We need to write our own settings, and be done with it.  I don't need their settings, anymore.  What's in my setting?  Whatever I want in it.  What's not in my setting?  Whatever I don't want in it. 

Quote from: Jam The MF on July 23, 2021, 07:07:25 PM
We need to write our own settings, and be done with it.  I don't need their settings, anymore.  What's in my setting?  Whatever I want in it.  What's not in my setting?  Whatever I don't want in it.

Exactly.

Just for shits and giggles, I'm going to run the following games at the next woke convention

Lamentations
MYFAROG
and of Pundit's stuff
AD&D Oriental Adventures

and see what happens

the whole canon thing is basically to label anything pre-5e as "problematic" or full-on white supremacy. The safe space is 5e with WOTC/Hasbro looking over your shoulder to keep you ideologically pure

Quote from: Jam The MF on July 23, 2021, 07:07:25 PM
We need to write our own settings, and be done with it.  I don't need their settings, anymore.  What's in my setting?  Whatever I want in it.  What's not in my setting?  Whatever I don't want in it.

Midlands by Stephen J. Grodzicki, of Low Fantasy Gaming, is a OGL licensed sandbox.

Quote from: Jam The MF on July 23, 2021, 07:07:25 PM
We need to write our own settings, and be done with it.  I don't need their settings, anymore.  What's in my setting?  Whatever I want in it.  What's not in my setting?  Whatever I don't want in it.

Why not start a thread about your setting?

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 23, 2021, 06:52:08 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on July 22, 2021, 05:51:21 PMI don't care about the canonicity in and of itself ... but there are usually two negative consequences to this kind of declaration:

1. So far, whenever a corporation has gone out of their way to declare old stuff non-canon, the replacement material has been decidedly unimpressive.

2. While the Pop Cultists may claim "the old material's still there for you," if you express a preference for it over the new stuff in public, you will be bullied and calumniated until you bow down and offer your ceremonial pinch of incense to the idols of the New Age.

I have never really been able to get into comics for precisely the same reason -- I could never cope with feeling like I was missing out on a critical backstory when virtually every other page in any comic book I picked up had an asterisk noting, "See Issue 45, Oct '82", or whatever. One of the things I loved about the Marvel Cinematic Universe was that it was deliberately constructed for people like me who didn't have more than a very basic knowledge of Marvel Comics.

I agree about comics. I never got into the mainstream of either Marvel or DC comics in part because of this. (Plus other reasons.) So isn't the MCU a case of declaring older material non-canon? I thought that was much better than sticking to the pre-existing canon.

Offhand, the main other "resets" that I'm familiar with are in Star Trek and in Star Wars.

As I recall, shortly after Star Trek: The Next Generation started, the producers took the Animated Series out of the canon. I think that was a reasonable move. Trying to stay consistent with the animated series would have been a major restriction on writers, and I thought the various later Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY, etc.) series had very quite good material, even though the first season of TNG was terrible.

I haven't followed Star Wars much - but as I understand it, the Expanded Universe of Star Wars (comics, novels, games, etc.) were declared non-canonical some time in the 2000s. I didn't like either the prequel or sequel trilogies, but I'm not clear that keeping the EU in canon would have helped. I think it would have been better to mine the EU for material (like the MCU did to the comics), but not keep it canonical.

How did having no canon work out for Star Wars?

Would "suck donkey balls" be too strong?

Quote from: Shasarak on July 23, 2021, 08:03:30 PMHow did having no canon work out for Star Wars?

Would "suck donkey balls" be too strong?

No, no, it would not.

That said, while I was disappointed at the decision to disregard almost all of what is now called the "Legends" universe myself, there wasn't much else that was practical given that the fundamental goal was to (a) make another Star Wars movie in 2015, (b) featuring the three headline actors of the original (Ep IV-VI) trilogy as they were at the time it was made, and (c) make it understandable and accessible to the audience who hadn't invested in all of that prior material.

The fact that they completely failed at making it an actual good and coherent story is a wholly separate issue, and one for which I blame nobody except Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson.

I encourage & support the creation of Canon Councils that are independent of particular corporate creators. What we've seen over the past couple of years/decades is that "intellectual property" is being wielded in a way that's harmful. Because we are essentially living in a time in which all mass-media is controlled by a few monopolies, and the monopolies "own" every piece of cultural heritage in perpetuity (even stuff made a century ago like Mickey Mouse & Superman), it's very easy for culture to be weaponized against you by malicious govt-corporate tyranny actors (like Hasbro).

Ideally these Canon Councils review a certain range of works and provide their seal of approval, or not. While that doesn't seem like much at first glance, it is valuable to have an at-a-glance list of what people actually consider good. Moreover, if the Canon Councils themselves could able to represent a significant fraction of the public base, that gives collective power capable of (potentially) influencing future works. We've been seeing this at work across many different IPs in the form of declining reach & profits.

However, more importantly, a Canon Council can and should have a particular GPL-like license that would permit them to cultivate new stories. Original creative works in a given universe could be released under the license which could then be approved by the CC if meeting certain standards.* The potential for empowering new creative works & giving them a built-in audience is promising, and differentiates a CC from a simple boycott or rating system.

* Obviously there are some legal issues that'd need to be worked around. Exactly how to do that would depend on the IP and the type & scope of the work.

Quote from: Zelen on July 23, 2021, 08:58:37 PM
I encourage & support the creation Canon Councils that are independent of particular corporate creators. What we've seen over the past couple of years/decades is that "intellectual property" is being wielded in a way that's harmful. Because we are essentially living in a time in which all mass-media is controlled by a few monopolies, and the monopolies "own" every piece of cultural heritage in perpetuity (even stuff made a century ago like Mickey Mouse & Superman), it's very easy for culture to be weaponized against you by malicious govt-corporate tyranny actors (like Hasbro).

Ideally these Canon Councils review a certain range of works and provide their seal of approval, or not. While that doesn't seem like much at first glance, it is valuable to have an at-a-glance list of what people actually consider good. Moreover, if the Canon Councils themselves could able to represent a significant fraction of the public base, that gives collective power capable of (potentially) influencing future works. We've been seeing this at work across many different IPs in the form of declining reach & profits.

However, more importantly, a Canon Council can and should have a particular GPL-like license that would permit them to cultivate new stories. Original creative works in a given universe could be released under the license which could then be approved by the CC if meeting certain standards.* The potential for empowering new creative works & giving them a built-in audience is promising, and differentiates a CC from a simple boycott or rating system.

* Obviously there are some legal issues that'd need to be worked around. Exactly how to do that would depend on the IP and the type & scope of the work.

Hmmm the socialisation of fandom.  The seizing of the means of legitimation.

Ha.

Not really sure how I feel about that. 

I think setting up such a thing and divorcing fandom from adherence to corporate overlordship would transform fandom in such a radical way that's hard to see what the result would be.

Fandom in it's current form is really half in love with it's own powerlessness.

Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 07:46:48 PM
As I recall, shortly after Star Trek: The Next Generation started, the producers took the Animated Series out of the canon. I think that was a reasonable move. Trying to stay consistent with the animated series would have been a major restriction on writers, and I thought the various later Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY, etc.) series had very quite good material, even though the first season of TNG was terrible.

I've never seen Star Trek TAS. What was so restrictive about it?

I hated VOY when it aired, but I'm enjoying it now.

Quote from: Aglondir on July 23, 2021, 09:21:45 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 07:46:48 PM
As I recall, shortly after Star Trek: The Next Generation started, the producers took the Animated Series out of the canon. I think that was a reasonable move. Trying to stay consistent with the animated series would have been a major restriction on writers, and I thought the various later Star Trek (TNG, DS9, VOY, etc.) series had very quite good material, even though the first season of TNG was terrible.

I've never seen Star Trek TAS. What was so restrictive about it?

I hated VOY when it aired, but I'm enjoying it now.

Both the original series (TOS) and the animated series (TAS) were loose with continuity. They aren't even really consistent within themselves - so trying to keep continuity with all of them in later series is difficult even just with TOS. Specifically, the animated series had things like force field spacesuits that weren't used by later series - plus other Federation aliens like the three-armed Edosians and the catlike Caitians that are difficult to do live-action. They brought in a variety of writers, like Larry Niven who brought in his alien Kzinti as part of the continuity.

It's not that the series was bad - just that if writers have to keep continuity with 79 TOS + 22 TAS episodes, it's harder than just the 79 TOS.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 23, 2021, 08:32:22 PM
That said, while I was disappointed at the decision to disregard almost all of what is now called the "Legends" universe myself, there wasn't much else that was practical given that the fundamental goal was to (a) make another Star Wars movie in 2015, (b) featuring the three headline actors of the original (Ep IV-VI) trilogy as they were at the time it was made, and (c) make it understandable and accessible to the audience who hadn't invested in all of that prior material.

I agree. Even if they were going to adapt material from the EU, like having Han Solo and Leia's kids be Jaina and Jacen and Anakin -- they wouldn't want to be restricted to canon, given how much was written about those three. They would want to do like the MCU did, and pick some of the best storylines and adapt them into something new.

This of course means they have plans on their roadmap to release something that really fucks with a previous IP. With Dragonlance specifically being called out in his bullshit story, I would be very nervous if I were Tanis. I mean he had two lovers, and both of them were women. I'm sure Crawford sees an opportunity to correct that injustice.

Quote from: Jaeger on July 23, 2021, 03:55:21 PM
IMHO the timing of this might have to do with the fact that new DragonLance books are coming out by Hickman and Weiss, and WOTC may release a DragonLance setting book that retcons huge swaths of H&W established Lore.

We'll see how this plays out...

Really? This will be interesting. I haven't keep up with Weiss and Hickman. I can't imagine they'd be very compatible with the woke brigade, or even modern gamers sensibilities. I'd hazard an opinion that they're old school in the sense of people from the 80's writing from that storytelling/gaming perspective.
Or maybe they've gone full woke since then. Like I said, I haven't followed them much.