D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[Micah Sweet]

Huh? Social media isn’t a political agenda…

But it's a vehicle for every political agenda...

 

[Charlaquin]

But it's a vehicle for every political agenda...

Ok?

 

[mamba]

But you can do that mechanically without messing with any other aspect of the setting. People do it.

at a minimum you have to bring in the new races and classes and remove the (level) restrictions for them, and that in turn affects the lore, so it is not simply a mechanical upgrade, like introducing advantage / disadvantage would be

 

[Micah Sweet]

at a minimum you have to bring in the new races and classes and remove the (level) restrictions for them, and that in turn affects the lore, so it is not simply a mechanical upgrade, like introducing advantage / disadvantage would be

I suppose not, but to me intent matters. If you're actively trying to preserve the old lore as much as possible while accommodating new stuff, that makes a difference to me. For example, the new Manual of the Planes over at the DMsGuild, as well as many Ravenloft products there, really try to preserve the old lore of their respective settings. Ditto for the Dragonlance products.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Good adventure, or good depiction of Krynn?

It was a fine depiction of the area of Karyn it took place in.

 

[Zardnaar]

It was a fine depiction of the area of Karyn it took place in.

Krynns fairly generic for the most part.

Moon magic and fluff is really the only differences.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Krynns fairly generic for the mist part.

Moon magic and fluff is really the only differences.

Fluff is the core of what makes a setting unique though (which is why I generally don't like it being referred to as "fluff").

 

[Zardnaar]

Fluff is the core of what makes a setting unique though (which is why I generally don't like it being referred to as "fluff").

Its important not just because of what's in it but what you exclude.

No orcs but Draconians. I'm not a fan of Dragonlance but they shouldn't change it to appeal to me as the changes are to severe and you'll just alienate its fans.

My tastes are more gritty direction lore wise. GoT, Darksun, aspects of BG3.

Think DL was reduced to the hard core in the 90s. Attrition, second cataclysm, that Saga game whatever that was the massive dragons.

Tried reading those early 2000's books couldn't do it.

 

[MGibster]

Greyhawk is one of the oldest "kitchen sink" settings in existence, and there are fans who howl at the thought of sorcerers, dragonborn, and tiefling PCs. (and they get real side-eyed at those short folk casting arcane spells). To them, it doesn't matter if they introduced a lore rationale for the change or not, its not "Gar-weeze vurshion" and therefore will never be accepted.

A few years back, I was tasked with ordering pizza for a a work lunch involving about twenty people. A few days before the scheduled lunch, I walked around the office and asked everyone what kind of pizza they wanted. "Whatever" was the most popular answer, but where people were specific I took note and made sure to include that in the order. On the day of our lunch, I heard a few of my coworkers complaining about the selection of pizza available to them which left me a bit perturbed. But then I shrugged my shoulders and stopped caring because I realized no matter what I did I could not please everybody.

You're absolutely right. Some people are going to scream bloody murder if you make any changes, others are going to scream if you don't make any changes, and still others are just going to scream no matter what. We just have to accept that someone is going to be unhappy no matter what.

 

[JediSoth]

I pay very little attention to lore. I'll update elements I like, and throw out what I don't like. Trying to keep up with FR lore burned me out and it didn't make my games any better, so I pick a point I like and go from there. If I buy any new books that update the lore, chances are I'm mostly buying it for the mechanics since I'm terrible at crunching that stuff myself.

The last time I did anything with Dragonlance, I set my games during the War of the Lance and completely ignore ANYTHING having to do with the 5th Age, or whatever they called it during the Saga system. I did not like those books, I didn't like the direction the lore went in, so I just don't use it. Same with any post 3e-Realms lore and post-From the Ashes Greyhawk lore (and don't quote me on the names, that's how little I care about it). Planescape is before the whole Faction War thing, too.

I like the settings, but once I run a game in it, they become MY versions of the settings and not a team of people in some far away place who have never played at my table with my players. I don't run 5, 10, 20+ year-long campaigns. It's hard enough getting everyone to commit to the game to keep the same campaign going a year, so deep dives into someone else's lore just isn't worth the effort.

If I was going to do that, I'd use one of the settings I've used in my own books.