When canon doesn't matter you get a rock named Geode who navigates "the vessel" to fight "Darth Badguy" on the planet "World" so he can't use " The Weapon". You get bald empathic homunculus twins named Ceret and Terec. You get an immortal Doctor who isn't really a time lord. Basically without canon any fool can just open up the shit faucets.

Quote from: Jaeger on July 29, 2021, 11:12:17 PM
As to the new trilogy: I would find it absolutely incredulous that H&W would retcon and invalidate their past writings for the three new books primarily marketed to current DL fandom.

    How familiar are you with their work?  Weis & Hickman have been fine with retconning their own work on Dragonlance, and downright cheerful about retconning the work of other hands. Sometimes they regret it and wind up retconning their retcons. Track the evolution of the High God and Chaos through their own writings if you don't believe me.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on July 30, 2021, 03:07:27 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on July 29, 2021, 11:12:17 PM
As to the new trilogy: I would find it absolutely incredulous that H&W would retcon and invalidate their past writings for the three new books primarily marketed to current DL fandom.

    How familiar are you with their work?  Weis & Hickman have been fine with retconning their own work on Dragonlance, and downright cheerful about retconning the work of other hands. Sometimes they regret it and wind up retconning their retcons. Track the evolution of the High God and Chaos through their own writings if you don't believe me.

Very this. At some point they apparently went back and re-writ some of the books, exvept now several of the main characters get killed off. And thats not even getting to the various cataclysm 2.0 3.0 etc the gods are back-the gods are gone-the gods are back-the gods are gone ad nausium.

Quote from: Omega on July 30, 2021, 04:08:16 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on July 30, 2021, 03:07:27 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on July 29, 2021, 11:12:17 PM
As to the new trilogy: I would find it absolutely incredulous that H&W would retcon and invalidate their past writings for the three new books primarily marketed to current DL fandom.

    How familiar are you with their work?  Weis & Hickman have been fine with retconning their own work on Dragonlance, and downright cheerful about retconning the work of other hands. Sometimes they regret it and wind up retconning their retcons. Track the evolution of the High God and Chaos through their own writings if you don't believe me.

Very this. At some point they apparently went back and re-writ some of the books, exvept now several of the main characters get killed off. And thats not even getting to the various cataclysm 2.0 3.0 etc the gods are back-the gods are gone-the gods are back-the gods are gone ad nausium.

Good points, so I looked into it...

IMHO most of the enthusiasm and fond memories I see online for DL overwhelmingly revolves around the Original DragonLance trilogy.

And from what I have read online; the continuity is such a epic fucking mess that most have just stopped paying any attention to the continuity whatsoever. (The 'continuity' rundowns I have read bear that out... LOL WTF! What a disaster!)

But, it is worth noting that it is a continuity disaster. Not a woke disaster.

H&W book license that they have is not the work for hire situation they were under in the past. (Which directly led to a lot of the previous retconning.) They went after, and paid for a license to use for books that they wanted to put out.

IMHO the big tell here is that as far as WOTC D&D PR is concerned; the new H&W DL trilogy Does. Not. Exist.

I highly doubt H&W would willingly do the kind of woke to the gills changes to DragonLance that Crawford and Co. would gleefully impose on the setting if given half a chance.

As this is all SWAG tea-leaf reading, I could be wrong.

But the books will drop shortly, and then we'll see what two classic setting WOTC will put out, and we can compare.

Quote from: Omega on July 29, 2021, 10:28:43 AM

Quote from: Flipped Bird on July 29, 2021, 06:19:37 AM
I think you've put the cart before the horse. It's been the case for a while now that a lot of lazy writers see canon as a burden and rely heavily on prequels, remakes, and soft reboots that allow them to cherry pick the most memorable (and marketable) parts of an IP and cut away the rest. The fact that they will be creating an opportunity to force more of their politics into their settings is just icing on the cake for them.

Thats been a thing since at least the 70s.

Keep in mind WOTC wanted to hard reboot Dragonlance as its 5e setting. "What if the group never met at the tavern?"

It's been a thing since ancient mythology and fairy tales. "Canon" is actually a modern invention. Originally storytellers would make stuff up willy nilly without regard for consistency. That's why we have multiple versions of old stories. I think that diversity of stories is a good thing.

While I can understand the problem with SJW craziness, rebooting is not an inherently bad thing. I think Transformers has benefited immensely from being rebooted a dozen times. Each reboot has been influenced by what came before. Furthermore, the Transformers multiverse has provided an excellent case study in cataloging a modern mythopoeia with all the permutations of a living story cycle. It's not always resulted in the best choices by writers (that time IDW made Arcee a transgender Frankenstein's monster comes to mind), but having options and diversity of thought is great.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 06:28:50 PMIt's been a thing since ancient mythology and fairy tales. "Canon" is actually a modern invention.

I guess if modern is a few thousand years old then yeah I suppose it is in comparison to literally oral tradition stories.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 06:48:10 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 06:28:50 PMIt's been a thing since ancient mythology and fairy tales. "Canon" is actually a modern invention.

I guess if modern is a few thousand years old then yeah I suppose it is in comparison to literally oral tradition stories.

I know, right.

Thats why we have so many stories about how Jesus was an African Transwoman because no Canon.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 06:56:01 PM
I know, right.

Thats why we have so many stories about how Jesus was an African Transwoman because no Canon.

   I think the first time canon was applied to a set of fictional texts as opposed to religious or literary ones (the latter in the sense of the 'canon of the Western tradition', etc.) was Msgr. Ronald Knox laying the foundation of Sherlockian fandom. I believe he was doing that in part as a satire of the 'higher criticism' of Scripture.

Like I will admit Im not one of those people that obsesses over 'Why the third button from the right launched lasers from season 1-2 but in episode 6 it sounded the alarm', but continuity is important.

Those that discard continuity are the kind of people with the attention span of a goldfish. And if that is the case then the presence or absense of continuity will not bother those folks.

Discarding continuity and not trying to keep what happens strait is just people being lazy and letting their ego have control over  ongoing narrative.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on July 30, 2021, 07:50:56 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on July 30, 2021, 06:56:01 PM
I know, right.

Thats why we have so many stories about how Jesus was an African Transwoman because no Canon.

   I think the first time canon was applied to a set of fictional texts as opposed to religious or literary ones (the latter in the sense of the 'canon of the Western tradition', etc.) was Msgr. Ronald Knox laying the foundation of Sherlockian fandom. I believe he was doing that in part as a satire of the 'higher criticism' of Scripture.

You mean Epic of Gilgamesh.  Probably had some rando wanting to reboot the franchise right back in 2000 BC

You try maintaining continuity across franchises that are many decades old and have countless entries and writers working on them. It's impossible. Doctor Who, Warcraft, Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer, Cthulhu mythos, etc couldn't do it even before the SJW infestation.

And what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

You're letting your hatred of the SJWs cloud your judgement. Reboot is a tool like anything else. It can be used for good or ill.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

Make a new franchise and story.
Im not clouded by anything. I hated endless reboots and shitty lazy sequels and IP worship before I ever heard the term SJW.
If you can't be bothered with basic fucking details of an existing story, just make ORIGINAL CONTENT.

Its shackling to remember the original, but its not lazy to use existing material for easy writing?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PM
You try maintaining continuity across franchises that are many decades old and have countless entries and writers working on them. It's impossible. Doctor Who, Warcraft, Star Trek, Star Wars, Warhammer, Cthulhu mythos, etc couldn't do it even before the SJW infestation.

And what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

You're letting your hatred of the SJWs cloud your judgement. Reboot is a tool like anything else. It can be used for good or ill.

Is it impossible?  Really?

In these days with hyperlinked wikipedia-type sites and searchable texts, it is getting less and less impossible.

Unless you are just so lazy and or unimaginative that you cant work within the existing framework.


And just for the sake of your argument.  Which author are you referring to when you say they are wanting to "reboot" their setting?  Obviously you must have 2 or 3 that you can name off the top of your head.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 09:39:28 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

Make a new franchise and story.

Fucking This.

Reportedly, when George Lucas coudn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, he made a little fantasy sci fi movie called Star Wars. You may have heard about it.
It was a risk. A huge gamble. A challenge to create something new, inspired by other sources, sure, but not a sequel or a reboot or a reimagining with Flash Gordon slapped on the box.
I don't even mind a reimagining or a reboot or a sequel. Some of them turn out rather well. But we've got the modern, corporate machine cranking them out according to a formula gleaned from algorythms and focus groups. A crutch for less creative people to make cookie cutter films that are quickly consumed and forgotten.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 31, 2021, 01:52:38 AM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on July 30, 2021, 09:39:28 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2021, 09:13:20 PMAnd what if an author decides to reboot their setting because they have new ideas that can't fit into it? Should they shackle themselves because of your nerd autism?

Make a new franchise and story.

Fucking This.

Reportedly, when George Lucas coudn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, he made a little fantasy sci fi movie called Star Wars. You may have heard about it.
It was a risk. A huge gamble. A challenge to create something new, inspired by other sources, sure, but not a sequel or a reboot or a reimagining with Flash Gordon slapped on the box.
I don't even mind a reimagining or a reboot or a sequel. Some of them turn out rather well. But we've got the modern, corporate machine cranking them out according to a formula gleaned from algorythms and focus groups. A crutch for less creative people to make cookie cutter films that are quickly consumed and forgotten.

Should Superman still be an aggressive guy beating up reporters because of wrongthink? Because the truth, justice, and the American Way boyscout is a retcon.

As far as I can tell, people are fine with retcons as long as they're done well. It's only when they're not done well that people start complaining about purity and canon.

Krynn is a weird example, because it sounds like the canon has become a huge mess. On top of that, it's a setting that's specifically a reaction to other settings. It doesn't seem as moored in canon in the first place.