Re-boring canon

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Agemegos

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Have you any examples of instances in which you had to make deliberate changes from the canon of a setting to make it suitable, or more suitable, for role-playing games, or for a campaign that you wanted to run? Apart, of course, from the real world and history that had to have magic, the weird, lost Macedonian cities in central Africa, and alternative history slathered onto them. I'm particularly interested in cases where you think that the original canon was fine for the medium that the original work was in, but that some changes had to be made because the needs of a role-playing campaign are different from those of e.g. comics or movies.

ADDED FOR CLARITY

There is already a thread (Head-canons about your favorite settings) for changes that your would make to established canons to improve them in their original medium. Changes that you would make to Star Trek canon to make it a better TV franchise, or changes that you would make to Greyhawk to make it a better RPG setting, and that sort of thing, belong there. What I am asking for here is changes you have made or would make in the process of adapting a setting from some other medium to RPG, that you would not make to the canon in its original medium, that are called for by the special needs of RPG.
 
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Have you any examples of instances in which you had to make deliberate changes from the canon of a setting to make it suitable, or more suitable, for role-playing games, or for a campaign that you wanted to run? Apart, of course, from the real world and history that had to have magic, the weird, lost Macedonian cities in central Africa, and alternative history slathered onto them. I'm particularly interested in cases where you think that the original canon was fine for the medium that the original work was in, but that some changes had to be made because the needs of a role-playing campaign are different from those of e.g. comics or movies.

I used to do so much of this with Traveller that I'm now on my third exercise in ground-up building of another system. In fact, if you squint and hold your head just right you can see bits of my old Traveller campaigns popping up in this one. As to what I did with Traveller . . oh, where do I start?
Having said this, I'm not sure if recounting all of my house rule changes to OTU canon might not just be a bit too boring.
 
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Dragonlance would be the obvious example that springs to mind. Even though it was originally a gaming line the novels took over pretty fast.

If I were to run it the first thing I would do is reboot it from the beginning with the PCs replacing the Heroes of the Lance who wouldn't exist as their existence while fine I guess for a novel series doesn't really work in a rpg.

I'd like to run an Essos based game sometime in the A Song of Ice and Fire world. I'm not sure exactly what I would change, but I'd prefer not to have the state of play at the end of the TV series be the case.
 
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I am increasingly of the view that VtM is, as written, only suited to two types of games. Elders games (especially generation spanning ones which take work but are fun) and anarchs vs the system.

Outside of that, canon gets dull.

"You have a boss. They will never die. You will never be able to get promoted because all of your superiors are also immortal and never lose any strength".

VtR fixed this thankfully.
 
I defy anyone running a Marvel comics based game to correctly account for in their campaign which characters are currently dead and have come back to life.

On that subject, there was this time I was running a Marvel game and I had of using HeroClix as minatures, not for precise grid map movements, just to give a little visual flair to the encounters. I found myself tweaking canon here and there to fit the models I had at hand. None of the players were deep into Marvel anyway, so I didn't get any "Hey, Rhino was never in the Circus of Evil" sort of comments. Honestly, I would not have cared if I had.
 
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I am increasingly of the view that VtM is, as written, only suited to two types of games. Elders games (especially generation spanning ones which take work but are fun) and anarchs vs the system.

Outside of that, canon gets dull.

"You have a boss. They will never die. You will never be able to get promoted because all of your superiors are also immortal and never lose any strength".

VtR fixed this thankfully.
In my opinion, playing the fringe stuff has always been far more interesting then playing in Camarilla. The Sabbat, Anarchs, or indies (free from the yoke) were always lots more fun.

I've never played VtR tbh though.
 
In my opinion, playing the fringe stuff has always been far more interesting then playing in Camarilla. The Sabbat, Anarchs, or indies (free from the yoke) were always lots more fun.

I've never played VtR tbh though.
I liked the Sabbat in theory.

My problem in practice was that I was interested in the weird inhuman theologies and philosophical clashes about the nature of freedom while everyone else wanted to shout "I eat the baby!" a lot.
 
A Song of Ice and Fire. When three of the four players wanted to play female characters, we had a short chat and decided to soften Westeros's inherent misogyny. Then a few sessions in, we decided to add a small selection of low level monster-ish things from D&D, just to make wilderness travel a little more varied.
 
No, I can't say that I have. There are many settings from movies and novels that I absolutely adore, but I resist the temptation to game in them if I don't think it's a good fit. That's why I have skipped a lot of recent commercial IP games released from Modiphius and Free League. No matter how good the setting, if it doesn't fit the type of gaming I want to do, I walk away. I will either use a setting designed for gaming, use a "history + hidden weirdness" setting, or make one from scratch.
 
I did a Marvel Universe set in the late 1930's using Worlds in Peril. It focused a super-man like Sentry who worked for the FBI cleaning up organized crime in Chicago. The other characters were 1930s versions of Domino and Mystique. The main villain was Fred "the Gut-man" Dukes (the Blob) who was brought in as a last ditch effort to stop Sentry's effort. Domino was being stalked by her nemesis, Sergei Kravinoff (Kraven the Hunter). After the Blob, they switched to dealing with nazi spies in NYC and DC lead by the Red Skull.

The plan was to move on into an Invaders campaign, but the player who was Sentry moved out of state and so we switched games.

The other named Marvel Characters were:
  • The Captain America project was just underway as a top secret project for the upcoming war.
  • The Devil of Hell's Kitchen was fighting organized crime.
  • Dr. Stephen Strange, sorcerer who was defending NYC from hoary hosts.
  • Dr. Reed Richards was a scientist working with an elderly Nikola Tesla (they were working on the original Human Torch project)


The unmovable Gut-man
246fe5a20aa39154d2b285cb68add30d.jpeg

Retro Sentry:
detail.jpeg
 
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I think stuff like this happens all the time. The 7th Sea RPG, for example, took our real world and changed it slightly to give a new history after a certain point. Or a lot of weird west games taking our history and at some point changing things, often adding in magic and zombies or whatever. As to pure fictional worlds, I often decide which Star Wars books or movies are canon for a given campaign and which ones aren't. For example I like to run a "nothing after 1980 Star Wars" game that includes the first movie and Han Solo books and Splinter of the Mind's Eye but nothing from Empire Strikes Back or later. In general when I make any D&D campaign I will take certain elements from various books or movies and put them together as I like, but change things as I want so that if the players have read the same books or seen the same movies they don't automatically know what will happen. I'm constantly taking someone else's IP and changing canon to reflect what I want it to be.

Or perhaps I don't understand the question?
 
To be honest I probably don't leave anything truly intact. Because I love to tinker with stuff. If there is something I don't like I just remove it. On occasions, I'll add my own take on something to try to improve on it. That said it's pretty subjective, so who knows if folks will actually like my addendum or not. :smile:
 
Already touched on this at the Headcanon thread, but the metaplot from the Dark Sun novels—which was later incorporated into the Expanded & Revised boxed set—ruined the setting from a gameplay perspective, since it eliminated a lot of stuff that PCs could've potentially done by killing off half the Sorcerer Kings and the Dragon of Athas, which completely changed the tone and made the setting more dull. I haven't played it in years, but when I did I always ignored most of what happened in the novels, other than the death of Kalak, which is when I usually started my campaigns, and set back the clock to the original boxed set.
 
The only big changes I can think of that I have deliberately made are things to make certain settings a little more realistic, in my particular view of what would be "realistic" in such a world. When it comes to historical settings, I have never made them less racist, sexist, misogynist, etc., or tried to have the NPCs act within the bounds of what is considered to be acceptable behavior today. I run them realistically, with attitude differences among individual NPCs that accurately reflect the variances in individual behavior and outlook that were around in the real history of the time. I never include anything related to sexual assault or child abuse, though, because those things upset me too much.
 
I defy anyone running a Marvel comics based game to correctly account for in their campaign which characters are currently dead and have come back to life.

I have always done mine by my headcanon of such things, which is pretty much the way things were going for the characters during the periods and storylines I liked the most. That tends to be the state of things in the 80s and early 90s.
 
The only big changes I can think of that I have deliberately made are things to make certain settings a little more realistic, in my particular view of what would be "realistic" in such a world. When it comes to historical settings, I have never made them less racist, sexist, misogynist, etc., or tried to have the NPCs act within the bounds of what is considered to be acceptable behavior today. I run them realistically, with attitude differences among individual NPCs that accurately reflect the variances in individual behavior and outlook that were around in the real history of the time. I never include anything related to sexual assault or child abuse, though, because those things upset me too much.
I tend to do that too but we tend as players not to focus on the negatives too much anyway. But I've often seen women having a blast as their characters beat the crap out of a sexist man. :smile:
 
Before they (thankfully) got rid of the Confederacy, I modified my DEADLANDS game to remove the apologia for it.

The Confederacy that managed to "win" the Civil War (because it's not a stalemate as they exist) is a slave-owning state that is in the middle of utterly falling apart. The Union is providing black and white partisans with guns as well as engaged in economic warfare. There's a Cold War going on as the South is looking for magical devices, infernal machines, and opportunities to invade Mexico or the Weird West in order to try to prop up its collapsing economy.

The evils of slavery and racism have also resulted in the place becoming a massive magnet for the Reckoners with vampires, werewolves, zombies, and ghosts all making the place into a Southern version of Ravenloft.

It's not "quite" Mordor yet but its getting there.

The PCs assassinating the demonically possessed Jefferson Davis helps collapse it into a dozen feuding countries with a few finally agreeing to Emancipation (helped along by Union occupation or backing up revolutionary governments).
 
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Yeah, I do this with just about any established setting.

My D&D campaign involved all kinds of classic D&D lore and characters, across multiple settings and editions. I had to tweak a lot of things to have them fit with the central idea.

An old Marvel campaign I ran involved many of the heroes no longer being around. I basically ditched the idea that the PCs could call the Avengers if they got in over their heads, or the Fantastic Four if they discovered something weird. I kept some elements, toned others down, and eliminated others altogether.

For an old Star Wars campaign, I jettisoned a lot. I had players who had read more of the novels and so on. I didn’t feel like dealing with that, so I said that Anakin and Padme never had kids, Padme turned to the Dark Side, and Obi-Wan was killed. Everything would be different going forward, I told them, and I didn't want to hear any named characters in any backstory they came up with.
 
Cannon, for me, is the basis for my setting. If not mentioned (or implied) otherwise, cannon is the answer. However, I seldom use the straight cannon setting. However, I don't ever just absorb cannon or let characters from my chronicles go to other campaigns (which might be more cannon based).

Of course YMMV. Most GMs do not put out 32-128 pages of setting material (and rule revisions for character creation) per their games.
 
I tend to do that too but we tend as players not to focus on the negatives too much anyway. But I've often seen women having a blast as their characters beat the crap out of a sexist man. :smile:

Nothing motivates players into fighting NPC/enemies and loving it, like making them unlikable. I don't generally dwell on the details, though, I've even included references to sexual assault or killing children, as well as described gruesome scenes of human sacrifices without necessarily going into minute details or portraying the incidents happen; just mentioning that they did and describing the aftermath.
 
For an old Star Wars campaign, I jettisoned a lot. I had players who had read more of the novels and so on. I didn’t feel like dealing with that, so I said that Anakin and Padme never had kids, Padme turned to the Dark Side, and Obi-Wan was killed. Everything would be different going forward, I told them, and I didn't want to hear any named characters in any backstory they came up with.

Damn, TBH this would remove all frames of reference for me, since nothing I know about the setting would be true, and I wouldn't even know what the setting is about at that point. I wouldn't know where to start creating characters for that game. The few times I've had the chance to play I start after the defeat of the Empire, moping up its remnants at the rim planets during the chaos between the fall of the Empire and the New Republic becoming an established presence. That way at least most of us have an inkling of WTF is going on, even if we've never read the novels.
 
For an old Star Wars campaign, I jettisoned a lot. I had players who had read more of the novels and so on. I didn’t feel like dealing with that, so I said that Anakin and Padme never had kids, Padme turned to the Dark Side, and Obi-Wan was killed. Everything would be different going forward, I told them, and I didn't want to hear any named characters in any backstory they came up with.

When running a Star Wars game I tend to avoid anything related to established characters and set things in a different time period altogether, generally centuries or thousands of years before the time of the movies.
 
When I run Star Wars, I ditch the Expanded Universe (Legends Continuity) and the Disney TV shows, and the sequel trilogy and the prequel trilogy.

And the original trilogy.

The setting of Star Wars is so rich and layered and gameable but the storylines, the official playable eras, are all about a single all-consuming conflict and the Six Families Who Matter at the heart of it. Remove the timeline from the equation, refuse to define your use of the setting in reference to the timeline-- not even thousands of years in its future or its past-- and all of that richness and layeredness is laid at your feet.

Of course, I see this is not an original idea.

When I run Spelljammer, I ditch the Radiant Triangle (the Greyhawk, Realms, and Dragonlance Spheres) and usually run a single-Sphere campaign with the option of opening the Crystal Sphere and discovering the Phlogiston-- heliocentric, very roughly there's a PHB planet, an OA planet, and an XPH planet (plenty of bleed, though) and a smattering of single biome worlds. Like to do a bit of collaborative worldbuilding.

Kinda go the other way with Terminator: everything is canon, all the movies, the TV series, the comics, the novels. All of them are just iterations of the loop as it flattens out.

I don't think I run anything else that has a canon to fold, spindle, or mutilate. Street Fighter, I guess, but I just replace most of the World Warriors with my PCs.
 
If this is a forum where you are not allowed to point out that GRR Martin's Westeros - as an analogue of Middle Ages Britain - is set up to be inimically hostile to female characters in general, and explores sexism and power relations from the viewpoint of its main female characters, I will quite happily have a mod delete my account.

Do posters here wish to argue that the Middle Ages weren't hostile to women? Is mentioning women against the "no politics" rule of the pub?

You know, what, I'm outta here.
 
Do we really need to do this again?

Short Version...
  • Unless you're talking about real world situations, "X is -ist" is your opinion, based on your personal viewpoint, which others don't share.
  • Politics is not allowed, here.
  • Thus, arguing about your statement isn't allowed here either.
  • Thus, if no one argues, and your statement isn't removed, your statement stands.
  • Thus, Politics becomes allowed here.
Everyone wants their political views to be seen as settled, unchallenged, axiomatic truth, but that's not the case.
So, leave the cultural war commentary out.
Firstly never had this argument here.
Secondly, Palladium actively has unwelcome racial stereotypes, and hatreds. Some products World of Alessia lack this, for example. So yeah I remove unwelcome aspects from Palladium, DnD, and other worlds.
 
If this is a forum where you are not allowed to point out that GRR Martin's Westeros - as an analogue of Middle Ages Britain - is set up to be inimically hostile to female characters in general, and explores sexism and power relations from the viewpoint of its main female characters, I will quite happily have a mod delete my account.

Do posters here wish to argue that the Middle Ages weren't hostile to women? Is mentioning women against the "no politics" rule of the pub?

You know, what, I'm outta here.
We don’t delete accounts, JAMUMU, and I don’t find your points to be political at all.
 
I ignore the vast majority of the lore in all the D&D settings, including retcons and metaplot events.

I think the only one I've ever stuck close to was Greyhawk as I dug the changes that From the Ashes made to the setting. But if I had disliked them I would have just ignored them.

This is one reason I've never gotten people getting worked up when a new release or edition changes some lore or rules widget that they insist 'ruins' or 'breaks' the game. It is an rpg and these are completely imaginary settings for your game: if you don't like it, ignore it.
 
Damn, TBH this would remove all frames of reference for me, since nothing I know about the setting would be true, and I wouldn't even know what the setting is about at that point. I wouldn't know where to start creating characters for that game. The few times I've had the chance to play I start after the defeat of the Empire, moping up its remnants at the rim planets during the chaos between the fall of the Empire and the New Republic becoming an established presence. That way at least most of us have an inkling of WTF is going on, even if we've never read the novels.

Well, look at what you did with Dark Sun by ignoring the books and the characters in there being the heroes. I just did the same thing with Star Wars. No Skywalker legacy, no retribution for Anakin/Vader as a major plot point. You still have the Empire and the Rebellion and Jedi and so on….just with the PCs as the heroes (if they choose to go that route).
 
Well, look at what you did with Dark Sun by ignoring the books and the characters in there being the heroes. I just did the same thing with Star Wars. No Skywalker legacy, no retribution for Anakin/Vader as a major plot point. You still have the Empire and the Rebellion and Jedi and so on….just with the PCs as the heroes (if they choose to go that route).
That's what I did with John Carter of Mars. Instead of Carter, it was the party of player characters who were exploring Machu Picchu and were transported to Barsoom.
 
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Well, look at what you did with Dark Sun by ignoring the books and the characters in there being the heroes. I just did the same thing with Star Wars. No Skywalker legacy, no retribution for Anakin/Vader as a major plot point. You still have the Empire and the Rebellion and Jedi and so on….just with the PCs as the heroes (if they choose to go that route).

Yeah, but the Dark Sun novels are not central to establishing the setting, and even then I didn't erase them altogether. The heroes still exist and still accomplish some of the stuff in the books, just not to the point where they remove most of everything of note that the PCs can do.

In SW even with the movie characters defeating the Empire there's still plenty of stuff to do all around the galaxy:
  • Mop up the remnants of the Empire
  • Trying to re establish the Jedi Order
  • Trying to establish the New Republic
  • Fight against criminal elements at the fridges
  • Find lost Jedi Holocrons or Force Users hiding out in the galaxy
  • Etc.

But without the any of the films I'm not sure where to start or what the situations are. Specially if you're also getting rid of the EU, which is what established most of what happened outside the films. I mean, did the Empire took place? Is it still around? Are you basing it in the Old Republic and what lore are you using if nothing counts?
 
Yeah, but the Dark Sun novels are not central to establishing the setting, and even then I didn't erase them altogether. The heroes still exist and still accomplish some of the stuff in the books, just not to the point where they remove most of everything of note that the PCs can do.

In SW even with the movie characters defeating the Empire there's still plenty of stuff to do all around the galaxy:
  • Mop up the remnants of the Empire
  • Trying to re establish the Jedi Order
  • Trying to establish the New Republic
  • Fight against criminal elements at the fridges
  • Find lost Jedi Holocrons or Force Users hiding out in the galaxy
  • Etc.

Yeah, I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here. I’ve just found that the SW characters have a gravity to them that inevitably pulls things toward them, so I wanted to erase the chance of that.

But without the any of the films I'm not sure where to start or what the situations are. Specially if you're also getting rid of the EU, which is what established most of what happened outside the films. I mean, did the Empire took place? Is it still around? Are you basing it in the Old Republic and what lore are you using if nothing counts?

Well I didn’t eliminate all the elements of the movies. Just the Skywalker twins, really. And I told everyone “no you’re not friends with Wedge Antilles and no you didn’t intern for Admiral Ackbar”.
 
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