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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The fun and joy of reading a story?

Are D&D novels really good books for that though?

 

[Reynard]

Hard canon is pretty central to the whole gatekeeping phenomenon.

So we shouldn't have it because some people misuse it? That doesn't seem like a very good argument.

At least the business argument makes some sense. You don't want to make your thing feel opaque to potential fans. One of the reasons I have never gotten into Critical Role, just by way of example, is that there is way too much I would have to catch up on.

 

[Reynard]

Are D&D novels really good books for that though?

Did you really just malign everyone who ever wrote a branded D&D novel?

 

[Yaarel]

So .....

if all of the D&D 5e gaming books are canon, does that mean "everything is core"?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Regarding FR - I stopped following the official canon when the original Time of Troubles occurred.

Granted, I only use the Realms sparingly, and mostly for inspiration, but the Realms has been shattered so many times and changed so much (in the middle of many folk’s campaigns, I’m sure) that even with this setting aside the old books and such is there really a point to the death of “canon” that exists?

The books are tales about NPCs on FR, not the game characters and plots folks are using at the table - if used, I’ve only seen them referenced as past events or cameos at best. The existance (or, actually, lack of existance for me) of Drizz’t, for example, has no impact at my game table.

I think, moreover, it may actually help Dragonlance. The world can be re-presented so the players can do their own things during the War (and do not need to follow the Companion’s footsteps) or the end of the War can be used as the starting point for the campaign - the Dragonarmies are weakened and scattered, but still a threat with some areas still under siege or control of various evil forces. But now, the Chronicles are history to be drawn from, instead of the actual campaign narrative.

Now that the Nexus has put out their new document, I dont need anything from WotC. I'm just glad they released something before WotC did.

 

[Parmandur]

So we shouldn't have it because some people misuse it? That doesn't seem like a very good argument.

At least the business argument makes some sense. You don't want to make your thing feel opaque to potential fans. One of the reasons I have never gotten into Critical Role, just by way of example, is that there is way too much I would have to catch up on.

No, just taking the complaints about the potential "evil" of DragonLance including more women and PoC as the natural conclusion of de-emphasizing "canon" as indicative of what's really at issue here for some folks.

 

[Scribe]

No, just taking the complaints about the potential "evil" of DragonLance including more women and PoC as the natural conclusion of de-emphasizing "canon" as indicative of what's really at issue here for some folks.

Who's saying that? Include as many new characters and reflect as much diversity as one desires. Not an issue at all.

Changing characters that have existed as such for decades?

That's something entirely different.

 

[Parmandur]

Who's saying that? Include as many new characters and reflect as much diversity as one desires. Not an issue at all.

Changing characters that have existed as such for decades?

That's something entirely different.

Why bring it up? Nobody suggested anything like that would happen.

I do think we will see a redo of the DL line without pregens, but nobody is talking about gender-swapping or "changing lineages."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why bring it up? Nobody suggested anything like that would happen.

I do think we will see a redo of the DL line without pregens, but nobody is talking about gender-swapping or "changing lineages."

They did it in Ravenloft. No reason to think they wouldn't do it elsewhere.

 

[Scribe]

Why bring it up? Nobody suggested anything like that would happen.

I do think we will see a redo of the DL line without pregens, but nobody is talking about gender-swapping or "changing lineages."

It actually has been brought up in other DL discussions, a desire to keep the companions, but to mix things up to better reflect modern values.

There's absolutely a desire to change quite a few things in DL, for better or worse.