I appear to have :CoW: elsewhere by imprudently calling a piece of milieu canon lore from Mongoose, "game dependent." It is proving to be a bit of a distraction over there, but it does seem to be an issue that's raised some passion, so - at peril of being roundly castigated - I present the question: is there such a thing as "game dependent" milieu canon?
I begin by cautioning that my knowledge of canon is limited to CT, a decent but incomplete chunk of MT, some GURPS, and one Mongoose book - that, and what I can get out of the wiki and such, which cites sources but draws information freely from all official sources and even some unofficial sources without prejudice. I base my general opinion on the handling of GURPS, which is clearly canon but - with both its intentionally different handling of the assassination business and its handling of some economic issues - also clearly "other". There are, from my limited knowledge of the various systems, some distinct differences in which the various systems address such things as the culture of the various spacefaring species, the nature of the relationship between the Imperial government and its member worlds, and the nature and extent of the interstellar trade economy. With that in mind, I tend to view the milieus hosted by those rules systems as distinct - all canon, all relevant, all legitimate sources for a gamemaster's use, but potentially different from each other.
That may be wrong. I am told (rather passionately by some) that, other than the GURPS thing, canon is canon: if T4 says Hrolf the Magnificent killed the Dread Pirate Marion in combat over Planet Peril, then by gum Hrolf the Magnificent killed the Dread Pirate Marion in combat over Planet Peril in the MegaTrav universe too - unless of course it occurs after the supposed assassination of Strephon, in which case it's a question of whether it occurred in the assassination milieu or the non-assassination milieu.
Now, clearly it's the right of any gamemaster to choose whatever elements of canon he wants and to exclude whatever elements he does not want for his own universe. That's not the question. The question is more one of how we discuss things within the community - how we see things collectively.
So, whaddaya think? Can we think of the milieu as being bounded to some extent by the walls of the rules system it's in, discussing the Mongoose milieu or the T4 milieu or the CT milieu as distinct entities, or is that inappropriate practice and we should discuss the milieu as a single mélange of many contributing sources?
I begin by cautioning that my knowledge of canon is limited to CT, a decent but incomplete chunk of MT, some GURPS, and one Mongoose book - that, and what I can get out of the wiki and such, which cites sources but draws information freely from all official sources and even some unofficial sources without prejudice. I base my general opinion on the handling of GURPS, which is clearly canon but - with both its intentionally different handling of the assassination business and its handling of some economic issues - also clearly "other". There are, from my limited knowledge of the various systems, some distinct differences in which the various systems address such things as the culture of the various spacefaring species, the nature of the relationship between the Imperial government and its member worlds, and the nature and extent of the interstellar trade economy. With that in mind, I tend to view the milieus hosted by those rules systems as distinct - all canon, all relevant, all legitimate sources for a gamemaster's use, but potentially different from each other.
That may be wrong. I am told (rather passionately by some) that, other than the GURPS thing, canon is canon: if T4 says Hrolf the Magnificent killed the Dread Pirate Marion in combat over Planet Peril, then by gum Hrolf the Magnificent killed the Dread Pirate Marion in combat over Planet Peril in the MegaTrav universe too - unless of course it occurs after the supposed assassination of Strephon, in which case it's a question of whether it occurred in the assassination milieu or the non-assassination milieu.
Now, clearly it's the right of any gamemaster to choose whatever elements of canon he wants and to exclude whatever elements he does not want for his own universe. That's not the question. The question is more one of how we discuss things within the community - how we see things collectively.
So, whaddaya think? Can we think of the milieu as being bounded to some extent by the walls of the rules system it's in, discussing the Mongoose milieu or the T4 milieu or the CT milieu as distinct entities, or is that inappropriate practice and we should discuss the milieu as a single mélange of many contributing sources?
