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.

 

[Mercurius]

Why does it need to be restated? It is self evident. And I don't think that's what people unhappy with this are talking about at all.

They want their knowledge of who Jarlaxle is to remain correct, because they have invested some portion of their enjoyment of D&D in The Forgotten Realms and its lore.

I'm not sure why this is an issue? If you have an ongoing campaign with Jarlaxle in it, why can't you just continue as-is, no matter what WotC publishes? The "correct" version of Jarlaxle is whatever works for your campaign.

 

[Einar Stormcrow]

Also: everyone who has argued X player option (warlock, dragonborn, etc) can't be on Y setting (Greyhawk, Dark Sun), prepare to die mad.

I mean...as a DM, I can still say that there are no warforged in Greyhawk. The lack of official canon changes nothing. The only canon that matters is what's at the table. That's kinda the point.

That said, I'll happily include warlocks, sorcerers, tieflings, and dragonborn. It's not warforged hate. Far from it, they're one of my favorite PC races, I just think they are part of what makes Eberron special. Point is, what others write, consider 'official', or what they do at their own tables, has no bearing on how others need to play.

 

[Parmandur]

And all of that would be possible to grow from 1486 DR (or wherever FR currently is at) onward. No need to throw out novels that happened 1273 DR from ever having happened

Nobody is saying that they never happened: but they are not beholden to them when making future products.

 

[Stormonu]

DC I will give you. Marvel in the comics has bent over backwards to keep their canon as close to accurate as they can without messing up the possibility of future stories. Just about ever happened in the Marvel universe...still happened, albeit in broad strokes in some cases. They created the MCU as a separate reality, just like they did with Ultimate universe back in the early 2000s.

I’m much more fluent with DC than Marvel - but what about the Secret Wars? Wasn’t there a recent one that rebooted canon?

 

[Reynard]

I'm not sure why this is an issue? If you have an ongoing campaign with Jarlaxle in it, why can't you just continue as-is, no matter what WotC publishes? The "correct" version of Jarlaxle is whatever works for your campaign.

It isn't about the table, it is about the setting. I am having difficulty with the fact that people are having difficulty with this.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Fizban. The way senility is used as a joke isn't exactly the most compassionate take and is pretty ageist. But he's getting his own 5e book, so I'm sure they're working on that. Generally speaking, it's some of the worldbuilding that's the problem in DL, the way certain cultures and peoples are portrayed.

So the question is, do Dragonlance or Greyhawk or whatever have major NPCs that are that sort of problematic? I know there's Goldmoon and her people, but that wouldn't require much more than a simple change of costuming). But I don't know those settings well enough to be able to think about any other NPCs and go "yeesh, what were they thinking?"

Yeah, I'd think most of us wouldn't want to play in an FR campaign that was completely and utterly bound by canon, where nothing the PCs do can conflict with that. In fact, that large and expansive metaplot has been the stated reason that some people avoid playing in The Realms. People complained about it then and people are complaining about it going away now.

Back in the day (1993, 2e days) my group killed Manshoon and Fzoul, and told Sememmon to leave because he wasn't worth our effort. Those were fun games that usually went stupid along the way.

 

[Reynard]

Fizban. The way senility is used as a joke isn't exactly the most compassionate take and is pretty ageist. But he's getting his own 5e book, so I'm sure they're working on that.

EDIT: I was trying to be pithy and it backfired. Leaving it for posterity but I apologize.

Always punch up. Old white dudes can take it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I choose to believe all those running down corridor shots and quarry locations were artistic choices, not monetary ones!

Do you remember the Green-Bubble Wrap monster? That was the first episode of Classic Doctor Who that I ever watched, and my family was lying on the floor laughing from how awful the costume was.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I’m much more fluent with DC than Marvel - but what about the Secret Wars? Wasn’t there a recent one that rebooted canon?

Marvel has had a handful of reboots, including the modern Secret Wars, but they use it sparingly. DC reboots so often, they have multiple canonical versions of the Legion of Super-Heroes wandering around and poor Hawkman isn't sure who he is from hour to hour.

 

[Mercurius]

It isn't about the table, it is about the setting. I am having difficulty with the fact that people are having difficulty with this.

But the setting is how you play it at your table. It isn't a static thing, like a movie. There isn't a singular version of the Forgotten Realms. Yes, there's the published version, but then each DM (and group) adapts it to their liking, to varying degrees.