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

[cbwjm]

I really like this idea.

I know right, it leads to all kinds of questions and campaign hooks as they work out how to deal with the various nations. The circle of eight, if around, would be hard pressed, powerful as they are, they are up against an empire of wizards, many of whom are just as powerful. Then there is Iuz, how will Alphatia deal with him. Heroes and villains might form an alliance, nations may willingly join with the alphatians. It would be an interesting campaign.

 

[Shasarak]

To be fair Maxperson, since I'm probably being lumped in here, I never, ever made my intentions secret. I think that these lore discussions are completely disingenuous. I think that those who claim that lore is important are always doing so to act as gate keepers for the one true way of playing the game.

Because, the thing is, you will never, EVER, hear someone say, "Well, this new idea is really cool and I really like it and it's really a better idea than what came before, but, y'know, we have to preserve canon, so, we'll keep this older idea, even though it's not really as good".

I bet that if you worked for WotC you would have heard that being said all the time when they were developing 5e. Mearls even came out and said as much in his reviews of play test material that the results of some surveys were much different then what he thought which led to the development team having to pivot to a different direction.

 

[cmad1977]

Looked through this thread thinking it was quite a mountain.


Nope. Molehill.


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[Maxperson]

This seems to imply that one of the reasons you think that my decision to include the WoHS in my GH game was that it disrespected my players.

It's not at all about you, man. He ask me what MY reasons were and I told him. You weren't even a thought at that point.

Players have expectations when you say simply that you are running Greyhawk, FR, Dark Sun or any other official settings. As for whether I think the inclusion of WoHS was disrespectful or not, that would depend on whether you told them about it in advance or not............as was fairly clear from the portion of my post that you clipped.

Is it relevant, for instance, that I started GMing that group as the outcome of a "revolt" against a prior GM whom the rest of us all agreed was terrible - and that it was on the basis of an offer to run a game in lieu of his that I took up the GMing mantle?]

Why would it be?

Is it relevant that - as the campaign had its origins at a university gaming club - that many participants came in because they heard from fellow club-members that it was a good game, and they were looking out for such a thing?

How is that relevant to the setting?

If a player doesn't really care about canon, or is more interested in learning about the setting via play rather than via pre-existing expectations, does that change the ways in which a description of a setting may or may not be an act of disrespect?

Did you know that in advance? Did that player tell you in advance that they were fine with canon changes and wanted to discover them through play?

 

[Maxperson]

Er...which PHB? There's been 5 now, plus a few splat-ons in between. And various classes are a whole lot different now than their 1e versions (I'm looking at you, Bard).
So would putting 3e Sorcerers - and 3e everything else - into the 1e version of Greyhawk (which, by the way, is exactly what I played in for my 7-year 3e run: original Greyhawk using 3e [later, 3.5e] rules). It didn't collapse.

Lan-"despite our best attempts to break it, it didn't collapse"-efan

The PHB matching the edition of the setting. If there is no setting made for the current edition, then some necessary modifications have to happen in order to make it compatible.

 

[Maxperson]

Eh, maybe. But, I think between this thread, the other thread that shall not be mentioned, and the past fifteen years of threads, I'm going to stand by it.

I mean, you've just stated that not following canon would be doing a disservice to your players. That changing canon is using a "bastardized" version. Which means you do think that there is a true version that can be bastardized. IOW, you are privileging canon above change. You have the "true" version of Dark Sun and then you have everything else that isn't the "true" version of Dark Sun and is thus a "bastardized" version.

Or else not. Change is fine, it just makes it an alternate version of the setting if you change too much. That's not saying there is one true way to play the game.

I mean, the implications of the language you're using are pretty clear. Calling something bastardized is hardly complimentary is it? By changing the lore of a setting you are disrespecting the players? Seriously?

Try opening your mind and understanding what I am saying. Your bias is clouding your ability to judge here.

 

[Maxperson]

Because the whole raison detre of moons, in Krynn, is to be gods of magic who power magical orders.

Likewise the constellations are the gods.

If you put in seven new moons that have no connection to magic or the divine, you radically change the significance, in the setting, of astronomical phenomena.

No you haven't. There are millions of stars in the Krynn sky that are not a part of the divine constellations. There's no reason to think that there couldn't also be moons that are not part of the divine.

Whereas introducing a 3rd moon into GH, in the context of adding WoHS, is not changing any conceit of the setting. It's actually taking seriously, and building on, the comments about the importance of the secrets of the heavens to human affairs!

From the get-go GH had clerics that could use blunt weapons, had access to special spell and other magical abilities, had access to thief abilities (clerics of Olidammra), etc. Gygax wrote about this in various Dragon articles, and the details moved from magazines to "official" status when the boxed set was published.

GH also always had impermissible class options and combinations (another example is Riggby the true neutral cleric of Boccob - called out as a special campaing exception in the pre-gen section of Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure; likewise the note explaining that Mordenkainen and Bigby aren't bound by the normal "spells known per spell level" INT limitations).

That's one reason why a special order of wizards is entirely consistent with the tenor of the world!

Pretty much every setting has exceptions. Note that Riggby, Mordenkainen and Bigby are all individuals, not entire orders. One PC drawing power from one moon is less disruptive than an entire order drawing from three moons in the manner of Krynn.

How?

What is the nature of the tweak?

I've answered this at least three times already.

Your mixing of metaphors isn't helping me - Jenga is about removal, not addition.

Jenga is about framework, and that framework eventually falling down. Also, if you've ever played Jenga before, then you know that it's also about addition. You put the pulled piece on top, adding to the framework.

And you haven't actually told me what the fatality consists in. You're just asserting it. What actual essential component of the framework has been removed? (Given that I've just shown that GH is not about traditional D&D clerics and wizards, that's certainly not it.)

It consists of mixing different settings. I thought that was obvious.

 

[Maxperson]

Looked through this thread thinking it was quite a mountain.


Nope. Molehill.


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Made by Giant Space Moles.

 

[ProgBard]

By changing the lore of a setting you are disrespecting the players? Seriously?

So, anyone who changes the lore of their setting is disrespecting their players?

Hang on a minute, though; that's not what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said (and in fact he's even talked about having changed the lore himself sometimes). I don't want to speak for him, but I would guess, from reading just a bit between the lines, that he considers adhering to lore as a baseline, in the absence of any other information, the safest way to make sure that players' expectations aren't discombobulated by unexpected changes.

I don't think Maxperson and I hold lore and canon in quite the same regard, but he's not saying "it should never be changed." He's talking about managing player expectations, and respecting players enough to communicate clearly when you're taking significant liberties.

 

[ProgBard]

We can definitely call it your Greyhawk game and that would obviously just be the beginning of the conversation where you describe the main beats where your game differs from the original. I think it would be quite important to me to know that the magic system worked differently then I would expect if I was to make a Wizard or that you hate Dragonborn and have banned them in perpetuity would be a handy thing to know also.

There is nothing about this I don't agree with. Whether you love canon or disregard it entirely, this is a sensible, respectful approach all around, and I endorse it utterly.

I think it would be disingenuous to try and claim an invisible moon that boosts magic spells as canon simply because there is no mention of it in the original material and on the other hand it is absolutely fine for you to add that moon to your Greyhawk game. But those are two separate discussions really.

But let's be clear that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has said repeatedly here that of course it isn't canon. His sole stance, as far as I can tell - again, not trying to speak for anyone - is that it's a change that isn't fundamental or sweeping enough to make it not-Greyhawk (for a sensibly generous, descriptive, and inclusive sense of what "Greyhawk" means). That doesn't seem like an especially wild-eyed or heretical position to me.