D&D 5E WotC Explains 'Canon' In More Detail

Recently, WotC's Jeremy Crawford indicated that only the D&D 5th Edition books were canonical for the roleplaying game. In a new blog article, Chris Perkins goes into more detail about how that works, and why.

This boils down to a few points:

• Each edition of D&D has its own canon, as does each video game, novel series, or comic book line.
• The goal is to ensure players don't feel they have to do research of 50 years of canon in order to play.
• It's about remaining consistent.

If you’re not sure what else is canonical in fifth edition, let me give you a quick primer. Strahd von Zarovich canonically sleeps in a coffin (as vampires do), Menzoberranzan is canonically a subterranean drow city under Lolth’s sway (as it has always been), and Zariel is canonically the archduke of Avernus (at least for now). Conversely, anything that transpires during an Acquisitions Incorporated live game is not canonical in fifth edition because we treat it the same as any other home game (even when members of the D&D Studio are involved).

D&D Canon | D&D Studio Blog | Dungeons & Dragons

In this D&D Studio Blog, Chris Perkins describes the D&D Studio's position on canonicity.

dnd.wizards.com

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...

www.enworld.org

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

There’s another thread with 2k posts about this specific D&D studio blog?!

Ah, you wish: its actually 2k posts about a post without any context or further explanation!

Warning: just in case, the mentioned thread is now (for obscure reasons) about racial alignments. How we came to this? I dont know. But we are about to reach Peak Enworld!

 

[The Glen]

Reading about how they want the canon to be consistent from book to book.

Laughs in Mystaran.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Except there is zero consistency if you allow everyone to ignore 50 years of content. That statement made absolutely no sense.

I mean it's like why bother with any lore at this point? Why write monster books? Here's some tools, make your own monsters and monster lore. Because any monster writeup they do is probably going to have contradictions in lore (and even artwork) when they make the next edition anyway.
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Who needs Classes? Here's some tools, write your own Paladins, Wizards, etc. and the lore for them in your game. Because nothing they write is truly canon anyway.
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Want your own gods? Make them up yourself how you want. What we make isn't canon really.
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Here's a whole book, basically an Unearthed Arcana version, of just Combat and Magic. We'll give you several ways running both, and call it a day.
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What do you need lore for the Sword Coast, or any part of any world, for that matter? Just draw some empty world maps and sell it. (Assuming the DMs and players don't decide to draw their own maps).
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Seriously, in any medium, there needs to be consistency. For the fans who truly delve into that lore, there has to be consistency. Lot of us are busy connecting all the dots between the lore from various editions, and it's not easy making any of it cohesive (looking at you 4e!). In many cases, personally, I've had to fill in blanks to make things consistent and in line with all lore given.
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Imagine if Star Wars canon wasn't really canon and everyone just ran and created Star Wars their own way...pretty sure it's not Star Wars at that point.
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If creators don't want to do the research, or actually truly passionately love the game enough to want to know all the lore and be consistent, then why the hell do we have them working in the field? It's like having a religious person run an Atheist group.
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At least back in the days of TSR the game was done by people who truly loved the game and did the actual work and took the time and care to actually study and master the lore. Nowadays they want designers to just lazily write whatever and however, get their paycheck and move on.

You are familiar with Hades, right? Greek God of the Underworld. Married to Dread Persephone. Has a three-headed dog.

Lore Olympus is a retelling of Hades and Persephone.
Punderworld is a different retelling of Hades and Persephone.
A Touch of Darkness is still another retelling of Hades and Persephone.
I'm sure I could find a fourth.

Are you sure you want to make the case these authors and artists are lazy? That if they "truly loved" the material they were working with and did "actual work" that they would simply reproduce the same story over and over again?

What about the people involved in the various versions of Sherlock Holmes, or Robin Hood, or Peter Pan or the Lovecraft Mythos or Journey to the West or A Christmas Carol? All are public domain, all are free for anyone to use or reuse as they wish. Are those people all lazy hacks who don't truly care?

This is what drives me insane. People think that breaking with canon just means lazy or poor quality or any of a dozen other pejoratives. You know what? I think we would benefit from a wider array of people making Star Wars material. There would be some incredibly good stuff made. There always is incredibly good stuff made by the people who aren't constraining themselves to canon. And spitting on their passion and hard work just because they don't have a corporate seal of authenticity is disgusting.

 

[darjr]

No, about the comicbook.com article on this topic that was published last week. Thread here.

Which isn’t about the D&D studio blog post. Similar subject but different threads.

 

[darjr]

Ah, you wish: its actually 2k posts about a post without any context or further explanation!

Warning: just in case, the mentioned thread is now (for obscure reasons) about racial alignments. How we came to this? I dont know. But we are about to reach Peak Enworld!

Which isn’t about the D&D studio blog post. Different threads different topics if not closely related.

 

[darjr]

@vincegetorix @PsyzhranV2 thank you though.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's not exactly what they said. They said they don't have any public facing account of what is canon after those three books, not that there isn't anything other than those three that they consider to be canon internally. I would be surprised if they put out another FR book that contradicted things already put out in Sword Coast.

There's other canon, but they haven't told us about it.

Please don't start down the rabbithole of "secret canon". Please.

That is not a place any of us are interested in going, were we start overanalyzing everything to build our on theories on what the secret WoTC facing canon really is.

 

[darjr]

I am truly interested in peoples thoughts. I am also surprised at the polar opposites too.

 

[Faolyn]

Consistency. If demons, dragons, fey, etc. all have alignment, then so should humanoids, even if it's "any." And I didn't say I was fine with it. I said what I expected that's they would do.

We don't know if any creatures will continue to have alignments. Fiends didn't in VGR. There's no reason to assume that there will be alignments in any of the upcoming books.

 

[darjr]

Please don't start down the rabbithole of "secret canon". Please.

That is not a place any of us are interested in going, were we start overanalyzing everything to build our on theories on what the secret WoTC facing canon really is.

But…. Those are my most favorite threads. The speculation threads.
As long as we all know they are not cannon…..