I really don't care what Wizards do. I moved my campaign to the Sword Coast because of the great maps, I'm staying. Changes to history on Drow and Dragons will be addressed as it is presented. If I don't like a change I shall simply ignore it. Good video, thanks.
Well, we have Salvatore and Greenwood on Drows. Former not having Eilistraee so that Drizzt could be “special”, I mean if he was in Waterdeep, he can ask worshippers for help depending if they can tolerate their nudism.
@@LordBrittish But that part is disliked by online folks due to cementing his status as "mary sue". Come to think about Eilistraee helping him get to Calimshan idea since Calimshan practiced slavery and Eilistraee worshippers are against it (plus operating underground railroads), so they would not be welcome there aside from "dark elf nudist dancers" aside from asking favors from amiable ship captains to transport Drizzt without questions.
@@powerist209 Those who say that haven't read the books or ignore it outright. Lolth's favor isn't exactly a boon to Drizzt. R.A. Salvatore made Drow strong and scary in general and Drizzt was trained by the best and became the best in their society. Drow Society isn't exactly pleasant growing up and he has failed in his adventures, I'd say that's the farthest thing from a Mary Sue.
Ed Greenwood is a mad genius. I purchased the Forgotten Realms grey box back in 1987 I've loved it ever since. Even in the box set there was so much lore a DM couldn't possibly use it all. There's only so much an adventurer can see or do in this space.
Well, unfortunately...there are "orgies festival, casual incest with birth control, and brothels in every towns of Sword Coast". Still even if TSR and WoTC (wisely) omitted it (now being okay with homosexuality), he does show his new-age free love (especially Eilistraee, and I think Cleric Quartet had one of the characters masturbating in public bath).
There is a difference between “lore” and “canon”. Your channel is great because it provides a ton of inspiration. I agree that freeing up DMs to play with their own “canon” allows them to define the world in their terms. As far as WotC they can do whatever; I’ll run my tables in the way that I think best suits my players.
This guy gets it. "Canon" has always been fluid from the moment there were two different D&D groups going on at once. The fact that we can even refer to a collected canon between all games in Forgotten Realms is kind of a silly concept. The way I see it, D&D lore is a suggested structure of information that is important for DMs to have it their disposal, but not so vital that they adhere to what is considered to be "canon." All players, DMs, writers, and game devs are working together to create this vast and rich trove of information for any particular discrete group to employ and create their own world and "canon". This has been the tradition from the very start of the game. Jorphdan, you offer and excellent service by funneling down the different interpretations into a consumable format that allows me (and countless other dms no doubt) to prepare for their games in a much more efficient (and by extension healthy) way. Keep it up!
Please keep making lore videos. I really enjoy them. People will use what they want, that is what makes D&D awesome. IMO I think lore and history are important to good storytelling.
I agree, ultimately whether or not any of this is canon is irrelevant. What’s relevant is if the lore inspires cool worldbuilding ideas and plots for your games, take the best elements from the old and the new and throw away what doesn’t work.
"...Knowledge of our world is to be nurtured like a precious flower, for it is the most precious thing we have. Wherefore guard the word written and heed words unwritten - and set them down ere they fade... Learn then, well, the arts of reading, writing, and listening true, and they will lead you to the greatest art of all: understanding." - Alaundo of Candlekeep
As far as I know, there are A LOT of things in Forgotten Realms that have been very consistent throughout the different versions of its system. This is a huge change, and I don't know how I actually feel about it or what it will entail. To me, changing the drow in such a major way by saying that there have ALWAYS been three major factions is very cheap. It would've been better if they had made it so the two new factions are formed from the escapees of Lollth's enslavement and are only now emerging.
Sadly it seems that character creation is dnd is accessorizing your characters visible identity and the new influx of players don’t want consequences for those things. Players don’t want to be a drow or whatever other evil race, they want the aesthetic of it because that’s all it is in our real world. The fantasy world must oblige their sensibilities to move units. The existence of good and evil as objectively real forces in the dnd world has been seen as off putting so morality in universe is dictated by “the player characters and those that agree with them are the good guys and the things they do are good because the good guys are doing them until the majority of players disapprove.”
@@MsGhoulz yeah but the problem there is that if the company WOTC or Hasbro cater to them by poor-George-Orwelling or Fahrenheit-451ing the Realms or character standards or anything else, then all the stock material - that once provided beautiful, rich, deep content will be elided. And it will turn into much harder, time-consuming work for old GMs or new ones to re-import the old material... especially if the new-boot universe actively contradicts the history. It happened to Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who and DC comics and TRON... and now they're coming for the Realms... that now supposedly form the bedrock of D&D from what, 4e onwards? Saw a thread on D&D Beyond. Apparently Xanathar's Guide talks about cost of weekly services or goods. Thread asked "but the Realms don't have weeks they have tendays, which do you pick?". The idiot who wrote that piece doesn't seem to know the Realms very well. Would've taken one single sentence to suggest "call them the same" or "adjust up by half". The thread suggested "follow the rules of the campaign world". a) 50% adjustment or not, still? b) but the Realms is meant to be default. c) FFS, Xanathar is a denizen of the damned Realms. d) one sentence is all it would've taken. And the "professionals" (HAHAHAHAHA) writing couldn't be bothered or worse... didn't realise it was necessary. So screw WOTC and all their apologists. We're doomed. Time to go mad OSR or 3e SRD or somethin'...
they didn't really change anything they added a new dimension to pre existing lore. there is a reason that so much of the continent of faerun is mostly unknown and such a large amount of attention is focused on one corner. it's so that they can introduce new ideas and concepts without having to do much explaining for the how's or why's. it's just oh this is a new area and this is how things work over here. this is the societal structure, this is the source of power they draw upon for their unique abilities, etc. it's been going on since the beginning of the forgotten realms. no one is saying you can't play an evil drow. and there have ALWAYS been different factions of drow. there is a city called damarath or something like that where half drow ruled the city. there have always been bands of drow living in the forests of the surface world. jarlaxle remade the city of luskan and everyone knows it. why is the idea that this new city was discovered under a glacier at the north pole, where the drow are (arguably) less evil, but still pretty fucked up, soooo offensive to yall?
Canon and lore matter,some dm's can make changes but lore is important to the world and its history from the characters that built it up and the places and events that shape the world, keep doing this I feel it's important
History is important in both reality and a fictional world. If nothing can be considered canon anymore, then that means 10 or 15 years from now, the D&D novels, comic books and games that will be released in the near future will be eventually discarded too.
To be fair, Baldurs Gate for example wasn't exactly Canon (until they made a horrible novelization), same with a bunch of other stuff. Canon fluidity has always been a thing in FR...which is why I rejected the Spellplague and I will reject this Drow thing. In my FR the Drow had fought three major wars against the surface after the Crown Wars, this stuff simply doesn't fit.
@@TheBayzent You need to get updated. The horrible novelizations of the Baldur's Gate series you mentioned are not canon after all for these reasons: In the novels, Minsc had hair and a beard, contradicting the source material. And leading up to the release of Baldur's Gate 3, there are comic book series that reveal how Minsc and his hamster Boo are alive even though more than 100 years have passed between Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate 3, and Minsc does not have hair and a beard! It is the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 that are canon because in the comic books about Minsc and Boo being brought into the 5th edition era of the Forgotten Realms, they meet a moon elf wild mage named Delina who looks like Neera from the Enhanced Editions, heck even Minsc thinks she is Neera! On top of this, datamined info from Baldur's Gate 3 hint that Jaheira will be in the game. How does this make the novels of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 not canon? Jaheira DIED in the novels! She was killed by Sarevok in the end of the first novel, she was resurrected in the Shadows of Amn novel, and she got permanently killed of in the Throne of Bhaal novel by the Bhaalspawn blue dragon Abazigal. Plus, in the novels, she worshiped Mielikki, which is not who druids worship at all, but in the games she worships Silvanus.
The nice thing is that you're allowed to do that. I'm going to probably ignore like 60% of the old stuff, because I know it and personally don't think all of it is very good.
Cannot be bothered. Any of my players know I will not be doing anything of the new stuff and they can vote with their feet - but I suspect they won't ;)
15:00 I don't mind them changing the realms or changing any single one of their settings. What annoys me is their attempts to harmonise their settings. We like settings like Eberron because it is different. If you make the forgotten realms like Eberron or Eberron like the forgotten realm then that is lost. Of course there are individual things you can import from one to the other. Like Eberrons orcs being imported into DnD in general. But making every setting a derivation from some original world is a very big step, and I don't see what it adds.
@@wendellpowell5838 I absolutely don't want them to touch any other of the classic settings. I've seen what they've done to the place they've already touched. No thanks. Please stop.
This feels like them doing two things: #1, they wanted to get out of having to produce books that are primarily lore for one setting; #2, they didn't want anybody to yell at them for the drow or orc stuff when they remake those to be alignment-neutral. Not impressed but they're the ones making money.
@@carlflaherty2215 if WOTC did not make money they could not make DND. That means no DND. That is their purpose to make money for their parent company which is Hasbro! If you want to play DND you want WOTC to make money so they can make more products for the game.
I’m a DM that typically nerds out about Forgotten Realms lore, so I totally relate to your statement on “oh, Ryan is at the table… I can’t run a game cause he’s into the lore and he’ll call me out.” That kind of attitude has led a lot of my player threatened to run a game for me. Now I’m trying to break past that feeling and encourage my players to do their own thing and not think about “proper Forgotten Realms”. I hope someday my players will be comfortable with doing their own thing in D&D without thinking about my lore addiction lol. But I also want to continue running my game canonically (or as canonically as I can) because I like it, not cause I’m forced to. Good job Jorphdan just being real with us, I appreciate it!
Players like that should try working in tandem with the DM then, or the DM should just explain to the player that it's essentially bootleg FR instead of setting up the expectation that it'll be the 100% lore-accurate game.
When I saw that article, your channel was the first thing I thought about. I would add a third option to the front of your video: we are the lore keepers now. It is empowering. We are not beholden to quarterly profits or expanding the player base. We don't have to break apart the lore so a writers room at a movie studio can do what they want. We can enjoy it as a YT channel like yours. Keep going, man!
The issue I see is for some reason WotC won't do much outside of the Sword Coast. I mean it's cool that they keep adding to it, but they're painting themselves into a corner. If they simply put out work that was a different realm, or a different timeline, or heck a different part of Faerun, they wouldn't need to start remaking stuff.
Not going to lie the more I dive deeper into dungeons and dragons the more I'm wanting to move away from WOTC stuff. Their so many great products out there that I feel like I want to run.
That's fine, stay the crap away from my Cormyr. Raedra isn't crowned yet and there's a chance her brother may live and she might marry to one of my PCs in the end, or hell she might die in the Suzail Siege. So call canon is only inspiration on my table. When I made my own storylines, it keeps my players guessing, and more encouraged to attempt to change the world as they see fit.
I feel like the way the went about saying this was overly inflammatory. They should just say "your forgotten realms is different from the books forgotten realms or the games forgotten realms. They are different worlds in a multiverse of adventure and fantasy that are very similar, becoming stranger and more disparate the further away from each other they are. You could have worlds as similar as the Toril from the Drizzt novels and the Toril from your own home campaign, or as different as Dragonlance's Krynn and Dark Sun's Athas. All are equally valid and when constructive your game world you can add or ignore any content you like, such as adding Strixhaven to Halruua, or making Warforged ancient Netherese constructs"
One of the things I like about the Realms compared to a lot of other settings is just how much back history there is. Doesn't mean I'll use it, but it helps give a better feel for the Realms and gives me something to base things off of.
My group will have a problem because we're the kind to just accept whatever canon lore book we can find. Now if WotC's new books retcon old lore we'll run into contradictory ideas during a campaign. I almost had this problem with Drizzt and Bruenor in Out of the Abyss. I had never read any of the books (you only need the 1st for the adventure) and a player of mine had read at least 10 of them. If I made up Bruenor's stories with Drizzt on the spot my player would feel disconnected. The module gives some ideas there. If I was a newer player and only ran with the new Drow lore, I would be contradicting established lore that the module presented, AND lore it assumed I knew. In Skyrim we'd call it "Unimmersive AF".
Something I appreciate about Eberron is that Keith Baker and Wizards have chosen to keep its lore fixed in time. In all 3 editions, it begins after the Last War ends. They change some things, but overall I know the basics, my players know the basics, and we move forward into a world that they transform. Obviously, you can do the same with FR, but the constant changing makes it feel like the world is bigger than the players. The company runs it rather than the table, and the changing is an expression of the control. Keith Baker is so hands off. He created an awesome setting 20 years ago and said, "Have at it!" That commitment has never changed. FR is a mess.
Personally when i look up when did blank happen i dont want it to now be whenever i want because that puts more stress on me making me feel like ive got to fit things in on my own i dunno
"It'll be Canon again once we've making current-day $$ off of the re-writes. Also, making the old stuff non-canon means we can hire people for reasons other than knowing the material."
Also, a lot of that old canon was just... bad. Obviously most of the main stuff is good, but a lot of dumb shit got written into the Realms in previous editions so that they could make more money from a sheer volume of stuff. The ability to just ditch the bad stuff and keep the good stuff and letting DMs decide which is which is nice.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 we can agree "bad" is subjective. We could also likely agree on many things being "bad". I'd assume that they could simply ignore the poorly written stuff. There would only be a problem is there was something that was "bad", but couldn't be ignored. That it actually blocked something new. Nothing I've seen that has been introduced couldnt have fit into existing lore. Well Tortles maybe... But you know what, bring back Spelljammer. Make them a space race. :)
@@monsieurdorgat6864 A lot of good stuff gets thrown it the trash can as well. I'm all in favor for some healthy curation of lore in D&D, to keep it consistent and to address some of the concerns-drow etc. But this isn't healthy curation, it isn't keeping things consistent, and the whole 'slimming down' of the lore has created more problems than it has solved. Hell the whole 'drow controversy' sums a lot of the issues with this direction perfectly. They 'slimmed down' the lore on them-cutting out old drow cities and marginalizing the other members of the Dark Seldarine, pushing Drizzt, Lolth and Menzoberranzan as focal points, that we reached the point of this controversy. Rather tellingly instead of bringing back some of that old lore to reintroduce some nuance, we are getting color-coded drow, a renewed focus on Menzo with the other cites being retconned out and hitherto unknown drow societies introduced in their place. This is just a reboot dressed up in some 'player/dms choice' PR. I can't see this putting any more 'power' into the hands of DMs like me, because 5e is increasingly incompatible with previous editions. If I'm playing a game I don't want my players who are mostly familiar with 5e lore to be confused because I mixed in some stuff that's contradictory with what they know from their 5e books. Consistency and coherency are boons for settings like this.
@@Malvisk Yeah, bad is subjective - which is why I really like the "pick or mix your favorite canon" approach. Eberron integrates this directly, and is much better for it! Honestly I don't mind animal-races as much as arbitrary "oddly colored, single-idea, barely fleshed out civilization" races that were so prolific in 3e. And I guess the point of what they're introducing is that it won't vastly rewrite existing lore, so in a sense you could say they are fitting them into existing lore.
to be fair the only case I know of someone being hired simply for knowing lore was on Doctor Who when at one point they hired an uber fan to find and fix plotholes in the lore. Everyone HATED working wit the guy and he was more trouble than he was worth. I'd rather they hire someone who writes good than someone who read every d&d sourcebook.
I am really conflicted about this. I already assumed most of the people who ran offical content did not care about the bigger timeline, but us connoseurs, it really matters. Forgotten realms is at it's best when it is a cohesive evolving setting, and when they abandon that timeline and evolution, it is heartbreaking.
Forgotten realms is good because of all that's there. You throw that away then most homebrew settings will rise above it. I've not liked most of the 5e adventures, they're all non canon in my campaigns unless the party I'm running has or is playing them. Also USE MORE OF THE PLANET WIZARDS, I WANT KARA-TUR AND ZAKHARA DANG IT.
What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t they go to a new setting? Instead of going back and changing what’s already there they can have unlimited creative liberties if they make a new setting.
Value of the Brand. Even people who don't play table-top RPGs might have heard about the Forgotten Realms thanks to iconic Computer Games like Baldur's Gate or because of Salvatore novels. Do a completely new setting and you don't have that name recognition. So it's basically the same reason why Marvel put Miles Morales in the Spider-Man suit instead of developing a complete new superhero. Or why DC has a whole Bat-family instead of one Batman and a lot of completely unique other heroes.
D&D is a buffet, take as much of what you want, walk past what you don’t. It’s your Fantasy, your imagination, you need no ones approval if it is right or wrong.
It's like a buffet where you need to have a table of at least like 4 people to eat and if you don't know anyone to bring you have to put up with people nagging at you for not eating what they want to eat when they want to eat it.
We have always been able to define our own Canon. That has been a concept promoted by WoTC, TSR and especially Ed Greenwood, for decades. This announcement is not about freeing GMs from a huge amount of Lore. This announcement is about freeing WoTC of the lore. Some of that lore can be seen as problematic give today's politics.
This right here. Can we stop associating real life with the game. Canon actually has non-evil drow on the over world. It’s just the under dark that is known for evil drow kingdoms. Let’s face it. 99% of underdark kingdoms are evil. Just add to the lore and map. Most of Tirol is not filled. It’s not insane to believe that there is drow kingdom on the surface that doesn’t enslave everyone. Add to the lore don’t take away.
@@theperses3692 unclear who your message is for exactly. I agree, with everything you're saying, and will add that I'm disappointed that WoTC didn't go that route of writing new lore that fit within the existing lore. The is old existing lore of drow cities being lost by Lolth to her children's followers. There are a list of drow cities that are only mentioned, but no detail exists. They could have fleshed out an pre-existing city to fit what they want to create. I'd love to be able to disconnect all fiction from reality. Isn't that the point of fiction? Unfortunately fiction must now succumb to today's politics. When you stop and think about it, this isn't new. Old works have always succumbed to the changes in society. Perhaps the difference now is that the change are far more broad? Or perhaps it's actually now affecting fiction that I actually cared about.
I think the problem is not that are problematic things in the lore before, of course they are, the proble is wotc doesnt wanna trouble and is being lazzy. They doesnt wanna resolve the problems ,they doesnt wanna adress then, and most of the time it result in more work to dm. I can give examples but i ddint wanna write another text wall
@@rodrigobueno8652 text walls can be difficult to survive. :) I'll simply reply, WoTC and TSR have produced content in the past that didn't fit canon. We all moved on, few seriously gripped. Now the whole 4e thing, that was a huge deal to the Fandom and WoTC suffered from it as a whole. But really that didn't go counter to "canon", it was just a really badly written story with really bad motives. I openly admit "bad" is my personal opinion, which is by no means meant to be read as a fact.
The Realms lore, and all D&D official worlds, have always been flexible for every table. Every DM and Player having a game set in The Realms always put their own spin on what happened.
@@leatherguru8904 Then you haven't been paying the same game as me. And that's the exact point. No table *must* take the official books in to account. They can, but it's not required. Everything in the rulebook is a guideline at best.
This is exactly why we have generic settings. If 5e had a generic setting - like in AD&D through 3.5 - WotC could totally recon and change all they want without encroaching on premade narrative words such as Greenwood's Forgotten Realms. 4e was the beginning of this whole mess and it has only gotten worse and worse. The Grand History of the Realms IS the forgotten realms.
4e had it's own generic setting to start, the Points of Light setting, it just never was popular enough for people to actually build into a setting despite the interesting things that were being done in it. If anything the mistake was to abandon that setting for the pre-established forgotten realms setting as for other 'generic' settings the default setting for 3.0 was greyhawk, the setting that Gary Gygax started with, and each of the settings which were described as 'generic' actually became settings in their own right with worldbooks in later editions
@@SteveMSteel i totally agree, points of light should have been maybe the default 5e setting and forgotten realms a campaign setting book ie. more in depth sword coast book
WoTC has been stuck on the Sword Coast for far to long. Yes, in pst editions they gave us supplements and campaign books that took place in Maztica, the Anauroch, Thay. But their focus and been on the Sword Coast because of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter and Waterdeep. Menzoberranzan and Icewind Dale's popularity do to excellent books by RA Salvatore further locked them into the area. I think they're missing out on a great opportunity to bring in new creators in say the Sea of Fallen Stars, Halruaa and the lands between. Along with a whole new section of the Underdark to flesh out. I would rather have seen them expand on the Realms rather than nullify its vibrant history.
They already have. The elf lore from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes was very much incompatible with the Drizzt series. Or, well, any FR novel with an elf in it. Which is most of them
comparison to Marvel is not appropriate. Marvel has had its 616 continuity non-stop. And MCU exists as a parallel universe to 616. There is no cannibalizing as a matter of fact, 616 now is a test run for MCU concepts. What wizards doing is silly at best. It's like the Spellplague but even more inept.
@@Jorphdan marvel's Earth-616 was never canceled nor announced non-canon in favor of Earth-199999. And "lore changes" has always been done in-canon. Wizards are being simply lazy and flippant.
My problem with this is that WoTC leave a lot of blanks worth filling in in their sourcebooks and adventures, and them washing their hands of canon-writ-large could easily make filling in those blanks harder for DMs. Previous editions, novels, etc are generally our best sources when 5e materials leave us with questions -- even if we get the information indirectly via the Wikia, reddit, or channels like this. Now we can't even expect a good faith attempt on an author's part to be consistent with any historical events or characters they may include or refer to in their works. For example, when running the Leilon trilogy from the Essentials Kit, I had to look up the history of Chardansearavitriol, Lhammaruntosz, Iniarv, Anauria, and a bunch of other people/places because the adventure gives basically no context at all. What are we supposed to do with callbacks like those when there can be no expectation of an adherence to canon beyond the core 5e books?
I started playing d&d last year without knowing much lore. I played an elf, said that he was several hundred years old. Then I learn all this crazy history like gods walk the earth and spellplague breaking magic that my character would have been alive for. It made me feel very weird about the RP because those things would have affected him in ways that sort of contradict how I have already characterized him. So do I retcon myself or do I ignore the history (the DM hasn't brought any of these events up and I don't think he will. This is all in my head really)
That's really my biggest issue with 5e. It is essentially impossible to play a lot of the character choices, because what's the mind of a person who lived through these two centuries even like!? I'd suggest you chat with your DM about just essentially not using FR lore. 5e isn't really compatible with it anyway.
Just imagine that 100 years is a long time in real life. Lots of things would change and never need to be brought up. I think this is an issue of simply being a creature who has lived a long time in a magic world with big powers conflicting on the reg. Maybe your character doesn't even know those things happened besides the most basic things.
You give me five minutes I'll fix canon and dd in general: 1. Balance flies right out of the window. Classes can be weaker or stronger depending on the level. 2. Levels become 36, and then Immortality. 3. Metaphysics becomes Mistara's metaphysics 3. Wizards max out at 9 spells per level. 4. Netheril never fell. Karsus' Folly is propaganda. 5. You can think Karsus did something wrong, but you are Officially Wrong. 6. Only junk food at the table. 7. No more magic-like powers to all classes. Only Wizards use magic. 8. Those other classes have their professions. Bards play music. Clerics pray very professionally. 9. Fighters smash. Bards can sing too maybe.
What I really want to know about is if the contract Ed greenwood had with TSR that was back door into wizard of the coast still stands. If anyone's unfamiliar at greenwood was the guy that invented forgotten realms before TSR picked it up to make it a campaign setting he had for a long time a contract stated anything he published about forgotten realms must be considered Canon as a result of this they forgotten realms is a really weird place
"If... the lore has been true in every past edition of the game, we think twice about changing it." Well that's just not even close to true. Perhaps "we think twice and go ahead and change it anyways regardless of what the true fans want." Let's remember that Crawford was there for all those wonderful lore-shattering tidbits ranging from the Spellplague ("let's change the whole world and remove entire countries so we have an excuse for Dragonborn"); to turning Succubi into Devils for no reason whatsoever; undoing the Great Wheel cosmology for no reason whatsoever; the orc brouhaha; somehow forgetting that "cute and funny Tasha" is actually an evil witch-queen and demonologist who SLEPT WITH A DEMON LORD AND BIRTHED AN EVIL DEMIGOD ON PURPOSE - her book should be darker than the Book of Vile Darkness; all the way to the current drow idiocy (dark elves were never innately evil, their society was). There's a big difference between "a street name on a map that is relatively unimportant" and "the basic foundations of the universe". The lore of D&D gets worse and worse with each passing year, and although I'm willing to give Crawford full credit for both his enthusiasm and stewarding the game's reach to a larger audience, he's complicit in numerous horrid changes to the lore. Personally, if I were to start a campaign now, there's little doubt it would be set somewhere described in 2e or 3e books (okay, it would totally be Planescape using 2e Sigil/factions with 3.5e cosmology and selected Spelljammer lore, but that's beside the point) and utterly ignore every bit of lore coming out of WotC in the last decade.
It's your table, regardless of what the book says. A young gamer will typically see the book as law. Sometimes older gamers keep that mindset: the canon is not to be altered. But as they get older and have more experience gaming us "elder gamers" are much more free in our tossing or keeping things from books as we like them. I believe that's why some older gamers who played 2E Ravenloft were so unhappy with the 5E Ravenloft. I think Wizards/Hasbro as a company is developing the books/canon knowing a young adolescent or teenage gamer is likely to take the book canon as gospel while us "elder gamers" who still have our 2E Ravenloft materials will take what we like from the book and make our table the most horrific and traumatic or not as we desire. People frequently ask things online like "Who would be in charge of this part of Cormyr now?" And the answer, really, is: It's you're table dude, whoever you want to be in charge is in charge.
The main reason that led me to create a homebrew world was the burden that I thought I had to understand and study the forgotten realms lore to be able to run anything. In reality, the fine intricacies and story of races and gods matters very little to the player. Now I now that I could just pick any small town and create any conflict from there, and just maybe research the web for the name of the town to know the name of taverns, most common races and trivia.
I understand in different media types, book and games etc, but in RPG's, yes your own campaign has it's own canon, but lets not change historical published Campaign canon
This section sums it up completely. This was the idea way back when I started playing D&D in 1983 and Chris sums it up perfectly here. "It can also be said that every campaign that’s ever been run in any of our published settings has its own canon. Your version of the Forgotten Realms has its own canon, which doesn’t make it any less valid than anyone else’s version. Elminster might be a lich in your Forgotten Realms campaign. Elminster might be a miniature giant space hamster in mine-both are acceptable and awesome."
Jorphdan, your channel is my go-to for brainstorming and prepping upcoming sessions for my players. I have always taken the lore or cannon about the topic I am researching, and then modified it to make it my own. Your work and inclusion of the various information from all of the different editions of the world of D&D is superb.
I totally agree with you, Jorphdan, they are creatives and they don't want to justify everything they write. They know all the facts, but that leaves very little wiggle room for adventures and changes. Thats 54 years of history and lore and its almost impossible to come up with much without it interfering with some of that lore, so they're not being limited by it anymore. Good. I still use the lore for inspiration and entertainment, but when I write my home game interferes with lore and one of my 3 FR historian players mention it, I wave my hand, say "Because.... magic". Thats what they're saying, too.
2 things. 1 this reminds me of the death of the Star Wars EU. 2 this must be why we have gone months with out a lore you should know segment on Dragon Talk.
TL;DNR: please continue your work, you’re exceptional at what you do, influence all of us as players and GMs for the better and you’re a lore master. WotC are simply saying; “make your own canon,” so let’s do that together! Let me start by saying I genuinely hope that you’re not insinuating that you’d cease making videos on FR or general DND lore because you’re an incredibly talented UA-cam fantasy academic, I can say for myself as I’m sure most of us, you’ve HANDEDLY gotten me into NUMEROUS forgotten realms novels but much more importantly, have taught us all about so much history. I’m planning on FINALLY running my home brew I’ve been sitting on for almost five years because “it’s just not ready,” and finally found my cherry on the ice cream Sunday because of your videos on the outer planes. I planned on piggy-backing my favorite FR author and using Azuth v Asmodeus in the same body but couldn’t figure out how to make a third option to not pick either but save both until you taught us about Anubis being the reaper and defender of the dead gods. It’s perfect. You’re a lore master. Not a canon writer. Please continue your labor so long as it brings you joy and we’ll continue to devour faster than you can say “black pudding.”
I use this channel for lore not canon. I'll be honest I cannot remember all the gods and linking your videos to my players has been a godsend. It's super important to remember that from the original box set's 'DM's Sourcebook of the Realms' Ed Greenwood stated in the first box set that the Realms was now 'ours' and not his (page 4). Also on page 6, Using the FR Campaign Setting - Setting up a campaign, it's stated "Each FR campaign should be different ..." you can read the entire quote from the book if you want but TLDR is that each person will run this setting differently and that's not wrong. This should be extremely evident to anyone who's read an official product from D&D's inception when they've almost always had a section for how to use this product in X setting. I mean even Mercer stated this in his 2 campaign books and in interviews that people should and could run different stuff in his world. I myself have been running FR for something around 25 years and my canon is completely different especially since I read as a kid hey make your own stuff as stated above. An example of how I've done this is most recently (edition wise) our group failed to kill Tiamat in Tyranny of Dragons. I made this completely effect the Sword Coast until later adventurer's could solve that problem which was 'fixed' around/by the time I slotted in and ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. The coast is rebuilding and cultists are still around due to the success they had but Tiamat is now dead 2 campaigns later, now though a prominent force/structure is still around. It's been akin to adding a new state/country to the land. Lastly I will say this. Yes I do try and link in the many novels and sourcebook's I've collected and read over the years. Also from time to time I have cameos because I and my players enjoy them. However my canon is distinctly different than something Grubb, Niles, Ward, Greenwood or Salvatore would have written or likely even run as a campaign if they were to. I make sure my players understand this and give them lore as addendums in my sessions to help them understand my realms and the structure behind things. Is the lore the same - mostly, is the canon certainly not.
Corporations don’t care about lore and canon, because from a monetary standpoint, they just want to sell you a “playset” without any history to it. Essentially, history might make history that certain people don’t like, because history has unpleasant parts. A lot of people today just want to make everything completely benign or idealistic. This, of course, makes lore completely unnecessary from a corporate standpoint. History might offend, so get rid of it.
This affects far more than FR, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was a complete reboot of the setting. The little nods to the past in it are largely pointless. The setting has no history (doesn't even have a timeline anymore) and to be honest was turned more into a "how to do horror stories" book than a setting. Eberron has always had the time line never advances stance (adventures and novels are only canon if the DM wants them to be) and so has been unaffected. All the classic settings are going to get the Ravenloft treatment and because of that I know that I do not need to buy any of the future setting books for something I already own. If it is a setting I never bought back in 2e then it might be worth a look. Would not mind picking up Birthright if it has mass combat rules for example.
Something about it saddens me and makes me uncomfortable. I appreciate the idea that DMs should change stuff for their home game, but I don't think that means the idea of "canon" is irrelevant. If the world has a rich history that nobody knows in full, it feels very real to me. Saying "who cares whether it exists or not" really strips away the legitimacy for me. I understand that keeping a strict canon is basically impossible (and that retcons aren't anything new), but it still feels kinda sad to say "we don't have a canon, this world is whatever you want it to be." On the one hand that's easy and inclusive - but on the other hand, you're also saying the world's history doesn't matter. It's hard to put these thoughts into words. This somehow has a similar vibe as the Drow retcon. Both are heavy-handed changes to address things which I'm not even fully convinced are problems. They also both increase mass market appeal quite significantly, which I think is part of why they feel uncomfortable. They do kind of *feel* like old canon is being thrown out so more people will buy the game - even if that's not the case. Really hard for me to solidify my opinion on it.
@@ramadansteve1715 see, I've never gotten this. Imo, drow being evil doesn't make them less interesting, it makes them *more* interesting. Now you get to build a society where almost all of its members are evil - we don't have that on earth and it's really interesting. It also adds lots of great adventuring hooks. Plus, the evil Drow aesthetic is so cool! Spindly silver threads, lots of spider motifs, all this menacing black/white/silver coloration with the occasional shock of red? I love it. And the evil Drow make the good drow so much more interesting. Contrary to popular belief, Drizzt is not the only good drow; there's lots of great room for good aligned Drow NPCs and even more for good aligned Drow characters (seriously, Drizzt completely overshadows Eilistraee). But the delimma of "do we trust the Drow in the Underdark" is an interesting one. Unlike orcs and goblins, which I normally see as inherantly, genetically evil, Drow are only evil because their society forces those values. To me, that makes the "Drow racism" storyline far more compelling and legitimate than the other evil species.
@@natekite7532 I don't see it tbh. To me a pretty much all evil race, whether drow or orc or goblin, is so boring and lazy from a world building strand point. Mostly because it always feels like it's less so their society forcing them to be evil and moreso just lolth. Just like how gruumsh is the only reason orcs are evil. It turns what could be a fascinating race who developed unique customs to adapt to their environment into scary baddies for the players to fight and loot. Hell even keeping the spider aesthetic, I'd just have them develop a symbiotic relationship with spiders not because they're both evil but from just wanting to survive in an incredibly hostile environment. It makes perfect sense and it doesn't burden the race or DM with alignment issues. That opens the door to so many more plot hooks too. Silk farmers with an umber hulk problem, riding a spider through a drow city to find a guide through the lower tunnels, bartering surface items for lavish silk goods etc I far prefer Eberron's drow, who have a myriad of cultures all based on an almost amazonian tribal aesthetic. It gives you a chance to play with multiple philosophies, conflict between drow and in my opinion a FAR more interesting history than "lolth gave them a spider fetish". And even if you need them in an antagonistic role you could have an incredibly xenophobic tribe, or perhaps the players unknowingly trespassed onto a sacred site. It might just be me rapidly falling out of love with FR, but I'm definitely getting burnt on the "evil bad guy race" trope
@@natekite7532 I am someone who's all for adding nuance, diversity and inclusivity to D&D and its perception of evil, good and how it affects certain groups of people, and I too think the retcon was the wrong way to do it. I think the WotC should have expanded upon what they had in 5e, especially after the Rage of Demons, in which Loth essentially sets the Demon Princes upon the Drow to usurp a larger part of the Abyss. This could have made for an interesting story where more and more Drow of the Underdark were sick of Loth, where their fear for her was outweighed by their disgust for her. You don't even need to make the drow 'Good', you can also make them more neutral as they try and find other places to go to. Yes, Eilistraee provides an easy answer, but honestly between 'Drow are meant to be bad' and 'Drow can actually be sweet as sugar and good' there's much more territory to explore, which allows for the same creativity as creating new factions for Drow, but you'd at least also take on the challenge of tying it into the narrative you've created.
I'm kind of in a weird place about this one. I pretty much only ever play in homebrew settings, so these changes won't affect me much. However, I did grow up reading the forgotten realms books, and playing in that world really appeals to me. It's cool that they're freeing we DMs to ease off from a strict cannon, but I thought we had already been pretty thoroughly encouraged to do just that. If you were a complete newb who picked up the core rulebooks, I think it'd be pretty hard to even figure out what the forgotten realms setting and canon even are. I think what we needed was more tools to help us run in canon, not permission to throw it out.
For a sort of multi-author story in a single setting, take a look at the Thieves' World (1978) series editing by Robert Lynn Asprin. The group did a pretty good job of managing that over 10 years.
I mean they could just make their own world it's generally the whole premises of homebrew but the forgotten realms setting is kind of based off of someone else's world.
I think most D&D players who use the Realms as a campaign world have always used what they wanted and changed things. Our group has played in the Realms since 2ed and we still play 3.5ed. In our world the Spell Plague never happened. It's still the 1370s in our version.
@@Jorphdan Barry Manilow becomes a lich so he can continue performing forever and the ghost of Elvis is trying to come back to reclaim his rightful throne.
Turns out the core of Mechanus is a RadioShack from our world that got infused with magic and Primus was a store manager who couldn't let go of his store after it went out of business.
Yeah WotC needs to hire him or keep him on retainer. He's a big reason why I get deeper and deeper into the hobby$$$. Even just the spirit of fascination and wonder he embues equates to dollars spent from me.
Everyone I think agrees that your table is your own world. Lore drops from Wizards of the coast and Lore Scribes such as yourself are used to inspire ideas at the table, not meant to hold us hostage to a single concept on the history of the world. You won't ever be out of a job until you've literally catalogued the entire universe. And even then you can always expand or touchup/update videos. Canon rewrites and muddied lore won't hurt you as much as you think.
What WotC is officially doing is how I've unofficially handled the D&D lore since forever. Everything that is Canon is optional. Use it in your campaign or don't. It's been that way always. But kudos to WotC for encouraging that.
Vampire the masquerade did something like this. Then they start a new line with different background and lore. It ended up causing the game to die off quickly. I thought that it was always assumed that if you want to change something, anything, change it.
I think this is a smart move. I like that Keith Baker never advances the Eberron timeline. I'd like to see a new FR sourcebook that doesn't try to establish an airtight history but that tries to put together a setting with an interesting central tension because the FR could use more focused themes imo.
I really liked Perkins' examples and the guiding principles that they mentioned. Ultimately, why should they feel constrained by books made in the 1980s and 90s? When it comes to big changes to the lore of the Realms - is Asmodeus now a god?, are there Open Lords of Waterdeep still?, etc., they have the opportunity to introduce those changes during an adventure or new sourcebook. Big changes like that ARE new canon without it feeling like a retcon, because it's not retroactive. When it comes to the small changes, like Slut Street being rightfully removed, they shouldn't feel constrained. If you, as the DM, really liked that as the street's name, then maybe it's a nickname in universe or maybe you just ignore the changes. I have the right to think you're being weird about that one, but other small changes don't matter. Ultimately, their newer perspective allows them to make sensible big changes and make small changes when needed. They don't have to be a slave to older writers. Their guiding principles generally work well.
Have any of you forgotten about Eilistraee? And in R.A. Salvatore's novels and the Baldur's Gate games, they always hinted the fact that the Drow we're not born evil, that most of them have been physically and/or psychologically beaten to submission to be evil. Look at Viconia's romance arc in the Baldur's Gate games and you'll see I'm not joking.
"Let's talk about canon and the future of Dungeons and Dragons." Oh this is gonna get SPICY. Edit: Also is that bookmark to 5e Tools I spy? I see JorPHdan is a person of culture as well.
Okay, I have to admit that several years ago I would have been really upset at these changes...but the logistics of trying to maintain a singular canon across various editions, companies, staff, novels, RPGS, media....that's just impossible. Ultimately, each Dungeon Master is going to have their own version and history and that's okay. No one plays with the exact same set of rules or interpretations, so why should that be any different for the setting's history. For smaller companies with a singular setting, sure that makes it a lot easier, but imagine trying to make a new setting book and going back over 30+ years of material so you don't contradict previous lore. Change happens, as D&D players we should know that better than anyone. The older lore is still there, use what you want and adapt the rest
@@Gunstling Yeah I agree, I don’t like the Drow lore changes… so I’m just not going to use it, or I’m going to alter the elements I’m not a fan of until it’s in a form that I find more interesting. Lore changes in the grand scheme of things doesn’t matter if you’re a DM, you have ultimate power to make whatever changes you want.
@@InquisitorThomas Precisely! I am not a fan either...so I won't use them. Or I'll adapt them as needed. Chris Perkins isn't going to come down to our tables and flip them just because we play differently. There's plenty of room at the table for all takes, as long we we're being respectful
@@Gunstling I disagree. I don’t think it’s difficult, you progress the story forward in time. There are certainly difficulties when WoTC introduces completely new concepts, influx of “Good” Drow, or new races. Warforged, Tortles, Dragonborn. That just takes being creative. I strongly believe this move is really based in the politics of the day. WoTC is making a sound business decision to distance themselves from problematic lore due to today’s and possible future politics.
@@Malvisk I don't fully disagree with you, a company as large and successful as WotC could absolutely afford to staff a team whose sole purpose is Lore and to act as advisors when new content is created, but I think you also touched on an important point regarding sound business decisions, and a Lore Team would be a phenomenal increase to overall quality but would the Realms be as marketable? Overall, my personal opinion is that races with problematic origins or concepts have outgrown that beginning anyway. I think it goes beyond addressing it as politics though, if orcs actually started as a racist analogue for certain ethnicities, then that absolutely needs to be changed. Bigotry has no place in the foundations of our game itself, but like I said I think they've already outgrown anything that might have been a throwback to that anyway.
What they SHOULD have done was had a secret enclave of Drow what are those that where saved by Eilistree be discovered. Eilistree has been saving the Drow one/two at a time since they first fell to Lothe's corruption
I figured… that the point was each edition was its own understanding the universe. It’s why fourth edition attempted to do drastically so much different shit. Each edition both pushes the history and changes the past because they’re supposed to be resets.
The change of canon between 3.5 and 4.0 is also due to lore characters becoming too powerful. Elminster, the Sisters, Blackstaff, Drizt and his posse and others were omnipresent and OP. Why send a party of low to mid level resolve a problem( that will took time) when 1 or 2 OP can go there and do that in 5mns.
That's never how it worked. Each edition was cannon at a time but they also had different lore events that changed the multiverse and pantheons and shit. I mean you could've learned that from watching this channel FFS.
@@marcuskylemarcuskyle222 You know actual gods have always existed right? By that logic why should any adventure need to happen if a god could've always solved any problem?
@@youcantbeatk7006 Gods and mortals that are OP( because they're the world creator/DM( Elminster/Greenwood) character and can be used as deus ex machina in case your players go SNAFU) is different. Gods in FR are not allowed to directly intervene and most of the time have more important things to care about than puny mortals. The fact that Greenwood accepted 4.0 and all its shenanigans( to be polite) as long as Elminster is still around add to the no more, thank you very much I felt at the time for 4.0.
Great video! I think one of the advantages of my Rip Van WInkle-ing from my 1e days in the ‘80’s to picking up with 5e about 8 months ago is that I missed a lot of the chaos bought about by WotC/TSR decisions regarding canon and IP stewardship, so I don’t have any real attachment to the lore created by the the novels or published adventures. As a DM, I see this stuff as a toy box from which I can pick and choose at my discretion. I’m grateful for all of the work that the authors have done because it makes my job much easier, but I don’t consider myself obligated to adhere to it at my table.
I love having your channel, it's been a great source of inspiration and provides me a solid foundation for placing my stories within the Realms. PLEASE continue providing lore and canonical concepts!
That Cannon is optional is nothing new, With Traveller the history has always been optional, Yea, Traveller the new age was the least liked and when Mongoose took up the license they moved the timeline back to the third imperium. And I have a few games where the authors state that the player can run campaigns with or without the established history of the game world.
I don't think I've run campaigns that were long enough where deep adherence to canon was important. I think like many DMs out there, I enjoy reading and learning about D&D lore but recognize that many of my players won't know 1/10th of it and that's fine. The canon and lore (for me, this is just an opinion) is there to spark imagination, give me plot hooks, etc.
12:30 you hit the key point of why many people get upset when you talk about invalidating lore - its become part of the mythological history of something really important to a lot of people. Cancelling that really pisses some people off.
That is on the people though. D&D is not Game of Thrones or LotR. It is a game system that changes each edition. Lore is different than canon. You can talk about the history and how a monster was is 2ed but it has no bearing for 5ed. But you can do anything for YOUR table
I think using Marvel Studios as an example can lead to some issues. In theory, they are two separate universes with two separate lore. But, the success of the movies has lead to the comics retconning their lore, usually to the bane of the comic book fans. For example, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not Magneto's children anymore. Marvel comics did a lot to undermine the X-men franchises in their comics. Part of this was retconning Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch's origins so they were made by the High Evolutionary. Moves like this are highly unpopular. But, comic book companies seem to believe they need to rewrite origins of characters to match their movie counterparts. I don't think this is analogous to D&D though (although, I can see some people who are against the changes making that argument).
I think not having some base "canon" lore has made my life harder than easier, there's barely anything official to base myself on, and if I just make it up new campaigns tend to either force me to retract my initial interpretation, or work extra to adapt the new book to my established lore. Ever since I started to use the wikis with the old lore everything became so much easier, I homebrew a lot of lore, but having the base canon saves me a lot of having to start from scratch. Having official lore is not a burden on me at all as long as it is ok for me to change, which has always been the case.
I like the evolution of the forgotten realms (one of the reasons I prefer it to Eberron). I think they should keep it up, but keep emphasizing what they always have been- that you can make your own forgotten realms as the DM and take as much or as little from the canon lore as you like.
Running Rime if the Frostmaiden as my 1st Forgotten Realms campaign and have been prepping with your help on the lore. The interconnection of adventures and history is significant and hope to have my players explore more. Keep up the good stuff
As an Old School D&D player since AD&D, I kind of like both ideas? Of course I love the Lore that has been, won't change that at my table. Having the Lore open for new players would also be nice.
In my old campaign we played in Halruaa and the Shining South, with LOTS of trips to the outer Planes. We didn't do the Spellplague, but had a threat from the Sea and the Snake people invasion to contend with. Loved it.
Great video! I like how you said that they will provide an outline, and you as the DM can do what you wish to maximize fun. I love lore, so I would've loved a 5E sourcebook filled with lore and history and demographics, but I know that's not always good for making a game. I agree that I read lore and get inspired to make a cool adventure based on some nugget of lore or history, so this announcement doesn't change that and cements that WOTC is happy to let us DMs be inspired and do what we see fit. Still want a faerun-wide sourcebook though 😉
A single book would be too big, but definitely a book like the Sword Coast's guide, for the other regions would be lovely. And an updated map of Toril for 5e, too, for christ's sake..
I use the lore, all the lore, to fill in details. What I don't do is use it as limits. Drow are "inherently evil"? Well, Drizzt proved that wasn't true decades ago, for one. And maybe there simply isn't as much known about dark elves as people think. After all, most people don't know the true nature of Asmodeus, or what caused The Mourning, or where the Lady of Pain came from and what she does. And that's fine. It's just great to have all that old-edition data to flavor the world, but there's no reason to be restricted by it.
So true! I've run my same homebrew setting since the early 90s. I can't fathom why there's such slavish devotion to a commercial product like FR when the whole point of D&D was to create a framework where a DM and the players could collaboratively create together. It's like trying to be a chef but using nothing but prepackaged foods & mixes.
Apologies for the Zombie post. From the 1st edition campaign "Cormanthyr Empire of the Elves": p.7 Just as each plane of existence contains an infinite amount of space, each plane of existence is also permeated (or enveloped, depending on one s point of view) with an infinite amount of time. Therefore, alternate timelines do exist; in fact, each individual game campaign played in the FORGOTTEN REALMS counts as a distinct and separate timeline. Travel between one timeline and another, no matter what plane of existence a traveler might be on, is impossible, even for wishes and gods (who would not choose to do so, since they cannot perceive such alternate times, only the timeline they occupy)
My take on this, what I enjoy, and how I run my campaigns is that I base my game on FR lore up until The Second Sundering as best as possible (though I tend to ignore a lot of the spell plague) and then I pick and choose 5e lore that fits my table and build other things on top of older (1e, 2e, 3e) lore.
As a major lore junkie, I want you to keep making videos. I like the idea of an evolving canon, but I understand how difficult that could be (My homebrew eberron canon has been evolving over the course of 6-7 campaigns and about 50 years in game time, and that's difficult enough for me to keep up with, without including someone else making stuff happen!)
You scared me right away by reading the title. You are a Lore Master and no matter what you are an amazing source for DMs' New and Old for Lore and inspiration! I would love to run a game for you; just because you know Lore does not mean you know what is going to happen! This is D&D and anything can happen! Goodluck my Friend!
Oh also I do believe that we should continue going forward in the timeline and less of going backward. Instead of attempting to fix something from before just as they did since 3.5 they changed stat blocks etc, things evolve. Races can evolve as well as the worlds themselves.
I'm a giant Lore nerd, and my favorite place and history anywhere in any fantasy, Sci fi, horror, etc. Setting is The Forgotten realms. I've been reading them since childhood, and I've read almost everything R.A. Salvatore has ever written, he's my favorite author followed by Tracy Hickman and Margret Weiss (Dragonlance). Part of the great thing about Cannon is that it's a reference point in or out of game. Good or bad, with all its blotches and screw ups, it is what it is and just like any rule of the game, part of the fun is finding out how to deal with it and make great stories, either because of or in spite of it. And that's OK. It shows the growth of the human race when referring to actual history. And it shows the growth of a product, the people who love it, and the amount of material for newbies to dig into when it comes to a histoy like this. The problem I have with this is making Faerun "like marvel" is kinda redundant in my opinion because ALL OF D&D is like Marvel. In the sense that there's lots of different worlds in the multiverse So if we use their example, then faerun is universe 616 and Eberron is universe 312 and Borovia or Strixhaven or Krynn (Dragonlance) is a different one. So you can look at universe 616 and know what's going on there. This is like saying there's a bunch of different "sub-universes" within 616 or somthing. Now I get u can just use the established lore in a given campaign and not use the reestablished drow or orc or whatever lore, but it makes it difficult. I think for example trying to make orcs less racially controversial is great, although personally because I've never made that connection myself, I think of them as green and you really do want a "bad guy" race, it's not somthing that ever bothered me. But I also recognize I may not get that because I'm white and there may be an aspect of my privilege there, not having seen somthing as racially problematic doesn't mean it doesn't exist and I respect that completely. Idk, this is a long winded way of saying that I do think there should be a core established cannon, maybe with tangential issues of lesser import able to be fiddled with. But then the issue becomes where do you draw the line. I don't want to read about drizzt flying in an efreeti airship in calimshan in a given year when I know darn well he was wading through muck in the troll Moores trying to get to longsaddle at that time. I'm probably in the minority though lol. Thoughts?
I think dm can just as easily use the fact that their game doesn’t match lore as part of the adventure. It HASNT been enough time for the wand of orcus to return so why is it back? It’s part of the deeper mystery. That’s the game.
That was my thought too as soon as he said it. "Well, if the Wand of Orcus hasn't had enough time to reform, but it HAS re-formed, what other crazy shenanigans could be causing that?!"
The beauty of running a premade campaign or your own homebrew is; if you as a DM want something in your world, or don't like something else, it is your choice, it is your table. You as a DM are not beholden to the "Cannon" set forth by prior adventures. Every world is different, every DM is going to respond to a players actions differently. As long as your heart is in it, that is all that matters. If Drow at your table are inherently evil, then that is what they are, and that is at your table. If not all Chromatic Dragons are evil because of something you thought of, that is also at your table. Playing D&D is supposed to be FUN, not a chore. Great video.
Sorry.. I'm a year late watching this video. I left development of the realms way back in 3.5. When I came back to do a screenplay for a FR Netflix series I was distraught over spell plague & how the realms changed. Netheril was a huge part of my development and years before the Shade came back I wrote literally 100s of pages of a cadre of mages who sought to bring ancient Netheril back. My screenplay is based in DR1371 right before the events that brought the Shadovar back. This screenplay is extremely ambitious in that it gives an interpretation of the Realms that i hope fans will enjoy. I refuse to accept this "change" (spell plague). The story doesn't change pre-DR1371 LORE. It's dark & serious. Not this abomination that Pine is starring in. Hopefully it will be entertaining & successful. I'm sure many fans out there didn't like the impact & rejected it so I'm doing a rewrite of those events. Thanks Jorphdan for all your efforts. Love the channel!
Ok side bar here. In Comics the history of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver has always been murky. Originally there were NOT Magneto's kids, then that was retconned to make them his children. Most recently they retconned it again, such that they were not, they were artificially induced mutants (I think) because of the high evolutionary. They are doing something with the Scarlet Witch and Mutants again, so I feel a retcon is on the horizon again . Ultimately, retcons are often used to fix mistakes, and to clarify things, but also to push a story in the way people writing want it to go. Its a staple of Comics. The history of TTRPG is not much different, though often less flashy. So I am guessing Wizards of the Coast are wishing to cash in on the superhero craze on some levels, as ttRPG is suddenly very acceptable in the main stream, and they need to monopolize this. Much of this is tied into the "no race is evil" thing that has been going around. A better way to do that is "societies can be evil, but no one is inherently so". Any way I digress
I love your channel because it is showing us how everything is connected or how they have been portrayed. Your videos have inspired me to use the subjects in a better way.
Yeah I think it's a great thing to have a base lore resource. We all know we can really do what they want with it :) My only rebuttal about the gods having stats discussion is they only have stats on their avatars. You can't kill gods as a mortal. You needed to be the same power level or higher to kill and absorb a God's power. So a lesser power could not kill a greater power though they could kill their Avatar. So it's all really like a moot point and I'm glad that rime of the frost made and has a couple of different avatars in it. But what makes it even more of a moot point is that the avatars were always crazy levels. I think levels in the 60 or more range
There's already a multiverse foundation to all of this... We got Earth, Oerth, Toril, Abeir, and now whatever this is new initiative is. The multiverse is rich, and as long as any particular flavor of it has a community to support it, it'll continue on.
I'm with you Jorphdan, I LOVE digging into lore and half the fun of my campaign is researching it all. That said I've always remained flexible in my game because... Players are unpredictable and im not the one REALLY in control. I really liked how they provided a canonical story beat to retcon things (second sundering) as it gave us something to work with. I'd personally prefer them too continue as they have been, but launch a big campaign to teach people that they don't need to be TIED to strict cannon
I really don't care what Wizards do. I moved my campaign to the Sword Coast because of the great maps, I'm staying. Changes to history on Drow and Dragons will be addressed as it is presented. If I don't like a change I shall simply ignore it. Good video, thanks.
Well, we have Salvatore and Greenwood on Drows.
Former not having Eilistraee so that Drizzt could be “special”, I mean if he was in Waterdeep, he can ask worshippers for help depending if they can tolerate their nudism.
Drizzt Do’Urden is a secret Chosen of Lolth. Creating chaos wherever he goes in Drow society.
@@LordBrittish But that part is disliked by online folks due to cementing his status as "mary sue".
Come to think about Eilistraee helping him get to Calimshan idea since Calimshan practiced slavery and Eilistraee worshippers are against it (plus operating underground railroads), so they would not be welcome there aside from "dark elf nudist dancers" aside from asking favors from amiable ship captains to transport Drizzt without questions.
@@LordBrittish And Favored by Mieliki balanced out by his wife Catti-Brie Chosen of Mielikki
@@powerist209 Those who say that haven't read the books or ignore it outright. Lolth's favor isn't exactly a boon to Drizzt. R.A. Salvatore made Drow strong and scary in general and Drizzt was trained by the best and became the best in their society. Drow Society isn't exactly pleasant growing up and he has failed in his adventures, I'd say that's the farthest thing from a Mary Sue.
Ed Greenwood is a mad genius. I purchased the Forgotten Realms grey box back in 1987 I've loved it ever since. Even in the box set there was so much lore a DM couldn't possibly use it all. There's only so much an adventurer can see or do in this space.
Well, unfortunately...there are "orgies festival, casual incest with birth control, and brothels in every towns of Sword Coast".
Still even if TSR and WoTC (wisely) omitted it (now being okay with homosexuality), he does show his new-age free love (especially Eilistraee, and I think Cleric Quartet had one of the characters masturbating in public bath).
@@powerist209 mnu
There is a difference between “lore” and “canon”. Your channel is great because it provides a ton of inspiration. I agree that freeing up DMs to play with their own “canon” allows them to define the world in their terms. As far as WotC they can do whatever; I’ll run my tables in the way that I think best suits my players.
This is literally the default state of all ttrpg play though....
And that's exactly how it should be
*The difference between lore& canon is so small , it is actually borderline irrelevant .*
@@nickm9102 What are you even talking about. The default state of play for 99% of customers is essentially homebrew. That's what I'm saying.
This guy gets it. "Canon" has always been fluid from the moment there were two different D&D groups going on at once. The fact that we can even refer to a collected canon between all games in Forgotten Realms is kind of a silly concept. The way I see it, D&D lore is a suggested structure of information that is important for DMs to have it their disposal, but not so vital that they adhere to what is considered to be "canon." All players, DMs, writers, and game devs are working together to create this vast and rich trove of information for any particular discrete group to employ and create their own world and "canon". This has been the tradition from the very start of the game.
Jorphdan, you offer and excellent service by funneling down the different interpretations into a consumable format that allows me (and countless other dms no doubt) to prepare for their games in a much more efficient (and by extension healthy) way. Keep it up!
Please keep making lore videos. I really enjoy them. People will use what they want, that is what makes D&D awesome. IMO I think lore and history are important to good storytelling.
I agree, ultimately whether or not any of this is canon is irrelevant. What’s relevant is if the lore inspires cool worldbuilding ideas and plots for your games, take the best elements from the old and the new and throw away what doesn’t work.
"...Knowledge of our world is to be nurtured like a precious flower, for it is the most precious thing we have. Wherefore guard the word written and heed words unwritten - and set them down ere they fade... Learn then, well, the arts of reading, writing, and listening true, and they will lead you to the greatest art of all: understanding." - Alaundo of Candlekeep
As far as I know, there are A LOT of things in Forgotten Realms that have been very consistent throughout the different versions of its system. This is a huge change, and I don't know how I actually feel about it or what it will entail.
To me, changing the drow in such a major way by saying that there have ALWAYS been three major factions is very cheap. It would've been better if they had made it so the two new factions are formed from the escapees of Lollth's enslavement and are only now emerging.
Sadly it seems that character creation is dnd is accessorizing your characters visible identity and the new influx of players don’t want consequences for those things. Players don’t want to be a drow or whatever other evil race, they want the aesthetic of it because that’s all it is in our real world. The fantasy world must oblige their sensibilities to move units. The existence of good and evil as objectively real forces in the dnd world has been seen as off putting so morality in universe is dictated by “the player characters and those that agree with them are the good guys and the things they do are good because the good guys are doing them until the majority of players disapprove.”
@@II-wu7mx This is what I'm noticing also.
@@II-wu7mx Ignore these new people. They don't know what it means to role play.
@@MsGhoulz yeah but the problem there is that if the company WOTC or Hasbro cater to them by poor-George-Orwelling or Fahrenheit-451ing the Realms or character standards or anything else, then all the stock material - that once provided beautiful, rich, deep content will be elided. And it will turn into much harder, time-consuming work for old GMs or new ones to re-import the old material... especially if the new-boot universe actively contradicts the history.
It happened to Star Wars and Star Trek and Doctor Who and DC comics and TRON... and now they're coming for the Realms... that now supposedly form the bedrock of D&D from what, 4e onwards?
Saw a thread on D&D Beyond. Apparently Xanathar's Guide talks about cost of weekly services or goods. Thread asked "but the Realms don't have weeks they have tendays, which do you pick?".
The idiot who wrote that piece doesn't seem to know the Realms very well. Would've taken one single sentence to suggest "call them the same" or "adjust up by half". The thread suggested "follow the rules of the campaign world".
a) 50% adjustment or not, still?
b) but the Realms is meant to be default.
c) FFS, Xanathar is a denizen of the damned Realms.
d) one sentence is all it would've taken. And the "professionals" (HAHAHAHAHA) writing couldn't be bothered or worse... didn't realise it was necessary.
So screw WOTC and all their apologists. We're doomed. Time to go mad OSR or 3e SRD or somethin'...
they didn't really change anything they added a new dimension to pre existing lore. there is a reason that so much of the continent of faerun is mostly unknown and such a large amount of attention is focused on one corner. it's so that they can introduce new ideas and concepts without having to do much explaining for the how's or why's. it's just oh this is a new area and this is how things work over here. this is the societal structure, this is the source of power they draw upon for their unique abilities, etc. it's been going on since the beginning of the forgotten realms. no one is saying you can't play an evil drow. and there have ALWAYS been different factions of drow. there is a city called damarath or something like that where half drow ruled the city. there have always been bands of drow living in the forests of the surface world. jarlaxle remade the city of luskan and everyone knows it. why is the idea that this new city was discovered under a glacier at the north pole, where the drow are (arguably) less evil, but still pretty fucked up, soooo offensive to yall?
Canon and lore matter,some dm's can make changes but lore is important to the world and its history from the characters that built it up and the places and events that shape the world, keep doing this I feel it's important
History is important in both reality and a fictional world. If nothing can be considered canon anymore, then that means 10 or 15 years from now, the D&D novels, comic books and games that will be released in the near future will be eventually discarded too.
D&D is not Game of thrones or Harry Potter it's a game that changes every edition
@@staticcharm3808 Do the world's of those stories not change every book?
To be fair, Baldurs Gate for example wasn't exactly Canon (until they made a horrible novelization), same with a bunch of other stuff. Canon fluidity has always been a thing in FR...which is why I rejected the Spellplague and I will reject this Drow thing.
In my FR the Drow had fought three major wars against the surface after the Crown Wars, this stuff simply doesn't fit.
@@TheBayzent You need to get updated. The horrible novelizations of the Baldur's Gate series you mentioned are not canon after all for these reasons: In the novels, Minsc had hair and a beard, contradicting the source material. And leading up to the release of Baldur's Gate 3, there are comic book series that reveal how Minsc and his hamster Boo are alive even though more than 100 years have passed between Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate 3, and Minsc does not have hair and a beard!
It is the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 that are canon because in the comic books about Minsc and Boo being brought into the 5th edition era of the Forgotten Realms, they meet a moon elf wild mage named Delina who looks like Neera from the Enhanced Editions, heck even Minsc thinks she is Neera!
On top of this, datamined info from Baldur's Gate 3 hint that Jaheira will be in the game. How does this make the novels of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 not canon? Jaheira DIED in the novels! She was killed by Sarevok in the end of the first novel, she was resurrected in the Shadows of Amn novel, and she got permanently killed of in the Throne of Bhaal novel by the Bhaalspawn blue dragon Abazigal. Plus, in the novels, she worshiped Mielikki, which is not who druids worship at all, but in the games she worships Silvanus.
only thing is that i will most likely ignore most of the new stuff.
100%
The nice thing is that you're allowed to do that.
I'm going to probably ignore like 60% of the old stuff, because I know it and personally don't think all of it is very good.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 ha i know only around 20% and that's the stuff i only really care about.
I have been ignoring stuff for years now, in my defense, back then, I didn’t know it was illegal, luckily we got the writers blessing, such good guys!
Cannot be bothered. Any of my players know I will not be doing anything of the new stuff and they can vote with their feet - but I suspect they won't ;)
15:00 I don't mind them changing the realms or changing any single one of their settings. What annoys me is their attempts to harmonise their settings. We like settings like Eberron because it is different. If you make the forgotten realms like Eberron or Eberron like the forgotten realm then that is lost.
Of course there are individual things you can import from one to the other. Like Eberrons orcs being imported into DnD in general. But making every setting a derivation from some original world is a very big step, and I don't see what it adds.
Agree. At this rate I almost don’t want them to touch dark sun or greyhawk.
@@wendellpowell5838 ye, but dark sun is yummy
@@wendellpowell5838 I absolutely don't want them to touch any other of the classic settings. I've seen what they've done to the place they've already touched. No thanks. Please stop.
This feels like them doing two things: #1, they wanted to get out of having to produce books that are primarily lore for one setting; #2, they didn't want anybody to yell at them for the drow or orc stuff when they remake those to be alignment-neutral. Not impressed but they're the ones making money.
That's the problem. Is WotC still making money?
@@carlflaherty2215 if WOTC did not make money they could not make DND. That means no DND. That is their purpose to make money for their parent company which is Hasbro! If you want to play DND you want WOTC to make money so they can make more products for the game.
@@PapaEnoch052 That's the problem. Profits appear to be down.
I’m a DM that typically nerds out about Forgotten Realms lore, so I totally relate to your statement on “oh, Ryan is at the table… I can’t run a game cause he’s into the lore and he’ll call me out.” That kind of attitude has led a lot of my player threatened to run a game for me. Now I’m trying to break past that feeling and encourage my players to do their own thing and not think about “proper Forgotten Realms”. I hope someday my players will be comfortable with doing their own thing in D&D without thinking about my lore addiction lol. But I also want to continue running my game canonically (or as canonically as I can) because I like it, not cause I’m forced to. Good job Jorphdan just being real with us, I appreciate it!
Yeah, I’m not going to lie there a certain sense of elitism and snobbery that I tend to feel when listening to some D&D lore channels.
Players like that should try working in tandem with the DM then, or the DM should just explain to the player that it's essentially bootleg FR instead of setting up the expectation that it'll be the 100% lore-accurate game.
When I saw that article, your channel was the first thing I thought about. I would add a third option to the front of your video: we are the lore keepers now. It is empowering. We are not beholden to quarterly profits or expanding the player base. We don't have to break apart the lore so a writers room at a movie studio can do what they want. We can enjoy it as a YT channel like yours. Keep going, man!
The issue I see is for some reason WotC won't do much outside of the Sword Coast. I mean it's cool that they keep adding to it, but they're painting themselves into a corner.
If they simply put out work that was a different realm, or a different timeline, or heck a different part of Faerun, they wouldn't need to start remaking stuff.
Not going to lie the more I dive deeper into dungeons and dragons the more I'm wanting to move away from WOTC stuff. Their so many great products out there that I feel like I want to run.
That's fine, stay the crap away from my Cormyr. Raedra isn't crowned yet and there's a chance her brother may live and she might marry to one of my PCs in the end, or hell she might die in the Suzail Siege.
So call canon is only inspiration on my table. When I made my own storylines, it keeps my players guessing, and more encouraged to attempt to change the world as they see fit.
I feel like the way the went about saying this was overly inflammatory. They should just say "your forgotten realms is different from the books forgotten realms or the games forgotten realms. They are different worlds in a multiverse of adventure and fantasy that are very similar, becoming stranger and more disparate the further away from each other they are. You could have worlds as similar as the Toril from the Drizzt novels and the Toril from your own home campaign, or as different as Dragonlance's Krynn and Dark Sun's Athas. All are equally valid and when constructive your game world you can add or ignore any content you like, such as adding Strixhaven to Halruua, or making Warforged ancient Netherese constructs"
One of the things I like about the Realms compared to a lot of other settings is just how much back history there is. Doesn't mean I'll use it, but it helps give a better feel for the Realms and gives me something to base things off of.
My group will have a problem because we're the kind to just accept whatever canon lore book we can find. Now if WotC's new books retcon old lore we'll run into contradictory ideas during a campaign.
I almost had this problem with Drizzt and Bruenor in Out of the Abyss. I had never read any of the books (you only need the 1st for the adventure) and a player of mine had read at least 10 of them. If I made up Bruenor's stories with Drizzt on the spot my player would feel disconnected. The module gives some ideas there.
If I was a newer player and only ran with the new Drow lore, I would be contradicting established lore that the module presented, AND lore it assumed I knew.
In Skyrim we'd call it "Unimmersive AF".
Something I appreciate about Eberron is that Keith Baker and Wizards have chosen to keep its lore fixed in time. In all 3 editions, it begins after the Last War ends. They change some things, but overall I know the basics, my players know the basics, and we move forward into a world that they transform. Obviously, you can do the same with FR, but the constant changing makes it feel like the world is bigger than the players. The company runs it rather than the table, and the changing is an expression of the control. Keith Baker is so hands off. He created an awesome setting 20 years ago and said, "Have at it!" That commitment has never changed. FR is a mess.
I am liking this topic!
Hi AJ! Wait, what are you doing up this early... yep it's like 4am Saturday where you (supposedly) are. Hmmm.
Oh wow, two lore youtubers i watch in the same place.
It feels like something important just happened
@@tomkerruish2982 I often write scripts slowly during the course of a night, just in the lore groove, fizzing along with inspiration.
@@AJPickett Yeah, well, if you're in New Zealand, how come you're not upside-down?
Love your channel btw!
AJ! get yer butt back to your channel and make me more awesome. just kidding, hi dude
Personally when i look up when did blank happen i dont want it to now be whenever i want because that puts more stress on me making me feel like ive got to fit things in on my own i dunno
"It'll be Canon again once we've making current-day $$ off of the re-writes. Also, making the old stuff non-canon means we can hire people for reasons other than knowing the material."
Also, a lot of that old canon was just... bad. Obviously most of the main stuff is good, but a lot of dumb shit got written into the Realms in previous editions so that they could make more money from a sheer volume of stuff.
The ability to just ditch the bad stuff and keep the good stuff and letting DMs decide which is which is nice.
@@monsieurdorgat6864 we can agree "bad" is subjective. We could also likely agree on many things being "bad".
I'd assume that they could simply ignore the poorly written stuff. There would only be a problem is there was something that was "bad", but couldn't be ignored. That it actually blocked something new. Nothing I've seen that has been introduced couldnt have fit into existing lore.
Well Tortles maybe... But you know what, bring back Spelljammer. Make them a space race. :)
@@monsieurdorgat6864 A lot of good stuff gets thrown it the trash can as well. I'm all in favor for some healthy curation of lore in D&D, to keep it consistent and to address some of the concerns-drow etc. But this isn't healthy curation, it isn't keeping things consistent, and the whole 'slimming down' of the lore has created more problems than it has solved.
Hell the whole 'drow controversy' sums a lot of the issues with this direction perfectly. They 'slimmed down' the lore on them-cutting out old drow cities and marginalizing the other members of the Dark Seldarine, pushing Drizzt, Lolth and Menzoberranzan as focal points, that we reached the point of this controversy. Rather tellingly instead of bringing back some of that old lore to reintroduce some nuance, we are getting color-coded drow, a renewed focus on Menzo with the other cites being retconned out and hitherto unknown drow societies introduced in their place.
This is just a reboot dressed up in some 'player/dms choice' PR. I can't see this putting any more 'power' into the hands of DMs like me, because 5e is increasingly incompatible with previous editions. If I'm playing a game I don't want my players who are mostly familiar with 5e lore to be confused because I mixed in some stuff that's contradictory with what they know from their 5e books. Consistency and coherency are boons for settings like this.
@@Malvisk Yeah, bad is subjective - which is why I really like the "pick or mix your favorite canon" approach. Eberron integrates this directly, and is much better for it!
Honestly I don't mind animal-races as much as arbitrary "oddly colored, single-idea, barely fleshed out civilization" races that were so prolific in 3e.
And I guess the point of what they're introducing is that it won't vastly rewrite existing lore, so in a sense you could say they are fitting them into existing lore.
to be fair the only case I know of someone being hired simply for knowing lore was on Doctor Who when at one point they hired an uber fan to find and fix plotholes in the lore. Everyone HATED working wit the guy and he was more trouble than he was worth. I'd rather they hire someone who writes good than someone who read every d&d sourcebook.
I am really conflicted about this. I already assumed most of the people who ran offical content did not care about the bigger timeline, but us connoseurs, it really matters. Forgotten realms is at it's best when it is a cohesive evolving setting, and when they abandon that timeline and evolution, it is heartbreaking.
Forgotten realms is good because of all that's there. You throw that away then most homebrew settings will rise above it.
I've not liked most of the 5e adventures, they're all non canon in my campaigns unless the party I'm running has or is playing them.
Also USE MORE OF THE PLANET WIZARDS, I WANT KARA-TUR AND ZAKHARA DANG IT.
What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t they go to a new setting? Instead of going back and changing what’s already there they can have unlimited creative liberties if they make a new setting.
Those that rewrite history, rewrite common knowledge.
They want you to forget what came before, regardless of how they paint it.
Value of the Brand. Even people who don't play table-top RPGs might have heard about the Forgotten Realms thanks to iconic Computer Games like Baldur's Gate or because of Salvatore novels. Do a completely new setting and you don't have that name recognition. So it's basically the same reason why Marvel put Miles Morales in the Spider-Man suit instead of developing a complete new superhero. Or why DC has a whole Bat-family instead of one Batman and a lot of completely unique other heroes.
D&D is a buffet, take as much of what you want, walk past what you don’t. It’s your Fantasy, your imagination, you need no ones approval if it is right or wrong.
It's like a buffet where you need to have a table of at least like 4 people to eat and if you don't know anyone to bring you have to put up with people nagging at you for not eating what they want to eat when they want to eat it.
Sure, but you still have to be in the restaurant.
Good analogy - and I have a thing about disliking over-processed food so sticking with the older recipes!:)
We have always been able to define our own Canon. That has been a concept promoted by WoTC, TSR and especially Ed Greenwood, for decades. This announcement is not about freeing GMs from a huge amount of Lore. This announcement is about freeing WoTC of the lore. Some of that lore can be seen as problematic give today's politics.
This right here. Can we stop associating real life with the game. Canon actually has non-evil drow on the over world. It’s just the under dark that is known for evil drow kingdoms. Let’s face it. 99% of underdark kingdoms are evil. Just add to the lore and map. Most of Tirol is not filled. It’s not insane to believe that there is drow kingdom on the surface that doesn’t enslave everyone. Add to the lore don’t take away.
@@theperses3692 unclear who your message is for exactly. I agree, with everything you're saying, and will add that I'm disappointed that WoTC didn't go that route of writing new lore that fit within the existing lore. The is old existing lore of drow cities being lost by Lolth to her children's followers. There are a list of drow cities that are only mentioned, but no detail exists. They could have fleshed out an pre-existing city to fit what they want to create.
I'd love to be able to disconnect all fiction from reality. Isn't that the point of fiction? Unfortunately fiction must now succumb to today's politics. When you stop and think about it, this isn't new. Old works have always succumbed to the changes in society. Perhaps the difference now is that the change are far more broad? Or perhaps it's actually now affecting fiction that I actually cared about.
Well for Grenwood you can do anything you want as long as Elminster is around.
I think the problem is not that are problematic things in the lore before, of course they are, the proble is wotc doesnt wanna trouble and is being lazzy. They doesnt wanna resolve the problems ,they doesnt wanna adress then, and most of the time it result in more work to dm. I can give examples but i ddint wanna write another text wall
@@rodrigobueno8652 text walls can be difficult to survive. :)
I'll simply reply, WoTC and TSR have produced content in the past that didn't fit canon. We all moved on, few seriously gripped.
Now the whole 4e thing, that was a huge deal to the Fandom and WoTC suffered from it as a whole. But really that didn't go counter to "canon", it was just a really badly written story with really bad motives.
I openly admit "bad" is my personal opinion, which is by no means meant to be read as a fact.
The Realms lore, and all D&D official worlds, have always been flexible for every table. Every DM and Player having a game set in The Realms always put their own spin on what happened.
Players' campaigns and the official lore are two completely different things and not comparable. You're making a reciprocity link that isn't there.
@@moiseman Horse crap! I've yet been to a table that wasn't altered in some way from the baseline given in the books. You missed the point.
Not sure who you're talking about but you missed the point
@@moiseman If there is no link, what’s the issue again?
@@leatherguru8904 Then you haven't been paying the same game as me. And that's the exact point. No table *must* take the official books in to account. They can, but it's not required. Everything in the rulebook is a guideline at best.
This is exactly why we have generic settings. If 5e had a generic setting - like in AD&D through 3.5 - WotC could totally recon and change all they want without encroaching on premade narrative words such as Greenwood's Forgotten Realms. 4e was the beginning of this whole mess and it has only gotten worse and worse. The Grand History of the Realms IS the forgotten realms.
somehow that also coincides when jeremy crawford starting working there 🤔
4e had it's own generic setting to start, the Points of Light setting, it just never was popular enough for people to actually build into a setting despite the interesting things that were being done in it. If anything the mistake was to abandon that setting for the pre-established forgotten realms setting
as for other 'generic' settings the default setting for 3.0 was greyhawk, the setting that Gary Gygax started with, and each of the settings which were described as 'generic' actually became settings in their own right with worldbooks in later editions
@@SteveMSteel i totally agree, points of light should have been maybe the default 5e setting and forgotten realms a campaign setting book ie. more in depth sword coast book
I came here for the lore dumps and I'll stay for the lore dumps.
In the middle of this video I got a Loki ad with Mobius preparing to explain why it's necessary to murder all time variants. Hmm...
WoTC has been stuck on the Sword Coast for far to long. Yes, in pst editions they gave us supplements and campaign books that took place in Maztica, the Anauroch, Thay. But their focus and been on the Sword Coast because of Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter and Waterdeep. Menzoberranzan and Icewind Dale's popularity do to excellent books by RA Salvatore further locked them into the area. I think they're missing out on a great opportunity to bring in new creators in say the Sea of Fallen Stars, Halruaa and the lands between. Along with a whole new section of the Underdark to flesh out. I would rather have seen them expand on the Realms rather than nullify its vibrant history.
Everyone will be happy until they mess with Drizzt's backstory....
they already have started with the new novels that have been announced
@@fistimusmaximus6576 oh yay
Announced? The new novel is out
They already have. The elf lore from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes was very much incompatible with the Drizzt series. Or, well, any FR novel with an elf in it. Which is most of them
@@Driekan mordenkainen is from Greyhawk, not the realms.
comparison to Marvel is not appropriate. Marvel has had its 616 continuity non-stop. And MCU exists as a parallel universe to 616. There is no cannibalizing as a matter of fact, 616 now is a test run for MCU concepts. What wizards doing is silly at best. It's like the Spellplague but even more inept.
So 5th edition exists in a parallel universe to 616 and it's all good?
@@Jorphdan marvel's Earth-616 was never canceled nor announced non-canon in favor of Earth-199999. And "lore changes" has always been done in-canon. Wizards are being simply lazy and flippant.
Marvel having parallel universes with contradicting events doesn’t make my game prep harder, having contradicting material in forgotten realms does.
@@RodrigoTakehara indeed. And if wizards are sayin “whateva I do what I want” - that means we are going to get a ton of contradictions… yay?
You are right. I like Jorphdan low videos a lot, but to me he is only waving to wizards and helping them with this PR.
My problem with this is that WoTC leave a lot of blanks worth filling in in their sourcebooks and adventures, and them washing their hands of canon-writ-large could easily make filling in those blanks harder for DMs. Previous editions, novels, etc are generally our best sources when 5e materials leave us with questions -- even if we get the information indirectly via the Wikia, reddit, or channels like this. Now we can't even expect a good faith attempt on an author's part to be consistent with any historical events or characters they may include or refer to in their works.
For example, when running the Leilon trilogy from the Essentials Kit, I had to look up the history of Chardansearavitriol, Lhammaruntosz, Iniarv, Anauria, and a bunch of other people/places because the adventure gives basically no context at all. What are we supposed to do with callbacks like those when there can be no expectation of an adherence to canon beyond the core 5e books?
I started playing d&d last year without knowing much lore. I played an elf, said that he was several hundred years old.
Then I learn all this crazy history like gods walk the earth and spellplague breaking magic that my character would have been alive for.
It made me feel very weird about the RP because those things would have affected him in ways that sort of contradict how I have already characterized him. So do I retcon myself or do I ignore the history (the DM hasn't brought any of these events up and I don't think he will. This is all in my head really)
That's really my biggest issue with 5e. It is essentially impossible to play a lot of the character choices, because what's the mind of a person who lived through these two centuries even like!?
I'd suggest you chat with your DM about just essentially not using FR lore. 5e isn't really compatible with it anyway.
Just imagine that 100 years is a long time in real life. Lots of things would change and never need to be brought up. I think this is an issue of simply being a creature who has lived a long time in a magic world with big powers conflicting on the reg. Maybe your character doesn't even know those things happened besides the most basic things.
You give me five minutes I'll fix canon and dd in general:
1. Balance flies right out of the window. Classes can be weaker or stronger depending on the level.
2. Levels become 36, and then Immortality.
3. Metaphysics becomes Mistara's metaphysics
3. Wizards max out at 9 spells per level.
4. Netheril never fell. Karsus' Folly is propaganda.
5. You can think Karsus did something wrong, but you are Officially Wrong.
6. Only junk food at the table.
7. No more magic-like powers to all classes. Only Wizards use magic.
8. Those other classes have their professions. Bards play music. Clerics pray very professionally.
9. Fighters smash. Bards can sing too maybe.
What I really want to know about is if the contract Ed greenwood had with TSR that was back door into wizard of the coast still stands.
If anyone's unfamiliar at greenwood was the guy that invented forgotten realms before TSR picked it up to make it a campaign setting he had for a long time a contract stated anything he published about forgotten realms must be considered Canon as a result of this they forgotten realms is a really weird place
Not in my table. Old R. A. Salvatore books are canon in my table, drow are usually evil and Drizzt is a legendary hero.
Yup same here.
I took it as "canon is what you decide it is at your table". Guess what already was that way since 1986 at my and other dm's I associate with tables.
"If... the lore has been true in every past edition of the game, we think twice about changing it."
Well that's just not even close to true. Perhaps "we think twice and go ahead and change it anyways regardless of what the true fans want." Let's remember that Crawford was there for all those wonderful lore-shattering tidbits ranging from the Spellplague ("let's change the whole world and remove entire countries so we have an excuse for Dragonborn"); to turning Succubi into Devils for no reason whatsoever; undoing the Great Wheel cosmology for no reason whatsoever; the orc brouhaha; somehow forgetting that "cute and funny Tasha" is actually an evil witch-queen and demonologist who SLEPT WITH A DEMON LORD AND BIRTHED AN EVIL DEMIGOD ON PURPOSE - her book should be darker than the Book of Vile Darkness; all the way to the current drow idiocy (dark elves were never innately evil, their society was). There's a big difference between "a street name on a map that is relatively unimportant" and "the basic foundations of the universe". The lore of D&D gets worse and worse with each passing year, and although I'm willing to give Crawford full credit for both his enthusiasm and stewarding the game's reach to a larger audience, he's complicit in numerous horrid changes to the lore. Personally, if I were to start a campaign now, there's little doubt it would be set somewhere described in 2e or 3e books (okay, it would totally be Planescape using 2e Sigil/factions with 3.5e cosmology and selected Spelljammer lore, but that's beside the point) and utterly ignore every bit of lore coming out of WotC in the last decade.
Completely agree with you, especially on Tasha no longer being called Iggwilv. Sounds like a great setting, too!
100%
Las Vegas as a Domain of Dread is an incredibly powerful concept ngl
Call it "Fear and Loathing." XD
I use 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition realms material to run my campaigns in the 5th edition. Please keep your videos coming.
It's your table, regardless of what the book says. A young gamer will typically see the book as law. Sometimes older gamers keep that mindset: the canon is not to be altered. But as they get older and have more experience gaming us "elder gamers" are much more free in our tossing or keeping things from books as we like them. I believe that's why some older gamers who played 2E Ravenloft were so unhappy with the 5E Ravenloft. I think Wizards/Hasbro as a company is developing the books/canon knowing a young adolescent or teenage gamer is likely to take the book canon as gospel while us "elder gamers" who still have our 2E Ravenloft materials will take what we like from the book and make our table the most horrific and traumatic or not as we desire. People frequently ask things online like "Who would be in charge of this part of Cormyr now?" And the answer, really, is: It's you're table dude, whoever you want to be in charge is in charge.
The main reason that led me to create a homebrew world was the burden that I thought I had to understand and study the forgotten realms lore to be able to run anything. In reality, the fine intricacies and story of races and gods matters very little to the player. Now I now that I could just pick any small town and create any conflict from there, and just maybe research the web for the name of the town to know the name of taverns, most common races and trivia.
I understand in different media types, book and games etc, but in RPG's, yes your own campaign has it's own canon, but lets not change historical published Campaign canon
This section sums it up completely. This was the idea way back when I started playing D&D in 1983 and Chris sums it up perfectly here.
"It can also be said that every campaign that’s ever been run in any of our published settings has its own canon. Your version of the Forgotten Realms has its own canon, which doesn’t make it any less valid than anyone else’s version. Elminster might be a lich in your Forgotten Realms campaign. Elminster might be a miniature giant space hamster in mine-both are acceptable and awesome."
People should actually read the 1E DMG, virtually every page Gary tells you to make your own world.
Jorphdan, your channel is my go-to for brainstorming and prepping upcoming sessions for my players. I have always taken the lore or cannon about the topic I am researching, and then modified it to make it my own. Your work and inclusion of the various information from all of the different editions of the world of D&D is superb.
Thanks!
I totally agree with you, Jorphdan, they are creatives and they don't want to justify everything they write. They know all the facts, but that leaves very little wiggle room for adventures and changes. Thats 54 years of history and lore and its almost impossible to come up with much without it interfering with some of that lore, so they're not being limited by it anymore. Good. I still use the lore for inspiration and entertainment, but when I write my home game interferes with lore and one of my 3 FR historian players mention it, I wave my hand, say "Because.... magic". Thats what they're saying, too.
"What if they kill Lolth, because she was given stats", isn't a problem. Simply killing her avatar isn't a permanent solution to killing a deity.
And even killing a Power isn't necessarily permanent, if you look at Mystryl or Orcus.
2 things. 1 this reminds me of the death of the Star Wars EU. 2 this must be why we have gone months with out a lore you should know segment on Dragon Talk.
TL;DNR: please continue your work, you’re exceptional at what you do, influence all of us as players and GMs for the better and you’re a lore master. WotC are simply saying; “make your own canon,” so let’s do that together!
Let me start by saying I genuinely hope that you’re not insinuating that you’d cease making videos on FR or general DND lore because you’re an incredibly talented UA-cam fantasy academic, I can say for myself as I’m sure most of us, you’ve HANDEDLY gotten me into NUMEROUS forgotten realms novels but much more importantly, have taught us all about so much history. I’m planning on FINALLY running my home brew I’ve been sitting on for almost five years because “it’s just not ready,” and finally found my cherry on the ice cream Sunday because of your videos on the outer planes. I planned on piggy-backing my favorite FR author and using Azuth v Asmodeus in the same body but couldn’t figure out how to make a third option to not pick either but save both until you taught us about Anubis being the reaper and defender of the dead gods. It’s perfect. You’re a lore master. Not a canon writer. Please continue your labor so long as it brings you joy and we’ll continue to devour faster than you can say “black pudding.”
I use this channel for lore not canon. I'll be honest I cannot remember all the gods and linking your videos to my players has been a godsend. It's super important to remember that from the original box set's 'DM's Sourcebook of the Realms' Ed Greenwood stated in the first box set that the Realms was now 'ours' and not his (page 4). Also on page 6, Using the FR Campaign Setting - Setting up a campaign, it's stated "Each FR campaign should be different ..." you can read the entire quote from the book if you want but TLDR is that each person will run this setting differently and that's not wrong. This should be extremely evident to anyone who's read an official product from D&D's inception when they've almost always had a section for how to use this product in X setting. I mean even Mercer stated this in his 2 campaign books and in interviews that people should and could run different stuff in his world.
I myself have been running FR for something around 25 years and my canon is completely different especially since I read as a kid hey make your own stuff as stated above. An example of how I've done this is most recently (edition wise) our group failed to kill Tiamat in Tyranny of Dragons. I made this completely effect the Sword Coast until later adventurer's could solve that problem which was 'fixed' around/by the time I slotted in and ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. The coast is rebuilding and cultists are still around due to the success they had but Tiamat is now dead 2 campaigns later, now though a prominent force/structure is still around. It's been akin to adding a new state/country to the land.
Lastly I will say this. Yes I do try and link in the many novels and sourcebook's I've collected and read over the years. Also from time to time I have cameos because I and my players enjoy them. However my canon is distinctly different than something Grubb, Niles, Ward, Greenwood or Salvatore would have written or likely even run as a campaign if they were to. I make sure my players understand this and give them lore as addendums in my sessions to help them understand my realms and the structure behind things. Is the lore the same - mostly, is the canon certainly not.
Corporations don’t care about lore and canon, because from a monetary standpoint, they just want to sell you a “playset” without any history to it. Essentially, history might make history that certain people don’t like, because history has unpleasant parts. A lot of people today just want to make everything completely benign or idealistic. This, of course, makes lore completely unnecessary from a corporate standpoint. History might offend, so get rid of it.
This affects far more than FR, Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was a complete reboot of the setting. The little nods to the past in it are largely pointless. The setting has no history (doesn't even have a timeline anymore) and to be honest was turned more into a "how to do horror stories" book than a setting. Eberron has always had the time line never advances stance (adventures and novels are only canon if the DM wants them to be) and so has been unaffected. All the classic settings are going to get the Ravenloft treatment and because of that I know that I do not need to buy any of the future setting books for something I already own. If it is a setting I never bought back in 2e then it might be worth a look. Would not mind picking up Birthright if it has mass combat rules for example.
Something about it saddens me and makes me uncomfortable.
I appreciate the idea that DMs should change stuff for their home game, but I don't think that means the idea of "canon" is irrelevant. If the world has a rich history that nobody knows in full, it feels very real to me. Saying "who cares whether it exists or not" really strips away the legitimacy for me.
I understand that keeping a strict canon is basically impossible (and that retcons aren't anything new), but it still feels kinda sad to say "we don't have a canon, this world is whatever you want it to be." On the one hand that's easy and inclusive - but on the other hand, you're also saying the world's history doesn't matter.
It's hard to put these thoughts into words.
This somehow has a similar vibe as the Drow retcon. Both are heavy-handed changes to address things which I'm not even fully convinced are problems. They also both increase mass market appeal quite significantly, which I think is part of why they feel uncomfortable. They do kind of *feel* like old canon is being thrown out so more people will buy the game - even if that's not the case.
Really hard for me to solidify my opinion on it.
The drow retcon is amazing. I'm so tired of drow being shoehorned into "evil underground elves except drizzt cause he's special"
@@ramadansteve1715 see, I've never gotten this.
Imo, drow being evil doesn't make them less interesting, it makes them *more* interesting. Now you get to build a society where almost all of its members are evil - we don't have that on earth and it's really interesting. It also adds lots of great adventuring hooks.
Plus, the evil Drow aesthetic is so cool! Spindly silver threads, lots of spider motifs, all this menacing black/white/silver coloration with the occasional shock of red? I love it.
And the evil Drow make the good drow so much more interesting. Contrary to popular belief, Drizzt is not the only good drow; there's lots of great room for good aligned Drow NPCs and even more for good aligned Drow characters (seriously, Drizzt completely overshadows Eilistraee). But the delimma of "do we trust the Drow in the Underdark" is an interesting one.
Unlike orcs and goblins, which I normally see as inherantly, genetically evil, Drow are only evil because their society forces those values. To me, that makes the "Drow racism" storyline far more compelling and legitimate than the other evil species.
@@natekite7532 I don't see it tbh. To me a pretty much all evil race, whether drow or orc or goblin, is so boring and lazy from a world building strand point. Mostly because it always feels like it's less so their society forcing them to be evil and moreso just lolth. Just like how gruumsh is the only reason orcs are evil. It turns what could be a fascinating race who developed unique customs to adapt to their environment into scary baddies for the players to fight and loot.
Hell even keeping the spider aesthetic, I'd just have them develop a symbiotic relationship with spiders not because they're both evil but from just wanting to survive in an incredibly hostile environment. It makes perfect sense and it doesn't burden the race or DM with alignment issues. That opens the door to so many more plot hooks too. Silk farmers with an umber hulk problem, riding a spider through a drow city to find a guide through the lower tunnels, bartering surface items for lavish silk goods etc
I far prefer Eberron's drow, who have a myriad of cultures all based on an almost amazonian tribal aesthetic. It gives you a chance to play with multiple philosophies, conflict between drow and in my opinion a FAR more interesting history than "lolth gave them a spider fetish". And even if you need them in an antagonistic role you could have an incredibly xenophobic tribe, or perhaps the players unknowingly trespassed onto a sacred site.
It might just be me rapidly falling out of love with FR, but I'm definitely getting burnt on the "evil bad guy race" trope
Yeah this. I like the lore. There can still be a greater story. Dms have always made their little twists on worlds
@@natekite7532 I am someone who's all for adding nuance, diversity and inclusivity to D&D and its perception of evil, good and how it affects certain groups of people, and I too think the retcon was the wrong way to do it.
I think the WotC should have expanded upon what they had in 5e, especially after the Rage of Demons, in which Loth essentially sets the Demon Princes upon the Drow to usurp a larger part of the Abyss. This could have made for an interesting story where more and more Drow of the Underdark were sick of Loth, where their fear for her was outweighed by their disgust for her. You don't even need to make the drow 'Good', you can also make them more neutral as they try and find other places to go to.
Yes, Eilistraee provides an easy answer, but honestly between 'Drow are meant to be bad' and 'Drow can actually be sweet as sugar and good' there's much more territory to explore, which allows for the same creativity as creating new factions for Drow, but you'd at least also take on the challenge of tying it into the narrative you've created.
I'm kind of in a weird place about this one. I pretty much only ever play in homebrew settings, so these changes won't affect me much. However, I did grow up reading the forgotten realms books, and playing in that world really appeals to me. It's cool that they're freeing we DMs to ease off from a strict cannon, but I thought we had already been pretty thoroughly encouraged to do just that. If you were a complete newb who picked up the core rulebooks, I think it'd be pretty hard to even figure out what the forgotten realms setting and canon even are. I think what we needed was more tools to help us run in canon, not permission to throw it out.
You can use as much of the setting as you like, in whatever order you want. Just watch DM horror videos for knowing what not to do.
For a sort of multi-author story in a single setting, take a look at the Thieves' World (1978) series editing by Robert Lynn Asprin. The group did a pretty good job of managing that over 10 years.
I mean they could just make their own world it's generally the whole premises of homebrew but the forgotten realms setting is kind of based off of someone else's world.
I think most D&D players who use the Realms as a campaign world have always used what they wanted and changed things. Our group has played in the Realms since 2ed and we still play 3.5ed. In our world the Spell Plague never happened. It's still the 1370s in our version.
Now I need to run a campaign where Las Vegas is a domain of dread, modrons come from Radio Shack and Albuquerque is a member of the Lord's Alliance..
Best idea ever.
@@Jorphdan Barry Manilow becomes a lich so he can continue performing forever and the ghost of Elvis is trying to come back to reclaim his rightful throne.
Turns out the core of Mechanus is a RadioShack from our world that got infused with magic and Primus was a store manager who couldn't let go of his store after it went out of business.
And Albuquerque... yeah I got nothing..
Jorphdan’s next job is gonna be Lore Keeper for WotC… remember this post!!!!
Yeah WotC needs to hire him or keep him on retainer. He's a big reason why I get deeper and deeper into the hobby$$$. Even just the spirit of fascination and wonder he embues equates to dollars spent from me.
Man, WotC is going to screw up decades of structure.
Everyone I think agrees that your table is your own world. Lore drops from Wizards of the coast and Lore Scribes such as yourself are used to inspire ideas at the table, not meant to hold us hostage to a single concept on the history of the world. You won't ever be out of a job until you've literally catalogued the entire universe. And even then you can always expand or touchup/update videos. Canon rewrites and muddied lore won't hurt you as much as you think.
How is it "your own world" unless you invented the world from scratch?
What WotC is officially doing is how I've unofficially handled the D&D lore since forever. Everything that is Canon is optional. Use it in your campaign or don't. It's been that way always. But kudos to WotC for encouraging that.
Vampire the masquerade did something like this. Then they start a new line with different background and lore. It ended up causing the game to die off quickly.
I thought that it was always assumed that if you want to change something, anything, change it.
I think this is a smart move. I like that Keith Baker never advances the Eberron timeline. I'd like to see a new FR sourcebook that doesn't try to establish an airtight history but that tries to put together a setting with an interesting central tension because the FR could use more focused themes imo.
Just reprint the 1E boxed set. Done.
I really liked Perkins' examples and the guiding principles that they mentioned. Ultimately, why should they feel constrained by books made in the 1980s and 90s?
When it comes to big changes to the lore of the Realms - is Asmodeus now a god?, are there Open Lords of Waterdeep still?, etc., they have the opportunity to introduce those changes during an adventure or new sourcebook. Big changes like that ARE new canon without it feeling like a retcon, because it's not retroactive.
When it comes to the small changes, like Slut Street being rightfully removed, they shouldn't feel constrained. If you, as the DM, really liked that as the street's name, then maybe it's a nickname in universe or maybe you just ignore the changes. I have the right to think you're being weird about that one, but other small changes don't matter.
Ultimately, their newer perspective allows them to make sensible big changes and make small changes when needed. They don't have to be a slave to older writers. Their guiding principles generally work well.
Hey. Thanks for covering this update. I've always loved your lore vids. Can't wait for all your retcon updates lore vids.
I hate the Drow changing good Drow escaping there culture was always interesting and if you didn't like it you could just homebrew it
And their treatment of the Good Yaun-Ti makes this seem dubious.
Wich is why I don't get why people keep complaining.
If you don't like it don't use it, that's the beauty of the game, you can do whatever you want.
@@llewelynshingler2173 Can you please explain?
@@llewelynshingler2173 weren't "the good snake people" the Coatl?
Have any of you forgotten about Eilistraee? And in R.A. Salvatore's novels and the Baldur's Gate games, they always hinted the fact that the Drow we're not born evil, that most of them have been physically and/or psychologically beaten to submission to be evil. Look at Viconia's romance arc in the Baldur's Gate games and you'll see I'm not joking.
"Let's talk about canon and the future of Dungeons and Dragons."
Oh this is gonna get SPICY.
Edit: Also is that bookmark to 5e Tools I spy? I see JorPHdan is a person of culture as well.
Okay, I have to admit that several years ago I would have been really upset at these changes...but the logistics of trying to maintain a singular canon across various editions, companies, staff, novels, RPGS, media....that's just impossible. Ultimately, each Dungeon Master is going to have their own version and history and that's okay. No one plays with the exact same set of rules or interpretations, so why should that be any different for the setting's history.
For smaller companies with a singular setting, sure that makes it a lot easier, but imagine trying to make a new setting book and going back over 30+ years of material so you don't contradict previous lore.
Change happens, as D&D players we should know that better than anyone. The older lore is still there, use what you want and adapt the rest
@@Gunstling Yeah I agree, I don’t like the Drow lore changes… so I’m just not going to use it, or I’m going to alter the elements I’m not a fan of until it’s in a form that I find more interesting. Lore changes in the grand scheme of things doesn’t matter if you’re a DM, you have ultimate power to make whatever changes you want.
@@InquisitorThomas Precisely!
I am not a fan either...so I won't use them. Or I'll adapt them as needed. Chris Perkins isn't going to come down to our tables and flip them just because we play differently.
There's plenty of room at the table for all takes, as long we we're being respectful
@@Gunstling I disagree. I don’t think it’s difficult, you progress the story forward in time. There are certainly difficulties when WoTC introduces completely new concepts, influx of “Good” Drow, or new races. Warforged, Tortles, Dragonborn. That just takes being creative.
I strongly believe this move is really based in the politics of the day. WoTC is making a sound business decision to distance themselves from problematic lore due to today’s and possible future politics.
@@Malvisk I don't fully disagree with you, a company as large and successful as WotC could absolutely afford to staff a team whose sole purpose is Lore and to act as advisors when new content is created, but I think you also touched on an important point regarding sound business decisions, and a Lore Team would be a phenomenal increase to overall quality but would the Realms be as marketable?
Overall, my personal opinion is that races with problematic origins or concepts have outgrown that beginning anyway. I think it goes beyond addressing it as politics though, if orcs actually started as a racist analogue for certain ethnicities, then that absolutely needs to be changed. Bigotry has no place in the foundations of our game itself, but like I said I think they've already outgrown anything that might have been a throwback to that anyway.
What they SHOULD have done was had a secret enclave of Drow what are those that where saved by Eilistree be discovered.
Eilistree has been saving the Drow one/two at a time since they first fell to Lothe's corruption
I figured… that the point was each edition was its own understanding the universe. It’s why fourth edition attempted to do drastically so much different shit.
Each edition both pushes the history and changes the past because they’re supposed to be resets.
The change of canon between 3.5 and 4.0 is also due to lore characters becoming too powerful. Elminster, the Sisters, Blackstaff, Drizt and his posse and others were omnipresent and OP.
Why send a party of low to mid level resolve a problem( that will took time) when 1 or 2 OP can go there and do that in 5mns.
That's not at all what they do. They're a company and need to sell new products.
That's never how it worked. Each edition was cannon at a time but they also had different lore events that changed the multiverse and pantheons and shit. I mean you could've learned that from watching this channel FFS.
@@marcuskylemarcuskyle222 You know actual gods have always existed right? By that logic why should any adventure need to happen if a god could've always solved any problem?
@@youcantbeatk7006 Gods and mortals that are OP( because they're the world creator/DM( Elminster/Greenwood) character and can be used as deus ex machina in case your players go SNAFU) is different.
Gods in FR are not allowed to directly intervene and most of the time have more important things to care about than puny mortals.
The fact that Greenwood accepted 4.0 and all its shenanigans( to be polite) as long as Elminster is still around add to the no more, thank you very much I felt at the time for 4.0.
Great video! I think one of the advantages of my Rip Van WInkle-ing from my 1e days in the ‘80’s to picking up with 5e about 8 months ago is that I missed a lot of the chaos bought about by WotC/TSR decisions regarding canon and IP stewardship, so I don’t have any real attachment to the lore created by the the novels or published adventures. As a DM, I see this stuff as a toy box from which I can pick and choose at my discretion. I’m grateful for all of the work that the authors have done because it makes my job much easier, but I don’t consider myself obligated to adhere to it at my table.
I love having your channel, it's been a great source of inspiration and provides me a solid foundation for placing my stories within the Realms. PLEASE continue providing lore and canonical concepts!
That Cannon is optional is nothing new, With Traveller the history has always been optional, Yea, Traveller the new age was the least liked and when Mongoose took up the license they moved the timeline back to the third imperium. And I have a few games where the authors state that the player can run campaigns with or without the established history of the game world.
When it hits your table it's custom...I don't know anyone who has strived to be purely cannon in any ttrpg.
I don't think I've run campaigns that were long enough where deep adherence to canon was important. I think like many DMs out there, I enjoy reading and learning about D&D lore but recognize that many of my players won't know 1/10th of it and that's fine. The canon and lore (for me, this is just an opinion) is there to spark imagination, give me plot hooks, etc.
12:30 you hit the key point of why many people get upset when you talk about invalidating lore - its become part of the mythological history of something really important to a lot of people. Cancelling that really pisses some people off.
That is on the people though. D&D is not Game of Thrones or LotR. It is a game system that changes each edition. Lore is different than canon. You can talk about the history and how a monster was is 2ed but it has no bearing for 5ed. But you can do anything for YOUR table
I think using Marvel Studios as an example can lead to some issues. In theory, they are two separate universes with two separate lore. But, the success of the movies has lead to the comics retconning their lore, usually to the bane of the comic book fans. For example, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not Magneto's children anymore. Marvel comics did a lot to undermine the X-men franchises in their comics. Part of this was retconning Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch's origins so they were made by the High Evolutionary. Moves like this are highly unpopular. But, comic book companies seem to believe they need to rewrite origins of characters to match their movie counterparts.
I don't think this is analogous to D&D though (although, I can see some people who are against the changes making that argument).
I think not having some base "canon" lore has made my life harder than easier, there's barely anything official to base myself on, and if I just make it up new campaigns tend to either force me to retract my initial interpretation, or work extra to adapt the new book to my established lore. Ever since I started to use the wikis with the old lore everything became so much easier, I homebrew a lot of lore, but having the base canon saves me a lot of having to start from scratch.
Having official lore is not a burden on me at all as long as it is ok for me to change, which has always been the case.
I like the evolution of the forgotten realms (one of the reasons I prefer it to Eberron). I think they should keep it up, but keep emphasizing what they always have been- that you can make your own forgotten realms as the DM and take as much or as little from the canon lore as you like.
Running Rime if the Frostmaiden as my 1st Forgotten Realms campaign and have been prepping with your help on the lore. The interconnection of adventures and history is significant and hope to have my players explore more. Keep up the good stuff
As an Old School D&D player since AD&D, I kind of like both ideas? Of course I love the Lore that has been, won't change that at my table. Having the Lore open for new players would also be nice.
In my old campaign we played in Halruaa and the Shining South, with LOTS of trips to the outer Planes. We didn't do the Spellplague, but had a threat from the Sea and the Snake people invasion to contend with. Loved it.
Great video! I like how you said that they will provide an outline, and you as the DM can do what you wish to maximize fun. I love lore, so I would've loved a 5E sourcebook filled with lore and history and demographics, but I know that's not always good for making a game. I agree that I read lore and get inspired to make a cool adventure based on some nugget of lore or history, so this announcement doesn't change that and cements that WOTC is happy to let us DMs be inspired and do what we see fit.
Still want a faerun-wide sourcebook though 😉
I'd love a faerun-wide sourcebook! Thaaayyyy!!!!
A single book would be too big, but definitely a book like the Sword Coast's guide, for the other regions would be lovely. And an updated map of Toril for 5e, too, for christ's sake..
I use the lore, all the lore, to fill in details. What I don't do is use it as limits. Drow are "inherently evil"? Well, Drizzt proved that wasn't true decades ago, for one. And maybe there simply isn't as much known about dark elves as people think. After all, most people don't know the true nature of Asmodeus, or what caused The Mourning, or where the Lady of Pain came from and what she does. And that's fine. It's just great to have all that old-edition data to flavor the world, but there's no reason to be restricted by it.
I feel the pain that Greenwood is feeling right now, a lot of disrespect for the past.
Why? He will just make another Mary Sue avatar that bangs all the women
Why?
Are you suggesting that he’s more important to the FR than the players and DM's?
How is it disrespect?
I'm glad I completly broke with DnD cosmology for my homebrew setting.
So true! I've run my same homebrew setting since the early 90s. I can't fathom why there's such slavish devotion to a commercial product like FR when the whole point of D&D was to create a framework where a DM and the players could collaboratively create together. It's like trying to be a chef but using nothing but prepackaged foods & mixes.
Apologies for the Zombie post. From the 1st edition campaign "Cormanthyr Empire of the Elves": p.7
Just as each plane of existence contains an infinite amount
of space, each plane of existence is also permeated (or enveloped,
depending on one s point of view) with an infinite
amount of time. Therefore, alternate timelines do exist; in
fact, each individual game campaign played in the FORGOTTEN
REALMS counts as a distinct and separate timeline. Travel between
one timeline and another, no matter what plane of existence
a traveler might be on, is impossible, even for wishes
and gods (who would not choose to do so, since they cannot
perceive such alternate times, only the timeline they occupy)
My take on this, what I enjoy, and how I run my campaigns is that I base my game on FR lore up until The Second Sundering as best as possible (though I tend to ignore a lot of the spell plague) and then I pick and choose 5e lore that fits my table and build other things on top of older (1e, 2e, 3e) lore.
As a major lore junkie, I want you to keep making videos. I like the idea of an evolving canon, but I understand how difficult that could be (My homebrew eberron canon has been evolving over the course of 6-7 campaigns and about 50 years in game time, and that's difficult enough for me to keep up with, without including someone else making stuff happen!)
You scared me right away by reading the title. You are a Lore Master and no matter what you are an amazing source for DMs' New and Old for Lore and inspiration! I would love to run a game for you; just because you know Lore does not mean you know what is going to happen! This is D&D and anything can happen! Goodluck my Friend!
Oh also I do believe that we should continue going forward in the timeline and less of going backward. Instead of attempting to fix something from before just as they did since 3.5 they changed stat blocks etc, things evolve. Races can evolve as well as the worlds themselves.
I'm a giant Lore nerd, and my favorite place and history anywhere in any fantasy, Sci fi, horror, etc. Setting is The Forgotten realms. I've been reading them since childhood, and I've read almost everything R.A. Salvatore has ever written, he's my favorite author followed by Tracy Hickman and Margret Weiss (Dragonlance). Part of the great thing about Cannon is that it's a reference point in or out of game. Good or bad, with all its blotches and screw ups, it is what it is and just like any rule of the game, part of the fun is finding out how to deal with it and make great stories, either because of or in spite of it. And that's OK. It shows the growth of the human race when referring to actual history. And it shows the growth of a product, the people who love it, and the amount of material for newbies to dig into when it comes to a histoy like this. The problem I have with this is making Faerun "like marvel" is kinda redundant in my opinion because ALL OF D&D is like Marvel. In the sense that there's lots of different worlds in the multiverse So if we use their example, then faerun is universe 616 and Eberron is universe 312 and Borovia or Strixhaven or Krynn (Dragonlance) is a different one. So you can look at universe 616 and know what's going on there. This is like saying there's a bunch of different "sub-universes" within 616 or somthing. Now I get u can just use the established lore in a given campaign and not use the reestablished drow or orc or whatever lore, but it makes it difficult. I think for example trying to make orcs less racially controversial is great, although personally because I've never made that connection myself, I think of them as green and you really do want a "bad guy" race, it's not somthing that ever bothered me. But I also recognize I may not get that because I'm white and there may be an aspect of my privilege there, not having seen somthing as racially problematic doesn't mean it doesn't exist and I respect that completely. Idk, this is a long winded way of saying that I do think there should be a core established cannon, maybe with tangential issues of lesser import able to be fiddled with. But then the issue becomes where do you draw the line. I don't want to read about drizzt flying in an efreeti airship in calimshan in a given year when I know darn well he was wading through muck in the troll Moores trying to get to longsaddle at that time. I'm probably in the minority though lol. Thoughts?
Personally I dont like how they want to do that, it basically throws everything out of wak
I think dm can just as easily use the fact that their game doesn’t match lore as part of the adventure. It HASNT been enough time for the wand of orcus to return so why is it back? It’s part of the deeper mystery. That’s the game.
That was my thought too as soon as he said it. "Well, if the Wand of Orcus hasn't had enough time to reform, but it HAS re-formed, what other crazy shenanigans could be causing that?!"
The beauty of running a premade campaign or your own homebrew is; if you as a DM want something in your world, or don't like something else, it is your choice, it is your table. You as a DM are not beholden to the "Cannon" set forth by prior adventures. Every world is different, every DM is going to respond to a players actions differently. As long as your heart is in it, that is all that matters. If Drow at your table are inherently evil, then that is what they are, and that is at your table. If not all Chromatic Dragons are evil because of something you thought of, that is also at your table. Playing D&D is supposed to be FUN, not a chore. Great video.
Sorry.. I'm a year late watching this video. I left development of the realms way back in 3.5. When I came back to do a screenplay for a FR Netflix series I was distraught over spell plague & how the realms changed. Netheril was a huge part of my development and years before the Shade came back I wrote literally 100s of pages of a cadre of mages who sought to bring ancient Netheril back. My screenplay is based in DR1371 right before the events that brought the Shadovar back. This screenplay is extremely ambitious in that it gives an interpretation of the Realms that i hope fans will enjoy. I refuse to accept this "change" (spell plague).
The story doesn't change pre-DR1371 LORE. It's dark & serious. Not this abomination that Pine is starring in. Hopefully it will be entertaining & successful. I'm sure many fans out there didn't like the impact & rejected it so I'm doing a rewrite of those events.
Thanks Jorphdan for all your efforts. Love the channel!
Ok side bar here. In Comics the history of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver has always been murky. Originally there were NOT Magneto's kids, then that was retconned to make them his children. Most recently they retconned it again, such that they were not, they were artificially induced mutants (I think) because of the high evolutionary. They are doing something with the Scarlet Witch and Mutants again, so I feel a retcon is on the horizon again .
Ultimately, retcons are often used to fix mistakes, and to clarify things, but also to push a story in the way people writing want it to go. Its a staple of Comics.
The history of TTRPG is not much different, though often less flashy. So I am guessing Wizards of the Coast are wishing to cash in on the superhero craze on some levels, as ttRPG is suddenly very acceptable in the main stream, and they need to monopolize this. Much of this is tied into the "no race is evil" thing that has been going around. A better way to do that is "societies can be evil, but no one is inherently so".
Any way I digress
I love your channel because it is showing us how everything is connected or how they have been portrayed. Your videos have inspired me to use the subjects in a better way.
Yeah I think it's a great thing to have a base lore resource. We all know we can really do what they want with it :)
My only rebuttal about the gods having stats discussion is they only have stats on their avatars. You can't kill gods as a mortal. You needed to be the same power level or higher to kill and absorb a God's power. So a lesser power could not kill a greater power though they could kill their Avatar. So it's all really like a moot point and I'm glad that rime of the frost made and has a couple of different avatars in it.
But what makes it even more of a moot point is that the avatars were always crazy levels. I think levels in the 60 or more range
There's already a multiverse foundation to all of this...
We got Earth, Oerth, Toril, Abeir, and now whatever this is new initiative is.
The multiverse is rich, and as long as any particular flavor of it has a community to support it, it'll continue on.
I'm with you Jorphdan, I LOVE digging into lore and half the fun of my campaign is researching it all. That said I've always remained flexible in my game because... Players are unpredictable and im not the one REALLY in control. I really liked how they provided a canonical story beat to retcon things (second sundering) as it gave us something to work with. I'd personally prefer them too continue as they have been, but launch a big campaign to teach people that they don't need to be TIED to strict cannon