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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I won't mention the ages of Game of Thrones characters in the books.

In Game of Thrones, there's deliberation and it's meant to be something we notice and care about and it's meant to send a message about the characters and world.

This is probably a math error, but leaving it in place raises questions about Waterdeep that I don't think TSR/WotC intended and I don't think they're prepared to tackle.

So, in a sense, Martin, who certainly has his problematic elements, especially in how he leans on violence against women and children as a storytelling crutch, is handling this the right way: with intentionality.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right. The age of consent being legally that low is one of those things. And there are people in those countries who are fighting to change that because the age of consent being that low just opens the door for people to abuse and exploit children who aren't ready for those kinds of relationships. For example, I believe raising the age of consent is currently one of the priorities of the feminist movement in Japan, where the national age of consent is as low as 13 (though individual prefectures can and have set it higher).

For me it's a grey area. The law can say one thing but the 13-15 years olds (and younger) were having sex with each other in the 90's when I was a teenager.

And from the sounds of it due to the internet nothing has changed and it's even more common now.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not saying I agree with it but just some examples. I think you can get married from the age of 12 in some places in the states.

And older D&D kind of did incorporate some elements of non modern life.

I won't mention the ages of Game of Thrones characters in the books.

Remember he's more than half a century older than she is. When she gave birth at the age of 14 he was in his 70s.

As for "non modern life", sure. And we get to slaughter the slave Lords. This guy is tagged as Neutral and this is presented as no big deal. (There is another possibility - that he's impotent or gay and needed an heir, while she was about to lose all status due to pregnancy before he married her)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm in my early 50s, and while I can find young women in their 20s attractive, I can find very little to relate to. I have a hard time imagining that effect diminishes when one starts having a triple-digit birthday.

In fact, THAT should be a Forgotten Realms novel: All of the aged and time-displaced characters finding it's hard to relate to anyone but themselves. The things they grew up with and loved are so long gone, they can't even explain them to the people living today, making them feel alienated from everyone, all the time.

 

[Catulle]

But again, Umbran not caring about the child abuse chatter, only the naughty words. What a naughty word.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

For me it's a grey area. The law can say one thing but the 13-15 years olds (and younger) were having sex with each other in the 90's when I was a teenager.

And from the sounds of it due to the internet nothing has changed and it's even more common now.

Two teenagers being idiots and doing it in the bushes behind the school is a completely different situation than a middle aged man grooming a barely pubescent child.

 

[Zardnaar]

In Game of Thrones, there's deliberation and it's meant to be something we notice and care about and it's meant to send a message about the characters and world.

This is probably a math error, but leaving it in place raises questions about Waterdeep that I don't think TSR/WotC intended and I don't think they're prepared to tackle.

So, in a sense, Martin, who certainly has his problematic elements, especially in how he leans on violence against women and children as a storytelling crutch, is handling this the right way: with deliberation.

I don't get upset about it because if the execution. For adult fiction it's up to the individual adult what they're comfortable reading.

Bad that ngs happen irl and in history books. Fictions the same.

 

[Neonchameleon]

For me it's a grey area. The law can say one thing but the 13-15 years olds (and younger) were having sex with each other in the 90's when I was a teenager.

And were 70 year olds frequently having sex with 14 year olds? Because 58 year age gap

 

[Zardnaar]

Two teenagers being idiots and doing it in the bushes behind the school is a completely different situation than a middle aged man grooming a barely pubescent child.

It is but I think the laws around age of consent s are very grey. It's 16 here, 18 USA afaik.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And before the cries of "simulationism" ring out... you're making and playing in a fantasy world. This is all made up. You can have David Bowie clones riding on pink fluffy unicorns jousting with baguettes as a completely normal thing in your world if you want. To the Home for Infinite Losers with simulationism if it means reenacting the uglier parts of human history without criticizing them.

I hope no one seriously considers the Forgotten Realms a simulation of anything. It's not like it's Harn or Kalamar and trying to be one. It's just a bunch of stuff thrown on a map for adventures.