Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 10:13:46 PM

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.

Not to mention all the color continuity issues!

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Hal_Sutherland

Star Trek is hilariously bad at canon to the point where episode to episode will contradict each other and official sources can not even agree how many decks a ship will have.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 23, 2021, 07:26:00 PM

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?

Shasarak: Thank you for the invitation.  Perhaps, when I'm not at work and i have full access to my writings; I will do just that.  Then I would encourage others to add to that thread.  Make it a wellspring of non-WOTC setting ideas.  Almost anyone can do it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 23, 2021, 10:35:08 PM

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.

According to the thread where Weiss and Hickman had to sue WotC re: Dragonlance, I would say woke but not Woke enough.

Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 07:46:48 PM

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.

Oh yes, totally, I only was able to get into comics because I've been buying them since the 30's. 

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 23, 2021, 11:29:48 PMOh yes, totally, I only was able to get into comics because I've been buying them since the 30's. 

I will be the first to admit that my frustration with feeling like I'm missing out on backstory is an Asperger's-level personal weakness.

Seriously, as a kid I was annoyed about not being able to watch the Bill Cosby comedy Leonard Part 6 because I'd never seen Parts 1 through 5 available anywhere. 

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on July 23, 2021, 11:45:40 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 23, 2021, 11:29:48 PMOh yes, totally, I only was able to get into comics because I've been buying them since the 30's. 

I will be the first to admit that my frustration with feeling like I'm missing out on backstory is an Asperger's-level personal weakness.

Seriously, as a kid I was annoyed about not being able to watch the Bill Cosby comedy Leonard Part 6 because I'd never seen Parts 1 through 5 available anywhere. 

I'm being a bit disingenuos, since here in México they reprinted the origin of Spiderman several times under different publishers, and I got lucky and bought one of those since the first issue, same thing with other Marvel characters and of course DC.

But lets be honest, now a day if you're not an aspie (like you and me) you can just google it. So the whole "80 years of canon stops new people from getting into it!" is just a lame excuse from lazy writers that want to write the character but not be constrained by the canon. And they have said as much.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 23, 2021, 11:29:48 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 07:46:48 PM

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

Oh yes, totally, I only was able to get into comics because I've been buying them since the 30's. 

It's not just you, GeekyBugle. My son is into a lot of mainstream comic lines -- he's been reading a lot of them since he was pretty small.

I'm just not into that aspect personally - and in terms of corporate choices, I think Stephen and me are a dominant market. It's only uncommon hard-core customers who get into deep continuity like that - though to be fair, they're high-paying loyal customers as long as they are catered to well.

I think even more so than comics, though, D&D players are more strongly tend away from canon and continuity -- since D&D is so much Do-It-Yourself. In principle, I know there are players who follow the novels and care about whether something is an "official" module or not -- but it seems to me like D&D players are even more likely to accept an unofficial module than a comic fan is to accept an unofficial comic book.


EDITED TO ADD: Just to emphasize the "no judgement" thing here, I'm happy to think of dedicated fans as the elite -- and myself as the unwashed masses. There are some things about my son's tastes that I disapprove of, but this isn't one of them.

Quote from: jhkim on July 24, 2021, 12:00:22 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 23, 2021, 11:29:48 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 23, 2021, 07:46:48 PM

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

Oh yes, totally, I only was able to get into comics because I've been buying them since the 30's. 

It's not just you, GeekyBugle. My son is into a lot of mainstream comic lines -- he's been reading a lot of them since he was pretty small.

I'm just not into that aspect personally - and in terms of corporate choices, I think Stephen and me are a dominant market. It's only uncommon hard-core customers who get into deep continuity like that - though to be fair, they're high-paying loyal customers as long as they are catered to well.

I think even more so than comics, though, D&D players are more strongly tend away from canon and continuity -- since D&D is so much Do-It-Yourself. In principle, I know there are players who follow the novels and care about whether something is an "official" module or not -- but it seems to me like D&D players are even more likely to accept an unofficial module than a comic fan is to accept an unofficial comic book.


EDITED TO ADD: Just to emphasize the "no judgement" thing here, I'm happy to think of dedicated fans as the elite -- and myself as the unwashed masses. There are some things about my son's tastes that I disapprove of, but this isn't one of them.

As someone with both feet firmly planted in both those "fandoms" let me tell you your assesment is correct, I used to drop huge ammounts of my income in Marvel/DC plus the other 5 every month, and it took a lot of abuse and deception for me to stop buying from them.

In my case the hole in my Spidey collection is around 14 years old now (Since it became clear One More Day was final), and I will likely never buy another Spidey comic. Droping everything Marvel about 4-5 years ago. And everything DC/ the other 5 2-3 years ago.

Only exception is Ragnarok By Walt Simmonson, I need to read that until the end, it's so good.

As for TTRPGs, yep, what canon? Only canon I care about is the one in the games I'm playing/runing. Whatever anyone else writes is BS to me.

Which is why I tended to play SW but way before A New Hope. Playing in the same time period prevents you from being THE HERO.

Edited to Add: I'm not "The Elite" but I'm a whale and we whales were what kept the big 5 in bussiness, without us the comics side of the bussiness is going to shit and the movie side won't be long for this world since the normies will get tired of the cape stuff, especially of the woke cape stuff.

The hilarious thing is that Forgotten Realms is the worst example ever. Pretty much every issue they have "un-cannoned" something with a new "CRISIS!".

Also uncannoning the old is nothing new and TSR was doing it long before WOTC.

Known World was un-cannoned into Mystara. Mystara was un-cannoned into 2e D&D.
Blackmoor was un-cannoned into Mystara.
Raven loft has gone from a cursed kingdom to a demi-plane to a vast prison dimension and so on.
Dragonlance has been flip flopped how many times with its own "cataclysm 1-2-3.0s?
Think even Greyhawk has been changed pre 3e?

The even funnier part is someone will come along and do the same thing to Crawford.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 24, 2021, 12:13:14 AM
As for TTRPGs, yep, what canon? Only canon I care about is the one in the games I'm playing/runing. Whatever anyone else writes is BS to me.

Which is why I tended to play SW but way before A New Hope. Playing in the same time period prevents you from being THE HERO.

Never quite understood this. The Mandalorian is a great example of carving out a space for someone else to be THE HERO in their own story.
Until the show started down the horrible path of being self-refferential with all the damn cameos in season two.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on July 24, 2021, 09:18:55 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 24, 2021, 12:13:14 AM
As for TTRPGs, yep, what canon? Only canon I care about is the one in the games I'm playing/runing. Whatever anyone else writes is BS to me.

Which is why I tended to play SW but way before A New Hope. Playing in the same time period prevents you from being THE HERO.

Never quite understood this. The Mandalorian is a great example of carving out a space for someone else to be THE HERO in their own story.
Until the show started down the horrible path of being self-refferential with all the damn cameos in season two.

But is he THE HERO? Or just a Hero?

Also, the mandalorian takes place sometime after The Return of The Jedi but before The Last Jedi. Si it falls under my premise still, you need to play before or after the OT. Otherwise you're a very small fish in a large pond having a very small impact in the grand scheme of things.

Quote from: Shasarak on July 23, 2021, 10:56:30 PM


According to the thread where Weiss and Hickman had to sue WotC re: Dragonlance, I would say woke but not Woke enough.

Someone else said it in that previous thread: It is highly unlikely that H&W Will undo and retcon their own established cannon when they are writing new books  to sell to the fans of the originals.

I find myself in agreement with that sentiment.

Quote from: FingerRod on July 23, 2021, 10:33:14 PM
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.

If a DragonLance setting book or adventure is in the pipeline...

The betting will not be on whether or not they make an "iconic" NPC gay or bisexual. 

It will be on the over-under of how much gay, bisexual, gender and race swapping they will put into a new Dragonlance book...

Quote from: Jaeger on July 25, 2021, 05:56:26 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on July 23, 2021, 10:56:30 PM


According to the thread where Weiss and Hickman had to sue WotC re: Dragonlance, I would say woke but not Woke enough.

Someone else said it in that previous thread: It is highly unlikely that H&W Will undo and retcon their own established cannon when they are writing new books  to sell to the fans of the originals.

Did you not get the memo?

WotC decides what is canon now.

Now that D&D is refreshing their canon and abandoning their problematic roots maybe genre fiction will be considered cleansed and D&D novels can win a HUGO at Worldcon.