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

[Maxperson]

This is a bizarre suggestion. So I can't come out and have Ivid IV in fact be a lich; or King Belvor of Furyondy to secretly be a werewolf (and that's the explanation for why Furyondy is in decline - its once-paladin ruler is made and tortured by his lycnathropy); without running that by my players first, because it is a departure from what is written in the books?

That's taking RPGing as karaoke to new heights!

Why do you persist in trying to equate small stuff with big stuff? What part of my talking about changing entire pantheons indicated to you that I was talking about some small lich change?

 

[I'm A Banana]

But if I called them Wizards of Heavenly Power it would have made all the difference?

Very little. Are you querying my semantics, or just editing for redundancy?

The substantive point is that I'm getting a bit sick of being accused of dishonesty ("disingenuously" descfribing my game as GH") when - as far as actual play reports go - I'm one of the frankest regular posters on these boards - and also of being told I'm engaged in very poor GMing because I ran a game for me and my friends that would have caused the heads of [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and his friends to explode had they known about it (or maybe there heads explode only when they are forced to participate in it - the exact critera for my GMing being judged poor are still a bit opaque to me).

And are you suggesting that that is a good analogy for my GH game?

That is, are you suggesting that there is no difference (either of kind or of degree) in dropping a DL-inspired magical order into GH and turning the genre of FR from D&D fantasy default to post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy road warriors?

Or is it just another red herring.

Only a kind of difference of degree - I edited the post to be a little clearer about that.

If someone says this GH game isn't really GH and that this isn't what they signed up for, they'd be pretty right about that. If you said this was essentially GH just with some little changes, you'd also be right about that. It's about what's within the GH "genre," and what's in or out is largely subjective - about personal tastes and feelings, not about objective % of things changed.

To some folks, a genre swap is a minor thing - the nouns are what counts (I ran a Call of Cthulu-inspired FR game, and it was recognizably FR, at least until everyone started turning into fish-people...).

 

[Maxperson]

But if I called them Wizards of Heavenly Power it would have made all the difference?

It would make a difference. The three moons thing would still be a bit hokey, but changing the names would make it better. It wouldn't be setting specific at that point.

 

[Imaro]

I agree with [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] - RPGing is not karaoke.

Again... deciding to start with canon... isn't recreating anything it's choosing not to change something before the game starts. Not sure how an analogy of karaoke applies since we are having our own adventures, and telling our own stories within the parameters of the lore and canon. It'd be more akin to deciding we want to listen to hip hop music specifically as opposed to letting random music of all types play...

And as far as the idea that the lore is already there: when EGG needed a god, he just made one up (Silver Key of Dalt, anyone?). When REH needed "lore" for the Hyborian Age, he looked up one of his books (and Patrice Louinet has tracked down most of the references in the appendices to his critical edition of the Conan stories). A GM who adds something in - a new god, a new cult, some element of Perrenland that they stole from a B-documenary about Swiss halbedeers s/he once saw - is not breaking the canon, s/he's simply following the process that generated it in the first place!

No... you are changing the canon... canon is official... your changes are not thus you have changed canon. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your goals for your game.

 

[Imaro]

People on these boards use the word "disingenous" a lot. You do realise that it means lacking in honesty and instead being deceptive, don't you?

Yeah... that's why I used it.

I call my game a GH game because it is set in the World of GH, it uses GH mapes and timelines, GH names and GH tropes. The fact that I don't care what Roger E Moore said about the colour of Warne Starcoat's Hat in his Circle of 8 module doesn't change that.

And your point? No one can stop you from calling your game whatever you want... did you need me to validate that? Of course whether I or others consider it a Greyhawk game is a totally different question...

 

[Shasarak]

Very little. Are you querying my semantics, or just editing for redundancy?

If we are quibbling about the difference between being dishonest rather then deceptive is that just the distinction between a Diplomacy check rather then a Bluff check?

 

[TwoSix]

Why do you persist in trying to equate small stuff with big stuff? What part of my talking about changing entire pantheons indicated to you that I was talking about some small lich change?

I would assume because we have no real criteria to decide what's "small stuff" and "big stuff". I've gathered from your posts that you tend to value cosmological concepts of the setting pretty highly, more so than individual NPCs. But I can easily see an argument that the broad picture of the setting is just window dressing, and what actually defines the settings are the NPCs and places that the PCs actually encounter on their adventures.

 

[Maxperson]

I would assume because we have no real criteria to decide what's "small stuff" and "big stuff". I've gathered from your posts that you tend to value cosmological concepts of the setting pretty highly, more so than individual NPCs. But I can easily see an argument that the broad picture of the setting is just window dressing, and what actually defines the settings are the NPCs and places that the PCs actually encounter on their adventures.

That doesn't fly. He doesn't ask for clarification on what is big or small, he simply equates them knowing that I am not saying that they are equal. And then he wonders why we call him disingenuous.

 

[Hussar]

Only a kind of difference of degree - I edited the post to be a little clearer about that.

If someone says this GH game isn't really GH and that this isn't what they signed up for, they'd be pretty right about that. If you said this was essentially GH just with some little changes, you'd also be right about that. It's about what's within the GH "genre," and what's in or out is largely subjective - about personal tastes and feelings, not about objective % of things changed.

To some folks, a genre swap is a minor thing - the nouns are what counts (I ran a Call of Cthulu-inspired FR game, and it was recognizably FR, at least until everyone started turning into fish-people...).

But, I would assume that when you pitched the game to the players, you told them the campaign was Call of Cthulhu inspired no? There was likely no bait and switch - they knew from the get go what they were getting into.

Now, was it a Forgotten Realms campaign or not? It was "recognizably FR", so, I'm presuming that most of the canon stuff was easily recognizable. So, would it be fair to say that this was a Forgotten Realms campaign? While specific Mythos creatures might not exist in FR, there's certainly more than enough "mysterious creatures from beyond" in the setting that it shouldn't cause too many ripples.

Or going back to the Thule example. Note, the restriction is not no cantrip casters in the setting. It's "no cantrip caster PC's". So, at that point at least there are no canon changes at all. There most certainly are wizards and clerics in the setting. It's just that they're all NPC's. Now, I have deviated from setting canon by allowing paladins and monks, that's true. But, is that really enough to say that it's no longer a Thule campaign? Seriously? The inclusion of a class or two is enough to make a setting "not that setting" anymore?

All these lore threads have just made me really, really glad that I don't run published settings very often. I would have zero interest in ever having these conversations at an actual game table. Far better to stick with home-brew settings where I don't have to deal with this crap. Sorry, I know the players at the table far better than some writer plugging away for 10 cents a word. I am far more interested in the table having a good time than satisfying some bizarre notion of setting fidelity which appears to be a moving target at best.

Good grief, we've got [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talking about how it would be fine to have Wizards of High Sorcery in Greyhawk, but only if we change the name. Yeah, because THAT'S the key point. The idea that I'd run or play in a 100% kosher canon setting makes me want to stick a pen in my eye. What happened to creativity and making the game your own.

Going back to Greyhawk for a second, are the Paizohawk AP's Greyhawk or not? They are supposed to be. But, are they canon or not? Is the fact that I added Grippli to my Savage Tide AP campaign supposed to mean that my game was no longer truly a "Greyhawk game"? Gimme a break. If running canon means that I have to limit myself to the ideas that some other guy had, count me out.

 

[Sadras]

But if I called them Wizards of Heavenly Power it would have made all the difference?

It would make a difference

Good grief, we've got @Maxperson talking about how it would be fine to have Wizards of High Sorcery in Greyhawk, but only if we change the name.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" ~ William Shakespeare