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.

 

[jasper]

I remember the rabbit from the old Marvel comics of the 1980s but I don't know if that counts as EU that was expunged. As far as the Star Wars Christmas Special goes, most of us haven't seen it. I honestly tried watching it for the first time a few years back and I just couldn't get through it. It was that bad.

HERETIC. HERETIC. DESTOY THEIR D6. It was a great variety show. But could used some work.

 

[jasper]

okay for you Canon Champions and Lore Lawyers. Why are you not burning Candlekeep, or at least not buying the current book. Because WOTC and not keep Canon/Lore right in the same freaking book.
Candlekeep Mysteries the Candlekeep Chapter.
Fire Suppression. Flames larger than a candle are suppressed within the keep. (The fireplace in the Hearth, Candlekeep’s tavern, is an exception.) Thus, any spell that creates fire is wasted if it is cast within the keep.
And totally ignoring what they said
KandleKeep Dekonstruction has a Master Sage with Fireball (3rd-Level Spell; 3/Day). The sage creates a fiery explosion centered on a point it can see within 150 feet of it. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered .
Plus a freaking rocket. Inside the keep.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, the lore is still out there, still being used. The Shield of the Hidden Lord, from Descent into Avernus, has elements that can be traced to Gold & Glory, Empires of the Sands, and the 2e Cult of the Dragon sourcebook, if not more places. All it means is that Wizards is free to move on from it when they need to, and new and old fans don't have to worry about getting Danilo Thann's history, or whatever happened to Fzoul Chembryl, right in their campaign.

@JEB mentioned the MCU, which is assuredly not bound by canon. But no one complains because the characters feel right and true to their core identities. And so far, that's been the case for Wizards' 5e strategy. It's not like Demogorgon showed up as an urbane noble in Out of the Abyss. Acererak wasn't a demilich in Tomb of Annihilation, but it worked, because the Tomb of the Nine Gods felt in line with the Tomb of Horrors, updated to 5e.

Another reason people dont complain about the MCU is because it doesn't actually invalidate the source material. It's a separate universe, and changing things in it does not change what happened in the comics at all. Not something we can say about this.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another reason people dont complain about the MCU is because it doesn't actually invalidate the source material. It's a separate universe, and changing things in it does not change what happened in the comics at all. Not something we can say about this.

Effectively, that is what they're doing.

Would it be more palatable if they declared fifth edition to be a separate multiverse? We should already have known that fourth edition was its own multiverse just based on the planar structure.

 

[Hussar]

That may be the heart of the problem, but it's a problem dating back probably fairly close to a century, starting when comic books put out "imaginary tales" about Superman or Captain America or whomever that weren't part of official canon for that character. So it's not a problem that's going to go away as long as there's people who actually care about keeping the story straight and knowing what's real and what's just for fun.

And it's why DC, at least, has done several reboots over its existence. Because eventually settings suffocate under the weight of their own lore unless it gets trimmed down. (I don't know Marvel enough to know if they did anything like Crisis or if they just switch universes.) I consider this to be D&D's own Crisis on Infinite EarthsSettings.

But, again, here's my issue. We've accepted DC rebooting it's setting many times. Marvel has done the same thing repeatedly. There are so many different versions of Spiderman that there's an entire Spiderverse. Not just multiverse for all Marvel characters, but a multiverse for ONE character.

And we generally don't have an issue with this. Good grief, freaking Spiderman movies have repeated the same origin story, THREE TIMES and they've made gobs of money (or at least not bad money) every time. Is it Ultimate Spiderman? Orignal Raimi Spiderman? Never minding Batman. :wow:

So, why is this an issue with D&D? Every other long term property has done this exact same thing. Why shouldn't this be done for D&D?

 

[Hussar]

Another reason people dont complain about the MCU is because it doesn't actually invalidate the source material. It's a separate universe, and changing things in it does not change what happened in the comics at all. Not something we can say about this.

But the original universes are dead.

They don't write any new stories for those original story lines. Every time they reboot a particular line, the older line ends and is pretty much never revisited or referenced. When Aunt May goes from being an elderly, frail lady to a MILF in Ultimate Spiderman (and the recent movies) they don't ever reference old lady Aunt May ever again. Aunt May is no longer an old lady. She's a MILF played by a very hot actress who possibly is dating Iron Man's sidekick.

So, if the original universes are dead and never actually happened, how is that not invalidating the source material? Aunt May was, according to the most recent Spiderman movies (sorry, haven't read the comic books in years) was never an elderly, frail woman. That's a direct contradiction of canon and the original canon is now swept away and forgotten.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When Aunt May goes from being an elderly, frail lady to a MILF in Ultimate Spiderman (and the recent movies) they don't ever reference old lady Aunt May ever again. Aunt May is no longer an old lady. She's a MILF played by a very hot actress who possibly is dating Iron Man's sidekick.

She's actually older than the Aunt May from the original Spider-Man movies! We just don't consign women to cronehood after 50 quite as quickly any more.

 

[Hussar]

Effectively, that is what they're doing.

Would it be more palatable if they declared fifth edition to be a separate multiverse? We should already have known that fourth edition was its own multiverse just based on the planar structure.

That certainly didn't stop people from losing their freaking minds over perceived canon issues. "This isn't even D&D" was the common refrain, and a lot of it was tied to how 4e changed lore. One only has to look at endless threads over rust monsters, minotaurs, medusa and whatnot. I remember one medusa thread where we actually went through EVERY D&D description of Medusas to show that the canon claims were not true and people STILL refused to accept it.

 

[Hussar]

She's actually older than the Aunt May from the original Spider-Man movies! We just don't consign women to cronehood after 50 quite as quickly any more.

I don't think so. Rosemary Harris was 77 when the Raimi Spider man movies came out. Marisa Tomei was 53 when Homecoming came out. And, let's face it, that's Marisa Tomei. :wow:

 

[Micah Sweet]

Effectively, that is what they're doing.

Would it be more palatable if they declared fifth edition to be a separate multiverse? We should already have known that fourth edition was its own multiverse just based on the planar structure.

Actually, yes. It would.