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.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wonder if this is just a way of erasing chunks of Dragonlance. Gully Dwarfs will be gone, Kender won’t steal. Raistlin will be in a wheelchair. Tanis will be black. Riverwind and Goldmoon will be a gay couple and Sturm will be non-binary.
The Inn of the Last Home will be a gay bar with an accessible ramp for disabled draconians

For this heaping helping of anti-inclusion, Geoff Thirlwell has been booted from this thread.

Do not adopt his error as your own.

​

 

[jasper]

@Reynard, we understand you like canon. But I and others have seen so much canon conflict, we are tired of listening to what others thing should be canon. Canon is what the DM says it is.

@Ralif Redhammer … where it's a one-way street between creators and fans. With D&D, fans are creators. The resources aren't going away and people will use them…. Um I think not. Anyone remember I want a Tatun Tatun for Christmas. So, some fan stuff does into Lore.

@Henadric Theologain .. 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…. I don’t think this is so. I think is just another paragraph like the Session 0, and Trigger warnings which have been recently included in the written works that will give a new DM the power to say. Canon is what the Dm says it is.

@Remathlis… sacred texts. You own my cat SJ a bath. He was not amused when I spit Coke on him. Evil gin.

@Crimson Longinus .. How does this affect them? Crawford isn't gonna come to your home to burn your old Forgotten Realms novels…. Looks at torches and gasoline. Looks at list of addresses. DARN IT. You Mean Craw Fish told us to stand down. Wererats. Pout!

@Henadic Theologian …..Can we draw the conversion back to WotC's declarion of war against FR fans?.....

DITT DITT DITT. News Flash. News Flash. This is Walter Cronkite of CNN news. WOTC this morning declared war on it Forgotten Realms Fans today. Col. Jeremy Crow Ford son of President Ford said it would be all out war. Even Glass Clackers would be allowed. Any Die 20 dice found in FR fans hands which had 1 to 20 would be destroyed. Any Diet 20 which goes 0-9 twice which is not painted in two different colors will be evidence of war crimes. These criminals will be sentence to watch old Gillian Island reruns with out any Mt Dew. Real Bullet Points will be Use. We now take you back to our regularly scheduled program which is still running.

Random Thoughts.

Canon Crazies tick me off way back around Dragon 56. I had spent 4 hours working on canon for a monster only to be TOLD I was wrong because that Dragon had article on the monster I was working on.

If Canon is Gossip, then Warhammers weigh over 55 pounds or there abouts. I forget which the Ice Wind dale trilogy had one the heroes using a hammer and mention it weight.

Ok. Let’s just stick with the official WOTC products in 5E. I have not memorized them but does not two or three of the hard cover adventures take place in the same year? And we have already seen edits to Ravenloft/Strahd which have split the canon depending on which printed copy you have.

Canon only matters To Me, Myself, I and the rest of you; IF WOTC is hiring us to write an official Product or Adventure League product. Canon for the rest of Y’all is up to your table. And Canon does make a decent Camera and its accessories.


Yess I read 22 pages in under 45 minutes. Nerd level up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Existing lore absolutely still has a place. It's an entertaining read. It serves as an example of play, or a slice of the world for someone who's interested in seeing it.

When I got ready to use the OAR version of Keep on the Borderlands, and remembered that, for some inexplicable reason, we get names for the forest hermit and the witch, but not for ANYONE IN THE FREAKING KEEP, I went and found the list of character names from the Paul Kidd Borderlands novel. I don't know anything else about the book, other than it dropped the setting onto Oerth (which, no, although I'm dropping it into the same world as Ptolus ...). Still, it was useful to have that list out there, even if I don't use anything else from the book (and I won't be).

I think giving DMs a source of possible supplemental information describing Elminster's outhouse or what a random inn in the Dalelands looks like, etc., is useful, so long as it's not a constraint. Which is all I read the WotC announcement as saying: "We might use this, unless we think of a better idea, in which case we won't."

 

[Charlaquin]

My first thought. If they were going to do this, they could have actually given the Forgotten Realms a proper reboot to an older timeline to fix the damage from 4E, instead of...whatever that soft non-retcon 'everything is just better again because...um...magic?' thing was that they did with 5E. I had assumed they didn't go for a full reset because they didn't want to invalidate the novels. I guess not so much.

I mean, I think this was true at the time. And at the time, it was probably the best business decision.

It really cannot be overstated just how much D&D’s demographics have changed over the last 7 years.

 

[Faolyn]

And we can look forward to them doing it all over again with 6th Ed when they erase the continuity again

Did they erase the continuity when they went from 1e to 2e? Honest question; I don't know.

4e made massive changes from earlier editions, both in terms of lore and gameplay, so it makes sense that WotC would want to walk it back. But there might be as many differences between 5e and 6e as there were between 1e and 2e. I.e., not that many. Which means that they also might not make many changes to the lore.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Obviously canon is a construct of fiction, the shared canon had value, a shared language and experience. It also made the storyline more immersive, compelling, and successful as well as consistant. That is now ashes.

The idea that something you love can be so easily turned to dust by a company saying it's "non-canon," is so inherently ridiculous.

All they're saying is they don't treat all the non-5E material as gospel when writing new books. They don't say you can't do that. No one's breaking into your house, burning your FR fiction down, and telling you it was all "LIES!"

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

... D&D doesn't have one canon. each CAMPAIGN has its own canon. This is not LotR!

Your party has a cannon?!?! Lucky! I've always wanted one! Unfortunately, no one trusts gnomes to use cannons responsibly. Dumb, racist humans . . . grumblegrumble . . . I'll blow them all to bits once I get my cannon. . .

 

[Charlaquin]

Wonderful, great to know that Arkhosia and the whole PoL setting is now officially non-existent!

My amusement knows no bounds.

I don’t understand this. The setting is absolutely existent, and it has never been canon to 5e lore. This changes nothing for PoLand.

 

[Ancalagon]

Your party has a cannon?!?! Lucky! I've always wanted one! Unfortunately, no one trusts gnomes to use cannons responsibly. Dumb, racist humans . . . grumblegrumble . . . I'll blow them all to bits once I get my cannon. . .

Simple, just play the GLOG!

OSR: Class: Cannoneer (and Cannon Rules)

My generic fantasy OSR setting is based on ~14th century France, England, and Germany. Gunpowder and cannons exist, but they have yet to mak...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

 

[carmachu]

Screw Crawford and Wotc. Pissing on history because you dont like it as canon? Legends, Chronicles are what brought Drangonlance to life. Among other settings like Greyhawk.

Ugh.