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

 

[PsyzhranV2]

What they did was riff off of Dante's Inferno, a classic piece of literature.

Not everybody is obligated to like or agree with the themes of Dante's Inferno just because it's a classic.

 

[Faolyn]

You do realize that virtually anything bad you can imagine in the game has been perpetrated on some group or another in real life, right? If you're going to remove anything that can be tenuously linked to any group in real life that has suffered, you can't play the game as anything other than sunshine and rainbows. No combat. No killing of any sort. No assaults. No kidnappings. No any bad stuff.

So in your mind, there's nothing but extremes. Either always evil creatures doing always evil things, or happy fluffy bunnies. Is this it?

Because there's a huge difference between having bad guys in your game and actually singling out people who, in the real world, suffer quite a bit of discrimination.

You can play that sort of boring game if you want, but a lot of us understand that superficial correlations don't actually mean anything against real life groups. It's extraordinarily rare to have a real connection like the Vistani and the real life Romani peoples.

Or like atheists and the Wall of the Faithless, which thankfully has been removed from canon.

 

[Faolyn]

Plenty of other so called gods are allegedly good though.

If they have not the desire to oppose the dictator Ao they are not good. If they have not the power to oppose Ao they are not gods.

Well, gods in the Realms aren't omnipotent, to the best of my knowledge. Heck, they have stats, or at least did in earlier edition. So it's mostly just the first half of the statement there.

Heh--I would have liked to see some weaker gods smuggling atheist souls out of the wall and into some other afterlife. That would be an interesting novel or even Planescape-style adventure--get the PCs to do the ferrying. Whether the gods are doing it out of the goodness of their heart or out of a desire to exploit the souls would make for interesting story-telling.

 

[Faolyn]

"Gods Oversee the World. The gods are real and embody a variety of beliefs, with each god claiming dominion over an aspect of the world, such as war, forests, or the sea. Gods exert influence over the world by granting divine magic to their followers and sending signs and portents to guide them. The follower of a god serves as an agent of that god in the world. The agent seeks to further the ideals of that god and defeat its rivals. While some folk might refuse to honor the gods, none can deny their existence."

So that's the book. How do people living in the world, who haven't read the book, know the difference between clerical magic and any of the other types of magic out there, or the difference between signs and portents sent by a god and those sent by a creature with a bit of magic?

Seriously, one creature who can cast dream is going to seem exactly like a god to some people.

And if "none can deny their existence" then why was there a Wall of the Faithless to begin with?

 

[Maxperson]

So in your mind, there's nothing but extremes. Either always evil creatures doing always evil things, or happy fluffy bunnies. Is this it?

Extremes in a fantasy game don't really matter all that much. Except perhaps on an individual scale, and the DM should know his group. If something extreme would be an issue for a player, don't use it.

Because there's a huge difference between having bad guys in your game and actually singling out people who, in the real world, suffer quite a bit of discrimination.

Nobody being singled out in the game is singling out anyone in the real world. The game has pretend gods, pretend religion, and for a very, very low number of pretend people, pretend atheism. None of that is associated with real world anything. No more so than pretend murder is associated with real world murder, etc.

Or like atheists and the Wall of the Faithless, which thankfully has been removed from canon.

No it hasn't, because it was not canon. Nothing is canon! Everything is canon! Well all have canon.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What makes them divine then? They are not all powerful. They are not all knowing. They are not particularly wise. They are just people that wield a bit more power than other people.

Definition of god​

God : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as
a: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped (as in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) as creator and ruler of the universe

What made Zeus or Thor divine to the people who worshipped them? Neither were all-powerful. Your definition refers to a monotheistic God, which is not the case pretty much anywhere in D&D.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm not really persuaded that atheists are a group of people in any real sense. It's not normally a social identity.

Wow. Just wow.

As a life-long atheist, I'll give you a hint: most of us don't publicly identify as atheists because in many places, it's social suicide to do so.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Everything bad is "toxic." Murder is toxic. Assault is toxic. Kidnapping is toxic. Bad is toxic. You can play some fluffy bunny D&D game if that's what you want, but my D&D game is going to have bad stuff in it for the PCs to oppose or not as they see fit.

Bad is bad. Toxic is toxic. If you have a particular issue with a specific bad thing, remove it from your game. Don't demand that others have to conform to your personal issues on the matter, though.

I'm obviously fine with bad things existing in a game. I'm not fine with the game telling me that those bad things are actually good. Like supposedly good gods benefitting from and supporting a horrible and coercive system. But, hey this actually connects to our old friend the alignment. Getting rid of that would improve this situation too. Then the game at least wouldn't tell us that these petty and cruel divine tyrants are objectively good!

 

[J.Quondam]

Would you say the same thing if instead of atheists, it was people of color or LGBT+ people getting punished in a fantasy setting?

One of those things is not like the others.

Here in the developed world where RPGs are mostly played, atheists do not suffer-- and have never suffered-- anything near the level of discrimination experienced on a day-to-day basis by POC or the LGBT+ community, nor even some actual religious minorities.

I understand that an atheist might be put off by a negative portrayal in a game, but please let's be careful not to turn that discomfort into a "fashionable grievance" to be exploited by otherwise very privileged people. (And I'm saying that as a middle-aged, middle-class white male atheist living in deep Red redneckistan surrounded by 50-foot roadside crosses and cowboy churches.)

 

[Faolyn]

Extremes in a fantasy game don't really matter all that much. Except perhaps on an individual scale, and the DM should know his group. If something extreme would be an issue for a player, don't use it.

Extremes in fantasy do matter a great deal. It's why there's pushback against the way drow and orcs are depicted. Don't pretend that there's no correlation there. Fantasy worlds are created by actual people who live in the actual world.

No it hasn't, because it was not canon. Nothing is canon! Everything is canon! Well all have canon.

Sigh...