Jeremy Crawford thinks he gets to dictate #DnD "Canon".
Also, a look at the introduction to the Invisible College #OSR occult conspiracy #ttrpg

Well, he kinda does, for the millons of imagination challenged imbeciles that need to buy "Adventure Paths" and be told explicity that they can play X to the Nth in the rules, and if it's not in the rules then it must be Verbotten! and that makes the publisher an Istophobe.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 24, 2021, 12:02:16 AM
Well, he kinda does, for the millons of imagination challenged imbeciles that need to buy "Adventure Paths" and be told explicity that they can play X to the Nth in the rules, and if it's not in the rules then it must be Verbotten! and that makes the publisher an Istophobe.

Except that all of the "Adventure Paths" produced for 5e were deliberately designed in a way that makes them all non canon.

So that makes him King of the non-canon I guess.

I'm not sure I have the "no escapism" effort mapped out here. As a scam it seems potentially self defeating. What are they going to to when all the money is in the youtubers hands because people go to them for influence and not to WotC and the youtubers want troublesome people gone from WotC and they effectively decide what is canon because if they don't act it out no one cares?

My motto has always been Canon be damned, no matter what game or company.

But this new BS from JC is strictly about rewriting the past for socio-political reasons, not  for doing DMs a favor.

Quote from: JeffB on July 24, 2021, 09:34:52 AM
My motto has always been Canon be damned, no matter what game or company.

But this new BS from JC is strictly about rewriting the past for socio-political reasons, not  for doing DMs a favor.

This is 100% correct.  Can't have evil black skinned drow running around without a bunch of friendly ones to counterbalance what was once a fun and novel monster.

This is completely to set up what is to come.  It's a shame that newer players won't even know the cool stuff of yesteryear.

I could be totally off here but I think it's only a matter of time before they ditch the "parental warning" and simply stamp out any print on demand of "problematic" material.

They will announce that after reflection it does not match the values of WOTC and they don't want to promote this kind of thing.  That will be within a couple years.

Hope I am wrong.  I am surely holding onto my old materials including the phb which credits the pundit so I can one day compare it to what they are printing down the line.

Today my friends of 40 years and I are playing BECMI with my youngest child.  It's for fun—-I like xp for gold and also a little bit of F off to the thought police.

Suspect we might kill a few goblins.  The horror!  We're imperialistic slime!

The hubris is amusing but really it's not the players they're telling, but releasing WOtC from their own obligations.

I think it's easier to translate this move as:
Preparing 6e for the marketing merge of D&D and MTG requires the company to not be hampered by references to past creations.  Crawford's job is done.

Oh I'm sure Hasbro has some big plans that go far beyond RPG's for the D&D property.  They'll need time to market their new 'modern-minded' heroes for inclusion into the product.  The Mindflayer and Beholder will survive the transition.  Since no one has compared them to any oppressed minority group, they're in the clear.

Who would have thought that the original 5e books may become the new touchstone of 'non-woke' for players in the future.

I've never cared what is or is not "canon" in RPGs but of course WOTC does in fact get to decide what is canon for the books they write. Which is all he said. He never made any claim that he can decide what is canon at your table, just what they are assuming is canon when they write their products. But that's such a non-issue, such a non-sexy issue for Pundit, that he has to be deceptive in the way he spins it to try and pretend Crawford said or implied something much bigger. Because otherwise he won't get clicks, which means Pundit won't be able to make as much money. Not that 1200 views will even buy him a cup of coffee.

Calling Crawford a "nobody" is laughable, seeing as he is lead rules designer for what is arguably the most successful edition of the game, ever.

I don't think that what Crawford is saying (and it is worth noting that he is speaking on behaf of WotC in this matter, and not himself), is all that different from what you are saying: that the real canon is what occurs at your table, among your friends, in your game. From the article in question:

Quote...worlds such as Krynn or Faerun might not exist within "official" canon, Crawford said that this decision ultimately brings the focus to the story that the Dungeon Master and the players want to tell when playing Dungeons & Dragons. "When it comes to the RPG, what's important is each DM's story and the story they create with their players," Crawford said. "The moment you are at the game table, it's no longer "our" Dragonlance or "our" Forgotten Realms, it's your Forgotten Realms, it's your Dragonlance. You're now telling your stories in those settings. You're not bound to the stories in the novels, as wonderful as they might be. We hope you take as much inspiration from them as it gives you joy to do so. The same goes for D&D video games or for D&D comics."

As for WotC "not getting to decide what's canon", they own the IP, they absolutely get to decide what is official canon. And it doesn't have an impact on anyone's home game. But y'know what? It never did. Unless they chose to let it. This whole "Oooh, look at me, I'm such a rebel for playing D&D my own way", when that's what people have been doing since the '70s, is typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill overreach. It's clickbait. But, while WotC owns the IP, they don't own anyone's experience or anyone's own personal or shared game of D&D. But, they're not claiming to, either.

This is not a new debate, by any means. Ed Greenwood, "Father of the Forgotten Realms", once stated that "canon" was "anything officially published". In fact, according to Greenwood's own original agreement with TSR, anything he wrote or said was considered canon, unless or until such time as it was contradicted or superceded by published material from TSR (and later WotC).

Lastly, this whole thing smacks of some personal enmity towards Crawford. This is obviously a WotC decision, not the decision of one person, and it's weird that you are trying to make it solely about him. You can say you don't care what he thinks, but I don't see him making videos responding to you. Just sayin'.

Quote from: Mistwell on July 24, 2021, 12:45:32 PM
I've never cared what is or is not "canon" in RPGs but of course WOTC does in fact get to decide what is canon for the books they write. Which is all he said. He never made any claim that he can decide what is canon at your table, just what they are assuming is canon when they write their products. But that's such a non-issue, such a non-sexy issue for Pundit, that he has to be deceptive in the way he spins it to try and pretend Crawford said or implied something much bigger. Because otherwise he won't get clicks, which means Pundit won't be able to make as much money. Not that 1200 views will even buy him a cup of coffee.

Careful, you're starting to sound like your twitter account.

"Canon at the table" is a non-issue, at least until the Communists get enough power to be able to arrest you for playing the wrong kind of games, which is a thing that has happened elsewhere and could happen anywhere, so don't imagine it won't.
The issue is that the Pol-Pot style declaration of a "Year Zero" is a carte blanche for them to excuse RADICAL LEFTIST rewrites of the D&D game settings and basic implied setting material for all future products.

Quote from: Tubesock Army on July 24, 2021, 04:00:24 PM
Calling Crawford a "nobody" is laughable, seeing as he is lead rules designer for what is arguably the most successful edition of the game, ever.

I don't think that what Crawford is saying (and it is worth noting that he is speaking on behaf of WotC in this matter, and not himself), is all that different from what you are saying: that the real canon is what occurs at your table, among your friends, in your game. From the article in question:

Quote...worlds such as Krynn or Faerun might not exist within "official" canon, Crawford said that this decision ultimately brings the focus to the story that the Dungeon Master and the players want to tell when playing Dungeons & Dragons. "When it comes to the RPG, what's important is each DM's story and the story they create with their players," Crawford said. "The moment you are at the game table, it's no longer "our" Dragonlance or "our" Forgotten Realms, it's your Forgotten Realms, it's your Dragonlance. You're now telling your stories in those settings. You're not bound to the stories in the novels, as wonderful as they might be. We hope you take as much inspiration from them as it gives you joy to do so. The same goes for D&D video games or for D&D comics."

Yes, they say that kind of thing, but then they've created a culture (they'd call it "the D&D Community", of course) where players are supposed to be dependent on WoTC products; and the new younger players tend to be extremely subservient to only playing what WoTC tells them to and not changing anything.
Which is a shame, because when me and Mike Mearls set up D&D5e, the whole point of it was for it to be super-easy to modify, so people could change the rules any number of ways and make "a thousand D&Ds" (an actual talking point between us).
But even though the system is totally set up to do that, no one who plays 5e ever does; almost all of them just blindly sticks to playing exactly how WoTC tells them to play. And Crawford, with his pretending to be the "Sage" arbiter of rules on social media, is a huge part of reinforcing that.

Quote
As for WotC "not getting to decide what's canon", they own the IP, they absolutely get to decide what is official canon. And it doesn't have an impact on anyone's home game. But y'know what? It never did. Unless they chose to let it. This whole "Oooh, look at me, I'm such a rebel for playing D&D my own way", when that's what people have been doing since the '70s, is typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill overreach. It's clickbait. But, while WotC owns the IP, they don't own anyone's experience or anyone's own personal or shared game of D&D. But, they're not claiming to, either.

So in other words, they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT get to decide what is canon. There is NO CANON.

Quote
Lastly, this whole thing smacks of some personal enmity towards Crawford. This is obviously a WotC decision, not the decision of one person, and it's weird that you are trying to make it solely about him. You can say you don't care what he thinks, but I don't see him making videos responding to you. Just sayin'.

Oh he did post about me, but when he did that I humiliated him, so I'm not surprised he isn't gunning for a rematch, my dude.

Greetings!

Ahh, yes. As I smoke my pipe of fine tobacco, I rejoice in knowing that Pundit is profiting and making money.

I hope that Pundit makes a TRAINLOAD OF MONEY!!!

Fucking rake it all in baby! Entrepreneurship and capitalism should be admired, approved of, and greatly celebrated!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Tubesock Army on July 24, 2021, 04:00:24 PM
As for WotC "not getting to decide what's canon", they own the IP, they absolutely get to decide what is official canon. And it doesn't have an impact on anyone's home game. But y'know what? It never did. Unless they chose to let it. This whole "Oooh, look at me, I'm such a rebel for playing D&D my own way", when that's what people have been doing since the '70s, is typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill overreach. It's clickbait. But, while WotC owns the IP, they don't own anyone's experience or anyone's own personal or shared game of D&D. But, they're not claiming to, either.

This is not a new debate, by any means.

Quote from: RPGPundit on July 24, 2021, 04:33:31 PM
So in other words, they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT get to decide what is canon. There is NO CANON.

The IP owners get to decide what is canon for them. That's important for customers because it lets them know what to expect in terms of continuity. They'll know which works are one-offs (like Marvel's "What If") and which works are part of the ongoing continuity, and what the ongoing continuity will follow.

Quote from: RPGPundit on July 24, 2021, 04:33:31 PM
Yes, they say that kind of thing, but then they've created a culture (they'd call it "the D&D Community", of course) where players are supposed to be dependent on WoTC products; and the new younger players tend to be extremely subservient to only playing what WoTC tells them to and not changing anything.

WotC have tightened up compared to the 3E days, but compared to TSR, WotC has been much more open to third-party material and do-it-yourself approaches to the game. In early days of D&D, Gygax was infamous about ranting against fanzines and even DM's house rule variants -- and later on TSR sued third parties for making D&D-compatible material. For example, in 1978 in Dragon #16, Gygax wrote:

QuoteD&D encourages inventiveness and originality within the framework of its rules. Those who insist on altering the framework should design their own game.

QuoteAdditions to and augmentations of certain parts of the D&D rules are fine. Variants which change the rules so as to imbalance the game or change it are most certainly not. These sorts of tinkering fall into the realm of creation of a new game, not development of the existing system, and as I stated earlier, those who wish to make those kind of changes should go and design their own game.

and

Quote...(Amateur Press Associations) are generally beneath contempt, for they typify the lowest form of vanity press. There one finds pages and pages of banal chatter and inept writing from persons incapable of creating anything which is publishable elsewhere. Therefore, they pay money to tout their sophomoric ideas, criticise those who are able to write and design, and generally make themselves obnoxious...they are unprofessional, unethical and seemingly ignorant of the laws concerning libel...When I first got into this business, I felt that the APA-zines might be good for the hobby...Now I know the error of my thinking. They serve no useful purpose.

Source: https://rollonward.blogspot.com/2010/10/gary-gygax-and-house-rules.html

Quote from: jhkim on July 24, 2021, 08:54:01 PM

Quote from: Tubesock Army on July 24, 2021, 04:00:24 PM
As for WotC "not getting to decide what's canon", they own the IP, they absolutely get to decide what is official canon. And it doesn't have an impact on anyone's home game. But y'know what? It never did. Unless they chose to let it. This whole "Oooh, look at me, I'm such a rebel for playing D&D my own way", when that's what people have been doing since the '70s, is typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill overreach. It's clickbait. But, while WotC owns the IP, they don't own anyone's experience or anyone's own personal or shared game of D&D. But, they're not claiming to, either.

This is not a new debate, by any means.

Quote from: RPGPundit on July 24, 2021, 04:33:31 PM
So in other words, they ABSOLUTELY DO NOT get to decide what is canon. There is NO CANON.

The IP owners get to decide what is canon for them. That's important for customers because it lets them know what to expect in terms of continuity. They'll know which works are one-offs (like Marvel's "What If") and which works are part of the ongoing continuity, and what the ongoing continuity will follow.

Quote from: RPGPundit on July 24, 2021, 04:33:31 PM
Yes, they say that kind of thing, but then they've created a culture (they'd call it "the D&D Community", of course) where players are supposed to be dependent on WoTC products; and the new younger players tend to be extremely subservient to only playing what WoTC tells them to and not changing anything.

WotC have tightened up compared to the 3E days, but compared to TSR, WotC has been much more open to third-party material and do-it-yourself approaches to the game. In early days of D&D, Gygax was infamous about ranting against fanzines and even DM's house rule variants -- and later on TSR sued third parties for making D&D-compatible material. For example, in 1978 in Dragon #16, Gygax wrote:

QuoteD&D encourages inventiveness and originality within the framework of its rules. Those who insist on altering the framework should design their own game.

QuoteAdditions to and augmentations of certain parts of the D&D rules are fine. Variants which change the rules so as to imbalance the game or change it are most certainly not. These sorts of tinkering fall into the realm of creation of a new game, not development of the existing system, and as I stated earlier, those who wish to make those kind of changes should go and design their own game.

and

Quote...(Amateur Press Associations) are generally beneath contempt, for they typify the lowest form of vanity press. There one finds pages and pages of banal chatter and inept writing from persons incapable of creating anything which is publishable elsewhere. Therefore, they pay money to tout their sophomoric ideas, criticise those who are able to write and design, and generally make themselves obnoxious...they are unprofessional, unethical and seemingly ignorant of the laws concerning libel...When I first got into this business, I felt that the APA-zines might be good for the hobby...Now I know the error of my thinking. They serve no useful purpose.

Source: https://rollonward.blogspot.com/2010/10/gary-gygax-and-house-rules.html

Greetings!

Well, Gygax was writing in an entirely different era, concerning different people, using vastly different technology.

Fast forward to the current day, well, geesus. I've seen "Amateur" created websites, game-worlds, and various modules and gaming materials that, perhaps aside from not having full-panel professional artwork--are every bit as valuable, meaningful, creative, and inspiring as *anything* written by WOTC. I'm talking about the work's presentation, organization, rules development, geography, world descriptions, religions, cultures, everything. All with very nice fonts, little side artwork thingies, flourishes, headers, and so on. Some really fantastic stuff being produced by "One-Man Shows".

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

BINGO- the APA of the 70s was a COMPLETELY different situation than what we have going on now.  Apples and Oranges.

Go find some early issues of A&E and you'll get an idea of the Grade A+ Assholes he was dealing with at the time. You have to remember most of his commentary ended up being in TSR/The Dragon because he could no longer be bothered with the time sink of the APA- so many readers did not get to see most of the garbage he was going off about.

I didn't get into A&E until around 1980 or so, but after getting a bunch of the early back issues from Lee, I "got it".