D&D 5E Kobolds are also from the Feywild now?

[see]

So... continue producing material but never add anything?

Advancing the timeline is the only way you can imagine to add things to a game setting? Really?

A majority of the surface of Toril has never been the subject of any game product, beyond a marking of continental outlines. Most of the surfcae actually covered by a game product has never had more than a cursory high-level overview. And the number of places that have gotten as much detail as Shadowdale? Only Shadowdale itself.

And what about settings like FR that shackled itself to the game mechanics of a given edition?

Eberron was far more closely built around 3.5 D&D than the Realms were ever "shackled" to any given edition.

 

[Faolyn]

So... continue producing material but never add anything?

And what about settings like FR that shackled itself to the game mechanics of a given edition?

It's probably easier to simply adjust how the settings work with the new mechanics and handwave it away than it is to say "a bunch of gods did all this stuff and some died and everything changed and countries disappeared and all the other weird stuff that the Realms did.

 

[Hussar]

You can play in any version of Dragonlance (or Ravenloft, or Dark Sun, etc) that you want. You always could. But there was always an assumed history, built by years of product, that served as the baseline. Somewhere to stand and have discussions about. Somewhere from which to launch counterfactuals. Now they're isn't. The foundation has been destroyed and sketchally replaced piecemeal, in the name of progress and modernization. D&D has gone from Marvel to DC, and decided their history doesn't matter.

No. You assumed that there was an assumed history.

And the canon folks assumed there was a single assumed history.

Everyone else just got on with their day and used what they liked.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Eberron was far more closely built around 3.5 D&D than the Realms were ever "shackled" to any given edition.

And yet its author was enthusiastic about its 4e implementation, including things like integrating dragonborn, which wouldn't even get their 3.5e version until 2 years after the Eberron Campaign Setting was published.

"Shackled" to rules is a lot more of a misnomer than most people are willing to believe.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. You assumed that there was an assumed history.

And the canon folks assumed there was a single assumed history.

Everyone else just got on with their day and used what they liked.

Hard disagree. There was a single assumed history. Elements of it can be found in every non-generic product in 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition, and some elements of 4th as well. Obviously not everyone used it, and that's fine.

Unless your issue is my use of the word "assumed". I meant that unless you were making a change, the world is the one in the setting books. Without that, every element of the setting has to be engineered and agreed upon separately. Definitely an option, but not the way it had to work like it now apparently does.

 

[beancounter]

Kobolds originating from the Fey seems odd to me, but it really doesn't make a difference in our campaign one way or the other.

 

[Hussar]

Well, why do they have to play in a version of Dragonlance that you like but they don't?

No matter what gets put out, some people are going to like it and other people are going to dislike it. That's the way life is. If you don't like it, either play the thing you like the way you like it, even if it means doing rewrites or using a completely different system; play the thing you don't like (and maybe end up liking it after all, or maybe continue to dislike it); or simply don't play at all. Up to you.

True.

But for the better part of the history of the game, the canon folks have made very sure that folks like me never get anything that appeals to us.

Now, it’s my turn.

So no, I’m not going to shed any tears here. The canon folks have decades of material. Literally hundreds of products to choose from.

It’s not compromise when only one side ever gets what they want.

 

[Hussar]

No, the real lesson is never advance the timeline.

Advancing the timeline always alienates existing fans upset by the changes, while also creating continuity that's a barrier to new player adoption. And it is directly contrary to the purpose of a campaign setting, which is to provide a place for the players' stories to happen.

Bare-minimum-of-change adaptation of the setting to a new edition's rules, on the other hand, generally doesn't provoke more than mild disgruntlement at the specific adaptation choices in the existing fanbase, while opening the setting to new-edition players. See the general lack-of-pitchforks around Eberron edition updates, versus the drama that has been around timeline-advancing edition changes in not just D&D settings, but also in cases like the Traveller Third Imperium and the World of Darkness.

As far as re-imaginings of a setting (a la Ravenloft), when to do that is obvious; when falling sales of the original caused it to be discontinued for a good long time, and therefore upsetting the existing fanbase isn't going to kill a living line. If you want to excuse the re-imagination by way of an internal timeline advance, that's okay, but it's not necessary.

So like pretty much every DnD setting?

 

[Hussar]

Hard disagree. There was a single assumed history. Elements of it can be found in every non-generic product in 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition, and some elements of 4th as well. Obviously not everyone used it, and that's fine.

Unless your issue is my use of the word "assumed". I meant that unless you were making a change, the world is the one in the setting books. Without that, every element of the setting has to be engineered and agreed upon separately. Definitely an option, but not the way it had to work like it now apparently does.

Nope. The world in the setting books is a vaguely defined collection of potentially true things that can and will be changed at the drop of a hat.

Setting guides are not encyclopaedias. They’re barely detailed enough to inspire ideas for dms to use.

It’s only when the canon folks crawl out and insist that anything stated in a setting book must be true that the problems happen.

 

[Mecheon]

If I may on this canon debate, haven't folks who care too much about this declared the video games non-canon for years now? Y'know, some of the most popular, widespread things in the setting, being declared not canon because... They're game rather than book

Y'all made this hell of canonicity.

Just embrace the way Transformers do it. Everything is canon, just not all at the same time. That's how we have first combiner Abominus versus Quintesson creation Abominus versus experiment of Shockwave Abominus. All canon, just at different times.