Finally caught up, and it has been a ride.
Started reading this thread yesterday, but had to stop to go to a friend's place, who lives a little over an hour away. I've got a playlist of youtube videos I listen to sometimes, and I put it on as I drove. It played a video by MrRhexx on Orcs, part of his "what does 5th edition not tell you about..." series from... Nov 2020.
And, by some serendipity it applies pretty directly to this thread. See, MrRhexx does videos focusing on the old lore of Forgotten Realms, and the video, which was 45 minutes long, had one prevailing theme to it.
If you are playing any of the Forgotten Realms Adventure Paths, the Orcs in the Monster Manual and Volo's are the wrong orcs.
He focused on this a lot. Commenting consistently and repeatedly that the orcs in the 5e materials must be Grey Orcs, because they dress nicer, are nomadic and are very religious, but that every adventure published is in an area where Grey Orcs are never found, and that all the orcs in the game would be Mountain Orcs, and Mountain orcs are completely different. They are more bestial, less religious, ect ect. He even went on a bit of a tangent about how most people don't know what an orc looks like, and that half-orcs are just orcs, and that if you are a half-orc and you go to any of these places you'll be killed because you are an orc.
And, I'm sitting in my car, listening to this guy go on and on, and I'm thinking to myself... "What would this mean to a new DM or Player who went to this for information?" Now, MrRhexx is very clear in the fact that he is referring to older lore, and he cites his sources consistently. But, try and imagine if you can being a new DM and being told "Actually, the orcs the game gives you are the wrong orcs. Everything 5e has said about orcs applies to orcs that you have never met, and you've been confusing the two races this entire time. This is how you should have been running the orcs in the games you were running/playing"
For me, I can just roll my eyes at him, because I never use basically any of the old lore. And it has actually been a consistent thing with his channel for the past few videos I've watched, this constant barrage of just... frankly boring and pointless lore that does nothing to improve the game. There are gems, I've dug out a few but the vast majority of it is just... bad.
He's also where I learned a cool fact about Lizardfolk (they believe they are literally the divided form of one of their dieties, watched over by that deities partner) that was overwhelmed by utter crap (the reason that diety was divided is because they thought too much, and intelligence is a curse upon them that they try and actively reduce in their population). But this... fixation on the lore, on being told "this is the right way to do this. This is the truth" rubs me the wrong way. And I don't see the value in holding onto that so tightly.
I get a lot of people being upset that they feel like their story has ended. I'm always a bit melancholy to read the last book in a series, or to watch the final episode of a show. The longer running the harder it can hit me. However, I also think that a lot of people are... way to invested in liking the "correct" lore.
I've read a bit of fanfic, not much, but some, and I think that it highlights something. There is a show I generally enjoyed called Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It is a take on the "Magical Girl" genre of anime that takes a very dark turn and twist by focusing on the idea of children being given magical powers to fight monsters. It was pretty good. I know there are about four or five other series connected to it, bringing different lore and characters and building on the concepts
Then, about... seven months ago? I found a fan work called "The Golden Empire". This work is complete fanfiction. It is completely non-canon. I don't even know (because I only watched the original show) how many of the ideas in it are canon to the later shows and how much he just made up.
It is one of the best things I have read. It captures the dark, messed up ideas of the show perfectly, and places them not in a secret war between people and monsters, but in a Roman-style Empire ruled by immortal mages with children's bodies, who deal with some of the most terrifying and agonizing aspects of what their power means (I'm being vague about a single detail of the OG series, because it was a big twist that highlights the darkness, but it is played perfectly in this work.)
And, I've heard similar things about dozens of works. Actually, it was on a recommendation on some friends who were "bronies" that I checked out a fanfic set in the My Little Pony Universe that deals directly with the dangers of magic and how ultimate power corrupts and how you can try and fight against your own darker impulses to just... make people better by force. Again, this isn't the Canon. This isn't the "true fiction" but it is AMAZING and I've been eagerly waiting for about a year and a half for the author to get back to it.
Heck, I've got a story saved on my phone that takes the Jim Carrey Grinch (worst grinch ever) and puts him in an awkward position dealing with his Ex-boyfriend Tony the Tiger, and it is a really touching story about how people who have been traumatized with their past can try and pick up the pieces of their lives and move on.
None of it is Canon. None of it is the "true story" or the "right story" but that doesn't make it of any lesser worth or value. Heck, does anyone think Disney's animated Aladdin movie with Robin Williams is lesser just because it breaks with the Canon of Aladdin's mother being a key figure in the original tale?
Again, I get people are upset that the story is ending, but I've never understood the desire to cry out that the stories you've loved are now "worthless" because they are no longer Canon. If it was a good story, it is a good story. Canon has nothing to do with it. And all WoTC's announcement is is that they are not automatically counting everything as canon. Which is fine. If you really feel the need to divide "old canon" and "new canon" and hold up the version you believe to be the "true story" then go ahead. No one will stop you. But, what we will do, is that when you say that "Actually, Tiamat is the daughter of Asgorath and she was killed by Bahamut (who was pretending to be Marduk) which made her an Archfiend and then she did a terrible job working for Asmodeus, but since she was really trying he didn't punish her for being bad at her job, but then she got more power by eating Azharul which was possible because she had a fake home in heliopolis with this guy called the Listener but when he was found out she took over the mages who discovered her and used them to kill and eat that other dragon" we are going to nod and say "that was the old story. We are working on a new story."
And that isn't that bad of a thing
