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, 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."

2014 is the year that D&D 5th Edition launched.

He goes on to say that WotC takes inspiration from past lore and sometimes adds them into official lore.

Over the past five decades of D&D, there have been hundreds of novels, more than five editions of the game, about a hundred video games, and various other items such as comic books, and more. None of this is canon. Crawford explains that this is because they "don’t want DMs to feel that in order to run the game, they need to read a certain set of novels."

He cites the Dragonlance adventures, specifically.

 

[Norton]

A little weird to have to make such a statement given there is no such think as game canon police, but adventure continuity for 5e seems wise if you also push the idea of connecting 5e adventures in a larger campaign.

The canon I use is whatever gets the best search engine ranking during a session or quick prep plus whatever actually makes it into the game based on my failure to read it carefully enough to get it right.

 

[Scribe]

This doesn't take away from any of that.

If it's no longer canon...yes it does.

 

[Parmandur]

In terms of why they are saying this now, I've seen people assert that there is a "cabon" ending to Descent into Avernus because of the setup of Baldur's Gate 3. Which is absurd, Descent into Avernus won't have a "canon" resolution.

 

[jgsugden]

The comparison to Star Wars lore is missing one pivotal piece of information: In D&D, we - the fans and players - change the lore ourselves. All WotC gives us is a jumping off point. You might jump off from a pretty defined point if you use an adventure path, but we all end up making changes to the lore to suit our needs. And, many DMs will reboot their setting often.

I usually run a homebrew that is distinct from, but relatable to, the Forgotten Realms. It ran for 230 years game time before I moved. At that time, I rebooted it for new players with some changes. I take inspiration from official product, and adapt the setting to the current rule set, but in the end it is my own beast and I really enjoy being the master of that domain. Official story from the settings is not binding on that world.

When I run a published setting, it is my intention to run them from the point in time I am best prepared to run them, and to modify them freely and with little regard for maintaining the continuity for future campaigns as I will always reboot back to the same point of time when I run them. When new product is released for them, I look for things I can weave into my setting, and will always allow a player to work elements of what they see in books into the setting, but I am more focused on 'my version' of these settings than the WotC version.

When I run Eberron, I run it when it was intended to be run. I always start the Eberron campaign at the same point of time, and each time it runs I plan to run the PCs through a full campaign, with the world of Eberron being forever changed by the events of the campaign - although, at the end, we close out the campaign and leave it behind. The next time I run Eberron, it will be starting all over at the same point in time.

When I run FR, I do it at the same point in time - the Time of the original boxed setting. I have fleshed out some of the setting, but I am far from a FR lore master. However, just as with Eberron, when I run there, I run from the same point in time, allow the events of the campaign to change the world, and then let it end. Interestingly, Waterdeep never does well in my FR campaigns - I have leveled the city 5 different times (Demonic Invasion, Cult of the Dragon, Underdark Invasion, Planar Gates to the Elemental Plane of Fire, Submerged Coastline....) My longest term player's last character in the FR before I moved was a wizard merchant who made a fortune by betting on the destruction of Waterdeep...

Same thing for Krynn and Athas. I have run the Dragonlance Chronicles adventures, and done my reinterpretation of them as well. I have run Freedom before abandoning the railroad Dark Sun modules, and also run free form adventures in Athas. However I would always start running campaigns in those settings at the start of the War of the Lance, or at the time that Kalak falls and disrupts the status quo.

 

[Parmandur]

If it's no longer canon...yes it does.

But it still exists, as does the connection.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think that is what @wingsandsword is saying. I think they are fans of the setting and like many fans, they prefer that new material builds on old, rather than replaces or obviates it.

Yeah, but that makes said lore a barrier to entry for new folks to grasp what the devil is going on.

As many have noted - this changes nothing in individual table practice. And they are correct. But, it is important to note it for the rather large number of new players that have come along in recent years, to set their expectations, and let them know there's no intent of having a barrier to their entry.

 

[Weiley31]

Matt Mercer: Hey Crawford so you wanna hear what the next season of Crit Roll is gonna be about? It's important to have that canon DND lore for the fans.

Crawford: LOL your so funny Matt, everybody knows that Crit Ro-suddenly remembers what was one of the 5E books released past 2014-BUGGER ME!!!

Matt Mercer with a wide grin on his face: How do you want to do this?

Cue montage scene of Matt Mercer riding a giant celestial Lobster, with his hair flowing gallantly in the air, unto the heavens of Canondom as Crawford, now fully realizing what he has done, falls to his knees crying while Baka Mitai starts playing in the background.

 

[Scribe]

But it still exists, as does the connection.

Within the context of 'current setting' no, it's no longer canon, and is irrelevant.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, that's the thing here. It's not like Star Wars, where it's a one-way street between creators and fans. With D&D, fans are creators. The resources aren't going away and people will use them.

Still from a design philosophy, it's been pretty clear from the beginning that 5e, for all its nods to the past, wasn't going to be bound by the hundreds of novels, modules, and sourcebooks that've come before. And it makes sense.

Did anyone really get that worked up over say, Falkovnia being a zombie apocalypse domain ruled by Vladeska Drakov, instead of yet another oppressive land ruled by the most blatant Not-Dracula of Ravenloft?

WotC sells the Grey Box, the 2E box, the 3E FRCS, and the 4E FRCS. I've seen Perkins recommend any of those books as good for 5E. DMs aren't bound by anything.

 

[Kurotowa]

Some people enjoy that shared setting. The fact that I can appreciate the same thing as someone from the other side of the world, 10 years ago.

A history, a tapestry of bits and pieces woven together over potentially decades, which again is shared.

Dumping that can never be a good thing to me, but it sure let's them wipe their hands of anything they believe to be seen as problematic.

A shared love for a movie or novel is one thing. Everyone experiences the same thing, give or take the unique personal perspective they bring to it. But an RPG is different. Everyone at the table is an active participant and every table writes their own story.

Maybe in one table's campaign, the PCs kill Elminster. Does that mean everyone else has to acknowledge that it was a fair kill, by the rules, and he's dead in their campaigns too? Of course not. That would be silly. The same applies for campaigns where Elminster abandons his swinger life for a committed monogamous relationship, or where Elminster usurps Mystra as the new god of magic, or where Elminster turns out to have died decades ago and it's been three halflings in a robe keeping his name alive. Everyone's campaign is a unique and discrete take on the setting, theirs to shape as they please.

A shared love for an RPG setting is a good starting point, but those settings have to remain tools that people use to craft their own campaigns. A shared love for tie in novels and comics and such is nice, but those can't become shackles that constrain future game design or the "heroes" of the setting that force their way into everyone's campaign. And the WotC psionic ninjas aren't going to break into your house to steal your books and erase your memories. If you want Drizzt to be canon in your game, he still is! But that's your choice for your game, and they're not going to write official books with the assumption that everyone has to follow that choice.