D&D 5E Is Paladine Bahamut? Is Takhisis Tiamat? Fizban's Treasury Might Reveal The Answer!

Urriak Uruk · Jul 21, 2021

doctorbadwolf said:
Which is irrelevant to a discussion of whether the direction of the canon (and yes, it exists, it just isn't binding in a game. Canon just refers to the lore published by the IP holder. What they publish is DnD, what I run at my table is my DnD. I don't need to feel beholden to the official DnD in order to care about what direction it is going with the lore.)

Well hold on here; the DMG leaves folks a framework to use any cosmology you like. It says the Great Wheel is a theoretical construct (the most popular one, but still), and may be incorrect. That lets any DM use whatever cosmology they like, and still be "canon." It still adheres to what the DMG says.

Parmandur · Jul 21, 2021

JEB said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the Forgotten Realms is quietly exempt from this in practice. I think it's more likely they're talking about Dragonlance... and justifying a setting reboot that ignores the novels (especially the new novels that they butted heads with Weis and Hickman over).

I dunno, they are pretty laxidasical with FR canon, and I bet this how they move forward across the board.

Urriak Uruk · Jul 21, 2021

Bolares said:
Dungeons & Dragons Novels, Video Games, and Other Spin-Offs Are Not Canonical to D&D Roleplaying Game

Wizards of the Coast has provided some clarity on the canon of Dungeons & Dragons in regards to [...]

comicbook.com

It seems nothing is canon anymore outside the books

Huh. This might actually hint that a Dragonlance (or Dark Sun) setting book is on the way, that resets the setting back to the War of the Lance (or pre-Prism novels).

Parmandur · Jul 21, 2021

I think the bigger thing they were trying to communicate was to not lose sleep over how the plots of Dark Alliance and Baldur's Gate 3 relate to anythong...because they don't.

Parmandur · Jul 21, 2021

Urriak Uruk said:
Huh. This might actually hint that a Dragonlance (or Dark Sun) setting book is on the way, that resets the setting back to the War of the Lance (or pre-Prism novels).

They already did that to Dark Sun back in the day, but another reset would be likely. I think we will see the War of the Lance as an Adventure before Dragonlance as a Setting per se.

Zeromaru X · Jul 21, 2021

Parmandur said:
As for what is considered canon in the D&D RPG, Crawford provided a very simple answer. "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," Crawford said. "Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014 [the year that Dungeons & Dragons' Fifth Edition core rulebooks came out], we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

Oh, well. That's a good thing, I guess. My experience with my Neverwinter game is still ruined, as the SCAG is still considered canon, lol

Dire Bare · Jul 21, 2021

doctorbadwolf said:
This is an interesting idea, but I don't think it really tracks with how the planes are generally treated in the books.

For instance, in Eberron's plane of Stories, Thelanis, there are an infinite number of potentially infinite "layers". Those layers are understood to be part of Thelanis, and thus ontologically secondary or....subservient (isn't the right word but hopefully it gets the point across) to the Plane of Thelanis.

In dnd as I've ever seen presented in actual published material, when a place is inside of another place, it is considered part of that place, and thus....exisentially less than the place which contains it? Like, surely you wouldn't argue with the statement that the planet of Oerth is, within the fiction of DnD, less than the Prime Material Plane in total? Right? It's part of it, and thus the plane is more than the planet, right?

So, if Eberron goes from being alongside the cosmology of the Greyhawk setting to being a "bubble" or "locked sphere" contained within the ethereal plane which is one plane of many within the "5e multiverse" of the Greyhawk (unless I've got my origins wrong on the great wheel) game/story setting. So, rather than being a universe which is only "inside" the "4e style multiverse" and in all ways equal to and in most ways separate from other universes within that multiverse, it is now merely a part of another universe. Hell, it doesn't even exist as like....a bubble on the outside of the great wheel or somesuch useful visualization, or to view it another way as it's own infinite plane alongside the others, it is a sub-plane within a larger plane.

The issue of things like elves still being the creations of Corellon is a bigger problem, but since it stems from the larger cosmological problem, it's hard to consistently discuss without going back to the cosmological problem.

I don't like the bubble idea, that Eberron is a bubble of different floating within the larger cosmology. I would agree with you there that this kind of diminishes the setting a bit, although again, not on a practical level. I'd rather think of Eberron as simply being different alongside those other worlds, each different in their own ways, to various degrees.

Eberron existing within the D&D multiverse, just as Krynn, Athas, and Toril do . . . to me, that doesn't diminish Eberron at all. Being a part of something larger isn't automatically a demotion, or indicative of a lesser status. Although, when folks first starting theorizing that Earth wasn't the center of the real universe, but just one world among many . . . that got controversial for a bit!

Dire Bare · Jul 21, 2021

Bolares said:
Dungeons & Dragons Novels, Video Games, and Other Spin-Offs Are Not Canonical to D&D Roleplaying Game

Wizards of the Coast has provided some clarity on the canon of Dungeons & Dragons in regards to [...]

comicbook.com

It seems nothing is canon anymore outside the books

Wow, hot off the presses! Is Crawford reading this thread? Jeremy?

While the article directly quotes Crawford on this, I don't think it quite captures how WotC treats D&D canon. Setting, story, and characters from pre-5E, from the novels, and other licensed properties . . . it's not that they aren't canon at all, but more quasi-canon. They kinda-sorta happened . . . if you, as the gamer, want them to in your own game . . . but also if WotC decides to use those elements in a 5E product. Not unlike how Disney treats the now "Legends" canon before they acquired Lucasfilm.

WotC can certainly decide to pull something from an earlier source, or from a novel, and decide to change it . . . but how often does that really happen? The Drizzt novels that Bob Salvatore is still writing adhere pretty closely to current D&D canon, in fact the next novel, Starlight Enclave, is introducing the new drow subraces that are clearly intended to be new D&D canon. On the other hand, I doubt much of the story from the recent Dark Alliance video game is going to become canon.

I think certain aspects of the D&D franchise have a degree of "distance" from canon. The popular Drizzt novels are practically adjacent to full canon. As are the comics featuring Minsc and his adventuring buddies. But older D&D products (of any sort) have a greater distance. Video games probably have the most distance, as they serve such different needs from novels, comics, and RPG books.

But still, I appreciate the official word. That officially only 100% canonical sources are the 5E RPG books, everything else is some degree of maybe. And regardless of even official canon, feel free to toss it all out the window for your home games if you want!

Maxperson · Jul 21, 2021

Urriak Uruk said:
Huh. This might actually hint that a Dragonlance (or Dark Sun) setting book is on the way, that resets the setting back to the War of the Lance (or pre-Prism novels).

Good. The books constant changes got a bit absurd. I've never treated novels, movies or video games as canon anyway.

Dire Bare · Jul 21, 2021

Urriak Uruk said:
Huh. This might actually hint that a Dragonlance (or Dark Sun) setting book is on the way, that resets the setting back to the War of the Lance (or pre-Prism novels).

Maybe. The policy certainly gives them the freedom to do so.

I would LOVE a reimagined Dragonlance. I'm pretty cool with a Dark Sun walked back to the original boxed set in metaplot, but not really with changing the setting to any great degree.