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...

Status
Not open for further replies.
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."


despair.jpg


"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.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Catulle

Hero
Yeah, certain not going to argue that: but it's not a crazy situation historically.
Oh, for sure, there's a lot of stuff that went down historically that has no business in a mainstream light role playing game. There are even LARPs that engage with that stuff (see what the Norwegians are doing with WWII historical LARP about using the traditional "two-end" approach to handle collaboration and Jew hunting (which is to say, a "team" played both sides, with period propaganda and pre-briefing), which my Oslo buddies raved about (and were, to be fair, traumatised by, thus the game having counselling and aftercare provision as well as massive signposting ahead of time.))
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Parmandur

Book-Friend
Oh, for sure, there's a lot of stuff that went down historically that has no business in a mainstream light role playing game. There are even LARPs that engage with that stuff (see what the Norwegians are doing with WWII historical LARP about using the traditional "two-end" approach to handle collaboration and Jew hunting (which is to say, a "team" played both sides, with period propaganda and pre-briefing), which my Oslo buddies raved about (and were, to be fair, traumatised by, thus the game having counselling and aftercare provision as well as massive signposting ahead of time.))
European WWII reenactment sounds even darker than American Civil War reenactment...
 


Catulle

Hero
European WWII reenactment sounds even darker than American Civil War reenactment...
The Scandinavian LARP scene is, well, a thing to see to be believed. In fairness, it was super-dark as a time and we have... not done a great job of contextualising that history (and which is precisely what these LARPs set out to do). The difference is Europe kinda sorta denazified while the US did it's best to get around reconstruction. Which, honestly, means you folks figured out where we went wrong with the WWI settlement before it even came up. Bleedin' Woodrow Wilson... ;)
 


Catulle

Hero
Yes I do believe that, sincerely. They don't hate their version of FR, they hate what came before, but they still want to milk the profits from it.
Do you feel that Durnan, Masked Lord of Waterdeep and checks Neutral-aligned child-rapist deserves to stay within the canon? And that by his alienation, you feel excluded, because as a 30-year FR veteran, I sure as hell do not.

I definitely hate a lot of what came before because a ton of it is like that dirty old man in a park rubbish.

And we're better off without it.
 


MGibster

Legend
I didn't really play any Call of Cthulhu until sometime after 2001 with Cthulhu d20. So when I got into Chaosium's edition of the game a few years later I found several minor details I had some problems with. When I brought these problems up I ran into veterans of the system who said they weren't really problems and then gave me examples of how they worked around these issues they assured me weren't problems with the game.

The point I'm getting at is that it can be tough for new players to get into a game that has a long history whether we're talking about rules or setting information. I don't see a reset as a bad thing. The truth is it's been so long since I've played a lot of these official settings that I can't even remember the details. When the new Ravenloft came out I sure as heck didn't remember all the domains and wouldn't have noticed the changes without people here pointing them out.

People that like frizzy '80s hair, sexy boobplate, token ethnicities and checks notes story lines entirely dependent on on a be-penis-ed protagonist.

You leave my punk rock women knights alone!

White Dwarf 88.jpg
 

Levistus's_Leviathan

5e Freelancer
They didn't selectively wipe some stupid stuff out (for example unlike the wonderful novels, the aweful, worst book in FR history, Aquistitions Incorporated, is still canon), they threw out the best lore and kept the trash.
the dude your opinion GIF

I happen to like the Acquisitions Incorporated book. (It's not my favorite 5e book by a long-shot, and I do think a lot of it is silly (which it was on purpose), but there is a lot of useful and cool stuff in it.)

Also, it's not an "FR book" because it takes place in the FR anymore than Tales from the Yawning Portal is an FR book because it has a tiny section about the Yawning Portal.
 
Last edited:

JEB

Legend
Do you feel that Durnan, Masked Lord of Waterdeep and checks Neutral-aligned child-rapist deserves to stay within the canon?
Canon isn't an all-or-nothing proposition, you know. You can retcon/ignore specific bad ideas without throwing out the entire thing.

And to put it mildly, it's pretty unfair to suggest someone who wants to keep canon is endorsing child rape.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.
Remove ads

Remove ads

Top