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.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think it would probably be have been preferable to have retconned Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance rather than continually blowing them up.

Redo the original sets clean then up to modern standards. Doesn't invalidate anything.

 

[Scribe]

I don’t think WotC has ever cared about that.

They did enough to at least try and make things work going from 4e to 5e, and to print books like the Grand History.

Unless we wish to believe its all just a cynical corporate cash grab, which, well fine I guess.

 

[Charlaquin]

Redo the original sets clean then up to modern standards. Doesn't invalidate anything.

Sounds like you’re describing a soft reboot to me

 

[JEB]

If you don't think they would have done that anyway, may I point you to Heroes of the Vale?

That's kind of the point, right? None of this is actually new. At all. This has been the practice for years, decades even.

When the older-edition material was still canon, fans could hold out hope that someday, their favorite thing would return, as they remembered it, and they'd get to enjoy it again and see other new fans share their enjoyment. I can only assume the various nods to unsupported settings in 5E products, and the general avoidance of big changes to old settings, fed into that feeling.

Now, most fans are convinced their favorite stuff isn't coming back at all, or if it does, it'll be unfamiliar and unrecognizable.

If you don't understand why that might make fans upset, I don't know what else to tell you.

 

[Charlaquin]

They did enough to at least try and make things work going from 4e to 5e, and to print books like the Grand History.

Unless we wish to believe its all just a cynical corporate cash grab, which, well fine I guess.

I wouldn’t call it a cash grab, so much as a recognition that the perception of disregard for continuity was one of the major sour spots for the audience they were trying to win back. But, yeah, definitely a deeply cynical move. Maybe that was more clear to me as a 4e fan.

 

[JEB]

By largely ignoring that lore. The major adventures are not tie-ins to old lore. They are freestanding, local, with the minimum of lore required to make it work presented within the adventure.

Yes, this is basically what I said - just enough lore to make it work. But before they didn't feel a need for this grand declaration of what is and isn't canon - they just let folks assume things carried on from what came before. Clearly things have changed.

 

[Scribe]

I wouldn’t call it a cash grab, so much as a recognition that the perception that disregard for continuity was one of the major sour spots for the audience they were trying to win back. But, yeah, definitely a deeply cynical move. Maybe that was more clear to me as a 4e fan.

Different side of the coin. To me, it was a 'yeah sorry about that we forgot people care about these things.'

And they were right at the time, but the further we move along, the more they forget or dont care because they have their new player base that doesnt know or care about such things.

EDIT: This is why I've said for months on end. Give me Planescape NEXT, because its clear as day where this train is going, and I dont want to be on it in a year or 2.

 

[Charlaquin]

When the older-edition material was still canon, fans could hold out hope that someday, their favorite thing would return, as they remembered it, and they'd get to enjoy it again and see other new fans share their enjoyment. I can only assume the various nods to unsupported settings in 5E products, and the general avoidance of big changes to old settings, fed into that feeling.

I’m not sure what general avoidance of big changes to old settings you’re perceiving. Again, maybe it’s because of when I started playing, but from my perspective major changes to returning settings has been the standard practice for as long as I can remember.

Now, most fans are convinced their favorite stuff isn't coming back at all, or if it does, it'll be unfamiliar and unrecognizable.

If you don't understand why that might make fans upset, I don't know what else to tell you.

I guess I can understand why that might make some fans upset, I’m more confused that they would be surprised by this? To me it doesn’t come off as a shocking announcement, just a matter-of-fact statement about how they approach continuity, and have been approaching it for decades.

 

[JEB]

I an suggest another answer. All the people introduced to the game by all the streaming shows and podcast games that are not set in the Realms. Those fans of Critical Role did not have to know anything about anything other than the parts of Exandria where the games were set.

So your theory is that the Realms was actively discouraging interest in 5E from new players, until Critical Role and subsequent streaming shows helped it catch fire? Interesting, but tough to prove. Also, 5E seemed to be doing pretty well before those came along (though there's no question that they are an overwhelming part of its modern success).

 

[JEB]

I’m not sure what general avoidance of big changes to old settings you’re perceiving. Again, maybe it’s because of when I started playing, but from my perspective major changes to returning settings has been the standard practice for as long as I can remember.

4E's "blow everything up" and 5E's "stitch it back together with duct tape" is an anomaly in D&D's history. Previous editions had retcons and in-story changes to settings over time, but generally didn't go beyond that.

Though the Forgotten Realms is an interesting case, here - they altered their cosmology in 3E, but the history of the setting carried on largely untouched (and the cosmology could be rationalized with the old). The Realms pushed on through 4E in much the same way, with some more radical changes to the planet and the World Axis replacing their homebrew cosmology, but it was still explained in-universe and in canon with what came before. Then 5E retconned the retcon and put them back in the Great Wheel for the first time since 2E... but (until now) carried on all the past history from 1E, 2E, 3E, and 4E.

This is one reason it seems likely that the announcement is about upcoming reboots to older settings, rather than meaning anything for the Realms.