Constraint, canon and editorial prudence [from the Bezerker]

[Furion_Transsanus]

Okay - I'll take the liberty to bring this interesting answer David Chart put on the Berklist as it might interest the users/readers of this forum.

I hope you don't mind David - but I thought you made such a good case that also sheds light on some important aspects to the Ars line and the priorities behind it.

@On the Berklist David Chart

@Michael de Verteuil

My brain is slowing and I have other pressing things to attend to at the moment. Can anyone take this discussion further? David, if you are consciously taking steps (in terms of style or approach in drawing the setting) to make new detail less constraining , would you consider describing some of them for us?

Bear in mind that a significant group of people want constraining detail. They want to be told what the canonical setting is, at every point. (They argue that they can always change it if they don't like it, but they want something definite to start from.)

That said, there are specific things I'm doing, in an attempt to get the balance.

A fundamental one is that authors are not allowed to define things outside the scope of the book that they are writing. This is getting steadily stricter as I get a better idea of the sorts of things that cause problems. A large part of this is to leave the field clear for the people who do write a book on that topic, but it also stops gratuitous chamber-pot nailing.

Another one is that authors are strongly encouraged to only define things if they are doing something significant with it. Nobody wants constraining detail that's just one sentence; the people who want it, want properly developed things that they can use. A one sentence throw-away "oh, by the way, William the Conqueror was a magus" does nothing for the constrainers, and annoys the people on the other side. (This one is trickier, because it's more of a judgement call. One sentence is easy to veto, but one paragraph?)

Things that only need to be in-character opinion to serve their purpose in the supplement are left as that. For example, the Tremere all believe that the Diedne were guilty of mass human sacrifice. That's very important to the Tremere. We don't, however, need to specify whether the Diedne really were guilty, so we don't.

I also try to produce books of things that you clearly could leave out of a fully canonical saga, even if those things were also fully canonical. That includes The Mysteries and Ancient Magic, and even City and Guild. You don't have to include esoteric Mysteries if you don't want to, or quest for Ancient Magic, or even go to cities. Thus, even if they constrain the canonical setting, they don't significantly constrain canonical sagas.

There are things in earlier ArM5 books that I would do differently now, but, as I said, it's a constant learning process.

[YR7]

I can tell you one chamber-pot I'm sad wasn't nailed down more tightly - the role of Satan and his relation to divine history. The Divine was vague and it worked, holding that every monotheistic religion partook in the Divine. In The Infernal, it doesn't work. Having three seperate creation myths and "faces" for Satan simply doesn't work. While "authors are not allowed to define things outside the scope of the book that they are writing", I wouldn't mind authors actually defining things within the scope of the books they are writing. That may lead to people complaining, but I prefer to have a controversial clear vision (see Criamon) than a mishmash of vague ideas (Satan).

(The relativistic "sin is what you think it is" also isn't much of a stand, and I dislike it nearly as much.)

[Ravenscroft]

Having been raised a Catholic and taught by Nuns & Brothers , you get a clear idea early on of what constitutes Sin.
Religion classes often had one of the local priests answering questions on the subject of Sin as well.
Once a year , we would also have the Jesuits visit.
(Catholics in small country towns , where i grew up , treated these vists with great respect)
As most of my religious instruction was immediately post Vatican II , we had to cope with all the changes that entailed.
Sin was still Sin , regardless of the Mass now being in English.