D&D Movie/TV 5 (nitpicking)) things the D&D Movie got wrong

[Mirtek]

Source?

I ask because I've never heard this claim made before and it's a pretty strong/specific one.

It's 2014 cut off date and was all the rage here on Enworld when they announced it

D&D General - WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

At a media press briefing last week, WotC's Jeremey Crawford clarified what is and is not canon for D&D. "For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore...

www.enworld.org

If you search for "canon" and older than 2021-12-31 you get a couple more threads on it

 

[Oofta]

They didn't get it wrong, it's DM Empowerment Eric!

More to the point ...
#5 Owlbear: I'd let my player be an owlbear when they could get a beast of similar level.
#4 Intellect Devourer: Maybe they were just not hungry enough to go for middle of the road intellect. There is no way they're going to add in something as technical and D&D-geeky as a new version of intellect devourers, it was just a cute joke and an explanation would have pulled people out of the moment.
#3 Sending Stones: I've considered doing this myself. Or it's just a customized version that works for a day and then crumbles to dust. Besides, sending stones are relatively cheap in comparison to the advantage they could give an army, buy a couple dozen and have at it.
#2 Canon: It's an alternate version of FR. Since the movie is not canon for FR, this is a non-issue.
#1 Edgin the bard: All people that carry a lute and are referred to as bards have to be a character class bard? They wanted to de-emphasize magic for the movie and it made Simon's dilemma with magic a central plot point. Same reason the druid didn't cast any spells. There was so much going on, trying to explain to someone who doesn't know D&D why a guy with a lute is suddenly a wizard is asking too much.

edit: autocorrect typo that bugged me.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It's 2014 cut off date and was all the rage here on Enworld when they announced it

D&D General - WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

At a media press briefing last week, WotC's Jeremey Crawford clarified what is and is not canon for D&D. "For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore...

www.enworld.org

If you search for "canon" and older than 2021-12-31 you get a couple more threads on it

yep then Chris Perkin's later back tracked on that in a blog post, but in a way that made no sense, but was clearly intended to not violate Ed's contractual rights in terms of the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Clint_L]

The movie can’t get things “wrong” because it’s not the game. It’s its own thing.

 

[Maialideth]

Edgin gave bardic inspiration to Simon, so that's a bard class ability.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

In related news, random killjoys would like to remind you that things don't go pew pew pew in space.

All of this is why we are familiar with the expression, "As beloved as a pedant," which has a currency almost as widespread as, "As beautiful as an airport."

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Edgin gave bardic inspiration to Simon, so that's a bard class ability.

Its very intangible though in a visual medium.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's 2014 cut off date and was all the rage here on Enworld when they announced it

D&D General - WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

At a media press briefing last week, WotC's Jeremey Crawford clarified what is and is not canon for D&D. "For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore...

www.enworld.org

If you search for "canon" and older than 2021-12-31 you get a couple more threads on it

Thank you! Very quick and useful!

I note that doesn't hard-conflict with Ed Greenwood's statement though. He's saying, as I understand it, that WotC can't decanonize the novels, contractually. Only he and WotC know if that's true, of course. But let's look at the wording of the WotC statement:

""For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore, but they are not canonical for the D&D roleplaying game. If you’re looking for what’s official in the D&D roleplaying game, it’s what appears in the products for the roleplaying game. Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

Two things of note:

1) This is broad generalization about D&D, that's being made - it's not specific to the FR.

2) There are a couple of "weasel words" (I use term without judgement), the primary one being "Basically", which is something people pretty much only say when they know there are exceptions.

I would draw a line (and I understand this is arguable) between "decanonizing" and saying stuff not necessarily canon. Decanonizing, to my understanding, would be actively changing things so certain novels/characters were no longer canon. I.e. suddenly the Time of Troubles didn't happen, or if it did, Mystra wasn't Midnight, or whatever.

WotC seems to be working around this pretty actively - 5E has a huge time-skip, which means virtually all of Ed's novels are just... irrelevant. But they're not decanonized in the sense of "that never happened". Of course it could just be that Ed is confused or whatever.

 

[Dioltach]

which has a currency almost as widespread as, "As beautiful as an airport."

Ever visited Chiangi? (But yes, that's an exception.)

 

[NotAYakk]

#5 Owlbear: I'd let my player be an owlbear when they could get a beast of similar level.

Yep, Owlbear is not problematic.

#4 Intellect Devourer: Maybe they were just not hungry enough to go for middle of the road intellect. There is no way they're going to add in something as technical and D&D-geeky as a new version of intellect devourers, it was just a cute joke and an explanation would have pulled people out of the moment.

I mean, very few versions of D&D specify how a monster behaves ecologically. Lots of predators aren't hostile when not hungry. Especially if they don't consider someone a threat.

Intellect Devourers are as tough as barbarian berzerkers (42 weapon damage to drop it, 12 AC). Random humanoids are not a huge threat, especially to a pack.

The idea that they find higher intelligence brains more tasty is pretty darn common. So a pack of full intellect devourers just walking by some low intelligence adventurers rather than starting a fight isn't unreasonable.

And the pack might be on a mission to get specific individuals and bring them back to their masters (int 12).

#3 Sending Stones: I've considered doing this myself. Or it's just a customized version that works for a day and then crumbles to dust. Besides, sending stones are relatively cheap in comparison to the advantage they could give an army, buy a couple dozen and have at it.

The number of Sending Stones as walkie-talkies I've run into in D&D is pretty damn high. Basically if you want to split the party and keep up communication, giving the PCs items like that is great, because now you can play the game all at once instead of one at a time.