Canonicity Request

[Cornelius]

I have been thinking about this issue a lot. I first agreed with Galen and AEIOU. It is all canon when it enters my game world.
But, Bidmaron, your latest argument is an important one. The ability to see the topic before and after play is important. I am building my realm while playing (have done this method even without RW). So I would like to know what the original situation was before the players ran around in it and changed things. That way you can reset the setting later.
Of course this is a different approach from when you first create a full grown realm and then let the players into it. Then you can make a copy of the original realm and use that as a way to preserve the original setting (at least when the repository is online).

[pyremius]

Another benefit of a canonicity flag is when comparing details between to derivatives of the same source material. When my copy and your copy disagree, is my data canon, your data canon, or neither data canon (but in different ways)? The canonicity flag makes it possible to know who has diverged where, which in turn makes it possible start exploring why a change was made, along with its consequences and future implications.

[AEIOU]

This really is an important and difficult issue so I'm glad to see that folks are still thinking aloud about it.

I would really like to identify canon/published/official from my own material so that I can share my material without running afoul of the dread copyright monster. But I'm not convinced that a binary canon/not canon flag would be useful for this.

I would propose that a diff function could be more useful. Then you could compare official published material or your base campaign versus your current campaign with differences highlighted. But this would require a known canon version to compare against.

In regards to "my" canon vs "your" canon, here we can really see that a canon flag is not going to help. If we both say it's canon, then RW must identify both as canon because it has no way of determining veracity; even if they oppose each other. And unfortunately a diff function isn't going to help either unless we enter things verbatim from the same source and create identical snippets. An example that quickly comes to mind is the planet Alderan pre-Republic, Old Republic, Death Star target and new asteroid field -- all are canon and all are true for a period in time.

For me to accept someone else's canon, I would want to be able to check references. Perhaps instead of flags or diffs, what we need is a free text citation field for every single snippet (sort of like the GM text)? Source name and page number; footnotes and endnotes. Wow does that sound time consuming and tedious.... But I can see myself using it to tie multiple sources together for materials that are cross referenced in several documents though.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

This really is an important and difficult issue so ...........

I would propose that a diff function could be more useful. Then you could compare official published material or your base campaign versus your current campaign with differences highlighted. But this would require a known canon version to compare against.

For me to accept someone else's canon, I would want to be able to check references. Perhaps instead of flags or diffs, what we need is a free text citation field for every single snippet (sort of like the GM text)? Source name and page number; footnotes and endnotes. Wow does that sound time consuming and tedious.... But I can see myself using it to tie multiple sources together for materials that are cross referenced in several documents though.

I can agree with a lot of what is being tabled.... My workaround ONLY is a "stopgap" for my internal use.
I would agree, as RW evolves there is a need to be filled here.
Like AEIOU, I can see myself cross referencing sources... Because even published works are also less than consistent when it comes to time keeping, spell effects, and at times even NPC backgrounds / associations. Lastly I myself have used "canon" as guide not chiseled in stone .... Gygax had crashed spaceships and laser pistols in a "canon" game module that I will never incorporate within my own world.

[Bidmaron]

Bump for the survey consideration

[Grey Mage]

Bidmaron,

I think I know you from the old RPGXplorer forums, if so... Howdy!

The way I solved this was by using flags... I have "Core' and a '3PP' (3rd party publisher) flags which allows me to sort by need. It would be a simple thing to use (or add) a 'Canon' flag.

Have you considered this?

[Bidmaron]

The trouble with that is that it applies to the entire topic. We need a flag like the truth level that applies on a snippet basis.

Yes, it is me from RPGXplorer days, Grey Mage! That was a great program in its day, but I'm happy to be a Lone Wolfer now.

[Bidmaron]

Now that Content Market is almost upon us, I re-urge folks to consider a canonicity tag, with the values Canon, Third (party), and User. This tag would be automatic for the most part, with imported material retaining the flag value (per snippet, but at the topic level initially and then it atomizes to the snippets once the user has modified any snippet in a canonical topic) of the imported material until the user edits something. Official market material would be either canon (for Paizo materials or the publisher of the system), third (for third party published materials), or user (for either user-created or user-edited material).

And users should be able to force the flag to the other two values when they are entering a module themselves.

[Viking2054]

What about when I'm creating my own world from scratch... Can't I define that as canon? I don't mind the tag, but setting it should be up to the person entering the content. Now, if you want to restrict a tag to publishers as your example of canon and third party suggests... Then I'd suggest 'Publisher-Official' and 'Publisher-Third Party' (or 'Publisher-unofficial').

[Bidmaron]

Viking, the user would always have complete control over the canon flag as I see it. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. It would be handy when you create the realm that you can set the default for the canon flag and then as you go you can change the default for future entries.

That way, you could go in and enter a module from a PDF you own with the default of 'canon' and then you could go in and set the default to 'User' after done with the module and go make whatever mods to the module you might want to do.