D&D 5E Whatever "lore" is, it isn't "rules."

[Celtavian]

Lore wouldn't mean much for a game world if you didn't follow it. If you're using an established game world with expectations from fans, you should follow the established lore as much as possible. An occasional exception such as Drizz't or the like is acceptable, but in general the lore and the actions of the creatures in an established world should match. If you don't like it, write a world of your own and establish the lore you wish. That's how I see it. When I'm playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, I want the world to feel like those worlds. If the DM wasn't following the lore of the world, it wouldn't feel authentic. I'd rather he just change the name of the world and establish the lore he wishes.

 

[Remathilis]

That said, let's say I decide to more or less use the Eberron maps, cities, cultures, people, races, classes, quasi-steampunk feel, and all the rest for my game but toss out nigh every shred of its "canon" history and replace it all with something of my own devising for whatever reason. Is it still Eberron? (my answer: yes)

Why even bother doing using that much?

I mean, if you're going to use parts of a setting and then rip the guts out of it to make your own, is there any value in using the Eberron name? Why not call it Lanefania and make it totally your own? I use canned settings to be lazy, if I want to build a whole new setting, I'll go the extra mile and make it my own creation rather than calling it "Greyhawk" or "Karameikos"...

 

[Lanefan]

Why even bother doing using that much?

I mean, if you're going to use parts of a setting and then rip the guts out of it to make your own, is there any value in using the Eberron name? Why not call it Lanefania and make it totally your own? I use canned settings to be lazy...

Which is exactly what I'd be doing too...being lazy via saving myself all the work of designing those many parts which are already perfectly good, and only working on those bits I want to change.

if I want to build a whole new setting, I'll go the extra mile and make it my own creation rather than calling it "Greyhawk" or "Karameikos"...

So will I, and have done so more than once. But - and here, oddly enough, Eberron is perhaps the best example out there for what I have in mind - if I already have a history in mind based on my other settings that could easily have made Eberron what it is today and in (very likely) all other aspects I can use Eberron pretty much as written, why wouldn't I just call it Eberron if I ran a game there?

Lan-"my apologies for the butchery of grammar that is my last sentence, above"-efan

 

[Blue]

Or moved those events (and the Elves) to somewhere else...

First, a disclaimer: my knowledge of Eberron could fit in a thimble, probably with space left over.

That said, let's say I decide to more or less use the Eberron maps, cities, cultures, people, races, classes, quasi-steampunk feel, and all the rest for my game but toss out nigh every shred of its "canon" history and replace it all with something of my own devising for whatever reason. Is it still Eberron? (my answer: yes)

Lan-"truth be told, if I ever did end up running a game in Eberron this is very close to exactly what I'd do"-efan

But you didn't actually do that - because that history is what formed those culture, informed the map, made the Mournland. That history is tied into everything you kept.

Or look at it from the other side. If you threw out the Last War you don't have Warforged anymore - you have some rules mechanics to a construct race. You can make them whatever you want - you can always do that, but the identity of Eberron's Warforged is intrinsically tied to the Last War and then the the Treaty of Thronehold that freed them. Without that, it's just some rules for a race. And as I said from the beginning mechanics don't define a setting since you can run settings in lots of different rulesets.

 

[Greg K]

When I'm playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, I want the world to feel like those worlds. If the DM wasn't following the lore of the world, it wouldn't feel authentic. I'd rather he just change the name of the world and establish the lore he wishes.

At what point am I required to stick to TSR lore or not be running the setting?

If I or someone else chooses to run Greyhawk set in a year that is officially starts with From the Ashes or later, but choose to stick soley to what Gary wrote in the Folio, the original boxed set and his Dragon articles as the official lore and ignore everything that came after Gygax including the official novels? Am I running Greyhawk?

What about running Forgotten Realms in a year that is officially associated with the Time of Troubles or the Sundering, but the only official lore that I keep includes the original grey boxed set, the original FR series supplements (Waterdeep & The North, Dreams of the Red Wizards, Hall of Heroes, etc.), and Greenwood's 1e FR articles in Dragon, but ignore all of the novels and setting changes began with AD&D 2e (including those associated with Spelljamming and the Blood War if they are part of Realms Lore), the multiverse, and later changes established by WoTC

What about if run Darksun and ignore the novels, the revised boxed set lore (including its supplements), and WOTC lore?

 

[Maxperson]

That said, let's say I decide to more or less use the Eberron maps, cities, cultures, people, races, classes, quasi-steampunk feel, and all the rest for my game but toss out nigh every shred of its "canon" history and replace it all with something of my own devising for whatever reason. Is it still Eberron? (my answer: yes)

I don't agree with this. What makes Eberron, Eberron is the feel and history of the setting. It's not just a name. You can make some changes to a setting and still have it remain that setting, but you can't eliminate it entirely, or even mostly. The line where it will change from being that setting into something else will vary from person to person, but I don't know anyone who would accept that I am running the FR if it's entirely my creation and none of the FR is left except for the name.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You did not go into the can of worms that is weaving fluff into crunch. Now there is a path of discussion that can lead to madness.

But Gary Gygax did it all the time! Gold for XP, race as class, and kingdom building were all rule things designed to enforce a certain game flavor.

 

[ProgBard]

Lore wouldn't mean much for a game world if you didn't follow it. If you're using an established game world with expectations from fans, you should follow the established lore as much as possible. An occasional exception such as Drizz't or the like is acceptable, but in general the lore and the actions of the creatures in an established world should match. If you don't like it, write a world of your own and establish the lore you wish. That's how I see it. When I'm playing Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, I want the world to feel like those worlds. If the DM wasn't following the lore of the world, it wouldn't feel authentic. I'd rather he just change the name of the world and establish the lore he wishes.

Okay, let's spool this out to the end. And rather than a reductio ad absurdem thought experiment, I'm going to hold up my for-real, currently-in-progress home game as a subject to test your assertion.

I run a campaign in the Forgotten Realms. As I mentioned upthread, I got buy-in before we started play to depart from the tracks of canon, so I established that this was an AU timeline set in the year 1501 where the Spellplague never happened. I decided my approach to lore would be that the 3e FRCS was more or less historical truth unless it would be more interesting if it weren't, and gave myself all of the time between then and our current year to plant setting-disrupting bombs. I broke off the dynasty of the Obarskyrs, because I wanted a Cormyr in the background that had been partially destabilized by an interregnum and I wanted a house of my own invention on the throne. I centered the campaign in Westgate, but established that a generation before, adventurers had cleared out the Night Kings and put the city under the rule of a Lord Steward, because I can take or leave Manshoon (uh, spoilers, I guess) but wanted a new criminal underground that was a front for a Great Old One cult, and because I liked the idea that the city was in tension between factions who welcomed the new order and those who resented having a king-in-all-but-name in charge (including the Croamarkh, now stripped of most of his traditional power, and any of the old noble houses he could make his allies). And I let the effects of that ripple out all across the Dragon Coast and the Sea of Fallen Stars, and dropped my PCs half-unwitting into that powder keg and let them run around breaking stuff.

It still feels like the Realms to me (though I confess to being innocent of a lot of Realmslore before I got started) - it's got the factions, and the gods, and Elminster himself, who has even popped in for a couple of cameos. But it's not just the "occasional exception" that I changed - I tossed out a bunch of things that probably feel like comfortable furniture to people who are super-familiar with the setting. Yeah, the canonical lore was my springboard, but it was only where I started, and I twiddled a bunch of knobs on that sucker to make it serve my needs. I am most definitely not "follow[ing] the established lore as much as possible" - I'm following it for as long as it's fun and supports the campaign I have in mind, and then I'm doing what I d!mn well please with it.

So my question is: Are you really saying that if I was going to do all that, I should've just invented my own world instead, or filed off the serial numbers and changed all the names? Even though that would've exponentially increased my workload? And please note that the question isn't whether or not you'd enjoy playing in my game; it's that, given that its intended audience seems to be having an outrageously good time, are you actually making the prescription for my table that you seem to be, and if not - in light of examples like my own - what is it that you do actually mean to say?

 

[Maxperson]

But Gary Gygax did it all the time! Gold for XP, race as class, and kingdom building were all rule things designed to enforce a certain game flavor.

Not just there. Fluff and Crunch are interwoven all over the place. Red dragon lore says they breath fire. The crunch says they have a fire breath weapon that does X damage. The medusa lore says she can turn creatures who meet her eyes to stone. The crunch says she has a gaze attack that petrifies with an X saving throw. Fluff says trees are over there. Crunch gives the wood hardness/AC and hit points. And on and on and on.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In short, I was flabbergasted to find a subset of my fellow hobbyists who want setting lore to be another kind of rule.

I think the division between lore and rule is pretty much ultimately an artificial one.

You're no more bound to one than to the other, really. (And, publishers are about equally bound to each)

To me, "lore" seems like it's meant to be more of a starting point than an end. It's a general understanding of how things are in the setting - or, at most, default assumptions that may or may not be valuable to your own version of the gameworld. Even as "canon," it's a way of saying "This is what's known to be true, except when it isn't." If it's done well, it should suggest things that could happen in the course of play, but not dictate them. Adhering to or ignoring the lore ought to depend on what's going to make a more interesting play experience.*

There's nothing about that description that is exclusive to lore. All of it applies to rules, too.

Or at least that's how I see it. If you disagree with me, I'd love to hear what experiences inform your different expectations, and what you feel it serves to treat that part of the game that way. I'd also be interested to learn what compromises, if any, you'd be willing to make as part of a table that views lore in a, well, fluffier way than you do. I don't know that I'll ever really grok this way of thinking, but I'd at least like to get a sense of how it looks from the perspective of someone whose default settings are so different from mine.

I think as far as any one table is concerned, the threshold for what rules and what lore are acceptable to change is pretty much up to that table.

I mean, is, say encumbrance any more or less of a tool to suggest a kind of play and a default assumption than "The city of Waterdeep has Griffon Cavalry that protect it"?

The difference isn't between one being OK to change and one being not OK to change. The difference as far as I'm concerned is more between what an individual table should change for that table (whatever they dang well please, lore and rules both) and what a publisher should change for everyone (significantly less than whatever they dang well please, for both lore and rules).