In this Guide we'll be discussing how you respect a canonity. A canonity is what you call the generally accepted history of any given story. I'm going to break this guide down into three parts.

Part A: Being able to tell what is canon
Part B: Establishing what you can and cannot do without disrespecting a canonity
Part C: Why exactly respecting a canonity matters in roleplaying



There are three different ways to tell what is canon or not. If you are referring to the creation of another individual, such as a video game, roleplay, or book, what they say goes. It's their canonity to change however they please. This is called word of god. Word of god is a very easy way to tell what is or is not canon. If something has not been stated by the creator as true, it is not canon. Please note that there is no middle ground in canonity. Just because the creator doesn't say something is not true doesn't make it canon.

The second way to tell what is canon or not is to look at the item itself, whether it be book, video game, or roleplay. Read what happens straight from the story rather than from what the creator says directly. It is however important to know that word of god always overrides anything the actual content says. It is not a contradiction for the word of god to say something that happened is not canon. That's called a retcon, which is a term that describes when the canonities changes to remove something that was previously canon.

The third and less easy way to tell is used when there is no word of god. This way of deciding canonity will typically be used mainly in roleplay as opposed to games, books, or even fan fiction. In this method, people simply agree on what happened, and thus it becomes canon. If there are disagreements that cannot be resolved, and one side does not split completely from the other, two different canonities are formed. Due to the chaotic nature of this method of deciding and room for problems, you generally want to have some sort of authority figure be it a GM or moderator to avoid the largest problems this method causes. By having an authority figure, you can insure that all disagreements are in fact resolved in some manner, keeping the canonity whole and intact, at the very least.



A canonity is a very pure thing. You can tell the style of something just by looking at its canonity. That being said, when roleplaying it is possible to do things that conflict with what a canonity says to its viewers. What you can and cannot do in any given canonity is completely dependent upon the canonity itself. To avoid disrespecting a canonity, simply avoid conflicts with it or its style whenever possible. That being said, there is a certain level of artistic license in which you can change things without causing disrespect. However, there is a vague line you risk crossing the more you change. Probably the hardest ways to respect canonities is respecting canon characters. It takes quite a handful of work studying canon characters to get their personality, quirks, and other trademarks down pat so that you don't disrespect the canonity. Quite frankly, it is hard, and not something you should attempt doing unless you are willing to put some real work into it. There is no cheat sheet, or easy way to go about doing it, and if you don't put the work in and start playing a canon character in a very out of character fashion, it will have incredible potential to bother other RPers. Once again though, there are levels of artistic license depending on the character. An interpretation of a character does not need to be perfect to not bother others. It simply needs to be believable.

Some things to watch out for are introducing technology that does not fit in a canonity. A canonity will usually give you a rough idea of what the limits of technology are within it.

The same applies to magic, though magic is more flexible and slightly harder to judge. You should not introduce magic that seems to screw with the style of a roleplay. For instance, adding instant teleportation to a roleplay where the extent of its magic is primarily swords having elemental effects is going to look very out-of-place.

You also want to watch out for playing canon characters and getting their personality, quirks, etcetera wrong.



Respecting a canonity in roleplaying is important because if you don't, what you do will feel awkward, forced, and or uncharacteristic. It will generally provoke negative reactions from your audience. Obviously, this is not always the case, but generally it is. Let me give you some examples.

Let's take a popular children's TV show. How about Barney? Now let's give Barney guns, make him live in a constant state of rage, and give him a taste for cursing belligerently. Now let's have him go kill some aliens!

Let me point out what's wrong with this in detail. Firstly, we introduced technology that is very against the style of the canonity. Guns in Barney is laughable at best, but in no way respectful or respectable for that matter. Secondly, we completely destroyed Barney's personality by making him an overly angry and violent person. Barney is very clearly not like that, with no reasonable argument to be made for the contrary, so it was wrong to do so. Thirdly, we completely trashed the kids friendly tone of the canonity. While it is completely reasonable to turn up the maturity on some things, there is a limit for how much one can turn it up or down. In the same way you should not make Duke Nukem a pigeon toed, bashful gentleman whose main cause is fighting the evils of swearing, you should not make Barney become an angry murderous lunatic. It's just too large of a change to be at all respectable to the canonity. While turning up or down the maturity excessively is very effective in humor, it is not so effective in making a good, serious roleplay. The limits of turning up or down the maturity of a canonity is highly variable. The easiest way to figure out what is too much is to use good judgement in combination with simply asking others. Remember that the main reason respecting canonity is important is because when you don't it tends to bug other people. Conducting your own mini surveys to find out whether it would bug them before actually doing it is pretty effective.

To better give an example of a technology that is very against the style of a canonity, I'm going to bring up Pokemon. Let's take pokemon and give people modern weaponry like handguns, assault rifles, and even explosives.

Let me now point out why that's a bad idea in detail. See, not even large monsters that can breathe fire, ice, and lightning can stand up to a guy with a loaded assault rifle pumping shells into it, let alone explosives. Quite simply, adding such things to pokemon undermines one of the main concepts of the canonity, that being fighting with monsters. If you were to actually try this and get actual pokemon fans to join, they would probably be very frustrated and unamused the first time they came across a guy with a gun. This is a rather extreme example of how badly disrespecting a canonity can hurt a roleplay.

In short, respecting a canonity helps to preserve the spirit of a roleplay based around a canonity. The reason it bugs people when someone disrespects the canonity of the roleplay is because many times the canonity was one of the reasons they joined. Thus, they don't like to see it get trashed.

A quick vocab lesson. When the canonity of a character's personality is disrespected, it's generally referred to as crack RP. Crack RP also describes RP that isn't meant to be taken seriously. Some people like Crack RP on occasion. Generally speaking, if one wants to do crack RP, they can help avoid friction by declaring the crack RP itself non-canon, meaning that as far as what is held to have actually happened, whatever happened in the crack RP is said to have never happened. Friction will still happen, even with this precaution, but it does help. The only surefire way to avoid friction is to do crack roleplay in private with others that enjoy such out of respect for those who may become frustrated by the silly nature of the crack RP.



Canonity: Canonity is a reference to a story's continuity. It is the accepted history of any given story.

Crack: Crack RP originated from the notion that people doing such kinds of RP are on crack. It refers to RP that is silly and nonsensical. It is also used to refer to someone playing a canon character in a way that someone finds out of said character.

Retcon: While canon references a story's continuity. Retcon has a similar origin it is shorthand for Retroactive Continuity. Retcon refers to the change / removal of things previously accepted to be canon including events, people, and anything else you can think of.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_(fiction)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroactive_continuity
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanonDefilement
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreShift
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ToneShift
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterDerailment