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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't think most of those people stop loving the material just because the owner says it's no longer canon but I can see why they're upset. As with everything in life, we can reference The Simpsons to illustrate a point. In 1997 an episode called "The Principal and the Pauper," it's revealed that the man we thought was Principal Seymour Skinner was actually Armin Tamzarian. The real Skinner was a POW in Vietnam and then worked in a Chinese sweatshop for twenty years before it was shut down and he was able to return home. In the meanwhile, Tamzarian had adopted Skinner's identity and of course everything returns to the status quo by the end of the episode. But the damage had been done.

Skinner was a character Simpsons fans had grown over the course of nine seasons as audiences got to know him. Harry Shearer, who voiced Skinner, says that after he read the script he told the writers "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." It remains a fairly divisive episode with many Simpsons fans hating it.

Now I happen to think that WotC has a good reason to declare everything before 2014 to be non-canon. They don't necessarily want players born in 2001 to feel as though they need to read or understand setting material that was first written fourteen years before they were born just to be able to follow the Forgotten Realms. I have no doubt that they also want the freedom going forward to shape their settings to the needs and desires of a contemporary audience. And just so we're clear, I think WotC is making the right decision here and I'm not criticizing it. But from the point of view of long term fans who have strong attachments to it I'm going to paraphrase Harry Shearer: You're taking something that an audience has built 25 or 30 years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can. It's disrespectful to the audience.

It's not a mystery to me why some people are upset and I empathize with them. But I also think WotC made the right decision for D&D.

I think though, that we have a difference here. I don't think they are tossing it in the trash. They are putting it in the museum. They aren't saying "this never happened in the history of DnD" they are saying "This isn't necessarily the history we are going to be using going forward"

This isn't saying "Skinner is really Armin Tamzarin". That hasn't happened yet. It could happen. It could be revealed that some aspect of the Realms is no longer true that is a betrayal of the fans, but right now that isn't what they are doing, they are just opening the possibility for change.

That could be Armin Tamzarian. That could be a retcon people like that makes the story better. Such as the retcon to Captain America that led to him being frozen in ice and therefore able to be brought back into comics in the 60's.

This is what is so frustrating. There has been no change announced. The only thing announced is a willingness to make changes. It could be that they make changes for the better. For example, one of the last Dragonlance novels I read involved the god of the black moon making unkillable soldiers... who could be horrifically killed if attacked by an innocent soul, like a child (or a kender) the process of which ruined their innocence. I had no interest in following a story where the next logical plan was a child army to kill unkillable soldiers. I don't know if that is where they took it, but that it was even going to be entertained was a no for me.

Not all change is bad. And the willingness to make changes is good. And all that has been announced is the willingness.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Looks at Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, then back at screen.

It's not like they were going to use the lore in them 100% accurately anyway. It's why there are generic "snow maidens" (generic, basically mindless, cold-oriented specters) in Curse of Strahd rather than Jezra Wagner (a cold-oriented specter with an entire backstory) that was given quite a huge amount of lore in 2e.

And, for folks who want to use her that way, there are wikis (and 2E reprints).

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nobody gained.
A certain segment, no matter how small, lost.

Lost what? The ability to say "the authors currently agree with me"?

That's all canon is. Canon is the official stamp of approval from the authors of a work. It is a weight of authority. Before the Simillarion, there was no Canon for the establishment of Middle Earth. No creation myth. Now there is. But that doesn't mean much of anything unless you are talking to someone who claims a different creation myth, and you can tell them that they are wrong, because this is the truth.

 

[Alzrius]

but FR lore is supposed to be a springboard for DMs

I don't think this is necessarily always the case. Novels, for instance (of which FR had many) don't strike me as being intended to be a springboard for DMs.

A published adventure is one thing. But diving in and making your own adventures is a bit tricky unless you actively choose to ignore the canon, and hope that the players do as well.

I understand that concern, but I can't help but wonder if it's overstated. Leaving aside how the 5E DMG expressly addresses that, and how things like wikis help with that, I think that most players would be fine with that; having someone go "well, actually" doesn't seem like the sort of thing that destroys games. If it does, I'd posit that's an issue with the player, rather than the material.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Looks at Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, then back at screen.

It's not like they were going to use the lore in them 100% accurately anyway. It's why there are generic "snow maidens" (generic, basically mindless, cold-oriented specters) in Curse of Strahd rather than Jezra Wagner (a cold-oriented specter with an entire backstory) that was given quite a huge amount of lore in 2e.

The changes they made to Ravenloft are one of the reasons they made the announcement. More changes like that, or more so, are coming (probably starting with Dragonlance), and they wanted fans of the old stuff to moderate their expectations without outright telling them that their desires have dropped in priority.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not exactly young anymore (32), but I kind of love scouring older sources for obscure lore to utilize in my campaigns. I like collecting and nerd trivia in general, so that's definitely a big influence behind my desire to "collect" lore.

Powerscore RPG has a ton of deep dives I love. I pretty always go there first to see if there's an article on the history of, say, the Queen of Chaos and the War of Law and Chaos (there is, btw). Echohawk's own Monster ENcyclopedia articles here are also great, as are the many 4E lore threads that can be found on ENWorld.

My last campaign, for example, featured minor demon lords from previous editions (like Azuvidexis and Bechard), Alloces (from 4E's Codex of Betrayal), Ben-Hadar (Prince of Good Water Elementals), Renbuu (Slaad Lord of Colors), an expanding sphere of annihilation (from Bzallin's Blacksphere), and Geryon's Citadel Coldsteel (from a Paladin in Hell).

My current campaign is a mash-up of the adventures Thunderspire Labyrinth, Kingdom of the Ghouls, Shards of the Day, Night Below, the little details on the Underdark mentioned in Critical Role so far, and elements from 4E's Underdark sourcebook.

It increases my workload as a DM to grab all these references from things my players have never heard of, but it's personally super fun for me.

Then keep doing it. Your game was never canon anyways, so what does it matter if it includes elements of questionable canonicity?

 

[jusdup]

I guess they have to make up for lost time and cut to the chase. I bet if they published Curse of Strahd today they would have made him a her. Viktra Mordenheim might have still been a Victor.

 

[Scribe]

Looks at Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, then back at screen.

It's not like they were going to use the lore in them 100% accurately anyway. It's why there are generic "snow maidens" (generic, basically mindless, cold-oriented specters) in Curse of Strahd rather than Jezra Wagner (a cold-oriented specter with an entire backstory) that was given quite a huge amount of lore in 2e.

Lost what? The ability to say "the authors currently agree with me"?

That's all canon is. Canon is the official stamp of approval from the authors of a work. It is a weight of authority. Before the Simillarion, there was no Canon for the establishment of Middle Earth. No creation myth. Now there is. But that doesn't mean much of anything unless you are talking to someone who claims a different creation myth, and you can tell them that they are wrong, because this is the truth.

No that isn't, and I'm certainly not going to continue to repeat myself.

 

[dragoner]

Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make; only a small portion of D&D Twitter is paying attention to this (or even knows that it happened). Reactions are across the board: some are angered by the change, others are welcoming it, still others cautiously waiting to see where this goes; but it's all industry people along with older and more experienced players. The new players don't seem to care.

Yes, and in reply to this as well:

We don’t know how to use Twitter.

Some sites definitely skew younger, I mean twitter is where I saw a tweet teasing an Ariana Grande fan tweeting from a smart refrigerator after her parents took her phone away.

Oh I see. I thought people were losing their mind.

Funnily enough, on Candlekeep there were a fair number of people who thought this matter had been resolved ages ago and that this had been clear pretty my since 2014.

Candlekeep Cove? Like from channel zero with the tooth guy? Creepy. Seriously though, did you see people losing their mind on twitter? I guess it could happen.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Some sites definitely skew younger, I mean twitter is where I saw a tweet teasing an Ariana Grande fan tweeting from a smart refrigerator after her parents took her phone away.

I remember that. There was also a whole lot of scorn for the idea that anyone would need Twitter on their fridge. (And I say that as someone who likes Twitter.)