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

[Campbell]

That I'm not as fond of. I stopped my FR at 3e, because I didn't like the whole spell plague concept. I can see ways to bring it back without the spell plague, though.

This is actually something we agree on. Part of the reason why I don't place much value on the addition vs. change distinction is because I despise this particular storytelling trick where we have to explain away changes. I am mostly a fun of the Star Trek reboot, but I wish they would have just done a real reboot instead of time travelling shenanigans. I cringe whenever new Spock and old Spock are on the screen at the same time. I actually feel like the 3e FRCS is a great example of implementing changes without having to justify things. There's no need to explain why Dwarves can now be Paladins, that Sorcerers are now a thing, that multiclassing works differently, etc. I find RSEs to justify new editions exceedingly lame. That includes Time of Troubles and The Sundering. If you feel like you need to do a reboot just do a reboot.

 

[Mirtek]

If WotC introduces a defiler into FR in the next series of adventures, you can bet your assets that this will still rain on someone's parade, at least a little bit. Like, someone who isn't big on FR being this cross-planar kitchen sink and would prefer it to be unique and special on its own would probably think it's a dumb move. Someone who really likes defilers and thinks that the most awesome aspect about them is that they're linked to Athas's apocalypse will probably be annoyed at this "mickey mouse" version. Etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Because you can't just pick up a defiler and drop it into FR and expect both of those things to work the same way they did before. You've changed the rules, so you've changed the experience.

I have to disagree here. Defiling is just a particular stile if spellcasting, that in canon exists right next to the styles practiced on Oerth and Toril.

So far it just has not spread from Athas to other worlds, mostly due to it being very hard to leave Athas. Maybe even due to deities if magic and nature tasking their servants to hunt down any defiler that made it oft Athas before he could teach defiling to more wizards.

So a defiler making it to Toril in the next storyline, could be a perfectly reasobable development of canon if WotC chose to do so.

And it would not be a Mickey mouse Version, but a seriös threat. Athas didn't die the Moment the first defiling was cast, but due to it being done for centuries until the wirld was reduced to it's current state.

So a spreading number of defilers would not instandly kill Toril, only if not stopped for centuries to come

 

[Shasarak]

I much prefer AD&D, where I can rest hands back on in a week or three.

Nah, resting it on after 8 hours seems more realistic.

 

[Shasarak]

You really think so? Because magic that draws on the life-force of nearby creatures seems like a trope with a much, much older pedigree than DS, and I'm not really having any trouble imagining it in other settings (probably not as a replacement for the default spellcasting system, but as a nasty variant that might give a couple of extra bennies, absolutely).

Sure drawing on life energy is an old trope but if you want to just drop it into any setting then you have to look at what it would cause. In the Forgotten Realms how could you have a land of Wizards in Thay for example if they are constantly drawing life from their surroundings? Zhentil Keep would be a wateland and Myth Drannor would not be lost in a forest it would be in the middle of a desert.

Could be any number of reasons! My point only being that "This creature is found in X environment" - unless worded in explicitly more restrictive terms - describes a general expectation from which it's reasonable to assume there are variants; it's not the same kind of statement as "STR 18 give you +4 to melee attack and damage rolls" - the kind of thing that if you're going to change it, you need to be utterly consistent, and careful not to bring down the whole mechanical house of cards.

What about say African Lions? Where would I expect to find African Lions? The most obvious place would be Africa of course but say I was watching the Madagascar movie in which I discover that they could also be found in New York or even Madagascar. That does not change the fact that finding an African Lion in New York is so tiny that it would only be likely to happen if I was in a movie or rpg where someone thought it would be fun for my character to fight an African Lion. And if it did happen then you can be absolutely sure that I would be telling everyone about the time I fought an African Lion in the middle of New York.

(Now, as the designers have pointed out, lots of the rules of 5e aren't quite so fixed - they're designed to be "it works like this, except when it doesn't" mechanics. Lore operates much more like that kind of rule, though I would still hesitate to say they're the same thing. Which, as I mentioned waaaaaay back in the early pages of this thread, you are certainly free to see as a limitation of my vision more than anything else!)

As an aside: If I were DMing an ice elemental in the desert as an obvious plot hook, and the players weren't biting, I'd probably try and give them a more anvilicious nudge that they'd missed a clue. Maybe through an NPC, or maybe just by saying, "Sorry, guys, I meant that to be a biger flag than it clearly was." I've been around the screen enough times to have learned not to get my feelings hurt when my neon-outlined clues don't land as I expected.

I think that exceptions to the rule are best used in moderation, unless you have a reason that everything is everywhere then most the time the best place to find Trolls is the Troll Moors and unless you are looking for Lava Trolls then Fire Mountain is not going to be the best place to look for them. On the other hand not every monster fits neatly into nice environmental boxes and also typical fantasy maps often have Fire Mountain running right up against the Troll Moors and not to mention that sometimes it was a Wizard that did it, so surprise Trolls are always an option.

I sometimes expect the same, but it depends on what it is. The list of the currently active Cormyrean noble houses doesn't need a mechanical widget to back it up. The idea that a demon lord's presence on the Prime Material warps the minds of creatures who come in contact with it probably does.

What if I was playing the son of a Cormyrean Noble though? I would expect some kind of mechanic to support that bit of background lore and that is what we find in 5e.

But you are right that we dont have to have mechanics for everything. I have not seen anything for eye colour yet, although I have not read everything in the DMs guild!

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not sure I'm fully understanding what you mean here... the game has always been do what you will with your game... that said, once the demand for settings resulted in money to be made... there very much became a pre-designed setting canon that one could adhere to and with said canon there is a starting point in using said canon (whether that's Pre-wars Greyhawk, Eberron or 2nd edition Dark Sun, they all have "The" starting point as laid out by the designers/developers). Judging it as "silly" or not is getting into the type of value judgments I thought we were staying away from.

No. The settings materials represent "A" starting point, but never present themselves as "THE" starting point. When we look at Eberron, for example, Keith Baker even now will repeat the golden mantra of Eberron: "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron." That mantra suggests that there is not a definitive canon - no "THE" starting point - but a potential starting point for your adventure in the setting. Again, this is about creating a starting point but not defining itself by a hard canon. Keith Baker has also said in reference to Eberron that he intentionally left a lot of questions, secrets, and plots regarding the setting open for the GM to create their own. There is no THE canon when it comes to the Draconic Prophecy, and Baker refuses to answer as he himself does not know.

I think you understood what I was getting at but ok... you choose not to answer.

I choose to tell you the truth of how I would respond to your hypothetical question. I do find your question somewhat absurd from my own experience. In my years of gaming and talking D&D settings with other D&D fans, I have never been asked about any notions of canon in the setting. I imagine that if I did talk about any sense of "canon" for a setting, it would actually turn-off a lot of those people from those settings entirely. Maybe that's because most gamers I play with and discuss tabletop gaming with have a sufficient understanding that D&D settings are gaming toolkits and not dogma.

That's interesting... I always thought it was what the owners of said IP decided was canon...so if I'm understanding you correctly... if a majority rejects a subset of D&D IP... it is no longer canon?

Yeah, I'm afraid that you're not understanding me correctly. Your question seems to mistakenly presume that there is only ONE canon and one gaming community for a D&D IP, which I said does not exist. There will certainly be A community that adheres to the canon imposed by the owners of the IP (and that community will likely attempt to impose that canon on others), but it is never the only canon that exists. This is because there are canons. Plural. These are canons dependent on the communities. Again, plural. Communities determine canon, and people, institutions, and groups attempt to impose their canon on others. But there are multiple understandings of canon based in the particular communities of gamers. Some may hate, for example, the Spellplague. Some groups refuse to acknowledge the Spellplague as canon. Others who may hate it will hate it, but regard it as canon because they tend to adhere to something of a blind belief that everything created from X authority source (i.e. "official") is canon. And it sounds like, from my own understanding of your situation, that your adherence to a singular notion of "one true official canon" from WotC (pbuh) is a boon to your online gaming needs. This canon - as tacitly agreed upon by your gaming group - allows you to game easily with each other online because you share a common set of setting assumptions. This approach requires less thinking. There is one canon; the canon simply is. But that is not how canon exists, because, to stress this point again, there are differing notions of setting canon in differing gaming communities.

We could also use a less religious set of literature for another example: what is canon in the Harry Potter books? Some people take everything from JK Rowling as canon: books, tweets, tv appearances, Pottermore, etc. Others only take what is written in the books as canon operating on the principle of "the author is dead." This is not to mention the remnants of the Shipping Wars whose various "ships" have their own sense for canon. Many people will adhere to the "JK Rowling Canon," as it is the largest community and it is regarded (at least by those within that community) as the "official" canon. But belief in a singular canon does not make it so despite what JK Rowling (and others) would otherwise have you believe.

 

[Mirtek]

Even if we define canon in a way that it can be used for multiple versions only one can be official.

Everybody can diverge from official canon at and point to continue with his own "canon" from there, but that doesn't change the official canon.

But belief in a singular canon does not make it so despite what JK Rowling (and others) would otherwise have you believe.

It does as far as official canon is concerned. I am not well versed in Potter stuff, but if JK still holds the rights, she decides what the official canon is.

If you or me dislike that and jump off at and point to rather continue in our own ways, it doesn't matter what wie define as our spin-off-canon or how many followers we attract. The official canon is still defined by JKR

 

[Imaro]

No. The settings materials represent "A" starting point, but never present themselves as "THE" starting point. When we look at Eberron, for example, Keith Baker even now will repeat the golden mantra of Eberron: "If it exists in D&D, it has a place in Eberron." That mantra suggests that there is not a definitive canon - no "THE" starting point - but a potential starting point for your adventure in the setting. Again, this is about creating a starting point but not defining itself by a hard canon. Keith Baker has also said in reference to Eberron that he intentionally left a lot of questions, secrets, and plots regarding the setting open for the GM to create their own. There is no THE canon when it comes to the Draconic Prophecy, and Baker refuses to answer as he himself does not know.

IMO this is akin to claiming space is a vast dark emptiness... well yeah if you ignore the planets, gasses, stars, asteroids, etc. that populate it, I guess it is. In other words if you choose to ignore the things that are sst in the Eberron campaign setting then yes it would appear that it doesn't define "The" starting point for an Eberron game of course that's ignoring all the things that are filled in and specific to Eberron (which create "the" starting point for a canon game) such as...

1. It takes place in the aftermath of the Last War.
2. There are 5 human dominated nations
3. 1 nation was destroyed and has become the Mournland'
4. Dragonmarks exist
5. There are dynasties built around said Dragonmarks
6. Dragonshards exist
7. Drow venerate scorpions
8. Magic is common place
9. There are 7 continents
10. The world has 12 moons
11.Kalashtar and Warforged exist in Eberron
12. Shar the City of Towers exists in Eberron
13. Do I really need to keep typing what is defined in Eberron (and thus the starting point for a canon Eberron game)... it would take all day.

EDIT: And you do realize that the fact that The Draconic Prophecy exists in Eberron (even if it's details haven't been fleshed out) is in fact establishing Eberron canon...

I choose to tell you the truth of how I would respond to your hypothetical question. I do find your question somewhat absurd from my own experience. In my years of gaming and talking D&D settings with other D&D fans, I have never been asked about any notions of canon in the setting. I imagine that if I did talk about any sense of "canon" for a setting, it would actually turn-off a lot of those people from those settings entirely. Maybe that's because most gamers I play with and discuss tabletop gaming with have a sufficient understanding that D&D settings are gaming toolkits and not dogma.

You find the question of canon from a D&D fan... absurd?? Now I find that anecdote strange as there are whole forums on the internet populated by D&D fans who discuss exactly that. But fine, it's not a question you would answer... though I fail to see how wanting to know about the canonical state of say Eberron or DL or Dark Sun as it stands currently necessarily leads to D&D settings as "dogma" rather than toolkit. If you are using Dogma in the sense of... that which is known to be true... I fail to see how a campaign setting can't serve both purposes? It can both set what is known to be true before play and serve as a toolkit and springboard during actual play...or do you disagree?

Yeah, I'm afraid that you're not understanding me correctly. Your question seems to mistakenly presume that there is only ONE canon and one gaming community for a D&D IP, which I said does not exist. There will certainly be A community that adheres to the canon imposed by the owners of the IP (and that community will likely attempt to impose that canon on others), but it is never the only canon that exists. This is because there are canons. Plural. These are canons dependent on the communities. Again, plural. Communities determine canon, and people, institutions, and groups attempt to impose their canon on others. But there are multiple understandings of canon based in the particular communities of gamers. Some may hate, for example, the Spellplague. Some groups refuse to acknowledge the Spellplague as canon. Others who may hate it will hate it, but regard it as canon because they tend to adhere to something of a blind belief that everything created from X authority source (i.e. "official") is canon. And it sounds like, from my own understanding of your situation, that your adherence to a singular notion of "one true official canon" from WotC (pbuh) is a boon to your online gaming needs. This canon - as tacitly agreed upon by your gaming group - allows you to game easily with each other online because you share a common set of setting assumptions. This approach requires less thinking. There is one canon; the canon simply is. But that is not how canon exists, because, to stress this point again, there are differing notions of setting canon in differing gaming communities.

Wait...what? So now anyone with a "community" (whatever that means) can in fact create canon for anything they want?

So correct me if I'm wrong but what you seem to be saying is all those who claimed D&D 4e wasn't D&D... were right (Note... even as someone who wasn't particularly fond of 4e I still consider it D&D). Anyone with a community can proclaim Hyperborea, Middle Earth or the Young Kingdoms as official D&D settings and they are canonically correct?? I don't think it's a failure on my part to understand you, it's that I think you are using the word canon incorrectly and I'm choosing not to agree with you. A group refusing to acknowledge the Spellplague as canon in no way makes it any less canon.

EDIT: Also... "requires less thinking"?? Please expound because I'm not sure I agree with such a broad and general assertion... does it require less thinking than say a game where the setting is creating through play and decided on by the rolls of dice? Does it require less thinking then mixing and matching? In what areas exactly is there less thinking involved?

We could also use a less religious set of literature for another example: what is canon in the Harry Potter books? Some people take everything from JK Rowling as canon: books, tweets, tv appearances, Pottermore, etc. Others only take what is written in the books as canon operating on the principle of "the author is dead." This is not to mention the remnants of the Shipping Wars whose various "ships" have their own sense for canon. Many people will adhere to the "JK Rowling Canon," as it is the largest community and it is regarded (at least by those within that community) as the "official" canon. But belief in a singular canon does not make it so despite what JK Rowling (and others) would otherwise have you believe.

Uhm... JK Rowling (as long as she owns the rights) decides what is and what isn't canon. It's pretty simple really.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Heh. If a 5e fan of FR is going to get bent out of shape over WotC adding elements from other settings to FR, methinks they're already pretty annoyed.

Definitely! But their point is "fair." A defiler in Neverwinter is a play experience that a wizard in Neverwinter or a defiler from Tyr won't have, and maybe to these people this makes the experience less in some way.

"FR was always a world about the joyful possibilities of magic for the players, that's why the goddess of magic is Good, and heroic mages are some of FR's biggest icons!"

"Play in Dark Sun is partially about being ignorant of what Good is thanks to evil winning, so a characters like defilers and templars have a reason to exist and to be heroes in that setting - to have their world-view shaken by the events of play. That experience is completely lost in a setting like FR that ISN'T dominated by its villains, so they're missing the entire point of HAVING defilers."

I have to disagree here. Defiling is just a particular stile if spellcasting, that in canon exists right next to the styles practiced on Oerth and Toril.

I think if you're ignoring how the play experience is different and why that difference would be important for these different settings, than you've got an incomplete view of the thing. Being a defiler on Athas has a meaning that being a defiler in the Free City of Greyhawk doesn't have.

So far it just has not spread from Athas to other worlds, mostly due to it being very hard to leave Athas. Maybe even due to deities if magic and nature tasking their servants to hunt down any defiler that made it oft Athas before he could teach defiling to more wizards.

So a defiler making it to Toril in the next storyline, could be a perfectly reasobable development of canon if WotC chose to do so.

It could be entirely consistent with canon.

This doesn't mean it's going to be the same experience, though.

And it would not be a Mickey mouse Version, but a seriös threat. Athas didn't die the Moment the first defiling was cast, but due to it being done for centuries until the wirld was reduced to it's current state.

So a spreading number of defilers would not instandly kill Toril, only if not stopped for centuries to come

Remember that defiler is a PC option in Dark Sun, and it's an option for a reason. If a defiler in another world wouldn't have much of a heroic experience, that's one of the differences in play that would arise out of the new rules of the new setting.

That difference is going to be enough for some people somewhere to feel like that it's not really the play experience that they want. Others will be like "Woo, this sounds cool!" WotC has a history of not always really taking into account those first players.

As you move up the scale (one defiler...a cabal of defilers...an island nation of defilers...a resurgent empire of defilers...a new spellplague that turns all magic into defiling magic...a retcon that means all wizards were actually defilers all along...) the impact of that flooferdoodle gets bigger and bigger and hits more and more tables, so you get more potential "Nope!"

 

[pemerton]

The PCs with their backgrounds, the towns, NPCs, dungeons and such, those are all provided for in canon, provided the DM is fleshing out the world and not altering what is specifically mentioned. Specific alterations are what constitutes a canon change, not the things you are mentioning above.

Adding an extra moon to GH doesn't change anything that is said about the two moons by the sage in the folio/boxed set.

And adding Suloise WoHS doesn't change any canon either - it conforms to the idea that the Suloise were powerful magicians with mysterious traditions!

if you change the magic system by adding Moons then that must be a change, right?

But how is the magic system changing. It's not like all magic users become WoHS. It's just an added on magic system that only affects WoHS. None of the established lore is changed.

What Hussar said.

Ok, so now its totally confusing. Is the magic system like DL or not? If it is now an opt in or opt out choice then did I get that choice when I created my Wizard? Is there some Wizards guild hunting me down because I am casting spells wrong or not?

Instead of being confused over an example that you yourself coined (post 764) why not be non-conufsed by an actual play example that I have elaborated upon several times in this thread. (I also think my actual rather than imaginary example is what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] had in mind.)

In my GH campaign, there was an ancient Suloise magical tradition (this is consistent both with GH lore and with WoHS lore as established in DL), which operated in current times primarily in the Great Kingdom (which is little described in the GH folio/boxed set, except to the extent that it is full of mad wizards with ancient heritage). These wizards are called Wizards of High Sorcery; they live in Towers of High Sorcery; and they are governed by a wizadly Conclave; one joins this tradition by taking a test. (All WoHS lore.) The tradition is divided into 3 orders - black robe (mostly necromantic/illusion/anti-personnel magic), red robe (especially elemental magic) and white robe (protective magic and the like), whose power is in each case tied to one of the three moons (Luna, Celene and the invisible black moon). (Again, this is all taken from WoHS lore, although the moons have been Greyhawk-ised.)

This is an addition to the GH game. I think the far-and-away easiest way to describe it - which is how I have been describing throughout this thread - is as adding WoHS to my GH game. It doesn't contradict any GH canon. It takes the basic tropes of the WoHS and GH-ises them.

Can players play WoHS in this game? Yes - as I've already posted several times, to the best of my recollection there were 5 WoHS PCs over the course of this campaign (3 black robe, 1 red robe, 1 white robe). Other wizard PCs included a city of GH native trained by a Baklun refugee to be a Baklun firemage; a Baklun witch; and a psionicist from Keoland who ended up being fed by other party members to a demon (long story); and one of the WoHS started out as a non-WoHS wizard trained in a village outside the city of GH, who took the test during the course of the campaign in order to join the WoHS.

 

[Campbell]

We're talking about language, culture, and community here. Language shapes the way we think and informs the broader cultural zeitgeist. I choose to talk about Greyhawk, Dungeons and Dragons, and role playing games in an inclusive way because I believe we should be celebrating the diversity of this wonderful hobby. I also believe that when we rely on strict definitions we often lose sight of cultural similarities and discourage taking creative risks. Taking creative risks is something that I want to encourage, even if it does not always work out because I feel it ultimately enriches the hobby. I'm not strictly speaking of game designers here, but also about GMs and players. I want people to try new things and embrace the creative imperative of our hobby. If you're a player I want you to try your hand at running a game, and I don't want the barriers to be too high. If you're a GM I want you to feel motivated to learn about game design, work with your players to hack your current game and possibly design a game of your own. We're better for it.

I personally don't see much value in encourage a very specific and more homogenous culture. I mean I get that there is a certain value in transferability of skills and knowledge from one game to another, particularly in the context of organized play. Context matters. Still, I would like to see organized play help to develop new GMs and encourage them to start home games, online games, etc. What distinguishes our hobby from other sorts of gaming is a sense of play.