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

[Hussar]

I generally don't view someone stating their opinion as trying to enforce anything on others. Does this apply to positive opinions as well or only negative?

Not particularly. People who like things are generally simply positive - I really like X. You should try X. You don't like X? Why not? People who don't like things are generally negative - I don't like X. How could you like X? X is terrible.

Add canon into the mix, and it becomes, "I don't like the change to X. The change is bad because it is a change." Which, frankly, ends conversation. You can't really argue that it doesn't change X and, since the person isn't arguing against the quality of the change, but, rather that change is, in itself, negative, there's no real way forward. Canon arguments are simply a rhetorical trick for winning.

Where it flies up my nose is that canon arguments are always based on preference. 15 other changes are perfectly acceptable, but, because someone doesn't like THIS change, then change is bad. It's so hypocritical and completely arguing in bad faith.

 

[teitan]

Rethinking this one for a minute, forget about Canon, lore and Canon are two different things. It depends on the campaign specifically. Homebrew, I actually tend to stick to a lot of lore, I just make a city and some vague ideas about where demi-humans come from and roll with the lore from there. Demon lords etc. Lore wise I am trying to craft a 1e campaign that sticks pretty close to the default assumptions of AD&D. Humanocentric and the like. Demon lords plaguing people. Not creating a pantheon because essentially a pantheon amounts to no net gain and using Druids as representatives of the old ways. Orcs have pig faces blah blah blah. Then a nice blog laying out the lore and setting for my players. It's gonna be a hoot, if they live.

 

[dave2008]

"I LOVE these changes, but, we shouldn't do them because they contradict canon" is a sentence that has NEVER been uttered.

I've definitely encountered that sentiment before. I don't think in D&D, but in literary works like the Cthulhu Mythos and Conan. People can like a change, but not accept it because it is not cannon. I really does happen.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Two questions:

1. I thought Gnolls were always ravening murder-beasts. Back in 2e they preferred eating intelligent mammals because the "scream better" and they completely "hunt out" an area (aka massacre everyone) before moving on. I didn't play 3e was it different then. I seem to remember them being demonic in origin in 4e too (yep - just checked the 4e MM). So I guess the change in 3e? I just check the 3.5 MM and it is pretty similar to 2e (including the screaming intelligent creatures as food). So maybe it is in a supplement? I don't know, it seems that generally gnolls have always been ravenous murder-beasts to me.
2. Wasn't the RQ an interlopper in 4e? She overthrew the original god of death and took his mantel didn't she (in 4e). Though I am not familiar with her 5e lore, so what changed?

1) in both 3 and 4, Gnolls can reject their demonic influence and be basically normal, if aggressive and preferring insularity, people. In 3.5 they had a whole non-demonic culture in Eberron, and there were occasional Gnoll characters that were just people in books of that era. In 4e they had a while PC race writeup and multiple dragon magazine articles about playing them. Now, they canonically can only be ravening murder-beasts.

2) The Raven Queen was not an interloper in the cycle of death. She did not interfere with it. She was the primary guardian of it. The god of death she killed and replaced was an evil god of necromancy, while she was a neutral deity of death, fate, and winter, more akin to real world deities like The Morrigan or various psychopomps. Now she messes with death in an almost parasitic way, stealing interesting souls and making them play out their tragedies for her entertainment.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree with part one (esp your two examples from 4e->5e), but not the related rant (other than the other hand). These culturally important characters have been reinvented and reworked for new audiences since they were first created. Some elements may remain sacred across all interpretations, but exactly which is a slippery slope leading toward fandom in-fighting.

The important thing is to write a good story with good characters, and to do justice to the target audiences, which may well not be the same as earlier takes - case in point, Miles Morales resonates with a whole different demographic that Peter Parker has failed to in the past. Does that mean we retire Peter and only tell Miles stories? I'm not saying that, just that there's a very good reason to do it.

I guess that's what WotC were trying to do with 5e: there's an audience for 4e-lore lovers like you and me, but we're not necessarily the target audience of Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, when it comes to those two particular concepts. We ARE the target audience, I would gather, for Exploring Eberron and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (again in reference to Gnolls and the RQ).

As to the rant, I’d point to the Snyder-verse and say, the majority of viewers didn’t exactly love it, and the comics fans were at best split on it. Part of that is simply that Snyder, as Gail Simone put it, “misunderstood the characters on an atomic level.”

 

[Weiley31]

Yes BUT I'm not against pick the the parts I think for best and discarding others. For example: my take on the Ravens Queen is a combination of both her 4E and 5E lore info. Mostly 4e background on her rise and coming to be. Yet I remove the "stupid" bits like her being nothing more than a "formless" echo

The Silencing of Lolth and City of the Spider Queen happen BEFORE the current time year that 5E "takes place in," BUT in my 5E games it is a current event happening.

So yes to lore but tweaked when needed.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"I LOVE these changes, but, we shouldn't do them because they contradict canon" is a sentence that has NEVER been uttered.

It’s absolutely a sentiment that has been expressed innumerable times, in many contexts.

 

[dave2008]

1) in both 3 and 4, Gnolls can reject their demonic influence and be basically normal, if aggressive and preferring insularity, people. In 3.5 they had a whole non-demonic culture in Eberron, and there were occasional Gnoll characters that were just people in books of that era. In 4e they had a while PC race writeup and multiple dragon magazine articles about playing them. Now, they canonically can only be ravening murder-beasts.

I don't think that is true. I see it more as they haven't come out with gnoll PCs yet. In 4e they were only demonic influenced murder-beast, until they were not anymore. I don't see anything in the official lore that prevents a PC race in the future. It is basically the same situation as 4e at this point.

Also, Keith is including a gnoll PC race in his upcoming Eberron book on DMsGuild.

2) The Raven Queen was not an interloper in the cycle of death. She did not interfere with it. She was the primary guardian of it. The god of death she killed and replaced was an evil god of necromancy, while she was a neutral deity of death, fate, and winter, more akin to real world deities like The Morrigan or various psychopomps. Now she messes with death in an almost parasitic way, stealing interesting souls and making them play out their tragedies for her entertainment.

Interesting, which book was that idea introduced? I will have to read up on it. That actually makes her a better fit for my home campaign, so I might use that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think that is true. I see it more as they haven't come out with gnoll PCs yet. In 4e they were only demonic influenced murder-beast, until they were not anymore. I don't see anything in the official lore that prevents a PC race in the future. It is basically the same situation as 4e at this point.

Also, Keith is including a gnoll PC race in his upcoming Eberron book on DMsGuild.

Mearls and IIRC Crawford have doubled down on that being what Gnolls are in 5e. Outside of Eberron 3pp material and homebrew, that is their canon.

 

[dave2008]

Mearls and IIRC Crawford have doubled down on that being what Gnolls are in 5e. Outside of Eberron 3pp material and homebrew, that is their canon.

Yes, but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of gnoll PCs. It just means that it is not in their plans to make them. There are plenty of ways to make a PC gnoll with the "canon" lore. I do think it is odd they have dug their heels in regarding gnolls, but I don't see that is a forever thing. It is temporary IMO, and it wouldn't change any of the "canon" to make it work.