How do the rules about canon OCs intersect with tabletop RPG (TTRPG) settings which do have a 'canon', but one that exists specifically for the player-characters to become main characters in it and make major changes?
I'm just thinking about my D&D character who is in the Forgotten Realms setting. We just finished a long-running plot about shapeshifters killing and replacing the leadership of the city of Waterdeep (a major city in the setting) by killing the shapeshifters, and having an NPC ally become leader of the city, with one of the PCs retiring to be a major political figure.
Now, needless to say, this didn't happen in the canonical Forgotten Realms, or in anyone else's game set in the Realms. So if someone else brings in a PC from their Forgotten Realms-set D&D game, they might go 'I'm a noted scholar of Waterdavian history and have lived in Waterdeep all my life, and I never heard of that'. I can think of four answers:
1. TTRPG settings are like actual Earth. There will probably be many characters from a version of Earth that has an alternate history, secret history, or different versions of a future Earth. No one will be surprised if their settings mutually contradict and they have to deal with alternate timelines. If five different urban fantasy characters can argue about the rules for vampires, and five different SF characters can argue the state of the Earth circa 2200, five different TTRPG characters can have contradictory accounts of history.
2. TTRPG settings are like narrative canons. If tabletop RPG characters are making major alterations to the setting that other characters would know about, they fall under the same rules that a canon OC from a canon with a fixed story does. People who want to play such characters have to rub the serial numbers off enough to have a technically-original world.
3. People playing from TTRPG settings could just talk to the other players that might app in like grown-ups and agree on a shared set of events beyond those that are explicit canon.
4. Assume that any TTRPG setting has so many PCs running around that world-altering events happen on a regular basis, so no one in the setting is surprised to find out one happened without them knowing about it.
How to handle TTRPG 'canon'?
I'm just thinking about my D&D character who is in the Forgotten Realms setting. We just finished a long-running plot about shapeshifters killing and replacing the leadership of the city of Waterdeep (a major city in the setting) by killing the shapeshifters, and having an NPC ally become leader of the city, with one of the PCs retiring to be a major political figure.
Now, needless to say, this didn't happen in the canonical Forgotten Realms, or in anyone else's game set in the Realms. So if someone else brings in a PC from their Forgotten Realms-set D&D game, they might go 'I'm a noted scholar of Waterdavian history and have lived in Waterdeep all my life, and I never heard of that'. I can think of four answers:
1. TTRPG settings are like actual Earth. There will probably be many characters from a version of Earth that has an alternate history, secret history, or different versions of a future Earth. No one will be surprised if their settings mutually contradict and they have to deal with alternate timelines. If five different urban fantasy characters can argue about the rules for vampires, and five different SF characters can argue the state of the Earth circa 2200, five different TTRPG characters can have contradictory accounts of history.
2. TTRPG settings are like narrative canons. If tabletop RPG characters are making major alterations to the setting that other characters would know about, they fall under the same rules that a canon OC from a canon with a fixed story does. People who want to play such characters have to rub the serial numbers off enough to have a technically-original world.
3. People playing from TTRPG settings could just talk to the other players that might app in like grown-ups and agree on a shared set of events beyond those that are explicit canon.
4. Assume that any TTRPG setting has so many PCs running around that world-altering events happen on a regular basis, so no one in the setting is surprised to find out one happened without them knowing about it.
(Okay, the last was mostly a joke.)