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.

 

[Echohawk]

You forgot 2e, but none of them decanonized the novels.

Maybe not for the Forgotten Realms, but for Ravenloft, some of the novels (The Enemy Within and Lord of the Necropolis) were declared non-canonical by TSR relatively soon after they had been released. Casual disregard of problematic existing D&D lore isn't a new thing. It dates firmly back to the last century.

 

[Umbran]

For me personally, to dismiss the history as no longer canon is a lessening of the game's settings. Period.

And that's fine. For any particular person, we can be pretty sure they'll make some decisions that person doesn't like. It is the nature of having a large fanbase. It is not possible to keep them all pleased.

Me, I'm not a fan of the Chris Pine Trek movies. Such is life.

 

[Zardnaar]

Because it is an entertaining book? Do you only read to establish inviolable truths about a fictional universe, or something?



So, there was a time when there was no canon to Dragonlance. The first book hadn't been published. Why did anyone care about it then? Because the elements sounded cool! Dragons! War! Noble knights! Not-so-noble knights! Morally challenged wizards! Oh, and more Dragons!

I read DL when I was 15. I thought it was cartoon stupid then in 1993. Context age 14/15 I had already read the Lone Wolf books, Feist, Eddings, Shannara etc.

If I get involved in a storyline and plot I care about the characters and world building. I hate reboots, ham fisted metaplot and not such a fan of rehashing either.

Goods subjective but I appreciate creativity and new. If times have changed why not create something new to reflect that. Of have some sort of spin off there's other parts of Toril and Krynn.

I don't know much about the Critical Role world but at least they're doing their own thing.

 

[Yaarel]

Even if one agrees with rebooting why would one buy any new novels if they just declear it non canon again further down the track?

If they reboot Dragonlance why should one care about it?

Bad example for me I'm not buying Dragonlance regardless although Fizbans book if whatever is fine.

Honestly, because the novels can be awesome for ideas that the DM can pick and choose from.

For example, there is a drow novel that said all drow magic items are destroyed by direct sunlight. That is awesome! It is explains why the drow dont create surface empires.

I dont think this was ever "official". But it is super flavorful.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm being told that not only is what I would prefer wrong, but that I am a bad person because of it.

Nobody is saying that, but we do have one poster on this thread who suffered damage from gatekeeping via Canon.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

How to apply my principles to Dragonlance. This is how I'd prefer that Crawford and the RPG Studio team approach Krynn and its Realities/Timelines:

1) Characters such as Astinus, Raistlin, Dalamar, the gods, and the High God, are aware of the existence of multiple Realities. Astinus named and catalogued these different Realities.

2) The mainline novel/fiction timeline is given a Official in-universe designation:

Krynn Timeline N (aka "Krynn-N" and "Krynn's Reality N.") Really this Reality N can span all editions (and worlds), since it includes only novels and fiction, and isn't really affected by rules lenses.

3) The rebooted campaign setting (Astinus's Guide to Krynn, or whatever it may be called) is a distinct, named Timeline:

Krynn's Fifth Timeline (aka "Krynn-5" and "Krynn's Fifth Reality")

This Timeline is already glimpsed in the DL 5E bits we've seen so far, such as Fizban's narration of the dragon book.

4) All the divergent timelines from the River of Time sourcebook are given distinct in-universe designations. Same for any other continuity snags (large or small) which have ever been noted in any DL fiction or gamebook. These are all distinct Timelines.

5) The previous "rules lenses" of Krynn are given an in-universe designation. Because the rules changes do affect how the characters manifest. (See Bruce Heard's article about this, which I reference in "my principles" post.)

Namely:

Krynn's Third Timeline (aka "Krynn-3" and "Krynn's Third Reality"). The 3E game depiction of Krynn. Always was 3E and always will be.
Krynn's Saga Timeline (aka "Krynn-S" and "Krynn's Saga Reality"). Saga card-game depiction of Krynn. Always was depicted by the SAGA card lens, and always will be. Theoretically, there are SAGA cards for pre-SAGA and post-SAGA events and character options. They just haven't been published.
Krynn's Second Timeline (aka "Krynn-2" and "Krynn's Second Reality") Always was 2E and always will be. For example, though it was originally AD&D 1E, the War of the Lance module series was later converted into 2E. In this Reality, Krynn was always depicted in a 2E lens, and always will be. The Chaos War and War of Souls happened, but the 2E lens remained in place. Which means that the Saga-era of this Reality would be depicted with 2E version of the Mystic and Sorcerer.
Krynn's First Timeline (aka "Krynn-1" and "Krynn's First Reality"). 1E Krynn. Always 1E lens, past, present, and future. For example, 1E version of the Saga Mystic and Sorcerer. 1E version all the 2E DL Monstrous Compendium monsters. 1E version of the 3E classes and prestige classes. 1E version of the 5E classes.
Krynn's Legacy Timeline (aka "Krynn-L" and "Krynn's Legacy Reality"). Unlike the other Realities, which are depicted through a single lens (aka game system), in this Reality, Krynn's "lens" shifted in synchronization with all the "Multiverse Shattering Events" which effected (and often originated in!) the Forgotten Realms. And Krynn's timeline continued to advance year-by-year "off stage", completely in-step with the chronology of the Dale Reckoning of the Forgotten Realms. (The different length of years is taken into account some way.) Even though we rarely if ever saw Krynn in this Reality after the 3.5 era.

All the various River of Time alternate timelines will interweave with this matrix of rules-based Realities, forming a complete matrix of Timelines; only some of which have actually been seen in print.

6) Same for other DL media, to the extent that they carry a story. Such as:
-Various Krynn-V Timelines: Category:Dragonlance video games - Wikipedia
-Krynn-F Timeline (Animated film) Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight - Wikipedia
-Krynn-CDC Timeline (Krynn's Reality CDC) DC comics series, a Reality also seen in Forgotten Realms DC comics and AD&D DC comics.
-Krynn-CDD Timeline (Krynn's Reality CDD) Devils Due comics series.
-Krynn-SQ Timeline (Krynn's Reality SQ). The five Super Endless Quest / Adventure Gamebooks which are set in Krynn: Super Endless Quest
-Krynn-CC Timeline (Krynn's Reality CC). Catacombs maze game: Gnomes-100, Dragons-0 (Dragonlance: Catacombs Books): James M. Ward, Jean Blashfield: 9780880385039: Amazon.com: Books
-Krynn-BB Timeline and Krynn-BA Timeline. The Dragonlance Boardgame, which has basic rules and advanced rules: Dragonlance

The story and visual imagery (depictions) are somewhat different in all these Realities/Timelines. Though this may seem super-completist, that's the way the Transformers Omniverse labels its "universal streams" (aka timelines). Every little variation, seen in any medium (sticker book, toy packaging, etc), written or visual, is given a distinct Timeline moniker. These monikers are used in-universe! D&D deserves that too.

7) And of course, each DM's own Dragonlance campaign is its own Timeline/Reality. This should be acknowledged as well. When DL is presumably opened to DMsGuild, aficionados will be free to publish their own Krynnish Realities commercially.
***
The sidebar explaining all this could be not much bigger than my post here at ENWorld. The masses (and everyone) will be happy with an awesome DL 5E reboot. And the grognards will be happy that all the Timelines have a clear place in the meta-continuity, going into the future. Which is summed up in a nice tidy sidebar or DRAGON+ article, so that gatekeeping lore isn't clogging up the gist of the reboot.

And furthermore, it leaves open the possibility for the occasional 'what-if' crossover between Timelines.

 

[Scribe]

Nobody is saying that, but we do have one poster on this thread who suffered damage from gatekeeping via Canon.

It was insinuated more than once. So no.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Are you SERIOUSLY telling me I'm wrong for feeling like I'm being told I'm wrong

I am seriously telling you that what you said (that other people were saying your fun is wrong and discouraging people from reading lore) was wrong.

You are wrong in feeling that you were being told that your fun is wrong, because you weren't (again, unless you did the gatekeeping Canon-pop-quizzes like I discussed in my previous reply to you).

What's being lost is the history of the game

Ah, yes, "History is being destroyed because we're not actively idolizing it". Coincidentally, this is the exact same argument that people use against removing Confederate statues and other monuments. (I'm absolutely not calling you racist or saying that lore does as much harm as keeping up Confederate statues, I'm merely saying that history does not need to be publicly displayed and idolized in order for it to straight up exist.)

No, the History of the Game is absolutely not being lost or destroyed. Like has been pointed out dozens of times before, no one is burning your Lore books from previous editions, your Ed Greenwood/R.A. Salvatore books about the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance novels, or forcing you to use what WotC considers "canon" for the purpose of their current and future D&D 5e books.

History cannot be lost as long as it is recorded. It is still recorded, it's still available to read to anyone that wants to, it just isn't being given higher priority than the new ideas that Wizards of the Coast has for the many different D&D settings that they own the rights to.

New people being encouraged to engage in the past and rewarded with ties to old lore

Which is all fine and dandy until people get hurt. And they have and do. I addressed this in my first serious post in this thread. No longer labelling the past books as canon takes a weight off of the shoulders of new DMs and players.

And new stories building on the old

Unless the old stories keep the new ones from being built, like is all to common in many works of fiction/fantasy that have decades of work put into expanding upon the base (Doctor Who, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc). Not all new stories have to or should build from the old, and not every old story is worth building on (either because there's nothing more to be said, or because the stories are awful/not worthy of building on).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Apologies to Paramandur for my hard tone in our convo here in this thread. I stand by my content, but I realized my tone was not so fun. We're all here for fun. I wish we could just play some D&D around the table.

 

[Umbran]

I read DL when I was 15. I thought it was cartoon stupid then in 1993.

Okay. Good to know. You're not actually a fan of the work in the first place. Thanks for letting us know that.