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

 

[Magister Ludorum]

Eberron is already a slave to the Forgotten Realms canon.

Your Eberron. Not mine. Go ahead and run your Eberron this way.

I would point out that the Great Wheel doesn't even exist in Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms when I run it.

Your position makes sense only if you believe that canon must be the unalterable word of dog, handed down from on high on clay tablets - or that you believe Wizards of the Coast gets to decide the important details of your game.

On the unlikely chance that more Eberron products come out from Wizards of the Coast, in the vanishingly improbable chance that it includes reference to this lore, I will excise it without a single pause or thought, exactly the same way I did from the Greyhawk game I'm running.

 

[Scribe]

You don't see the problem with atheists being cemented into a wall where they either dissolve into nothing or are pried out by demons and transformed into more demons?

I find the idea of atheists in a setting of gods and heavens, and hell's questionable.

 

[Scribe]

That's not a compromise at all. Because we already could make monsters any alignment we wanted

So you don't need a change. You just want me to lose what I prefer.

So why is it that you don't consider a statblock without an alignment but an official view of what the monster's alignments could be a compromise

Because I want a default.

 

[Malmuria]

I find the idea of atheists in a setting of gods and heavens, and hell's questionable.

Does the power wizard or sorcerer get their power from a god? Perhaps the "gods" are not true gods. Perhaps everyone can be a god.

Perhaps "gods" are just expressions of cosmic forces, ways for mere human(oid)s to comprehend infinity (several real religions).

etc etc.

note: I have no interest in debating real or fantasy religious metaphysics, was just throwing out some ideas for anyone's game

 

[Chaosmancer]

blink blink ...But that's exactly what Perkins' article is about.

Chris Perkins:
"EVERY EXPRESSION OF D&D HAS ITS OWN CANON. [...] The current edition of the D&D roleplaying game has its own canon, as does every other expression of D&D. For example, what is canonical in fifth edition is not necessarily canonical in a novel, video game, movie, or comic book, and vice versa. This is true not only for lore but art as well."

I thought that's what this 32-page thread was about! Is your point that you're against Perkins statement?

Or are you just saying that you just don't want names for these canons (whether out-of-game or in-game), and and that you certainly don't want these various realities to co-exist from an in-game perspective?

Your proposed multi-tier canon with various names for every canon based on what product it is tied to, and overlapping those connections and products, is far beyond what Perkins is talking about.

And I definetly see no value in them "co-existing" from an in-game perspective. Naming them is also something that I don't see much value in. "I'm using lore from Baldur's Gate III" is just as effective without having to know that that is "FR World 687" or whatever you end up deciding to call the version of FR that exists in a 5e video game.

 

[Malmuria]

So you don't need a change. You just want me to lose what I prefer.

Because I want a default.

Alignment is a place where I actually want more lore and worldbuilding, or rather, tools for creating worlds with morally complex humanoid factions.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No, it's not.

Why not?

Why are you required to reexamine every single facet of your campaign just because they release a new book? If Strixhaven was released with classes, would you have to reexamine Forgotten Realms to figure out where the Witherbloom college was? Why?

 

[Faolyn]

So you don't need a change. You just want me to lose what I prefer.

So again, you don't want to compromise and you don't care that other people aren't getting what they prefer. So why did you pretend this was a compromise in the first place?

Because I want a default.

What, are you saying you're not capable of or interested in assigning a creature an alignment based on a table of alignments, its flavor text, the alignments its had in the every other monster book in this and every earlier edition, and the role you want the monster to take in your adventure?

Why do you need a default? What does a default do that a few seconds of thought on your part can't do better?

 

[Faolyn]

I find the idea of atheists in a setting of gods and heavens, and hell's questionable.

There's people who claim to get magic from the gods. How do you, Joe Villager, know they're telling the truth? How do you know that they're not just using some other sort of magic and just think it's from the gods? Or are outright lying about it?

In a world of people who are born magical or can gain magic from alliances with fairies and the undead or monsters from another dimension, where there are shapeshifting creatures and creatures that can read minds, where trees and stones can walk and talk... how do you tell the difference between a god and a creature that calls itself a god?

 

[pemerton]

Umm, that's been true since 2e. There have been spell casting druids in Dark Sun since the 2e days.

I think 4e handled Dark Sun better than AD&D, for this very reason.