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]

You don't think that some people enjoy the settings for themselves? You don't think some people read the setting books as voraciously and deeply as other people read novels or comics? It seems weird to me that you couldn't recognize the fact that for some people, the hobby is not just the table -- or even the table at all. I bet there are people in this thread who don't even play, but consider themselves D&D fans.

The novels have tons of FR and DL fans who have never played a single table top RPG in their life.

He wasn't referring to homeless people, and you know he wasn't.

I was making the simple point just because someone is white and male doesn't make something punching up, I know alot of white men used and discarded by society that doesn't give a crude about them, most not homeless.

 

[Parmandur]

Its not a may, its no longer canon period.

They retain the option to take up anything they feel like again, they just aren't beholden to anything.

 

[Reynard]

It is hard to imagine anyone enjoying Forgotten Realms, but sure, I guess it is theoretically possible.

Ah. Now I get it.

So what? How does this affect them? Crawford isn't gonna come to your home to burn your old Forgotten Realms novels.

::sigh:: It is not about the books from the past suddenly disappearing. It is about the new stuff directly contradicting or retconning that material from the past. Because they are invested in the Forgotten Realms (or Eberron or whatever) that IS, based on what has come before, they are afraid the Forgotten Realm of tomorrow won't be the same. That is the loss they are fearing.

 

[Reynard]

I was making the simple point just because someone is white and male doesn't make something punching up, I know alot of white men used and discarded by society that doesn't give a crude about them, most not homeless.

That's absolutely true. I over reached for a pithy remark.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is about the new stuff directly contradicting or retconning that material from the past.

But that has always happened with the D&D lore.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Hey everyone, I typed out a long response to Jeremy Crawford. By the time I finished typing, my post was already three pages behind!
So I'm posting a catch-up link here: D&D General - WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

In short, I'm proposing that Crawford and WotC look to how Star Trek, Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, and Transformers have consciously supported multiple Realities / Timelines. Rather than shoving everyone into One Official Canon.

Juicy excerpts:
"Crawford's formulation is dry, abstract, and not presented in a storied, colorful way which will be widely known by D&D fandoms."
"[Disney] pushes and shoves everyone into the Story Group [Star Wars] Canon. So far, WotC is going down this unilateral path."

 

[Parmandur]

Ah. Now I get it.

::sigh:: It is not about the books from the past suddenly disappearing. It is about the new stuff directly contradicting or retconning that material from the past. Because they are invested in the Forgotten Realms (or Eberron or whatever) that IS, based on what has come before, they are afraid the Forgotten Realm of tomorrow won't be the same. That is the loss they are fearing.

Right, everyone gets that. Doesn't take away from the toxicity of declaring WotC is persecuting older fans.

 

[Mercurius]

You don't think that some people enjoy the settings for themselves? You don't think some people read the setting books as voraciously and deeply as other people read novels or comics? It seems weird to me that you couldn't recognize the fact that for some people, the hobby is not just the table -- or even the table at all. I bet there are people in this thread who don't even play, but consider themselves D&D fans.

It still seems like an unnecessary problem. I mean, if nothing else, an FR fan could see each edition as an alternate take on their beloved setting. They might have their favorite, but can enjoy "the 4E version." And so on. Sort of like different eras of a favorite band.

Similarly with Bond. Part of the fun is experiencing a new take on the "Bond archetype," seeing how it can be adapted yet still be "Bondian."

This is not to say that all change is good. But I personally appreciate the idea that RPGs and their settings present a kind of living art-form. Of course the key is still staying true the "spirit" or "essence" of the setting. But that still provides a lot of flexibility and doesn't prevent anyone from enjoying whatever version they prefer.

EDIT: Can you clarify what sort of canon changes you would take issue with, and what you'd be OK with?

 

[Reynard]

But that has always happened with the D&D lore.

You are trying to argue that people shouldn't have enjoyed the canon in the first place, and so should not be concerned when someone says that canon might be violated in the future? That makes very little sense.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You don't think that some people enjoy the settings for themselves? You don't think some people read the setting books as voraciously and deeply as other people read novels or comics? It seems weird to me that you couldn't recognize the fact that for some people, the hobby is not just the table -- or even the table at all. I bet there are people in this thread who don't even play, but consider themselves D&D fans.

So, back in the 1990s, before message boards were common (and were very janky -- I ran some back then, and they were a never-ending source of headaches with security holes and simply crashing regularly), this was a regular topic of discussion on usenet (look it up, kids!) in the White Wolf forums.

There was a loud and dramatic split between people who bought White Wolf products as books to be read and those who bought them for the sake of play. At some point, White Wolf decided that readers were more important than gamers and strongly leaned into metaplot and what one might call a casual approach to balance and rules mastery.

As this went on, it became harder and harder to use their books to play games, since there was often little gameable in many of them and what was in there was poorly done at best. (And, even for the standards of 1990s adventures, there was a whole lot of watching the company's big name NPCs do the cool stuff while the player characters were sometimes physically unable to intervene.)

This wasn't sustainable. White Wolf eventually stopped fooling around and initiated the end of the world across all of its game lines. (It was a very fin de siècle set of games, with the end of the century/millennium/world looming over all of them.) So we got a big canonical ending to the stories, some of it actually gameable, and a situation that, frankly, made both camps of customers mad.

The company then launched a new World of Darkness (now called the Chronicles of Darkness), cleaning up the rules, fixing up the setting (notably making it less racist, 20 years before D&D did) and all but demolishing metaplot. While CoD has a lot of merits (pun intended), it was never the commercial success of WoD, as they'd successfully alienated almost everyone. The company has bounced through owners for several years and they've brought back the original World of Darkness not once but twice (a 20th anniversary line and a continuation of a "whoops, the world didn't end after all" WoD line).

All of which is to say that I think game books should be primarily meant to be books that are used for a game. If other people want to buy them, great. But the products that are designed to appeal to people who are just interested in the setting and the characters in a game world should be something other than game books: make them novels, comics, videogames, coffee table books, statuettes, etc.

Because if you decide that your primary audience for game books isn't gamers, you will eventually kill off (or at least mortally wound) the goose that lays the golden eggs, just like White Wolf did.