There is one facet of this discussion that keeps not coming up.
The concept of "truth" in the descriptive texts published.
Being most familiar with the 2nd and 3rd edition FR settings, the difference there is enormous. 2nd edition read like reports of places, with secrets built in and unanswered. 3rd edition, taking over the material, chose to present the fluff as the objective truth, including often answering various questions and telling secrets.
I would say that, not the RSE of the week syndrome, is what makes people feel that the setting canon ends at around 1370, just around the introduction of 3rd edition FRCS.
I think the difference sprouts from the structure of the rules system itself. Where 2nd edition was wonky, contradictory and somewhat diffuse, 3rd was exact, detailed and logically consequential. Two so different systems create different settings. Or, if you will, fluff and crunch tend to follow the same principles. This meant that 2nd edition FR fluff was never so harsly logical as 3rd edition was, and most likely, it made for a better setting.
When we roleplay, we deal with different texts to help us. Most interesting are the rules themselves: We actually KNOW the precise rules that define the world. For the game world, they are objectively true. While this does not always affect the setting details too much, its influence is strong in the more rule-based details. In the Realms, the pantheon of gods and their dealings, changes, deaths, and so on, is the prime example.
Which brings us to the setting canon lawyers. If you were to say, as a DM with such a player, for example, that a village in Cormyr is located here instead of there, there would likely not be a problem, because the information on that village does not live up to the standards of "objective truth". If you say that Sune has not only Love and Beauty but also Murder as her portfolio, fireworks will fly.
My own take as a DM is that I try to start off with as correct and "canon" setting details as I can for the given year, and I decide what big changes will be incorporated in the coming campaign from the start. However, if anything else changes that I don't like (such as the coming of the Shades...), I will unapologetically ignore it despite the wails and howls of outrage from any setting canon lawyers.
RSE? Really Shitty Event? Re-Set Event?
RSE = Realms Shaking Event ??
RSE = Realms Shaking Event ??
Ah, I bet that's it. Thanks.
Realms-Shaking Event of the week, or Really Sh***y Event of the week, take your pick. =)
But when one author describes a stretch of land as a peninsula and another as an island, one of them did not do his homework, and the credibility of the setting suffers. It is all right to change anything and everything, but consider the consequences and see to it that there are no logical breaks in the story. These breaks considerably diminish my enjoyment of the whole.
When the first time Chult was described how an island the map of the realms only fills the north part of the Chult peninsula, because the "civilised realms" only know that part. The information we have of Chult comes from the baldurian explorators (who think that it was an island). With the introduction of the Shining South to the Realms Canon (remember that in the first realms Halruaa was little more than a collection of legends, exactly how Vudra in Golarion today) our knoledge of the realms expands to the south and with it the revelation of Chult as a peninsula. Is the same case that Colon discovering that the "Indias" were really America and that north and southamerica were conected.
It's only a cuestion of perspectiva and expansion of setting. And I didn't see any problem with it.
Realms-Shaking Event of the week, or Really Sh***y Event of the week, take your pick. =)
Sissyl, I enjoy reading your posts, thanks for coming on-board(s). I'm still chewing on the one up top.
As a player, and as a former GM, I appreciate the time and effort that goes into ANY campaign, even if it's not the most amazing adventure I've ever seen.
I've never personally dealt with canon-lawyers, but even so, the GM decides what is and isn't canon. It's HIS world, and may only be loosely based on published history, or, in some campaigns, serves as little more than a map of a world.
GMing is a labor of love, even if the GM isn't that good at it. Cut the guy some slack, and play the world HE or SHE presents. If you approach it with some enthusiasm and a little gratitude for his/her efforts, you'll play again, and they'll most likely get better at it, too. It's a learned skill.
I said in an earlier post that I'm wary of world-changing events, or adventures that have that kind of impact on a giant planet. Players are there to kill things and take their loot, level up, and kill more things and take their loot. An artfully-made world full of roleplay and politics appeals to some, but not all.
I personally love playing a long-term adventure all the way to 20th level and beyond. I like to watch my character become truly powerful, and a world-changer in his own right.
Elminster was busy raising (and banging) the 7 sisters. Drizzt was way too far north to affect what we were doing. We met Kelben the Blackstaff and Piergeron in Waterdeep. It was cool, but we didn't have to. We were just so important by then, that it made sense. They'd heard of US; a functioning high-level adventuring party. The terrors of the whole world, really, since most NPCs weren't members of entire parties. Piergeron would have been toast. Kelben had a chance to survive, if not to win, had we wanted to fight him. Fortunately for them, we were mostly good. The neutral guy knew better than to cross the party.
I think Paizo has learned from the past. Given the number of contributors who are themselves canonical experts and creators of game worlds, they'll have to produce canon as a matter of procedure, and they're reading this thread, too.
Golarion's a fantastic world, and as full of potential as any. I'm in favor of leaving it as is for a very long time, and letting the history change very gradually. No godswar, no alien invasion, no wiping out of entire cities within a 5-year timespan.
Just like the real world, tumultuous events can happen, and they can be tragic or triumphant, but in the next country over, life goes on with little effect on the day-to-day of most people, most of the time.
20th level parties should be rare, world-changing heroes fighting threats that only they can fight. The net result should be that once they've stopped the world-changing threat, Golarion stays pretty much the same. Most people will have no idea who they are, and aren't likely to believe their stories, if they bothered to tell them.
"When the Legend becomes larger than the truth, print the legend."
~The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
But when one author describes a stretch of land as a peninsula and another as an island, one of them did not do his homework, and the credibility of the setting suffers. It is all right to change anything and everything, but consider the consequences and see to it that there are no logical breaks in the story. These breaks considerably diminish my enjoyment of the whole.When the first time Chult was described how an island the map of the realms only fills the north part of the Chult peninsula, because the "civilised realms" only know that part. The information we have of Chult comes from the baldurian explorators (who think that it was an island). With the introduction of the Shining South to the Realms Canon (remember that in the first realms Halruaa was little more than a collection of legends, exactly how Vudra in Golarion today) our knoledge of the realms expands to the south and with it the revelation of Chult as a peninsula. Is the same case that Colon discovering that the "Indias" were really America and that north and southamerica were conected.
It's only a cuestion of perspectiva and expansion of setting. And I didn't see any problem with it.
If changes like these are described in a way that they are logical within the setting, everything is fine IMO. But it has happened in the past that authors changed established backgrounds of game worlds out of ignorance and did not provide an in-game explanation, this is just a careless attitude on part of the author, which I dislike.
Stefan
Well, this explanation was given in a old Dragon Magazine o by Edd Greenwood if i'm not remember wrong.
The background isn't a matter statical, information that we see grow and grow but an organical entity wich in some ocasions changes and forces us to think. Almost that is my idea with the big settings like Forgotten Realms that expand his frontiers with de decades one time and another. You must be flexible at a certain point.
It is also an important question for a DM to consider: How do I deal with canon? This happens every time you do not design the entire world (including races and cultures and all) yourself. One way or another, you will be called on various differences that WILL appear. Completely following canon is nothing but an illusion.
These questions will even pop up if you do it ALL yourself. You will eventually say something that contradicts your own creation, believe it.
I just wanted to say it's not just about respecting your DM; these things will intrude from time to time no matter what.
The most proper way to handle with problems with canon and your campaign material (in my opinion) is create an argument (similar at the Chult peninsula-island) that explains that divergence. The canon is a tool, no a chain, use it for help you in your campaigns an DM job no for limiting it.
It is a method that works, no doubt about it. However, the DM's job is not only to know about the various viewpoints of different people in the setting, the DM must also be aware of the objective truth in order to do a good job.
If the setting is possibly an island, and the DM hasn't decided yet, it's fine to say that a contradiction is due to various people having incomplete information. However, if the DM earlier has, for example, motivated the extremely high number of boats per capita in the harbours with a genuine need to be able to travel because of living on an island, that excuse no longer works.
That's why a DM needs to keep books, at least a little.
Well, it can be solved saying that the arm of the peninsula is dangerous and impassable (the arm of Chult pennisula for example). Other reason is that the main civilization (humanoid) in Chult is the city of Mezro, in the north of the peninsula, and the principal contact with the rest of Faerun comes from the city of Baldur's Gate (extremely colonial).
You can convert many of the minor changes of the setting with some of reasoning (other subject are the great changes in the Realms of the WotC era, but wit patience and selection you can do a great job).
But when one author describes a stretch of land as a peninsula and another as an island, one of them did not do his homework, and the credibility of the setting suffers. It is all right to change anything and everything, but consider the consequences and see to it that there are no logical breaks in the story. These breaks considerably diminish my enjoyment of the whole.When the first time Chult was described how an island the map of the realms only fills the north part of the Chult peninsula, because the "civilised realms" only know that part. The information we have of Chult comes from the baldurian explorators (who think that it was an island). With the introduction of the Shining South to the Realms Canon (remember that in the first realms Halruaa was little more than a collection of legends, exactly how Vudra in Golarion today) our knoledge of the realms expands to the south and with it the revelation of Chult as a peninsula. Is the same case that Colon discovering that the "Indias" were really America and that north and southamerica were conected.
It's only a cuestion of perspectiva and expansion of setting. And I didn't see any problem with it.
Actually, it's a little more than that.
I had a conversation with Jim Lowder a while back about the changes to Chult. He wrote a 2nd edition game product set in Chult, as well as the Harper novel RING OF WINTER. This is a man who knows his Chult. He described it as a penninsula because that's what it was at the time. People writing in the 4E setting, however, will need to describe Chult as an island, because that's what it is these days. Spellplague happened. Things changed. Chult and Halruaa were two of the hardest-hit areas, and the maps of those regions just don't look the same. It's not a matter of perspective, it's an actual (well, as "actual" as a fictitious setting gets...) loss of land mass to rising seas.
I happen to like canon lawyers. Sometimes they get a bit carried away, though, particularly when it comes to anything pertaining to myth, legend, and religion.
Take, for example, the first section of the novel EVERMEET, which dealt with legends of the elven pantheon. It depicts the legendary battle between an elf and orc god. I got emails from people who reminded me that some sources say that elves and orcs were born of the drops of blood shed by their respectives gods during this battle, and pointed out that some elves and orcs were already in existance. This, most people could reconcile, reasoning that MORE elves and orcs were born of that battle, but some also wanted to know what the precise ratio was between drops of blood shed and resulting mortal offspring. Was it one to one? How much blood/how many e&o are we talking here? At that point I was tearing my hair and envisioning a scene from the Muppets where an exasperated Kermit, in a restaurant with one of his too literally-minded buddies, burst out with, "It's a myth, I tell you! Myth! MYTH!" A lisping waitress came over and said, "Yeth?"
My point, and I do have one, is that sometimes myths and legends are myths and legends. Every culture has its creation stories. Drops of blood from a legendary battle is a poetic convention, NOT a literal method of orc/elf conception.
:D
As a GM I regard it as my perogative to adapt canon to fit a home game, BUT I expect canon supplied by a publisher to be consistent.
My thoughts exactly. An author should have his own vision of a setting, but should at least put some thought into it why it differs from other authors visions. Laziness is not an acceptable reason for me.
Stefan
Actually, it's a little more than that.I had a conversation with Jim Lowder a while back about the changes to Chult. He wrote a 2nd edition game product set in Chult, as well as the Harper novel RING OF WINTER. This is a man who knows his Chult. He described it as a penninsula because that's what it was at the time. People writing in the 4E setting, however, will need to describe Chult as an island, because that's what it is these days. Spellplague happened. Things changed. Chult and Halruaa were two of the hardest-hit areas, and the maps of those regions just don't look the same. It's not a matter of perspective, it's an actual (well, as "actual" as a fictitious setting gets...) loss of land mass to rising seas.
Yes, it's a catastrofic effect of the Spellplague, but Dave Young refers to prior references. If my memory serves me correctly the first references to Chult in AD&D first edition refers to Chult as an island. In second edition with the expansion of the main setting to the south (and the east) it was revelated as a peninsula (the zone wich in thid edition covers the manual "Serpent Kingdoms").
In the first edition Forgotten Realms boxed set, it was explicitly stated that the big poster map became less accurate and more based on travelers' tales the further away you got from the Waterdeep-to-Cormyr "Heartlands" area. The map was supposed to be wrong.
Every other Forgotten Realms product ever published from first to the end of 2nd edition (at which point they tweaked the map considerably for 3rd) ignored this maxim and treated the map as canon.
Moral? Pay attention, I guess. :)
In the first edition Forgotten Realms boxed set, it was explicitly stated that the big poster map became less accurate and more based on travelers' tales the further away you got from the Waterdeep-to-Cormyr "Heartlands" area. The map was supposed to be wrong.
Every other Forgotten Realms product ever published from first to the end of 2nd edition (at which point they tweaked the map considerably for 3rd) ignored this maxim and treated the map as canon.
Moral? Pay attention, I guess. :)
To be fair, it's kind of hard to appease fan cries for more official support by saying, "maaaybe this is what it's like" with a meaningful wink.