. (and, frankly, often based in bigotry and various other unsavory concepts.)

I don't imagine it's an easy balance. In the past, I know when I've made complaints about previous versions of Call of Cthulhu I got a huge amount of push back from diehard fans online who had been playing for decades. I'm not even talking about setting details in the case but about changing some of the rules and you would have thought I'd kicked someone's puppy.

So, no, it's not easy. When you change something in the franchise you risk alienating fans. But let's face it, most of the people who answered this poll don't care about canon. So it's not like designers have to worry about them.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think the number of people who get really bent out of shape about 'canon' is a very small slice of the overall market. Chill people, people who just playin', don't raise a fuss and don't respond to questionnaires or internet forum polls. Alienating fans is way harder than the internets might make it seem IMO.

 

[Lanefan]

Looking at this poll though, you can see what game developers have to deal with. About half of folks don't really care one way or another, another quarter might care and about a quarter will care a lot. Which means in any given group, someone will likely care a lot.

Imagine having to deal with trying to add to a setting while still having to adhere to decades old ideas.

Which means the mistake they're making is in trying to add to (and thus potentially screwing up) an existing setting that already works for people, rather than putting the same time and effort into something completely new.

New edition? New setting. It'd need to be a generic setting, yes, but even if it's generic it's still new. 4e with Nentir Vale is thus far the only one that's got this right.

For 5e, the area around Lost Mine of Phandelver should have been a tease region for a whole new setting, released side-along with the three core books.

 

[teitan]

What I like is a suspended timeline such as Eberron and the approach that different modules are just possible futures and not set in stone events for future supplements. The DM should determine to way the world moves forward. When you start discussing timeline and where adventures take place in it it can hamstring a DM who has players who obsess over canon of some settings. I’ve seen more than one Vampire:The Masquerade campaign crushed because the storyteller had the hubris to change the canon to fit the story he was telling. I’ve had to shut down players in D&D games because I didn’t have Driz’zt in a particular location on certain days and the sort. It is part of why I preferred Greyhawk to FR or Dragonlance in high school and my twenties because it was so sparingly developed and open ended that it was hard to contradict a canon once you launched a campaign. Forgotten Realms tried really hard to make the players feel like they were part of a larger story but failed most of the time with the meta narrative going on in 2e. So I avoid canon and the like. The baseline in the core setting guide is my launching point and canon is what my players do rather than a video game or novel.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I like lore for inspiration, but I don't feel particularly beholden to it.

 

[TwoSix]

Need an option for "I like to see canon violated just to mess with people."

 

[Reynard]

Need an option for "I like to see canon violated just to mess with people."

Some people just like to watch the world burn.

 

[Jer]

I normally would have voted a straight "no" but it turns out that I have a specific hangup or two in that the idea that they shoved Eberron's cosmology into the Great Wheel cosmology just grates at me. So I'm not as immune to canon changes as I thought I was I guess.