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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

When they reset reality after it was over, they reinstated the old reality with a couple add-ons (like Miles Morales) along for the ride. Everything still happened.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

I'm confident that they're going to address that. Alzeheimer's Disease is something that, again, the vast majority of society agrees is something to be feared and pitied, not something to be used to make someone the object of ridicule, outside of very dark humor, which WotC historically has not done.

 

[Remathilis]

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

Secret Wars just smashed the best parts of other AUs into the normal Marvel universe but left most of the rest the same. You get Miles and Spider-Gwen in the normal 616 for example without Peter dying (as per thier backstories)

 

[Bolares]

There is a difference between the D&D roleplaying game and the campaign settings canon. In regards to the game, nothing is canon prior to 2014, and that SHOULD make sense to everyone. What may have been canon in regards to the D&D game (for example, Warlocks operated vastly different in 2006 than they did in 2012 and from what they do in 2021) is not canon now. This probably could also in many ways apply to the game campaigns run in certain campaign worlds (a Warlock's magic in how it is described in a FR realms book written a decade ago may operate completely different in some ways then it would in relation to the game rules in 2021 for example).

HOWEVER...as per campaign setting canon...that could be a little bit more...nebulous.

For example, many talk about Forgotten Realms...but for many, without Ed Greenwood's stamp of approval...NOTHING is canon unless he says it is okay (and then there are those that are more fanatical which try to align themselves to whatever is canon to his game...or what they think is canon in his game period...which excludes a lot of other material).

ON the otherhand you have worlds which are not beholden to a singular author or creator...of which Ravenloft is probably an example. Here you probably have more leeway, but you still have fans that will demand you stick to the older works that are written as well.

Then you have those that are sort of in between. Greyhawk could fall in this, where most who are fans would want the original ideas of Gygax to stick, but don't care too much about the history or materials written after that unless it is the very hardcore of fans.

You also have the wierd ones which are sort of like Ravenloft is, but a set of authors are considered by many fans the definitive curators of canon for it, even if they are not truly considered the canon holder of it...such as Dragonlance's relation to Weiss and Hickman.

In regards to the game itself though, the statement makes complete sense. This does not necessarily mean they are scrapping the canon of campaign settings (From my interpretation of the statement), only that they are not necessarily beholden to it in every situation (as Ravenloft's new release aptly shows). I think they understand though, that they cannot simply toss out the canon of every campaign setting because, as shown above, they are not always the ones that are actually in control of what others consider canon or not.

This post is so outdated....

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Bezos, Musk, Branson, sure. But there are plenty of people that aren't old white dudes that suffer from cognitive difficulties. And even old white dudes that have cognitive difficulties, that's not something to be mocked. That's not punching up.

Always punch up. Old white dudes can take it.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

MAY not be relevant to canon.

Its not a may, its no longer canon period.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm confident that they're going to address that. Alzeheimer's Disease is something that, again, the vast majority of society agrees is something to be feared and pitied, not something to be used to make someone the object of ridicule, outside of very dark humor, which WotC historically has not done.

Even when I was young, I took Fizban more as a ESB Yoda; whimsical and playing at being senile to distract from the fact he was a wise and powerful omnipotent deity.

Weiss and Hickman, of course, dialed it to eleven and overdid it, but the concept was the same.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Likewise. I think you can get at the core of Fizban as a god masquerading as a human, working to guide the heroes, without that element. It's not like he didn't drop the act on any number of occasions.

I'm confident that they're going to address that. Alzeheimer's Disease is something that, again, the vast majority of society agrees is something to be feared and pitied, not something to be used to make someone the object of ridicule, outside of very dark humor, which WotC historically has not done.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

The unbridled arrogance of Jeremy Crawford and his fellows, 5e's unearned success has gone to their heads if they think they can dump years and years of FR canon into the trash can.

When 5e was created it was to unite fans, and the fans came and it was a huge success, but now that FR fans are needed anymore, because its so popular thanks to social media, they can flip FR fans the bird. I hope they all get the firing they all so desperately deserve.

And better yet I hope Ed Greenwood sues WotC for breach of contract and takes FR back from them. I wish WotC endless failure for this act of treachery.

I don't know why, but I enjoyed reading this. Seriously don't know why, but it gave me joy. Maybe I'm insane?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This post is so outdated....

They made no indication 9f the difference between

Always punch up. Old white dudes can take it.

There are plenty of homeless old white dudes out there, that's not punching up.