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

[Henadic Theologian]

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.

Ed has a contract, FR canon rights are enmpowered by law, so Jeremy can say whatever he wants, its just him talking, the contract say what is and is not canon.

 

[bedir than]

Ed has a contract, FR canon rights are enmpowered by law, so Jeremy can say whatever he wants, its just him talking, the contract say what is and is not canon.

The contract almost certainly doesn't say that only Ed's version of the Realms can exist in the RPG. Ed's version hasn't been the only RPG version for about 40 years.

And Ed's version of the Realms isn't the only book version, for about 35 years.

 

[Mirtek]

Ed has a contract, FR canon rights are enmpowered by law, so Jeremy can say whatever he wants, its just him talking, the contract say what is and is not canon.

Paper is patient and that was drafted 40 years ago between two much more relaxed hobbyist parties. Would it hold in court vs. corporate lawyers? Would Ed even be interested in trying?

 

[Charlaquin]

Are we seriously rehashing this inane canonicity argument again?

 

[Clint_L]

The movie is its own thing, so they can do whatever they want with the FR in the films. For that matter, if WotC want to de facto decanonize the novels, they probably can, such as by saying that all new FR releases are in an alternate version of the FR from another part of the multiverse. So the old stuff remains canonical, but no longer relevant to the FR where new releases take place.

The multiverse makes reboots super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

 

[Stormonu]

On sending stones - back in the '80s, I gave my party an earring that the group leader wore that allowed long range telepathy between party members (about a mile, basically had to "attune" with each person you wanted to contact in the future). Didn't break the game one bit. And while the PCs had it, it was unique, nobody else on the continent had it so it wasn't a problem that broke the campaign.

Even now, if I were to use sending stones they'd be a rarity - on about a level of teleportation circles, and maybe used in conjuction with them.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Paper is patient and that was drafted 40 years ago between two much more relaxed hobbyist parties. Would it hold in court vs. corporate lawyers? Would Ed even be interested in trying?

He only needs the support of the Forgotten Realms fandom, which he has. Besides WotC's lawyers fold faster then a deck chair ever type WotC gets challenged in legally.

 

[nevin]

(Ed Greenwood)

Ed loved the movie, he just points out some funny nitpicks.

Cool side notes not only is Ed the creator of the Forgotten Realms, he's also the creator of Sending stones which appear in the movie.

But the big bomb drop is confirmation from Ed Greenwood that contractually they can NEVER DECANONIZE THE NOVELS.

This is why logically FR can never get rebooted in canon, it only evovle.

poor ed. they may never be able to DCANONIZE the novels but as we saw in the movie they sure as hell can ignore them....

 

[nevin]

Ed is wrong about the multiple wild shapes. My son and I went over them, he is forgetting she's high enough level (we figured about 10th-12th, considering some of the spells being thrown about by her and Simon), allowing her to use her higher level spells for polymorph (since that was likely her only encounter for the day and it was desperation, she probably blew her 6th, 5th & 4th level spells in addition to her 2 standard wild shapes).

nope polymorph has V D and M components didnt see any of that in there.

 

[nevin]

On sending stones - back in the '80s, I gave my party an earring that the group leader wore that allowed long range telepathy between party members (about a mile, basically had to "attune" with each person you wanted to contact in the future). Didn't break the game one bit. And while the PCs had it, it was unique, nobody else on the continent had it so it wasn't a problem that broke the campaign.

Even now, if I were to use sending stones they'd be a rarity - on about a level of teleportation circles, and maybe used in conjuction with them.

stuff like that is fine with high level parties. Things only break the campaign when your bad guys don't have thier own special things. Or if the DM is afraid to destroy magic items.