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

 

[pemerton]

You not being offended doesn’t counterbalance someone else being offended.

Offence presumably is not our measure for including things in D&D. Some people are offended by the fiction including magic, and demons, and so on, but the game still has them.

And for the sake of clarity, and speaking as a participant in many threads dealing with "evil races" and the like, the problem with racism and with sexism is not that they cause offence but that they are racism and sexism. The legitimate offence caused is an effect of what's wrong with them, not the reason they're wrong.

But a setting which posits that atheists suffer because the cosmology prioritises faith is not recapitulating a set of discriminatory tropes, or reinforcing existing patterns of subordination.

the Wall is something I find morally repugnant.

I've had players who found the cosmology of the game morally repugnant - I'm thinking of the laws of karma in one game I ran; and also of aspects of the 4e core cosmology in my 1st-to-30th 4e game. In both cases they had their PCs work to change it.

If the FR rules said we all have to toast and cheer at the table every time an atheist's soul gets sucked into the wall of the faithless that might be a different thing, but I don't think it does, does it?

 

[Maxperson]

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?

Because I'm not a lazy, half-assed DM. If I just discount something out of hand because I don't feel like doing the effort, I'm doing a disservice to the players who might be missing out on something better.

If Strixhaven was released with PHB classes that had different abilities, I'd have to look at them all.

 

[Parmandur]

Because I'm not a lazy, half-assed DM.

You should give it a try sometime, half-assery has a lot to recommend it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm an atheist. I'm personally offended to be told that a so called "good/just" god (Kelemvor), even in a fantasy world, would have me be imprisoned and endlessly tormented under their care in a wall that was made out of my soul and the soul of fellow atheists.

To me, that's just as offensive as saying that any real world religion would get a similar treatment, even if their belief system (or lack thereof) is objectively wrong in that setting. It's both unnecessary to the setting and offensive to those real world groups.

Also, I'm just going to point out that your argument here is a Thermian Argument (trying to justify an out-of-world question/issue with in-setting explanations), which is inherently fallacious and logically flawed. You can justify anything in-world if you put your mind to it. That doesn't make it okay.

Well, I can definitely see how that hit a nerve with you, and I am sorry about that. That being said, the "Thermian" argument works for me. That's the way it works in FR. It certainly doesn't have to in your own world, or other people's worlds, or the real world, for that matter. It's a story someone told, and it's internally consistent and led to some entertaining novels I have fond memories of. Sounds like they changed it anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This doesn't make any sense to me. What sort of situation do you want the monster to be part of? Or to put it another way, why are you using it? If you can't answer that, then just roll a random alignment (with TN having two options on your d10). If you can answer that, then you know what alignment to assign.

I'll admit it's not a lot easier...

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Buddhists are atheists

Buddhist here, this isn't accurate. For those of us who accept the Mahayana, we worship the Buddhas and Arya Bodhisattvas as deities; they aren't gods but are far above them. We also believe in the existence of devas (gods in the polytheistic sense), some whom are enlightened and thus worthy of worship, others who are merely dharma protectors and are more respected neighbours than objects of devotion, and still some who are more akin to demons than gods and whom we don't really talk about. I'm not entirely sure how things are handled in the Theravada sect which doesn't accept the Mahayaba and thus mostly doesn't accept the existence of the Arya Bodhisattvas, but they still definitely do worship Gautama Buddha, who in the Maha-sihanada Sutta is declared to be far more than just a man.

 

[pemerton]

Buddhist here, this isn't accurate.

I didn't say that Buddhists are atheists. Nor did I say they are not. I said "Leaving aside relatively subtle questions, like whether (at least some) Buddhists are atheists". You seem yourself to agree that this is a relatively subtle question, given that you go on to say

I'm not entirely sure how things are handled in the Theravada sect which doesn't accept the Mahayaba and thus mostly doesn't accept the existence of the Arya Bodhisattvas, but they still definitely do worship Gautama Buddha, who in the Maha-sihanada Sutta is declared to be far more than just a man.

The Theravadan teachings that I am most familiar with do not assert that the Buddha is a god. There are also some Mahayana approaches - eg some versions of Zen - which I think raise a question about whether they are atheist or believe in divinities.

 

[pemerton]

Because I'm not a lazy, half-assed DM. If I just discount something out of hand because I don't feel like doing the effort, I'm doing a disservice to the players who might be missing out on something better.

What if I published a book of fiction set in (let's say) Waterdeep, and drew it to your attention. Would you feel obliged to read it to see if it might provide something better for your RPGing than the fiction you are currently using?

I'm assuming the answer is no, and hence am puzzled why it makes a difference when WotC does so; and why it would make any further difference whether or not WotC also asserts that what they have published and drawn to your attention is, or is not, canon?

If Strixhaven was released with PHB classes that had different abilities, I'd have to look at them all.

This puzzles me too, for similar reasons to the above though now we're talking about mechanical elements rather than fictional elements.

 

[Malmuria]

I like how now we are talking about actual religious canon. Let me know when the intercine war kicks off!

 

[Maxperson]

What if I published a book of fiction set in (let's say) Waterdeep, and drew it to your attention. Would you feel obliged to read it to see if it might provide something better for your RPGing than the fiction you are currently using?

You? No, I wouldn't feel obliged. I probably would still look at it, though, because while it is not canon, it might still contain some really good ideas that I want to stea...borrow.

I only feel the obligation to look at official content.

I'm assuming the answer is no, and hence am puzzled why it makes a difference when WotC does so; and why it would make any further difference whether or not WotC also asserts that what they have published and drawn to your attention is, or is not, canon?

Because official matters. In my experience 1) official content is generally, but not always of higher quality than 3rd party stuff, and 2) players tend to give official more weight and would want to know my answer on it, where they would probably not even be aware of your product.