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

[Sadras]

Guys IMO, you have seriously got caught up in rather unnecessary squabbles.

If you take @pemerton's GH-setting another way, he actually cares about lore a lot, and sticking to the thread topic, for him lore affects his table's rules. The ToHS in his Greyhawk world, along with the moons actually affect magic and magic-users within his home-brewed setting. He drew up a whole magic affecting calendar based on the moons. To me that means he liked a particular lore/canon of Krynn, got inspired and utilised it for his Greyhawk world.
Liking and using canon doesn't have to remain setting specific.

@Maxperson prefers to take a more conservative approach when selecting a particular setting and prefers to immerse in that setting's unblemished lore.

For @Hussar, despite his protestations about the non-importance of lore/canon, he never fails to inform us of his dislike for the Planescape setting- which to me means, somewhere in the recesses of his creative mind, lore/canon must be important to him too, but is not as restrictive as @Maxperson, amending where necessary.

I on the other hand, read through all the editions and supplements of particular settings and try my best to weave the lore in such a way to make as much of it true, despite the lore changes that might exist between the editions.

We all seem to like lore, we just choose to use it differently.

 

[Hussar]

Blurg? My entire reason for disliking Planescape can be pretty much covered in the whole "people trying to force others to play the one true way"

I mean, the reason we can't have fifteen different versions of vrocks, for example, is because of PS canon.

Not sure what you're on about.

 

[pemerton]

If you take @pemerton's GH-setting another way, he actually cares about lore a lot

I do care about lore a lot. I think anyone who reads any of my actual play posts could see that. As you've pointed out, it also comes through in this thread.

What I don't particularly value is adherence to canon.

I have seen some posters infer from "Doesn't care about adherence to canon" to "Runs a kick-down-the-door game where lore and backstory don't matter". I don't think that's a sound inference.

lore affects his table's rules. The ToHS in his Greyhawk world, along with the moons actually affect magic and magic-users within his home-brewed setting. He drew up a whole magic affecting calendar based on the moons.

I definitely think the rules should match the fiction you want in your game. There are many different ways to do this. These days I wouldn't use charts/calendars etc - too much work, and it turns out to be a bit broken in play - but it was fun at the time!

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

"That people only argue that canon is important when they want to force their particular play style on other people."

That portion is objectively false.

It's not objectively false, it's one claim among a handful made in the post you quoted.

Claims are either objective or subjective. Hussar's claim is objective.

Objective claims can be evaluated on two scales: strong to weak, and good to bad.

The claim you quoted is good. It supports the author's overall argument.

The claim is weak, however, because when considered by itself and absent the other claims, one can imagine the word 'people' to mean anyone, and not the subset the claim is referring to, and so it is easy to think of reasons why people might bring up canon in a discussion other than to force their preferred play style onto others.

The sum of a set of claims is an argument. I think Hussar's argument is a good one. There are no falsehoods in it.

It deserves to be considered in total, and not nitpicked out of context for want of a proper and equally truthful reply, as you are doing.

 

[Shasarak]

The sum of a set of claims is an argument. I think Hussar's argument is a good one. There are no falsehoods in it.

It deserves to be considered in total, and not nitpicked out of context for want of a proper and equally truthful reply, as you are doing.

I think Hussars claim is wrong. He claims that the reason we do not have 15 different types of Vrock because of Planescape. But then how does he explain the 15 different types of Elves that we have - is that because of Plaescape as well? How many different types of Bird Demons does he need when the Abyss is supposed to be infinite?

How does he handwave the attempt to roll several different types of Elves into the "Eladrin" category? Does that not run counter to his argument for having so many different types of the same creature? The whole 4e debacle centered on getting rid of different creatures and rolling them all into one type because the unwashed masses did not know the difference between them I guess so they would never know they were gone.

 

[Sadras]

Blurg? My entire reason for disliking Planescape can be pretty much covered in the whole "people trying to force others to play the one true way"
Not sure what you're on about.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, what I was meaning was despite everyone's protestations, we actually do care about lore/canon in one way or another, we just utilise said lore/canon in different ways at our tables. That is all.

I mean, the reason we can't have fifteen different versions of vrocks, for example, is because of PS canon.

I don't believe that is a fair comment to make. It is not like we have 15 versions of Water Elementals. I actually like the one version of Vrock presented in the play test material whereby 3 Vrock dance in a circle cackling arcane words only to unleash a devastating ball of necromantic energy which does 20d6, if I can recall correctly. Sadly the ability along with its wonderful description of the power never made it to the end product.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not objectively false, it's one claim among a handful made in the post you quoted.

It is absolutely objectively false. He made that claim generally, applying it to everyone who argues for canon. Since it does not apply to me, it's is objectively false. I suspect it does not apply to the majority of posters who argue for canon. As for it being among a handful made in the post I quoted, that may be true, but pretty much his entire post hinged on that one blatantly false assumption.

Claims are either objective or subjective. Hussar's claim is objective.

That's impossible.

"That people only argue that canon is important when they want to force their particular play style on other people."

Since I don't only argue that canon is important when I want to force my play style on people, and in fact never want to force my play style on people, his claim cannot possibly be objective. I am proof of his claim being wrong, and I'm hardly alone in my position.

 

[Maxperson]

Blurg? My entire reason for disliking Planescape can be pretty much covered in the whole "people trying to force others to play the one true way"

I mean, the reason we can't have fifteen different versions of vrocks, for example, is because of PS canon.

Not sure what you're on about.

Er, the main reason you can't have 15 versions of vrocks is because it's an amazing waste of resources. It's far better to give players 15 different monsters, than 15 versions of one monster. 99% of monsters only have one official version of them and Planescape had nothing to do with it.

 

[Imaro]

Blurg? My entire reason for disliking Planescape can be pretty much covered in the whole "people trying to force others to play the one true way"

I mean, the reason we can't have fifteen different versions of vrocks, for example, is because of PS canon.

Not sure what you're on about.

Or because the market won't bear it. If there was demand for 13 different Vrocks, I'm sure a 3rd party publisher during the 3e era or even now would have done it and it would be selling like hotcakes. I'm not sure how a setting, published under TSR nearly 20 years ago that hasn't been officially revisited (and wasn't an official part of the previous edition)... is stopping anything currently but apparently you're sticking to this Planescape ruined D&D narrative...

If you really think there is demand for something like this... multiples of the same monsters... then create it and stick it on DM's Guild. Personally I think most people are going to pass on it but you could be right, there might be huge demand for 13 variations on the same monster.

 

[ProgBard]

Blurg? My entire reason for disliking Planescape can be pretty much covered in the whole "people trying to force others to play the one true way"

I mean, the reason we can't have fifteen different versions of vrocks, for example, is because of PS canon.

I'd be kinda curious to see you unpack this a little. It doesn't jive with my read of PS, so I'd be interested to know what you're seeing that I'm not.