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.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Not what was said.

They have the option of changing elements. They are not indicating any desire to do so.

It's helpful to look at what happened with Disney and the Star Wars extended universe. It was all technically wiped away, but the good stuff, like Thrawn, reappeared almost immediately. Stuff like Chewie getting killed by a moon falling on him, or an evil clone named Luuke, were dumped.

Not every element of the past almost-50 years of D&D continuity is worth keeping. If WotC wanted to remove the comedy version of Castle Greyhawk from continuity (which they already did with the 3E Expedition to Castle Greyhawk adventure), very few people would actually seriously object.

They didn't selectively wipe some stupid stuff out (for example unlike the wonderful novels, the aweful, worst book in FR history, Aquistitions Incorporated, is still canon), they threw out the best lore and kept the trash.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

When it is weaponized, such as when the hue and cry goes.oit that WotC is persecuting long-time fans? Just a bit, yeah.

Observing the truth isn't toxic, society needs more of it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Hear me out here: They can create a 5E Dragonlance in which the Companions do not exist, or do not adventure, and it's up to the player characters to save the day.

 

[Parmandur]

They didn't selectively wipe some stupid stuff out (for example unlike the wonderful novels, the aweful, worst book in FR history, Aquistitions Incorporated, is still canon), they threw out the best lore and kept the trash.

Statement of opinion. They have brought a lot of the old novels forward, and continue to do so.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Not really. D&D 5E started a new design trend of building out from the players point of view. A bottom up instead of top down perspective. Instead of lumping 50 years of lore, world features and non-character knowledge on top of the players, we start in the town or city where the adventure is set and build out from there on what the players know and learn along the way. This design model is incompatible with the idea that 50 years of lore, most of which the players shouldn't know any way, should be in their mind the whole time.
Why is this better? Players and DMs aren't burdened with extraneous and overwhelming volumes of lore that mean literally nothing to their characters, while the game can still incorporate anything from that lore that players and DMs see value in.
Bottom line, fans of the novels and past products are still free to use that material, they just can't rely on their encyclopedic knowledge of non-player-character knowledge to dictate the game world.
The truth is, any DM may use every bit of the history and novels as cannon in their game. The difference is that, as a player, you would need to learn that from gameplay experience.

DMs always could.

 

[Reynard]

Many of those can be addressed via fluff.

Gully dwarves aren't stupider, they're an underclass that other dwarves discriminate against. (And before anyone says that doesn't make sense for the Lawful Good dwarves, I invite you to look at our world.)

Tinker gnomes are just rock gnomes and their devices work as well as any other gnomes' stuff. Maybe they add some beefed-up tinkering rules to the book to show that.

As for Goldmoon's people, get rid of the bad cowboys and Indians cosplay and go with either something more distinctive to Krynn or pick another Earth culture to be influenced by, and either give Goldmoon a different appearance or make it clear that her people have a wide variance of appearances.

People will complain about each of these, but honestly, they're not complaints that I would listen to.

This list is basically a litany of reasons for them to please not bother. Let it lie. Tell a new, better story with Dragons and Lances. Please.

 

[Parmandur]

Hear me out here: They can create a 5E Dragonlance in which the Companions do not exist, or do not adventure, and it's up to the player characters to save the day.

Crazy talk.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Statement of opinion. They have brought a lot of the old novels forward, and continue to do so.

They just said the novels aren't canon, that is the opposite of bringing it forward.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They didn't selectively wipe some stupid stuff out (for example unlike the wonderful novels, the aweful, worst book in FR history, Aquistitions Incorporated, is still canon), they threw out the best lore and kept the trash.

They haven't thrown anything out, no matter how much you keep insisting otherwise. They have the option of doing so, that's all.

This is something they've done as far back as Expedition to Castle Greyhawk.

 

[Parmandur]

Observing the truth isn't toxic, society needs more of it.

The truth is that WotC isn't changing something here, they've been doing this for years. This isn’t meant to alienate anyone, bit keep the RPG loose and open for people to use as they wish.